Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/85

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
The Ceremony
73

tem of underground passages, storehouses, powder-magazines, and so on. My information is quite trustworthy. They've got sixteen underground Karburator fortresses right round Prague. On the surface there's not a trace of it, only football fields, a mineral-water stand, or a patriotic monument. Ha, ha! Do you see now? That's why they're putting up all these memorials."

"Young man," observed Mr. Cvancara, "what does the present generation know of war? We could tell them something. Aha, here comes the Burgomaster."

"And the new Minister for War. You see, I told you so. The Director of the Technical Institute. The Chairman of the M.E.C. The Chief Rabbi."

"The French Ambassador, the Minister of Public Works. I say, my friend, we'd better see about getting inside. The Archbishop, the Italian Ambassador, the President of the Senate, the Chief of the Sokol organization; you'll find that there's somebody they've left out."

Just then Mr. Cyril Keval gave up his place to a lady, and so was separated from the doyen of the journalists and lost his place near the entrance through which the endless stream of the personages invited was pouring. Then the strains of the national anthem were heard, and the orders to the guard of honour rang out, proclaiming the arrival