From the Journal of Johann Zol – Primidi, 1st of Ursioz
This morning, Citizens, when I presented myself at roll-call in the courtyard of the schoolhouse, at the dawn of a new laboring decade, there was in the air something amiss, something that struck the soul like a chill wind before the storm. At first I suspected some trivial disorder of the clock—perhaps that dumb machine upon the dormitory wall had run ahead of Reason and of Time itself; yet no! the great clock upon the school façade proclaimed the appointed hour with Republican exactitude—and still the courtyard lay half-deserted, void, unnaturally void! Not the living assembly of youthful Citizens, but a diminished remnant: every fifth missing—nay, every fourth—perhaps even every third!
I cast my eyes in search of Fizger, of Rumm, of many others; they were not there. Vanished! Whither? Why? No answer came.
Having remained within the school during the decadal day—my father, his hands whitened with the mortar-dust of the cellar where he gathers matter for saltpetre, having declared he could no longer pay the coach fare between Atrolen and Fahau, and that Alvald itself was no longer safe for foot-travel—I knew little of the tumults beyond our walls. Thus deprived of knowledge, I sought out Jeder and Lorans, and demanded: What is this? Where are the absent children?
At that moment comes one Breler, breathless, wide-eyed, bearing tidings black as midnight: that werewolves and vampires had in the previous night slaughtered all those missing children, even as Lore and Baver had been slaughtered before—slain for a banquet of blood and flesh! Monstrous tale! Incredible—yet dreadful! For an instant, my mind reeled, and I thought: have the Royalists spoken truth after all?
But then passes Bargen, of Herdau-on-Tern, who declares that he alone from his village had persuaded his parents to let him return; all the others remain at home, held back by fear. Soon the same story flows from many mouths: parents, seized by terror, have withheld their children lest some like fate befall them. And darker still—we hear that Baver’s grave has been opened, and a hawthorn stake driven through his heart!
Meanwhile all eyes, with a singular dread, turn toward the war-torn breach in the school wall, where—curled as ever—sat Eliza-Constitutional, the little vampiress, silent, inscrutable.
Then, five minutes late—five minutes!—there enters the courtyard the Head Educator, accompanied by the municipal commander of Atrolen, whose countenance was graver than ever I had seen it. The Head Educator gestures that the Commander ascend the tribune from which the tricolour hangs; but the latter protests aloud:
“You are the host; you must speak first! And before all—let the Hymn be sung, as when I am absent! I will not disturb Order by my presence!”
“A mere technicality, who speaks first,” replies the Head Educator. But Citizen Rave stands firm:
“Technicality or not—Procedure is Procedure, Law is Law, and the Constitution is the Constitution! Therefore—Honour the Constitution, Citizens!”
And so the Hymn is sung—by some with ardor, by others with faltering hearts, more subdued than on any prior day. Then, after renewed refusal of precedence by the Commander, the Head Educator mounts the tribune and speaks:
“Citizen Minor Republicans! I greet you in civic fraternity. All men are born equal; therefore all possess an equal right to education. Those who deny their children this right—whether by force, persuasion, or by exploiting the natural affections of the young—do not serve them, but injure them, depriving them of that which a developing Republican most requires. Moreover, they violate binding statutes and commit a grave offense; for the Constitution ordains compulsory education for all minors, and the Law on Schools commands attendance, forbidding parental opposition.
Should your parents demand that you abandon the school, you must answer: the Constitution grants us the right to be educated! Tell them that parents who love their children do not hinder their natural and constitutional rights.
As for the cause of these absences—the tragic murders of two pupils, for which we express our deepest sorrow—we remind all that the Republic possesses institutions charged to investigate every crime, to discover the guilty, and to punish them according to law. There is no cause to doubt that these institutions will fulfill their duty. What is required of us is patience—patience toward their just and responsible work, which must not harm a single innocent citizen.
I now yield the word to the municipal commander of Atrolen, Citizen Rave, who shall assure you of your safety and of the punishment awaiting the perpetrators of these crimes.”
Only then does the Commander consent to speak, in his accustomed voice:
“I insisted that the Head Educator, Citizen Maring, as host, formally grant me the word, for we must respect those procedures that make us serious citizens, and thus set an example to you, who are yet in formation. This school belongs to the Department of Education; it would not be proper that I, a local functionary, enter and speak unbidden.
Now that Order has been observed, I shall speak. I shall speak of these shameful events, and of the un-civic reaction of certain inhabitants of Central Alvald, who have assaulted civic education itself. We Republicans must not remain silent before such sabotage! We must ensure the perpetrators are punished, and that all laws are enforced.
Within this school, you are safe—protected by Republican morality, by the Constitution, and by the Laws.”
Long did he continue, discoursing on Republican virtue, on duty, on obligation, and on the “shameful and irresponsible conduct” of those parents who had withdrawn their children from the school—while we, the diminished ranks of youthful Citizens, listened under a sky that seemed heavier than before, and a silence that no speech could wholly dispel.
After this harangue—full of civic thunder and Republican virtue—the Head Educator again ascended the tribune, and in tones of austere necessity proclaimed that, by reason of extraordinary circumstances, the order of studies stood overturned: no letters today, no idle arts, but Military Instruction alone; that stern school wherein Citizens are forged as iron for the service of Liberty. Forthwith the roll was called. Alas! where once there rose near-unanimous cries of “Present!”, now after many a name there followed only a sepulchral silence; and the Head Educator, like some clerk of Fate, would note in level cadence: “Not present.”
Then formed we our column—longer than ever before, for boys and girls marched together in one civic phalanx—and advanced through Atrolen toward the Field of Exercise. Yet mark it well, O Republic! The people who beheld us no longer cried, “Honour the Constitution, Citizens!” but gazed with a mingled fear and pity, strange and questioning; and here and there a voice broke forth: “Take heed! Beware!” Only a certain greengrocer, Reuss by name, standing at his corner amid heaps of earth and cellar-rubbish, waved his arm and shouted with Republican zeal: “Down with the King!” Whereupon the column, obedient to habit if not to ardor, struck up the same cry in song—though with less fire, fewer smiles than in former days.
For many among us knew the absent; knew their homes, their fathers and mothers; knew too that in those very homes our schooling was condemned. Some, it was whispered, had fled by night from their own hearths to return hither! And dark tales circulated—monstrous, incredible—of schools turned into farms of human youth, of wolves and blood-drinkers supplied with tender victims. Who could believe? And yet—who could wholly disbelieve in such an hour?
We passed the Tree of Liberty, now guarded day and night by a sentinel of the Constitution; we saw upon the walls proclamations bordered with tricolor, their black letters crying: “Outlawed!”—“Confiscated in the name of the Republic!” And some eyes, wandering over these decrees against fleeing royalists, seemed to find in them a strange, grim consolation.
Arrived at the Field, Captain Filer stood already prepared, pipe in mouth, mustaches composed like standards before battle. “Little Citizens!” cried he, “Attend, and remember! What is the first duty of Republicans? To obey the Law. What is Revolution? The substitution of just and noble laws for the corrupt usages of Kings. Today”—and here he fixed us with a gaze severe as Judgment—“today you shall be true Revolutionaries; you shall accomplish a Revolutionary Act!”
A pause; a puff of smoke; the moment hung like a drawn sabre.
“The Law commands that all children attend the Republican School, there to be formed as Citizens. You must see that this Law is obeyed; that superstition, that royalist poison which hinders it, be crushed. Therefore shall I prepare you, this entire day, for an Operation—aye, a civic campaign!—no less Republican than the taking of Brelsin Castle, the arrests at Halstadt, the storming of Erultburg!”
Eyes kindled; memories of glory stirred.
“Your task is this: to restore to the School all those children whom force or fraud has kept away. Yet mark me!”—and now his voice grew graver still—“your enemy is not, or not chiefly, your absent comrades, nor even their parents—poor souls, misled by fears and ancient delusions. Your enemy is he who exploits parental love and recent tragedy, who turns honest citizens into violators of the Law, who makes them enemies of their own children’s education. That enemy is the Royalist. Down with the Royalists!”
“Down! Down!”—the cry rolled across the meadow like artillery.
Thus did Captain Filer, master of hearts, rekindle the Republican flame. Smiles returned, timidly at first, then brighter; for what child would not be a Hero of the Revolution? And so we ran, drilled, wheeled, and executed the first maneuvers of infantry—while above us, unseen yet ever-present, hovered the stern Spirit of the Republic, demanding of its youngest sons and daughters not innocence—but obedience.
But suddenly—lo!—the smile vanished from Captain Filer’s countenance; and with a brow black as gathering storm he stooped, seized somewhat from the ground, and, holding it aloft as though it were the very head of Treason, cried out: “Whose is this, little Citizens?”—his eye darting from rank to rank, sharp, inquisitorial, feline as an angered cat.
In his hand—O portent!—a Bat’s wing; and on it, traced in blood, the letter A: the royal initial, sign of that detested principle which would crawl back from its grave and suck once more the life of the People! The wing was fastened to a torn ribbon; manifestly dropped, torn loose amid the exercise.
“If you will not speak, be it so!” continued he, with a stern composure more terrible than wrath. “I shall not waste the sacred hours of Republican Military Instruction hunting the owner of a blood-scribbled Bat’s wing. But know this, and engrave it on your hearts: the moral Republican hides nothing! He speaks all openly beneath the eye of the Nation. Whoso conceals—whoso dares to hide that this is his, or from whom he received it—he is no longer a Republican; and let him blush, ay, burn with shame, whenever he beholds the Tricolour or intones the Hymn of Liberty!”
At this thunderbolt, striking straight into the tender conscience of Youth, one boy—unknown to me—stepped forth; trembling, voice breaking on the verge of tears. He confessed: his parents had compelled him; had said he should not return to School unless he bore this charm. His father—hear it, O Citizens!—had journeyed even unto Fergalt, to some witch, and paid a whole gold coin that she might conjure such an object; a talisman, forsooth, to guard its bearer from Werewolves and Vampires!
“Follies! Miserable, superstitious follies!” cried Captain Filer, with Republican indignation. “Better had that gold coin been given for the equipment of the Armies of the Republic!” And returning the wing to the boy, he added: “Put it again about thy neck; enter there!”
He pointed to the stone structure in the midst of the field, whose doorway stood darkened; and there, within, stood Eliza-Constitutional—the little Vampiress—who, in these daily exercises, ever played Defender of the Post, shunning the light.
Then, with a command as strange as it was decisive, he spoke: “Citizeness Eliza-Constitutional—embrace him!”
The pale Child of Night obeyed; she clasped him. And behold!—nothing befell. No shriek, no transformation; the boy stood whole, unharmed, beneath the embrace.
“Seest thou?” cried Filer, triumphant, instructive. “The little Citizeness, though a Vampiress, has embraced thee; and thy Bat’s Wing has availed her nothing—nor was it needed! Take it back to thy father; bid him sell it. And with that money—if he must needs hang somewhat about thy neck—let him buy thee a Tricolour Ribbon, stained with the blood of some fallen Patriot; that it may remind thee of the Duties of a good Republican!”
“Hurrah!” shouted the boy; and a murmur, half relief, half awakening fervour, ran through the ranks. Thus ended the incident: superstition rebuked, Civic Virtue instructed; and the young Republic, though still trembling, stood a little firmer upon its feet.
