A Tale Without a Name Read Online Free PDF Page A

man did not want us on his doorstep just now?”
    “No!”
    “Because he is a fence, a receiver of stolen goods, and he was afraid we might see the boy who was bringing him the things he had stolen. And do you know what the dinner was that Cunningson brought to the palace last night? He stole it himself from some poor soul by the name of Miserlix, whom he even thrust down the mountainside so he might not talk. This is what goes on in our kingdom!”
    “Heaven help us!” muttered Little Irene with tears in her eyes.
    They walked through a small town with misshapen and squalid roads, the houses half in ruin.
    Above a doorway they noticed some black letters. But neither knew how to read.
    “Let us knock here and ask what this place is,” said the Prince.
    They knocked, and a pale, scrawny man opened the door to them, holding a book in his hand.
    “What do you want, my children?” he said kindly.
    “We wish to learn what this house is,” said the Prince apologetically.
    “This house? But it is written all up there, my children!” the man said, baffled, pointing to the letters above his door.
    “We do not know how to read,” said Little Irene with embarrassment.
    “Aaah?…” said the man. “And yet it is the same sorry state everywhere in the realm; no one knows how to read any more.”
    And he explained to them that outside it was written “School of the State”.
    “A school!” exclaimed the Prince joyfully. “I have never seen a school, and I have always wanted to know what one is like! But… where are the pupils?”
    The man scratched his ear, hesitated, and finally said:
    “They are… they are away at present.”
    “And at what time will they be back for their lessons? I should like to see them,” said the Prince.
    “But… But they do not have lessons…” answered the man hesitantly.
    And seeing the puzzlement in the boy’s eyes:
    “Well, so be it… Yes, that’s right, I do not give them lessons!” he burst out bitterly. “As if it were easy to do the proper thing in this place! The State appointed me as teacher, and entrusted the children to me so I might teach them their letters. Only the State forgets to pay me, forgets that I too have needs, that I must eat and clothe myself! The children come but I do not give them lessons. I take them to my kitchen garden to work the soil, so I might have my bread, and I send them to the woods to pick strawberries, or arbutus berries, or other seasonal fruit. I am a man too, you know! I too must live!”
    All this the schoolmaster said with great grief, his eyes brimming with tears.
    The Prince gazed at him, lost in thought. His face was grave.
    “And who forces you to stay on as schoolmaster?” he asked finally.
    “What else could I do? I would die out in the cold. Here at least I have a house!”
    “So then you do accept the house,” said the Prince, his eyes flaring, “even though you do not fulfil your duty!”
    The schoolmaster smiled.
    “As if that were easy now!” he said quietly. “You are but a child! You do not know what life is like, and you think it is simple and easy to do your duty, to work unrewarded for the benefit of others! Only, in order to do your duty, my boy, you need sometimes to make a heroic sacrifice of yourself. And not everyone is a hero in this world.”
    The Prince went out, without giving an answer.
    Many thoughts, and ever more thoughts, stumbled and tripped in his mind. It seemed to him that his eyes were looking at new worlds.
    There was a long moment of silence, while he held his sister’s hand.
    “Self-sacrifice!” he murmured. “You heard that, Little Irene? It takes, he said, a heroic act of self-sacrifice, and not everyone is a hero… Do you recall the words of Knowledge, that by labouring for the common good, we benefit ourselves in the end? I am afraid that in our country no one ever learnt that. Each of us seeks to profit for himself alone, or, at the very least, to be left in peace…”
    “Why