A King-Sized Conspiracy
Rudolf Rassendyll is on holiday in Ruritania when he stumbles across a plot by the King’s brother to steal the crown.
1894
Rudolf Rassendyll is on holiday in Ruritania when he stumbles across a plot by the King’s brother to steal the crown.
1894
It is the eve of the coronation of the King of Ruritania, and his loyal courtiers have discovered him unconscious, drugged by his wicked brother Michael. But it just so happens that Rudolf Rassendyll, a British holidaymaker, is in the capital, and he looks exactly like the King...
FOR a moment or two we were all silent; then Sapt, knitting his bushy grey brows, took his pipe from his mouth and said to me:
“As a man grows old he believes in Fate. Fate sent you here. Fate sends you now to Strelsau.”
I staggered back, murmuring “Good God!”
Fritz looked up with an eager, bewildered gaze.
“Impossible!” I muttered. “I should be known.”
“It’s a risk — against a certainty,” said Sapt. “If you shave, I’ll wager you’ll not be known.* It’s your life, you know, if you’re known — and mine — and Fritz’s here. But, if you don’t go, I swear to you Black Michael will sit tonight on the throne, and the King lie in prison or his grave.”
The clock ticked fifty times, and sixty and seventy times, as I stood in thought. Then I suppose a look came over my face, for old Sapt caught me by the hand, crying: “You’ll go?”
“Yes, I’ll go,” said I, and I turned my eyes on the prostrate figure of the King on the floor.
The king had recently shaved his beard off; Rassendyll had a luxurious moustache.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
The King was to be crowned next day. Sapt asked Rudolf to impersonate the King.