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“My readers,” said Pillsbury, “need, nay, require reassurance as to whether the throne is, in this century, still a viable institution.”
“King,” said Arthur, “king, king, king. Fundamentally an absurd idea, that one chap has better blood than another chap. Has to do with dogs, dog breeding, really, dogs and horses. Oh, it’s no great thing to be a king. On the other hand, I’ve never not been a king, so I’ve no idea what that’s like. Might be quite grand. The pleasure of being inconspicuous, a fudge in the crowd. Can’t imagine it.
“Can’t imagine what it would be like to be a churl. The country’s full of them, yet I have no idea how they think. It’s not good for a king to have no idea how people think. By the same token, the people have no idea how I think. When I address them, it’s in the language of a proclamation, isn’t it? And the language of a proclamation is hardly cozy, is it? I could even be witty, and the people would never know. Pity.
“In the same universe of discourse,” said Arthur, “the question of leadership, with accompanying subsections, such as statesmanship, generalship, gamesmanship, rabble-rousing, and the like. The king’s sceptre, the marshal’s baton, the conductor’s baton, the physician’s caduceus, the magician’s wand—a stick of some kind, with which one must animate a mass. In your case, Mr. Pillsbury, a pencil. But one must know how to operate the stick, eh? One can’t just wave the damned thing around to no purpose. All in the wrist, eh, Mr. Pillsbury?”
--
pp. 81–82

 

Donald Barthelme

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