CAPTULO XXX - Pag 30

While the true King wandered about the land poorly clad, poorly fed, cuffed and derided by tramps one while, herding with thieves and murderers in a jail another, and called idiot and impostor by all impartially, the mock King Tom Canty enjoyed quite a different experience.
When we saw him last, royalty was just beginning to have a bright side for him. This bright side went on brightening more and more every day: in a very little while it was become almost all sunshine and delightfulness. He lost his fears; his misgivings faded out and died; his embarrassments departed, and gave place to an easy and confident bearing. He worked the whipping-boy mine to ever-increasing profit.
He ordered my Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Jane Grey into his presence when he wanted to play or talk, and dismissed them when he was done with them, with the air of one familiarly accustomed to such performances. It no longer confused him to have these lofty personages kiss his hand at parting.
He came to enjoy being conducted to bed in state at night, and dressed with intricate and solemn ceremony in the morning. It came to be a proud pleasure to march to dinner attended by a glittering procession of officers of state and gentlemen-at-arms; insomuch, indeed, that he doubled his guard of gentlemen-at-arms, and made them a hundred. He liked to hear the bugles sounding down the long corridors, and the distant voices responding, “Way for the King!”
He even learned to enjoy sitting in throned state in council, and seeming to be something more than the Lord Protector’s mouthpiece. He liked to receive great ambassadors and their gorgeous trains, and listen to the affectionate messages they brought from illustrious monarchs who called him brother. O happy Tom Canty, late of Offal Court!
He enjoyed his splendid clothes, and ordered more: he found his four hundred servants too few for his proper grandeur, and trebled them. The adulation of salaaming courtiers came to be sweet music to his ears. He remained kind and gentle, and a sturdy and determined champion of all that were oppressed, and he made tireless war upon unjust laws: yet upon occasion, being offended, he could turn upon an earl, or even a duke, and give him a look that would make him tremble. Once, when his royal ‘sister,’ the grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with him against the wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people who would otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned, and reminded him that their august late father’s prisons had sometimes contained as high as sixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his irable reign he had delivered seventy-two thousand thieves and robbers over to death by the executioner, the boy was filled with generous indignation, and commanded her to go to her closet, and beseech God to take away the stone that was in her breast, and give her a human heart.
Did Tom Canty never feel troubled about the poor little rightful prince who had treated him so kindly, and flown out with such hot zeal to avenge him upon the insolent sentinel at the palace-gate? Yes; his first royal days and nights were pretty well sprinkled with painful thoughts about the lost prince, and with sincere longings for his return, and happy restoration to his native rights and splendours. But as time wore on, and the prince did not come, Tom’s mind became more and more occupied with his new and enchanting experiences, and by little and little the vanished monarch faded almost out of his thoughts; and finally, when he did intrude upon them at intervals, he was become an unwelcome spectre, for he made Tom feel guilty and ashamed.
Tom’s poor mother and sisters travelled the same road out of his mind. At first he pined for them, sorrowed for them, longed to see them, but later, the thought of their coming some day in their rags and dirt, and betraying him with their kisses, and pulling him down from his lofty place, and dragging him back to penury and degradation and the slums, made him shudder. At last they ceased to trouble his thoughts almost wholly. And he was content, even glad: for, whenever their mournful and accusing faces did rise before him now, they made him feel more despicable than the worms that crawl.
At midnight of the 19th of February, Tom Canty was sinking to sleep in his rich bed in the palace, guarded by his loyal vassals, and surrounded by the pomps of royalty, a happy boy; for tomorrow was the day appointed for his solemn crowning as King of England. At that same hour, Edward, the true king, hungry and thirsty, soiled and draggled, worn with travel, and clothed in rags and shreds—his share of the results of the riot—was wedged in among a crowd of people who were watching with deep interest certain hurrying gangs of workmen who streamed in and out of Westminster Abbey, busy as ants: they were making the last preparation for the royal coronation.

Mientras el verdadero rey vagaba por la regin pobremente vestido, pobremente alimentado, maltratado y burlado por vagabundos un rato, y al otro en compaa de ladrones y asesinos en una crcel, y llamado idiota e impostor por todos, el fingido rey Tom Canty disfrutaba de una experiencia un tanto diferente.
Cuando lo vimos por ltima vez, la realeza justo empezaba a tener un lado brillante para l. Este lado brillante fue abrillantndose ms y ms cada da, y muy poco despus era casi todo fulgor y deleite. Perdi sus temores; sus recelos se marchitaron y murieron; sus embarazos se disiparon, y cedieron su puesto a un porte tranquilo y confiado. Explot la mina del "nio-azotes" en utilidades siempre crecientes.
Ordenaba la presencia de milady Isabel y milady Juana Grey cuando quera jugar o platicar, y las despeda cuando se fatigaba de ellas, con el aire del que est familiarizada con tales actos. Ya no lo confunda el que estos encumbrados personajes le besaran la mano al partir.
Lleg a disfrutar el ser conducido majestuosamente a la cama, por la noche, y que le vistieran con intrincada y solemne ceremonia por la maana. Vino a ser un orgulloso deleite el ir a comer asistido por un brillante squito de funcionarios de Estado y gentilhombres de armas, de tal modo que dobl la guardia de gentilhombres de armas, hasta un centenar. Le gustaba or las trompetas resonando en los largos corredores, y las distantes voces demandando: "Paso al rey".
Incluso lleg a disfrutar de sentarse con pompa en el trono en consejo, aparentando ser algo ms que el portavoz del Lord Protector. Le gustaba recibir a grandes embajadores con squitos suntuosos, y escuchar los afectuosos mensajes que traan de ilustres monarcas que le llamaban "hermano". Oh feliz Tom Canty, poco ha de Offal Court!
Disfrutaba sus esplndidos vestidos y encarg ms; consider que sus cuatrocientos criados eran muy pocos para su conveniente grandeza y los triplic. La adulacin de los zalameros cortesanos vino a ser dulce msica para sus odos. Sigui bondadoso y gentil, y firme y resuelto campen de todos los oprimidos, declar una guerra implacable a las leyes injustas; y, sin embargo, en ocasiones, al ser ofendido, se volva hacia un conde, e incluso un duque, y le lanzaba una mirada que le haca temblar. Una vez que su regia "hermana", la inflexible santa lady Mara, discuti con l la prudencia de su conducta al perdonar a tantas personas que de otra manera seran encarceladas, colgadas o quemadas, y le record que las prisiones de su augusto difunto padre haban tenido a veces hasta sesenta mil convictos a un tiempo, y que durante su irable reinado haba entregado setenta y dos mil rateros y ladrones a la muerte por medio del verdugo, el nio se llen de generosa indignacin, y le orden que fuera a su gabinete y rogara a Dios que le quitara la piedra que tena en el pecho y que le diera un corazn humano.
Nunca se sinti Tom Canty preocupado por el pobre principito legtimo, que lo haba tratado tan bondadosamente y que se haba lanzado tan celosamente a vengarlo del insolente centinela de la puerta de palacio? S. Sus primeros das y noches reales estuvieron bastante salpicados de penosos recuerdos del perdido prncipe y con sinceros deseos de su regreso y feliz reintegracin de sus derechos y esplendores naturales. Pero a medida que pas el tiempo y el prncipe no vena, la mente de Tom estuvo ms y ms ocupada con sus nuevas y encantadoras experiencias, y poco a poco el desaparecido monarca casi se esfum de sus pensamientos; y finalmente, cuando a ratos se inmiscua en ellos, se haba convertido ya en espectro mal recibido, porque haca sentirse a Tom culpable y avergonzado.
La pobre madre y las hermanas de Tom corrieron, la misma suerte en su memoria. Al principio desfalleca por ellas, se apenaba por ellas y anhelaba verlas, pero mas tarde la idea de que un da vinieran con sus andrajos y su mugre, traicionndolo con sus besos, derribndolo de su encumbrado lugar y arrastrndolo de nuevo a la penuria, a la degradacin y a los arrabales, le haca estremecerse. Por fin cesaron de perturbar sus pensamientos casi por completo. Y el estuvo contento, incluso alegre, porque cuando quiera que sus semblantes lgubres y acusadores se alzaban frente a l, lo hacan sentirse ms despreciable que los gusanos que se arrastran.
La medianoche del diecinueve de febrero, Tom Canty se suma en el sueo en un rico lecho, guardado por sus leales vasallos y rodeado por las pompas de la realeza; un nio feliz, porque el da siguiente era el sealado; para su solemne coronacin como rey de Inglaterra. Y a la misma hora, Eduardo, el verdadero rey, hambriento y sediento, sucio y lleno de tierra, rendido por el viaje y cubierto con harapos y jirones –su parte en los resultados del tumulto–, estaba apretujado entre multitud de gentes que observaban con profundo inters, ciertas presurosas cuadrillas de obreros que entraban y salan de la abada de Westminster, laboriosas coma hormigas; estaban haciendo los ltimos preparativos para la real coronacin.