Day 18: Prince on the Streets

My first introduction to this story was a modern film adaptation called P.J and the President's Son. When I was a kid, I spent many Saturday mornings at the library, and once in a while they would show a film adaptation of a literary classic in the library basement. P.J. and the President's Son is based on the story by Mark Twain called The Prince and the Pauper. This one has a unique twist because the prince can live on the streets for a long time with no one missing him, because he has changed clothes with a real pauper named Tom Canty who looks just like him. The prince comes to learn first hand what is really going on in London outside of the royal palace, and when he returns just in time for coronation day to get crowned himself, he is determined to increase mercy and justice for citizens who had not been receiving humane treatment by those entrusted with civil and religious authority.

This novel has a great comic chapter, Chapter 32, Coronation Day, which describes a public throng undergoing the brain-befuddling experience of apocalypse. When the pauper comes to Westminster Abbey on coronation day, the true prince interrupts the ceremony and announces that he is the true prince, even though he is all dirty and dressed in rags. The chapter helps us imagine what it would be like to have a wrench thrown into a once-in-a-lifetime event in which everyone is confident about who's who on stage:

These sentence fragments trace the crowd's and the royal attendants' collective emotion and response to the surprise that unfolded at the coronation gathering:
multitude in the galleries alive with interest,
a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of music burst forth,
the entire multitude rose, and the ceremony of the Recognition ensued.
a noble anthem swept the Abbey with its rich waves of sound;
impressive solemnity
deep hush
startling apparition intruded upon the scene
a sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage
stared in a bewildered way at one another and at the chief figures in this scene,
wondered whether they were awake and in their senses, or asleep and dreaming.
a paralysis fell upon the house; no one moved, no one spoke; indeed no one knew how to act or what to say, in so strange and surprising an emergency.
all minds were struggling to right themselves.
the tangled minds still floundered helplessly
the sternness vanished away, and gave place to an expression of wondering surprise.
perplexity
perilous to the State and to us all, to entertain so fateful a riddle as this; it could divide the nation and undermine the throne.
troublesome and perilous business
all the company wondered at this speech
now began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that offical group . . . . a movement which little by little, in the present case, dissolved the glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty and clustered it together in the neighborhood of the new-comer.
the whole assemblage was on its feet, now, and well nigh out of its mind with uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming excitement
a deafening buzz of frantic conversation
for five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving handkerchiefs;
the avalanche of laughter
cannon thundered the news to the city, and all London seemed to rock with applause.

Avalanches, quakes, a crowd struck mute, the world turning upside down. People falling on their faces, not in horror, but because they are laughing so hard at the final surprise punchline, delivered with absolutely perfect timing: "Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing," said the king. "How used you the Great Seal of England?" Tom stammered a moment, in a pathetic confusion, then got it out--"To crack nuts with!"