In the early morning, Count Hall woke at his usual hour and took a stroll through his garden and across the lawn.
After he finished inspecting his beloved thoroughbreds, he returned to the third floor of the villa to change into his outdoor clothes. His wife Catherine had also risen and was instructing the chambermaid to carry out some arrangements she had just thought of.
"It's time for breakfast," Count Hall said with a smile, standing by the coat-rack and addressing his wife.
Just then he heard a commotion outside, growing louder and closer, with no sign of dying down.
He frowned almost imperceptibly and glanced sideways at his valet.
Without waiting for the nobleman to speak, the valet immediately went to the window and drew back the remaining sheer curtain.
With a rustle, more light flooded into the bedroom, clear and bright.
The valet peered out the window, scanning left and right, and his expression suddenly turned grave.
He turned back, stole a glance at the countess still speaking with the maid, and hurried to Count Hall's side. Lowering his voice, he said: "A parade! A lot of people are parading!"
A parade? Count Hall was no stranger to the word. As a high-ranking noble of Loen and the second-largest shareholder of the Conston Coal and Steel Union, he had witnessed many workers' gatherings demanding higher weekly wages and limits on working hours. In the last month or two,
He let his gaze roam over the valet's face for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing slightly as he sensed that today's parade might be different from what he imagined.
Without any change in expression, he walked over to the window.
One look, and Count Hall's eyes suddenly fixed in place.
From his third-floor vantage point, he could see a dense black mass of people on the distant road, gathered together and surging in his direction like a colossal dark cloud about to engulf Backlund.
"Bread!"
"We want bread!"
The shouts of thousands, tens of thousands, or even more merged into one, growing louder and clearer, making Count Hall's scalp tingle.
He had seen crowds this large countless times during major masses at Memorial Square and had heard voices overlapping; but back then, he had been part of that crowd, part of the whole. Today, he was one of the targets of that surging "tide."
Count Hall couldn't help but look back along the procession, and there seemed to be no end in sight. However, with his abundant experience in such matters, he could make judgments from the details he observed.
The police and soldiers he could see flanking the procession were very few, like tiny waves stirred up by an ocean tide, utterly insignificant compared to the immense crowd.
Count Hall believed that a parade targeting Queens Borough would certainly be met with the strongest control — there was no way large numbers of soldiers and police wouldn't have been dispatched. The current situation could only mean one thing: The number of participants was simply too vast!
So vast that the soldiers and police were spread too thin!
A parade of over a hundred thousand? Maybe even more... A march born from food shortages could turn into riots and looting at any moment... It still looks orderly... Because there are many organizers and leaders? Damn it, didn't
"Bread!"
"We want bread!"
The shouts grew more and more united, louder and louder, as if a tsunami had struck the city.
By now, the servants in Count Hall's mansion had sensed the disturbance. They came to the windows, looking out beyond the gates.
Their faces quickly turned pale, as if they were facing a flood breaking through a dam with no way to escape.
"Bread!"
"We want bread!"
Countless voices merged together; the dense mass of heads pressed in with an overwhelming intensity.
Count Hall snapped to attention, his instinctive urge to send a telegram to the royal family, to have them call in the army to suppress the march.
But as he observed more closely, he noticed that many in the parade were wearing military uniforms, their bodies bearing signs of disability.
"Bread!"
"We want bread!"
The soldiers keeping order watched the procession with caution and sympathy, their rifles all pointed at the sky.
Among those people were their former comrades, their parents, wives and children, their friends and neighbors, and a great multitude of living, breathing people just like them, who wanted nothing more than not to starve. How could they not feel pity and compassion?
Such feelings might have started with only five or six soldiers and police, but soon spread to almost everyone.
In the past, under the watch of officers' pistols, they would have numbly followed any order. But now, what many of them thought was: If any son of a bitch orders me to shoot, I'll shoot him instead!
"Bread!"
"We want bread!"