Read "When the King Loses his Head" by Leonid Andreyev online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
They had been expecting a King, but there appeared before them a clown. They had been expecting a dragon, but there came a big-nosed bourgeois with a handkerchief and a bad cold. It was funny, and curious and a little uncanny. Had not someone substituted a pretender in his place? "It is I, the King," says the Twentieth.
Yes, it is he, indeed. How funny he is! Think of him for a King! The people smiled, shrugged their shoulders and could hardly refrain from laughter. They exchanged mocking smiles and salutes and seemed to inquire in the language of signs: "Well, what do you think of Him? " The deputies were very serious and pale. Undoubtedly the feeling of responsibility oppressed them. But the people were merry in a quiet way. How had they managed to make their way into the assembly hall? How does water trickle through a hole? They had penetrated through some broken windows, they had almost slipped through the keyholes. Hundreds of ragged and fantastically attired but extremely courteous and affable strangers. Crowding a deputy they solicitously inquired: "Hope I am not in your way, citizen? " They were very polite. Like quaint birds, they clung in dark rows to the window sills, obstructing the light and seemed to be signalling something to the people in the square outside. It was apparently something funny.