The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-04-17
something Russian!


 a Title snatch Of sentimental song from ''Mada me Chrysantheme," then a bit of ragtime. No one, of course, listened. But it helped them to talk.
 "RI ssian- "sSia - bee i'd the visitor. Let us have Russian music.''
 A mood insisted on taking possession of him, in spite of the irony of things.
 "Ah-the Russians-I cannot help sympathizing with them,' cried the suave woman, with warmth. She had once, been courted by a Grand Duke and by Russian Count.
 ''Ah, and mine,'' murmured the Beardsley mouth. And she had once known Frenchman who had told her stories of the court of St. Peters burg.
 The little Japanese brought in a kittle of water from the top of the redhot stove to replenish the elegant samovar which, if it had not been im- ported, we should call of Colonial shape.
 The chaperon rocked back and forth in the other room. Some one who had once been a military man undertook to furnish her with a very strong toddy.
 In movements of intense curve the Beardsley woman allowed the odorous Santa Cruz rum to drop from it's gold trimmed decanter into tiny trimmed 1 glasses of tea.
 | With hope from such cheerful golden brown beauty the man drank from his glass. He, too, felt sympathy with the Russian people-yet he never met | a Grand Duke. Indeed, he vaguely felt that the names of Grand Dukes scarcely be mentioned lightly in seri- ous circles, for the past meeting of the gray afternoon was still in his ; thoughts.
 1 At last the plain girl began to play the opening octaves of "a prelude of Rfchmaninoff. They trod heavily as if burdened-the opening octaves of this dark, sober voice of the Russian pre- Jude. 7$4E r.a, >A -.t- - l Crouched in the shadow at the rounded end of the grand piano the Bear6sley woman, in purplish velvet reposed from her labor, her draperies scarcely moving, her neck hidden in pink corals, her body swathed in places. Very quietly the ex-officer was whispering to the narrow downcast l eyes.
 ! Impassive, the. sculptor host lit a I cigarette. Under her white plunes the suave beauty grew still-for moment.
 Marvelling at the. deep call of the i voice of a Russian soul, the man clos I ed his eyes. Had he not heard this voice a short time before? Was it not i brought here now, with it's uldertone I Of sorrow too strong for sobs? Out I of the afternoons memory, had it not 1 followed him down Fifth avenue from the bare plain room where the eanest ! people had sat listening to learn how they could help their Russian brothers. I Words, images, phrases, looks drift ed down to him. crowded at last into his vision. What was the fieshly beau ty of any wonlan's face compared to that sweetness he has wondered at Ijust beforea. The face. of an old woman who had lived tWo-thirds of her life at hard I labor in Siberia throbbed in his closed I eyes. He saw her lowered eyelids the page from which read in broken Eng fish, he heard the eloquent story o1 her own life. A voice of deeper music he had never heard.
 All through the heavy melody. with it's whispered pianissimos, of the first part of the prelude of Rachmanin- off, he saw the described vision. Nc more sorroWful than the trailing rhy- thms were the ragged feet of the con- vict-the words of the old wonan----
 Tt was a gray, dark afternoon ir l late autumn. Over the, wild,- chilly waste of the steppes swept the cold capricious wind. A rough road threads the sombre waste. Continually from the north the wind beats against the file of prisoners.
 "Men and women struggle onward They are bound toward period ot free exile in a convict town of Tara I where they must serve a few years more after having ended their convict I term.
 ''They do not speak. Long trials. lone. Iy years, solitude of soul have made them wordless. A certain nobility from suffering has invested fine and coarse alike in same prison garment oi quiet."
 The vision of the sensitive, beautiful little mouth of the woman, who grew old far away from the kisses of hel baby, is in the eyes of the man. He sees the stalwart courage of her figure at the head of the dark weary column Iof submerged souls.
 The music changes it's movement. Imelody is brought out, as if a central. to voice were wailing it's question l"Why-why--? Oh, whither do ye take me?"
 The picture changes too.
 At a halt in the journey of the trair toward night fall they are brought tired and cold to a large enclosure Here, strangely, they see many, many women, neither too young nor too old They are dressed in white, with roug,
 ed cheeks, with coquettishly arranged hair-so fantastic a sight, so weired il this lone, darksome settlement of tht
 wild steppes:
 And then I learned the reason,
 and the old woman spoke with a sal calm.
 'These women, neither too young no too old, are political exiles and common criminals. Some are refined and noble
 others are depraved and of the loves classes. There are matrons and maid TIJf-- l. | r.