The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-11-11
REZANOV
By GERTRUDE ATHERTON
copyright 1906 by Gertrude Anterior.
All Rights Reserved.)
9attendance; and to this Rezanov indii

Sattendance; and to this Rezanov indif-
ferently assented.
The prospect of continuing his jour
ney and the hustle of preparation raised
the spirit of the invalid and gave him a
fictitious energy. He had fought depres-
sion and despair in all his conscious mo-
ments, never admitted that the devasta-
tion in his body was mortal. With but
remnant of his former superb strength
and emaciated beyond recognition, he
attended banquet on the night preced-
ing his departure, and on the following
morning stood up in his sledge and &C
knowledged the God-speed Of the pop
ulation of Irkutsk assembled in the
square before the palace of the COVER
nor. All his life he had excited interest
wherever heIwent, but never to such a
degree as on that last journey when he
made his desperate fight for life and
happiness.
XVII.
The snow rarely falls in Krasnoiarsk.
1t is little oasis in the great winter
desert of Siberia. Rezanov, his face
turned to the window, could see the
red banks X; on the opposite side Of the
river. The sun transformed the gilded
cupolas and crosses into dazzling points
OF light, and the sky above the spires
and towers, the stately square and mar
row dirty streets of the bustling little
capital, was as blue and unlocked as
that which arched SO high above land
where Castilian roses grew, and one
woman among gay and thoughtless
people dreamed, with all the passion
OF her splendid youth, of the man to
Rezanov s mind was clear in those last
moments, but something Of the serenity
and the sel6shness Of death had al
ready descended upon him. He heard
with Indifference the sobs of Jon,
crouched at the foot of his bed. Tears
and regrets were a part Of the general
futility of life, insignificant enough at
the grand threshold Of death.
No doubt that his great schemes
would die with him, and were he re-
membered at all it would be as a
dreamer; or as a failure, because he
had. died before accomplishing what his
could force to fruition. None realized
better than he the paucity of initia.
tive and executive among the charac-
tteristics of the Slav. What mattered
it9 He had had glimpses more than
once OF the apparently illogical Sc
quence of life, the vanity Of human ef-
fort, the wanton cruelty of Nature.
He had known men struck down be-
fore in the maturity of their useful
ness, cities destroyed by earthquake or
hurricane in the fairest and most prom
Using of their days: public men, priests,
parents, children, wantons, criminals.
blotte d out with equal impartiality BY
a brutal force that would seem to have
but a casual use for the life she flung
broadcast on her planets. Man was
the helpless victim of Nature, calf
in tigers paws. If she overlooked
him, or swept him contemptuously into
the class of her favorites, we'll and
good; otherwise he was her sport. the
playthin1g- of her idler moments. Those
that cried "But why9' "What rea-
sons' What use9' were those that
had never looked over the walls of their
ego at the great dramatic moments in
the career Of Nature, when she made
immortal fame for herself at the ex-
pense Of millions Of pigmies.
And If his energies, his talents, his
usefulness, were held of no account, at
least he could lock back upon a past
when he would have seemed to be one
of the few supreme favorites of the
forces that shaped man. life and DIES.