New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-04-27
PRINCESS SOPHIA"
Ind What She Sac in Japan.

sian Prisoners Wife in Japan. illustrated
l2no. pp. S59. Henry Holt & Co.
The framework upon which is built up this
description of the life of the Russian prisoners
in a japanese hospital has the aspect of fiction.
But whether the wounded Colonel Vladimir Won
Theiu and his charming wife, the Princess
Sophia. be real personages or not is OF little
importance-it is the vivid story of war and OF
the daily happenings at Matsuyama that con-
Germs u.s. The spirit and aims of both COM
batants are admirably brought out i'm the re-
cital of the Russian lady who comes TO nurse
her husband dangerously hurt when captured
in Manchuria. The situation as presented to US
through the vision of a just, warm-hearted,
clear-eyed, highly educated woman-one who in
previous days has learned to like the japanese
and is not blind to the faults of her own race.
She is even ready while travelling to her
sufferer through the enchanting Inland Sea to
compare Russia with Japan 10 the manifest
disadvantage of the former. "It began TO dawn
upon me-" she says, how the army of pygmes
have come 10 humiliate the army of giants. In
contrast with these tidy and remote little VII
lagos of fishermen and rice farmers Of the In
land Sea, far from any foreign settlement, re-
called the muddy streets and tumbledown houses,
the dirt, misery and ignorance of our pigsties
Of Russian villages. even quite near to Peters
burg and Moscow" And she goes to tell us
that hardly any village in China is as filthy. the
people as ignorant and in as low condition as
in that lula village of Yasnaya Polyana, beside
the country home OF the refOrmer Count Leo
ToIstoy. She is not unreasonable when she re-
marks that "a little of that magnificent hui
rnanitarianism and benevolence poured upon
that insantary village his own estates would
be more practical, II seems TO me. than the thin
treacle OF il spread the whole universe"
The love of nature and of beauty, the cleanli-
ness, the artist spirit Of the Japanese charm
again and again this alien woman. She tells
US of the chief surgeon in the hospital, "a Sc
rious, kindly man in spectacles. who was of the
manner of old Japan. the exquisitely polite and
refined Japan OF the upper classes; Of the
little japanese Red Cross nurses. who never
seemed tired though they never rested. who
were never cross or impatient. but always smil-
ing and polite 'They are like children beside
the huge Cossacks they care for-very preco-
cious children, when one observes their skill and
courage in the operating room. They seem 10
humor and charm their patients with indul-
gence yet they are martnets in their precise
obedience TO surgeons orders. The patient is
never crossed, yet he always obeys. too. 1t is
the old, old story Of the hypnotic East. The
big Cossacks cry bitterly when their nurses are
changed" The has worked. the author
says, wonders for the japanese women. In the
active work of the Red Cross their brains and
ability have been so conspicuous that the Jap
anese man is forgetting some Of the traditions
of repression for his wOmankind
The Russians had fixed ideas to Japanese
cruelty. and half expected to be sliced alive
when they were captured. The careful tender
ness. the enlightened modern methods with
which the wounded were treated in the Japanese
hospitals were strange revelations to the prison
.ers Even the common people outside their
walls offered kindly attentions to these enemies.
Every few nights rain Of cigarettes. Plums. fans
and little trines come over the fence of the kokal-
@ md ~ the Dairinii there are only soldiers
This rain OF mamma. of course. pleased the Co.'S
sacks neither they nor the officers could under
missionaries With whom I walked from the photo
graph shop TO the pSstqtnce; ana she laughed
fhizing with the poor horios lprisonersl. The Red
Saers are arriving at TakaRama or passing through
railroad station in train; but here OF course there
great secret that she had been over With her
friends last night 10 throw some cigarettes over
the fence for the poor hoFios They are so sorry
FOR them. You might think these poor, hard work
ease. ana compare their present tasks with the
prisoners leisure But this is the japanese way
losophers ought 10 see this situation"
one Of the prisoners who were with Skobeleff
at Plevna describes the misery OF the captured
Turks there. It is in curious contrast with the
comfortable conditions which the foresight OF
the so-called 'barbarous" japanese prepared for
The enemy:
At Plevna, our own Russian soldiers were short
TO get into the town and he shelter Of TrE;I sS
houses and barracks. Imagine. then the moor
TOR covering. and food at an for three days
and nights Il was terrible but it was war. Hun
dFedS died OF exposure and starvation; for ;here