Charlevoix county herald., 1919-07-25
BY MARY HEAToN WORSE.

BY MARY HEAToN WORSE.
Belgrade is slowly coming back TO
nfe. In the streets which were lined
with closed shops, every day new
shutter is pulled up. The peasant
women come In again as they did be-
fore the war to buy cloth and SILK
handkerchief with long fringe for
their heads.
To the people who have been here
from the first, Ii is a place full or
life, a normal town. But If one ar
rives as q stranger and is ferried
across from Semlin In a steamer full
of soldiers, peasants and poultry a
boat piled mast-high with variegated
luggage Belgrade seems wounded
place.
II sits up on a high promontory.
Below II In a great curve sweeps the
iSava to pour Its waters into those OF
the Danube on its reach down to the
sea. There was never a finer place
Cor an imperial city to place itself
with the two great rivers circling
more than half way around 1t and the
wide fields and the level valley lands
stretched out to the horizon. So wide
10 the river that when IT overfiOws and
foods the meadows one has the I'M
preston Of overlooking the sea.
But Belgrade was never an imperial
city. 1t wanted to be however and
put up big ministries of war and build
ed itself a palace for its kings. There
was perhaps a time when the stucco
was new and the paint and ornamen-
tation fresh. When Austria sent
across her diplomats to intrigue and
there was gayety in Belgrade 1t may
have given the Illusion Of a city of
the western world. But 1t gives no
such Illusion today.
Idle for Six Years.
War showed it up. War swept over
the country and for six years nothing
has been done. For six years no
hand has been lifted to complete the
pretentious new hotels which then
were being built, to make repairs or
TO plaster up the spots where shells
have cracked the stucco of the walls.
grade was In the hands of the enemy.
For weeks ii was under shell fire.
Here and there Is a small house with
a crushed roof, building with wall
knocked In and buildings that have no
glass In the windows.
Throughout the whole city there Is
a sense of dislocation. Life Is out OF
Joint The hotels are full and when
one finally locates a room Ii Is miles
from the place where meal can be
gotten. Water is brought up stingily
to ones room In small enamel pitch
err The Austrians in leaving destroyed
all of the plumbing of Belgrade-de-
stroyed 1t Systematically. They
'wrenched. the pipes and threw cement
and bricks into the drains.
And as the plumbing is so Is all of
the existence-a little out of plumb,
slightly askew. All over the city
there is a general air of dilapidatlon
as though the people were still dazed
and tired from the repeated wars.
What might be called Main street
sweeps up through the center of the
town with a grand gesture. 1t passes
by the ministry of war, an ostentatious
orange colored building, and the
guarded palace where the last of the
Obrenovitch, the king and queen, were
stabbed to death by their officers. 1t
Is q wide street flanked with cream
colored buildings. On one side 1t
passes two preteItious hotels vaguely
oriental In architecture and In color.
They never have been finished. War
came and put an end to building In
Belgrade. The street Is well paved
and unused car tracks run down It.
II Belgrade did not achieve a Paris
ian air, as II evidently wished TO
achieve, at least Ii must have given
the illusion before the war, of
French provincial town of magnitude.
But now the Illusion Is vanished. In
these buildings, and In this street es-
pecially, the people Of the Serbian
capital merely betrayed themselves.
They confessed that they wished to
be Of the western world. Here was
no expression of the national life. They
Euhutu III lhc ilhu6C VI iohNC oS
much as they knew, but In transit
Germany spoiled the purity Of the
French outline.
Door TO the East.
However, everywhere are the old
buildings of a former generation, lit
tie one-story or story-and-a-half stuc-
coed houses with high pitched red
tile roofs. There are rows Of them,
humble and appealing. One comes
upon them even in Main street. At
present all of the sights Of the streets
contradict the idea that the West was
always here. Here is the door to the
East. Russia has breathed here, and
the Orient. II is written In the peo-
pies faces. They betray themselves
by the music they sing, the colors they
wear.
II has been years since the street
cars have been running in Belgrade.
The only means of getting around,
and fha diofancas ara great Ia on foot