Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-01-06
In the World of Books
r SARAH
BY SARAH BOWERMAN

Slavic name Dubrovnik or Forest
City" The Adriatic littoral is the
haunt Of contending winds, Of which
the two dominant are known in Dali
malta as the Bora and the Jugo, "the
first, a wind out of the north, sud-
den and terrible as Serbs in battle, a
war horse of a wind the other,
suave of caprice and brightly perilous,
so that many a good ship, lingering
along the shore where Ulysses also
fingered, goes to its sudden doom with
the breath of flowers in It's sails"
From these two winds are named the
two sections into which the six tales
are divided.
The American Miss Endicott, the
younger. a disguise. perhaps, under
which the author herself hides, ap-
pears in several Of the stories. "Slava"
tells of the celebration of the Slava
or saints day, by the Kranik family,
comfortable Maika, her husband Ante,
an old one-legged soldier, their re-
manning unmarried daughter Toush-
ka, their son Nikola from America
and his American friend, Miss Endi-
colt, at their terraced home, with the
little food shop, on top of the cliff
overlooking the Adriatic, and how
Maika promotes the marriage of her
son. THE House Orasac" is the
story of the recluse Gospodja Ivana
Stanic and "her orphan" Annushka
in the House Orasac and how the
young American couple Alan and
Astaire make the acquaintance Of the
great lady and are present, behind
the listening screen, when the King
of Serbia visits her. "Michaelmas
Moon" completes the romance of
Sonya Endicott and Nikola Kranik,
one Of the conservative American
Endicotts and, as Aunt Sophia Endi-
colt from Boston calls him, "a for
eigner, from some unpronounceable
Balkan country one never heard Of
socially speaking - Yugoslavia or
Czechoslovakia or some such place
Not even a noble foreigner" The
remaining stories, Two Lovers Pass"
"Corfiot Idyll" and lie de Mort" are
shorter pieces. Mrs. Kelly has re-
Gently Travelled and remained for
some time in Yugoslavia.
JOAN OF ARC AND HER CON-
PANIONS. BY Jehanne d'Orliac.
Translated by Elisabeth Abbott.
Philadelphia: j. B. Lippincott Co.
THE miraculous power Of Joan of
Arc. not oversusceptible mystics
but overhardened soldiers, has always
been the subject Of puzzled discussion
and tentative theory. Some call her
saint; some call her epileptic. Shake
speare scorned her as a camp follower
in Henry VI, part II: Voltaire treated
her even more vituperatively in his
burlesque poem, La Pucelle." The
French biographer. Jehanne d'Orliac,
author of Francis l." The Lady of
Beauty: Agnes Sorel" and THE Moon
Mistress: Diane de Poitiers," writes
with as much enthusiasm as any re-
ligious worshiper of Joan the Maid;
but she considers her not a stained
glass figure" only a human being
moved by unusual patriotism and I'M
usual faith. She attempts to interpret
Joan through the opinions of her COM
panions. The biography follows, how
ever, a more or less conventional
chronological course and other au-
thoritieS than Joan's contemporaries
have doubtless been drawn upon,
though no photography is given.
The life of Joan Of Arc falls into
three periods. corresponding with the
presence Of three different groups Of
captains as her associates. In the first
period, that of the departure for Nancy
and the coronation at Rheims, she was
surrounded by adherents of the House
of Anjou. From the coronation to the
battle OF Lagny, she was deserted by
the Angevins and left to the evil Offices
of their rivals, the followers of the
favorite, La Tremoille, who worked for
her ruin. In the last period, deserted
by her former protectors, she was
given over to adventures, and her
fate rapidly came upon her. Some of
the companions Of these three periods
she trusted, often mistakenly, others
she distrusted but could not escape
OF them all she was the victim. They
served political parties, of whose
Vaccinations she was ignorant; she
served only God and the King. AS
Jehanne d'Orlisc tells the story of the
brief rise of Joan to a glory she did
not seek and her swift fall to tragedy,
and analyses the conflicting political
currents, national and international,
we feel the inevitability Of the result.
A deeply religious and sincere, ignor-
ant peasant girl was no match for
the astute politicians, secular and
clerical, Of the French court and army.
Bernard Shaw has emphasized this
inevitability and the irony that the
victim of one period becomes the saint
of another, in the best Of his plays,
"St. JOAN"
STORMY ROAD. BY Thomas Rowan.
New York: Ives Washburn.
A GRUESOME scene begins this
story Of family strife in a Ten
nessee Valley cabin. A terrified 7
year-old boy sees his father sprawl
ing dead on the hearth, while his
older brother, the murderer, crouches
in corner beyond the firewood. his
mother is backed against the wall,
holding q butcher knife beneath her
SlAsHdlu dpIoH, dAu Ills SLtci Co"oIo
behind the bed with its crazy quilt
and puffy pillows. Stormy Road"
tells of the long chain of events and,
even more, of the conflicting character
qualities which have brought about
this tragic end. It is, in its raw
material and harshly realistic method,
a story such as T. S. Stribling might
have written.
"
KERKHOVEN'S THIRD EXIST
ENCE. BY Jacob Wassermann.