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McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, September 1908, No. 5

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Title: McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, September 1908, No. 5

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, VOL. XXXI, SEPTEMBER 1908, NO. 5 ***

Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.


       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration: NICHOLAS II., THE TSAR OF RUSSIA AND THE TSAREVITCH]
McCLURE'S MAGAZINE




VOL. XXXI SEPTEMBER, 1908 No. 5




THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL MEMOIRS OF GENERAL KUROPATKIN

MINISTER OF WAR AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE RUSSIAN ARMIES

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE KENNAN

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS




[TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.] The suppressed memoirs of General Kuropatkin are
in four bulky volumes and contain, in the aggregate, about 600,000
words. The first three volumes are devoted, mainly, to a detailed
review of the three great battles of the Russo-Japanese war--Liao-yang,
the Sha-ho, and Mukden--from the standpoint of modern military science.
The fourth volume, which is entitled "Summing up of the War," covers a
very wide field, dealing partly with Russia's national problems, her
military history, and her policy in Asia, and partly with the causes of
the late war, the rise of Japan as a military power, and the reasons
for the overwhelming defeat of Russia's armies in the Far East.

_Copyright, 1908, by The S. S. McClure Co. All rights reserved_


[Illustration: STATE COUNCILLOR ALEXANDER MIKHAILOVICH BEZOBRAZOFF
WHO ACQUIRED HIS EXTRAORDINARY POWER IN THE FAR EAST BY MEANS OF HIS
KOREAN TIMBER COMPANY, AN ENTERPRISE IN WHICH HE INTERESTED THE TSAR
OF RUSSIA TO THE EXTENT OF 2,000,000 RUBLES. RATHER THAN SACRIFICE THE
FAMILY INVESTMENT IN THIS ENTERPRISE, THE TSAR ALLOWED RUSSIA TO BE
DRAGGED INTO A WAR WITH JAPAN]

I have chosen, as the subject for this article, General Kuropatkin's
narrative of the events which preceded the rupture with Japan, in
February, 1904, and which may be regarded, historically, as the causes
of the war that ensued. It contains many new facts, and throws a flood
of light upon Russian governmental methods, upon Russia's Asiatic
policy, and upon the character of the monarch who now sits on the
Russian throne.

Kuropatkin begins this part of his work with a review of Russia's
policy and territorial acquisitions in the Far East, which may be
briefly summarized as follows: The question of obtaining an outlet on
the Pacific Ocean was theoretically considered in Russia long ago;
and the conclusion reached was that, in view of the sparseness of
Russia's population east of Lake Baikal, and the insignificance of her
commerce, foreign and domestic, in that part of the world, the task of
getting access to the Pacific, which might involve a serious struggle,
ought not to be imposed upon the existing generation. An outlet was
not needed at that time, and it is not needed yet. The Russian War
Department, moreover, has always regarded with apprehension, and as far
as possible combatted, the opinion that "Russia is the most western of
Asiatic states, not the most eastern of European," and that all her
future lies beyond the Urals.

[Illustration: ADMIRAL ALEXEIEFF

WHO SECRETLY SUPPORTED BEZOBRAZOFF IN HIS EFFORTS TO DELAY THE
EVACUATION OF SOUTHERN MANCHURIA AND TO BRING THE RUSSIAN ARMS INTO
KOREA FOR THE EXPLOITATION OF HIS TIMBER ENTERPRISE. IN RETURN FOR
ALEXEIEFF'S SERVICES, BEZOBRAZOFF USED HIS INFLUENCE WITH THE TSAR TO
GET ALEXEIEFF APPOINTED VICEROY]

Prior to the Japanese-Chinese war, nobody questioned that the
trans-Siberian railway should follow a route inside of Russian
territory; but the weakness shown by China in 1894-5 suggested a new
project, namely, to carry the road through Manchuria and thus shorten
it by five hundred versts. General Dukhovski, governor-general of
the Pri-Amur and commander of the forces in that territory, opposed
this project, and pointed out that a line crossing the boundaries of
China would not connect the Pri-Amur with European Russia securely,
and would benefit the Chinese rather than the Russian population. His
opinion was not approved, and this railroad, which had for Russia
such immense importance, was carried through a foreign country. This
change of route, which proved to be so unfortunate, was the first
striking proof of the fact that Russia, in the Far East, had begun
a policy of energetic action. The occupation of Port Arthur, the
foundation of Dalny, the construction of the southern branch of the
railway, the formation of a commercial fleet on the Pacific, and the
timber enterprise of State Councillor Bezobrazoff on the Yalu River in
northern Korea, were all links of one and the same chain, which was to
unite permanently the destinies of Russia and the destinies of the Far
East--and thus bring gain to Russia.

"There is a prevalent opinion," says Kuropatkin, "that if we had
confined ourselves to the construction of the main trans-Siberian road,
even though we built a part of it through northern Manchuria, there
would have been no war; that the war was caused by our occupation of
Port Arthur and Mukden, and, more particularly, by the Bezobrazoff
timber enterprise in Korea. There is also an opinion, held by others,
that the building of the main line through northern Manchuria should be
regarded not merely as the first of our active enterprises in the Far
East, but as the basis and foundation of them all, because if we had
carried the road along the Amur, through our own territory, we should
never have thought of occupying the southern part of Manchuria and the
province of Kwang-tung."

After reviewing the Boxer uprising, the occupation of Manchuria by
Russian troops for the protection of the railway, and the treaty
agreement with China to evacuate southern Manchuria by April 8,
1903, and northern Manchuria within six months thereafter, General
Kuropatkin, who was at that time Minister of War, begins his narrative
of later events as follows:




THE SECRET CAUSES OF THE WAR WITH JAPAN

BY

GENERAL KUROPATKIN


Prior to the conclusion of the treaty with China, in April, 1902,
there was a difference of opinion between the commander of Kwang-tung
(Admiral Alexeieff) and myself, as to the expediency of evacuating
Manchuria, and the importance to us of the southern part of that
country. I believed that occupation of southern Manchuria would bring
us no profit, but, on the contrary, would involve us in trouble with
Japan on one side, through our nearness to Korea, and with China on
the other, through our possession of Mukden. I therefore regarded
the speedy evacuation of southern Manchuria and Mukden as a matter
of extreme necessity. Admiral Alexeieff, on the other hand, as the
commander of Kwang-tung, had reason to contend that occupation of
southern Manchuria was important because it insured the safety of
railroad communication between Kwang-tung and Russia.

This difference of opinion, however, ended with the ratification of the
Russo-Chinese treaty of March 26, 1902 (April 8, N. S.). By the terms
of that convention, our troops--with the exception of those guarding
the railway--were to be removed, within specified periods, from all
parts of Manchuria, southern as well as northern. This settlement of
the question, was a great relief to the War Department, because it held
out the hope of a "return to the West" in our military affairs. In the
first period of six months, we were to evacuate the western part of
southern Manchuria, from Shan-hai-kuan to the river Liao; and this we
punctually did. In the second period of six months, we were to remove
our troops from the rest of the province of Mukden, including the
cities of Mukden and Yinkow (New Chwang).

[Illustration: SERGIUS DE WITTE

FORMER RUSSIAN MINISTER OF FINANCE, WHO BUILT UP EXTENSIVE RUSSIAN
INTERESTS IN MANCHURIA, AND CREATED THE PORT OF DALNY, AN ACT WHICH
KUROPATKIN CLAIMS TO HAVE WEAKENED THE STRENGTH OF PORT ARTHUR]

The War Department regarded the agreement to evacuate the province of
Mukden with approval, and made energetic preparations to carry it into
effect. Barracks for the soldiers to be withdrawn were hastily erected
between Blagovestchensk and Vladivostok, in the Pri-Amur country; plans
of transportation were drawn up and approved; the movement of troops
had begun; and Mukden had actually been evacuated; when, suddenly,
everything was stopped by order of Admiral Alexeieff, the commander
of Kwang-tung, whose reasons for taking such action have not, to this
day, been sufficiently cleared up.[1] It is definitely known, however,
that the change in policy which stopped the withdrawal of troops from
southern Manchuria corresponded in time with the first visit to the
Far East of State Councillor Bezobrazoff, retired. Mukden, which we
had already evacuated, was reoccupied, as was also the city of Yinkow
(New Chwang). The Yalu timber enterprise assumed more importance than
ever, and in order to give support to it, and to our other undertakings
in northern Korea, Admiral Alexeieff, commander of Kwang-tung, sent a
force of cavalry with field guns to Feng-wang-cheng.[2] Thus, instead
of completing the evacuation of southern Manchuria, we moved into parts
of it that we had never before occupied. At the same time, we allowed
operations in connection with the Korean timber enterprise to go on,
despite the fact that the promoters of this enterprise, contrary to
instructions from St. Petersburg, were striving to give it a political
and military character.

There is good reason to affirm that the unexpected change of policy
that put a stop to the evacuation of the province of Mukden was an
event of immense importance. So long as we held to our intention of
withdrawing all our troops from Manchuria (except the railway guard and
a small force at Kharbin), and so long as we refrained from invading
Korea with our enterprises, there was little danger of a break with
Japan; but we were brought alarmingly nearer to a rupture with that
Power when, contrary to our agreement with China, we left our troops
in southern Manchuria, and when, in the promotion of our timber
enterprise, we entered northern Korea. The uncertainty, moreover, with
regard to our intentions, alarmed not only China and Japan, but even
England, America, and other Powers.

[Illustration: COUNT LAMSDORFF

FORMER RUSSIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, WHO COÖPERATED WITH WITTE
AND KUROPATKIN IN TRYING TO PREVENT WAR WITH JAPAN]


_Witte Creates the Port of Dalny_

In the early part of 1903, our situation in the Far East became
very much involved. The interests of the Pri-Amur were thrown
completely into the background, and General Dukhovski, the military
commander and governor-general of that territory, was wholly
ignored in the consideration and decision of the most important
questions of Far Eastern policy. Meanwhile, in Manchuria--on
Chinese territory--enterprises involving many millions of rubles
were undertaken and carried on by virtue of authority that was
wholly special. The Minister of Finance (M. Witte) was building
and managing there a railroad about two thousand versts in length;
he had the direction of a whole army corps of railway guards; he
was trying to increase the economic importance of the railway by
running in connection with it a fleet of sea-going steamers; he had
on the Manchurian rivers a flotilla of smaller vessels, some of
which carried guns and gunners; and in military matters he was so
independent of the War Department that, without consulting the latter,
he even selected and purchased abroad the artillery for the railway
guard. Vladivostok, as a terminus, no longer seemed to satisfy the
requirements of an international transit line, so, regardless of the
fact that the province of Kwang-tung was subject to the authority of
the provincial commander, M. Witte, without consulting either the
latter or the Minister of War, located and created therein the spacious
port of Dalny. The enormous sums of money spent there only lessened
the importance and weakened the strength of Port Arthur, because it
was necessary either to fortify Dalny, or prepare to have it seized
by an enemy and used as a base of operations against us--a thing that
afterward happened. Finally, the Minister of Finance managed the
affairs of the Russo-Chinese Bank, and had at Peking, Seoul, and other
points, his own agents (in Peking, Pokotiloff).


_Incredible Schemes of Promoter Bezobrazoff_

It thus appears that in 1903 M. Witte controlled or directed in the Far
East not only railroads, but corps of troops, a fleet of commercial
steamers, armed river boats, the port of Dalny, and the Russo-Chinese
Bank. At the same time, Bezobrazoff and his company were developing
their enterprises in Manchuria and Korea, and promoting, by every
possible means, their timber speculation on the Yalu. One incredible
scheme of Bezobrazoff followed another; and in the summer of 1903 there
was submitted to me for examination a project of his which provided
for the immediate concentration in southern Manchuria of an army of
70,000 men. His aim was to utilize the timber company as a means of
creating a sort of "screen," or barrier against a possible attack
upon us by the Japanese, and in 1902-1903 his activity, and that of
his adherents, assumed a very alarming form. Among the requests that
he made of Admiral Alexeieff were, to send into Korean territory six
hundred soldiers in civilian dress; to organize for service in the
same locality a force of three thousand Khunkhuzes[3]; to give the
agents of the timber company the support of four companies of chasseurs
(six hundred mounted riflemen) to be stationed at Shakhedze, on the
Yalu; and to occupy Feng-wang-cheng with a body of troops capable of
acting independently. Admiral Alexeieff denied some of these requests,
but, unfortunately, he consented to station one company of chasseurs
(one hundred and fifty mounted riflemen) at Shakhedze, and to send a
regiment of Cossack cavalry, with field guns, to Feng-wang-cheng. These
measures were particularly serious and injurious to us, for the reason
that they were taken at the very time when we were under obligations to
evacuate the province of Mukden altogether.

The Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and War (Witte, Lamsdorff
and Kuropatkin) all recognized the danger that would threaten us if we
continued to defer fulfilment of our promise to evacuate Manchuria,
and, more especially, if we failed to put an end to Bezobrazoff's
activity in Korea. These three Ministers, therefore, procured the
appointment of a special council, which assembled in St. Petersburg on
the 5th of April, 1903 (April 18, N. S.), and took into consideration
certain propositions which Bezobrazoff had made to its members
separately in writing. These propositions had for their object the
strengthening of Russia's strategic position in the basin of the Yalu.
All three of the Ministers above designated expressed themselves
firmly and definitely in opposition to Bezobrazoff's proposals, and
all agreed that if his enterprise on the Yalu were to be sustained,
it must be upon a strictly commercial basis. The Minister of Finance
showed conclusively that, for the next five or ten years, Russia's
task in the Far East must be to tranquilize the country and bring to
completion the work already undertaken there. He said, furthermore,
that although the views of the different departments of the Government
were not always precisely the same, there had never been--so far as
the Ministers of War, Foreign Affairs, and Finance were concerned--any
conflict of action. The Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out,
particularly, the danger involved in Bezobrazoff's proposal to stop the
withdrawal of troops from Manchuria.

[Illustration: _Copyright, 1905, by Underwood & Underwood_

TWO VIEWS OF PORT ARTHUR

LOOKING ACROSS THE OLD TOWN OF PORT ARTHUR AND ACROSS THE NAVAL BASIS,
FROM A HIGH HILL TO THE NORTH OF THE CITY]

[Illustration: _Copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood_

TAKEN AT THE TIME OF THE WAR

ON THE TERRACE JUST ABOVE THE WHARVES. THE HIGH PROMONTORY AT THE
LEFT IS PART OF THE GOLDEN HILL, WHERE THERE ARE IMMENSELY STRONG
FORTIFICATIONS, AND WHERE THE RUSSIANS MAINTAINED AN IMPORTANT SIGNAL
STATION UNTIL STOESSEL's SURRENDER]


_The Tsar Takes Action_

It pleased His Imperial Majesty to say, after he had listened to
these expressions of opinion, that war with Japan was extremely
undesirable, and that we must endeavor to restore in Manchuria a state
of tranquillity. The company formed for the purpose of exploiting the
timber on the river Yalu must be a strictly commercial organization,
must admit foreigners who desired to participate, and must exclude
all ranks of the army. I was then ordered to proceed to the Far East,
for the purpose of acquainting myself, on the ground, with our needs,
and ascertaining what the state of mind was in Japan. In the latter
country, where I met with the most cordial and kind-hearted reception,
I became convinced that the Government desired to avoid a rupture with
Russia, but that it would be necessary for us to act in a perfectly
definite way in Manchuria, and to refrain from interference in the
affairs of Korea. If we should go on with the adventure of Bezobrazoff
& Co., we should be threatened with conflict. These conclusions I
telegraphed to St. Petersburg. After my departure from that city,
however, the danger of a rupture with Japan, on account of Korea, had
increased considerably--especially when, on the 7th of May, 1903 (May
20, N. S.), the Minister of Finance announced that "after having had
an explanation from State Councillor Bezobrazoff, he (the Minister) was
not in disagreement with him, so far as the essence of the matter was
concerned."

In the council that was held at Port Arthur, when I arrived there,
Admiral Alexeieff, Lessar,[4] Pavloff,[5] and I cordially agreed that
the Yalu enterprise should have a purely commercial character, and
I said, furthermore, that, in my opinion, it ought to be abandoned
altogether. I brought about the recall of several army officers who
were taking part in it, and suggested to Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff,
who was managing the military and political side of it, that he either
resign his commission or give up employment which, in my judgment, was
not suitable for an officer wearing the uniform of the General Staff.
He chose the former alternative.

In view of the repeated assurances given me by Admiral Alexeieff that
he was wholly opposed to Bezobrazoff's schemes; that he was holding
them back with all his strength; and that he was a convinced advocate
of a peaceful Russo-Japanese agreement, I left Port Arthur for St.
Petersburg, in July, 1903 (O. S.), fully believing that the avoidance
of a rupture with Japan was a matter entirely within our control. The
results of my visit to the Far East were embodied in a special report
to the Emperor, submitted July 24th, 1903 (August 6, N. S.), in which,
with absolute frankness, I expressed the opinion that if we did not
put an end to the uncertain state of affairs in Manchuria, and to the
adventurous activity of Bezobrazoff in Korea, we must expect a rupture
with Japan. Copies of this report were sent to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs and the Minister of Finance, and met with their approval.


_Kuropatkin's Protest Criticised_

By some means unknown to me, this report was given publicity; and on
the 11th of June, 1905 (June 24, N. S.), the newspaper _Razsvet_
printed an article, by one Roslavleff, entitled "Which is the Greater?"
the object of which was to prove that I must be included among the
persons responsible for the rupture with Japan, because, through fear
of Bezobrazoff, I signed the minutes of the Port Arthur council which
put the Yalu enterprise under the protection of Russian troops and thus
stopped the evacuation of Manchuria.[6] This article has been reprinted
by many Russian and foreign journals, and there has never been any
refutation of the misstatements that it contains with regard to my
alleged action in signing certain fantastic minutes. M. Roslavleff
quotes from my report to the Emperor the following sentences and
paragraphs:

"Our actions in the basin of the Yalu and our behavior in Manchuria
have excited in Japan a feeling of hostility to us, which, upon our
taking any incautious step, may lead to war.... State Secretary
Bezobrazoff's plan of operations, if carried out, will inevitably lead
to a violation of the agreement that we made with China on the 26th
of March, 1902 (April 8, N. S.), and will also cause, inevitably,
complications with Japan.... The activity of State Secretary
Bezobrazoff, toward the end of last year and at the beginning of
this, has practically brought about already a violation of the treaty
with China and a breach with Japan.... At the request of Bezobrazoff,
Admiral Alexeieff sent a force of chasseurs to Shakhedze (on the Yalu)
and kept a body of troops in Feng-wang-cheng. These measures put a
stop to the evacuation of the province of Mukden.... Among other
participants in the Yalu enterprise who have given trouble to Admiral
Alexeieff is Actual State Councillor Balasheff, who has a disposition
quite as warlike as that of Bezobrazoff. If Admiral Alexeieff had not
succeeded in intercepting a dispatch from Balasheff to Captain Bodisco,
with regard to 'catching all the Japanese,' 'punishing them publicly,'
and 'taking action with volleys,' there would have been a bloody
episode on the Yalu before this time.[7] Unfortunately, it is liable
to happen any day, even now.... During my stay in Japan, I had an
opportunity to see with what nervous apprehension the people regarded
our activity on the Yalu, how they exaggerated our intentions, and how
they were preparing to defend, with arms, their Korean interests. Our
active operations there have convinced them that Russia is now about
to proceed to the second part of her Far Eastern program--that, having
swallowed Manchuria, she is getting ready to gulp down Korea. The
excitement in Japan is such that if Admiral Alexeieff had not shown
wise caution--if he had allowed all the proposals of Bezobrazoff to
go through--we should probably be at war with Japan now. There is no
reason whatever to suppose that a few officers and soldiers, cutting
timber on the Yalu, will be of any use in a war with Japan. Their value
is trifling in comparison with the danger that the timber enterprise
creates by keeping up the excitement among the Japanese people....
Suffice it to say that, in the opinion of Admiral Alexeieff, and of our
ministers in Peking, Seoul, and Tokio, the timber enterprise may be the
cause of war; and in this opinion I fully concur."

After quoting the above sentences and paragraphs from my report, M.
Roslavleff says: "Thus warmly, eloquently, and shrewdly did Kuropatkin
condemn the Yalu adventure, and thus clearly did he see, on the
political horizon, the ruinous consequences that it would have for
Russia. But why did not this bold and clear-sighted accuser protest
against the decision of the Port Arthur council? Why, after making a
few caustic remarks about Bezobrazoff, did he sign the minutes of the
council which put the Yalu adventure under the protection of Russian
troops, and thus stopped the evacuation of Manchuria? Why? Simply
because, at that time, everybody was afraid of Bezobrazoff."

Such accusations, which have had wide publicity, require an explanation.

The council held at Port Arthur, in June, 1903, was called for the
purpose of finding, if possible, some means of settling the Manchurian
question without lowering the dignity of Russia. There were present at
this council, in addition to Admiral Alexeieff and myself, Actual State
Councillor Lessar, Russian minister in China; Chamberlain Pavloff,
Russian minister in Seoul; Major General Vogak; State Councillor
Bezobrazoff; and M. Plançon, an officer of the diplomatic service. We
were all acquainted with the will of the Emperor that our enterprises
in the Far East should not lead to war, and we had to devise means of
carrying the Imperial will into effect. With regard to such means there
were differences of opinion; but upon fundamental questions there was
complete agreement. Among such fundamental questions were:

1. The Manchurian question.

On the 20th of June (July 3, N. S.) the council expressed its judgment
with regard to this question as follows: "In view of the extraordinary
difficulties and enormous administrative expenses that the annexation
of Manchuria would involve, all the members of the council agree that
it is, in principle, undesirable; and this conclusion applies not only
to Manchuria as a whole, but also to its northern part."

2. The Korean question.

On the 19th of June (July 2, N. S.) the council decided that the
occupation of the whole of Korea, or even of the northern part, would
be unprofitable to Russia, and therefore undesirable. Our activity
in the basin of the Yalu, moreover, might give Japan reason to fear
a seizure by us of the northern part of the peninsula. On the 24th
of June (July 7, N. S.) the council invited Actual State Councillor
Balasheff and Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff, of the General Staff, to
appear before it, and explain the status of the Yalu enterprise. From
their testimony it appeared that the business was legally organized,
the company holding permits from the Chinese authorities to cut timber
on the northern side of the Yalu, and a concession from the Korean
Government covering the southern side. Although the enterprise lost,
to some extent, its provocative character, after the conclusions of
the St. Petersburg council of April 5, 1903 (April 18, N. S.) became
known in the province of Kwang-tung, its operations could not yet be
regarded as purely commercial. Its affairs were managed by Lieutenant
Colonel Madritoff, of the General Staff, although that officer was not
officially in service.

After consideration of all the facts presented, the members of the
council came to the conclusion that "although the Russian Timber
Company really appears to be a commercial organization, its employment
of officers of the active military service to do work that has military
importance undoubtedly gives to it a politico-military aspect." The
council, therefore, acknowledged the necessity of "taking measures,
at once, to give the enterprise an exclusively commercial character,
to exclude from it officers of the regular army, and to commit the
management of the timber business to persons not employed in the
service of the Empire." On the 24th of June (July 7, N. S.) these
conclusions were signed by all the members of the council, including
State Councillor Bezobrazoff.

It is evident, from the facts above set forth, that the statement in
which M. Roslavleff charges the members of the council with signing
minutes of proceedings that gave the Bezobrazoff adventure a place
among useful imperial enterprises is fiction. Upon what it was based
we do not know. The duty of immediately carrying into effect the
conclusions of the council rested upon Admiral Alexeieff, by virtue
of the authority given to him. The thing that he had to do, first of
all, and that he was fully empowered to do, was to recall our force
from Feng-wang-cheng and the company of chasseurs from the Yalu. Why
this was not done I do not know. Personally, I did not allow Lieutenant
Colonel Madritoff to continue his connection with the timber company
as an officer of the General Staff, and I may add that he and other
officers who associated themselves with the enterprise did so without
consulting me.

But no matter how effective might be the measures taken by Admiral
Alexeieff to give the Yalu enterprise a purely commercial character,
I still feared that this undertaking, which had obtained world-wide
notoriety, would continue to have important political significance.
In my report of July 24, 1903 (August 6, N. S.), which was presented
to the Emperor upon my return from Japan, I therefore expressed the
opinion that an end should be put to the operations of the timber
company, and that the whole enterprise should be sold to foreigners.


_"Must We Break the Russian Empire?"_

The thought that our interests in Korea, which were of trifling
importance, might bring us into conflict with Japan, caused me
incessant anxiety during my stay in the latter country. On the 13th of
June, 1903 (June 26, N. S.), when I was passing through the Inland
Sea, on my way to Nagasaki, I wrote in my diary:

"If I were asked to express an opinion, from a military point of view,
with regard to the comparative importance of Russian interests in
different parts of the Empire, and upon different frontiers, I should
put my judgment into the form of a pyramidal diagram, placing the least
important of our interests at the top and the most important at the
bottom, as follows

[Illustration:

Our interests in Korea

Our interests in Manchuria

Military district of the Pri-Amur. Safe-guarding of this territory for
Russia. Defence against China and Japan

Securing the safety of Russia against Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan,
Great Britain, and China. Military districts of the Caucasus,
Turkestan, and Siberia

Maintenance of domestic peace and order, by the forces of all military
districts

Maintenance of the territorial integrity of Russia against the Powers
of the Triple Alliance. The foundation of Russia's safety is her
western boundary]

"This diagram shows clearly where the principal energies of the
Ministry of War should hereafter be concentrated, and what direction,
in future, should be given to Russia's main powers and resources. The
interests that lie at the foundation of our position as a nation are:
(1) the defence of the territorial integrity of the Empire against the
Powers of the Triple Alliance; and (2) employment of the forces of
all our military districts for the preservation of internal peace and
order. These are our principal tasks, and in comparison with them all
the others have secondary importance. The diagram shows, furthermore,
that our interests in the Pri-Amur region must be regarded as more
important than our interests in Manchuria, and that the latter must
take precedence of our interests in Korea. I am afraid, however, that,
for a time at least, our national activity will be based on affairs
in the Far East, and, if so, the pyramid will have to be turned
bottom side up and made to stand on its narrow Korean top. But such a
structure on such a foundation will fall. Columbus solved the problem
of making an egg stand on its end by breaking the egg. Must we, in
order to make our pyramid stand on its narrow Korean end, break the
Russian Empire?"

Upon my return from Japan, I showed the above diagram to M. Witte, who
agreed that it was correct.


_Kuropatkin Asks to be Relieved_

The establishment of the Viceroyalty in the Far East was for me a
complete surprise. On the 2nd of August, 1903 (August 15, N. S.) I
asked the Emperor to relieve me from duty as Minister of War, and after
the great manoeuvers I was granted an indefinite leave of absence,
of which I availed myself with the expectation that my place would be
filled by the appointment of some other person.

In September, 1903 (O. S.) the state of affairs in the Far East began
to be alarming, and Admiral Alexeieff was definitely ordered to take
all necessary measures to avoid war. The Emperor expressed his will
to this effect with firmness, and did not limit or restrict in any
way the concessions that should be made in order to avert a rupture
with Japan. All that had to be done was to find a method of making
such concessions that should be as little injurious as possible to
Russian interests. During my stay in Japan, I became satisfied that
the Japanese Government was disposed to consider Japanese and Korean
affairs calmly, with a view to arriving at an agreement upon the basis
of mutual concessions.

In view of the alarming situation in the Far East, I cut short my leave
of absence, and, in reporting to the Emperor for duty, I gave this
threatening state of affairs as my reason for returning. The Emperor,
on the 10th of October, 1903 (October 23, N. S.), made the following
marginal note upon my letter: "The alarm in the Far East is apparently
beginning to subside." In October I recommended that the garrison of
Vladivostok be strengthened, but permission to reinforce it was not
given. Meanwhile, there was really no reëstablishment of tranquillity
in the Far East, and our relations with Japan and China were becoming
more and more involved.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING FIELD OF THE OPERATIONS THAT LED TO THE WAR
BETWEEN RUSSIA AND JAPAN]

On the 15th of October, 1903 (October 28, N. S.) I presented to
the Emperor a special report on the Manchurian question, in which I
showed that, in order to avoid complications with China and a rupture
with Japan, we must put an end to our military occupation of southern
Manchuria, and confine our activity and our administrative supervision
to the northern part of that territory. My report was, in part, as
follows:


_The Great Advisability of Evacuation_

"If we do not touch the boundary of Korea, and do not place garrisons
between that boundary and the railway, we shall really convince the
Japanese that we have no intention of first taking Manchuria and then
seizing Korea. In all probability, they will then confine themselves to
the peaceful promotion of their interests in the peninsula, and will
neither take possession of it with troops, nor greatly increase the
strength of their army at home. This will relieve us of the necessity
of strengthening our forces in the Far East, and of supporting the
heavy burden of an armed peace--even should there be no war. If, on
the other hand, we annex southern Manchuria, all the questions that
now trouble two nations and threaten to bring about an armed conflict
will assume a still more critical aspect. Our temporary occupation of
certain points between the railway and Korea will become permanent; our
attention will be more and more attracted to the Korean frontier; and
our attitude will confirm the suspicion of the Japanese that Russia
intends to seize the peninsula.

"That our occupation of southern Manchuria will lead to Japanese
occupation of southern Korea there can be no doubt. Beyond that, all
is dark. One thing, however, is certain, and that is that if Japan
takes this step, she will be compelled to increase rapidly her military
strength, and we, in turn, shall respond by enlarging our Far Eastern
force. Thus two nations whose interests are so different that they
would seem destined to live in peace will begin a contest in which each
will try to surpass the other in military resources and power. And we
Russians shall do this at the expense of our fighting readiness in the
West; at the sacrifice of the interest of our native population; and
for the sake of portions of Korea which, so far as Russia is concerned,
have no serious importance. If, moreover, other Powers take part in
this rivalry, the struggle for military supremacy is liable to change,
at any moment, into a deadly conflict, which may not only retard, for a
long time, the peaceful development of our Far Eastern possessions, but
check the growth and progress of the whole Empire.


_Japan a Dangerous and Warlike Enemy_

"Even if we should defeat Japan on the mainland (in Korea and
Manchuria) we could not destroy her, nor obtain decisive results,
without carrying the war into her territory. That, of course,
would not be impossible, but to invade a country where there is
a warlike population of forty-seven millions, and where even the
women participate in wars of national defence, would be a serious
undertaking, even for a Power as mighty as Russia. And if we do not
destroy Japan utterly--if we do not deprive her of the right and the
power to maintain a navy--she will wait until we are engaged in war in
the West, and will then avail herself of the opportunity to attack us,
either alone, or in coöperation with our Western enemies.

"It must not be forgotten that Japan can not only put quickly into
the field, in Korea or Manchuria, a well organized and well trained
army of from 150,000 to 180,000 men, but can do this without drawing
at all heavily upon her population. If we take the German ratio of
regular troops to population, namely, one per cent, we shall see that
Japan, with her forty-seven millions of people, can maintain a force of
400,000 soldiers in time of peace, and 1,000,000 in time of war. And we
must bear in mind the fact that, even if we reduce this estimate by two
thirds, Japan, in a comparatively short time, will be able to oppose us
in Korea, and march into Manchuria, with a regular army of from 300,000
to 350,000 men. If we make it our aim to annex Manchuria, we shall be
compelled to increase our military strength to such an extent that,
with our Far Eastern force alone, we can withstand the Japanese attack
in the annexed territory."

From the above lines it will be seen how seriously the War Department
regarded such an antagonist as Japan, and how much anxiety it felt
concerning possible complications with that Power on account of Korea.
At the time when this report was presented, and later, in November,
the negotiations that Admiral Alexeieff was carrying on with Japan not
only made no progress, but became more critical, the Admiral still
believing that to show a yielding disposition would only make matters
worse.


_Insignificance of Russia's Eastern Interests_

Bearing in mind the clearly expressed will of the Emperor that all
necessary measures should be taken to avoid war, and not expecting
favorable results from Alexeieff's negotiations, I presented to His
Majesty, on the 26th of November, 1903 (December 9, N. S.) a second
report on the Manchurian question, in which I proposed that we return
Port Arthur and the province of Kwang-tung to China, securing, in lieu
thereof, certain special rights in the northern part of Manchuria. In
substance, this proposition was that we admit the untimeliness of our
attempt to get an outlet on the Pacific and abandon it altogether.
The sacrifice might seem a grievous one to make, but I showed the
necessity for it by presenting two important considerations. In the
first place, by surrendering Port Arthur (which had been taken away
from the Japanese) and by giving up southern Manchuria (with the Yalu
enterprise), we should escape the danger of a rupture with Japan and
China. In the second place, we should avoid the possibility of internal
disturbances in European Russia. A war with Japan would be extremely
unpopular, and would increase the feeling of dissatisfaction with the
ruling authorities. My report was, in part, as follows:

"The economic interests of Russia in the Far East are extremely
insignificant. We have as yet, thank God, no over-production in
manufactures, because even our domestic markets are not yet glutted.
There may be some export of articles from our factories and foundries,
but it is largely due to artificial encouragement and will cease--or
nearly cease--when such encouragement is withheld. Russia, therefore,
has not yet grown up to the melancholy necessity of waging war in order
to get markets for her products. As for our other interests in the Far
East, the success or failure of a few coal or timber enterprises in
Manchuria and Korea is not a matter of sufficient importance to make it
worth while for Russia to run the risk of war on their account.

"The railway lines that we have built through Manchuria do not change
the situation, and the hope that these lines will have world-wide
importance, as avenues of international commerce, is not likely,
in the near future, to be realized. Travelers, the mails, tea, and
possibly some other merchandise, will go over them, but the great
masses of heavy international freight which, alone, can give world-wide
importance to a railway, will go by sea, simply because they cannot
bear railway charges. Such is not the case, however, with local freight
to supply local needs. This the roads--and especially the southern
branch--will carry more and more, deriving from it most of their
revenue, and, at the same time, stimulating the growth of the country,
and, in southern Manchuria particularly, benefiting the Chinese
population. But if we do not take special measures to direct even local
freight to Dalny, that port is likely to suffer from the competition
of Yinkow (New Chwang). Port Arthur has no value for Russia as the
defence and terminus of a railway, unless that railway is part of an
international transit route. The southern branch of the Eastern Chinese
road has only--or chiefly--local importance, and, from an economic
point of view, Russia does not need to protect it by means so costly as
the fortifications of Port Arthur, a fleet of warships, and a garrison
of 30,000 soldiers.

"It thus appears that the retention of a position of an aggressive
character in Kwang-tung is no more supported by economic than it is by
political and military considerations. What, then, are the aims that
may involve us in war with Japan and China? Are such aims important
enough to justify the great sacrifices that war will demand? The
Russian people are powerful, and their faith in Divine Providence, as
well as their devotion to their Tsar and their country, is unshaken.
We may trust, therefore, that if Russia is destined to undergo the
trial of war at the beginning of the twentieth century, she will come
out of it with victory and glory. But she will have to make terrible
sacrifices--sacrifices that may long retard the natural growth of the
Empire.

"In the wars that we waged in the early years of the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the enemy invaded our territory,
and we fought for the existence of Russia--marched forth in defence
of our country and died for faith, Tsar, and Fatherland. If, in the
early years of the twentieth century, war breaks out as the result of
controverted questions arising in the Far East, the Russian people
and the Russian army will execute the will of their Monarch with as
much devotion and self-sacrifice as ever, and will give up their lives
and their property for the sake of attaining complete victory; but
they will have no intelligent comprehension of the objects for which
the war is waged. For that reason there will be no such exaltation of
spirit--no such outburst of patriotism--as that which accompanied the
wars that we fought either in self-defence or for objects dear to the
hearts of the people.

"We are now living through a critical period. Internal enemies,
aiming at the destruction of the dearest and most sacred foundations
of our life, are invading even the ranks of our army. Large groups
of the population have become dissatisfied, or mentally unsettled,
and disorders of various sorts--mostly created by a revolutionary
propaganda--are increasing in frequency. Cases in which troops have to
be called out to deal with such disorders are much more common than
they were even a short time ago. We must hope, however, that this evil
has not yet taken deep root in Russian soil, and that by strict and
wise measures it may be eradicated.

"If Russia were attacked from without, the people, with patriotic
fervor, would undoubtedly repudiate the false teaching of the
revolutionary propaganda, and show themselves as ready to answer the
call of their revered Monarch, and to defend their Tsar and country,
as they were in the early years of the eighteenth and particularly
in the nineteenth century. If, however, they are asked to make great
sacrifices in order to carry on a war whose objects are not clearly
understood by them, the leaders of the anti-Government party will take
advantage of the opportunity to spread sedition. Thus there will be
introduced a new factor which, if we decide on war in the Far East, we
must take into account.

"The sacrifices and dangers that we have experienced, or that we
anticipate, as results of the position we have taken in the Far East,
ought to be a warning to us when we dream of getting an outlet on
the unfreezing waters of the Indian Ocean at Chahbar. It is already
evident that the English are preparing to meet us there. The building
of a railroad across the whole of Persia, and the establishment of a
port at Chahbar, with fortifications, a fleet, etc., will simply be a
repetition of our experience with the Eastern Chinese Railway and Port
Arthur. In the place of Port Arthur, we shall have Chahbar, and instead
of war with Japan, we shall have a still more unnecessary and still
more terrible war with Great Britain.

"In view of the considerations above set forth, the questions arise:
Ought we not to avoid the present danger at Port Arthur, as well
as the future danger in Persia? Ought we not to return Kwang-tung,
Port Arthur, and Dalny to China, give up the southern branch of the
Eastern Chinese Railway, and get from China, in place of it, certain
rights in northern Manchuria and a sum of, say, 250,000,000 rubles
as reimbursement for expenses incurred by us in connection with the
railway and Port Arthur?"

Further on in my report I considered fully the advantages and
disadvantages of such a decision, and set forth the principal
advantages as follows: "(1) We shall escape the necessity of fighting
Japan on account of Korea, and China on account of Mukden. (2) We shall
be able to reëstablish friendly relations with both Japan and China.
(3) We shall give peace and tranquillity, not only to Russia, but to
the whole world."


_Russia's Fatal Unpreparedness_

Copies of this report were sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the
Minister of Finance, and Admiral Alexeieff. Unfortunately, my views
were not approved, and meanwhile the negotiations with Japan dragged
along and became more and more involved. The future historian, who will
have access to all the documents, may be able, from study of them, to
determine why the will of the Russian Monarch to avoid war with Japan
was not carried into effect by his principal co-workers. At present,
it is only possible to say, unconditionally, that although neither the
Emperor nor Russia desired war, we did not succeed in escaping it. The
reason for the failure of the negotiations is evidently to be found
in our ignorance of Japan's readiness for war, and her determination
to support her contentions with armed force. We ourselves were not
ready to fight, and resolved that it should not come to fighting. We
made demands, but we had no intention of using weapons to enforce
them--and, it may be added, they were not worth going to war about.
We always thought, moreover, that the question whether there should
be war or peace depended upon us, and we wholly overlooked Japan's
stubborn determination to enforce demands that had for her such vital
importance, and also her reliance upon our military unreadiness. Thus
the negotiations were carried on by the respective parties under
unequal conditions.

Then, too, our position was made worse by the form that Admiral
Alexeieff gave to the negotiations intrusted to him. References were
made that offended Japanese pride, and the whole correspondence became
strained and difficult as a result of the Admiral's unfamiliarity
with diplomatic procedure and his lack of competent staff assistance.
He proceeded, moreover, upon the mistaken assumption that, in such a
negotiation, it was necessary to display inflexibility and tenacity.
His idea was that one concession, if made, would inevitably lead to
another, and that a yielding policy would be more likely, in the end,
to bring about a rupture with Japan than a policy of firmness. On the
25th of January, 1904 (February 6, N. S.) diplomatic relations were
broken off by the Japanese, and a few days later war began.

My opinions with regard to the relative importance of the tasks set
before the War Department of Russia made me a convinced opponent of an
active Asiatic policy.

1. Recognizing our military unreadiness on our western frontier, and
taking into account also the urgent need of devoting our resources
to the work of internal reorganization and reform, I thought that a
rupture with Japan would be a national calamity, and I did everything
in my power to prevent it. Throughout my long service in Asia, I was an
advocate of an agreement with Great Britain there, and I was satisfied
that there might also be a peaceable delimitation of spheres of
influence in the Far East between Russia and Japan.

2. I regarded the building of the main line of the trans-Siberian
railway through Manchuria as a mistake. The decision to adopt that
route was made without my participation (I was then commander of the
trans-Caspian territory); but it was contrary to the judgment of the
War Department's representative in the Far East--General Dukhovski.

3. The occupation of Port Arthur took place before I became Minister
of War, and I had nothing to do with it. I regard it as not only a
mistake, but a fatal mistake. By thus acquiring, prematurely, an
extremely inconvenient outlet on the Pacific, we broke up our good
understanding with China and made an enemy of Japan.

4. I was always opposed to the timber enterprise on the Yalu, because
I foresaw that it might bring about a rupture with Japan. I therefore
took all possible measures to have it made an exclusively commercial
affair, or to have it suppressed altogether.

5. So far as the Manchurian question is concerned, I made a sharp
distinction between the comparative importance to us of northern
Manchuria and southern Manchuria. At first, I was in favor of removing
our troops as quickly as possible from both; but after the Boxer
uprising, in 1900, I recognized the necessity of keeping on the railway
at Kharbin three or four battalions of infantry, a battery, and a
hundred Cossacks, as a reserve for the boundary guard.

6. When our position in the Far East became difficult, and there seemed
to be danger of a rupture with Japan, I was in favor of decisive
measures, and proposed that we avert war by admitting the untimeliness
of our attempt to get an outlet on the Pacific; by restoring Port
Arthur and Kwang-tung to China; and by selling the southern branch of
the Chinese Eastern Railway.

When Adjutant General Daniloff returned from Japan, he told me
that, at the farewell dinner given him there, General Terauchi, the
Japanese Minister of War, said that General Kuropatkin and he had
done everything in their power to avert war. And yet, even now, I
sometimes ask myself doubtfully, "Did I do everything that was within
the bounds of possibility to prevent it?" The strong desire of the
Emperor to avoid war with Japan was well known to me, as it was to his
other co-workers, and yet we, who stood nearest to him, were unable to
execute his will.




THE ROYAL TIMBER COMPANY


[EDITOR'S NOTE.]--Among the first questions suggested by General
Kuropatkin's narrative and the editorials, reports, and official
proceedings that he quotes, are: Who was State Councillor Bezobrazoff?
How did he acquire the extraordinary power that he evidently exercised
in the Far East? Why was "everybody"--including the Minister of
War--"afraid of him"? Why did even the Viceroy respond to his calls
for troops, and why was his Korean timber company allowed to drag
Russia into a war with Japan, against the opposition and resistance,
apparently, of the Tsar, the Viceroy, the Minister of War, the Minister
of Finance, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Port Arthur council,
and the diplomatic representatives of Russia in Peking, Tokio, and
Seoul?

No replies to these questions can be found in General Kuropatkin's
record of the events that preceded the rupture with Japan, but
convincing answers are furnished by certain confidential documents
found in the archives of Port Arthur and published, just after the
close of the war, in the liberal Russian review _Osvobozhdenie_ at
Stuttgart.[8] Whether General Kuropatkin was aware of the existence
of these documents or not, I am unable to say; but as they throw a
strong side-light on his narrative, I shall append them thereto, and
tell briefly, in connection with them, the story of the Yalu timber
enterprise, as it is related in St. Petersburg.

In the year 1898, a Vladivostok merchant named Briner obtained from
the Korean Government, upon extremely favorable terms, a concession
for a timber company that should have authority to exploit the great
forest wealth of the upper Yalu River.[9] As Briner was a promoter and
speculator, who had little means and less influence, he was unable to
organize his company, and in 1902 he sold his concession to Alexander
Mikhailovich Bezobrazoff, another Russian promoter and speculator, who
had held the rank of State Councillor in the Tsar's civil service, and
who was high in the favor of some of the Grand Dukes in St. Petersburg.

Bezobrazoff, who seems to have been a most fluent and persuasive
talker, as well as a man of fine personal presence and bearing, soon
interested his Grand Ducal friends in the fabulous wealth of the Far
East generally, and in the extraordinary value of the Korean timber
concession especially. They all took stock in his enterprise, and
one of them, with a view to getting the strongest possible support
for it, presented him to the Tsar. Bezobrazoff made upon Nicholas
II. an extraordinarily favorable impression and, in the course of a
few months, acquired an influence over him that nothing afterward
seemed able to shake. That the Tsar became financially interested in
Bezobrazoff's timber company is certain; and it is currently reported
in St. Petersburg that the Emperor and the Empress Dowager, together,
put into the enterprise several million rubles. This report may, or may
not, be trustworthy; but the appended telegram (No. 5) sent by Rear
Admiral Abaza, of the Tsar's suite, to Bezobrazoff, in November, 1903,
indicates that the Emperor was interested in the Yalu enterprise to the
extent, at least, of the two million rubles mentioned. Bezobrazoff's
"Company," in fact, seems to have consisted of the Tsar, the Grand
Dukes, certain favored noblemen of the Court, Viceroy Alexeieff,
probably, and the Empress Dowager possibly. Bezobrazoff had made
them all see golden visions of wealth to be amassed, power to be
attained, and glory to be won, in the Far East, for themselves and the
Fatherland. It was this known influence of Bezobrazoff with the Tsar
that made "everybody" in the Far East "afraid of him"; that enabled him
to enlist in the service of the timber company even officers of the
Russian General Staff; that caused Alexeieff to respond to his call
for troops to garrison Feng-wang-cheng and Shakhedze; and that finally
changed Russia's policy in the Far East and stopped the withdrawal of
troops from southern Manchuria.

General Kuropatkin says that the Russian evacuation of the province of
Mukden "was suddenly stopped by an order of Admiral Alexeieff, whose
reasons for taking such action have not, to this day, been sufficiently
cleared up." The following telegram from Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff
of the Russian General Staff to Rear Admiral Abaza, the Tsar's personal
representative in St. Petersburg, may throw some light on the subject.

  (No. 1.)
  TO ADMIRAL ABAZA,
      HOUSE NO. 50, FIFTH LINE,
          VASSILI OSTROFF, ST. PETERSBURG.

     Our enterprises in East meet constantly with opposition from
     Dzan-Dzun of Mukden and Taotai of Feng-wang-cheng. Russian
     officer-merchants have been sent East to make reconnaissance
     and examine places on Yalu. They are accompanied by Khunkhuzes
     whom I have hired. The Dzan-Dzun, feeling that he is soon to be
     freed from guardianship of Russians, has become awfully impudent,
     and has even gone so far as to order Yuan to begin hostile
     operations against Russian merchants and Chinese accompanying
     them, and to put latter under arrest. Thanks to timely measures
     taken by Admiral, this order has not been carried out; but very
     fact shows that Chinese rulers of Manchuria are giving themselves
     free rein, and, of course, after we evacuate Manchuria, their
     impudence, and their opposition to Russian interests, will have
     no limit. _Admiral_ (_Alexeieff_) _took it upon himself to order
     that Mukden and Yinkow_ (_New Chwang_) _be not evacuated_.[10]
     To-day it has been decided to hold Yinkow, but, unfortunately, to
     move the troops out of Mukden. _After evacuation of Mukden, state
     of affairs, so far as our enterprises are concerned, will be very,
     very much worse which, of course, is not desirable._[10] To-morrow
     I go to the Yalu myself.

                                        (Signed)         MADRITOFF.

Shortly before Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff sent this telegram to
Admiral Abaza, Bezobrazoff, who had been several months in the Far
East, started for St. Petersburg, with the intention, evidently, of
seeing the Tsar and persuading him to order, definitely, a suspension
of the evacuation of the province of Mukden, for the reason that "it
would inevitably result in the liquidation of the affairs of the timber
company." From a point on the road he sent back to Madritoff the
following telegram, which bears date of March 26, 1903 (April 8, N. S.
)--the very day when the evacuation of the province of Mukden should
have been completed, in accordance with the Russo-Chinese agreement of
March 26 (April 8, N. S.), 1902:

  (No. 2.)

  TO MADRITOFF,
      PORT ARTHUR.

     There will be an understanding attitude toward the affair after
     I make my first report. I am only afraid of being too late, as
     I shall not get there until the 3rd (April 16, N. S.) and the
     Master (Khozain) leaves for Moscow on the 4th (April 17, N. S.).
     I will do all that is possible and shall insist on manifestation of
     energy in one form or another. Keep me advised and don't get
     discouraged. There will soon be an end of the misunderstanding.

                                        (Signed)          BEZOBRAZOFF.

On April 11, 1903 (April 24, N. S.), Bezobrazoff sent Madritoff from
St. Petersburg a telegram written, evidently, after he had made his
first "report" to "the Master." It was as follows:

  (No. 3.)

  TO MADRITOFF,
      PORT ARTHUR.

     Everything with me is all right. I hope to get my views adopted
     in full as conditions imposed by existing situation and force of
     circumstances. I hope that if they ask the opinion of the Admiral
     (Alexeieff), he, I am convinced (sic), will give me his support.
     That will enable me to put many things into his hands.

                                        (Signed)          BEZOBRAZOFF.

General Kuropatkin says that Admiral Alexeieff gave him "repeated
assurances that he was wholly opposed to Bezobrazoff's schemes,
and that he was holding them back with all his strength"; but the
Admiral was evidently playing a double part. While pretending to be
in full sympathy with Kuropatkin's hostility to the Yalu enterprise,
he was supporting Bezobrazoff's efforts to promote that enterprise,
Bezobrazoff rewarded him, and fulfilled his promise to "put many things
into his hands" by getting him appointed Viceroy. Kuropatkin says that
this appointment was a "complete surprise to him," and it naturally
would be, because the Tsar acted on the advice of Bezobrazoff, von
Plehve, Alexeieff, and Abaza, and not on the advice of Kuropatkin,
Witte, and Lamsdorff. It will be noticed that von Plehve--the
powerful Minister of the Interior--is never once mentioned by name in
Kuropatkin's narrative. Everything seems to indicate that von Plehve
formed an alliance with Bezobrazoff, and that, together, they brought
about the dismissal of Witte, who ceased to be Minister of Finance on
the 16th of August, 1903 (August 29, N. S.). Anticipating this result
of his efforts, and filled with triumph at the prospect opening before
him, Bezobrazoff wrote Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff, on the 12th of
August, 1903 (August 25, N. S.), as follows:

  (No. 4.)

     The great saw-mill and the principal trade in timber will be
     transferred to Dalny, and this in copartnership with the Ministry
     of Finance. The Manchurian Steamship Line will have all our ocean
     freight, amounting to twenty-five million feet of timber, and the
     business will become international (mirovava). From this you will
     understand how I selected my base and my operating lines.

In view of the complete defeat of such clear-sighted statesmen and sane
counsellors as Kuropatkin, Witte, and Lamsdorff, there can be no doubt
that Bezobrazoff's "base and operating lines" were well "selected."

The document that shows most clearly the interest of the Tsar in the
Yalu timber enterprise is a telegram sent to Bezobrazoff at Port
Arthur, in November, 1903, by Rear Admiral Abaza, who was then Director
of the Special Committee on Far Eastern Affairs, over which the Tsar
presided, and who acted as the latter's personal representative in
all dealings with Bezobrazoff and the timber company. In the original
of this telegram, significant words, such as "Witte," "Emperor,"
"millions," "garrison," "reinforcement," etc., were in cipher; but when
Bezobrazoff read it, he (or possibly his private secretary) interlined
the equivalents of the cipher words, and also, in one place, a query as
to the significance of "artels"--did it mean chasseurs, or artillery?
The following copy was made from the interlined original:

  (No. 5.)

  From Petersburg, Nov. 14-27, 1903.

  TO BEZOBRAZOFF,
      PORT ARTHUR.

     Witte has told the Emperor that you have already spent the whole
     of the two millions. Your telegram with regard to expenditures
     has made it possible for me to report on this disgusting slander
     and, at the same time, contradict it. Remember that the Master
     counts on your not touching a ruble more than the three hundred
     without permission in every case. Yesterday I reported again
     your ideas with regard to the reinforcement of the garrison and
     also with regard to the artels (chasseurs or artillery?) in the
     basin. The Emperor directed me to reply that he takes all that
     you say into consideration and that, in principle, he approves.
     In connection with this, the Emperor again confirmed his order
     that the Admiral telegraph directly to him. He expects a telegram
     soon, and immediately upon the receipt of the Admiral's statement,
     arrangements will be made with regard to the reinforcement of the
     garrison, and, at the same time, with regard to the chasseurs
     in the basin. In the course of the conversation, the Emperor
     expressed the fullest confidence in you.

                                        (Signed)         ABAZA.

General Kuropatkin refers, again and again, to the Tsar's "clearly
expressed desire that war should be avoided," and he regrets that His
Imperial Majesty's "co-workers" "were unable to execute his will."
It is more than likely that Nicholas II. did wish to avoid war--if
he could do so without impairing the value of the family investment
in the Korean timber company--but from the above telegram it appears
that, as late as November 27, 1903--only seventy days before the
rupture with Japan--he was still disregarding the sane and judicious
advice of Kuropatkin, was still expressing "the fullest confidence" in
Bezobrazoff, and was still ordering troops to the valley of the Yalu.




THE AMERICANIZING OF ANDRÉ FRANÇOIS

BY

STELLA WYNNE HERRON

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR G. DOVE


"I Wonder," said Andrew F. Biron, manager of the White Star Mine, to
his sister, as he watched, with drawn brows, André François, immaculate
in a white flannel suit, bare-kneed and sailor-hatted, go down the
street attended by the ministering Angélique, "what Providence had
against me when it picked me for the father of Andrew François?"

"He is certainly the strangest child I have ever known," answered his
sister irrelevantly, "and I have had experience with a good many--an
old maid always does, you know."

"What he needs is to mix up with the other boys--to become
Americanized. There is too much European varnish on him. It needs to be
rubbed off so that the real boy underneath will show through."

"He needs something," assented his sister shortly, for she had looked
with none too gracious an eye upon the advent of André François and
his _bonne_, the volatile Angélique. "He thinks of nothing except how
he is dressed--a miniature fop! He is now ten years old and he is
absolutely helpless. He seems never to have learned to do anything for
himself. There is no manliness nor independence in him--nothing but a
head full of foolish, old-world notions about what is due a gentleman
of his standing. As for Angélique, one moment she runs his errands
and the next bullies him. Who ever heard of a big boy of ten with a
nurse, anyway?" Miss Biron stopped a moment to catch her breath, then
continued:

"To be frank with you, Andrew, I think you have been little less than
criminal to take so little interest in him as to leave him for eight
years in an environment of which you knew nothing. You should have had
him home immediately after your wife's death, and not have waited until
his grandmother died and the responsibility of your son was literally
forced upon you."

"The responsibility of his son." All through a busy morning at the
office the phrase remained subconsciously in Mr. Biron's mind. At noon
hour, when the work slackened up, he set himself to face and thresh
it out, for it was his policy to face and thresh out at the first
opportunity any difficulty which confronted him.

For half an hour he paced his office, his hands thrust hard down into
his pockets, in his mouth a black, unlighted cigar of the stogie
species, upon which he chewed with all the concentrated violence which
he would have liked to expend upon the problem in hand. His son--how
well he remembered the little two-year-old codger, with his serious
blue eyes and his fleece of yellow hair, whom he had taken tight in his
arms and told not to forget his daddy, as he bid goodby on the steamer
to his pretty, pale French wife going back on a visit to her native
land.

After her death, little André François had at once found snug quarters
in the home of his aristocratic Parisian grandmother, Madame Fouchette,
a grand dame of the old régime. She wrote and begged to keep him.
She said he would be placed in a good school--the best, indeed, in
France--where, as a rule, none except the sons of noblemen were
admitted. Year after year had drifted by, and the busy mine-manager
in Colorado, occupied with a thousand and one matters of daily
importance, had sent a monthly check of generous figure, together with
a quarter-page of hurriedly type-written, kindly words, accompanied at
Christmas, and at what he approximately made out to be André François'
birthday, by a great miscellaneous box of toys. He religiously
selected these as his wife had advised him to select them on that
first Christmas--for he instinctively mistrusted his own judgment in
such matters--and varied them only in the matter of quantity, which he
increased each year in allowance for the boy's growth.

Perhaps it was because he always pictured him as a tyro of two,
unsteady on his legs, principally experimental in his speech, that he
was so unprepared for the real André François, the above, plus eight
formative years of growth in the French capital, an aristocratic
grandmother's idolatry, and the training of a school where, "as a rule,
only the sons of noblemen were received."

Mr. Biron recalled with a rueful smile that first meeting with his
son and heir. André François, self-possessed, slim, and aristocratic,
cultivating already the airs and graces of the young boulevardier,
greeted the manager of the White Star with a careful--for he was none
too sure of where the accent fell in his mother-tongue----

"I am delighted, my father," and kissed him ceremoniously, first on one
cheek, then on the other. After which he devoted himself to directing
Angélique--who had been his _bonne_ ever since his mother's death and
in whose care he had come across the ocean--in the disposal of his four
trunks. Madame Fouchette, during her life, had spared neither time nor
attention in providing André François with as many new suits and caps
as his blue-blooded playmates.

The little raw town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, still half
mining-camp, was not prepared for the youthful scion of the Old World,
and regarded him as a huge joke. As for Angélique, in her high heels
and infinitesimal aprons, with her coquettish airs and her showers
of exclamations, nothing like her had ever been seen, except in an
overnight show, where the traditional French maid, between a song and
dance, whisked imaginary dust off parlor chairs.

At school André François was under a double disadvantage. In the
class-room, he not only knew more than any other boy, but frequently
and authoritatively corrected the teacher. In the yard his white
flannel sailor suit, with its embroidered anchor and immense soft, red
silk bow in front, his jaunty round sailor hat and dainty shoes--it
had become the mode in Paris at that time to follow the English style
in children's dress--were regarded with derisive and hostile looks by
the sturdy blue- and brown-overalled town boys. Indeed, the little
transplanted Parisian, as he stood in line with his fellows, looked
very much like a lonely orchid in a bunch of dusty field-flowers.

In the yard André François did not shine. His attitude was marked in
the eyes of the indigenous youth by a supercilious stupidity. He
neither knew nor cared for baseball, football, or any of the lesser
sports which excite young America at playtime. He had, indeed, at first
extended tentative invitations to a chosen few of his class-mates to
engage in a fencing bout, but, finding that art entirely unknown, he
contented himself, during recess, with sitting on the bench and reading
from a French book, over the top of which he sometimes stared at his
hot, excited school-mates with insolent superiority.

They returned his contempt with full measure. One and all looked upon
André François as a special brand of "Dago"--under which general head
they classified all things Latin--protected from their scorn and
patriotism by an arbitrary higher power in the form of a father who was
a mine manager.

André François, in turn, confided to his father that nobody but
ignorant peasants, with whom no gentleman could associate, attended the
school.

So matters stood without a change in either direction two weeks after
André François' arrival in town. No change of environment seemed
strong enough to move him from his accustomed ways of thought. Every
morning he started out for school at a quarter of nine followed by the
omnipresent Angélique. Every afternoon he returned at three o'clock,
still followed by Angélique.

"Angélique! A nurse! A _bonne_!" As the manager of the White Star
thought of her, he nearly bit the cigar, upon which he was chewing, in
half. All the militant Americanism in him rose in revolt. He remembered
his own bare-footed, swaggering youth, independent as the wind,
insolent as a king. And now his son----. He stopped short in his pacing
and stared wrathfully out into the street, which, like all the streets
of the town, ended abruptly, without any preliminary slopes, in a sheer
wall of rock which went up and up and up into a rugged mountain peak.

It chanced that school had just let out for the noon hour, and down the
middle of the street, whistling to the full of his lungs, swinging in a
circle around his head a long leather strap with a blue calico-covered
book at the end for a weight, swaggered a sturdy specimen of young
America. Mr. Biron gazed at him with an envious eye and sighed. Then
a thought, sudden and sharp, popped into his head. He hesitated for a
moment. But why not? Anything was worth trying.

The manager of the White Star was a man of action, so, without
wasting further time in debate with himself, he beat a loud tattoo
with his knuckles on the window glass. The whistling stopped. He
crooked his finger and motioned, and the deed was done. A moment later
the ground-glass door opened, and a chunky, red-haired boy, with a
belligerent eye, stood expectantly before him. The newcomer placed
himself so that the big iron office safe furnished a background for
him, and as he stood there with his feet wide apart, his hands in
his pockets, he seemed as solidly planted as it. A shaft of noonday
sunlight, coming through a side window, struck his hair and made a
rubescent halo around his freckled face. The manager of the White Star
looked him up and down, and the boy eyed him back look for look. At
length Mr. Biron cleared his throat.

[Illustration: "'I'D BE GLAD TO DO IT AS A FAVOR,' HE SAID"]

"What is your name, my lad?" he asked.

"James Joseph McCarthy," answered the boy, in the same quick,
phonographic monotone that he had used on his first day at school, when
the teacher had asked him the same question.

"Ah, yes--do you know my son, Andrew Francis Biron?"

"Sure. Most everybody knows Andray Franswa."

"And what do you think of--er--André François?"

The boy looked at him searchingly. "You oughter know--he's your kid,"
he said tersely.

"I know what _I_ think," said Mr. Biron, "but I want to know what you
think. That's what I brought you in for. I want to get some data on the
subject."

The boy ran his hand through his hair, and his brow puckered, as he
struggled to find a phrase by which to sum up his impression of André
François. Then he said:

"Ah, gee----" he made an abortive effort, out of regard for parental
feelings, to mitigate the vast contempt in his voice, "he's just a darn
sissy."

"Um--I see. Are there any more sissies in town?"

"Nope. Not now. There uster be one onest, about a year ago, but he's
all right now. We licked him till he got all right."

"And do you intend to lick André François until he gets all right?"

The scion of the McCarthys looked at him suspiciously for a moment,
but seeing in his face rather a desire for honest information than the
guile of a parent, he answered:

"Nope. Nobody dast to touch him."

"Why?" asked Mr. Biron with a gleam of hope, "would he fight?"

"Who? Him? Him _fight_? I guess _not_. It's cause you're his dad. My
dad, he said that if I dast to lay a finger on Andray Franswa, he'd
skin me alive--an' the rest o' the kids, their dads told 'em the same
thing."

"I see," said the manager of the White Star, and he saw also that a
certain disadvantage went with being the employer of nearly every man
in the town.

He took a thoughtful turn around the office, for his conscience gave
him a twinge at the critical moment, then stopped abruptly in front of
James Joseph and took from his pocket a bright, new silver dollar.

"See this, Jimmie?" he asked, balancing it seductively on the tip of
his index finger, "I will give you this, and further, I will see that
no complaint is made to your father--if you lick André François."

Each of Jimmie's eyes grew as big and as round as the dollar.

"Sure? D' yer mean it? Gee, that'd be fine. There's goin' to be a
circus next week in Briggs' lot, and us fellows is savin' up. Say--is
that what you just said on the dead square?"

"On the dead square," said André François' father solemnly.

Jimmie held out his hand for the dollar. "Sure," he said, "I'll lick
Andray Franswa. I'll lay low till that crazy Angélique is out of the
way. Burbank, the assayer's assistant, is soft on her, and she stops to
talk to him every afternoon, an' Andray Franswa walks as far as from
school to the assayer's office alone. I'll get him then. I'm boss o'
the gang, an' I kin lick fine. Onest I licked a kid an' he wasn't able
to be out fer a week."

"Wait," said Mr. Biron, a little alarmed at the enthusiasm he had
invoked. "Remember--you are acting under orders, and your orders are
not to hurt him. Just roll him around in the mud good and plenty--and,
Jimmie, spoil that white sailor suit."

Jimmie's eyes filled with fellow feeling. For the first time during the
interview he and the White Star manager were equals.

"I guess you was a pretty nice kid yourself onest," he said, "an' I
know how you must feel 'bout Andray Franswa."

He hesitated a moment, his face twitched with a fierce internal
struggle, then he thrust out his arm straight from the shoulder and
handed back to Mr. Biron the price of his service.

"I--I'd be glad to do it as a favor," he said.

"Thank you," said André François' father gravely, and he took and
pocketed the dollar.

As Jimmie was about to leave the office he put out a detaining hand.

"Oh, by the way," he remarked, with elaborate casuality, "you said
something of a circus in Briggs' lot--I can't get away myself, at
present, but if you'd take this and go, and let me know if there is
anything good, you'd oblige me greatly."

Jimmie McCarthy left the office of the White Star with his ethics
and his honor satisfied, and with a dollar in the pocket of his blue
overalls.

Thus was enacted the preliminary part of the plot to Americanize André
François, _fils_.

The following afternoon the manager of the White Star sat at his office
desk, a file of papers before him. But his attention wavered, and the
nearer the clock hands drew to three, the less grew his concentration
upon the file. At last the expected happened. The ground-glass door
burst open, and in rushed the immaculate Angélique, her entire person
in such dishevelment as the Rue St. Honoré had never seen. Her cap hung
by one pin from her black hair, her ruffled swiss apron was under one
arm. By the hand she dragged after her the panting André François. His
hat was gone, his hair wet, his white sailor suit streaked terra cotta
from the clayey mud of the street. His red tie, however, still made a
brave flare of color under one ear.

"Father," he said in a high, excited voice, "I have been attacked!"

Angélique motioned him to be quiet.

"Oh, Monsieur Bir-on, oh, sair," she burst out, her round eyes becoming
perfect spheres in her excitement, "Monsieur André François have been
attack'. I have jus' stop to spik to a gentleman for a so leetle
moment--when I look a-r-r-ound and zee thees so ter-r-ible boy make
the tackle at Monsieur André François' legs. And nex'--O, _ciel_!
I zee Monsieur André François high in the air, and then--splash!
_Quelle horreur!_ down in the depths of the mud pud-dle, and thees boy
r-r-ool heem r-round an' r-round an' r-r-round. _Barbare!_ _Sauvage!_"
Angélique's voice broke, and she buried her face in her abbreviated
apron to shut out the memory of a sight so uncivilized.

"Father," said André François, trembling with passion, "you will have
him punished at once--publicly, so that every one may know that the
indignity has been wiped out?"

"My boy," said Mr. Biron quietly, placing his hand on his son's
shoulder, "I am not lord of a feudal principality. I cannot interfere.
You will have to fight your own fights."

"But," said André François, angry tears rushing to his eyes, "I cannot
fight this peasant--I am a gentleman." And he drew himself up with a
jerk, in his drabbled sailor suit, to his full three feet eight. This
assumption of dignity was not without discomfort, for the muddy water
from his over-long hair dripped down his neck in the back and into his
eyes in the front.

"Of a certainty," affirmed Angélique with finality, "he is a gentleman.
Madame Fouchette so raised heem."

"You will have to settle it your own way, Andrew. If you are too good
to fight him, and he is not too good to fight you, I do not see what
you can do--except run."

"I will _not_ run," cried André François, his voice becoming shrill and
childish with impotent rage. "I want him punished."

"I can do nothing for you," said his father shortly. "You had better go
home now to your aunt and have your suit changed."

"_Allons_," said Angélique indignantly, and, catching André François by
the hand, she started out. At the door she paused long enough to say
devoutly, fixing the so unnatural father with a basilisk glance.

"_Dieu vous garde, mon pauvre enfant._"

The manager of the White Star even thought he heard a "_Bête!_" as
the door was closed so decisively that one would almost say it was
slammed. All of which the so unnatural parent endured with equanimity,
and turned to his delayed files with a patient if dubious smile, for he
had begun to do his parental duty as he saw it, and anything he began,
whether it was a lockout, a new policy, or the training of his son, he
saw through to the bitter end.

The next morning, when the White Star manager reached his office--and
he got there early, for he began his day's work when his office boy
was still comfortably snoring---he found a small boy leaning against
the door in the stiff and resigned position of a guard waiting to be
relieved from duty. The only parts of him which moved were the toes of
his bare legs, and these nimble members dibbled the clayey earth in
front of the door-step.

As soon as this apparition caught sight of Mr. Biron, it straightened
up into life.

"Kin I see you, Mr. Biron?" asked the boy eagerly, "on a matter o'
business?"

[Illustration: "'I CANNOT FIGHT THIS PEASANT--I AM A GENTLEMAN'" ]

"Certainly," said the manager of the White Star, "just step into the
office."

The boy followed him in through the ground-glass door, shifted from
one bare foot to the other, cleared his throat, then without further
preliminary said:

"Say--d' you want Andray Franswa licked to-day?" Then, fixing him with
a bargaining eye, "I'll do it dandy fer seventy-five cents. I kin fight
'most as good as Jimmie--I uster be the biggest kid here before he come
an' licked me," he added, with reminiscent pride in a past glory.

Mr. Biron looked at him thoughtfully a moment, then said:

"I engaged Jimmie for the first job, and he did it satisfactorily. I
think there may be a tacit contract existing between us that I give
him, at least, the refusal of the rest."

"Nope," said the boy. "Jimmie, he ain't no pig. He told the bunch, 'You
fellers go 'round an' see if yer kin git nuf for the circus what's
comin'.' I bin waitin' a long time so's to be early nuf."

"I see," said Mr. Biron, "Jimmie does not believe in monopolies. He is
a despot, but an enlightened one."

"Kin I have the job, then?"

"Very well," said Mr. Biron, "I engage you to lick André François--but
with this reservation--mind you do not hurt him, and I will pay you the
standard rate of one dollar for a first-class job."

This was the first but not the last of the manager's visitors. It was
Saturday, and that whole morning the office of the White Star was
besieged by applicants for a "job." Mr. Biron had his pick of the
entire bellicose population of the town between the ages of nine and
thirteen, and several more nefarious bargains were secretively struck
in the shadow of the big iron safe, behind the discreet ground-glass
door of the White Star office.

That afternoon Mr. Biron found it difficult to concentrate on the work
before him, for, reasoning from cause to effect, and having produced
the cause, he was subconsciously expectant of another visit from André
and Angélique. Nothing, however, occurred to disturb him and, as he
closed up his desk and safe, preparatory to leaving, he smiled grimly
to himself.

"I never was stumped by a proposition yet," he muttered half aloud, as
he walked home in the sunset, "and André François isn't going to be
the first. He _must_ have some red blood in his veins--his grandfather
fought at Gettysburg, and I could fight my weight in wildcats at his
age."

As he ate his dinner, half an hour later, his sister recounted to him
the events of the day.

[Illustration: "'IT WAS OF A SUDDENNESS,' SAID ANGÉLIQUE BLUSHING"]

"Andrew Francis was attacked again," she said, casually nodding toward
André François, who ate in silence--for she was a woman of sense. "He
came home again covered with mud from head to foot. Angélique says he
refused to run and she could do nothing----"

"But no," interrupted the _bonne_ eagerly, and her words came like a
string of firecrackers exploded by a small boy on the Fourth of July,
"he came with a quickness--like _zat_!" and she clapped her hands.
"Before I know, he have come behin' and trip Monsieur André François
up from his legs. Zen I try to grab thees boy, but he is of a so great
slipperiness as an eel! He have hit Monsieur André François--_whack_!
He have poke heem an' make heem to fall into the mud. Zen he is away
with a quickness--_zipp_! No person is of a similar quickness to catch
heem."

During this display of wordy pyrotechnics, the son and heir of the
house sat in sullen silence and broke his bread into small pieces. When
it ended, he suddenly looked up.

"Father," he said, "I do not want Angélique to take me to school any
longer. She is a fool."

"Sank you, sair," said the lady referred to sarcastically, "you have
a great gratitude when I protec' your life." Then she turned to the
manager of the White Star:

"Sair, I have the pleasure to inform you of somesing. In one month I am
about to marry myself to the Mr. Burbank--he who makes known what is in
the rocks."

"Kind of sudden, wasn't it, Angélique?" asked Mr. Biron.

"It was of a suddenness," said Angélique blushing. "I was greatly of
a desire to go back to France, but I could not, an' the nex' bes'
zing--zat is to marry myself. I mus' have a protector in thees so
savage land where even the children are bloodthirsty. I am not of a
nervousness to stan' everysing. _Voilà!_"

[Illustration: "THAT FIGHT WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED IN THE ANNALS OF THE
GANG"]

The next morning Andrè François went to school minus his familiar.
During the week and a half that followed he was "attacked" with
startling frequency and regularity. Almost every afternoon he came home
with his clothes muddy and torn.

He was grimly silent about the details of these mishaps.

Angélique was in despair.

"Ah, Madame," she said to Miss Biron, "in one short month he will not
have a stitch to wear--out of the largesse of four trunks full. And
the las' command of Madame Fouchette, it was 'Angélique, always make
Monsieur André François to look like the little prince.' _Ciel!_ how
can one make heem to look like the little prince when thees so savage
boys tear off his clothes? But I do my ver' bes'--I darn and darn and
darn heem."

André François made no one his confidant, but day by day he grew more
somber and silent. His early garrulity was quite gone. Instead of the
air of hauteur which characterized him on his entrance to the town, he
now had a pathetic droop. He even became careless about his clothes.

"He used to be so proud, so debonair," said Angélique sadly, "when he
have the clean, white suit on, he is like the peacock, he know he is
beautiful--but now--he does not care what he have on. No!"

"What can be the matter?" asked Miss Biron anxiously, for she was
really worried by André François' looks; "he has never been seriously
hurt in these little school-boy fights."

"_Eh, bien!_ Madame! Is it not of a seriousness to be wound' in the
pride? To be insult'? Monsieur André François has been made the gross
insult many times. Those insult, they knaw heem in his heart. He zink.
He zink all the time now. He zink of those many insult'! Some day he
will have his revengement--you see."

About this time the manager of the White Star noticed a falling off
in the number of applicants for his peculiar variety of "job." There
was a slump in the André François market. One morning he called in a
youngster whom he saw going early to school, stated his terms, and
made his usual proposal. The boy hesitated a few moments, then said:

"It'll cost yer a dollar an' a quarter now, Mr. Biron. Yer see, 'taint
so easy as 'twas at first. 'Course Andray Franswa never runs, an' it's
easy t' git him, but he's growin' awful savage. He kicks an' bites
somethin' fierce, sir. He nearly chewed Harry Peters' finger offer him
day 'fore yesterday."

The manager paid the extra quarter without any demur.

It was about this time also that Mr. Biron made a discovery which
gratified him. He found, secreted under a pillow in the window-seat
where André François usually sat, a dusty, copiously diagrammed book
entitled, "The Manly Art of Self-Defense." It was an edition of twenty
years ago, and had been used by Mr. Biron himself during his college
days.

He put it back carefully and held his silence.

The following evening he proceeded in an experimental, roundabout way
to get into a conversation with his son.

"Andrew," he said, with sociable casualness, to his heir, who now
always ensconced himself in the window-seat directly after dinner, and
kept a moody silence until Angélique took him off to bed, "you have
never told me about your school days in France."

Accepting this remark as the statement of an irrefutable fact, André
François merely remained politely silent.

"What do you do for recreation? What sport do you have now, for
instance?"

"We fence, father," said André François, listlessly.

"Ah, yes," said the White Star manager, introducing his subject in as
elaborately casual a way as a politician about to ask for a favor,
"just so. Well, you see we don't do much fencing in America, not very
much. Boxing, now, is more in our line."

A gleam of interest, which was not lost upon his father, shot into
André François' weary eyes.

"Father," he asked timidly, "are you familiar with the manly art of
self-defense?"

"I am, my son," answered the manager of the White Star gravely.

André François gazed at him questioningly a moment, then drew the
manual from under the sofa cushion.

"I have been practising some of the things described in this book,"
he said, slowly opening it and disclosing diagrams of a heavy-muscled
individual executing a wonderful curve along a dotted line marked
"a----a----a," "but I am unable to make out the explanations attached
to most of these figures. If you could show me the rudiments----" he
finished tentatively.

It was at this point that the manager of the White Star joyously threw
diplomacy to the winds.

"You bet I will," he cried enthusiastically, "we will have our first
lesson to-night in the attic," and grasping his son's arm he started
off.

Miss Biron and Angélique, sedately sewing by the fire in the next room,
were electrified to see, a moment later, the manager of the White Star
and André François rush madly through, banging a door at either end in
their flight, and laughing at the top of their voices. They also stayed
awake that night beyond their usual retiring time, for strange noises
emanated from the attic long after the hour when a well-conducted
father and son should have been in bed.

The next morning the manager of the White Star let the applicant in
waiting know that no further business would be transacted, and the word
went forth among the members of the gang that he would pay for no more
André François lickings, and would tolerate no unpaid-for ones.

So, by the ultimatum of his father, André François went whither he
would, unmolested except by word of mouth. But he underwent such
martyrdom as only a small boy can receive at the hands of others of his
kind.

Not only did the gang remember and resent his former attitude of
superiority, but they looked on him as a source of revenue taken from
them. His presence irritated them as the presence of a government-owned
railroad might irritate a company of magnates shorn of their profits.
His first position had been marked at least by a certain uniqueness and
dignity. He _had_ never been licked, even if he could have been.

Now, however, he was the lowest of the low. In the democracy of the
gang, where might was right, he was a pariah, a proven coward, licked
by each and every member, and ought, by the law of the survival of the
fittest, to be kicked out. He was only allowed to intrude his presence
on suffrance, because a higher power artificially protected him.

At recess, in school, he sat on the well-worn bench that ran around the
yard and watched the others play or fight. No one ever spoke to him,
except now and then to throw a taunt his way.

"Where's nursie, Annie?"

"Hello, sissy--are yer lost?"

"Where'd yer git that suit?" and similar personalities greeted him
when one of the boys chanced to notice his presence. Sometimes, as he
walked home, pebbles and bits of hardened mud were sent richochetting
after him, but this was the extent of any assault, for the manager of
the White Star, sitting behind his ground-glass door, had it within his
power to speak a potent word to the father of any boy who disobeyed him.

André François seldom spoke back, but his silence had something grim in
it, and there was a portentous light in his eye.

At home he never complained, and Angélique, rejoiced that the régime
of physical violence was over, snatched the time between stitches on
a wonderful, beruffled trousseau, to make him "look like the little
prince." Only his father knew how he spent his time every evening in
the attic, and what passionate energy he put into his work. Neither
alluded to it, but both knew that the lessons had an ultimate object.

And, one day, three weeks from the time he took his first boxing
lesson, this object was unexpectedly accomplished.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and the gang, freed from the tyranny of
school and the irritation of Saturday morning chores, were joyously
disporting themselves in a vacant lot at the corner of the street.
The first inning of a baseball game was just over, and the overalled
players were lying on the ground disputing certain fine points of the
play with the audience.

André François stopped, leaned on the top rail of the fence, and gazed
at them a trifle wistfully. Jimmie McCarthy's roving eye discovered
him, and he yelled out:

"You'd better run along, Annie--nursie will be out lookin' fer yer in a
minnut."

The gang laughed flatteringly at the subtle wit of their leader. André
François' face flushed a vivid crimson and his eyes darkened. Then he
electrified the gang by leaping over the fence and rushing straight up
to the redoubtable Jimmie.

He thrust out his chin and yelled up into the face of the surprised
leader:

"I'll show you if I'm an Annie or not. D'you want to fight?"

Jimmie stood dumb with amazement a moment, then he laughed long and
loud, for his sense of humor was Irish; and the whole gang joined in.

"S-a-a-y," he said, "yer wanter git licked again, d'yer? You must'er
got inter the habit. I tell yer what--I got a baby brother two years
old ter home. I'll go fetch him, and the two o' yez kin have it out."

It was here that André François' early training enabled him to make an
impression. He stood up on his toes, as he had once seen the Marquis
de Boissé stand up on his toes, and slapped Jimmie McCarthy across the
mouth with his open palm, as he had seen that noble marquis slap a
count of France.

But what followed was not an exchange of ultra courteous priorities
to a duel. It was a good American fight in the middle of a ring of
small boys, and what happened is what always happens when natural and
scientific force stand up before each other. That fight will be long
remembered in the annals of the gang, which, like the records of the
great Homeric fights or the sagas of the primitive Northmen, are first
handed down by word of mouth.

"I wished yer'd seen it, kid," said Charlie Brown, to his wide-eyed,
freckled-faced junior, whom he was trying to bring up in the right way.
"It'd bin an eddycation fer yer. Andray Franswa jumped round jest like
he was made o' rubber. Every time that Jim grabbed fer him, he was on
the other side an' had landed him one on the nose. Gee, yer oughter
seen it bleed--it was worse'n the time Jim beat Buck Paxell. Now,
Teddy, yer want ter keep yer eye on Andray Franswa, an' do same as yer
see him doin'--'cause he's goin' ter be a great man some day like Jim
Jeffries--see?"

That afternoon the manager of the White Star chanced to look out of his
window, and he saw André François, with his white sailor hat, fashioned
after that of Prince Edward, set rakishly over one ear, his hands in
his pockets, whistling at the top of his lungs, come down the street.
His face was muddy and bleeding, a great scratch cut across it from ear
to ear, his hair was wild and tangled, but his swagger was that of a
conqueror, and he took the middle of the road. An admiring concourse of
small boys followed along at a respectful distance.

[Illustration: "AN ADMIRING CONCOURSE OF SMALL BOYS FOLLOWED AT A
RESPECTFUL DISTANCE"]

Mr. Biron smiled to himself. Then he took down his ledger, for he was
a careful man of business, and read over a certain page. On it was
written fourteen times:

"To Andrew Francis, licking... $1.00"

"Um," said the manager of the White Star softly at the end of the
addition, "fourteen dollars." Then he took another look out of the
window:

"I never made a better bargain in my life."




AIN'T YOU GWINE TO COME?

BY

EDMUND VANCE COOKE


    De debbil done ast me to be his chile;
      De debbil he's allus a follerin';
    I run de debbil foh mos' a mile;
      Don' you hear de debbil a-hollerin'?
    I'se gwine to jine de fambly of de Lohd;
      I'se gwine to glory in de mawnin';
    I'se gwine to be bohn in de grace of Gohd;
      Ain't you gwine to come to my bohnin'?

      _Come along-a sisteh, come along-a bruddeh,
      Come along-a one an' a come along de uddeh,
  Bring along a frien' an' a-bring along anuddeh;
  Ain't you gwine to come to my bohnin'?_

    De debbil done temp' me to visit his roof;
      De debbil he's allus a follerin';
    I stomp my foot on de debbil's hoof;
      Don' you hear de debbil a-hollerin'?
    I'se gwine to jine de fambly of de Lohd;
      De debbil's done quit his harryin';
    I'se gwine to be married to de son of Gohd;
      Ain't you gwine to come to my marryin'?

      _Come along-a sisteh, come along-a bruddeh,
      Come along-a one an' a come along de uddeh,
  Bring along a frien' an a-bring along anuddeh;
  Ain't you gwine to come to my marryin'?_

    De debbil done beg me to sail his ship;
      De debbil he's allus a follerin';
    I smack my han' on de debbil's lip;
      Don' you hear de debbil a hollerin'?
    I'se   gwine to sail in de ship of de Lohd
      Dat's a runnin' to glory at de ferryin';
    I'se gwine to be buried in de grace of Gohd;
      Ain't you gwine to come to my buryin'?

      _Come along-a sisteh an' a come along-a bruddeh,
      Come along-a one an' a come along de uddeh,
  Bring along a frien' an' a bring along anuddeh;
  Ain't you gwine to come to my buryin'?_




JUNGLE BLOOD

BY

ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE

ILLUSTRATIONS BY WALTER JACK DUNCAN


He was a coal-black, box-headed negro, of a bulk and stature never
before admitted to the dining-room of the Bluegrass Hotel. The blacks
preferred by the management of that fastidious hostelry were agile,
under-sized fellows with round heads and small hands; and Moss Harper
would assuredly never have effected an entrance to the dining-room, had
it not been for a waiters' strike, which made almost any kind of help
welcome.

The lynx-eyed head waiter, prejudiced from the start against his
gigantic underling, quickly discovered that salt-cellars and other
small objects eluded Moss' clumsy fingers like drops of quicksilver;
also, that the channels between the tables were wholly inadequate for
the safe navigation of a vessel of this draft. Hence Moss' term of
service would doubtless have been a very brief one, had it not been for
an unforeseen event. On his way home the very first night, he broke
the heads of half a dozen union pickets who had waylaid him in a dark
alley, and this feat gave the strike a shock from which it died the
next day.

Out of gratitude, and possibly also a desire to give the recalcitrant
negroes an object-lesson, the management decided to tolerate Moss for a
month. It was clearly a case of toleration. He broke more dishes than
any four of the other waiters; he forgot orders; he trod on toes; and,
although he was of a singularly peaceful disposition, never taking part
in the multitudinous squabbles of the dining-room, the incessant gibes,
sneers, and threats of his unionized associates would occasionally
prove too much for even his equanimity. Then, like an infuriated
gorilla, he would spring upon his tormentors, regardless of their
number, and dearly indeed would they pay for their sport.

He was, moreover, a silent fellow; and his silence was not that of the
well-bred waiter, but a solemn, profound, brooding, depressing thing,
acquired, one could almost believe, in the African jungles where his
forefathers had crept like wild beasts or squatted in superstitious
terror. People, consequently, were a little afraid of him. It was told
that he had once carried a piano up three flights of stairs on his
back; and when he would pass down the dining-room with a seventy-pound
tray balanced on the tips of three fingers as lightly as if it were
a pie-pan, a certain bald-headed, white-waist-coated, pink-faced old
bachelor, who made his home at the hotel, never tired of observing to
strangers, with his dry little chuckle: "How'd you like to meet that
boy on a lonely road, suh, afteh dark, with your gun at home?" And, in
truth, Moss' huge black paw, suddenly appearing over their shoulders
from behind, as he served a meal, was a trifle disconcerting to ladies
with delicate nerves.

There was, however, a force of some kind, a sort of dumb nobility about
the fellow, which made itself felt; and, in spite of his manifold
shortcomings, he had, when his month was up, made a fairly favorable
impression. Still, his fate was hanging in the balance when Fortune
once more intervened in his behalf. An imaginative reporter on one of
the Louisville papers, being hard pressed for a Sunday story, concocted
an article entitled "A Congo King," in which he solemnly averred that
the herculean waiter at the Bluegrass was the grandson of an African
prince who had been captured by slavers on the upper Congo, after a
desperate fight, and landed in Charleston in 1832.

From that hour Moss became a show-piece which the proprietors of
the Bluegrass would not willingly have parted with. Guests almost
daily asked to be shown the "Congo King." A German ethnologist who
was touring the country ran down from Chicago to get some exact
measurements of the royal descendant's head. An artist of State
reputation painted him in what was alleged to be his grandfather's
court costume--a strip of leopard-skin around his loins; and a
photograph from this painting made the most popular souvenir post-card
which the hotel's news-stand had ever handled.

Curiously enough, his fame did not spoil him. Indeed, for any change in
him, he might have been unaware of his fame, and possibly was unaware
of it. At all events, he continued to pursue the simple routine of his
life. He worked seven days in the week, from six in the morning until
nine at night, with a respite from two till six. Most of the hotel
negroes spent this recess in shooting craps and guzzling beer in an
adjacent dive, but Moss devoted it to the prosecution of an enterprise
very near to his heart. He was learning to read! He could already read
a bill-of-fare, of course, to any near-sighted guest who had chanced to
forget his glasses; but this was merely a mnemonic trick, assisted by
the position of the words on the card. He yearned to be able to read
"really and truly," out of a newspaper or a book.

One afternoon, after laying off his dining-room livery and getting
into his own shabby clothes,--in which few of the Bluegrass guests
would have recognized their Congo King!--he set off with unusual
alacrity. At the street door he paused to turn up his collar and
draw down his hat-brim, and then indifferently stepped out into a
pelting shower. A block away he entered a second-hand book-store and
bought a greasy, dog-eared Second Reader which he had priced the day
before. Stowing his purchase in an inside pocket to keep it dry, he
longingly eyed a passing street-car, for he was tired; but he put the
temptation aside--five cents would buy a loaf of bread or two quarts of
buttermilk--and stepped out into the rain again.

A walk of ten blocks brought him to the head of an ill-smelling, narrow
alley, dotted with foul pools of water and bordered with tumble-down
shanties. The rain had now ceased, and the sun, beating down more
fiercely than ever, was raising a pestilential reek which had brought
the black denizens of the alley to their tiny stoops for a breath
of comparatively fresh air. Children, the smaller ones quite naked,
pattered about like ducks in the black mud.

The number of men present, considering it was midday, would have
surprised any one not familiar with the fact that the residents of
Goosefoot Lane plied their varied trades mostly by night. Oily-skinned
and blear-eyed from heat, drink, and loss of sleep, these gentlemen of
color somewhat resembled the animals of an over-traveled menagerie,
blinking stupidly, staring morosely into vacancy, slapping viciously
at flies, and occasionally exposing their red mouths and gleaming teeth
in a wide, fierce, carnivorous yawn. Some few, in a better humor, were
drinking pailed beer and shooting craps. The women held their babies
and chatted with their neighbors, while now and then some fat old mammy
would waddle out into the lane to settle a row among the youngsters.

It was into this atmosphere that the student took his way, nodding at
an acquaintance here and there, until he reached the shanty which the
payment of four dollars a month in advance entitled him to call home.
An old darky sat drowsing on the stoop. There was something ape-like
about his long arms, his flat, wide-nostriled nose, and the mat of
gray wool which crept down his forehead to within two inches of his
eyebrows. Yet, on a closer inspection, his face was human, kindly, and
benevolent, and even lit with a shrewd humor.

"This you' Secum Reader, sonny?" asked old Benjy, starting from
his doze as Moss thrust the book into his hand. He fumbled in his
pocket for his silver-rimmed spectacles,--cherished memento of better
days,--pinched the book between his thick, knotted fingers, and opened
it about as gracefully as a bear would open an oyster. Then he squinted
at the page with an owl-like expression, moving the book now nearer,
now farther, and turning it this way and that for a better light. For
he was Moss' teacher, and it would be highly injurious to his prestige
for him to show any flustration over this new volume. Nevertheless, he
was not quite at ease.

"Yass--book-store man di'n' cheat you. He Secum Reader," he observed
astutely, after moving his lips inaudibly for a moment. "Says so--right
theh--top o' the page--in plain print. An' print don' lie! 'Member
that, sonny,--print don' lie. Men lies, women lies, clouds lies--say
it's gwine rain when it don' do nothin' but blow up a li'l' dust--but
print neveh lies. 'Cause why? 'Cause the Good Book is print. But,
sonny, if you gwine git an educashum, you gotter strike out for
it--strike out--strike out."

"Ain't I strikin' out?" asked Moss in an aggrieved tone.

"Shuh, sonny, shuh. But this yere vollum make you scratch you' haid.
Yass, indeed, sonny,--make you scratch you' haid. Purt' near makes me
scratch mine!" The last, however, was accompanied by a low chuckle to
indicate that it was only a joke; after which he adjusted his glasses
afresh and again fixed his gaze on the book. "Wuds in heah, sonny, you
neveh seen befo'. I done seen 'em, of co'se, 'cause ole Mis' tuk me
mos' through the Thud Reader befo' the Wah broke out. But, of co'se, my
eyesight ain't what it was--no, sonny, 'tain't what it was." He stared
harder than ever, shutting first one eye, as though squinting along his
old coon-gun, then the other, blinking, and moving his lips. Finally
his black face lighted.

"Heah's an ole devil I used to wrastle with!" he exclaimed shrilly.
"Lawd, Lawd, how I used to wrastle with that ole devil! _Succumstance!
Succumstance!_ That's the ole devil!"

"Lemme see 'im," said Moss curiously, bending nearer.

"Right theh," answered Benjy proudly, pointing with his stub
forefinger. "That long, crinkly, twis'ed feller. Looks a good 'eal like
a dried fish-wum. Sonny, when you kin read a wud like him, easy-like,
same as I do--_succumstance_--see!--_suc-cum-stance_--you' educashum
mighty neah complete."

Satisfied with this feat, however, the old man turned from the text to
the pictures, which were less trying, he declared, to his eyesight.
His attention was at once caught by a little girl, in an old-fashioned
pinafore, driving a hoop amid a fairly Edenic profusion of butterflies,
flowers, and birds, with a squirrel eating a nut overhead. For a moment
he stared fixedly through his grimy lenses, and then his hands trembled
with excitement.

"Sonny," he almost shouted, "dis the same Secum Reader ole Mis' done
learn _me_ out of! Dar's li'l' gull with her hoop, and squ'ull up
above. An' dar"--turning a page--"is li'l' boy with pony--spotted
pony with a collah 'stid of breas'-strap. An' dar anudder li'l' boy
with white rabbits. I 'members 'em all. I 'members what ole Mis' said
about 'em all," he ran on eagerly, while Moss' own eyes grew large
with wonder at the strange coincidence. "I 'members de day ole Mis'
guve me de book. I done driv' her back that day fum the Law'ences',
where she spend the day with ole Mis' Lutie. She spend lots of days
with ole Mis' Lutie, 'cause ole Mis' Lutie's husband killed in Mexican
Wah, same as ole Mistis'. An' as we driv' up the ca'igeway, Miss Pen
and Marse Willie Hahpeh, her cousin, come kitin' by us on theh hosses,
makin' sich a clatter, my hosses shied in the blackberry-bushes. But
Miss Pen juss larf, like she always do when Marse Willie with her, and
neveh slowed up a bit. Ole Mis' kind of sighed and sayed: 'Benjy, that
gull gwine breck her neck some day on that hoss.' An' I say, 'Mis'
Judie, neveh while Marse Willie aroun'. He got better use for her neck
than breckin' it.' An' she say, 'Shut up, Benjy; you fohget they fust
cousins.' So we kim on up to the po'ch. Then she han' me a book an'
say, 'Benjy, that's Secum Reader. You done learn all they is in the
Fust.' An', sonny, it's the same book, the same book."

For a moment he was lost in reverie. His faded, age-filmed eyes, lifted
to an archipelago of fleecy cloudlets, grew dreamy as his mind wandered
back to the shady driveways of the old Harper mansion; the spacious,
rose-curtained veranda; the cool, high-ceiled rooms within; Old Marse
and Old Mis', Miss Pen and Miss Patty, and the troops of guests who
kept the great house ringing with merriment, with few intermissions,
from January till December.

"Times is change, sonny," he murmured plaintively. "Ole Mistis been
grave-dust fo' thutty yeahs, eenamost, I reckon. Miss Pen done
mah'd Marse Willie, spite of bein' fust cousins; de Wah kem on, an'
Benjy--fool Benjy--run away with the Linkum sojers. Yass, ole fool
Benjy run away with the Linkum sojers, an' been livin' on 'taters and
sow-belly eveh since."

The new Second Reader was forgotten, and he rambled on with the tale
of the old days--a tale which had neither beginning nor end, whose
characters and events grew sharper with each repetition, and of which
the old man never grew weary.

It was a tale of which Moss never grew weary, either. In his childhood
it had served him in lieu of the fairy-tales which a white child hears
at its mother's knees, and throughout his later years it had served him
in lieu of books, pictures, music--in short, had been the sole food
of his esthetic nature. At Harper Hall, before the War, according to
Benjy, it was never too hot or too cold; birds and flowers were present
throughout the year; the grass was always green, the streams were
always full of water; nobody ever worked very hard; there was always
time to fish and hunt, to dance and play the banjo; there was always
plenty to eat. Best of all, there was always love. In that Garden of
Eden, a broken head or a broken heart was equally sure of healing balm.
Old Mis', Miss Pen, and Miss Patty were little lower than the angels.

Moss had heard of slavery, of course. He even knew that his father
had been a slave. But the word conveyed little meaning to him. The
war of which his father so often spoke was equally vague. The only
clear thing about it was that it had ended the old times and begun the
new. How vastly superior those old times had been to the new! What
possible comparison could there be, for instance, between Harper Hall
and Goosefoot Lane? What a fallen creature was the landlord at the
Bluegrass, compared with Benjy's old master! How miserable a thing was
Moss' daily fare beside the feasts to which his father habitually used
to sit down!

[Illustration: "MOST OF THE HOTEL NEGROES SPENT THIS RECESS IN AN
ADJACENT DIVE"]

The old man was still muttering reminiscently, and Moss was still
sitting with his chin buried in his hands, when an apparition appeared
at the head of the Lane. It was a lady, with a white parasol and
broad-brimmed white hat, daintily lifting a fluffy, many-ruffled white
skirt, and exposing a pair of white shoes and stockings. She nodded
amiably at the blacks on either side as she picked her way along, and
halted once for a bit of chat; but at last she bore airily down on Moss
Harper's stoop, where she folded her parasol as a dove might fold its
wings on reaching its ledge.

It was then, and not till then, that a stranger, unless a Southerner,
would have discovered that black blood flowed in her veins--that she
was, in the vernacular of the South, a "nigger"--no more so and no less
so than her thick-lipped, ebon-hued husband, Moss Harper.

She paused for a last covetous glimpse of the stream of life flowing
past the head of the Lane, out there in the white man's world, and
then, with a careless nod at her husband, she passed through the squat
doorway of the musty den--a butterfly entering a rat-hole.

Moss had not spoken,--with elemental human nature mere words count for
little,--but his mind glided from Benjy's broken recital to his wife.
He never thought of her as half white, for she had been suckled at
a black breast; she had played with black pickaninnies; her present
associates were black, like her husband; and she spoke the jargon of
the blacks. He preferred, in fact, to think of her as of his own race.
Yet her undeniable beauty, her fair skin and her wavy hair, were facts
to be reckoned with. And beneath that fair skin and wavy hair were
other things to be reckoned with--yearnings and ambitions unknown to
an Ethiopian, a taste for fine clothes, a discontent with her present
state and a blind groping for something better in the way of life, all
handed down in her white father's blood.

It is true that the ladies for whom Estelle formerly acted as maid had
pronounced her worthless--vain, frivolous, and dishonest. And they
were right. She was a thief. The beautiful skirt which she had this
day flaunted in the envious eyes of the wenches of Goosefoot Lane had
been stolen from the laundry at which she worked three days in a week,
and many a neat job of shoplifting had she done. Yet, after all, these
were only mistaken means to a great End--means which, if history speaks
true, were not unknown to a far-distant generation of our own race when
they were groping _their_ way out of the darkness of barbarism.

Of these means Moss, fortunately, knew nothing; for old Benjy, rigidly
drilled in honesty by his mistress, had done the same for his son. But
the End he saw, mistily and uncertainly, for Estelle had handed over
to him a great deal of that which her father had handed down to her;
and it was toward this end that he himself was now making his slow and
painful way, with a Second Reader in his hand.

Estelle laid off her scented finery lingeringly and lovingly, put on
a calico wrapper, and passed into the diminutive lean-to which they
called a kitchen. Five minutes later she appeared at the front door,
shot a searching glance up the Lane for anything of interest, and
coolly announced supper. Then the man who, for eleven hours of seven
days in the week, served other men with every luxury which the four
quarters of the globe could supply, sat down to a meal of buttermilk,
cold potatoes, and dry bread.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Moss got home again that night, Estelle was sitting on the stoop
alone, old Benjy having gone to bed with the chickens, as usual. His
eyes brightened, for very often she was summoned to the laundry at
night to take care of "immediate" work from the hotels, she being an
expert at ironing women's fine fabrics. He sat down beside her on one
of the benches which flanked the stoop, and she rested her head on his
arm, as if weary.

"You done paid Fitzpatrick the rent to-day?" he finally asked.

"Yass."

"You show him that hole in the flo'?"

"Yass." She dropped her long dark lashes for an instant, and then
added: "I _tole_ him about it. He di'n' come here. I took the money to
his saloom. You know, he sayed if he haved to come here again fo' that
money, he th'ow us out in the alley."

"He ain' neveh tried to th'ow _me_ yet," observed Moss quietly. "We'll
th'ow ourseffs out befo' long. We ain' gwine to live in this hawg-pen
all the time." He paused, and added more gently: "I don' want you to go
to his saloom no mo', 'Stelle."

"I went in the side do'," she explained. "Nobody di'n' see me. An' I
di'n' go no furder than the do'. But I won' go no mo' ef you don' want
me to."

"I don' want you to," he repeated definitely. "I don' want him to
insult you like he did me when I axed him to fix that hole what you
could th'ow a bull thoo."

"Why, Mossie, you neveh tole me about that! What he say?" There was an
indescribable undertone--possibly of amusement--in her velvety voice.

"He sayed he'd hoss-whip me ef I eveh come to his saloom again beggin'
for repai's."

Estelle's lashes again quivered slightly, and her lips parted in the
shadow of a smile--just enough to reveal the straight, faultless
joint between her two rows of glistening teeth. She reached for the
great black hand which rested on his knee and laid it in her lap,
covering it with her own. It was as if she recognized in that member
of sledge-hammer size and hardness a sure defense from all harm. Yet
the light which played in her eyes, as she lazily turned her face
toward his, was still half-ironical. Was it Caucasian fleering at
Ethiopian--white blood mocking black?

"Moss, I'd lak to see him try to hoss-whip you." She laughed at the
thought.

"You mus'n' want me to fight," he rebuked her quietly. "I don' lak
to fight. I want to git where I won' never have to fight. When I
gits awdained as preacher, we gwine live in the country, an' have a
li'l' house with a gyahden, where dad kin potter roun' and raise us
veg'tables. You won' have to wuk in no laundry then, or live in a
hawg-pen lak this."

Estelle was quiet for several minutes, with her large eyes fixed
reflectively on the stars.

"When you think you gwine be awdained?" she finally asked.

"Pretty soon, now; soon's I learns to read a li'l' better."

But in his heart he was not so sure. Old Benjy was of the opinion that
he would at least have to go through the Third Reader to qualify for
ordination, and he was only beginning the Second.

"You think you lak the country better as you do the city?" asked
Estelle hesitatingly.

"Don' you?" he demanded in astonishment.

"Oh, _I_ do," she hastened to assure him. "But I was juss wunnerin' ef
you wou'n' make mo money in a big chu'ch in the city as you would in a
li'l' chu'ch in the country."

"Got to take li'l' chu'ch fust," he observed astutely.

That he was still dissatisfied with her question, Estelle seemed to
detect by some sixth sense, for she ran on suavely: "You know, I neveh
lived in the country, lak you. Tha's why I axed you what I did. I
reckon I don' know how sweet the country is. Moss, I wish we gwine the
country to-mo'ow to live!" She flung her arms about his neck and let
herself settle down upon his broad chest.

Tears filled the giant's eyes. "I wish you was, honey. But I cyarn take
you--juss yit. Got to wait a li'l' while--juss a li'l' while."

In that moment Estelle probably meant what she said. In that moment
her love for the man whose name she bore was probably uppermost in her
foolish heart. In that moment her impulse toward a higher life may have
carried her beyond her love of finery, and she may have been willing to
give up the city and the very questionable means which it afforded for
securing that finery.

[Illustration: "IT WAS INTO THIS ATMOSPHERE THAT THE STUDENT TOOK HIS
WAY"]


II

We drift along the placid stream of Time, complaining of the monotony
of the voyage, when already the murmur of rapids which are to try every
muscle and thrill every nerve might be heard if we but stilled our
peevish notes long enough to listen. A week after the above events a
party of four ladies from central Kentucky arrived one evening at the
Bluegrass. The register showed them to be mother and daughters; and
their gentle manners and soft voices, added to the beauty of the girls,
had put the clerk on his mettle, spurring him to an exhibition of his
choicest Kentucky gallantry. He had just promised them a large, cool
room on the second floor, containing two beds, and, in answer to their
laughing, half-ironical request that they might be shown the Congo
King, he had assured them that they should be seated at that royal
scion's table.

"You certainly are entitled to the privilege," he added blandly, "for
his real name is the same as yours."

"Harper?" queried the mother of the pretty trio, with some surprise.

"Yes; Moss Harper."

The four ladies exchanged quick glances.

"Why, our carriage-driver, long before the War, was an old negro
named Moss. He had a son named Benjy, who ran away during the War. I
don't want to impeach the genealogy of your King, but I wonder--" She
stopped, as if recalling that her auditor was a stranger, then added,
with a smile: "Anyhow, we _must_ be waited on by him, now."

       *       *       *       *       *

Moss was aware that the ladies at his table were scanning him with more
interest than even his size and legendary history usually evoked, and
he was not much surprised, therefore, when the eldest of them said:
"Excuse me, please, but is your real name Moss Harper?"

"Yassum," he answered, halting instantly in his employment, as old
Benjy had taught him to do, and dumbly waiting the lady's further
pleasure.

"Do you know your father's name?"

"Yassum. Ole Benjy."

"Is he still living?"

"Yassum; livin' with me."

The lady's small white hand closed rather quickly on the table-cloth.

"Do you know what county he came from?"

"Yassum. Ole Bubbon; he done live at Hahpeh Hall." Then the lady's
lighting eyes encouraged him to volunteer a word or two, contrary to
his habit. "The Hahpehs all daid and gone now, though. All killed in
the Wah."

One of the girls shot her sisters an amused glance, but Penelope
Harper's lips quivered. In a voice which struck Moss as the sweetest he
had ever heard, she continued: "I think I shall ask you to come to our
room--No. 120--as soon as you are through with your duties here. I have
something of interest to tell you."

To Moss, with the childish impatience of his race, it seemed as if he
would never escape from the dining-room that night; for when he was on
the point of leaving, at a little after nine, he was detailed to help
take care of a party of a dozen or more that had just come in. It was,
therefore, after ten when he gently tapped on the door of No. 120.

He had been too well bred by his father to sit down; and Mrs. Harper,
not wishing to disturb his conception of propriety, though some laxity
on the present occasion would have been permissible, let him stand just
inside the door, with his greasy old hat clutched awkwardly between his
hands and the shrunken sleeves of his butternut suit exposing four or
five inches of muscular black wrist.

"In the first place, Moss," she began, after ascertaining a little more
of his history, "I want to tell you that the Harpers are not all dead.
I am a Harper myself. I am the Miss Pen that old Benjy must have often
told you about."

"Not Miss Pen!" exclaimed Moss, with starting eyes, as if beholding an
apparition. "Not the one that mah'd Marse Willie Hahpeh?"

"The very same," she assured him, smiling. "And these are my daughters.
But Marse Willie is dead; he died a long time ago, during the War."

Verily, it was as if some magician had rung up the curtain on the
past--that beautiful past of which his father had told him so much. He
listened to Mrs. Harper's story in something like a trance, with his
blue-black eyes half lost in reverie. And, thus forgetting himself, his
awkwardness passed; his hands fell naturally by his side, his chest
came out, his head rose, and he stood before the ladies in all the
splendor of physique which Nature had invested him with.

"Now, Moss," Mrs. Harper concluded, "no Harper could ever neglect a
descendant of our faithful old Moss, even though his son did run away
during the War. We want to take care of you and Benjy. We'll give him
a cabin by himself, and we'll give you and your wife another cabin. As
fast as you learn the plantation work, you shall be advanced. With your
strength and intelligence, I am sure that you can soon be earning good
wages, and you will be much happier and better off than you are here.
To-morrow afternoon, when you are at home, we'll drive out to see old
Benjy, as he is probably too feeble to come here, and you can then tell
us what you have decided to do. Meanwhile, to relieve any immediate
needs, accept this." And she handed him a ten-dollar bill.

Just how he expressed his thanks, or how he got out of the room, Moss
never clearly recalled, for his brain was whirling. But when he found
himself in the street, with the cool evening air on his heated brow, he
started for home on a run. It was a rather dangerous thing for a black
man to do, too, at that hour of the night, in a Southern city, since a
policeman was likely to stop him with a tap on the head from a "billy."

[Illustration: "HEAH'S AN OLE DEVIL I USED TO WRASTLE WITH,' HE
EXCLAIMED SHRILLY"]

But the first thing that stopped Moss was the glowing front of a
pawnshop, near the head of Goosefoot Lane. In the window was a brooch
which Estelle had paused to gaze at, with covetous eyes, every day for
weeks. Moss had looked at it himself a good many times, dreaming rather
than hoping to carry it home some day as a surprise for Estelle. Now he
had the money, and, without a thought of the prodigality of his course,
he entered the shop.

His heavy breathing did not escape the sharp eyes of the Hebrew
proprietor, who would not have been at all surprised to see a pursuing
policeman heave in sight. But when Moss showed his bill and asked for
the brooch, the pawnbroker quickly went forward for the article, and,
after taking into consideration his customer's evident hurry, he set a
price of five dollars on it. Estelle would have got it for half that
sum, but Moss paid the price without a murmur, and then sped on down
the Lane, leaving the Hebrew well pleased with the transaction and
fully convinced that his customer was a thief.

Estelle was not at home, to Moss' keen disappointment, and, though he
took it that she was at the laundry, he woke his father to make sure.
Old Benjy, as torpid as a woodchuck in January, was not easily roused;
but Moss' repeated shouts and by no means gentle thumps finally brought
him to his elbow, blinking dazedly.

"Daddy, Miss Pen's alive! She's at the hotel, and she's foun' us out,
and gwine to teck us all back to Hahpeh Hall!"

Old Benjy continued to blink silently, and was evidently of the opinion
that he had been dreaming. But when Moss had repeated the news twice or
thrice, and the facts had finally filtered through Benjy's thick skull,
he let out a yelp that would have shamed a coyote.

"Halleluyer! Halleluyer! Glory to Gawd! Bress de Lam'! Bress de Lam'!"

Moss, after confirming his supposition as to Estelle's whereabouts, did
not wait for the broadside of questions which his father was sure to
fire at him, but ran out to the stoop. Should he wait for her? Should
he pin the brooch on her night-dress, and then, when she discovered it,
overwhelm her with the good news? That would be fine, but it was far
too severe a tax upon his patience. The next moment he was on the wing
again.

No negroes were allowed to enter the laundry by the front door, or,
indeed, by any door, unless employed about the place. But Moss stole
in through the engine-room at the rear, and managed to make his way as
far as the ironing-machines without challenge. Estelle was nowhere in
sight, however; and, raising his voice above the clatter, he inquired
as to where she was of a mulatto girl whom he had often seen with his
wife.

"She done gone to git some medicine fur a haidache," answered the girl.

"How long 'go?"

"Juss li'l' while--not ten minutes."

At this, a wrinkled old negress, who had bent her head forward to catch
the colloquy, showed her half-dozen yellow teeth in an evil grin.

"Sonny," she volunteered maliciously, "she been gone two hou's by the
clock. The medicine that gull gwine arfter don' come fum no drug-sto'."

Moss had no time for further parley, for the threatening voice of
the foreman warned him to depart without loss of time, and he glided
swiftly out again; but in the starlight outside he paused, with the
mist from the exhaust-pipe drifting into his upturned face.

Some of the joy had gone out of his eyes. Did the old woman mean that
Estelle drank? Once or twice, recently, he thought he had detected
liquor on her breath, but he had immediately dismissed the suspicion.
Drinking, of course, was no heinous offense in his eyes; he daily
saw too many white women drinking to hold such an opinion as that.
Nevertheless, he himself had forgone liquor for years--old Benjy had
preached him many a temperance sermon; and Estelle had allowed him to
believe that she, too, never drank.

But now that the accursed maggot of doubt was in his brain, he could
not cast it out, and its foul progeny multiplied thick and fast.
With feverish haste he made the round of all the drug-stores in the
vicinity; but Estelle was not to be seen. Twice he returned to the
cabin; but the measured snoring of old Benjy, who had swallowed the
good news as a child would a sugar-plum, and then calmly fallen asleep
again, was the only sound that greeted his ears.

How quiet the cabin was! A chill solitude already seemed brooding
over it, and the familiar objects of the room had taken on a strange
appearance. With an unnamed, unnamable fear compressing his heart and
making breathing difficult, he took his way back to the head of the
Lane. After standing there a moment, straining his eyes in either
direction, he began to wander slowly and a little wearily up and down
the avenue, scrutinizing every woman who came within his range of
vision.

[Illustration: "OLD BENJY CONTINUED TO BLINK SILENTLY"]

He finally found himself, by mere chance, in front of his landlord's
saloon. A passing thought brought his leaden feet to a stand-still. If
Estelle _should_ have gone out for a drink, and had had no money,--as
he believed to be the case,--would she not have come to Fitzpatrick's?
It would have been the last place to which he would have gone to ask
credit for a drink, for, in the first place, no negroes were allowed
to drink at Fitzpatrick's bar; in the second place, Fitzpatrick was no
friend of his. Yet Estelle had gone there once with the rent! Maybe she
had gone more than once; maybe----

A sound in the gloomy hallway along one side of the saloon suddenly
made his steady-going heart give one great bound. It was Estelle's
voice in silly, tipsy laughter, followed by a profane admonition, in
a masculine voice, to keep still. Next came the cautious closing of
a door and guarded footsteps. As rigid as iron, with his great fists
clenched and his nostrils spread like an angry bull's, Moss waited for
the pair to appear. But, instead of coming nearer, their footsteps
receded until he heard them ascending the stairs at the other end of
the hall; then they ceased.

One--two--three--four--five minutes Moss stood there, seeing nothing,
hearing nothing, a film over his eyes, a noise like rushing waters in
his ears. His sensations were very similar to those he had felt when
a careless carpenter had once dropped an oak two-by-four on his head
from the second story of a building; and now, as then, he automatically
raised his hand to his scalp.

But at last he came out of the curious obsession; he saw the twinkling
arc-lights, heard the humming of the trolley-cars, and was conscious
of people passing to and fro. With a strange smile, he took the packet
containing the brooch from his pocket, slowly unwrapped it, and
dropped the trinket to the sidewalk, after which he ground it under
his heel. Then he crossed the street to a negro saloon--that is, a
saloon for negroes, run by a white man. He poured himself a big drink.
The villainous liquor trickled pleasantly through his interior, and he
immediately ordered a second drink--then a third--then a fourth. This
time the bartender, after an uneasy glance at the herculean shoulders
and muddy eyes of his patron, substituted a weaker mixture for the
fiery stuff he had been setting out. He also shifted a revolver beneath
the bar into a slightly handier position.

But Moss walked quietly out and recrossed the street, with no hint of
unsteadiness in his gait, in spite of his unusual potations. He softly
entered Fitzpatrick's hallway, and in the dark recess behind the stairs
he took his stand--a silent, grim, fearsome statue of obsidian hue and
almost heroic size.

He waited for what seemed hours; but, queerly enough, he was not
impatient, nor was he in the least excited. Occasionally a policeman
sauntered past the entrance; at intervals a trolley-car thundered by;
the bartender of the saloon slammed and locked the back door. Finally,
a tower clock began to boom out the hour, and Moss, in the absence of
anything else to do, counted the strokes.

Only twelve! He would have guessed that it was at least two o'clock.
Then, having counted to twelve without much effort, he began to count
his fingers over and over, to see how far he could go. At thirty-nine,
being a little uncertain of the next number, he paused. During the
pause he heard the swish of a skirt in the hall above. They were coming!

A woman's agonized shriek, a man's curse, a chance shot into the dark
from his ever-ready revolver, a scuffle,--a very brief scuffle,--and
then all was as still as before. Estelle had told her last lie;
Fitzpatrick had dispensed his last drink.

Moss walked forward to the doorway, waited quietly until an officer
who had heard the report of the revolver came running up, and then
surrendered himself.

"I done kill 'em," he explained laconically.

Ten minutes later, in heavy manacles, he stepped down from the police
ambulance at the entrance to the jail--a huge brick building, covering
an entire block, with its barred windows rising story on story, a
somber architectural jest at Civilization.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some two months later, the governor of Kentucky was standing with his
hands in his pockets at the window of his office, in the quaint capitol
building at Frankfort, and gazing idly at the tablet in the sidewalk
which marks the spot where William Goebel fell, the victim of an
assassin's ball. He turned, at the rustle of a lady's skirts.

"Why, Pen! What angel sent you?" he exclaimed, pushing forward his
easiest chair. "Pen, do you know you're just in time to save the
gov'neh of Kentucky from a spell of the blues? It's a fact. I read a
book last night, by a man named Buckle, about civilization and that
sawt of thing, and the pesky thoughts stick to me like a nightmare. I
was standin' by that window theh, just reviewin' the events which have
taken place in our deah old State in the past quarter of a century, and
I was askin' myself which way we were headed--up or down."

"Up, surely," answered Mrs. Harper. She looked at him with that candor
and seriousness which is permitted only between old friends, and then
continued: "Wilbur, I have a problem, too, and I want you to help me
solve it. I want you to pardon a negro who was convicted last June in
Louisville of a double murder, and who is now here in the penitentiary.
He is the son of that Benjy of ours that ran off during the War, and
the grandson of our old Moss. You remember them both. I never knew
either of them to be guilty of a vicious act, and this boy--he's only
twenty-five--killed his wife and the white man who had debauched her."

The governor sat playing with his pen-knife for some time after she had
finished her story.

"I wish this Moss of yours had killed only the man, Pen," he observed.
"That's what a white man would have done, and everybody would have
applauded. But, then, a niggeh ain't a white man--never will be a
white man. Pen, being gov'neh is a terribly responsible job. Now, you,
for instance, ask me, one man, to set aside the findings of twelve
men appointed by the people to determine this niggeh's guilt. Yet the
pahdoning power was certainly given me for a purpose, and I intend to
use it when I see fit. I'll take your word for it, Pen, that Moss is a
good niggeh; I'll look into his case, and if you are not mistaken as to
the facts, and will take him out to the Hall and keep him theh, I'll
pahdon him. But I can't do it right away. In the fust place, a little
punishment will do him good. In the second place, theh's politics.
Politics, Pen! To pahdon that niggeh now, my dear Pen, while the events
are still so fresh, would make an awful row. The press would froth at
the mouth. But in a year, mind you, or eighteen months at the most,
I'll turn him loose."

"Oh, Wilbur, a year is such a long time!" exclaimed Mrs. Harper
plaintively.

"Is it, Pen,--to you--at fifty-five?" he asked whimsically.

"Alas, no, not to _me_! I'm not in a cell. But I understand your
position, Wilbur, and I'll submit to the inevitable. It is so much
better than it might have been, and I am very, very grateful. But can I
not intimate the good news to him, just to keep up his courage?"

"If you do it very diplomatically, Pen, and do not mention me."

Then, after she had left, he sat chuckling in his chair at the idea of
asking a woman to be diplomatic under such circumstances.

The warden, after reading the Governor's note, turned to a guard. "Put
a coat on 1610 and bring him to the reception-room."

"If you please," interposed Mrs. Harper, "I should like to see him just
as he is, at his work."

She followed her conductor through the stifling prison-yard, cut off by
the encircling hills from every current of air. On the hill-side, where
the convicts were breaking stone, it seemed even hotter, the oven-like
breath of the dog-day sun rebounding into one's face in almost palpable
pulsations. Moss was one of a gang of fifty. He was naked to the waist,
and his broad, sweaty back glistened in the sunlight like the skin of a
porpoise; yet, in spite of the heat, his sledge rose and fell with the
regularity of machinery.

"Has he given you any trouble?" asked Mrs. Harper of the guard.

"No'm. He ain't that kind. He's the kind that gits gloomy and either
dies or goes nutty. But after a year or two we'll probably make a
trusty of him, and then he'll be happier. Murderers generally make the
best trusties."

When Mrs. Harper, after going forward a few steps alone, with a
quickened pulse, spoke his name, Moss' sledge hung in mid-air, and he
hearkened without looking up, as if doubting his ears. It was not until
she repeated his name that he turned toward her. His face was neither
bitter nor vindictive, but dull, oh, unutterably dull, as if he had
said farewell forever to hope. He did not speak--to speak was against
the rules. He did not even smile, but simply touched the brim of his
wool hat.

Mrs. Harper, with a catch in her breath, stepped still nearer.

"Moss, I remain your friend," she began tremulously. "Benjy is with us,
and we are taking the best care of him. And, listen, Moss! This is what
I came to tell you. I am authorized to say, positively, by a power that
is supreme, that, if your behavior is good, your detention here will
not be more than eighteen months, and I hope only twelve. You can stand
the work that long, can't you, knowing that we are waiting for you,
ready to give you a home?"

Still his expression did not change, and still he did not speak.

"Don't you--don't you understand, Moss?" she asked, with quivering
lips, fearful that his mind had already been shocked.

His slow words then came:

"Yassum, I kin stan' it. I could stan' it foreveh. But _she's_ daid,"
he cried hoarsely. "I kill her--I choke her--with that han'!" thrusting
out the member. "The same han' she used to put her li'l' han's roun'
and hole so tight--same han' I used to pat her cheek with--same han'--"
A shudder passed over his huge form until his teeth chattered.

"Oh, I know it's hard!" exclaimed the tender woman, suffering only
less than he. "You have sinned, and you must do penance. But we've all
sinned, and all done penance, and yet happiness comes again. Believe
me, Moss, some day you'll be happy again. Be brave, and one month from
to-day I'll be here to see you again. Meanwhile, can I do anything for
you--take any word to Benjy?"

His lusterless eyes seemed to brighten a little.

"Mis' Pen, will you sot up a li'l' tombstone on her grave? Juss a li'l'
one, so I kin fine it some day, when I gits out?"

And Penelope, with blinding eyes, promised.




AN AMERICAN MASTER OF LANDSCAPE

BY

T. M. CLELAND


A striking reversal of attitude may be noticed to-day toward
innovations in the field of art. Time was, we are told by the
biographers of the Old Masters, when the painter who dared to step
beyond the pale of conventions current in his day, suffered the
neglect and bitter scorn of his contemporaries. From the earliest
period of artistic endeavor, the innovator has been on the defensive;
whereas the cardinal sin in the modern artist is rather the _failure_
to innovate or to startle us by some new form of disregard for the
principles established by tradition. In the place of knowledge and
patient scholarship, we find sophistication and a restless, conscious
craving to produce an effect sufficiently startling to command the
instant attention of a busy world. In the art of landscape painting
particularly this desire to be effective at any cost has led many of
the younger generation of artists to adopt for themselves hastily
formed theories regarding the phenomena of light and air and to devote
their lives to these, forgetting all else.

The result of all this is a modern school of landscape, the aims of
which seem strangely more allied to scientific investigation than to
artistic study, and a class of pictures which expound, frequently with
great skill, the theories upon which they are accomplished; but which
are rarely intelligible to any one not directly concerned with the
study of art.

So it is with some sense of relief that we may turn our attention upon
the achievements of an artist like Thomas R. Manley, whose drawings
are reproduced here, not that they may be the subject of a written
discourse, but that of themselves they may give pleasure to a wider
public than it has hitherto been their fortune to command. They are
the product of a quiet and orderly development carried on outside the
clamor of the modern movement, simple masterpieces of landscape drawing
as it has been practised since the days of Claude Lorrain. They
present no "theory" upon which we may base a philosophical discussion,
and there is nothing "new" about them at all beyond a simple technical
invention of the artist's, whereby his line is rendered more soft and
pliable than by the ordinary mediums of crayon or pencil. What they do
possess, however, and to a high degree, is the evidence of a mastery
of the technique of design plus a finely trained intelligence and
feeling. This technical mastery of design is perhaps the rarest of
accomplishments at the present day, because it is the most difficult to
acquire and makes too great a demand upon patience. And yet it is this
which should and does satisfy most directly the unconscious esthetic
sense in us all; for who cannot experience some inward pleasure in
the form and movement of the hills and trees as they are expressed to
us in these drawings? It is not essential to our enjoyment of these
things that we should ourselves have knowledge of the technical means
whereby they are conveyed; but it is these studied accomplishments
which we are enjoying nevertheless; because through them our own sense
of harmony is aroused. Let us note, for instance, the character of the
lines used to represent the foliage in the first drawing reproduced,
and see with what beautiful, rythmic precision they produce at one
and the same time the required tone and the movement of the thing
represented. And again, in the trunks of the trees how fully the firm
lines record the upward growth and the vicissitudes of weather suffered
in their struggles to attain the majestic heights to which they rise.
This method of drawing, in which light and shade is produced by lines
which at the same time follow the form and movement of the objects
represented, is perhaps the oldest and most conventional; but in the
hands of a master like Mr. Manley it is more fully expressive and
beautiful in its results than any other.


[Illustration: FOUR DRAWINGS

OF

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

BY

THOMAS R. MANLEY]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

If to dwell upon points as technical as this seems a contradiction to
the statement already made, to the effect that these reproductions
are presented for what pleasure they may give the layman, it should
be said that it is for the reason that such technicalities as are
pointed out may well be within the understanding of all intelligent
persons and that their elucidation may assist greatly toward a fuller
appreciation of the more intellectual merits. And if we fail to
consider sufficiently here those more poetic qualities and to attempt
some description of the meanings and sensations conveyed to us by the
pictures themselves, it will be because it seems that these are matters
best left to the individual observer. This is what might be called
the "literary" side of pictures, and one upon which art criticism has
come too largely to dwell. If, on the other hand, the discussion of
pictures were content to confine itself to the pointing out of what
constitutes the "art" of the work, might we not derive each for himself
a more intimate pleasure in undisturbed enjoyment of those intellectual
conceptions, which, though produced by the same picture, are, in no two
of us, precisely alike?

There are represented in the four drawings here selected (from a
collection so interesting that any selection at all was difficult)
several phases of the artist's ability, each so well demonstrated that
it is scarcely possible to choose between them. This versatility of
mood is a noteworthy evidence in itself of the well grounded mastery of
the artist and of his ability to deal with nature at all points. It is,
in other words, no mere trick or specialty which he has learned as one
might pick out note for note and learn by heart a tune upon the piano;
but the work of a hand and eye and mind turned in perfect accord, like
a single instrument capable of an infinite range of expression.

In the first of the drawings, that of the piece of woodland through
which a path winds off to where it is lost to view among the trees,
carrying our imagination with it to the contemplation of scenes still
farther on, we find virtues of a more uncommon type than in the others.
The large nobility--the _monumental_ quality--is an aspect of nature
wholly out of fashion in our day. The firm bed of earth we can feel
under our feet with a sense that it is good to stand upon, and the
fine pattern of trees and clouds swayed in common movement stirs one
with that martial sense of activity, that vitality of impulse which
recalls the memory of some high-winded, keen-aired autumn day. We have
considered already the spirited and skilful drawing of the trees in
this picture; but it is difficult to turn from it without again noting
some of those qualities of line which are particularly well displayed
in these parts of the composition. To render those long, bare, sinuous
stems, growing upward with their roots unmistakably planted in the
ground and not so that they have the appearance of hanging down from
the clouds, is a feat of no small difficulty, to judge from the
frequent instances one meets with of failure in this regard. This
well established feeling of the growth from the ground upward of the
trunks of the trees and the springing from the branches outward of
the foliage, this complete and harmonious development of the whole
structure from the seed, as it were, is the product of an exhaustive
study, in all of its stages, of the life and characteristics of the
tree itself.

We are confronted in the second drawing with a striking contrast
to the first, in that the merits of vigorous and harmoniously
balanced line and form are supplanted by the more tender effects of
atmosphere, and the vigorous stroke becomes gentle in its handling of
the delicate trees worn by the winds and but half seen through the
uncertain twilight. Here, perhaps, the man is more in evidence than the
draftsman, and the sensitive and sympathetic spirit of the artist seems
abstracted for a time from the more tangible qualities which are the
chief glory of the former work. But like the first drawing it possesses
a carefully built up unity of sentiment and notes no point in the scene
not concerned with the impression of loneliness and neglect it seems
intended to convey.

The third and fourth drawings are more remarkable for skilled and
accomplished draftsmanship than for the expression of any distinctive
feature in the varying moods of nature. Our delight in them comes more
from the beautiful precision of aim whereby a single stroke is made to
record a number of interesting facts at the same time. In the drawing
of the barn and shed over-topped by a rugged tree and with a middle
ground filled by lively detail, we are reminded of the great masters
of etching in the clever abbreviation of each of those details and
the manner in which they are grouped or merged one into the other.
And then, in the last one, note the contour of the earth, how well
it is rendered by that cleverly foreshortened winding line of half
obliterated roadway leading up the hill and into the fresh mass of
foliage which crowns it. This ability to draw the solid ground so that
it appears solid is a rare gift in any draftsman, and it may well be
taken as an evidence of the fullness of his talent and training.

Like Constable, Mr. Manley has been content to draw his inspiration
from the small section of the world in which circumstances have placed
him, the quiet New Jersey country where Inness worked out for himself
the distinguished place his name holds among American landscape
painters. These drawings by no means represent the full range of Mr.
Manley's activities, for he has won high esteem as a painter and an
etcher and holds a position of importance as a miniaturist; but they
are, perhaps, the things in which his rarest talents are displayed,
as they are also the closest to his own pleasure in his art. They are
the pastimes of an uncommonly sincere and scholarly master who shows
integrity in play as well as in work, and who has carried on his career
with an earnestness and a humility and modesty of character which all
but deprived us of any sight of his achievements at all.




THE HOUSE OF MUSIC

BY

GERTRUDE HALL


One elating, blue and white April morning saw a cheerful company of
six assembling in a railroad-station waiting-room. There were the
manager of the tour, Duprez--gray-haired in comparative youth, at
once care-worn and accommodating looking--the foreign stamp on him
not entirely obliterated by the stamp of the country; and his wife,
the popular Pearl Wharton-Duprez, whose habit of facing the world
as an audience must have found its way into her features; she was
recognizable at sight for a singer. Her brilliant face, while not
precluding the possibility of a heart, suggested less remotely a temper.

There was one Milen Odiesky, gripping a black violin-box; who listened
to a hilarious conversation he but half understood, with a fixed
smile, revealing a marked division between his two broad, white front
teeth,--disagreeable, for some reason, though he might pass for
handsome in a dark, hairy, Oriental way.

Then there was one who at first glance looked in the group as if
he must be an acquaintance come to see them off. He was tall and
proportionately broad, with stalwart shoulders, a deep chest, and a big
neck; superlatively well groomed and dressed. The gloss of his silk
hat was not broken by the wilfulness of one hair. He carried himself
a trifle more than erect, and swept his limited horizon with a calm,
kingly eye. His face was close-shaven, a smooth coppery rose, shading
easily into the color of his close-cropped hair. His features were of
the rather thick, round, good-natured type, and time was beginning to
divide up his face into heavier masses than occur in the forties; but
these facts did not prevent his presence on the whole from impressing
an observer with the sense that he looked at something really very
fine. This was Bronson, whose name on the program would occupy the
most room: the great Bronson, Anthony, the tenor of long sustained
fame--sustained, indeed, so long that these appearances in parts that
knew him only by that fame had now been projected.

Then there was a little plump woman, the one who kept the others
laughing; and she carried, besides what one is accustomed to see on the
arms of travelers, all the things she had forgotten to put into her
trunk; among which were an alarm-clock, a sponge-bag, a pink flannel
dressing-sacque, and a little image of the Virgin. She bubbled on, in
a voice as impossible to forget or mistake for another's as her face;
which face, however, was not pretty, but so faithfully reflected a
nature as to be memorable for its want of all malice, concealment,
or suspicion. It was not that her features were child-like which
accounted for her face bringing to mind a child's, but that it shared
some quality inclining one on shortest acquaintance, without fear of
rebuff, to treat its winsome, unsevere, uncritical owner familiarly
and affectionately. She was not pretty, but certainly her dark-edged,
misty, pale blue eyes, with their capacity in the same measure for
humor and sentiment, under eyebrows sympathetically working with her
thoughts, and lids stained a tender bistre, had an attaching sweetness;
and the clear spaces of her face, the forehead and temples, something
cool and rare, like the stamp of talent; while just beside her ear,
where a faint lock of silken black hung an inch or so down a soft,
sallow cheek, was a spot creating an instant desire to kiss it. This
was Miss Nevers, the pianiste; Nevers, they briefly called her in
speaking of her, pronouncing the name like an English one; Marie-Aimée
they called her in speaking to her, all excepting Odiesky, who did
not yet know her well enough; except, too, the sixth member of the
party, who could never take it into his head to do so. The latter was a
homely, thin man, neither young nor old, of the name of Snell, who was
engaged to play common accompaniments, and tune the pianos. He stood
near the others, but only ventured a smile where they laughed.

Yet he with the rest, as they trooped to the train, was conscious of a
lift to his spirits. The tour was a turning the back upon the old and
known. It had the charm of beginnings; it opened to life, with this
new combination, new possibilities. Hard work and wearing travel were a
certainty in the prospect, but it showed nevertheless like a holiday,
enlivened by daily change of scene, faces, food.

Beside these general justifications of a reasonable elation on
starting, there was excuse for the festive jollity which made
people turn to look after our friends as they progressed down the
platform--the stately Bronson now carrying a bulging rubber sponge-bag,
impossible to conceal--in the brilliant artistic auspices under which
these musical peregrinations were undertaken, and the discovery, now
that the artists were come together _en troupe_, that they severally
brought elements promising uncommon liveliness and fun.

       *       *       *       *       *

About five years had passed since the laurel-laden return of the Duprez
Concert Company, when Marie-Aimée one morning, rather earlier than it
is customary to make a call, rang the door-bell of a certain large
impressive house.

Whether the explanations were hurry in dressing or absence of mind, she
looked, on this occasion, somewhat as if her clothes, as the saying
is, had been thrown at her. The velvet of her little bonnet needed
brushing; and her little gloves, alas, mending. She wore no veil, and
wisps of her hair had been blown on end. But this effect of disorder
culminated in her face itself, where the colors were out of their
places; her cheeks being pale, her poor small nose and her eyelids
red. She had grown stouter since our last sight of her, and on this
day was carrying herself so without pride or heed as to look fairly
round-shouldered.

As she stood waiting, she must have forgotten that she was in a public
street, or else felt bad beyond caring; two or three times she openly
mopped her eyes. When, however, she faced the tall butler who opened
the door, she appeared to have nothing worse the matter with her than a
bad head-cold. She asked if Miss Cheriton were in, gave her card, and
was shown into a vast hushed drawing-room. There, as soon as she had
been left alone, she looked at herself in the mirror; after which she
chose a seat with its back to the windows. She had occupied this but
a moment, when, lest the thoughts stealing back upon her should drive
her again to tears, she crossed over to the grand-piano glimmering in
the half-light with liquid reflections of gilt moldings, brocade, and
palms. She lifted the lid to peer at the name of the maker, and tried
its tone with a scarce audible chord. Then she took up piece after
piece of the music in the rack, questioning it as to Miss Cheriton's
title to her high reputation as an amateur pianist.

On hearing a rustle, she hurriedly laid down the music, and got up,
her heart rushing. Miss Cheriton had shaken hands, with expressions of
pleasure in making her acquaintance, had offered her a seat, and taken
one, before Marie-Aimée had been able to do more than clear her throat.

Miss Cheriton had allotted her a seat well in the lights; her curiosity
about this caller could do no less; wherefore Marie-Aimée's reddened
eyes at first refused a square encounter. But shortly, while Miss
Cheriton was forcing a dullish conversation, Marie-Aimée forgot
herself, and looked Miss Cheriton in the face; full as interested as
she in the looks of the other at close range.

Marie-Aimée saw a well-grown young woman of eight or nine and twenty;
faultlessly dressed in a fawn colored cloth matching her perfectly
arranged abundant hair. Her face was entirely fine, if a little cold.
She gave an impression of great self-poise; she could be imagined to
have always thought and decided for herself, and had the fortune to
see everything go as she wished, which no doubt she laid to the firm
and just management she looked so capable of exercising. She had a
beautiful calm complexion and calm dark-blue eyes, which weighed you
thoughtfully, and would with difficulty, you fancied, alter their
conclusions about you. But at least, Marie-Aimée felt with relief and
hope, they were windows into a mind where there was room to breathe.

She began abruptly, in a suggestive pause occurring in Miss Cheriton's
small talk, "You must be wondering what brought me."

The expression of Miss Cheriton's face, her only answer to this,
signified that though she hoped she had not seemed to be wondering
rudely, she would in effect be pleased to know.

Marie-Aimée picked at her glove. "It is this. I was told that I had
been making mischief. And I came, wishing if possible to remedy it."

Miss Cheriton's eyebrows moved upward just enough to start a ripple
in the beautiful smoothness of her forehead, and she waited, her eyes
inquiring of Miss Nevers' troubled face; in their depths had flashed a
prevision of what might be coming.

"I know I talk a dreadful lot," Marie-Aimée burst forth in disgust,
"I tell everything I know. I can't keep to myself even stories that
are against myself. Whatever is on my heart, I say it. I have been
making a dreadful fool of myself--which is bad enough, but I feel worse
about having given annoyance to others.... Mr. Bronson came to see me
yesterday evening."

She paused, as after a piece of news. Miss Cheriton waited in silence,
her face expressing nothing beyond polite attention.

"And he said that my doing as I have been doing made a lot of gossip,
which inevitably reached you, and was calculated to give you a mistaken
impression of our relations in the past----" Marie-Aimée's voice stuck.

After a moment, "Please, please, don't be distressed," murmured Miss
Cheriton; and as if her uneasiness at the sight of tears had made her
restless, left her seat, and went to stand beside the mantle-piece,
leaning on it with one elbow, ornaments at choice within reach, to pick
up and play with.

Marie-Aimée laughed through a sob. "You see? Was there ever such
a fool? And this is the way I have been ever since I heard of his
engagement. But I want you to understand, Miss Cheriton, that _that's
just me_. How can he help it, unhappy man, if I am made this way? I
have cried like a pump. I have cried upon the shoulder of every one
who would stand it. But I had no right, no possible right, to lament
in the highways like that. It was only--when my heart was full, I
let it run over. But I never in the least meant it as a reproach to
anyone,--any more, put it this way, than a sunflower going draggled and
crazy at sunset. But he told me last night I made him ridiculous. Oh,
he was gentle. For all that, the things he said troubled me horribly;
and I made up my mind, after he had left, to come directly to you and
explain, so that if reports have vexed you, you should not mind them
after this."

Miss Cheriton said quietly, not looking at Marie-Aimée, but at an ivory
Chinaman she held: "It is not necessary, Miss Nevers. I did indeed hear
something, but I did not give it much thought."

Upon which Marie-Aimée, as if these words had contained all the
encouragement necessary, proceeded eagerly, "We never, never were
engaged. You will believe me, whatever you may hear. We merely have
been friends for years. I had known him slightly a long time already,
when we went on a tour together, with Madame Wharton-Duprez. It
was then we became such chums.... Mercy on me, that tour! Shall I
ever forget it? Will any of us?" She smiled, with a sudden drenched
reflection of sunshine on her tear-bedabbled face.

"I know!" Miss Cheriton smiled too. "Mr. Bronson has spoken of it to
me."

"Has he?" asked Marie-Aimée, brightening still further, rainbow-like,
and immediately at greater ease with Miss Cheriton, from a
responsiveness she felt in her smile when the ever fertile subject of
the tour was broached, dear in its time to Anthony Bronson's heart.
"That's good. For it will in part explain.... Don't you agree with me
that laughing together makes a stronger bond than even weeping? Well,
on that tour, what we did best and chiefly, was to laugh. Did he ever
tell you----" She dropped her voice like a person having something good
to relate, and fun played over her face in ripples, "the adventure of
the water-melon? Yes, of course! I suppose he has told you everything.
And the adventure of the face-wash and the curling-irons? And the
night of the great thunderstorm? Oh, make him tell you that one. It is
incredible, the number of things, and the description of things, that
happened to us in those six months. It was as if we had been a sort of
lightening-rod attracting all the incongruous, ludicrous, delicious
happenings that should have been distributed over the country. Or else,
it is that we were in a disposition of mind to find everything funny.
Of course, it may have been that. But still--imagine our arriving
once at a little place where we had never been heard of. There is a
mistake. And no one expects us. And there is no hotel. And it ends in
our being obliged to sleep in the empty jail, we women, a dovecote of
a jail, with just two wee cells; oh, slumbers of sweetness and safety,
after our many nights in strange hostelries. No need for once to look
under the bed for burglars; and the men in a barn. Odiesky didn't get
the hayseed out of his hair that season. And imagine--imagine having
along with you a man who has a nightmare every time he drops off to
sleep. A poor Mr. Snell who went with us was like that, and we used to
run into one another in the lobbies, in curl-papers, at dead of night,
flying to knock him up, he made such awful, such blood-curdling sounds,
which could be heard all over the hotel. It is unkind to laugh at an
infirmity, but the sounds he made, could you have heard them, would
excuse me to you. And imagine--but try to--imagine the six of us, six
people who feel themselves not a little famous, going fourteen miles in
a single-seated wagon, that, or miss our connection, and complications
without end. I don't believe I stopped laughing the whole way. You
see it? We two, the grace and beauty of the party, enthroned upon the
laps of _ces messieurs_--no other way, no other way possible, none.
Wharton-Duprez in the arms of her own husband; and Odiesky astride the
horse, postilion, having to drive; and poor little Snell on the floor
with his knees over the dash-board; and the danger at any moment of
the wagon breaking down----" She pieced out that fourteen-mile long
ecstasy of merriment with more of a singularly rich, unaffected laugh,
in the midst of which her face fell blankly serious, and she held up,
as if she had never seen it before, the hand which in the heat of her
description she had been waving.

"Will you look at my glove?" she said; promptly closing which
parenthesis she continued, "As I was saying, it may have been that
circumstances really justified us, or our mood, which was exceptional.
For myself, I never enjoyed myself so much. Oh, I was impressionable
then, and ready to be pleased. Every day a new place, every night a new
triumph. It was Mr. Bronson's triumph, but his glory fell upon us all.
We lived in an atmosphere of success; and people were so nice to us, we
were entertained everywhere like king and court. It was then, you see,
when we were together from morning until night, we grew to know each
other so well. And, you know him, you know how kind he would be to a
little person traveling as I was doing; kind does not express it, and
thoughtful and considerate. And you know the charming companion that he
is, even-tempered, easy-going, good fellow. And in traveling like that
you know the thousand little services a man can render you, and, among
artists, the good turns. He, you will have discovered, has not a touch
of that queer jealousy so common among artists.

"But there was even more than all that. Before the end of our
engagement, Wharton-Duprez had taken the most cattish dislike to me;
I have never known why. And everything that woman could do to make
things uncomfortable for me she took pains to do, even, will you
believe it, contriving that my luggage should be left behind, and I
forced to appear on the stage in the filthiest little coal-begrimed
traveling-suit--at the fag end of the season, you understand.
Ferdinand, her husband, did not dare to say a word. It would have
been past endurance for me then, had it not been for Mr. Bronson's
invariably showing himself my friend, and keeping her within limits. I
had reason to be grateful to him, you see. I should have had to be a
monster not to become devoted to him. You can put yourself in my place,
can't you? And then, add to everything else his singing. Never, never,
never, to me, has there been anything like it."

Miss Cheriton bowed her head, slowly, in agreement.

"_If with all your heart ye truly seek me_," murmured Marie-Aimée,
looking as if she listened to a voice singing in her memory.

"_In manly worth and honor clad_," murmured the other, likewise.

"It opens a door, doesn't it," Marie-Aimée spoke low, as if they
had entered a church, "into a world where it is all beautiful,
calm, eternal--the only world--where whoever breathes its air must
worship and must love; just his mere voice, when it is what I call
his ballad-voice, doesn't it contain all romance? Moonlight, boats on
lonely seas, lattices with roses; and when it is his anthem-voice,
it contains, doesn't it, all aspiration, cathedrals, matin-bells,
archangel's choirs----"

Again Miss Cheriton nodded dreamily; then, raising her eyes, which in
listening she had dropped, forgot the one of whom they were speaking
for interest in the face of the speaker, who looked ahead with eyes
which clearly did not see what was before them, but the cloudy white
pillars, one might have surmised, and dim glimmering splendors of some
temple of Music and Love.

Marie-Aimée swept her hand across her forehead. "And I," she continued,
raising her voice in a tone of plaintive exculpation, "I was born mad
for music! A voice has power over me like a spell. And I am flesh and
blood! And so----" she ended feebly, "do you wonder?"

Silence, while Marie-Aimée turned her face wholly from the light. But
even while she made application of her little damp pocket-handkerchief,
a stealing sense warmed her in all her woe that she had somehow made a
friend of Miss Cheriton. The exemplary piece of tranquility there felt
drawn to her; something communicated this unimaginable fact directly
to her heart; and it melted her, as the hint of kindness always did,
and inclined her now verily to make no more circumstances about it, but
show her whole heart in abandoned frankness, repeating just once more
the fault she was here to confess. But simultaneously with gratitude
for that liking, rose in Marie-Aimée the need to repay it greatly;
whence a caution to herself to proceed more than ever guardedly with
the truth.

"And after we were come back," she took up again, "we naturally
continued seeing a great deal of each other. I won't say we would not
have done so from choice, but it was inevitable, too. Our profession
threw us together, concerts, rehearsals; he used, besides, to bring
every bit of new music to learn at my house, with me to play it over
for him. And so on, for years; and to me, I tell it frankly, that
light-hearted, unconventional comradeship of ours gave its principal
charm to life. In the last year I have seen less of him, and latterly
very much less. He was not singing much, he was under treatment for
his throat, and often out of town by his doctor's directions. I missed
him, but I am busy from morning until night, the week round, work and a
thousand things. I thought nothing of it. Do old friends need to see
each other constantly to be assured nothing is changed? Then I hear of
his engagement to you. I am thunderstruck! For never, never, never, had
I dreamed of such a possibility. You see my folly? He was not bound to
me by any promise, or by what you would call a moral obligation. There
never had been any question of our marrying, not even at the beginning
when we first got home, not even in my own mind--" Native honesty and
poor human nature would not permit but that she should add, though in
a tone that made little of it--"any definite, immediate, formulated
idea of it. My poor sweet mother was living then, a sufficient reason
against it. And when she was no longer there, all had got into a
groove, and remained as it had been. And it seemed natural. I have
nothing but what I earn. He was having bothers about money. He put all
his in a mine, you know. We called ourselves poor working-people. But
still! There it is! That's where you discover my bird's brain. That's
me! The way I am! I flatly refused to believe it, and when I saw him
again, I did not even ask. But I daresay I looked as he had never seen
me look. Then he himself told me of it, as one tells such a thing to
an old friend. And the past stood suddenly in a new light; and I saw
clearly, in a flash, that just this and nothing else was to have been
expected. And I knew that it was altogether the most fortunate thing
that could happen to him; and, after the first, I acquiesced.

"Only, I followed my nature in making the outcry of one who has
received a wound and is bleeding dreadfully. I have no dignity, Miss
Cheriton. Discretion and I have never so much as been acquainted. I go
around with my heart in my face, I forget my face, you see, in thinking
of what has befallen me. And I run into some sympathetic woman who is
fond of me, and she cries out 'Marie-Aimée, my poor child, what is
the matter with you?' and I bend feebly upon her shoulder, and tell.
And then I suppose she goes off and tells too. Hence, you see, the
ground of Mr. Bronson's remonstrances with me yesterday evening. And
in consequence of them I am here. I didn't know what else to do, Miss
Cheriton. I hope it was best. And you do see, don't you? I have made
the whole thing plain? I have made it all right? You know how he is,
and now you have seen how I am, the inference will be simple! And I
beg both your pardons. Oh, he is right, he is quite right, to feel
put out with me, but not--" she forced a little watery smile, as she
rose to take her leave--"not because it has ever seemed so terribly
to a great singer's discredit that, when the whole world goes after
him, among them should be a silly woman who does not manage to conceal
her _grande passion_. It only makes him like Mario and others; you
must not let it trouble you, Miss Cheriton. You must think of me in a
thought of the same strain you bestow upon the thousands of photographs
of him that have been sold in the course of his career, and are
cherished and given places of honor in young ladies' rooms; and the
sentimental follies school girls have committed in the way of sending
him flowers and notes. Let these tributes to him merely increase your
pride of possession. He is free from all blame, all, that is what I
have wished you to feel assured of, or all--" she put out her hand in
farewell--"except just a little, little bit. You don't mind? A little
bit he certainly was to blame, though I suppose it can be laid to
the account of his modesty, in not taking it home to himself that he
could not be so nice, so consistently, persistently dear and nice to a
person, without her falling to stupidly adoring him."

She stopped, and stood, vaguely shaking her head, prolonging her faint,
watery, bitter-sweet smile; and would have withdrawn her hand, but Miss
Cheriton retained it, by a firmer pressure, in the warm, kind clasp of
hers. Marie-Aimée lifted her eyes, touched and full of thanks, to the
fine calm eyes above her; and in their unclouded light read Anthony
Bronson's unqualified exoneration, and that she herself had been
impartially examined, and now stood classed, past appeal, among those
soft, sweet, idiotic women who will fall into unwarranted love with any
man of whom they see much, and are by their own passion made incapable
of discerning the fact that he is not in love with them. The glance was
full of honest sympathy for a sorrow so real; but it was not untinged
with as much contempt as would be implied in the prayer, "I thank thee,
my God, I am not as these women are!" Under which Marie-Aimée humbly
bowed her head and waited but for the release of her hand to go. But
Miss Cheriton, whom stiffness or delicacy kept from saying a word in
reference to what she had heard, yet found herself utterly unwilling
that her visitor should leave so uncheered. Still holding her hand,
she told her, in a voice full of the suggestion of sincerity, the deep
pleasure she had always had in hearing her; she amplified, tactfully,
understandingly, upon all she had discovered of exquisite in her
playing.

Marie-Aimée's face lightened a little; she had never become callous to
praise. Miss Cheriton spoke of friends they had in common, from whom
she had heard so much of her, of a sort that had long made it one of
her most eager wishes to know her. Whereupon Marie-Aimée, as ever
responsive, gave herself into Miss Cheriton's hands, to be known. And
the two were shortly making acquaintance as they might have done had
they been presented to each other at the house of those mutual friends.
One could not have dreamed, to hear them, what had gone before. They
talked of music mostly, and musicians, wholly forgetful of time.
To illustrate some point, Marie-Aimée went to the piano and played
a bar or two; after which, as she would have risen, Miss Cheriton
entreated against it; and when Marie-Aimée, who never resisted,
asked what she should play, suggested a composition of Miss Nevers'
own, which the latter had imagined so obscure, she said, as to be
almost her only secret. And she found, to her astonishment, that Miss
Cheriton, whether moved by genuine musical congeniality, or a vulgarer
curiosity, had procured everything ever published of Marie-Aimée's.
Afterwards, Miss Cheriton took the place at the piano of Marie-Aimée
urgent. Then Marie-Aimée begged leave, and supplanted her, to show
how a different sequence of chords would be better; and the woman of
talent and the woman of cultivation spent a long hour, delightful to
both; in the course of which Miss Cheriton found the quaint enthusiasm
for Marie-Aimée felt by her innumerable friends accounted for; and
Marie-Aimée came to disdain, as paltry praise, the definition "very
fine girl" which one was accustomed to hear joined to the name of Kate
Cheriton.

Smiting her brow, aghast, at the recollection of an appointment missed,
Marie-Aimée jumped to her feet. By running she might still be in time
to apologize. They shook hands again, warmly; and Marie-Aimée said, all
her heart in her voice, "I hope you will be very happy."

In the street, Marie-Aimée, as she hurried along, could think of
nothing but Miss Cheriton. She would send her as a wedding-gift the
French great-grandmother's rococo cross, the choicest bit of jewelry
she owned.

Her heart might have been so much dusty, worm-eaten wood; remarking
its astonishing lightness and insensibility, she reverted in thought,
almost flippantly, to the horrors besetting her when she left home that
morning. Surely, if it were possible that with Tony's marriage brought
as close as a visit to his intended brought it, she should feel as she
felt, she might still hope to put on a good face about it to the world.

In this mood she went about a good part of that day; and talked to some
with so much of a return to her old spirit that they disguised their
surprise by a greater cheerfulness than really their mystification
allowed them to feel. Meeting an old acquaintance who put on the face
of a sympathizer to say, "My dear, I _did_ feel for you when I heard
of his engagement, you know whose I mean," she looked as if not sure
she understood; and the old aquaintance, after a searching look at
her, dropped her mournfulness, to proceed, "It seems to be a fine
thing for Bronson, this marriage. I hear that Miss Cheriton will be
a millionaire. People exaggerate, you think? But she _has_ bought a
superb place out of town?"

By the late afternoon, that curious, unseasonable, baseless good cheer
was wearing off, like the effects of wine, and the world, through
its fading fumes, was returning to look like the world of yesterday.
Weariness was overtaking her; but her heart had not recommenced its
clamorous aching; it was only a little sick, when she went into a
music-store for a score she needed. She was looking this over, with her
eyes rather than her mind, when her attention became fixed in memory
upon that expression of Miss Cheriton's face from which she had judged
her mission successful--Tony cleared. Suddenly, as in the middle of the
night she had sometimes known that in a letter sent off there was a
word misspelled, she felt that triumph of confidence in Miss Cheriton's
eyes not to have been the work of her own explanations. She herself had
been fully explained to Miss Cheriton before ever she set foot in her
house. How could it have been otherwise?

Marie-Aimée's ghost-seeing eyes became fixed upon nothingness. She sat
so a long time, her chin dropped in dolorous absorption; a figure which
struck discomfort in the beholder. Another woman buying music bent over
the counter and whispered to the clerk, who whispered back, and both
stole glances at the unconscious, rigid, dumpy profile, stamped with
tragedy, of the well-known pianiste, whose most intimate sorrow had
become town-talk.

She went out at last into the hubbub of the streets, which seemed a
cruelty of men, under the gorgeous sunset sky, which seemed a cruelty
of Heaven's, and, as much as a great heaviness would allow, hurried
home and to bed and the dark. It was no use! no use! Though Tony's
conduct to her admitted of the face she had put on it to Miss Cheriton,
and though the world's jury, upon full evidence, might have acquitted
him, he not being the last shade of black, she herself knew, and
something of incorruptible justice in the bottom of her heart would
not let her blink it, that she had been badly, badly treated. But that
was not the most woeful, that she should have been badly treated, or
that she must live her days hereafter without him; but that he, Tony,
should have been capable of doing this thing to her, to her, who would
have shed her blood for him, and he knew it.

In the days following, as she went about her crowded occupations,
she did not, as she had allowed herself to do before, seek relief in
speaking of what weighed upon her heart. But human strength did not
suffice to keep the matter out of her face; her cheek was leaden, her
eyes were in a fog.

But it was useless now, her avoiding Anthony Bronson's name. She had
spoken too much before. Besides, too many remembered the soft, radiant,
enamored face with which she had been used to beam up at him in those
earliest days after their return from touring, and down upon which he
had benignantly beamed, like a big, gratified idol. Furthermore, this
gossip concerning persons so well known had too many of the elements
which ensure a thing being repeated till everyone knows. Reports
of "scenes" made by Marie-Aimée were still spreading after she had
placed the seal upon her lips; and those who got them last did not
know that they were old news; and as it was the least interested in
her personally who last became _au fait_ of her affairs, some among
them took the view that little Nevers was disgracing herself; which
sentiment once in the air, certain of Marie-Aimée's closer friends
saw the matter more nearly in that light, experienced a reaction from
too complete sympathy with her. One heard it said with a touch of
impatience, "Some one ought to talk to Marie-Aimée!" Even those who
loved her most, this, as it seemed, insistent and protracted harping
upon an unfortunate attachment at last came near disgusting. And she
did receive scoldings and lectures, of which she abjectly owned the
justice; and she tried to keep herself more out of sight. Only so far
as the necessity to earn a living made it imperative did she go about.
Wherefore some whose invitations she refused said, "Nevers is moping.
It is a pity she can't behave like the rest who have to suffer from the
fickleness of man!"

A critical, less friendly attitude of the world toward her was
beginning at last, through her dismal preoccupation, to penetrate her
heart with its novel chill, and make the city where she had always
lived seem not like home any more. She looked about, bewildered,
for escape. The day of the Bronson-Cheriton wedding, too, was close
at hand; but before it had arrived, there descended upon her from a
distance a stern older married sister, whom rumors at last had aroused.

No one saw Marie-Aimée after the coming of this sister. To everyone's
astonishment, in the busiest time of the season, Marie-Aimée's rooms
were empty of her. It was thought that the sister had carried her off
to keep her under surveillance: till it became known from Marie-Aimée
herself, writing to her old friends, that she was in a convent of the
Sacred Heart, hundreds of miles removed, and there proposed to remain
until she had become free from the faintest taint of the folly that had
made her a scandal and a laughing-stock,--yes, if she remained there
until she died. Her time was profitably spent in study, and the giving
of piano-lessons to the young girls receiving their education in the
holy house. And she enjoyed the inestimable privilege, accorded to her
by the Mother Superior, of weeping as much as she pleased.


II

To that little portion of the busy world-in-general which concerned
itself with her, one may be sure it seemed very soon after her
disappearance that it began to be said Nevers might be looked for
again. Already? Yet, when one had grumbled that love, after all, does
not last very long, he made calculations, and these told him that three
years and more had slipped past since the tragico-comic retreat of the
poor crossed-in-love. Certainly, something may be expected of three
years.

She was really coming back? There was excitement. She was coming, no
longer any doubt of it; there was glee, there was expanding of the
heart. She was come; there was a rush to see her. Affection accounted
for much of this; for the rest, curiosity to see the result of her
three years. But when she had been seen, delight knew no reserve; each
felt as if he had won a bet.

A movement arose, as a breeze comes up, and gradually gained force,
till it resulted in a concert given for Marie-Aimée, a testimony of
the regard felt for her, and the joy at her return. The occasion was
made a magnificent one; the house was crowded, and contained such a
proportion of personal friends of Marie-Aimée that the affair took the
character of a huge family festivity. But the applause resounding when
Marie-Aimée herself appeared to perform her little task at the piano
was in excess of all the rest. In the sound, in the faces, in the air,
one felt "How she is beloved!"

She came forward in the child-like manner one remembered of her, with
that adorable absence of self-consciousness which touches more than
grace, bowing from side to side with the moved air which infallibly
moves, half in tears, yet smiling. To gratify her faithful, she had
gone into hearty extravagance, and appeared wonderfully encased in a
warm delicious pink, worthy of the event, much of it rustling off far
from her heels, not much of it at all troubling her dimpled arms and
shoulders. She held her sweet little black head on one side, like a
tender bird; it looked as if dragged over by the weight of a big rose
in her hair. And the people could not be satisfied with clapping their
hands. The public was for the occasion become romantic, and, as much as
the artist, was applauding the woman who had loved and, by this token,
triumphed over a villainous deserter. They kept it up _ad absurdum_,
intoxicated by the noise they made, more and more touched by their own
loyalty to the old favorite, wishing to proclaim it still more loudly;
and so expressing at last, it is sad to say, far more than any one
felt. But it had been a goodly demonstration, and all thought better of
themselves when finally those who were eager to hear the playing began
hushing, and silence gradually came about.

Then she played, and it was to many what they were pleased to call
a revelation. It was at all events a fresh, delicate, inspirating,
moving music. There were those who listened with eyes upturned, and
thought of sunrise upon Eden; there were those who nodded surprise and
commendation, and spoke of technique.

Marie-Aimée was one of those persons about whom all who know them talk.
She offered opportunity for it, certainly, by herself talking; her
manner of being and her ways were fertile in food for comment; but her
modest ray of fame was also accountable, being felt to brighten all who
could claim sufficient nearness to her to know her affairs.

Had she changed? was the capital question in the discussions of her
following upon her return. Most said not in the least, except, the
presumption was, toward Bronson. She was open-hearted as ever, merry
once more as she had used to be when her star first rose among them.
She was still the one that so lent herself to be loved and gently,
almost enviously, laughed at. But if she were changed, as some
maintained, it was for the better. She looked younger, rested; her face
was clear and untroubled now. If, after the first, one missed something
in her, she explained that it was her old faults.

"When I began to see glimmering ahead of me in the distance a triumphal
re-entrance among you," she held forth to a little group, "I began
to prepare for it. I tried to fit myself better to please you. For
the _bon Dieu's_ sake, I had tried to obtain a clean soul; but for
the world's sake--your sake, my dears--I tried to become thin! I did
gymnastics, I walked, I dosed myself, I gave up eating everything I
liked, and you see the result? Honor my beautiful shape, will you? and
do not press upon me sponge-cake and plum-cake, as you used to do. Then
I became orderly. Haven't you noticed? All my buttons there, all my
hooks and eyes. And every little spot at once rubbed out with cologne.
When did you know such things of me before? But look at my head! I tell
you I hunt up mirrors expressly to see myself in them; and I set my
bonnet straight, and tuck in my loose ends. Then I became prudent. I
always think before I act, now, and before I speak, and before I spend
my money. And punctual! I catch trains, and I keep appointments. I look
at my watch, like the rest of you, and see that it is time to go, and I
_go_. I no longer, like some one I remember, sit down and play and play
and play, or talk and talk and talk, till it is dinner time, and I have
to be invited. And then I am not a chatter-box now, no, not what you
could call a chatter-box."

Her joy at being again among her old friends softened and won them; and
no less did the humility of her attitude toward the past. In regard to
that she was shame-faced, apologetic, reformed.

So much of the story of her exile filtered through those who received
it at first hand, that a legend of it was before long public property;
and such a character was given the event, Marie-Aimée's own view
perhaps initially tinging it for all, that, without fear of being
thereby unacceptable, the multitude of those who stood with Marie-Aimée
on a footing of good-humored comradeship neglected, even in speaking
to her, to disguise their familiarity with what concerned her. It
was common, on the ground of a perfect understanding with her, and
a supposition of at least some small degree of that enmity which
often succeeds love and takes satisfaction in hearing of Fortune's
disparaging turns on the ex-beloved, to entertain her with late
accounts of Bronson. And though she merely listened, as she would
have done to anything well-intentioned, her unoffended air left a
feeling that encouragement had not been wanting. One irresponsible,
feather-brained youth, of the baritone variety, reached such
recklessness, while regaling her with good stories as they stood
waiting for her cab, as to inquire, "Have you heard the latest joke
about old Bronson?" He brought his lips near her ear, and breathed
through a chuckle: "They say it takes two years and seven months to get
over being in love with Bronson, but if you marry him it doesn't take
so long!" And as he laughed heartily, she let her bright laugh ring out
companionably alongside of his. Having got into her cab, she repeated
the joke carefully over to herself, to apprehend the point of it.

It was not to have been expected that the peculiar extreme enthusiasm
for Marie-Aimée, with the exaggerated form of tribute to her, should
continue long unabated. Still, with discretion on her part, it might
have had the ordinary length of such things. As it was, alas, there
soon seemed occasion to believe that the public mind is ruled by the
law of reaction: By so much as the public had gone beyond rational
appreciation, it seemed now threatening to fall below it.

Those who watched Marie-Aimée's fortunes with most interest, with
a sinking of the spirit began to note a decrease in her social
popularity. As they witnessed this trifling evidence of it and that,
these lifted their eyebrows and pushed out their chins, with the
expression which one interprets, "But what can be done about it?"
Whenever there was reference to her now, it seemed to bring about in
the atmosphere a vague fall of temperature. A just appreciable effect
of disappointment, disapproval, regret, followed the long-loved name.

Those fondest of her could scarcely be brought to speak of it; when
they did speak, it was not frankly and openly, as everyone had used to
discuss her affairs once, shaking the head amusedly. They talked in
dreary undertones, and ended asking each other "Now, can you understand
it?"

Presently, she was by certain ones avoided, because of an awkwardness
they felt in meeting her, with a consciousness of what were best not
mentioned--disagreeable to those accustomed to dealings with her of a
perfect candor. When met, she was at best in these days indifferent
fun, preoccupied, unlike herself, with little to say.

At last, as an increasing coldness takes a definite pattern of frost,
certain persons refrained from calling upon her, explaining privately
that they had heard it said that it was possible to come upon Anthony
Bronson in her little drawing-room. This refraining did not signify by
any means in all a wish to express condemnation; on the part of most it
really expressed a good-humored wish not to be in the way.

It was as winter was waning, that, reversing somewhat the order of
the day, one who had never called on her resolved to do so. With her
clothes and her hair and her eyes full of March, she ascended to Miss
Nevers' little flat. The door was opened by Marie-Aimée herself, who
stood looking up, uncertain, inquiring.

"I fear you do not remember me," the visitor said. "May I come in?"

"Your voice," Marie-Aimée faltered, "is familiar--but the light--the
light is behind you. Do, I pray, come in."

She hurried ahead into the drawing-room, which was unexpectedly light,
from the reflection upon its ceiling of the snow on lower neighboring
roofs. She turned and looked at the visitor who was entering; she
uttered an exclamation, unfollowed by any word.

"I see you have recalled me," said the visitor. "Mrs. Bronson? Kate
Cheriton that was?"

"Take a seat, I pray!" said Marie-Aimée faintly.

Mrs. Bronson looked around her for once. Though her eye confessed no
more scrutiny than accords with good breeding, it missed little in the
tiny room, warm-colored, crowded, a bit untidy, but genially so, as
where a pair of evening gloves and a crumpled play-bill lay on a chair,
and a lace bonnet saddled a green bronze lion. The walls were covered
with gimcracks and pictures, among which in profusion photographs of
the celebrated, overscrawled with their various calligraphies. The
piano stood open, littered with music; a tea-table, ready for service,
the kettle steaming, was drawn close to the fire; a faint smell of
macaroons mingled in the air with the smell of violets, whereof a
big double handful was fading in a bowl. A well-worn leather chair,
deep and wide, patriarchal, was on one side of the fire-place; and,
suggestively at its elbow, matches and an ash-tray.

In this seat, after her casual circular glance, Mrs. Bronson quietly
arranged herself; and Marie-Aimée took the rocker on the opposite side
of the fire. She dropped back in it, leaning, and loosely folded her
hands; which no sooner had she done, than she sat upright, and moved
forward to the edge of her chair.

There was a longer silence than is often suffered by persons of the
world. To attempt "carrying off" anything whatsoever was not in
Marie-Aimée's _moyens_.

"Do you know why I have come, Miss Nevers?" Mrs. Bronson asked.

Marie-Aimée regarded her with eyes as steady as they were inwardly
frightened. Her whole face expressed what one had never expected to see
in it, something very near hostility; its like could be imagined in the
look of a tame animal uncertain whether harm is meant to its young.

"I judge you have come here to find Mr. Bronson," she answered, "I
expect him at any moment."

It was plain there would be no delicate fencing this afternoon.

Mrs. Bronson shook her head, and laughed in spite of herself at this
unheard-of directness. "Oh, no! I scarcely think he will come to-day, I
mentioned at lunch that I should call on you."

This was spoken without the hint of a sneer, yet Marie-Aimée flushed.

"You are quite mistaken if you think he makes love to me," she blurted
out, her breath coming quick.

Mrs. Bronson lifted her hand in deprecation. "And you are mistaken, my
dear Miss Nevers, if you think I have come to make a vulgar scene about
him. I am here, and solely, because I like you!"

Marie-Aimée stared, doubt in her eyes; then, expressing wonder by the
faintest possible effect of a shrug, looked down in her lap, all her
face slowly relaxing to a plaintive look of trouble. Her lips composed
themselves to lines of such stiff stillness, it might be guessed that
if she tried to speak they would tremble; she picked at the folds of
her tea-gown, readjusting them, smoothing the fabric across her knees.

"I don't believe you have any idea how much I felt myself attracted
to you that single time we met, Miss Nevers. You made my conquest
completely, and I am not one who takes fancies. Though you are so
contrary to all I am, it seemed to me I understood you b

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