"Did you know the lady in her Majesty's suite who wrote 'The Martyrdom of an Empress?'" I demanded, boldly.

Von Engel's face flushed darkly.

"I do not know. I am not certain," he stammered.

"Never mind. Don't commit yourself. She was exiled, wasn't she, for arranging meetings between Prince Rudolph and his belle amie? She was a dear thing, whoever she was, for she gave him what was probably the only real happiness he ever knew. And when people love each other well enough to die together, it means more than most men and women can boast."

Jimmie trod on my foot just here, so I stopped, but, to his and my surprise, Mrs. Jimmie not only agreed with me, but added:

"What a misfortune it is that princes and kings and queens must marry for state reasons, so that love can play no part."

I don't know whether Von Engel had not then put two and two together, so that he knew that Mrs. Jimmie had her own husband in mind when she made that speech about love or not. I think not, for I happened to be looking at him, and for a moment I thought he was going to spring from his horse right into her lap.

To me the two loveliest women rulers of the world, the ones whose histories I most grieve over, and with whose temperaments I am most in sympathy, are the Empress Eugenie of the French and the Empress Elizabeth of Austria. The Empress Elizabeth was of such a high-strung, nervous, proud temperament that had there not been madness in her unfortunate family, all her apparently unbalanced acts could be accounted for by her imperious and imperial nature, and the stigma of a mind even partially unbalanced need never have been hers. Many a wife in the common walks of life has been driven to more insane acts in the eyes of an unfeeling and critical world than ever the unhappy Empress Elizabeth committed, and for the same causes. An inhumanly tyrannical mother-in-law, the most vicious of her vicious kind, whose chief delight was to torture the high-strung nature she was too small to comprehend; a husband, encouraged in his not-to-be-borne gallantries by his own mother, this same monstrous mother-in-law of the Empress; her children's love aborted by this same fiend in woman form—is it any marvel that the proud Empress broke away from her splendid torture and found a sad comfort in travel and study? The wonder of it is that she chose so mild a remedy. She might have murdered her husband's mother, and those who knew would have declared her justified. If she had done so she could scarcely have suffered in her mind more than she did.

When I expressed some of these opinions I discovered that both officers looked at me with undisguised sympathy. They themselves dared not put into words such incendiary thoughts, but they welcomed their expression from another. This was not the first time I had worded the inner thoughts of a company who dared not speak out themselves, but, as catspaws are invariably burned, I cannot lay to my soul the flattering unction that I have escaped their common lot. Bee says I am generally burned to a cinder.

We had just visited the last of the shrines, which were interesting only because erected by the Empress, when we were overtaken by a terrific mountain storm which broke over our heads without warning. The rain came down in torrents, but not even the officers got wet, for they instantly produced from some mysterious region rubber capes which completely enveloped their beautiful uniforms.

I was not sure, but, in the general confusion of closing the carriage top, I thought I saw Count Andreae whisper to Mrs. Jimmie. I am positive I heard Von Furzmann whisper to Bee. So, not to be outdone, I leaned over and whispered to Jimmie. I do so hate to be left out of a thing.

We had a gay little supper at the Kaiserin Elisabeth, but I could not see that Count Andreae "got any forrarder," as Jimmie would say, for he literally could not concentrate his attention on Mrs. Jimmie on account of Bee's attentions to him. Poor Von Furzmann had to content himself with Jimmie and me.

The next day being the Emperor's birthday, the whole town was gloriously illuminated, and the splendid old Franz Josef—splendid in spite of his past irregularities—appeared before his adoring people, with Bee the most adoring of all his subjects.

There were any number of little parties made up after that, for, of course, we returned the civility of the officers. But after awhile Ischl, in spite of the bracing air, and bewitching drives, and occasional glimpses of royalty, and daily meetings with our beloved officers, Jimmie and I began to think longingly of green fields and pastures new. It was a little hard on Bee, and even on Mrs. Jimmie, to drag them away from the morning promenade, where they always saw the rank and fashion of Austria. I wondered what Bee's feelings would be at parting with her loved ones, for most of our conversations lately had tended toward turning our journeyings aside from Vienna to go north to the September manoeuvres, in which our friends were to take part. We in turn combated this by begging them to meet us in Italy in three months. You should have seen their anguished faces when Jimmie and I mentioned three months! A week's separation was more than they could think of without tying crape on their arms. To our amazement they assured us that a leave was out of the question. Von Engel declared that he had not had a leave of absence for ten years and he doubted if he could obtain one on any excuse short of a death in the family.

At last, however, one fine day, with farewell notes and loaded with flowers, and with the prettiest of parting speeches, we tore ourselves away and were off for Vienna.

As Bee leaned back in the railway carriage with one glove missing, I looked to see her very low in her mind, but to my surprise she was smiling slowly.

"You don't seem to mind leaving them very much," I observed, curiously.

"I haven't left them for long," she replied, drawing her face into complacent lines. "They are both coming to Vienna on leave."

"On leave?" I cried.



CHAPTER X

VIENNA

If Americans continue to flock to Europe in such numbers, the whole country will in time be as Americanised as the hotels are becoming. Vienna, with her beautiful Hotel Bristol, is such an advance in modern comfort from the best of her accommodations for travellers of a few years ago that she affords an excellent example, although for every steam-heater, modern lift, and American comfort you gain, you lose a quaintness and picturesqueness, the like of which makes Europe so worth while. The whole of civilised Europe is now engaged in a flurried debate as to the propriety of remodelling its travelled portions for the benefit of ease-loving American millionaires.

It was not the season when we arrived in Vienna, but we had letters to the old Countess von Schimpfurmann, who had been lady-in-waiting to the Empress Elizabeth when she first came to the court of Austria, a mere slip of a girl, with that marvellous hair of hers whose length was the wonder of Europe, dressed high for the first time, but oftenest flowing silkily to the hem of her skirt. The countess was something of an invalid, and happened to be in town when we arrived. Her husband, the old count, had been a very distinguished man in his day, standing high in the Emperor's favour, and died full of years and honour, and more appreciated, so rumour had it, by his wife in his death than in his life.

We also had letters from a lady whose friendship Mrs. Jimmie made at Ischl, to her daughter-in-law, Baroness von Schumann, the baron being attached to an Austrian commission then in Italy; to several officers who were friends of our officers in Ischl, and, last but not least, to a little Hungarian, to whom I had a letter from America, who was so kind, so attentive, so fatherly to us, that he went by the name of "Little Papa"—a soubriquet which seemed to give him no end of pleasure.

Thus well equipped, we prepared to fall in love with Vienna, and we found it an easy task, for in spite of it being out of season, we were vastly entertained, and in all likelihood obtained a more intimate knowledge of the inner life of our Vienna friends than we could have done if we had arrived in the season of formal and more elaborate entertainment.

The opera was there, and, with all due respect to Mr. Grau, I must admit that we saw the most perfect production of "Faust" in Vienna than I ever saw on any stage.

The carnival was going on, where no Viennese lady, so the baroness declared, would think of being seen, because confetti-throwing was only resorted to by the canaille (and officers and husbands of high-born ladies, who went there with their little friends of the ballet and chorus), but where we did go, contrary to all precedent, persuading the baroness to make up a smart party and "go slumming." Her husband being in Italy, she had no fear of meeting him there, and she took good care to send an invitation to any one who might have been inclined to be critical, to be of the party, which, after one mighty protest as to the propriety of it, they one and all accepted with suspicious alacrity.

It was not so very amusing. It consisted of merely walking along a broad avenue lined with booths, and flinging confetti into people's faces. More rude than lively or even amusing, it seemed to me, and my curiosity was so easily satisfied that I was ready to go after a quarter of an hour. But do you think we could persuade the other ladies to give it up? Indeed, no! Like mischievous children, with Americans for an excuse, they remained until the last ones, laughing immoderately when they encountered men they knew. But as these men always claimed that they had heard we were coming, and immediately attached themselves to our party as a sort of sheet armour of protection against possible tales out of school, our supper party afterward was quite large. A carnival like that in America would end in a fight, if not in murder, for the American loses sight of the fact that it is simply rude play, and when he sees a handful of coloured paper flung in his wife's face, it might as well be water or pebbles for the stirring effect it has on his fighting blood.

The baroness had such a beautiful evening that she quite sighed when it was over.

"Don't you ever have this in America?" she asked Bee.

"No, indeed," said Bee. "And if we did, we wouldn't go to it. We reserve such frolics for Europe."

"Exactly as it is with us," declared the baroness; "Carl and I always go in Paris and Nice, but here—well, we had to have you for an excuse. I must thank you for giving us such an amusing evening!" she added, gaily. "After all, it is so much more diverting to catch one's friends in mischief than strangers whom no one cares about!"

I suppose, in showing Vienna to us, we showed more of Vienna to the baroness and her friends than they ever had seen before. We went into all the booths and shows; we were in St. Stephen's Church at sunset to see the light filter through those marvels of stained-glass windows. Instead of stately drives in the Prater, we took little excursions into the country and dined at blissful open-air restaurants, with views of the Danube and distant Vienna, which they never had seen before. They became quite enthusiastic over seeking out new diversions for us, and, through their court influence, I feel sure that few Americans could have got a more intimate knowledge of Vienna than we.

An amusing coincidence happened while we were there, concerning the gown Mrs. Jimmie was to be painted in. The baroness's brother, Count Georg Brunow, was an authority on dress, and, as he designed all the gowns for his cousin, who was also in the Emperor's suite, he begged permission to design Mrs. Jimmie's. His English was a little queer, so this is what he said after an anxious scrutiny of Mrs. Jimmie's beauty:

"You must have a gown of white—soft white chiffon or mull over a white satin slip. It must be very full and fluffy around the foot, and be looped up on the skirt and around the decollete corsage with festoons of small pink considerations."

"Considerations?" said Mrs. Jimmie.

"Carnations, you mean," said Bee.

"Yes, thank you. My English is so rusty. I mean pink carnations."

Mrs. Jimmie thanked him, and we all discussed it approvingly. Still, she told me privately that she would not decide until she got back to Paris to her own man, who knew her taste and style.

"You know, for a portrait," said Count Georg, "you do not want anything pronounced. It must be quite simple, so that in fifty years it will still be beautiful."

When we got back to Paris, we presented ourselves before Mrs. Jimmie's dressmaker, who has dressed her ever since she was sixteen. She told him to design a gown for a full-length portrait. He looked at her carefully and said, slowly:

"I would suggest a gown of soft white over a white satin slip. It should be cut low in the corsage, and have no sleeves. A touch of colour in the shape of loops of small pink roses at the foot, heading a triple flounce of white, and on the shoulders and around the top of the bodice. You know for a portrait, madame, you want no epoch-making effect. It should be quite simple, so that in the years to come it may still please the eye as a work of art and not a creation of the dressmaker's skill."

Bee and I nearly had to be removed in an ambulance, and even Mrs. Jimmie looked startled.

"Order it," I whispered. "Plainly, Providence has a hand in this design. It might be dangerous to flout such a sign from heaven."

All of which goes to prove that the eye of the artist is true the world over. Or, at least, that is the deduction I drew. Bee is more skeptical.

The Countess von Schimpfurmann lived in a marvellous old house, to which we were invited again and again, her dear old politeness causing her to give three handsome entertainments for us, so that each could be a guest of honour at least once, and be distinguished by a seat on the sofa. The Emperor being at Ischl, we were permitted all sorts of intimate privileges with the Imperial Residenz, the court stables and private views not ordinarily shown to travellers, which were more interesting from being personally conducted than by the marvels we saw, for several years of continuous travel rather blunt one's ecstasy and effectively wear out one's adjectives.

Again, as in Munich, we were never tired of the picture-galleries, the whole school of German and Austrian art being quite to our taste, while if there exists anywhere else a more wonderful collection of original drawings of such masters as Raphael, Durer, Rubens, and Rembrandt which comprise the Albertina in the palace of the Archduke Albert, I do not know of it.

The old countess had numerous anecdotes to tell of the beautiful Empress, all of which confirmed and strengthened my belief that she was most of all a glorious woman gloriously misunderstood by her nearest and dearest. What other prince or princess of Europe in all history turned to so noble a pursuit as culture, learning, and travel to cure a broken heart and a wrecked existence in the majestic manner of this silent, haughty, noble soul? The excesses, dissipation, and intrigue which served to divert other bruised royal hearts were as far beneath this imperial nature as if they did not exist. Her life, in its crystal purity and its scorn of intrigue, is unique in royal history. Yet she, this blameless princess, this woman of imperial beauty, this noblest of all empresses, was marked to be stricken down by the red hand of anarchy, to whose crime, and poison, and danger we open our national ports with an unwisdom which is criminal stupidity, and of which we shall inevitably reap the benefit. America cannot warm the asp of anarchy in her bosom without expecting it to turn and sting her.

The deference paid to royalty is so difficult of comprehension to the republican mind that every time we encountered it it gave us a separate shock of surprise. At least, it gave it to me. I have an idea from the way events finally shaped themselves that Bee and Mrs. Jimmie were a little more alive to its possibilities than I was.

The Bristol was quite full when we arrived and Jimmie could not get communicating rooms, nor very good ones. I did not particularly notice it at the time, but I remembered afterward that Bee kept urging him to change them, and Jimmie made two or three endeavours, but seemed to obtain no favour at the hands of the proprietor.

One morning, however, when Jimmie started to leave the sitting-room, he opened the door and closed it again suddenly. We were sitting there waiting for breakfast to be served, and we were all three struck by the expression on his face.

"What's the matter, Jimmie?"

He looked at us queerly.

"What have you three been up to?" he asked.

"Nothing. Honestly and truly!" we cried. "What's out in the hall? Or are you just pretending?"

"The hall is full of menials and officials and gold lace and brass buttons. I hope you haven't done anything to be arrested for!"

Bee began to look knowing, and just then came a knock at the door.

"If you please," said the interpreter, bowing at every other word, "here is one of the Emperor's couriers just from Ischl, with despatches from the court of his Imperial Majesty for the ladies if they are ready to receive them. The courier had orders not to disturb their sleep. He waited here in the corridor until he heard voices. Will the excellent ladies be pleased to receive them? His orders are to wait for answers."

Jimmie signified that we would receive them, when forth stepped a man in the imperial liveries and handed him a packet on a silver tray. Jimmie had the wit to lay a gold piece on the tray, at which the courier almost knelt to express his thanks. The other attendants drew long envious breaths.

The door was shut, and Mrs. Jimmie and Bee opened their letters. Both were from Count Andreae von Engel, saying that he and Von Furzmann, rendered desperate by the near departure of his Majesty for the manoeuvres, had resolved to risk dismissal from his suite by absence without leave. The letter said that on that day—the day on which it was written—they had both attended his Majesty on a hunt, and as he seldom hunted with the same officers two days in succession, they bade fair not to be on duty after noon the next day. Therefore, if we heard nothing to the contrary, they would leave Ischl on the one o'clock train in uniform, as if on official business. Their servants would board the train at Gmund with citizens' clothes, and they would be with us soon after seven that night. They begged leave to dine with us in our private dining-room that evening, and would we be so gracious as to receive them until midnight, when they must take train for Ischl, and be on duty in uniform by seven in the morning.

I simply shrieked, as I looked at Jimmie's perplexed face.

"What shall we do?" he said. "We can't have 'em here! We must stop 'em! Get a telegraph blank, Bee! We haven't any private dining-room, anyhow, and if they got caught we might be dragged into it! Well, what is it?"

He turned to the door half savagely, and there stood the proprietor, with some ten or twelve servants at his heels.

"You were speaking to me the other day about better rooms? Will it please you to look at some on the second floor, which have never been occupied since they were done over? There are five rooms en suite—just about what your Excellency desires."

Jimmie turned to us with a sickly grin.

We all waited for Mrs. Jimmie to speak.

"Jimmie, dear," she said at last, "if you don't object, I think it would be very nice to take those rooms, and entertain the gentlemen this evening. Of course, they cannot be seen in the public dining-room, and, after all, they are gentlemen and in the Emperor's suite, so their attentions to us, while a little more pronounced than we are accustomed to, are an honour."

Jimmie said nothing, but went to the door and signified that we would look at the rooms.

We did look; we took them, and before noon every handsome piece of furniture from all over the house had been placed in our suite; flowers were everywhere, and servants fairly swarmed at our commands.

Jimmie, in reality, was not at all pleased by any of this, but he has such a blissful sense of humour that he could not help seeing the pitiful front it put upon human nature, both Austrian and American. He permitted himself, however, only one remark. This was now done with his wife's sanction, and loyalty to her closed his lips. But he beckoned me over to the window, and, handing me a paper-knife, he turned up the sole of his shoe, saying:

"Scrape 'em off!"

"Scrape what off, Jimmie?"

"The servants! I haven't been able to step to-day without crushing a dozen of 'em!"

As I turned away he called out:

"There aren't any on the shoes I wore yesterday!"

A rumour somewhat near the truth had swept through the hotel, for wherever we appeared we found ourselves the object of the deepest attention, not only by the slavish minions of the hotel from the proprietor down, but from the other guests.

It was so pronounced that my feeble spirit quaked, so to borrow some of my sister's soul-sustaining joy, I went into her room and said:

"Bee, what does all this mean, anyhow? Where will it land us?"

Bee's eyes gleamed.

"If you aren't actually blind to opportunity," she said, slowly, "you certainly are hopelessly near-sighted. Don't you understand how nobody can do anything or be anybody without royal approval? Haven't you seen enough here to-day, to say nothing of the attentions we had from women in Ischl, to know what all this counts for?"

"Yes, I know," I hastened to say. "But what of these men? You know what they will think; they are Austrians, Russians, and Hungarians, remember, not Americans!"

Bee laughed.

"A man is a man," she said, sententiously. "Don't worry for fear the poor dears' hearts will be broken. Now I'll tell you something. Mrs. Jimmie's sincere indifference and my silent eye-homage have stirred these blase officers out of their usual calm. There you have the whole thing. Von Engel thinks Mrs. Jimmie's indifference is assumed, and both Von Engel and Von Furzmann are determined that my silence shall voice itself. I have no doubt that they would like to have me write it, so that they could boast of it afterward to their fellow officers. Now, as Jimmie would say in his frightful slang, 'I'm going to give them a run for their money.' Von Engel will probably beseech you to arrange to keep Jimmie at your side, so that he can have a few words with Mrs. Jimmie. Von Furzmann will plead with you to permit him a word with me. I need hardly tell you that your role to-night is to make yourself as disagreeable as possible to both of them by keeping the conversation general, and by cutting in at any attempt at a tete-a-tete."

I felt limp and weak. "And all this display, this dinner, this added expense?"

"Part of the game, my dear!"

"And the end of it all? When they come back from the manoeuvres?"

"We shall be gone! Without a word!"

"Then this isn't a flirtation?"

"Only on their parts. They are after our scalps. But we are actuated by the true missionary spirit."

We leaned over and shook hands solemnly. I do love Bee!

That night—shall I ever forget it? Those stunning men dashed into our rooms muffled in military cloaks, which they tossed aside with such grace that they nearly secured my scalp, for all they were after Bee's and Mrs. Jimmie's. They were in velveteen hunting costumes; we in the smartest of evening dress. Jimmie had given his fancy free rein in ordering the dinner, but, to his amazement and indignation, the little game being played by the rest of us so surprised and baffled our guests that Jimmie's delicacies were removed with course after course untasted. The officers searched the brilliant room with their eyes, hoping for a quiet nook, or balcony. There was none, and their disguise effectually prevented them from suggesting to go out. I saw that, finally, they pinned their hopes to me, and the way I clung to Jimmie to prevent their speaking to me almost roused his suspicions that I was in love with him. We stuck doggedly to the table, even after dinner was over and the servants dismissed. Finally, Von Furzmann, who spoke English rather well, rose in a determined manner, and quite forgetful of our proximity, said to Bee in a loud, distinct tone:

"My heart is on fire!"

It was too much. Jimmie and I led the way in a general shout of laughter, and then, as a happy family party, we adjourned to the single salon, where we grouped ourselves together, and, strive as they might, the officers could not outwit my sister nor upset her plan.

Toward midnight, when the hour of parting drew near, they grew so desperate I almost feared that they would say something rash. But they were diplomats and game. Occasionally a gleam of suspicion would appear on their countenances—it was so very unusual, I imagined, for their plans so persistently to miscarry—but both Bee and I have an extremely guiltless and innocent eye, and we used an unwinking gaze of genial friendliness which disarmed them.

At last they flung their cloaks around them, as their servants announced their carriage for the third time.

"Such an evening!" moaned Von Engel.

It might mean anything!

Bee bit her lip.

"I was never more loath to leave. Promise that you will be here when we return. It will only be ten days! Promise us!"

"I hardly think—" began Jimmie, but Bee trod on his foot.

"Ouch!" said Jimmie, fiercely.

"I beg your pardon, Jimmie, dear!" murmured Bee. "It is possible," said Bee to Von Engel. "We never make plans, you know. We go whenever we are bored, or when we have nothing pleasant to look forward to."

"Oh, then, pray remain! We shall fly to see you the moment we are free!"

"That surely is an inducement," said Bee, with a little laugh, which caused Von Engel to colour.

Von Engel's servant, under pretext of arranging the collar of his master's cloak, here whispered peremptorily to him, and the officer started with a hurried "Yes, yes!" to his servant.

They bent and kissed our hands, and Von Furzmann, in the violence of his emotion, flung his arms around Jimmie and kissed him on the cheek. Then they dashed away down the long corridor, looking back and waving their hands to us.

Jimmie came into the room with his hand on the spot where Von Furzmann had kissed him.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he said. "That was all your fault," he added, looking at Bee.

"I've always said somebody would steal you, Jimmie!" I said.

"Did you enjoy yourself, dear?" asked Mrs. Jimmie kindly of Bee.

Bee stood up yawning.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "These officers try to be so impressive. They urge you to take a little more pepper in the same tone that they would ask you to elope."

Jimmie beamed on her.

When Bee and I were alone, I dropped limply on the bed. Bee turned to the light and read a crumpled note which Von Furzmann had thrust into her hand at parting. She handed it to me:

"I shall write every day, and shall count the hours until I see you again!" it read. I could just hear him shouting, "My heart is on fire!"

"Well, did you enjoy it?" I asked her.

"Enjoy it? Certainly not!"

"Why, I thought you were having the time of your life!" I cried.

She laughed.

"Oh, yes, in a way it was amusing. But did it ever occur to you that it wasn't very flattering for those two unmarried officers to select the two married women in our party for their attentions when you, being unmarried, were the only legitimate object of their interest?"

I said nothing. To tell the truth I had not thought of it.

"No, these officers need just a few kinks taken out of their brains concerning women, and I propose to do it. I told Jimmie to-day that if he would be handsome about to-night, I would start to-morrow for Moscow. Mrs. Jimmie is perfectly willing, and I know you are dying to get on to Tolstoy. I've only stayed over for to-night. I knew this was coming when we were in Ischl, and I wanted them to see how lightly we viewed their risking dismissal from his Majesty's service for us. We have paid up all our indebtedness to everybody else, so nothing but farewell calls need detain us."

"And the officers?" I stammered. "How will they know?"

"I'll get Jimmie to send them a wire saying we have gone. They won't know where. Hurry up and turn out the lights. They hurt my eyes."



CHAPTER XI

MY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH TOLSTOY

At the critical point of relating the difficulty attending my first audience with Tolstoy, I am constrained to mention a few of the obstacles encountered by a person bearing indifferent letters of introduction, and if by so doing I persuade any man or woman to write one worthy letter introducing one strange man or woman in a foreign country to a foreign host, I shall feel that I have not lived in vain.

No one, who has not travelled abroad unknown and depending for all society upon written introductions, can form any idea of the utter inadequacy of the ordinary letter of introduction. When I first announced my intention of several years' travel in Europe, I accepted the generously offered letters of friends and acquaintances, and, in some instances, of kind persons who were almost total strangers to me, careless of the wording of these letters and only grateful for the goodness of heart they evinced.

In one instance, a man who had lived in Berlin sent me a dozen of his visiting-cards, on the reverse side of which were written the names of his German friends and under them the scanty words, "Introducing Miss So-and-So." He took pains also to call upon me several times, and to ask as a special favour that I would present these letters. Forgetful of the fact that his German acquaintances would have no idea who I was, that there was no explanation upon the card, and without thinking that he would not take the trouble to write letters of explanation beforehand, I presented these twelve cards without the least reluctance, simply because I had given my word. Out of the twelve, ten returned my calls and we discussed nothing more important than the weather. We knew nothing of each other except our names, and all of these I dare say were mispronounced. Two out of the twelve entertained me at dinner, and three years afterward, when I returned to America, I received a letter of the sincerest apology from one, saying that she had learned more of me through the ambassador, and reproaching me for not having volunteered information about myself, which might have led at least to conversation of a more intimate nature.

I was armed at that time with many of these visiting-cards of introduction, and after this instance I filed them with great care in the waste-basket. I then examined my other letters. It is idle to describe to those who have never depended upon such documents in foreign countries the inadequacy of half of them. In spite of the kindest intentions, they were really worthless.

It was only after I got to Poland and Russia, where the hospitality springs from the heart, that my introductions began to bear fruit satisfactory to a sensitive mind. It is, therefore, with feelings of the liveliest appreciation that I look back on the letter given me by Ambassador White in Berlin to Count Leo Tolstoy. A lifetime of diplomacy, added to the sincerest and most generous appreciation of what an ideal hospitality should be, have served to make this representative of the American people perfect in details of kindness, which can only be fully appreciated when one is far from home. Nothing short of the completeness and yet brevity of this letter would have served to obtain an audience with that great author, who must needs protect himself from the idle and curious, and the only drawback to my first interview with Tolstoy was the fact that I had to part company with this precious letter. It was so kind, so generous, so appreciative, that up to the time I relinquished it, I cured the worst attacks of homesickness simply by reading it over, and from the lowest depths of despair it not only brought me back my self-respect, but so exquisitely tickled my vanity that I was proud of my own acquaintance with myself.

My introduction to Princess Sophy Golitzin, in Moscow, was of such a sort that we at once received an invitation from her to meet her choicest friends, at her house the next day. When we arrived, we found some thirty or forty charming Russians in a long, handsomely furnished salon, all speaking their own language. But upon our approach, every one began speaking English, and so continued during our stay. Twice, however, little groups fell into French and German at the advent of one or two persons who spoke no English.

Russians do not show off at their best in foreign environments. I have met them in Germany, France, England, Italy, and America, and while their culture is always complete, their distinguishing trait is their hospitality, generous and free beyond any I have ever known, which, of course, is best exploited in their own country and among their own people.

At the Princess Golitzin's, I was told that the Countess Tolstoy and her daughter had been there earlier in the afternoon, but, owing to the distance at which they lived, they had been obliged to leave early. They, however, left their compliments for all of us, and asked the princess to say that they had remained as long as they had dared, hoping for the pleasure of meeting us.

Being only a modest American, I confess that I opened my eyes with wonder that a personage of such renown as the Countess Tolstoy, the wife of the greatest living man of letters, should take the trouble to leave so kind a message for me.

When Bee and Mrs. Jimmie heard it, they treated me with almost the same respect as when they discovered that I knew the head waiter at Baden-Baden. But not quite.

As, however, our one ambition in coming to Russia had been to see Tolstoy himself, we at once began to ask questions of the princess as to how we might best accomplish our object, but to our disappointment her answers were far from encouraging. He was, I was told by everybody, ill, cross as a bear, and in the throes of composition. Could there be a worse possible combination for my purpose?

So much was said discouraging our project that Jimmie was for giving it up, but I think one man never received three such simultaneously contemptuous glances as we three levelled at Jimmie for his craven suggestion. So it happened that one Sunday morning we took a carriage, and, having invited the consul, who spoke Russian, we drove to Tolstoy's town house, some little distance out of Moscow.

We gave the letter and our visiting-cards to the consul, and he explained our wish to see Tolstoy to the footman who answered our ring. Having evidently received instructions to admit no one, he not only refused us admittance, but declined to take our cards. The consul translated his refusal, and seemed vanquished, but I urged him to make another attempt, and he did so, which was followed by the announcement that the countess was asleep, and the count was out. This being translated to me, I announced, in cheerful English which the footman could not understand, that both of these statements were lies, and for my part I had no doubt that the footman was a direct descendant of Beelzebub.

"Tell him that you know better," I said. "Tell him that we know the count is too ill to leave the house, and that the countess could not possibly be asleep at this time of day. Tell him if he expects us to believe him, to make up a better one than that."

"Say something," urged Bee. "Get us inside the house, if no more."

"Tell him how far we have come, and how anxious we are to see the count," said Mrs. Jimmie.

"Oh, better give it up," said Jimmie, "and come on home."

The consul obligingly made the desired effort, evidently combining all of our instructions, politely softened by his own judgment. The footman's face betrayed no yielding, and in order the better to refuse to take our cards he put his hands behind him.

"You see, it's no use," said the consul. "Hadn't we better give it up?"

"He won't let you in," said Jimmie, "so don't make a fuss."

"I shall make no fuss," I said, quietly. "But I'll get in, and I'll see Tolstoy, and I'll get all the rest of you in. Give me those cards."

I took two rubles from my purse, and, taking the cards and letter, I handed them all to the footman, saying in lucid English:

"We are coming in, and you are to take these cards to Count Tolstoy."

At the same time, I pointed a decisive forefinger in the direction in which I thought the count was concealed. The obsequious menial took our cards, bowed low, and invited us to enter with true servant's hospitality.

In all Russian houses, as, doubtless, everybody knows, the first floor is given up to an antechambre, where guests remove their wraps and goloshes, and behind this room are the kitchen and servants' quarters. All the living-rooms of the family are generally on the floor above. Having once entered this antechambre, my Bob Acres courage began to ooze.

"Now, I am not going to be rude," I said. "We'll just pretend to be taking off our wraps until we find whether we can be received. I don't mind forcing myself on a servant, but I do object to inconveniencing the master of the house.

"You're weakening," said Jimmie, derisively. "You're scared!"

"I am not," I declared, indignantly. "I am only trying to be polite, and it's a hard pull, I can tell you, when I want anything as much as I want to see Tolstoy. If he won't see us after he reads that letter, I can at least go away knowing that I put forth my best efforts to see him, but if I had taken a servant's refusal, I should feel myself a coward."

I looked anxiously at my friends for approval. Jimmie and the consul looked dubious, but Bee and Mrs. Jimmie patted me on the back and said I had done just right.

While we were engaged in this conversation, and while the man was still up-stairs, the door from the kitchen burst open, and in came a handsome young fellow of about eighteen, whistling. Now my brother whistles and slams doors just like this young Russian. So my understanding of boys made me feel friendly with this one at once. Seeing us, he stopped and bowed politely.

"Good morning," I said, cheerfully. "We are Americans, and we have travelled five thousand miles for the purpose of seeing Count Tolstoy, and when we got here this morning the servant wouldn't even let us in until I made him, and we are waiting to see if the count will receive us."

"Why, I am just sure papa will see you," said the boy in perfect English. "How disgusting of Dmitri. He is a blockhead, that Dmitri. I shall tell mamma how he treated you. The idea of leaving you standing down here while he took your cards up."

"It is partly our fault," I said, defending Dmitri. "We sent him up to ask."

"Nevertheless, he should have had you wait in the salon. Dmitri is a fool."

"His manner wasn't very cordial," I admitted, as we followed him up-stairs and into a large well-furnished, but rather plain, room containing no ornaments.

"But as I had a letter from the ambassador," I went on, "I felt that I must at least present it."

The boy turned back, as he started to leave the room, and said:

"Oh! From Mr. White? Your ambassador wrote about you, and also some friends of ours from Petersburg. Papa has been expecting you this long time. He would have been so annoyed if he had failed to see you. I'll tell him how badly Dmitri treated you. What must you think of the Russians?"

He said all this hurrying to the door to find his father. We sat down and regarded each other in silence. Jimmie and the consul looked into their hats with a somewhat sheepish countenance. Bee cleared her throat with pleasure, and Mrs. Jimmie carefully assumed an attitude of unstudied grace, smoothing her silk dress over her knee with her gloved hand, and involuntarily looking at her glove the way we do in America. Then the door opened and Count Tolstoy came in.

To begin with, he speaks perfect English, and his cordial welcome, beginning as he entered the door, continued while he traversed the length of the long room, holding out both hands to me, in one of which was my letter from the ambassador. He examined our party with as much curiosity and interest as we studied him. He wore the ordinary peasant's costume. His blue blouse and white under-garment, which showed around the neck, had brown stains on it which might be from either coffee or tobacco. His eyes were set widely apart and were benignant and kind in expression. His brow was benevolent, and counteracted the lower part of his face, which in itself would be pugnacious. His nose was short, broad, and thick. His jaw betrayed the determination of the bulldog. The combination made an exceedingly interesting study. His coarse clothes formed a curious contrast to the elegance of his speech and the grace of his manner. He was simple, unaffected, gentle, and possessed, in common with all his race, the trait upon which I have remarked before, a keen, intelligent interest in America and Americans.

While he was still welcoming us and apologising for the behaviour of his servant, the countess came in, followed by the young countess, their daughter. The Countess Tolstoy has one of the sweetest faces I ever saw, and, although she has had thirteen children, she looks as if she were not over forty-three years old. Her smooth brown hair had not one silver thread, and its gloss might be envied by many a girl of eighteen. Her eyes were brown, alert, and fun-loving, her manner quick, and her speech enthusiastic. Her plain silk gown was well made, and its richness was in strange contrast to the peasant's costume of her illustrious husband.

The little countess had short red brown hair parted on the side like a boy's and softly waving about her face, red brown eyes, and a skin so delicate that little freckles showed against its clearness. Her modest, quiet manner gave her at once an air of breeding. Her manner was older and more subdued than that of her mother, from whom the cares and anxieties of her large family and varied interests had evidently rolled softly and easily, leaving no trace behind.

All three of them began questioning us about our plans, our homes, our families, wondering at the ease with which we took long journeys, envying our leisure to enjoy ourselves, and constantly interrupting themselves with true expressions of welcome.

It is, perhaps, only a fair example of the bountiful hospitality we received all through Poland and Russia to chronicle here that Count Tolstoy invited us to his house in the country, whither they expected to go shortly, to remain several months, and, as he afterward explained it, "for as long as you can be happy with us."

His book on "What is Art?" was then attracting a great deal of attention, but he was deeply engaged in the one which has since appeared, first under the title of "The Awakening," and afterward called "Resurrection." It is said that he wrote this book twelve years ago, and only rewrote it at the instance of the publishers, but no one who has met Tolstoy and become acquainted with him can doubt that he has been collecting material, thinking, planning, and writing on that book for a lifetime.

Many consider Tolstoy a poseur, but he sincerely believes in himself. He had only the day before worked all day in the shop of a peasant, making shoes for which he had been paid fifty copecks, and we were told that not infrequently he might be seen working in the forest or field, bending his back to the same burdens as his peasants, sharing their hardships, and receiving no more pay than they.

It was a wonderful experience to sit opposite him, to look into his eyes, and to hear him talk.

"It is a great country, yours," he said. "To me the most interesting in the world just at present. What are you going to do with your problems? How are you going to deal with anarchy and the Indian and negro questions? You have a blessed liberty in your country."

"If you will excuse me for saying so, I think we have a very unblessed liberty in our country! Too much liberty is what has brought about the very conditions of anarchy and the race problem which now threaten us."

"Do you think the negroes ought not to have been given the franchise?"

"That is a difficult question," I said. "Let me answer it by giving you another. Is it a good thing to turn loose on a young republic a mass of consolidated ignorance, such as the average negro represented at the close of the war, and put votes into their hands with not one restraining influence to counteract it? You continentals can form no idea of the Southern negro. The case of your serfs is by no means a parallel. But it is too late now. You cannot take the franchise away from them. They must work out their own salvation."

"Would you take it away from them, if you could?" asked Tolstoy.

"Most certainly I would," I answered, "although my opinion is of no value, and I am only wasting your time by expressing it. I would take away the franchise from the negroes and from all foreigners until they had lived in our country twenty-one years, as our American men must do, and I would establish a property and educational qualification for every voter. I would not permit a man to vote upon property issues unless he were a property owner."

"Would you enfranchise the women?" asked the countess.

"I would, but under the same conditions."

"But would your best element of women exercise the privilege?" asked the little countess.

"Not all of them at first, and some of them never, I suppose; but when once our country awakens to the meaning of patriotism, and our women understand that they are citizens exactly as the men are citizens, they will do their duty, and do it more conscientiously than the men."

"It is a very interesting subject," said the count; "and your suggestions open up many possibilities. Women do vote in several of your States, I am told."

"How I would love to see a woman who had voted," cried the countess, clasping her hands with all the vivacity of a French woman.

"Why, I have voted," said Bee, laughing. "I voted for President McKinley in the State of Colorado, and my sister and Mrs. Jimmie voted for school trustee in Illinois." All three of the Tolstoys turned eagerly toward Bee.

"Do tell me about it," said the count.

"There is very little to tell. I simply went and stood in line and cast my ballot."

"But was there no shooting, no bribery, no excitement?" cried the countess. "Do they go dressed as you are now?"

"No, I dressed much better. I wore my best Paris gown, and drove down in my victoria. While I was in the line half a dozen gentlemen, who attended my receptions, came up and chatted with me, showed me how to fold my ballot, and attended me as if we were at a concert. When I came away, I took a street-car home, and sent my carriage for several ladies who otherwise would not have come."

"And you," said the countess, turning to Mrs. Jimmie.

"It was in a barber shop," she said, laughing. "When I went in, the men had their feet on the table, their hats on their heads, and they were all smoking, but at my entrance all these things changed. Hats came off, cigars were laid down, and feet disappeared. I was politely treated, and enjoyed it immensely."

"How very interesting," said Tolstoy. "But are there not societies for and against suffrage? Why do your women combine against it?"

"Because American women have not awakened to the meaning of good citizenship, and they prefer chivalry to justice, regardless of the love of country. I never belonged to any suffrage society, never wrote or spoke or talked about it. I think the responsibility of voting would be heavy and often disagreeable, but, if the women were enfranchised, I would vote from a sense of duty, just as I think many others would; and, as to the good which might accrue, I think you will agree with me that women's standards are higher than men's. There would be far less bribery in politics than there is now."

"Is there much bribery?" asked Tolstoy.

"Unfortunately, I suppose there is. Have you heard how the ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tom Reed, defines an honest man in politics? 'An honest man is a man that will stay bought!'"

There is no use in denying the truth. Tolstoy is always the teacher and the author. I could not imagine him the husband and the father. He seemed in the act of getting copy, and had a way of asking a question, and then scrutinising both the question and the answer as one who had set a mechanical toy in motion by winding it up. Tolstoy would make an excellent reporter for an American newspaper. He could obtain an interview with the most reticent politician. But I had a feeling that his methods were as the methods of Goethe.

His wife evidently does not share his own opinion of himself. She listened with obvious impatience to the conversation, then she drew Bee and Mrs. Jimmie aside, and they were soon in the midst of an animated discussion of the Rue de la Paix.

Tolstoy overheard snatches of their talk without a sign of disapproval. I have seen a big Newfoundland watch the graceful antics of a kitten with the same air of indifference with which Tolstoy regarded his wife's humanity and naturalness. Tolstoy takes himself with profound seriousness, but, in spite of his influence on Russia and the outside world, the great teacher has been unable to cure his wife's interest in millinery.

Nordau told me in Paris that Tolstoy was a combination of genius and insanity. Undoubtedly Tolstoy is actuated by a genuine desire to free Russia, but the idea was unmistakably imbedded in my mind that his Christianity was like Napoleon's description of a Russian. Scratch it and you would find Tartar fanaticism under it,—the fanaticism of the ascetic who would drive his own flesh and blood into the flames to save the soul of his domestics. This impression grew as I watched the attitude of the countess toward her husband. What must a wife think of such a husband's views of marriage when she is the mother of thirteen of his children? What must she think of insincerity when he refuses to copyright his books because he thinks it wrong to take money for teaching, yet permits her to copyright them and draw the royalties for the support of the family?

Her opinion of her famous husband lies beneath her manner, covered lightly by a charming and graceful impatience,—the impatience of a spoiled child.

When we got into the carriage I said:

"Well?"

"Well," said our friend the consul, who had not spoken during the interview, "he is the queerest man I ever met. But how he pumped you!"

"We are all 'copy' to him," said Jimmie. "He wanted information at first hand."

"Sometime he may succeed in convincing his daughter," said Mrs. Jimmie, "but never his wife. She knows him too well."

"Yet he seemed interested in you and Jimmie," said Bee, ruefully. Then more cheerfully, "but we're asked to come again!"

"We are living documents; that's why."

"What do you think of him?" said Jimmie to me with a grin of comradeship.

"I don't know. My impressions have got to settle and be skimmed and drained off before I know."

"Well, we'll go to their reception anyway," said Bee, comfortably, with the air of one who had no problems to wrestle with.

"What are you going to wear?"

To be sure! That was the main question after all. What were we going to wear?



CHAPTER XII

AT ONE OF THE TOLSTOY RECEPTIONS

When we arrived the next evening, it was to find a curious situation. The Countess Tolstoy and her daughter and young son, in European costume,—the countess in velvet and lace, and the little countess in a pretty taffeta silk,—were receiving their guests in the main salon, and later served them to a magnificent supper with champagne. The count, we were told, was elsewhere receiving his guests, who would not join us. Later he came in, still in his peasant's costume, and refused all refreshment. He was exceedingly civil to all his guests, but signalled out the Americans in a manner truly flattering.

It was a charming evening, and we met agreeable people, but, although they stayed late, we remained, at Tolstoy's request, still later, and when the last guest had departed, we sat down, drawing our chairs quite close together after the manner of a cheerful family party.

After inquiring how we had spent our day, and giving us some valuable hints about different points of interest for the morrow, Tolstoy plunged at once into the conversation which had been broken off the day before. It was evident that he had been thinking about our country, and was eager for more information.

"I became very well acquainted with your ambassador, Mr. White, while he was in this country," he began. "I found him a man of wide experience, of great culture, and of much originality in thought. I learned a great deal about America from him. It must be wonderful to live in a country where there is no Orthodox Church, where one can worship as one pleases, and where every one's vote is counted."

Jimmie coughed politely, and looked at me.

"It encourages individuality," he added. "Do you not find your own countrymen more individual than those of any other nation?" he added, addressing Jimmie directly for the first time.

"I think I do," said Jimmie, carefully weighing out his words as if on invisible scales. Jimmie is largely imbued with that absurd fear of a man who has written books, which is to me so inexplicable.

"Your country appeals to Russians, strongly," pursued the count, evidently bent upon drawing Jimmie out.

"I have often wondered why," said Jimmie. "It couldn't have been the wheat?"

"No, not entirely the wheat, although the news of your generosity spread like wildfire through all classes of society, and served to open the hearts of the peasants toward America as they are opened toward no other country in the world. The word 'Amerikanski' is an open sesame all through Russia. Have you noticed it?"

"Often," said Jimmie. "And often wondered at it. But that wheat was a small enterprise to gain a nation's gratitude. It is the more surprising to us because it was not a national gift, but the result of the generosity and large-mindedness of a handful of men, who pushed it through so quietly and unostentatiously that millions of people in America to this day do not know that it was ever done, but over here we have not met a single Russian who has not spoken of it immediately."

"The Russians are a grateful people," observed Mrs. Jimmie, "but it seems a little strange to me to discover such ardent gratitude among the nobility for assistance which reached people hundreds of miles away from them, and in whose welfare they could have only a general interest, prompted by humanity."

"Ah! but madame, Russians are more keenly alive to the problem of our serfs than any other. Many of our wealthy people are doing all that they can to assist them, and, when a crisis like the famine comes, it is heart-breaking not to be able to relieve their suffering. Consequently, the sending of that wheat touched every heart."

"Then, too, we are not divided,—the North against the South, as you were on your negro question," said the little countess. "The peasant problem stretches from one end of Russia to the other."

"We are a diffuse people," I said. "Perhaps that is the result of our mixed blood and the individuality that you spoke of, but your books are so widely read in America that I believe people in the North are quite as well informed and quite as much interested in the problem of the Russian serf as in our own negro problem."

Bee gave me a look which in sign language meant, "And that isn't saying half as much as it sounds."

"Undoubtedly there is a strong point of sympathy between our two countries. Like you, we have many mixed strains of blood, and, though we are so much older, we have civilised more slowly, so that we are both in youthful stages of progress. Your great prairies correspond in a large measure to our steppes. America and Russia are the greatest wheat-growing countries in the world. Our internal resources are the only ones vast enough to support us without assistance from other countries."

"Is that true of Russia?" Jimmie cut in, his commercial instinct getting the better of his awe of Tolstoy. "Where would you get your coal?"

"True," said Tolstoy, "we could not do it as completely as you, and your very resources are one reason for our admiration of America."

"In case of war, now,—" went on Jimmie. He stopped speaking, and looked down in deep embarrassment, remembering Tolstoy's hatred of war.

"Yes," said Tolstoy, kindly. "In case the whole civilised world waged war on the United States, I dare say you could still remain a tolerably prosperous people."

"At any rate," said Jimmie, recovering himself, "it would be a good many years before we would be a hungry nation, and, in the meantime, we could practically starve out the enemy by cutting off their food supply, and disable their fleets and commerce for want of coal, so there is hardly any danger, from the prudent point of view, of the world combining against us."

"If the diplomacy at Washington continues in its present trend, under your great President McKinley, your country will not allow herself to be dragged into the quarrels of Europe. We older nations might well learn a lesson from your present government."

"Oh!" I cried, "how good of you to say that. It is the first time in all Europe that I have heard our government praised for its diplomacy, and coming from you, I am so grateful."

Jimmie and the consul also beamed at Tolstoy's complimentary comment.

"Now, about your men of letters?" said Tolstoy. "It is some time since I have had such direct news from America. What are the great names among you now?"

At this juncture Countess Tolstoy drew nearer to Bee and Mrs. Jimmie, and our groups somewhat separated.

"Our great names?" I repeated. "Either we have no great names now, or we are too close to them to realise how great they are. We seem to be between generations. We have lost our Lowell, and Longfellow, and Poe, and Hawthorne, and Emerson, and we have no others to take their places."

"But a young school will spring up, some of whom may take their places," said Tolstoy.

"It has already sprung up," I said, "and is well on the way to manhood. One great drawback, however, I find in mentioning the names of all of them to a European, or even to an Englishman, is the fact that so many of our characteristic American authors write in a dialect which is all that we Americans can do to understand. For instance, take the negro stories, which to me are like my mother tongue, brought up as I was in the South. Thousands of Northern people who have never been South are unable to read it, and to them it holds no humour and no pathos. To the ordinary Englishman, it is like so much Greek, and to the continental English-speaking person it is like Sanskrit. In the same way the New England stories, which are written in Yankee dialect, cannot be understood by people in the South who have never been North. How then can we expect Europeans to manage them?"

"How extraordinary," said Tolstoy. "And both are equally typical, I suppose?"

"Equally so," I replied.

"The reason she understands them both," broke in Jimmie, "is because her mother comes from the northernmost part of the northernmost State in the Union, and her father from a point almost equally in the South. There is but one State between his birthplace and the Gulf of Mexico."

"About the same distance," said Tolstoy, "as if your mother came from Petersburg and your father from Odessa."

"But there are others who write English which is not distorted in its spelling. James Lane Alien and Henry B. Fuller are particularly noted for their lucid English and literary style; Cable writes Creole stories of Louisiana; Mary Hartwell Catherwood, stories of French Canadians and the early French settlers in America; Bret Harte, stories of California mining camps; Mary Hallock Foote, civil engineering stories around the Rocky Mountains; Weir Mitchell, Quaker stories of Pennsylvania; and Charles Egbert Craddock lays her plots in the Tennessee mountains. Of all these authors, each has written at least two books along the lines I have indicated, and I mention them, thinking they would be particularly interesting to you as descriptive of portions of the United States."

"All these," said Tolstoy, meditatively, "in one country."

"Not only that," I said, "but no two alike, and most of them as widely different as if one wrote in French and the other in German."

"A wonderful country," murmured Tolstoy again. "I have often thought of going there, but now I am too old."

"There is no one in the world," I answered him, "in the realm of letters or social economics, whom the people of America would rather see than you."

He bowed gracefully, and only answered again:

"No, I am too old now. I wish I had gone there when I could. But tell me," he added, "have you no authors who write universally?"

"Universally," I repeated. "That is a large word. Yes, we have Mark Twain. He is our most eminent literary figure at present."

"Ah! Mark Twain," repeated Tolstoy. "I have heard of him."

"Have you indeed? I thought no one was known in Europe, except Fenimore Cooper. He is supposed to have written universally of America, because he never wrote anything but Indian stories! In France, they know of Poe, and like him because they tell me that he was like themselves."

"He was insane, was he not?" said Tolstoy, innocently.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing, for Tolstoy had not perpetrated that as a jest.

"But many of our most whimsical and most delicious authors could not be appreciated by Europe in general, because Europeans are all so ignorant of us. There is Frank Stockton, whose humour continentals would be sure to take seriously, and then Thomas Nelson Page writes most effectively when he uses negro dialect. His story 'Marse Chan,' which made him famous, I consider the best short story ever written in America. Hopkinson Smith, too, has written a book which deserves to live for ever, depicting as it does a phase of the reconstruction period, when Southern gentlemen of the old school came into contact with the Northern business methods. Books like these would seem trivial to a European, because they represent but a single step in our curious history."

"I understand," said Tolstoy, sympathetically. "Of course it is difficult for us to realise that America is not one nation, but an amalgamation of all nations. To the casual thinker, America is an off-shoot of England."

"Perfectly true," said Jimmie, "and that barring the fact that we speak a language which is, in some respects, similar to the English, no nations are more foreign to each other than the United States and England. It would be better for the English if they had a few more Bryces among them."

"If it weren't for the dialects," said Tolstoy, "I think more Europeans would be interested in American literature."

"That is true," I said, "and yet, without dialects, you wouldn't get the United States as it really is. There are heaps and heaps of Americans who won't read dialect themselves, but they miss a great deal. Take, for instance, James Whitcomb Riley, a poet who, to my mind, possesses absolute genius,—the genius of the commonplace. His best things are all in dialect, which a great many find difficult, and yet, when he gives public readings from his own poems, he draws audiences which test the capacity of the largest halls. I myself have seen him recalled nineteen times."

"America and Russia are growing closer together every day," said Tolstoy. "Every year we use more of your American machinery; your plows, and threshers, and mowing-machines, and all agricultural implements are coming into use here. Every year some Americans settle in Russia from business interests, and we are rapidly becoming dependent on you for our coal. If you had a larger merchant marine, it would benefit our mutual interests wonderfully. Is your country as much interested in Russia as we are in you?"

"Equally so," I said. "Russian literature is very well understood in America. We read all your books. We know Pushkin and Tourguenieff. Your Russian music is played by our orchestras, and your Russian painter, Verestchagin, exhibited his paintings in all the large cities, and made us familiar with his genius."

"All art, all music has a moral effect upon the soul. Verestchagin paints war—hideous war! Moral questions should be talked about and discussed, and a remedy found for them. In America you will not discuss many questions. Even in the translations of my books, parts which seem important to me are left out. Why is that? It limits you, does it not?"

"I suppose the demand creates the supply," I ventured. "We may be prudish, but as yet the moral questions you speak of have not such a hold on our young republic that they need drastic measures. When we become more civilised, and society more cancerous, doubtless the public mind will permit these questions to be discussed."

"The time for repentance is in advance of the crime," said Tolstoy.

"American prudery is narrowing in its effect on our art," I ventured, timidly.

"Is that the reason for many of your artists and authors living abroad?"

"It may be. We certainly are not encouraged in America to depict life as it is. That is one reason I think why foreign authors sell their books by the thousands in America, and by the hundreds in their own country."

"Then the taste is there, is it?" asked Tolstoy.

"The common sense is there," I said, bluntly,—"the common sense to know that our authors are limited to depicting a phase instead of the whole life, and then, if you are going to get the whole life, you must read foreign authors. It's just as if a sculptor should confine himself to shaping fingers, and toes, and noses, and ears because the public refuses to take a finished study."

"But why, why is it?" said Tolstoy, with a touch of impatience. "If you will read the whole thing when written by foreign authors, why do you not encourage your own?"

"I am sure I don't know," I said, "unless it is on the simple principle that many men enjoy the ballet scene in opera, while they would not permit their wives and daughters to take part in it."

"America is the protector of the family," said Jimmie, regarding me with a hostile eye.

Tolstoy tactfully changed the subject out of deference to Jimmie's displeasure.

"Do many Russians visit America?" asked Tolstoy.

"Oh, yes, quite a number, and they are among our most agreeable visitors. Prince Serge Wolkonsky travelled so much and made so many addresses that he made Russia more popular than ever."

"Do you know how popular you are in America?" said Jimmie, blushing at his own temerity.

"I know how many of my books are sold there, and I get many kind letters from Americans."

"Isn't he considered the greatest living man of letters in America?" said Jimmie, appealingly to me boyishly.

"Undoubtedly," I replied, smiling, because Tolstoy smiled.

"Whom do you consider the greatest living author?" asked Jimmie.

"Mrs. Humphrey Ward," said Tolstoy, decisively.

This was a thunderbolt which stopped the conversation of the other members of the party.

"And one of your greatest Americans," went on Tolstoy, "was Henry George."

"From a literary point of view, or—"

"From the point of view of humanity and of the Christian."

Jimmie and I leaned back involuntarily. Judged by these standards, we were none of us either Christians or human, in our party at least.

The Countess Tolstoy, who seemed to be in not the slightest awe of her illustrious husband, having become somewhat impatient during this conversation, now turned to me and said:

"It has been so interesting to talk with your sister and Mrs. Jimmie about Paris fashions. We see so little here that is not second hand, and your journey is so fascinating. It seems incredible that you can be travelling simply for pleasure and over such a number of countries! Where do you go next?"

"We have come from everywhere," I said, laughing, "and we are going anywhere."

The countess clasped her hands and said:

"How I envy you, but doesn't it cost you a great deal of money?"

"I suppose it does," I said, regretfully. "I am going to travel as long as my money holds out, but the rest are not so hampered."

"Alas, if I could only go with you," said the countess, "but we are under such heavy expense now. It used to be easier when we had three or four children nearer of an age who could be educated together. Then it cost less. But now this boy, my youngest, necessitates different tutors for everything, and it costs as much to educate this last one of thirteen as it did any four of the others."

"But then you educate so thoroughly," I said. "Russians always speak five or six, sometimes ten languages, including dialects. With us our wealthy people generally send their children to a good private school and afterward prepare them by tutor for college. Then the richest send them for a trip around the world, or perhaps a year abroad, and that ends it. But the ordinary American has only a public school education. Americans are not linguists naturally."

"Ah! but here we are obliged to be linguists, because, if we travel at all, we must speak other languages, and, if we entertain at all, we meet people who cannot speak ours, which is very difficult to learn. But languages are easy."

"Oh! are they?" said Jimmie, involuntarily, and everybody laughed.

"Jimmie's languages are unique," said Bee.

"Are you going to Italy?" said the countess.

"Yes, we hope to spend next spring in Italy, beginning with Sicily and working slowly northward."

"How delightful! How charming!" cried the countess. "How I wish, how I wish I could go with you."

"Go with us?" I cried in delight. "Could you manage it? We should be so flattered to have your company."

"Oh, if I could! I shall ask. It will do no harm to ask."

We had all stood up to go and had begun to shake hands when she cried across to her husband:

"Leo, Leo, may I go—"

Then seeing she had not engaged her husband's attention, who was talking to Jimmie about single tax, she went over and pulled his sleeve.

"Leo, may I go with them to Italy in the spring? Please, dear Leo, say yes."

He shook his head gravely, and the little countess smiled at her mother's enthusiasm.

"It would cost too much," said Tolstoy, "besides, I cannot spare you. I need you."

"You need me!" cried the countess in gay derision. Then pleadingly, "Do let me go."

"I cannot," said Tolstoy, turning to Jimmie again.

The countess came back to us with a face full of disappointment.

"He doesn't need me at all," she whispered. "I'd go anyway if I had the money."

As I said before, Russia and America are very much alike.

As we left the house my mind recurred to Max Nordau, whose personality and methods I have so imperfectly presented. The contrast to Tolstoy would intrude itself. In all the conversations I ever had with Max Nordau, he spent most of the time in trying to be a help and a benefit to me. The physician in him was always at the front. His aim was healing, and I only regret that their intimate personality prevents me from relating them word for word, as they would interest and benefit others quite as much as they did me.

The difference between these two great leaders of thought—these two great reformers, Nordau and Tolstoy—is the theme of many learned discussions, and admits many different points of view.

To me they present this aspect: Tolstoy, like Goethe, is an interesting combination of genius and hypocrisy. He preaches unselfishness, while himself the embodiment of self. Max Nordau is his antithesis. Nordau gives with generous enthusiasm—of his time, his learning, his genius, most of all, of himself. Tolstoy fastens himself upon each newcomer politely, like a courteous leech, sucks him dry, and then writes.

Max Nordau, like Shakespeare, absorbs humanity as a whole. Tolstoy considers the Bible the most dramatic work ever written, and turns this knowledge of the world's demand for religion to theatrical account. Tolstoy is outwardly a Christian, Nordau outwardly a pagan. Tolstoy openly acknowledges God, but exemplifies the ideas of man, while Max Nordau's private life embodies the noble teachings of the Christ whom he denies.

It was not until months afterward, we were back in London in fact, when Jimmie's opinion of Tolstoy seemed to have crystallised. He came to me one morning and said:

"I've read everything, since we left Moscow, that Tolstoy has written. Now you know I don't pretend to know anything about literary style and all that rot that you're so keen about, but I do know something about human nature, and I do know a grand-stand play when I see one. Now Tolstoy is a genius, there's no gainsaying that, but it's all covered up and smothered in that religious rubbish that he has caught the ear of the world with. If you want to be admired while you are alive, write a religious novel and let the hoi polloi snivel over you and give you gold dollars while you can enjoy 'em and spend 'em. That's where Tolstoy is a fox. So is Mrs. Humphrey Ward. She's a fox, too. They are getting all the fun now. But it's all gallery play with both of 'em."

I said nothing, and he smoked in silence for a moment. Then he added:

"But I say, what a ripper Tolstoy could write if he'd just cut loose from religion for a minute and write a novel that didn't have any damned purpose in it!"

Verily, Jimmie is no fool.



CHAPTER XIII

SHOPPING EXPERIENCES

In going to Europe timid persons often cover their real design by claiming the intention of taking German baths, of "doing" Switzerland, or of learning languages. But everybody knows that the real reason why most women go abroad is to shop. What cathedral can bring such a look of rapture to a woman's face as New Bond Street or what scenery such ecstasy as the Rue de la Paix?

Therefore, as I believe my lot in shopping to be the common lot of all, let me tell my tale, so that to all who have suffered the same agonies and delights this may come as a personal reminiscence of their own, while to you who have Europe yet to view for that blissful first time, which is the best of all, this is what you will go through.

When I first went to Europe I had all of the average American woman's timidity about asserting herself in the face of a shopgirl or salesman. Many years of shopping in America had thoroughly broken a spirit which was once proud. I therefore suffered unnecessary annoyance during my first shopping in London, because I was overwhelmingly polite and affable to the man behind the counter. I said "please," and "If you don't mind," and "I would like to see," instead of using the martial command of the ordinary Englishwoman, who marches up to the show-case in flat-heeled boots and says in a tone of an officer ordering "Shoulder arms," "Show me your gauze fans!" I used to listen to them standing next me at a counter, momentarily expecting to see them knocked down by the indignant salesman and carried to a hospital in an ambulance.

My own tones were so conversational when I said, "Will you please show me your black satin ribbon?" that, while I did not say it, my voice implied such questions as "How are your father and mother?" and "I hope the baby is better?" and "Doesn't that draught there on your back annoy you?" and "Don't you get very tired standing up all day?"

It was Bee, as usual, who gave me my first lesson in the insolent bearing which alone obtains the best results from the average British shopman.

Still without having thoroughly asserted myself, not having been to that particular manner born, I went next to Paris, where my politeness met with the just reward which virtue is always supposed to get and seldom does.

I consider shopping in Paris one of the greatest pleasures to be found in this vale of tears. The shops, with the exception of the Louvre, the Bon Marche, and one or two of the large department stores of similar scope, are all small—tiny, in fact, and exploit but one or two things. A little shop for fans will be next to a milliner who makes a specialty of nothing but gauze theatre bonnets. Perhaps next will come a linen store, where the windows will have nothing but the most fascinating embroidery, handkerchiefs, and neckware. Then comes the man who sells belts of every description, and parasol handles. Perhaps your next window will have such a display of diamond necklaces as would justify you in supposing that his stock would make Tiffany choke with envy, but if you enter, you will find yourself in an aperture in the wall, holding an iron safe, a two-by-four show-case, and three chairs, and you will find that everything of value he has, except the clothes he wears, are all in his window.

As long as these shops are all crowded together and so small, to shop in Paris is really much more convenient than in one of our large department stores at home, with the additional delight of having smiling interested service. The proprietor himself enters into your wants, and uses all his quickness and intelligence to supply your demands. He may be, very likely he is, doubling the price on you, because you are an American, but, if your bruised spirit is like mine, you will be perfectly willing to pay a little extra for politeness.

It is a truth that I have brought home with me no article from Paris which does not carry with it pleasant recollections of the way I bought it. Can any woman who has shopped only in America bring forward a similar statement?

All this changes, however, when once you get into the clutches of the average French dressmaker. By his side, Barabbas would appear a gentleman of exceptional honesty. I have often, in idle moments, imagined myself a cannibal, and, in preparing my daily menu, my first dish would be a fricassee of French dressmakers. Perhaps in that I am unjust. In thinking it over, I will amend it by saying a fricassee of all dressmakers. It would be unfair to limit it to the French.

There is one thing particularly noticeable about the charm which French shop-windows in one of the smart streets like the rue de la Paix exercises upon the American woman, and that is that it very soon wears off, and she sees that most of the things exploited are beyond her means, or are totally unsuited to her needs. I defy any woman to walk down one of these brilliant shop-lined streets of Paris for the first time, and not want to buy every individual thing she sees, and she will want to do it a second time and a third time, and, if she goes away from Paris and stays two months, the first time she sees these things on her return all the old fascination is there. To overcome it, to stamp it out of the system, she must stay long enough in Paris to live it down, for, if she buys rashly while under the influence of this first glamour, she is sure to regret it.

Dresden and Berlin differ materially from Paris in this respect. Their shop-windows exploit things less expensive, more suitable to your every-day needs, and equally unattainable at home. So that if you have gained some experience by your mistakes in Paris, your outlay in these German cities will be much more rational.

Leather goods in Germany are simply distracting. There are shops in Dresden where no woman who appreciates bags, satchels, card-cases, photograph-frames, book-covers, and purses could refrain from buying without disastrous results. I remember my first pilgrimage through the streets of Dresden. Between the porcelains and toilet sets, the Madonnas, the belts, and card-cases, I nearly lost my mind. The modest prices of the coveted articles were each time a separate shock of joy. If these sturdy Germans had wished to take advantage of my indiscreet expressions of surprise and delight, they might easily have raised their prices without our ever having discovered it. But day after day we returned, not only to find that the prices remained the same, but that, in many instances, if we bought several articles, they voluntarily took off a mark or two on account of the generosity of our purchases.

Dresden is a city where works of art are most cunningly copied. You can order, if you like, copies of any but the most intricate of the treasures of the Green Vaults, and you will not be disappointed with the results. You can order copies of any of the most famous pictures in the Dresden galleries, and have them executed with like exquisite skill. Nor is there any city in all Europe where it is so satisfactory to buy a souvenir of a town, which you will not want to throw away when you get home and try to find a place for it. Because souvenirs of Dresden appeal to your love of art and the highest in your nature. Leather you will find elsewhere, but the Dresden works of art are peculiarly its own.

In Austria manners differ considerably both from those of Paris and upper Germany. I should say they were a cross between the two. We shopped in Ischl, which has shops quite out of proportion to its size on account of being the summer home of the Emperor, and there we met with a politeness which was delightful.

In Vienna we had occasion to accompany Jimmie and "Little Papa" on business expeditions which led him into the wholesale district. There it was universal for all the clerks to be seated at their work, particularly in the jeweller's shops. At our entrance, every man and woman there, from the proprietor to the errand boys, rose to their feet, bowed, and said "Good day."

When we finished our purchases, or even if we only looked and came away without buying, this was all repeated, which sometimes gave me the sensation of having been to a court function.

Vienna fashions are very elegant. Being the seat of the court, there is a great deal of dress. There is wealth, and the shops are magnificent. Personally, I much prefer the fashions of Vienna to those of Paris. Prices are perhaps a little more moderate, but the truly Paris creation generally has the effect of making one think it would be beautiful on somebody else. I can go to Worth, Felix, and Doucet, and half a dozen others equally as smart, and not see ten models that I would like to own. In Vienna there were Paris clothes, of course, but the Viennese have modified them, producing somewhat the same effect as American influence on Paris fashions. To my mind they are more elegant, having more of reserve and dignity in their style, and a distinct morality. Paris clothes generally look immoral when you buy them, and feel immoral when you get them on. There is a distinct spiritual atmosphere about clothes. In Vienna this was very noticeable. I speak more of clothes in Paris and Vienna, as there are only four cities in the world where one would naturally buy clothes,—Paris, Vienna, London, and New York. In other cities you buy other things, articles perhaps distinctive of the country.

When you get to St. Petersburg, in your shopping experiences, you will find a mixture of Teuton and Slav which is very perplexing. We were particularly anxious to get some good specimens of Russian enamel, which naturally one supposes to be more inexpensive in the country which creates them, but to our distress we discovered Avenue de l'Opera prices on everything we wished. Each time that we went back the price was different. The market seemed to fluctuate. One blue enamelled belt, upon which I had set my heart, varied in price from one to three dollars each time I looked at it. Finally, one day I hit upon a plan. I asked my friend, Mile, de Falk, to follow me into this shop and not speak to me, but to notice the particular belt I held in my hand. I then went out without purchasing, and the next day my friend sent her sister, who speaks nothing but Russian and French, to this shop. She purchased the belt for ten dollars less than it had been offered to me. She ordered a different lining made for it, and the shopkeeper said in guileless Russian, "How strange it is that ladies all over the world are alike. For a week two American young ladies have been in here looking at this belt, and by a strange coincidence they also wished this same lining."

For once I flatter myself that I "did" a Russian Jew, but his companions in crime have so thoroughly "done" me in other corners of the world that I need not plume myself unnecessarily. He is more than even with me.

All through Russia we contented ourselves with buying Russian engravings, which are among the finest in the world. Perhaps some of their charm is in the subject portrayed, which, being unfamiliar, arouses curiosity. Russian operas, paintings, theatricals, the national ballet, the interior of churches and mosques are different from those of every other country. There is in the churches such a strange admixture of the spiritual and the theatrical. So that the engravings of these things have for me at least more interest than anything else.

Occasionally we were betrayed into buying a peasant's costume, an ikon, or an enamel, but in Moscow and Kief, the only way that we could reproduce to our friends at home the glories and splendours of these two beautiful cities was by photographs, in which the brilliancy of their colours brings back the sensations of delight which we experienced.

Shopping in Constantinople is not shopping as we Americans understand it, unless you happen to be an Indian trader by profession. I am not. Therefore, the system of bargaining, of going away from a bazaar and pretending you never intended buying, never wanted it anyhow, of coming back to sit down and take a cup of coffee, was like acting in private theatricals. By nature I am not a diplomat, but if I had stayed longer in the Orient, I think I would have learned to be as tricky as Chinese diplomacy.

We were given, by several of our Turkish friends, two or three rules which should govern conduct when shopping in the Orient. One is to look bored; the second, never to show interest in what pleases you; the third, never to let your robber salesman have an idea of what you really intend to buy. This comes hard at first, but after you have once learned it, to go shopping is one of the most exciting experiences that I can remember. I have always thought that burglary must be an exhilarating profession, second only to that of the detective who traps him. In shopping in the Orient, the bazaars are dens of thieves, and you, the purchaser, are the detective. We found in Constantinople little opportunity to exercise our new-found knowledge, because we were accompanied by our Turkish friends, who saw to it that we made no indiscreet purchases. On several occasions they made us send things back because we had been overcharged, and they found us better articles at less price. Of course we bought a fez, embroidered capes, bolero jackets, embroidered curtains, and rugs, but we, ourselves, were waiting to get to Smyrna for the real purchase of rugs, and it was there that I personally first brought into play the guile that I had learned of the Turks.

I remember Smyrna with particular delight. The quay curves in like a giant horseshoe of white cement. The piers jut out into the sapphire blue of this artificial bay, and are surrounded by myriads of tiny rowing shells, in which you must trust yourself to get to land, as your big ship anchors a mile or more from shore.

It was the brightest, most brilliant Mediterranean sunshine which irradiated the scene the morning on which we arrived at Smyrna. A score of gaily clad boatmen, whose very patches on their trousers were as picturesque as the patches on Italian sails, held out their hands to enable us to step from one cockle-shell to another, to reach the pier. In the way the boats touch each other in the harbour at Smyrna, I was reminded of the Thames in Henley week. We climbed through perhaps a dozen of these boats before we landed on the pier, and in three minutes' walk we were in the rug bazaars of Smyrna. Such treasures as we saw!

We were received by the smiling merchants as if we were long-lost daughters suddenly restored, but we practised our newly acquired diplomacy on them to such an extent that their faces soon began to betray the most comic astonishment. These people are like children, and exhibit their emotions in a manner which seems almost infantile to the Caucasian. Alas, we were not the prey they had hoped for. We sneered at their rugs; we laughed at their embroideries; we turned up our noses at their jewelled weapons; we drank their coffee, and walked out of their shops without buying. They followed us into the street, and there implored us to come back, but we pretended to be returning to our ship. On our way back through this same street, every proprietor was out in front of his shop, holding up some special rug or embroidery which he had hastily dug out of his secret treasures in the vain hope of compelling our respect. Some of these were Persian silk rugs worth from one to three thousand dollars each. Although we would have committed any crime in order to possess these treasures, having got thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, we turned these rugs on their backs and pretended to find flaws in them, jeered at their colouring, and went on our way, followed by a jabbering, excited, perplexed, and nettled horde, who recklessly slaughtered their prices and almost tore up their mud floors in their wild anxiety to prove that they had something—anything—which we would buy. They called upon Allah to witness that they never had been treated so in their lives, but would we not stop just once more again to cast our eyes on their unworthy stock?

Having had all the amusement we wanted, and it being nearly time for luncheon, we went in, and in half an hour we had bought all that we had intended to buy from the first moment our eyes were cast upon them, and at about one-half the price they were offered to us three hours before. Now, if that isn't what you call enjoying yourself, I should like to ask what you expect.

Ephesus, the graves of the Seven Sleepers, the tomb of St. Luke, the ruins of the Temple of Diana ("Great is Diana of the Ephesians"), the prison of St. Paul, are only a part of my vivid experiences in Smyrna.

In Athens we bought nothing modern, but found several antique shops with Byzantine treasures, also silver ornaments, ancient curios, more beautiful than anything we found in Italy, and ancient sacred brass candlesticks of the Greek Church, which bore the test of being transplanted to an American setting.