Rescuing the Czar/Part One/Chapter V

= Chapter V: When Titled Women Stoop to Conquer =

13. The next entry:

"My ammunition was no good!... But I am at a loss to understand what they are trying to do with ME.... Certainly I don't look like a very important personage in my present state.... Yet my captors are not treating me very badly ... aside from being locked up in this deserted villa with its broken chairs and vacant picture frames and general air of hasty abandonment there's nothing to disturb the tranquillity of my reflections except the recurring tramp of the muffled sentry below my broken window ... this building has a sort of Byzantine cut in its architectural design.... On the other side of the valley there's a minaret or two visible through the smoky haze.... Off to the left I can make out quite distinctly the outlines of a Greek Cross.... The road leading toward that Cross looks like the work of a Muscovite engineer,--which speaks well for it.... It's built of the same material as the one over the mountains from Tiflis to Vladicaucaz and Kislovodsk.... I MUST BE ON RUSSIAN SOIL!... But what is mystifying to me is, how did that veiled girl of the Métropole manage to know the SENTRY who is guarding my person so methodically down below?... She has been here twice, now, and talks to him very confidentially.... QUATSCH! if she thinks to find any jewelry clinging to my person she'll have to fry me to get it out."

14. Then this entry:

"The veiled Métropole Nemesis was to see the sentry today.... She seemed to be quite happy about something and looked up in the direction of my window a number of times.... She was eating some of those champagne-colored rose leaves that are crystallized by the firm of Demitrof at Moscow and sold as confections to the ladies of the Court!... What does it mean?... Furthermore, if that sentry is not the same man who acted as valet to Prince Galitzyn at Monte Carlo when Delcassé, Grey and Galitzyn (otherwise "Count Techlow") were gliding about the Grand Hôtel de Londres!

"The mystery is solved....

"That Métropole woman was the companion to Countess C at the Nouvel Hôtel Louvre the day I met her at Monte Carlo!... and this man was the same fellow she was supping her café Turc and smoking her Medijeh cigarettes with out on the Terrace Gardens of the Hôtel de Londres the night I was waiting for an American millionaire to break away from the Hungarian noblewoman at the table decorated with La France roses and the same kind of roses pinned to her corsage.... The American, if he ever sees this in print, will remember the lady with the wonderful jewels flashing from her wrists and neck and whom the man with the Boulanger moustache at the adjoining table was trying hard to flirt with ... the same dark-eyed Juno that same American met in the Salle des Étrangers at the Casino, the following day about noon.... Well, that is the connection!... But I did not observe that that wonderful lady wore any large SAPPHIRE that night ... nor when she changed her quarters from the Nouvel to the London did she need any such jewelry to have all the spendthrifts of Europe at her feet.... If she was a 'Princess' then I was completely fooled.... I never saw a real Princess, except Eulalia, who knew how to be democratic enough to select an American for a quiet exchange of ideas ... the rest, no matter how desperately they may want to be free from Court restraint and bodyguards, remind me of the poor little caged girls at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Seville!... Well, so my captors have some connection with the Countess C([Cszecheny] Chechany)--with the Tolna Festetics of Hungary.... And this is strange, for I had surmised that SHE, at least, would be friendly to MY mission, if she knows anything at all about its origin.... She should aid me to reach Odessa instead of having me sandbagged and cooped up here in this Soviet cage.... I'm certain this Métropole lady is a TRAITOR to the Countess now, and will have me murdered if I don't produce that sapphire of the princess."

15. This entry may serve to identify the author of the diary:

"I am certain that the former occupant of this villa was some Russian of taste and means. Today, while leaning against a wall that was paneled after the fashion of the walls in the Hermitage, one of the panels gave way and I found myself toppling backward into a very large room resembling a gallery. There were a number of wall hangings of silk from which the pictures had been removed. The candelabra was of malachite. There were clumps of violet jasper, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, aventurine and syenite scattered around as though the place had been divested of its furnishings in a hurry. I have seen the same things in the HERMITAGE when for architectural elegance, richness of ornamentation and lavishness of decoration it was unequaled by any art museum in the world.... While poking around among the piles of tables and vases that were moved over to one corner I came across a box of paintings that must have been STOLEN from St. Petersburg.[A] ... Here is the Madonna del Latte of Corregio, or a mighty good imitation, that everyone remembers, from the Hermitage. Here is Rembrandt's 'Girl with the Broom,' the Portrait of Sobieski, and the Farmyard of Paul Potter. Here is the Expulsion of Hagar by Rubens in which Sarah wears a white handkerchief and yellow veil around her head, with one of her hands resting on her hip and the other encased in a blue sleeve raised in a threatening gesture toward Hagar, and here is 'Celestine and her Daughter in Prison,' that one NEVER forgets because of the controversy between the partisans of Murillo and Velasquez over which of these two painters did the work. And here is Lossenke's Sunrise on the Black Sea,' Ugrimov's Capture of Kazan and Election of Michael Romanov,' in which the artist reaches the heights of Oriental splendor in color, composition and design.... There is a FORTUNE going to the devil in this room!... This house is L-shaped. The garden in the rear faces a pretentious two-story dwelling surrounded by a wall, like a Governor General's mansion in its yellow-pinkish coat. Tall poplar trees wave in front and the classic columns running up to the entablature give the place an official sort of front. There is a drug store on the corner across the way doing business under the name of Torkiani. To the right, at the end of the street, is a girls' college; to the left, about 800 feet away, in the center of the street, is the Alexander Nevsky Church, if I'm not very much mistaken. This city must have been a wonder before the war...." Then this entry: "Something is about to happen!... My sentry seems very excited over the desertion 'on Ekaterine Street' and swears quite often at the failure of some one to appear 'along the Levashov.'"

16. This entry may explain the difficulty:

"There is an Army Corps approaching from the southwest.... The air is surcharged with electricity and puts one's nerves on edge.... There is an ominous roar overhead that grows more nerve-racking every second.... Zip, zip, zip, bl-r-r-r-r-oo-ow!... A flock of Foelkers heading east like wild ducks toward a few faint specks zigzagging in the firmament away to the northeast.... Now there are a number of specks from the south speedily joining these and ALL seem to be flitting higher and higher out of sight.... Now the Foelkers are circling rapidly upward.... The tramp and rattle of an Army can be heard coming up the road behind my villa.... Ah! here comes a daring plane like a streak of lightning over the Alex Nevsky Church directly toward this prison!... I'm between the Devil and the Deep Sea!... Whoever gets me, that flyer or those noisy and unseen dogs of war back yonder, means nothing but plain HELL to ME!..."

17. The next entry is interesting:

"Well, I'm not DEAD yet!... A trip through the clouds is NOT the most delightful of experiences for one in summer togs.... Especially when one is gagged and blindfolded and roped down like a rebellious steer.... So here I am cooped up again in a log cabin in the center of an undulating plain where there might have been unending wheat fields once upon a time.... Not a solitary animal is in sight.... The road out yonder looks much the worse for wear. It seems ground into a pumice stone by the hoofs of horses and the swift movement of heavy wheels. Every gust of wind sends a cloud of fine dust pyramiding its way across the fields and through the crevices of this suffocating den furnished with a few wooden chairs, a hand-carved bedstead, a small picture of the Virgin of the Partridges and a brass crucifix above the bed.... I greatly SUSPECT my present whereabouts.... I am as much mystified as ever why that veiled Métropole Circe continues to dog my FLIGHTS.... It was she who was the daring flyer and she beat the whole army getting to my retreat in that neglected villa and spiriting me away...."

[Footnote A: Still the German nomenclature.]