The Man on the Altar: An Experience in Petrograd

‘ WHAT can a stranger expect to see, with just an ordinary card, at the Isaakiewski Sobor for Easter midnight mass?’ I asked myself. ‘Better be comfortable while seeing nothing, than crushed to death while seeing nothing.’

On Palm Sunday I had come near the latter fate, in the Polish Catholic Church down the Niewski Prospekt. Through my own struggles and emotions, whose nature was physical and took the shape of battling for life, I had responded to the sweet, inspiring influence of the peasant faces pressed about me, honest faces stained with tears of pain and nervousness, yet exalted by their sacred ideal. But it was not an experience into which one would rush advisedly a second time. So the chances were even that I might turn away to my hotel or go to the Orthodox Cathedral, now Easter Eve had come. When I reached the decisive street, however, curiosity led me on: curiosity not for what I might see, but for what might happen to me.

During the weeks I had passed in Petrograd, the idea that a mystery hung over me had grown apace. Not a general mystery due to climate or people, but one peculiar to myself.

‘You are merely watched, like all foreigners,’ one of my Russian friends, Xorell, asserted when I applied to him for enlightenment.

‘Perhaps,’ I answered, recognizing the futility of a discussion on those lines. Certain facts had forced themselves before me, and more than argument or abstract wisdom was needed to make me dismiss them as a web of fancies.

Of course we were all watched. But the aspect and the manners of the men who observed me and listened to me, and who on one or two occasions addressed me, were not those of secret agents. Each incident was trifling in itself, too trifling to deserve separate mention. They ranged from undeserved interest shown in my idlest words spoken in public, through such episodes as exchanging brief remarks about me which I could not avoid overhearing, to climaxes in the way of cordial hand-shakings by well-dressed and distinguished-looking men who insisted, before friends of theirs, on claiming me for a friend. It would all be over in an instant, so swiftly that, caught off my guard, I had never time to protest or to question; and afterwards, I would invariably expect to find my watch or my purse gone, or to hear that unknown individuals had been inquiring for me at my hotel, or to learn from officials delegated to arrest me that Xorell’s surmise had been correct. But these sequels did not come. The one positive conclusion I had been able to reach was that so many occurrences must be concerted to some end which I should know sooner or later; and that it would be of no commonplace character, whether I proved to be a victim of exotic confidence tricks or only of a mistake on the part of the highest police. The Russo-Japanese War was in progress; unusual methods might be devised for circumscribing criminals or conspirators of an exceptionally dangerous type.

Yet such a supposition, as applied to myself, was rendered absurd both by the harmlessness of my own pursuits and by the personalities of such men as the handsome, impeccable stranger in a restaurant, who left a party of ladies and gentlemen, all wearing evening dress, to shake my hand delightedly and assure me rapidly in English that he was most happy to see me again.

‘If he’s a police spy, then I’m a bricklayer,’I said to myself.

That episode closed the series. I went for some days leading the life of everybody else, and I felt no relief at believing my purse or my person in safety. After living a novel, I was now dropped back into a humdrum routine. Then an unsolicited card for midnight mass at St. Isaac’s Cathedral came to me by post.

‘Oh, that?’ Xorell observed nonchalantly when I showed it to him. ‘ Everybody gets those. Pity you were n’t favored with an invitation to the Tsar’s private mass at the Winter Palace. There’ll be a frightful crush at the Cathedral. I’m an atheist as well as a liberalist, but I like to see these things, so I’m going. I’ll help you in the crowd, if you wish. Hampden and Biggs are to be with me. Come, and make a fourth.'

‘Just an ordinary card,’ I said doubtfully. ‘It seems scarcely worth while.'

‘Not ordinary!’ Xorell protested. ‘When you have seen the thousands packed in the transepts and the nave— ’

‘I thought it was built in the form of a Greek cross?’ I interrupted.

‘Well, it’s what would be transepts and a nave for you. Anyway, when you see how they are filled, you will appreciate your privilege to stand at the upper end, between the Tomb and the altar.’

‘In a special gallery, then?’

‘Oh, no! There are only two of those, one for the Court, and the other for diplomats and officials of a high class. I made a mistake in using the term “privilege,” ’ he corrected himself with Russian preciseness. ‘We shall be among the half-privileged. Hampden and I are to meet Biggs in his room soon after nine o’clock. By being early, we may stand near the front.'

This talk of half-privileges did not allure me. I went, nevertheless, and found no one at our tryst; and I was abandoning the entire business, when I decided to go on. My purpose was to run down the adventure which had kept near me for so long, and which must meet me sooner or later if I were faithful to every opportunity. Because it must be an adventure: all the explanations I could think of, or which others could suggest to me, were more unreal than the incidents which prompted them.

Crisp, bright stars sparkled against a dark background so firm that it might have been the crystal sphere imagined of old, lingering over this country splendidly, immeasurably in retard upon the self-styled civilized world. The crystal, as if lined with black velvet, was without ray or light of its own; but the stars blazed down, with enhanced lustre, on the snow-spread city whose pink palaces shone like bright wind-whipped faces peering above mantles of ermine. The snow underfoot slipped away, dry and evasive as sand; but a few inches below the surface, solid ice formed its bed. Though swathed in furs and walking at the brisk pace which strangers are warned to avoid, I did not risk overheating, so intense was the cold. I had not far to go; and a signal to an isvostchik would have compelled me to resolve crudely on what I preferred to encourage gently. Doubt as to my course vanished only when St. Isaac’s dome cut a tiny half-circle among the stars of that greatest dome that men’s minds can build with the earth as foundation.

According to the instructions on my card, I was to show it at a certain door, but retain it and thereby be assured of my half-privileged place. Dense throngs pressed toward one of the public entrances not far away, while I stood alone facing a group of guards. In obedience to some practical Cossack or Tartar instinct which may have consisted in the elimination of risks, they confiscated the card while bowing me respectfully onward.

‘So much for half-privileges,’ I murmured to myself. Once again, and for the last time, I considered going away without having seen anything. But just then I saw enough to interest me. Perhaps for this reason, perhaps for that other which I have acknowledged,

I made up my mind to remain.

Tall, straight walls and smooth columns of marble stared coldly, dimly down on me, save where relieved by a small side-light whose rays, dim of themselves, stole gleams from a neighborhood of precious stones or rich chasings of gold and silver. The silent and deserted altar gaped wide and high before me, its splendors shrouded into mourning by the gloom which reigned in the vaults above, and the stones beneath, and the sadness under the stones.

A fair space surrounded me, quite untenanted. But ten o’clock had not struck, and the compact throngs which I could see swaying beyond the central tomb, at the intersection of the Greek cross, did not offer encouraging prospects. The commercial class which would presently surge in with tickets like mine might be more cleanly than the moujik class, but would scarcely be less insistent. It occurred to me that, if an officer guarding the highly privileged precincts would take me under his protection, I might stand close to the altar barriers without being disturbed or arousing suspicion, even though I had no card.

My explanation was offered in French, as short and simple as I could make it. For some moments the officer contemplated me tranquilly. He verified the glimpse of evening clothes that he caught beneath my slightly opened fur coat, cast an approving glance at the patent leather which peeped above the edge of my outer shoes, raised his eyes to my face once more, and — threw open before me the barriers marking off the privileged gallery for diplomats and officials.

Now, I could not fail to know that a mistake was being made. I had no right to be there, and had not asked to enter. The officer, ignorant of French and unwilling to betray the fact, must have thought me an attaché. But he ordered me in; and one lesson I had learned in Russia was that a man did not get into trouble unless he refused to do as he was told. Once, visiting the museum of Peter the Great, in an annex of the Hermitage, I had gone on from room to room, profiting by each door which stood open before me, until I found one ajar, and went through that, and emerged unexpectedly into the private apartments of His Majesty the Tsar. The officers in charge were inexpressibly startled, but were perfectly courteous when I explained; and before bowing me out they expressed regrets that the door should have been left unlocked and caused me to risk considerable unpleasantness. On another occasion, I had unwittingly chosen a moment following closely upon a bomb outrage, to study architectural details of the Winter Palace close to the very spot. Strict orders had been given that loiterers must be arrested; but the officer who dealt with me informed me of all this, most politely, in French, and advised me to proceed elsewhere as speedily as my convenience would allow. It goes without saying that here or within the Palace I could very easily have got myself arrested by becoming argumentative; and I know of such things being effected most successfully by adventurehunters who have since become heroes as victims of ‘Russian autocracy.' But to me the lesson of the land was that I might do as I pleased until told to stop or go, as the case might be, and then I need only behave like a wellmannered person and that would be the end of it.

So now being told to go in, though on the strength of a misunderstanding, I entered the reserved precinct, and delivered my furs to an imposing individual who looked like a Court chamberlain while playing the part of dvornik.

‘If my adventure was intended to seek me out, I have probably defeated it, for it could n’t find me here,’I reflected, looking down on the space beyond which my card did not authorize me to pass. ‘Unless that officer had been instructed to put me here? Too many coincidences were needed. To begin with, I had to come alone; then the men at the door had to confiscate my card; then I had to try the impossible—' The idea was so absurd that I let it die of itself.

The privileged inclosure was to the left of the altar, and on a level with the low platform running the entire length of the Ikonostas, whose rich marbles and mosaics and bronze doors hid the sanctuary from the vulgar gaze. One step might have taken me out upon the altar; but that step was prohibited by a rail over which two guards kept jealous watch. Such a favored place could not be mine for long. People were beginning to arrive fast, both below where I should have been and was not, and here where I was and had no business to be. Ladies had the best right to stand near the front; and the men who accompanied them were of such evident distinction that I had no desire to attract notice to my inappropriate self. Willingly enough, I allowed myself to be pressed back. By the time the gallery was filled, I stood quite cut off from any view of the altar, and crowded so compactly from all sides that nothing mattered save the occasional chance to breathe, and the constant safeguarding of my feet against other people’s heels or spurs.

A sudden blaze of innumerable candles, hanging high overhead in great chandeliers, tore away the gloom and told us that the ceremony was to begin. At the Isaakiewski Sobor, one match did what a switch or button does elsewhere — save that here the operation was as ingenious an initiative as could be devised, instead of being a machinemade contrivance scattered by millions over the world. A waxed string, an end of which hung down within easy reach from the marble paving, ran from one wick to another, then from group to group, from chandelier to chandelier, until all the candles in the Cathedral were connected. The match was applied to that string: a spark spitting tiny flames raced up to the first candle, and so sped on its way, an earnest, busy little lamp-lighter, quick as the snap of a finger, adroit as a monkey, and almost unfailing in its success. Among the hundreds I saw it reach, I counted very few which did not blaze at the touch; and most of these flared an instant and sputtered out, showing that the string’s work, at least, had been done. The general effect, indeed, was as if each wick had been an electric bulb, but the whole, instead of lighting when one switch was turned, depended upon a hand swept over successive buttons.

The mass began, and, for one who could see nothing, seemed to last indefinitely. The altar, near me but inaccessible, had been occupied for a while and was now deserted. The Cathedral’s dome and arches filled with the music of a wonderful chant, religious in form and barbaric in quality, elevating and at the same time deeply disquieting. I was roused from the torpor in which I had been left by two hours of dull, unrelieved standing. And then I became aware of the ladies who stood nearest to me, whom I had failed even to notice before, so dulled had my interest become, so heavy my senses.

These ladies had probably been the last before whom I had made way, as they were still immediately in front of me. They were young; one, indeed, was quite young. The elder, a beauty of the blond type, might have belonged to the highest social circles of almost any country; the other, with an aureole of hair shining golden as by its own light, and with dark caressing eyes that veiled the soul in mysterious fascination, could only have been Russian. They both wore light white dresses of the most exquisite grace: muslin, or chiffon, or gossamer, or some such thing. Those diaphanous white gowns gained further charm when one remembered the terrific degree of cold reigning without; a charm not spoiled by thought of the furs which must have been left with the dvornik who looked like a Court chamberlain.

The younger lady startled me by turning and addressing me in Russian.

‘Ah, mademoiselle, I don’t understand!’ I said in French, and waited, ready for any apology to one so delightful. My conclusion was that I had trod on her exquisite foot or treated the hem of her nebulous skirt as if it had been ordinary material.

Her face brightened at my words. Smiling to her companion, she said in French, softly yet perfectly clear to my ears, —

‘It is well — it is he!’

So it was I!

‘It must be,’ the elder approved.

Then, the younger turned to me again: —

' Will you advance to take a place on the altar?’

On the altar of the Cathedral of St. Isaac for Easter Midnight mass! My amazement was so immense that I forgot my former surprise at learning from this fair creature that I was I. Upon recovering my senses, I stated that I should never think of committing sacrilege.

‘Oh, but everybody will follow us; at this point in the mass we are expected to step out on the altar!’ she said, in her pretty, charmingly foreign French. The Russian is the only foreign accent pretty in French.

Her companion still did not speak, while smiling an assent which gained weight from a seniority of two or three years.

‘Don’t you know the ceremony?’the girl of the golden hair and dark brown eyes went on. ‘The first part, said upon the altar, is finished; the dignitaries and high-priests and priests and attendants and choristers have proceeded to the Tomb, in which Our Lord was laid on Good Friday — the very sacred Face of Our Lord, the holiest of all our ikons, whose place is in the Sanctuary save during these days from Good Friday to Easter. At the Tomb, they have sought to know if Christ is still there; not finding Him, they have left the Cathedral and are marching in solemn procession around it, upon a road built of boards over the snow. Each time they pass the grand front portals of bronze which face the Nieva — portals which in all the year open but once, to-night at midnight — they knock and call upon the Christ to come. Thrice they must march around the Cathedral, and twice they knock in vain. But at the third knock the doors fly open, and a voice cries out that Christ is not here for He has risen and gone to his Father. Then the procession, witness to the Resurrection, returns to the Tomb, and takes up the very sacred Image, and bears it back to its place in the Sanctuary, and the Easter Mass begins.’

She stopped, as blows upon metal rang out, followed by echoes which exhausted themselves in the voiceless, motionless tension of the praying, breathing multitude.

‘You heard?’ she asked. ‘We must go upon the altar! All are waiting for somebody to go first. My sister and I led the way last year, and we should like to do so again: it is our right. But we can’t pass out unless we have an escort. Will you come to our assistance? We shall then have the pleasure of being in the front rank. And the others, here, must wait until we have given the signal.’

Perhaps if my wits had not been blunted by astonishment, come abruptly to rouse me from utter exhaustion,

I might have hesitated. Or perhaps I should have plunged in all the same, since the girl asked it as a favor. But the situation seemed so natural when explained, that I believe I did not stop to think.

I made my way through the privileged throng, and reached the guards posted to cut off access to the altar. At a word from the girl in white, who followed close behind me, they stood aside as if expecting her, and opened the gate.

Going through, I advanced upon the altar far enough to allow the two ladies to occupy the front rank, as well as I could calculate, after all the others in our gallery had poured in our wake. Stopping between a great gilt candelabrum and a tall column of priceless malachite, I faced the thousands filling the Cathedral; their eyes, sparkling in the light of the candles that they held, seemed all to be fixed on me; and doubtless many of them were.

Further prompting as to my conduct was now urgently needed; I looked round, to ask advice of my fair guides. Then my blood positively froze: no one had followed, save the girl who had spoken. Even her silent friend, or sister, was not there. The guards had allowed only us two to pass, and had then closed in upon the others. The girl had stopped near them, sheltered by a candelabrum, and was inconspicuous against the screen of ladies and gentlemen quite close to her though beyond the barrier. As I noticed this, I perceived that the sound of the chants had gained in volume. The procession had reëntered the Cathedral, had paused for a moment at the Tomb, without my knowing it. Even as this retrospective realization reached me, I was surrounded by priests and acolytes.

Escape would be possible only by breaking through their ranks. That might appear graver profanation than remaining where I chanced to be. They betrayed neither surprise nor displeasure at my presence; and if it would be going too far to pretend that they appeared anxious for me to stay, I can at least assert that they seemed to consider that I was in my proper place. Once more, my best policy was to take the situation for granted and stay where I was until somebody said, ‘ Go away! ’ So, banishing speculations as to why I was here, and whether this were a blunder or a trap, I stood waiting for what might befall.

The choristers formed around me in a compact group, shielding me somewhat from the multitude. I soon forgot embarrassment in my interest at hearing how voices were managed so as to atone for the absence of a pipe-organ. While some of the boys and men sang words, others sang only tones; the boys’ voices had a flute-like quality suggesting the finest organ-pipes, and the basses had deep, sonorous tones like those released by the pedals. If I had not been there among the singers, seeing and hearing how it was done, I should have thought them accompanied by the instruments they were so successfully imitating. As I observed and analyzed the performance, I forgot my predicament. There was nothing mysterious about this, at least. With fatherly solicitude the choir-master watched the poor, tired little boys. They strained a good deal, to get that flute-like effect; I fancy their voices cannot last very long. He kept walking about, and when he detected any rasping, he distributed lozenges. Other boys, so weary that they could scarcely stand, he would take one by one in his arms, leaning them against him in their quaint snuffer-like gowns of dark blue trimmed with silver, and would gently pat their little shaven heads until they looked wide awake and slightly rested. The music ceased, the choristers and their master moved away, and I was once more left standing alone. My eyes sought the girl between the railing and the first candelabrum. She had not moved.

‘Now is my time,’ I thought.

But she smiled, and signaled approval. Approval of what — my position or my intention? I hesitated an instant. Then, swiftly, she was lost from view. Four priests had come up and had begun to say mass, apparently addressing it to me.

‘It is for the Saint over my head,’ I reflected, as they spoke their liturgy by turns. Of course it was for that great figure in mosaic, behind and above me between the columns. But why, then, did they embarrass me by swinging their incense at me and keeping their looks intently on me? Other groups of priests were before the other mosaics. But why was mine receiving a double share? I had observed that the crowd bowed whenever incense was swung vaguely towards them. So I could do no less than bow too, when the burners, swung within a yard of me, enveloped me in their fumes; whereupon the priests repeated the ceremony before withdrawing and advancing promptly again. Whatever it might mean, I could only remain where my presence was taken for granted.

Apart from the strangeness and mystery of my predicament, the scene was one to eclipse childhood dreams of fairyland: the gems, the gold, the marbles, the wrought brass, the mosaics and inlaying; the priests in their gorgeous robes of cloth-of-gold, stiff with many-colored precious stones and rich with the rarest laces; the blaze of countless candles scattering the gloom by their number, yet withal having that softness which no other artificial light attains; at our feet the thousands of worshipers murmuring prayers, bowing and crossing themselves with the kite-shaped, reversed orthodox cross as they waved their tapers; and all in that treasure-chest among the world’s cathedrals!

It is said in Petrograd that an attempt was made, some years ago, to estimate the value of St. Isaac’s and all that it contains; and that a sum amounting to so many million roubles that I dare not mention it here, because it would not be credited, had already been reached, when the task had to be abandoned. The eight columns of malachite and the two columns of lapis lazuli, flanking the sanctuary portals and the heroic mosaics of the ikonostas, had been reached: priceless, unmatched in the world, they defied monetary calculations.

Beneath one of those mosaics, between two of those columns, I stood receiving a mistaken homage of prayer and incense and salutations which I acknowledged with unlimited bows. Time passed — an hour, perhaps two. Having gone through the period when I felt I must scream unless I could move, I now feared to scream if I risked stirring a finger; and finally I fell into an apathy where voices and men and lights and clouds surged round me as I stood impassive, nailed to my protecting saint while successive relays of priests came up to worship.

The choristers returned and surrounded me; there were chants, then prayers, then came a choral different from the rest. Candles were spluttering out one by one; half the glory of the illumination was gone.

My eye met that of my fair guide; I saw a look which might be interpreted as a signal to come, and I went up to her.

‘Do you wish to stay until the end?’ she asked.

‘That depends,’ I answered, willing to attend her as long as she pleased.

‘The important part of the ceremony is finished, but there is a great deal more,’ she said. ‘You may leave now if you wish.’

I suppose I ought to have thanked her for the permission. But my thoughts were elsewhere.

‘And you?’ I asked.

‘We are going,’ she said.

The guards threw open the gates; she went first, I following. The throng had thinned appreciably. Her movements would be easy to observe, I thought; for I was determined to hold the key to this affair. But I had counted without my furs. I saw the girl going; I hurried in her wake; the Court-chamberlaindvornik stopped me; I lost a precious moment in expostulation, then surrendered as the quickest means of escaping. I seemed caught, huddled, muffled in my coat for just a second or two; and when I had struggled and had restored the fur to its proper place, I had a swift vision of two rhythmically moving figures already near the door through which I had originally entered.

To the droning lilt of the liturgy, priests, choristers, people were melting away; so many lights ware out that I stumbled from semi-darkness into the square, where the air entering my lungs felt like a steel blade thrust down my windpipe.

Already, the square was deserted.

I hurriedly forced my way back into the Cathedral. Guards tried to stop me; I allowed myself to be swallowed for a moment in the outward-moving column which was about to flood the square anew; and, battling as I had learned to battle in the Polish church on Palm Sunday, I somehow reached the interior. Since the girl of the golden hair and the dark brown eyes was not without and not in this present throng, she must still be in the Cathedral. But half-lights, dimly glowing riches of marble and decoration, and great ungainly deserted spaces of paving over which, not groups of worshipers, but insignificant individuals were scattered—this and nothing more greeted me.

Then I recognized Xorell.

‘Tell me — tell me— ’ I clutched his arm.

‘Not here!’ he whispered sharply.

‘But, Xorell —’ I protested.

He drew me aside. I suffered myself to be led on, my eyes in all directions save his. There could be no doubt: the girl had gone.

A moment later, I was in the street. Xorell had pushed me through a sidedoor. Guards had closed in behind us. This time, I was irrevocably out.

‘Are you mad, to behave so in the Cathedral at such a ceremony?’ Xorell demanded.

‘Perhaps; what does it matter?’ I asked impatiently. ‘Only one thing matters. Do you know — that is, did you see —’

I stopped. How could he know,what could he have seen? And how could I describe the girl of the golden hair and the dark brown eyes? Discouragement checked me, and allowed time to recall his skepticism about my previous adventures. If I aroused his conventional prejudices now, I should lose what slight hope I had for a clue. Deciding to keep my personality out of the story for the present, at least, I approached him warily: —

‘Did you notice a man being worshiped on the altar — a man in ordinary evening dress?’

He neither protested nor showed surprise. His answer was a quiet ‘No.’

‘What was he doing there?’ I insisted.

‘Superstition,’ Xorell replied.

‘Superstition!’ I exclaimed indignantly. ‘Then what were you yourself doing, you confounded atheist and liberalist, bowing and crossing and blessing yourself like an animated prayerwheel with a swing-censor attached? I saw you!’

‘That is not true! That is not true!’ he exclaimed hotly. But his cheeks were so very much hotter than his words, that I knew I had not been mistaken.

‘ Better acknowledge you did as you were told,’ I went on. ‘And so perhaps did the man on the altar, superstition or no superstition.’

‘Oh, that is different!’ Xorell said, glad enough to let the subject drift from himself. ‘There is an old Russian belief in the efficacy of venerating a man on certain great feasts. He is offered as — as a sort of sacrifice, you know.’

‘Lord!’ I muttered, casting a quick glance behind me.

‘Only a moral offering, of prayer,’ Xorell continued. ‘He must unite unusual qualities —’

‘Never mind about those,’ I deprecated.

‘ He must go willingly, and yet be unaware of what is awaiting him; he must be as passive and receptive as paint or stone —’

‘And so,’ I broke out in irrepressible vexation, ‘that’s why the fair-headed man remarked on the stairs at the hotel, “He will do very well — Il fera très bien notre affaire!” ’

‘Eh?’ Xorell asked.

‘Nothing,’ I assured him. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, he can be worshiped as a sort of prayer-offering in a particularly holy cause. At least one sponsor must be on the altar too, yet not share in the rite. From where I was standing to-night, I could n’t have seen. But if such a thing happened, then you may be sure it was to invoke victory for our arms in Manchuria.’

‘ And — and suppose he were inadequate? Suppose he were n’t as indifferent as paint or stone? Suppose a fairheaded man and his accomplices had misjudged? Suppose a golden-haired girl with dark brown eyes —’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Xorell asked. ‘We’re both almost walking in our sleep, anyhow. Five hours of solid standing — good lush!’ Xorell’s attempts at English oaths were sometimes startling. ‘Better get to bed as quick as you can,’ he said. ‘I’m off.’

But as for me, the sky had long since lost its snow-like paleness and had grown blue and aggressive, and had clouded for a fresh downfall, before I sought sleep.

I spent some days in haunting hotels, restaurants, streets, and all public places, when not calling assiduously at all houses that were open to me. Meanwhile, I had written to Paris and London, soliciting letters of introduction to all the Russian friends of everybody I knew.

Those letters came, and were never presented; and public places ceased to see me before my departure from Petrograd, which, gauged by previous arrangements, was premature. For I had learned that I had been inadequate or vain; and I knew that, were I to catch a glimpse of that golden hair, I should shrink with remorse from before the dark-brown eyes.

Bells tolling to masses for the dead had sobbed out a tale of national disaster. Far to the East, where Russia had staked her Imperial fortunes, Japan had dealt her a blow which only long years could help to retrieve. And the stoic optimism of a race too mighty to conceive of reverse as possible had for the first time been shaken — though the lessons then learned were to be factors in future greatness.