AT A HARBIN HOTEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14931, 2 March 1912, Page 4 (Supplement)

AT A HARBIN HOTEL.

"Mas. Dbcumoxd's Vocation," by Mark Eyce (Heinemann London), is apparently intended to shock and does. For it tells of the very double life lad by a young woman who, from being a devoted missionary's wife, becomes a very gay widow in Paris, and after trying reform as a resigned daughter-in-law at Ulapham, decides that a return to Paris is preferable. Yet the story is well-told, and the literary work good, as for example, the account of a Harbin hotel —

"The luxurious liver is not advised by the present writer to go to Harbin. "The town is filthy, ugly, and depressing, and much the same may bo said of the hotels. Mrs. Drummond's hotel presented to,her that rainy morning a sad aspect. The endless flights of iron stairs were covered with an extremely dirty and ragged drugget, the air was foul, and the servants, good-natured and willing, understood not a word of anything but Russian, and wero maddeningly Hull at understanding signs. She was shown into a small room furnished with the commonest of • bedroom necessities; the bare floor was dirty, the tiny electric bulb hung about one inch from a very high ceding, and there were neither bedclothes nor towels to be seen. The walls were painted, in stripes of various widths, with bright colours which might possibly have pleased the more youthful inmates of a home for weak-minded children.

"It was a dreadful place, and even. Lily Drumraond, used as she was to the tasteless simplicity of the missionaries, was depressed by it. Her train left that evening at nine, so a long day was before her, and sitting, down she tried to plan how to spend it. to tho best advantage. " She took off her ruined bonnet and unpinned her hair, which was a relief. Should she go out at once and buy the so sadly necessary new things and rest afterwards, or would it be better to rest first? She was desperately tired, and, catching sight of her weary face in the glass, decided suddenly to have a bath and go to sleep before she did anything else. "Kinging, she signified that she wished a bath. The maid. a. strapping wench in grey canvas shoes with preposterously high heels, brought her, with every appearance of good-will, a carafe of drinking water."