CHAPTER V.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 29

CHAPTER V.

The mystery of the story indeed was untouched. The Countess Stravensky had disappeared as completely as if she had never existed. Neither the police nor Dick Chetwynd had solved the Stravensky problem, and Philip Forsyth hept his own counsel in regard to that notable poison — kept it with a dogged silence that no one could weaken. The young artist had come home again entirely changed in manners and habit, and strangely altered in appearance. Pale, thoughtful, and with the strongest tendency to look upon the ground, Philip now appeared to live in a world of his own ; and happily for himself and art, he devoted himself with a calm intensity to his work. Back again to the studio beyond Primrose Hill, he lived there for days together without making his appearance at his mother's or visiting the Chetwynd household. On quiet evenings he might be seen strolling over the hill, or smoking a cigar upon one of its highest seats. As a rule, he began work with daylight, and only laid down his brushes at the approach of night. His models were que6r people, mostly selected from foreign emigrants and Eastern sailors at the London Docks. For months his only recreation appeared to be in continual visits to the Port of London. He made sketches of the Jewish refugees from Russian Poland and other districts, and occasionally brought his models straight to his studio, lodging them close by ; finding vent for his feelings and direction for his art in subjects of modern Russian history, not painted with ostentatious political point, as might have been expected from his somewhat fanatical impulse, but with a pathetic fervour that permitted a margin even for the tremendous difficulties that belong to the Russian political situation. These studies, however, represent pictures yet to come ; and it is not' within the space of this present chronicle to do more than forecast the future of Philip Forsyth from the standpoint of his remarkable work, " The Road to Siberia," which has sufficiently impressed the fathers of the Royal Academy to secure for its painter the first step to honours which he neither desires nor resents.

Once in a way he will stroll into the Arts Club, or the Hogarth, of an evening, and take a quiet, sober part in the social life of these pleasant establishments. Occasionally throwing oft the shadow which has fallen upon his young life, there is no assumption of undue thoughtfulness or gloomy manner : it is quite natural to hirn> and is accompanied with a certain unconsciousness of singularity which disarms the personal affront of unsympathetic criticism. He has rivals in his art, and critics in the press entirely ignorant of his antecedents, who credit him with intonlional airs of eccentricity, and characterise both his manner and his work as commer-

Cial and shoppy. But Philip has suffered, and is strong, and once a week when he goes to his mother's to spend Sunday and accompany her to the little Catholic chapel round the corner, Lady Forsyth finds a new pleasure and satisfaction in his companionship, which is restful, quiet, non-argumen-tative, and affectionate. He hasa wholesome sympathy for the suffering, and even in his criticisms of the Russian rule there is an appreciative sentiment of the obstacles which block the way o^even the most charitable of Muscovite monarchs. The diplomatic skilfulness and pleasant geniality of Walter Milbanke brought to bear upon the amiable and happy nature of Sam Swinford through the medium of Dick Chetwynd, have brought about a complete reconciliation between the Forsyths and the merry sisters. It is satisfaatory to be able still to give them that familiar title the merry sisters. Sam and Dolly, at the suggestion of clever Mrs Milbanke, have made their home in the best part of the fashionable regions of Kensington. The fortunate young stockbroker, lucky in his marriage as in his financial speculations^ has been able to give to Dolly all her heart could desire, and at the same time to provide Mrs Milbanke with a house of call not less luxurious and comfortable than her own. It is quite possible that, under the influence rather of Mrs Milbanke's ambition than the desire of her sister Dolly, Mr Swinford may yet be heard of in the great legislative council of the nation; not that he cares for public honours, but he has made sufficient money to command the attention of one of the great parties in the city, is popular wherever he goes, has already refused a seat in the county council, has been elected a member of one of the great party clulss. He and his wife are on the reception list o\ the Prime Minister's discreet and accomplished wife ; aad his coach at the last Hyde Park Corner meeting was the best appointed of the day, and certainly carried two of the most attractive women of the season, Mrs Swinford and Mrs Milbanke, the wife of the well known conveyancing solicitor. They met Philip Forsjth for the first time since their marriage at a quiet little dinner given by Lady Forsyth at Richmond. Philip was inclined to be somewhat bashful at the outset, but was speedily placed at his ease by the wise discretion of Mrs Milbanke, the' pleasant, lively conversation' of Walter, and the rare capacity of Dolly Swinford for talking about everything that was far away from Philip's thoughts, and her charming facility for translating pleasant ideas into music. She played and sang divinely snatches of this opera and the other, never, for one moment dropping into any suggestion of " Carmen," and always keeping clear of anything calculated to stir the emotions. It was altogether on one side a most agreeable plot to make Philip ignore anything in the past that could unpleasantly influence the piesent, and 1 ' he and his mother were sympathetically receptive of these pleasant efforts of social friendship. With all his influence Dick Chetwynd has not been able to learn anything of the fate of Ferrari, Petroski, and the president of the meeting at the French Cabart in Soho. The Italian and his comrades must therefore pass out of thi3 history as many other men in Russia have passed out of all knowledge of their friends and associates, some to die lingering deaths in stifling prisons, others to grow grey in Siberian wilds. It may, how- 1 ever, be said for Ferrari and his comrades of the Brotherhood that they were always prepared for the martyrdom which they knew they might at any moment be called upon to endure. Moreover, Ferrari, if he had not lived to realise bis best hopes, had at least enjoyed the sweets of revenge on most of his personal enemies. Whether hispas3ion was a righteous one or not, it was the chief motor of his life, sanctified in his mind by the name of patriotism. So let the memory of him be kept green at least for his courage and his devotion to the unhappy Queen of the Ghetto. [The End.]

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

In the summer of 1887 I came upon a pamphlet published by The Times five years previously, giving an account of the persecution of the Jews in Russia in 1881. At about the same time I found in the Brooklyn Times (U.S.) a tragic incident in the alleged career of a Jewess, which recalled to my mind a grim passage of Russian history. These three records inspired the story I have just concluded. It occurred to me to find in the one village of Russia where the Jews had for a time lived unmolested, a heroine, who, falling under the lash of Russian persecution, should survive the keenest of human afflictions, to become under very dramatic and romantic circumstances the instrument of Divine vengeance upon her enemy, and probably a type of the fierce injustice which characterises the civil and military government of Russia. My inspiration for this tragic figure sprang from the following narrative, related as absolutely true by Charles J. Rosebault, in the Brooklyn Times during the month of June 1887: — Not far from tho police station on Elizabeth Btveefc is a largo thrße-&toroy brick building. Years ago it was a handsome dwelling, but time and the Fmall boy have plays-i havoc with its facade, doors, windows, and railing. It is occupied by a well-to-do RußsiaD, who yeara ago fled his native land for alleged complicity in Homo plot r-paiost the Czar. IL bau long been the rendezvous of political refugees of both sexes, Russian Nihilists, Polish Liberators, French Communarde, German Socialists, and Cosmopolitan Auarchi?ts, Th- oircle met f-here is compo^od of educated ;-.ud clever people. Nearly all are excellent linguifita and more or less cuccessful in trade, literature, or profeßaiin.il life. O^ing pr^b-bly ro fbe terrible scpnns in which thty how Po^n aj f ors all are mora or lnss ercc-nirie in behaviour, speech, or 'de»-=!. Not locft tinr-c a pavty of a dozsn mci ;id Tvt.rrn^r wn ensnding thn eveuiog io l')o Urg.-, old f<i<hios?Fd par]ou.\ All smcke«i, r, for,* pjpped t^", vitriolif Vodka beweea tho whiff*, of thaii- c'^avottrs, while all tho re^. as<mt j,"-d thirst with tha cheap wines of Uin B.MIJO r-nd Mobile. Thi cc-nvcrsa'-.ioD hfd beep. polHic.u r.nd iifcsrvy roller than .wi-cd;'-! i^ c"--r .ct< r a -. 1 h C fhfged until ti:£ t .< . l ->-" vmrc: t'.W *. T^s only per.-oa ,sp ">•>..'.•£> \\> e n i 1 •:;^'-T'ie Tftw.rE of 2-1 or 25, v/'. \-: v .'_*-'» c" >•">» 'If f/uevi't V7SR Th^ndora () -.ai!- <.':. iriiir, »*•) oi «■ x'ftie type of fchat „ • . I. ,-.« ,i s.-.;.r.b b'^ade with Lirighi «o\!t'Q }• »i ■ ,' ' ' I ,'-' '"f r " us bluQ l> s ?eD -- ncl exhibiting the powerful figure aad splendid health which

characterise the Hebtew women to so remarkable a degree. As she paused at the end of an argument and drained a glass of Josephehooter, someone asked, "What made you a Nihilist, Dora?" . " Nothing very remarkable to us Russians," she replied. " I bolong to a good family in a small town in the Warsaw province. I married tha rabbi of our synagogue, and we were very happy for a few months. The C&ar then made a change, and sent down a new Governor from St. Petersburg to replace our old one, who was a good and just man, although a Russian geueral. The new comer had every vice, and no virtue of any kind. He was so bad aud cruel that our friends and relatives wrote us when he came warning us against him. My husband the next Sabbath, in the synagogue, told our people about him, and advised them to be over cautious in not violating any one of the thousand tyrannical laws with i which we were cursed* Though he spoke in Hebrew, for fear of spies, someone betrayed him to the Governor. He was arrested, tried, flogged on the public square into insensibility, and sent to Siberia for life. I was present when he underwent his agony, and Btood it until I bocame crazed. I broke through the crowd toward the wretoh of an official, and cursed him and bis master, the Czar, and swore vengeance against both. I, too, was arrested, tried at court martial, and sentenced to reoeive a hundrod blows with the rod in the public square. I, a woman, was taken by drunken Moujiks and heathen Cossacks to the place, tied by my hands to the whipping post, my clothing torn from my body to the waist, and beaten before all the soldiery and the people of the town. At the twentieth blow I fainted, but the ropes hold me up, and the full hundred were counted on my body. They cut me down, tubbed rock salt and water and some iron that eats like fire into my back to stop the bleediog, and carded me to the hospital. I lay tbore two mi n'hs, and was discharged. I had bit one idea then, and that was vengeance. By patience I managed to get employment in the Governor's palace aa a seamstress. One afternoon he was in his bath, aud ha sent for towels. The attendant was tirad, and I \ olunteorod to take them. I threw them over my arm, and under them I held a long stillotto, charp as a needle. I entered the room, and he was reading and smoking in the bath. I laid tho towels by his side with my left hand, and at the next moment with my right I drove tho knife through his heart. It was splendidly done. Ho never made a Bound, and I escaped to thin laud. That is why I am a Nihilist. Do any of you doubt?" She spraug excitedly from hor chair, and iv half a minute had bared horself to tho waist. The frout of hor form from nock to bplh might have passed aa the model of ihs Yeaus di Milo. But the back t liidgas, welts, an i furrows that crossed and interlaced as if cut out with a red-hot irou, patches of white, i?rey, pink, blue, and angry red, holes and hollows with hard, hideous edges, half visible ribs and the edges of ruined muecle/5, all of which moved, contracted, and lengthened with tbe Bwaying of her body. There was a gasp from everyone present. The aged host rose, si'enfcly kissed her on the forehead, and helped her to put baok her garments. Then again tbe wine passed around, and what secret toasts were made as the party drank will never bo known. The historic chapter which this newspaper paragraph brought to my mind was the story of Madame Lapoukin ; the briefest account of which is probably the following from The Knout, by Germain de Lagny : — In 1760, under the reign of the indolent and luxurious Elizabeth, who had abolished capital punishment, Madame Lapoukiu, a woman of rare beauty, of which the Czarina was envious, was condemned to the knout and transportation, in epite of the privilege of the nobility never to suffer tbe former punishment. She had been foted, caressed, and run after at oourt, and had, it was said, betrayed the seoret of the Empress' liaison with Prince Rszouinowsky. She was conducted by the executioners to the public square, where she was exposed by one of them, who rolled up her chemise as far as hor waist ; he then placed her upon bie shoulderp, when another arranged her with bis coarse dirty hands in the required position, obliging her to hold her head down, while a man of tbe lower classes, squatting at her feet, kept her legs still. The exf cutiouer cut her flesh into shreds by 100 strokes of the knout, from the shoulders to the lower portions of the loins. After tho infliction of the punishment, her tougue w.is (on out, and a short time subsequently she was sent to Siberia whence Bho was recalled in 1762 by Peter, 111. For the successful development of these journalistic, literary, and historical facts and suggestions into a full three volume novel, with truthful as well as characteristic accessories, it was necessary that I should make a study of Russian village life, and refresh my memory with such chapters of Russian history as should enable me to hold my imaginary characters and their actions within the reasonable control of probability. I was already fairly well acquainted with some of the best works of Russian fiction, which are full of strong local colour and. fine characterisation, Gogol's stories more particularly, but in order that I might not stray from the path of truth any further than is reasonably permissible, I followed up the narrative of the Times, in the files of the Daily Telegraph and the Jewish Chronicle traced the anti-Jewish riots throughout their lurid march of fire and bloodshed ; talked to several travelled authorities as to their experiences of Jewish lie in Southern Russia, and settled down to a careful study of the literary, topographical, political, and historical literature of the subject in the course of which for the purposes of this story I have consulted and read " The Jews and their Persecutors," by Eugenic Lawrence ; " Scenes from the Ghetto," by Leopold Kompert ; " The Knout and the Russians," by Germain de Lagny ; " Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia," by Madame Cottin ; " Russia under the Czars," by Stepinak; " Prison Life in Siberia " and " Crime and Punishment," by Fedor Dostoiffsky ; " The Russian Revolt," by Edmund Noble ; " The Jews of Barnum," by Karl Emil Franzos; "Russia, Political and Social," by L. Tikhanirov; "Called 13ack\" by Hugh Conway ; " Dead Souls," by Nikolai V. Gogol ; " War and Peace " and "Anna Karena," by Count Tolstoi ; " A Hero of Our Time," by M. V. Lermontoff ; " Russia before and after tbe War," by tho author of " Society as it is in St. Petersburg;" "Tho Encyclopedia Britannica;" " Russians of To-rlay," by the author of " The Member for Paris ; " " The Russian Peasantry," by Stepinak ; " Stories from Russia, Siberia, Poland^ and Circassia," edited by Russell Lee ; " Chambers' Encyclopaedia ; " George Kennan's Century papers on "Plains and Priscas of Western Siberia,"and " Aaross the Russian Frontier ; " Theodore Child's " Fail of Nijnii Novogrod" in Harper's Magazine ; The Times' pamphlet (before mentioned) " Persecutions of the Jews in Russia, 1831 ; " " Venice," by Yriarfce ; " Venetian

Life," by Howells ; "Sketches from Venetian History;" "New Italian Sketches," by J. A. Symonds, and other miscellaneous literature. It will be seen that I name these works without any view to classification or order. A foreign criticism upon the Venetian chapter or tho story makes it desirable for me to state that the introduction of a Russian interest in the royal fetes on the Grand Canal is pure invention. The pageantry is true enough ; the presence of the King and Queen of Italy ; the illuminations and the rest ; but the red gondola and the ghost of the lagoons belong to the region of fancy; though they might easily have formed part of the events of the time. I saw a dead swimmer towed into an English fishing port under very similar circumstances to I those which I have described as occurring in the waters of the Adriatic. In taking leave of my readers, with all due apologies for this personal note, I venture to express a hope that they may continue to feel an interest in the future of the Milbankes, the Forsyths, the Chetwynds, and the Klosstocks. If I have made these people half as real to them as they are to me, they will keep them in their remembrance as acquaintances, if not as friends ; and in reflective moments their hearts will go out to an old man £nd his daughter who in the spirit of chastened content are fulfilling their voluntary exile, their happiness a dream of the past, their chief hope in a future " where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." J. H.