Evening Star Newspaper, June 2, 1929, Page 111

SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTO N, and went to the entrance. A smile lighted his dark face. “It is ill,” cried Bayazid, who lacked neither pride nor courage, “to mock one whom God hath afflicted.” “I smiled,” Timur answered slowly, “that God should have given the mastery of the world to a lame man like me, and a blind man like thee.” And he added gravely: “It is well known what would have been my fate and the fate of my men if thou hadst prevailed over To this Bayazid made no response. Timur ordered that his bonds should be taken off, and seated him at his side within the pavilion. It pleased the aged conqueror to have the great Sultan a prisoner under his hand, and he treated Bayazid courteously. The captive asked that search be made for his sons, and Timur commanded that this should be done. One of them, Musa, was brought in a prisoner, and given a robe of honor and seated by his father. Another, who died in the battle, was never found. The rest escaped. HE Tatar troopers returned to Timur’s head- quarters with all manner of spoil. The customary feast was held. To this feast Bayazid was invited and came perforce. He was seated near Timur, and the old Tatar commanded that his imperial regalia be brought to him. Per- force the dour Turk put on the jeweled turban and took in his hand the gold mace that had been the symbol of his conquests. Thus attired, he was offered his own wines and the drugs to which he had been accus- tomed. But he tasted nothing. Before his eyes his fairest women waited on the conquerors. These women had not before now been seen outside the harem, the sanctuary. Bayazid gripped his golden mace, his massive body shaken with agony. Rising, he made a gesture toward the entrance. They let him go then. Two Tatar officers sprang up and caught his arms and led him through the feasters, his turbaned head sunk on his chest. So passed the Thunder. His strength sapped by debauchery and the ordeal of battle, his pride broken, he died a few months later. SO utterly had the Turks been crushed that no second battle took place. Angora yielded —Brusa and Nicea were carried by the rush of the Tatar pursuit. Down to the sea on all sides of the peninsula of Asia Minor the fleeing Turks thronged, princes, pashas and officers at the head of the fugitives. Fishing boats and pleasure barges carried crowds of them to tha islands. “Forward, in the name Timur had made no effort to enter Europe. An incentive was lacking. His men longed to return to Samarkand. And Bayazid's cities had yielded great wealth—among other things the silver gates of Brusa adorned with the figures of the saints, Peter and Paul, and the Byzantine library that had fallen into the hands of the God and St. George!” Suitan. All this Timur took away with him. In August he was back in his city, Samarkand, quartered in the garden calleq Heart’s Delight. “For two moons,” he commanded, “there will be festival. Let no man say to another, ‘Why have ye done this?'” And then, abruptly, the carnival ended. TIMUR summoned before him the council princes and amirs. “We have conquered,”™ he told them, “all of Asia except Cathay. We, have overthrown such mighty kings that our. deeds will be remembered always. You have been my companions in many wars, and never. has victory failed you. To overthrow the pagans, of Cathay not much strength or power will be nceded, and thither you shall march with me.™ It was then November and bitter cold. When the army passed through the open gorge thag was known thereafter as the Gates of Tamer= lane, snow began to fall. The winds from the northern steppes swept the plain, and numbed by a blizzard they went into camp. When they moved out again it was into & world white with snow. treams were icew coated, the roads heavy with drifts. Some men and horses died, but Timur would not turn back. Slowly the standards moved into the moun- tain passes, through dark ravines that seemed to sink deeper below the summits, veiled in mist, Slowly as a laden animal they felt their way. through the passes and came out on the northern plain and saw before them the walls of Otrar—shelter for the Winter. Here Timur could rest. He planned to go forward with the first warmth of Spring. - AS he had ordered, the army took the road again in March, 1405. The standards were lifted and the great drum roared, the regiments were drawn up on the plain for review. The lords of divisions assembled their musicians for. the nightly salutation to the amir, while the pipes shrilled and the drums echoed the thud- ding hoofs. But it was a salutation to the dead. Timur had died at Otrar. In obedience to his will the host marched again toward the great north road. His white horse, saddled, was in its post under the imperial standard. But no one was in the saddle. The chronicle has left us a glimpse of Timur's, last scene. Lying outstretched on his cushions; his lined face gray in the white mass of his hair, Timur ga his final directions to his high amirs. “Keep your swords valiantly in hand, Keep agreement among ye, for in disorder there is ruin. Do not turn aside from the march to Cathay.” Charcoal braziers burned near his head, and his voice was no more than a whisper. “Do not rend your garments and run to and fro like madmen because I have left you. That will breed disorder.” The iron spirit that had cleaved its wayp through life accepted the end of life withoug protest. Some of the amirs were weeping and the low wailing of the women could be M (Copyright, 1929.) 17 Xou Wouid Be Lo-ve/y Poem in the Yiesh, Mesdames Madame Odic Kintzel of Paris Would Form All Your Feminine Graces Into a Divine, Bewitching, Harmonious Symphony BY R. S. FENDRICK. PARIS, May 25, 1929. O you long to be a poem, mesdames—a lovely poem in flesh? Do you wish your members to form a divine, be- witching, harmonious symphony of all the feminine graces? Do you dream of your body being a gracious rose waving langourously in the Spring zephyrs? A heavenly harp play- ing exquisite melodies? A perfect jewel, scin- tillating with the purest colors? A nymph from the gardens of the gods? A modern Venus? Well, your day is dawning, for Madame Odic Kintzel has just opened up in Paris a salon where, like a doctor prescribing for banal ills of the body, she gives “esthetic consultations” to women who want to become more beautiful - or, to put it more precisely, who want to perfect themselves in the art of striking graceful atti- tudes and poses. These consultations are not designed for actresses, professional dancers, ar- tists’ models and mannequins, but for the so- ciety woman. “If I cannot make you more beautiful, I can surely—provided you are not a paragon of beau- ty already-——make you less unlovely,” is the key- note of her art. A NUMBER of American women who have tried out these “esthetic consultations” have found that they are quite thrilling. Em- barking rather timidly to see Madame Kintzel, they have been received by a charming young woman installed in a huge studio, hung with pale gray draperies and drawings of the fa- mous goddesses of mythology. After a brief explanation of the laws of beauty and har- mony, the teacher asks the pupil to take vari- ous attitudes. “Let us try a simple standing position,” Madame Kintzel commences. Most women will step out, plant their two feet solidly anywhere from 6 to 18 inches apart, keep their legs and backbone perfectly straight, make an agreeably vague gesture with their arms and smile hopefully. “I don't think that the Venus of Milo would do it exactly like that,” Mme. Kintzel beams in a friendly way; and with a graceful glide that seems to embrace all the bodily graces she trips to the student’s place and takes an attitude as though she was going to fly off into space—an attitude exclusively made up of curves instead of straight lines. Her right leg—the leg in advance—is bent just a trifle. Her left leg is bent much more, and the left foot is held back, with only the toe resting on the floor. Backbone curved just a trifie. Right arm extended, but bent at the elbow, with open hand and curving fingers. Left arm down, but bowed somewhat at the elbow, With one hip higher than the other, shoulders slightly curved forward; this gives a prolonged curve that is not only extremely gracious, but natural and reposing. “A person who wishes to look their best in this attitude must not stand solidly on both feet unless she is on shipboard in a rough sea or doing a weight-lifting act in a circus,” the delightful young instructor kindly explains. “This human-fork pose is stiff, unnatural, me- chanical, military and awkward. You never sce it in a fine painting or a fine statue. All Mme. Odic Kinizel. the teacher. the painters and sculptors know better. It may look all right in the army, but a woman is not made to be a soldier.” The second lesson is generally the sitting position, for apparently not one woman in a thousand has ever studied how a goddess would do it. SOMF of the pupils will sif up squarely and put their knees together like a carved Egyptian; cinhers will cross their legs above the knees, leaving their feet a yard apart; still others will put their legs far apart and loll back in a big chair, and some attempt even stranger contortions. Mme. Kintzel indulgently watches their efe forts for a moment and then demonstrates hef conception of a graceful siiting position. “Now, don’t you think you would look bete ter in this attitude, my dear?” she inquires with a disarming smile, and the pupils enthu- siastically agree. It was so simple and yet so graceful. As she turned her back to the chair and pre- pared to sit down, Mme. Kintzel first bent her right knee, slipped her right foot partly bee hind the left one, and then lowered. herself gently into the cushions. She crossed her legs, but only at the ankles, keeping her knees almost together. From full front she shifted to a sideways position, but without crossing her legs any higher than the ankle. Her arms seemed to take very good care of themselves. “I shall forgive you many mistakes,” she confides to her pupils, “if you will not cross your legs above the calves. The most ugly sight imaginable is a woman sitting down with one knee thrown over the other.” And so, studying one attitude after another, the young danseuse—she is a skilled musician also—teaches women to be sylphlike and re- main in rhythm with the eternal law of beauty and harmony. It seems that there are an ine numerable number of attitudes to learn in order to be a nymph, but, in reality, there is only one rule, and that is to adapt ene’s self to pretty curves instead of stiff, straight lines. FOR example, when many women wish t0 pick up something from the floor, or touch something on a low table, they will keep their legs perfectly straight and bend from the hips, making a perfect right angle. Is it not more charming to drop to the floor, or as low as necessary, with the right knee, keeping the end of the spine low and the head high? And the unoccupied arm extended forward instead of hanging down? And then, aside from the question of general attitudes, how many women know how to show their arms to the best ad= vantage? How many realize that these exe tremities are meant to be poetic harmonies ine stead of knife-and-fork manipulators? “I was first led by my musical studies te take up the search for esthetic attitudes,” Mme. Kintzel told me in a hasty interlude betweem lessons. “We all know that there is a subtle relationw ship, as the Russian ballet dancers so beauti fully demonstrate, between music and bodily movements. Every phrase, every note, has & significance that incites a certain precise move= ment, and no other. . “I studied acrobats, athletes, wild antxfila and ancient Greek statues to discover the laws of harmonious movement, retaining the true, natural, graceful gestures, but rejecting the automatic and mechanical motions. I learned that certain movements were agreeable because they conformed to the speed, weight and archi- tecture of the human body. I also discovered that even if a woman could not become more beautiful, she could become less ugly. “I was finally able to lay down the laws that I had been seeking, and I wrote a treatise on the harmony of attitude that is just as precise as a treatise on musical harmeny. It has already started a movement in France against our ridiculous modern .day attitudes.® X