The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 4, 1904, Page 13

- o T SR T O S S WA Y AWM N | YA S T T AN P T ST TR S SN L a7 PN IR Oy < IV DDE, o SPRANG TO THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. /28 S ZE TR FEEY AND “WENT FoR ONE ANOIHER, n 1 do, if only for the sake of proud to possess among the h 1 keep always on my maintain my head at that de- nance of all liter- 1eatly written address in : for the perforr for the perfor I am never tired of, read- eds of names I am quite their strange lettering, I ussian men and women, to whom, -a occurred to send me a Christ- The individual Rus: If he likes you he know it, not only by every kindly i n this gray Saxons are apt to pride Max Adler tells a tale of ther to fetch in some wood. The iving. perhag just as use We Anglo disappearing and did not show his 1 for over twenty years. Then, entered to the old i “Well, you nd blarm me, unching with an A man entered and lost ct d 17 W OC ite,” said t speak to my brother—haven’t seen him for He finished his soup and leisurely wiped oss and shaking ds. They returned to “Never 1d ; “he was one of the rica—what’s the name of S bserved my fri them esca Always to him I thought of Russian friends in a St. not seen his second cousin, a2 mi months. They sat oppo least during the course of the dinner « mp up from his chair and run around to embrace the other. They would throw their arms about one another, kissing one another on both eks, and then sit down again with moist eyes. Their behavior among their fellow co ited no astonishment whatever. The Russian’s anger is j uick and vehement as his love. [ was supping one evening with friends in one of the chief restaur- ants on the Nevsk Two gentlemen at an adjo . and a dozen times at ne of them would j ng table, who up till the previous moment had been engaged in amicable con- versation, suddenly sprang to their feet and “went for” one an- other. One man secured the water bottle which he promptly broke over the other’s head. His opponent chose for his weapon a heavy mahogany chair, and, leaping back for the purpose of se- curing 2 good swing, lurched against my hostess. “Do please be careful,” said the lady. “A thousand pardons, madame,” returned the stranger, from whom blood and water were streaming in equal copiousness, and, taking the utmost care to avoid interfering with our comfort, he succeeded adroitly in flooring his antagonist by a well directed blow. A policeman appeared upon the scene with marvelous promptitude. He did not attempt to interfere, but, run- ning out into the street, communicated the glad tidings to another policeman. “That’s going to cost them a pretty penny,” observed who was calmly continuing his supper; “why couldn’t they wait?” It did cost them a pretty ‘penny. Some half a dozen pc»!;ccntcn were round about before as many minutes had elapsed and each one claimed his bribe. Then they wished both comba- tants good-night and trooped out, evidently in great good humor; and the two gentlemen, with wet napkins round their heads, sat down again, and laughter and amicable conversation flowed freely as before. * * * They strike the stranger as a_child-like people, but you are posscssca with a haunting sense of ugly traits beneath. The work- ers—slaves it would be almost more just to call them—allow themselves to be driven with th: uncomplaining patience of in- “SDI MITT HAVE FNOWH I WA T Foor ot R az telligent animals. Yet every educated Russian you talk to on the subject knows that revolution is coming. But he talks to you about it with the door shut, for no man in Russia can be‘sure that his own servants are not police spies. I was discussing the question with a Russian official one evening in his study when his old housekeeper entered the room—a soft-eyed, gray-haired woman who had been in his service more than eight years and whose po- sition in the household was almost that of a friend. He stopped abruptly and changed the conversation. So soon as the door was closed behind her again he explained himself: “It is better to chat upon such matters when one is quite alone,” he laughed. “But surely you can trust her,” I said. “It is safer to trust no one,” he answered. And then he contintted from the point where we had been interrupted. “It is gathering,” he said ; “there are times when I almost smell blood in the air. I am an old man and may és it, but my children will have to suffer—suffer as children mus for the sins of their fathers. We have made brute beasts of the people, and as brute beasts they will come upon us, cruel and un- discriminating; right and wrong indifferently going down before them. But it has to be. It is needed. The future history of Russia will be the history of the French Revolution over ‘again, but with this difference: that the educated classes, the thinkers, who are pushing forward the dumb masses are doing so with their eyes open. There will be no Mirabean, no Danton, to be ap- palled at the people’s ingratitude. The men who to-day are work- ing for revolution in Russia number among their ranks statesmen, soldiers, delicately-nurtured women, rich landowners. prosperous tradesmen, students familiar with the lessons of history” They have no misconceptions concerning the blind Frankenstein into which they are breathing life. He will crush them ; theyknow it ; but with them he will crush the injustice and stupidity they have grown to hate better than they love themselves. The Russian peasant, when he rises, will prove more terrible, more pitiless, than were the men of 1790. He is less intelligent, more brutal. They sing a wild, sad song, these Russian cattle, the while they work. They sing it in chorus on the qaays while hauling the cargo, they sing it in the factory, they chant it on the weary, endless steppes, reaping the corn they may not eat. It is about the good time their masters are having—of the feasting and the merry-making. Bui the last line of every verse is the same. When you ask a Rus- sian to translate it for you he shrugs his shoulders. ‘Oh, it means,’ he says, ‘that their time will come, some day! It is a sad, pathetic, haunting refrain. They sing it in the drawing-rooms of Moscow arld St. Petersburg, and somchow the light talk and laughter die away, and a hush, like a chill breath, enters by the closed door and passes through. It is a curious song, like the wailing of a tired. wind, and one day it will sweep over the land heralding terror.” * * % A Scotchman I met in Russia told me that when he first came out to act as manager of a large factory just outside St. Peters- THETR HFADS TAZ DOW. burg, belonging to his Scottish emr mistake the first week when paying | culation of the Russian money he paid s each one nearly a 1 He di following Saturday then put the 1 = short cepted his explanati with perfect ment whatever. iown I was paying “Why didn’t you tell me thought you were putting it i one woul 1 pears to be so general thr classes have come to accept things. was a valua strictly forbidden to the pains and penalties “Oh, that will be all ri 1ard and s at was 1r tipped the g anticipated w man with a dog in a basl ane 1 must have been telegraphed all down stopping place some enc i and a helmet, boarded me. I took them for fi dog their astonishmer my mind. Anxious a He shook me warn me. If I had offered hi so. With the next rubles he blessed 1 « g care of the Almig man frontier T w £ pences to men with th to see their faces brigl dictions was well my cheek I a felt less appreher thered, an ting subject, Russia. But for a wholesome fear of my editor, I I could ramble or i nns. re has made life hard there for rich and poor alike. ) the banks of the Neva, with its ague and influenza bestowing fo, 1 inists one imagines that the devil himself must have guided Peter the Great. “Show me in all thy dominions the most pelessly ur i site on which to build a city,” Peter must h pray devil, having discovered the site on w 3 Pete stands, must have returned to his mast think, my dear Peter, I have found It is a pestilent swamp to whi blasts and marrow-chilling fogs. In rief st time tk d will bring you sand. In this way sadvan- zes of the North Pole with those ¢ hara.” In the ater time the Russians light thei barricade tk doors and w that of a greenhouse, many of their women will pass six month never venturing out of doors. Even the men only go out at inter- vals. Every office, every shop, is an oven. Men of forty have whi hair and parchment faces, and the women are old at thirty. farm laborers during the few summer months work almost entirely without sleep. They leave that for the winter, when they shut themselves up like dormice in their hovels, their store of food and vodka buried underneath the floor. For days together they sleep, then wake and dig, then sleep aga So it is even with their bet- ters. The Russian party lasts all night. In an adjoining room are beds and couches; half a dozen guests are always sleeping. An hour contents them, then they rejoin the company and other guests take their places. The Russian eats when he feels so dis- posed; the table is always spread, the guests come and go. Once a year there is a great feast in Moscow. The Russian merchant and his friends sit down early in the day and a sort of thick sweet pancake is served up hot. The feast continues for many hours, and the ambition of the Russian merchant is to eat more than his neighbor. Fifty or sixty of these hot cakes a man will consume at a sitting, and a dozen funerals in Moscow is often the result. An uncivilized people, we call them in our lordly way they are young. They will see us out, I am ' inclined to t Their energy, their intelligence—when these show above, groundwork and their animalism—are monstrous. I have known a Russian to learn Chinese within six months. English! they learn it while you are. talking to them. The children play at chcss and study the violin for their own amusement. The world will be glad It is a fasc T of Russia—when she has put her house in order. Copyrighted 1904 by Central News and Press Exchange 13