Part 14 (1/2)
The night is passed and with the day co the blackness I had ”a suffer”-- I read until two--five hours--and then slept until five when the ht left the train and the second one to whom Bernardi was so polite left me alone and had the porter fit ain-- Then the Guardian Angel returned for his traps and I bade hi shading their eyes in salute in the doorway and two gentle to my kind protector with the obsequiousness of servants-- He sort of smiled back athis traps So I rung up the conductor and he said it was the King's Minister with his eyes sticking out of his head--the conductor's eyes--not the Minister's I don't knohat a King's Minister is but he liked your whiskey-- I ah the Austrian Tyrol which pleaseswith joy-- None of the places for which my ticket call are on any map--but don't you care, I don't care-- I wish I could adequately describe last night with nothing but tunnels hours in length so that you had to have all the n and the rooey sine, and bad air That first compartment I went in was filled later with German women who took off their skirts and the men took off their shoes Everybody in the rear of the car is filthy dirty but I had a wash at the Custom house and now I am almost clean and quite happy The day is beautiful and the compartment is all my own-- I am absolutely enchanted with the Tyrol-- I have never seen such quaint picture book houses andand crucifixes wonderfully carved and snow reen forests-- The sky is perfect and the air is filled with the sun and the train moves so smoothly that I can see little blue flowers, baby blue, Bavarian blue flowers, in the Spring grass Such dear old castles like birds nests and such homelike old mills and red-faced millers with feathers in their caps you never saw out of a comic opera-- The man in here with me now is a Russian, of course, and saw the last Coronation and knows that ing ht now having had an oood as Madam Masi's but still an omelette-- I have now left Munich and the Russian and a conductor whom I mistook for a hereditary prince of Bavaria, with tassels down his back, has assuredto Berlin and racia, ee, ya ya, ich ich li with ”an er--”
dick
May 15th, 1896 Moscow
DEAR CHAS:
We left Berlin Monday night at eleven and slept well in a wagon-lit
That was the only night out of the five that I spent in the cars that I had h I was able to stretch out on the seats, so I auard woke us and told us to get ready for the Custoreen hills and black pines and with no sign of hu and then I sae passed them a line of posts painted in black and white stripes a half mile apart on each side of the train and I knee had crossed the boundary and that the line of posts stretched from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea and froave reat thrill but I have had so otten that one For two days we jogged along through a level country withcontinually and peasants in sheepskin coats, full in the skirt and tight at the waist, with boots or thongs of leather around their feet
The women wore boots too and all the men ere not soldiers had their hair cropped short like e, so as we never knee would stop for food, we ate at every station and I a on hot tea and caviar and hash sandwiches The snow fell an inch deep on Wednesday and dried up again in an hour and the sun shone through it all So on the whole it was a good trip andBut here we are now in a perfect pandemonium and the Czar has not yet coreat city, ily low storied and in hideous colors except the churches which are like mosques and painted every color I confess I feel beaten to night by the noise and rush and roar and by so ures andand the situation is the very best If the main street were Fifth Avenue and Madison Square the Governor's Square, his palace would be Delmonico's and our rooms would be the corner rooms of the Brunswick, so you can see hoe are placed We can sit in our s and look down and up the main street and see every one who leaves or calls upon the Governor We are now going out for a dinner and to one of many cafe-chantants and I will tell you the rest to-hts of it I feel done up, but I feel equally sure it is going to be a great experience and I cannot tell you how glad 1 am that I cae, who is a brick, joins me
dick
Moscow--May 1896
DEAR CHAS:
There was a great deal to tell when I shut down last night, but I thought I would have had things settled by this tih there was to be no rest for the weary until the Czar has put his crown on his head The situation is this: there are ninety correspondents, and twelve are to get into the coronation, two of these will be A for it
Count Daschoff, the Minister of the Court, has the say as to who gets in of those five T and I called on hi out Never have I seen such a swell He made us feel like dudes froles in an astrakan cap, a white cloak, a gray uniforlish perfectly, with the most politely insolent ht servants, each of e had, in turn, mistaken for a prince royal, bowed at him all the brief time he talked over our heads He sent us to the bureau for correspondents, where they gave ood for nothing, except to get through the police lines No one at the bureau gave us the least encourage in at the coronation We were frantic, and I went back to Breckenridge, our Minister, and wrote hi what had happened, and that what I wrote would ”live,” that I was advertised and had been advertised to write this story for ed hiht of the finest color This he did in a very strong letter to Daschoff, and I presented it this , but the Minister, like Edison, said he would let me knohen he could see ant and co if his first failed he would try again
That means he is for me, and at the bureau they say whichever one he insists on will get in, but they also say he is so good-natured that he helps every one who comes I told him this, and he has promised to continue in my behalf as soon as we hear froetting the story, IF WE GET IT, on the wire That, I am happy to say, we are as assured of as I could hope to be I own the head of the Telegraph Bureau soul, body and round T and I spurn, and he sent out ation iven us the entree to a private door to his office, all the other correspondents having to go to the press-rooo a sort of press censorshi+p, which entails on each ive all a chance I gave T three dictuuide him; the first was that we did not want a fair chance--anted an unfair advantage over every one else Second, to never accept a ”No” or a ”Yes” fro from head-quarters Third, to use every mouse, and not to trust to the lions He had practise on the train When he told me ould be in Moscow in ten hours, I would say, ”Who told you that,” and back he would go to the Herr Station Director in a red gown, and return to say that ould get there in twenty hours By this tiainst any newspaper correspondent on earth He flatters, lies, threatens and bribes with a skill and assurance that is sies and his manners pull me out of holes from which I could never have risen With it all he is as reatest diplomat out of office, which I really think he believes, but I as other men did first
My best stroke was to add to nition of special facilities afforded by telegraph official”--and then get hi to learn if rinned all over hiive him 200 roubles for himself in an envelope and say Journal wired me to do it That will fix hies about But, my dear brother, in your sweet and lovely home, where the sun shi+nes on the Cascine and the workes, and dear old ladies knit in the streets, that is only one of the thousand things we have had to do It would take years to give you an account of e have done and e do it It is like a game of whist and poker combined and we bluff on two flimsy fours, and crawl the next minute to a man that holds a measly two-spot There is not a e have not pulled, or a leg, either, and we go dashi+ng about all day in a bath-chair, with a driver in a bell hat and a blue nightgown, leaving cards and writing notes and giving drinks and having secretaries to lunch and buying flowers for wives and cigar boxes for husbands, and threatening the Minister with Cleveland's na dressed in a Russian Uniforuest of the Czar and the Secretary of the visiting10,000 for a hotel for one week That is all the gossip there is We lunched with the McCooks today and enjoyed hearing Alad to have us, and made much of T and ofthe General the only man to meet is Daschoff, and when he does I will tell him to tell Daschoff I am the only man to be allowed in the coronation I wish I could tell you about the city, but we see it only out of the corner of our eyes as we dash to bureau after bureau and ”excellency” and ”royal highness”
people, and then dash off to strengthen other bridges and reat fun, and I a the time of his life He told me he would rather be with me on this trip than travel with the German Emperor, and you will enjoy to hear that he wrote Sarah I was the ood-natured” man he ever met God bless you all, and dear, dear Florence Lots of love
dick
Moscow--May, 1896
DEAR CHAS:
I have just sent off , which has really been on ine what a relief it is, or, rather, you cannot, for no one who has not been with us these last ten days can knoe have had to do The story I sent is not a good one It was impossible to tell it by cable, and the first one on the entry was a h; of course, I do care, as I ought to have reat hit with it, but there was no time, and there was so ht However, after the awful possibility, or rather certainty, that we have had to face of not getting any story at all, I aain for ten thousand dollars Edwin Arnold, who did it for The Telegraph, had 25,000, and if I told you of the way Hearst acted and Ralph interfered with impertinent cables, you would wonder I am sane
They never sent me a cent for the cables until it was so late that I could not get it out of the bank, and we have spent and borrowed every penny we have Iht to be allowed a chance to write it, and at the same time to be pressed for money for expenses and tolls so that you orn out by that alone
The brightest side of the whole thing was the way everybody in this toas fighting for me The entire town took sides, and even men who disliked me, and who I certainly dislike, like C W and R---- of the Paris E in like relations
And the worand dukes and a every lever, and as Stanhope of The Herald, testified ”every ation is crazy on the subject of getting Davis into the coronation”
They e, the women kissed ratulate ot it theht; the Czarinathan ever before But it was not soleroaned and wailed and chanted and sang, and every one stood still and listened All that the Czar and Czarina did was over ten minutes after they entered the chapel, and then for three hours the priests took the center of the stage and groaned I was there fro on my hat It was a fine hat, for ere in court costuuished visitor, as well as a correspondent That was another thing that annoyed e, who has acted like a brick, did not think he could put me on both lists, so I chose the correspondents'