Chapter 14

The groom felt embarrassed and did not know what to do. He bowed apologetically before his bride and tried to please her in every possible way. He imitated her gestures and manners, her shrugs and voice. He even kept his hands on his breast, as was Liza's manner. Finally the bride asked whether there was any entertainment prepared as she had asked. The groom gave the inn-keeper a hint and the latter said that he would do his best. The three musicians were already concealed with their instruments in a big barrel and the imposing organist began his function. Strains of an unique music issued from the decorated music-box. Everybody at once rushed into the room. All stared amazed at the strange contrivance which played at one and the same time concertina, violin and drum. It was like a miracle, gripping and inspiring.

"I bet you this would interest your American audiences," remarked the inn-keeper to the bride.

"It beats the Coney Island noise," stammered Liza, and took up the conversation with a village woman.

All the house now was jollity. The room was bursting of the powerful music, the laughter and the loud conversation of the guests. How it happened no one knows, but one of the women had placed a bowl with hot punch on the music box. Whether through an accident, or the excitement of the organist, the vessel broke, and the punch leaked through the cracks and holes into the instrument. Suddenly the music stopped, although the conductor was still industriously turning the lever. Then were heard mysterious voices and sounds as if of muffled exclamations. Everybody looked at the music-box, which began to quake and tremble as if a ghost were within. Then arose fierce yells and agonizing cries, mixed with loud curses. Before anybody could realize what had happened, three angry musicians leaped from the music instrument, the steaming punch dropping from their heads.

"Good Lord, what's this?" gasped the men while the women shrieked and fled. One of the musicians put his fist under the frightened organist and shouted:

"I'll pay for this joke, you scoundrel!"

"Semen, don't be a fool. I didn't do it. By Jove, I didn't do it," exclaimed apologetically the organist, trembling.

"Damn, who did it?" asked the groom excited.

No one replied. And when the people realized what had happened, everybody roared. No one who glanced at the overturned music instrument and at the musicians, with their punch-dropping heads could restrain their laughter. Even the pompous bride found it so funny that she laughed with the rest.

When the excitement was over and the dessert was ready the wedding guests once more took their seats at the table. The inn-keeper, thinking that this was the moment to settle the matter of dowry, before the actual marriage act could be performed by the priest, knocked on the table for quiet. Then he arose, wiped his beard and began:

"Friends, this is a very unusual ceremony, our best known citizen and friend Petka, marrying a girl from America. Petka loves Liza, it is all right. But I know and so all our guests know, that Petka expected the bride to bring a fat dowry. Now we all would like to see the bride place her dowry upon the table before she is declared the wife of our friend, Petka. We think that in justice to the guests she ought to do that, because it was understood that she bring the money and we give her the husband. Don't you think, friends and guests, that I am right?"

Everybody shouted "Bravo, inn-keeper," only the groom and the bride sat silent with downcast eyes. Finally the bride glanced at Petka, pulled a bag from her dress, opened it and laid a bunch of green bills on the table. All eyes stared in awe at the money, and the guests were so silent that one could hear the beating of their hearts. Only the purring of the cats, looking curiously down from the big stove, was to be heard.

"Here is the dowry, right here. It is in American money, one thousand dollars, which is equal to two thousand rubles in your money. It's all in cash," exclaimed the bride proudly.

The inn-keeper took the bills, looked at them curiously, turned them over and over and shook his head. The blacksmith took one bill after the other, and did the same. For several minutes everybody was quiet. The "organist" who sat next to the inn-keeper, took the money, looked at it still more closely and then smelled it. Taking one of the bills in his hand, he rose and showed it to all the guests and asked:

"Friends, have you ever seen this kind of money?"

"No," was the unanimous reply of the guests.

"Can any one here read American?" asked the blacksmith.

No one replied.

"The money is all right. I rushed to reach the train so I had no time to exchange it into your rubles," replied the bride.

"It might be all right," replied the inn-keeper, "but what do we know about the American money and its value? I've been told many stories of American girls boasting they have money enough to buy their husband, but heaven knows. It's a country too far away and a language too complicated for us to understand. We like to have our stuff on the table before everything is all right."

The bride glanced at the groom. The groom took silently her hand, assuring her that he cared nothing for what her dowry was worth, if he had only her as his wife.

"What nonsense! I came on Petka's invitation, and I'll stay with him, do you let the priest marry us or not. We can go both to America and marry there, but never here," exclaimed the bride, tossing her head and snorting her indignation. As she rose, she took Petka by his hand and gave this parting thrust:

"Do you want or not, but I'll stay with Petka here. We don't care for your priest. I keep the American law and know what's what."

"Liza, Liza, listen. Don't make a scandal like that here. Let's better harness our horses and get to the priest as fast as we can," shouted the excited guests, all following the couple.

[signed]Ivan Narodny

The Insane Priest

A priest insane went many days without repose or sleep, "My visions are a shadow world but love is real and deep." He, like a prophet, staff in hand, sought out a distant shrine. "As sacred ash are all my dreams, and fateful love is mine." Long, long he knelt and prayed alone, his tears fell unrestrained. "My visions are the snow-crowned heights, my love the flood unchained." A sacrifice he laid upon that altar far away. "My visions are a dream of dawn, my love the radiant day." A knife he thrust into his heart, to seal the holy rite. "My visions all resplendent glow, my love is like the night." And on the altar falling prone, he then gave up his soul. "My visions are the lightning's flash, my love the thunder's roll." Upon the altar poured his blood, it formed a crimson pall. "As his deliriums are my dreams, as death my love my all."

Sergey Makowsky Translation by Constance Purdy

Note: To this poem Mr. Reinhold Gliere has composed a magnificent musical setting with piano and orchestra accompaniment and dedicated it to a prominent Russian revolutionist.

Without a Country

One thought awakes us early in the morning, One thought follows us the whole day long, One thought stabs at night our breast: Is my father suffering?

One sorrow awakes us at dawn like an executioner, One sorrow is persecuting us ceaselessly, One sorrow is swelling our breast the whole night long: Is my mother alive?

A longing awakes us at daybreak, A longing is continually hidden in our heart, A longing is burning at night in our breast; What of my wife?

A fear awakes us early like a funeral mass, A fear persecutes us and darkens our eyes, A fear fills at night our breast with hatred: Our sisters are threatened with shame.

A pain awakens us in the morning like a trumpet, With pain is filled every glass we drink With pain is secretly weeping our breast: Where are our children?

...Only one way will give an answer: Through a river of blood and over a bridge of dead! Woe! you will reach your home where the mother, who died of sorrow, Does not wait for her son any more.

M. Boich

Note: M. Boich is a young Serbian poet, now about twenty-six years old, who already has a recognized place in modern Serbian Literature. The poem "Without a Country" was written after the well-known Serbian tragedy of 1915, and was published last year (March 28) in the official Serbian journal "Srpske Novine," which now appears at Corfu.

Indian Prayer to the Mountain Spirit

Lord of the Mountain, Reared within the Mountain Young Man, Chieftain, Hear a young man's prayer!

Hear a prayer for cleanness. Keeper of the strong rain, Drumming on the mountain; Lord of the small rain That restores the earth in newness; Keeper of the clean rain, Hear a prayer for wholeness.

Young Man, Chieftain. Hear a prayer for fleetness. Keeper of the deer's way, Reared among the eagles, Clear my feet of slothness. Keeper of the paths of men, Hear a prayer for straightness.

Hear a prayer for braveness. Lord of the thin peaks, Reared amid the thunders; Keeper of the headlands Holding up the harvest, Keeper of the strong rocks Hear a prayer for staunchness.

Young Man, Chieftain, Spirit of the Mountain!

Interpreted by [signed] Mary Austin

To America--4 July, 1776

When England's king put English to the horn[1], To England thus spake England over sea, "In peace be friend, in war my enemy"; Then countering pride with pride, and lies with scorn, Broke with the man[2] whose ancestor had borne A sharper pain for no more injury. How otherwise should free men deal and be, With patience frayed and loyalty outworn? No act of England's shone more generous gules Than that which sever'd once for all the strands Which bound you English. You may search the lands In vain, and vainly rummage in the schools, To find a deed more English, or a shame On England with more honor to her name.

[written] Respectfully submitted to the Defenders of Democracy

[signed] M. Hewlett

(Westluilaruig[illegible, this is a guess], Chichester, England)

[1] To "put to the horn" was to declare an outlawry. [2] The "man" is George III, his "ancestor," Charles I.

The Need of Force to Win and Maintain Peace

Must, then, gentle and reasonable men and women give over their sons to the National Government to be trained for the devilish work of war? Must civilized society continue to fight war with war? Is not the process a complete failure? Shall we not henceforth contend against evil-doing by good-doing, against brutality by gentleness, against vice in others solely by virtue in ourselves?

There are many sound answers to these insistent queries. One is the policeman, usually a protective and adjusting force, but armed and trained to hurt and kill in defense of society against criminals and lunatics. Another is the mother who blazes into violence, with all her might, in defense of her child. Even the little birds do that. Another is the instinctive forcible resistance of any natural man to insult or injury committed or threatened against his mother, wife, or daughter. The lions and tigers do as much. A moving answer of a different sort is found in words written by Mme. le Verrier to the parents of Victor Chapman on her return from his funeral in the American Church in Paris--"It...has brought home to me the beauty of heroic death and the meaning of life."

The answer from history is that primitive Governments were despotic, and in barbarous societies might makes right; but that liberty under law has been wrung from authority and might by strenuous resistance, physical as well as moral, and not by yielding to injustice and practising non-resistance. The Dutch Republic, the British Commonwealth, the French Republic, the Italian and Scandinavian constitutional monarchies, and the American republics have all been developed by generations of men ready to fight and fighting.

So long as there are wolves, sheep cannot form a safe community. The precious liberties which a few more fortunate or more vigorous nations have won by fighting for them generation after generation, those nations will have to preserve by keeping ready to fight in their defense.

The only complete answer to these arguments in favor of using force in defense of liberty is that liberty is not worth the cost. In free countries to-day very few persons hold that opinion.

[signed] Charles W. Eliot

Woman and Mercy

Woman and Mercy--to think of one is to think of the other, and yet the suggestion of ideas is purely Christian. The ancient world knew of a few great women who transcended the conditions of society in those days and helped, each one her country, in some extraordinary way. Thus Deborah helped the people of God in a time of terrible difficulty. And even the Pagan world was not without its Semiramis and its Portia. When mercy came into the world with Christianity the dispensation of it was largely committed to the gentle hands of women, for since men have believed that God has taken a woman to be His human mother, the position of every woman has been that of a mother and of a queen. The wife has become the guardian of the internal affairs of the home as the husband is of its external affairs.

Whenever women have acted up to the noble ideals of womanhood preached by the Christian religion, they have received honor, respect, deference and almost worship from the ruder sex.

It gives me great pleasure to think that in our own country so many women have banded themselves together for such a noble ideal as that embodied in the very name of "The Militia of Mercy." Here in her true sphere, as nurse, woman will shed the gentle light of mercy over the gory battle field and amid the pain and wounds of the hospital wards; or, if she is not called to such active participation she will find means to hold up the hands of those more actively engaged, and in countless ways will she be able to mitigate the evils of this most terrible of all wars, and not least of all because of the gift of piety with which Almighty God has so generously endowed her. Her unceasing prayers will ascend to the throne of God for those engaged in this terrible struggle, and mercies and blessings will be drawn down upon multitudes of people whom she has never seen.

I bid Godspeed to The Militia of Mercy, and I hope that every American woman who can will take part in this most womanly and most patriotic work.

[signed] J. Cardinal Gibbons

Joan of Arc--Her Heritage

I saw in Orleans three years ago the celebration of the 487th Anniversary of the deliverance of the ancient city by Joan of Arc.

The flower of the French army passed before me, the glorious sunlight touching sword and lance and bayonet tip until they formed a shimmering fretwork of steel. Then came the City Fathers in democratic dress--and following them, the dignitaries of the Church, in purple and crimson and old lace, and a host of choir boys singing Glory to God in the Highest, and finally in his splendid scarlet robe, a cardinal symbolical of power and majesty and dominion.

In whose honor was all this gorgeous pageantry? In honor of a simple peasant girl, who saw or thought she saw visions--it is perfectly immaterial whether she did or not--and who heard or fancied she heard--it matters not--voices calling to her out of the silences of the night to go forth and save France. Soldiers and clergy and populace, Catholics and Protestants and pagans united in paying homage to the courage of a woman. And I thought as I watched the brilliant spectacle in the shadow of the old cathedral, that thousands of women in the twentieth century in England and America, and France and Germany and all the Nations are serving in a different way, it is true, from the way in which Joan of Arc served France, but none the less effectively. Aye, even more so, as they go forth clad not in mail, but in Christian love to help mankind. In the very forefront of this shining host are the trained nurses, following the standard uplifted by Florence Nightingale.

When I see a trained nurse in her attractive cap and gown I always feel that a richer memory, a finer intention has been read into life. Wherever they go they carry healing with them.

To maintain this army of militant good will and helpfulness, and to increase it as occasion requires is an obligation so imperative that it cannot be evaded.

Never was it as urgent as it is to-day, that there should be generous response to the appeal for nurses.

If we are often discouraged in our philanthropic work, it is not because we consider what we are doing in a detached way, independent of its world relationships. If we could only realize that we are part of the mighty army composed of all nationalities and races and creeds, an army of life, not of death, marching past disease and suffering and misery and sin, we would be inspired to wage the conflict with greater vigor, until our vision of the world freed from suffering, was realized.

When the realization comes, it will not come with shouting and tumult, but will come quietly and beautifully as the sun makes its triumphant progress through the heavens, gradually conquering the night until at last the earth is flooded with glorious warmth and light and all the formless shapes that loved darkness rather than light silently steal away and are forgotten.

John Lewis Griffiths

Note: Although the above selection was part of an address delivered in London in 1911, its truth is more apparent today than ever before.

Things Which Cannot Be Shaken

There are season in life when everything seems to be shaking. Old landmarks are crumbling. Venerable foundations are upheaved in a night, and are scattered abroad as dust. Guiding buoys snap their moorings, and go drifting down the channel. Institutions which promised to outlast the hills collapse like a stricken tent. Assumptions in which everybody trusted burst like air-balloons. Everything seems to lose its base, and trembles in uncertainty and confusion.

Such seasons are known in our personal life. One day our circumstances appear to share the unshaken solidity of the planet, and our security is complete. And then some undreamed-of antagonism assaults our life. We speak of it as a bolt from the blue! Perhaps it is some stunning disaster in business. Or perhaps death has leaped into our quiet meadows. Or perhaps some presumptuous sin has suddenly revealed its foul face in the life of one of our children. And we are "all at sea!" Our little, neat hypotheses crumple like withered leaves. Our accustomed roads are all broken up, our conventional ways of thinking and feeling, and the sure sequences on which we have depended vanish in a night. It is experiences like these which make the soul cry out with the psalmist, in bewilderment and fear,--"My foot slippeth!" His customary foothold had given way. The ground was shaking beneath him. The foundations trembled.

And such seasons are known in the life of nations. An easy-going traditionalism can be overturned in a single blast. Conventional standards, which seemed to have the fixedness of the stars are blown to the winds. Political and economic safeguards go down like wooden fences before an angry sea. The customary foundations of society are shaken. We must surely have had such experiences as these during the past weeks and months. What was unthinkable has become a commonplace. The impossible has happened. Our working assumptions are in ruins. Common securities have vanished. And on every side men and women are whispering the question,--Where are we? We are all staggered! And everywhere men and women, in their own way, are whispering the confession of the psalmist,--"My foot slippeth!"

Well, where are we? Amid all these violations of our ideals, and the quenching of our hopes, in this riot of barbarism and unutterable sorrow, where are we? Where can we find a footing? Where can we stay our souls? Where can we set our feet as upon solid rock? Amid the many things which are shaking what things are there which cannot be shaken?

"Things which cannot be shaken." Let us begin here: THE SUPREMACY OF SPIRITUAL FORCES CANNOT BE SHAKEN. The obtrusive circumstances of the hour shriek against that creed. Spiritual forces seem to be overwhelmed. We are witnessing a perfect carnival of insensate materialism. The narratives which fill the columns of the daily press reek with the fierce spectacle of labor and achievement. And yet, in spite of all this appalling outrage upon the sense, we must steadily beware of becoming the victims of the apparent and the transient. Behind the uncharted riot there hides a power whose invisible energy is the real master of the field. The ocean can be lashed by the winds into indescribable fury, and the breakers may rise and fall in crushing weight and disaster; and yet behind and beneath all the wild phenomena there is a subtle, mystical force which is exerting its silent mastery even at the very height of the storm. We must discriminate between the phenomenal and the spiritual, between the event of the hour and the drift of the year, between the issue of a battle and the tendency of a campaign. All of which means that "While we look at the things which are seen, we are also to look at the things which are not seen." Well, look at them.

THE POWER OF TRUTH can never be shaken. The force of disloyalty may have its hour of triumph, and treachery may march for a season to victory after victory; but all the while truth is secretly exercising her mastery, and in the long run the labor of falsehood will crumble into ruin. There is no permanent conquest for a lie. You can no more keep the truth interred than you could keep the Lord interred in Joseph's tomb. You cannot bury the truth, you cannot strangle her, you cannot even shake her! You may burn up the records of the truth, but you cannot impair the truth itself! When the records are reduced to ashes truth shall walk abroad as an indestructible angel and minister of the Lord! "He shall give His angels charge over thee," and truth is one of His angels, and she cannot be destroyed.

There was a people in the olden days who sought to find security in falsehood, and to construct a sovereignty by the aid of broken covenants. Let me read to you their boasts as it is recorded by the prophet Isaiah: "We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement: when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." And so they banished truth. But banished truth is not vanquished truth. Truth is never idle; she is ever active and ubiquitous, she is forever and forever our antagonist or our friend. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God...your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand...and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-places." Thus said the Lord! We may silence a fort, but we cannot paralyze the truth. Amid all the material convulsions of the day the supremacy of truth remains unshaken. "The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."