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Show L" T T T -w- - - - - : We ; Have Changed 1 ; All That By Herbert Quick and i ' Elena Stepanoff Mac Mahon , ! t Copyright by ' The Eobbs-Merrill Co. j WNU Service L - A Z A . J THE STORY Commissar Vllinsky'a Soviet squad invades the home of Krna-sin, Krna-sin, aristocrat at Kazan, with the purpose ot" requisitioning the tlace for ?nvernmeni use Vil-Insky Vil-Insky Insults the daughter, Mu-sia. Mu-sia. Commissar Loris is ursed lo confiscate the home. The family consists of Judge Krassi n. Mrs. Krassin, Ilya, former officer, and Musia. Loris promises to investigate. CHAPTER III Continued She was mourning her horses and cow, so low had her possession fallen in numbir and value, to a young man named Vladimir, one of those young men who had flocked to Kazan from the capital, because he was a citizen of the place and because he was drifting. Sitting In salons was the great occupation of the Russian nobility no-bility at this time as In fact, it had always been. Historians of the French revolution describe the Knitters Knit-ters in the Sun, who scarcely paused In their knitting as they counted their "one, two" and so on as the guillotine guillo-tine rose and fell. The antithesis of the Knitters In the Sun are the Sitters in the Salon. The young man Vladimir listened attentively to the princess. He had slipped Into the Krassin house by a gate on the back street the night he-fore, he-fore, and wore defiantly the uniform with its soft golden epaulettes of his old regiment. Defiantly, for they were banned by the Bolshevik!. He would have sung "God Save the Czar" In public pub-lic if occasion had called for it. The wearing of the forbidden insignia was characteristic of his bold reckless contempt con-tempt of the usurpers of the poVer of the Russian people and of his class the vaunt of race. He answered the princess as if she had been placing plac-ing before him a matter of high statecraft. "The new way," said he. "It won't last long " "I am glad you are so hopeful said Colonel Boyarsky. "1 hope you are right, Vladimir. And you, my dear princess, are ro worse off than others. They have taken almost all the animals In Kazan under this Uiievlsh decree !' The colonel wore no forbidden Insignia. In-signia. He had come from Petrograd to his old family sent here, because his occupation In Petrograd was gone In these Lenlnized days, life there had become so hard, and he had hoped that the grain, fruits, fowls and other provisions of his Kazan lands might keep in that old. delicately nurtured nur-tured body the breath of n life, which, strange to say, was still of value to him. Courtly,' soldierly from the crown of his gray head to the soles of his not very well-shod feet, his beard trimmed like that of Nicholas II, his erect form, and manner elegant ele-gant almost to excess, might serve as an advertisement of his rank to any servant or oppressor of the proletariat prole-tariat who might catch a glimpse of him. A typical Sitter in the Salon. The Sitters In the Salon had always al-ways talked and always talked elegantly ele-gantly and usually rather well of those in power. They did so now. as we have heard; but Mrs. Krassin and the princess soon mannged a little aside on the phase of the subject which related to Ilya Krassin, Mrs. Krassin's son, and his jeril under the Soviet power. The mother refused to admit that there was any peril ; but. though to a stranger she would have seemed as cool as when she was surrounded sur-rounded by her great friends and her corps of submissive servants in the old days, her intimates surprised a frightened look In her eyes from time to timeas she patteO her graying hair and made her habiiiial gesture of courtesy toward one of the .speakers. "I beg your pardon," snld she to Colonel Boyarsky. "I did not quite understand what you were saying to Vladimir." "1 was saying," said the colonel, "that this fearful scourge of human beasts, if I may express myself so strongly, Is taking on new peril to everything good in this Loris and the rabble under him. It is hard to enumerate the consequences." "They are very numertnis." said Mrs. Krassin. "They and the refugees from the German front are simply packing the town full." "I do not mean the number of them," replied the colonel, and he would have been proud to know how much like Nicholas 11 lie looked as he made his characteristic flourish with his hand, "but the effects of their control. Nor the material effects, either, though they are very evil" "I agree with you there," said Mrs. Krassin, as If to evade a facing of the real subject of the colonel's words. "I suffer some of these material consequences. con-sequences. The people on my lands are beiavlng very badly. Some of them actually claim that they own the lands! But others are bringing In a part of what they took from us. and are, I am sure, giving a part of the loot to the Bolshevik!, trying to act so ns to be safe, whoever finally wins. 1 suppose. I should be desperate If I did not have about two years' provisions pro-visions in the refrigerators and storerooms. store-rooms. What we are coming to 1 can not imagine." She was plaintive over her evil plight; she was triumphant because it was no worse; and she was courteous cour-teous according to the old hospitable ethics of her class in thus giving her guests the assurance that there was still plenty for all. It was a characteristic charac-teristic speech. As for the complaint in It, all the landowners had acquired the habit of speaking like children or servants conscious of Injustice and abuse; and back of It all was a sense of Impending scarcity, even with all their supplies on hand. If the Nile could think, It, too, would complain on becoming conscious of the fact that the rainfall in Abyssinia and the lake region had permanently ceased, and that when the water already coming downstream should fall there would be no more and no more Nile. Why should Mrs. Krnssin refrain from complaining at a similar catastrophe? catas-trophe? She had been a Vaturlin; and all the Volga valley knows that rue vaiurnn rumny nave-oeen greai people since the Tartar invasions. By birth they were of the higher nobility no-bility some members of this and other old families maintained among themselves that they were better born thnn any of the rova'i family. They had always controlled things through their ownership of lands, and their powerful organization. Their men had always presided at the local military mobilizations. They had controlled con-trolled a majority of votes In the zemstvo, and held many honorable offices, serving always without salary. They vere conscious of having devoted de-voted themselves to the state, of having hav-ing made sacrifices, of having rendered ren-dered valuable service and duty to the nation. Whatever may have been their public virtues, they felt virtuous and unselfish. Whatever they received from the old order came to them like the light of morning or the rain from heaven, as a part of the natural scheme of things. Had It not always been so? Why should not Mrs. Krassin have two years' provisions laid In, even In this time of scarcity? Was not her brother a Vaturlin, an electpd marshal of the nobility? Did she not have near relatives rela-tives who held high diplomatic posts, who had been officers of the Guards, who were In confidential places in the ministries In Petrograd? Wns not her uncle a secretary of the Interior? Was not her cousin a freilna af the court of the Empress Mother? Why should she not live In plenty and security with the homage and service of everybody every-body paid to her as It had always been? There was oo answer In this salon. The Bolshevik revolution with its oligarchy did nof bring an answer to this fearful question of Inequality of human beings. In the house of Krassin, they were the queries of knaves, fools, assassins and lunatics. And yet, with all their ability and training In public life, these people of the upper nobility were the first to suffer in the revolution. In the first fall of a government to the forces of the revolution, they were in a majority; ma-jority; and then came the second coup the loss of their lands. They were down nnd out before anyone any-one else fell. 'The banks, the merchants mer-chants and tlie manufacturers held on for two years or so after what Vilin-sky Vilin-sky called "the Krassin gang" were already down and done for. had they only known It. Before the revolution most of them had gloated over criticism criti-cism of the old government, the Im perlal family, or. for that matter, over any government or power, and now they sat In their salons nnd talked bitterly of the old times; yet nobody-could nobody-could say how they might' have escaped es-caped ruin. The Dice of Destiny were loaded against them : not only against their fortunes and their bodies; their very souls were on trial. (TO RE CONTINUED.) First Brick House in Quaker City Preserved On Lansdowne drive, In the West park, near Thirty-fourth street and Girard avenue, stands the first brick house built In Philadelphia, says an article in the Philadelphia Record. William Penn built It for his daugh ter, Letitia, when they lived at Market street between Front and Second. The founder was a .nun of simple habits and he ordered the house built plain nnd small, of red brick, two stories high, and with a small rear addition. It was the first house In the city to have a cellar and a garret For many years Ir slood on Letitia court, while other structures grew up around It almost hiding It from view. For a while after l.etllia's death It was used for a tavern. Finally In 18S.1, ns an outcome of the historic Interest It Inspired during dur-ing tlie celebration of tlie blcenten-" nlal anniversary of the founding of Pennsylvania, it was carefully taken down and re-erected on Its present site In the park. Desert Alter a Beauty In Painted canyon Is found the desert des-ert aster superlative one of all western west-ern composites bearing the much-used name of "aster," lavender-rayed, witb yellow center, and two or three Inches across. And with enough Irregularity to give It an air which we can only satisfactorily sat-isfactorily describe as chic. It Is a perennial, with a low woody base, a generous annual growth of slender hertmceous branches, and a liberal dower of foliage. |
