IX. MOSCOW, BUDAPEST, LONDON
The years 1896 — 1897 were probably the most active of
Richard's very active life. In the space of twelve months he
reported the Coronation at Moscow, the Millennial Celebration
at Budapest, the Spanish-Cuban War, the McKinley Inauguration,
the Greek-Turkish War and the Queen's Jubilee. Although this
required a great deal of time spent in travelling, Richard
still found opportunity to do considerable work on his novel
"Captain Macklin," to which he refers in one of his letters
from London.
As correspondent of the New York American, then
The
Journal, Richard went from Florence, where he was visiting
me, to Moscow. He was accompanied by Augustus Trowbridge, an
old friend of my brother's and a rarely good linguist. The
latter qualification proved of the greatest possible
assistance to Richard in his efforts to witness the actual
coronation ceremony. To have finally been admitted to the
Kremlin my brother always regarded as one of his greatest
successes as a correspondent.
En route — May 1896.
[DEAR CHAS:]
The night is passed and with the day comes "a hope" but
during the blackness I had "a suffer" — I read until two — five
hours — and then slept until five when the middle man who had
slept on my shoulder all
night left the train and the second one to whom Bernardi was
so polite left me alone and had the porter fit me up a bed so
that I slept until seven again — Then the Guardian Angel
returned for his traps and I bade him a sleepy adieu and was
startled to see two soldiers standing shading their eyes in
salute in the doorway and two gentlemen bowing to my kind
protector with the obsequiousness of servants — He sort of
smiled back at me and walked away with the soldiers and 13
porters carrying his 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 know
what a King's Minister is but he liked your whiskey — I am now
passing through the Austrian Tyrol which pleases me so much
that I am chortling with 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
windows down and the room looked like a safe and full of
tobacco smoke and damp spongey smoke from the engine, 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 and mills with
wheels like that in the Good for Nothing and crucifixes
wonderfully carved and snow mountains and dark green 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
my suite is on the principal Street and attends to my changing
money and getting an omelette — I can survive another night
now having had an omelette not so good 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 assured me he is going to
Berlin, and that I am going to Berlin and much else to which I
smile knowingly and say mucho gracia, wee wee, ya ya, ich
slemmer, ich limmer and other long speeches ending 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 my clothes off, although I was
able to stretch out on the seats, so I am cramped and tired
now. At seven Monday morning the guard woke us and told us to
get ready for the Custom House and I looked out and saw a
melancholy country of green hills and black pines and with no
sign of human life. It was raining and dreary looking and
then I saw as we passed them a line of posts painted in black
and white stripes a half mile apart on each side of the train
and I knew we had crossed the boundary and that the line of
posts stretched from the Arctic
Ocean to the Black Sea and from the Pacific to the Caucasus
Mountains and the Pamirs. It gave me a great thrill but I
have had so many to-day, that I had almost forgotten that one.
For two days we jogged along through a level country with mean
thatched huts and black crows flying continually 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 who were not soldiers had their
hair cropped short like mops. We could not find any one who
understood any language, so as we never knew when we would
stop for food, we ate at every station and I am of the opinion
that for months I have been living 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 and most interesting. But
here we are now in a perfect pandemonium and the Czar has not
yet come nor one-fifth even of the notables. It is a great
city, immense and overpowering in its extent. The houses are
ugly 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
many strange figures and marvellous costumes. Our rooms are
perfect that is one thing and 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 how well we are placed. We can sit in our windows 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-morrow, when I get sleep, for after five nights 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
came. Love to you all and to dear Florence in which
Trowbridge, 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
time and waited, but it looks now as though 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 Americans. There are five trying 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 him with my
credentials just as he was going out. Never have I seen such
a swell. He made us feel like dudes from Paterson, New
Jersey. He had three diamond eagles in an astrakan cap, a
white cloak, a gray uniform, top boots and three rows of
medals. He spoke English perfectly, with the most politely
insolent manner that I have ever had to listen to; and eight
servants, each of whom we 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 me a badge and a pocketbook, with my photo in it.
They are good for nothing, except to get through the police
lines. No one at the bureau gave us the least encouragement
as to my
getting in at the coronation. We were frantic, and I went
back to Breckenridge, our Minister, and wrote him a long
letter explaining what had happened, and that what I wrote
would "live," that I was advertised and had been advertised to
write this story for months. I dropped
The Journal
altogether, and begged him to represent me as a literary light
of the finest color. This he did in a very strong letter to
Daschoff, and I presented it this morning, but the Minister,
like Edison, said he would let me know when he could see me.
Then I wrote Breck a letter of thanks so elegant and
complimentary that he answered with another, saying 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 from Daschoff.
The second thing of importance is the getting 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 mind. He loves the ground T.
and I spurn, and he sent out my first cable today, one of
interrogation merely, ahead of twelve others; he has also
given us the entree to a private door to his office, all the
other correspondents having to go to the press-rooms and
undergo a sort of press censorship, which entails on each man
the cutting up of his story into three parts, so as to give
all a chance. I gave T. three dictums to guide him; the first
was that we did not want a fair chance — we wanted an unfair
advantage over every one else. Second, to never accept a "No"
or a "Yes" from a subordinate, but to take everything from
headquarters.
Third, to use every mouse, and not to trust to the
lions. He had practise on the train. When he told me we
would 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 we would get there in twenty
hours. By this time I will match him against any newspaper
correspondent on earth. He flatters, lies, threatens and
bribes with a skill and assurance that is simply beautiful,
and his languages and his manners pull me out of holes from
which I could never have risen. With it all he is as modest
as can be, and says I am the greatest diplomat out of office,
which I really think he believes, but I am only using old
reporters' ways and applying the things other men did first.
My best stroke was to add to my cable to The
Journal,
"Recommend ample recognition of special facilities afforded by
telegraph official" — and then get him to read it himself under
the pretext of wishing to learn if my writing was legible. He
grinned all over himself, and said it was. After my first
story is gone I will give him 200 roubles for himself in an
envelope and say Journal wired me to do it. That will fix
him for the coronation story, as it amounts to six months'
wages about. But, my dear brother, in your sweet and lovely
home, where the sun shines on the Cascine and the workmen
sleep on the bridges, 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 what we have done
and why we 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
wire we have not pulled, or a leg, either, and
we go dashing 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 name.
John A. Logan, Jr., is coming dressed in a Russian
Uniform, and he wore it on the steamer, and says he is the
special guest of the Czar and the Secretary of the visiting
mission. Mrs. P. P. is paying $10,000 for a hotel for one
week. That is all the gossip there is. We lunched with the
McCooks today and enjoyed hearing American spoken, and they
were apparently very glad to have us, and made much of T. and
of me. We only hope they can help us; and I am telling the
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 make
new friends. It is great fun, and I am very happy and T. is
having 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 most
"good-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 my coronation story, and the strain
of this thing, which has really been on me for
six months, is off. You can imagine what a relief it is, or,
rather, you cannot, for no one who has not been with us these
last ten days can know what we 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 much better one.
I do not care much, though; of course, I do care, as I ought
to have made a great hit with it, but there was no time, and
there was so much detail and minutia that I could not treat it
right. However, after the awful possibility, or rather
certainty, that we have had to face of not getting any story
at all, I am only too thankful. I would not do it again 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. Imagine
having to write a story and to fight 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 were worn out by that alone.
The brightest side of the whole thing was the way everybody in
this town was 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 Embassy, turned in and
fought for my getting in like relations. And the women — I had
grand dukes and ambassadors and princes, whom I do not know by
sight, moving every lever, and as Stanhope of
The Herald,
testified "every man, woman and child in the visiting and
resident legation is crazy on the subject of getting Davis
into the coronation." They made it a personal matter, and
when I got my little blue badge, the women kissed me and each
other, and cheered, and the men came to congratulate me, and
acted exactly as though they had got it themselves.
It was a beautiful sight; the Czarina much more beautiful
and more sad-looking than ever before. But it was not solemn
enough, and the priests groaned 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 from seven until
one. Six solid hours standing and writing on my hat. It was
a fine hat, for we were in court costume, I being a
distinguished visitor, as well as a correspondent. That was
another thing that annoyed me, because Breckinridge, who has
acted like a brick, did not think he could put me on both
lists, so I chose the correspondents' list, of course, in
hopes of seeing the ceremony, but knowing all the time that
that meant no balls or functions, so that had I lost the
ceremony I would have had nothing; but he arranged it so that
I am on both lists. Not that I care now. For I am tired to
death; and Trowbridge did not get on either list, thanks to
the damned Journal and to his using all his friends to
help
me, so that I guess I will get out and go to Buda Pest and
meet you in Paris. Do not consider this too seriously, for I
am writing it just after finishing my cable and having spent
the morning on my toes in the chapel. I will feel better
tomorrow. Anyway, it is done and I am glad, as it was the
sight of the century, and I was in it, and now I can spend my
good time and money in gay Paree. Love to all.
DICK.
From Moscow Richard went direct to Buda Pest, where he
wrote an article on the Hungarian Millennial.
BUDA PEST
[DEAR CHAS: May 8th,
1896.]
I have just returned from the procession of the Hungarian
Nobles. It was even more beautiful and more interesting than
the Czar's entry than which I would not have believed anything
could have been more impressive — But the first was military,
except for the carriages, which were like something out of
fairyland — to-day, the costumes were all different and
mediaeval, some nine hundred years old and none nearer than
the 15th Century. The mis en scene was also much better.
Buda is a clean, old burgh, with yellow houses rising on a
steep green hill, red roofs and towers and domes, showing out
of the trees — It is very high but very steep and the
procession wound in and out like a fairy picture — I sat on
the top of the hill, looking down it to the Danube, which
separates Buda from Pest — The Emperor sat across the square
about 75 yards from our tribune in the balcony of his palace.
We sat in the Palace yard and the procession passed and turned
in front of us — There were about 1,500 nobles, each dressed
to suit himself, in costumes that had descended for
generations — of brocade, silk, fur, and gold and silver
cloth — Each costume averaged, with the trappings of the
horse, 5,000 dollars. Some cost $1,000, some $15,000. Some
wore complete suits of chain armor, with bearskins and great
black eagle feathers on their spears just as they were when
they invaded Rome — Others wore gold chain armor and leopard
or wolf skins and their horses were studded
with turquoises and trappings of gold and silver and smothered
in silver coins — It would have been ridiculous if they had
not been the real thing in every detail and if you had not
known how terribly in earnest the men were. There is no other
country in the world where men change from the most blase and
correct of beings, to fairy princes in tights and feathers and
jewelled belts and satin coats — They were an hour in passing
and each one seemed more beautiful than the others — I am very
glad I came although I was disappointed at missing the
accident at Moscow. It must have been more terrible than
Johnstown. I found the — — s quite converted into the most
awful snobs but the people they worship are as simple and well
bred as all gentle people are and I have had the most
delightful time with them. It is so small and quiet after
Moscow, and instead of being lost in an avalanche of embassies
and suites and missions, I have a distinct personality, as
"the American," which I share with "the" Frenchman and four
Englishmen. We are the only six strangers and they give us
the run of all that is going on — At night we dine at the most
remarkable club in the world, on the border of the Park, where
the best of all the Gypsey musicians plays for us — The music
is alone worth having come to hear, and the dear souls who
play it, having been told that I like it follow me all around
the terrace and sit down three feet away and fix their eyes on
you, and then proceed to pull your nerves and heart out of you
for an hour at a time — One night a man here dipped a ten
thousand franc note in his champagne and pasted it on the
leader's violin and bowed his thanks, and the leader bowed in
return and the next morning sent him the note back in an
envelope, saying that the compliment was worth more
than the money — The leader's name is Berchey and the
Hungarians have never allowed him to leave the country for
fear he would not be allowed to come back — He is a fat, half
drunken looking man, with his eyes full of tears half the time
he plays. He looks just like a setter dog and he is so
terribly in earnest that when he fixes me with his eyes and
plays at me, the court ladies all get up and move their chairs
out of his way just as though he were a somnambulist —
I leave here Wednesday and reach Paris Friday
morning
the eleventh — You must try to meet me at the Cafe de la Paix
at half past nine — Wait in the corner room if you don't wish
to sit outside and as soon as I get washed I will join you for
coffee. It will be fine to see you again and to be done with
jumping about from hotel to hotel and to be able to read the
signs and to know how to ask for food. Russian, German and
Hungarian have made French seem like my mother tongue —
DICK.
