by Don Marquis
easily persuaded to talk
about himself what i
want to do he said is get to
america right after
the peace conference and
write a book about my
experiences as czar and
ex czar before some faker gets
ahead of me there are
millions and millions of men who
understand russia from the
inside so they say but my
story is unique i am the
only living person who
understands russia from the
outside if some one would lend me a
pair of army shoes i
could do the remaining leagues
or versts2 as we used
to say back home with
less discomfort just think of it
he said brought up in
luxury and affluence
with vodka flowing like water
about the palace and now begging
a pair of army boots which of
course i will return as
soon as i reach paris and
am identified and get a
little advance from some of the
russians in that city i
called at amerongen castle in
holland and saw wilhelm
hohenzollern and the
darned fat head refused to
recognize me all right bill i
told him i scarcely recognize you
either all is quits between us
dont come around when i am
making good on the
lecture platform in
america and ask for a hand out
thank you for the shoes they
are too big for me all of us
romanoffs have small and
aristocratic feet i
will send them back either
from paris or from america can you
let me have a stamp and a
cigarette
1919
JANUARY 7
At the Tomb of Napoleon
paris france jan seven nine
teen nineteen well boss
today i feel somewhat
solemn yesterday i
stood at the tomb of
napoleon and beside me stood
the man who would be
nicholas of russia and
czar of all the romanoffs
if he had his rights and
we exchanged thoughts
on kings past present and future
i am a king in abeyance
said the czar i am a
has been but i will come again
all i want is enough
money to get my trunks from
siberia and my other clothes to
appear before the peace
conference and have my claims
recognized alas to lose a great
empire through lack of a
few paltry yards of cloth and a clean
collar and he wept for a
moment dash bracket first i
must tell you how the czar and i
are able to talk with one
another i have six legs as you
may have noticed each leg stands
for four letters of the
alphabet for instance the left
upper leg is a b c and d
when i point up with it that is
a when i point down with it
it is b when i point to the right
that is c when i point to
the left that is d the left centre leg stands for
e f g and h the left lower
leg stands for i j k land
so on with the right upper right
centre and right lower legs
there are twenty six letters in the
alphabet and i can only represent
twenty four of them so i
get along without sometimes
w and y bracket dash
the czar wept for a moment and
then he said archly the
romanoffs were kings when the
bonapartes were running a
boarding house in corsica but
behold the two of us
napoleon and nicholas both down
and out archy misfortune is
the great leveller in the
old days my great grandfather
used to let his servants
board with the bonapartes
while he stayed in a swell
hotel when he visited corsica for the
fishing season but now
napoleon and i are down and
out together and of
equal rank alas for royalty no
matter how a family gets
it it is hard to keep archy as
i stand here and think
of the troubles of royalty i
am almost tempted never to be a
king again i sometimes
think it would be better to
get a job somewhere and work
at it if it were not
for my unhappy people i would
make no effort to come
back napoleon was an
usurper and i was a
legitimate monarch but as i
look upon his urn archy i
can not but pity him archy
there is one thing i want to speak
to you about while i think
of it if you are going to
continue to travel with
me please do not stick your
head out of my pocket to
listen when i speak to new
acquaintances that marine who
was going to lend me five
francs the other day saw you
peeping out of my pocket and it
gave him the idea
that perhaps i had fleas or
something also and he
hurried away you see my
clothing is in disrepair and
people get ideas if they see you i
missed getting that five franc piece
and i had intended to
buy stamps with it and write
a special delivery letter to siberia
for my other clothes in
which to appear before the
peace conference to think that
the indiscretions of a
cockroach might lose a man
an empire but it was the
same way with napoleon
here my grandfather told me
that napoleon had the
itch and that all through the
battle of waterloo when
he should have been looking at
maps and things and
giving orders he was scratching
himself if he could have
kept his mind on the battle he
would have won it as usual to
think of it one great empire lost
on account of a cockroach and
another because of a
little skin eruption luck archy luck
rules the world and
most of mine has been bad
lately czar i said i do not
believe in luck if you
had worked harder on the job
and if napoleon here had not
got the swell head you both
might have kept your empires it
was your mistakes that
ditched you yes napoleon did make
mistakes said the czar one
of them was the time he invaded
russia it was a breach of
faith grandfather romanoff used to
say but he forgave him and as i
look upon his urn here
and think how luck has laid
him low i forgive him too us
romanoffs always were kind hearted
that way often i have
heard gr
andfather romanoff tell
how he repelled the
invasion at the head of his
troops he and napoleon met at
the entrance of the kremlin
and both drew their swords and
rushed at each other
but bonaparte was not as good
a fencer as my
grandfather romanoff he came of
a middle class family and had few
advantages in his youth the
first lick he struck went
wild and you can see the
nick his sword made in the
front door of the kremlin to
this day grandfather romanoff
disarmed him and might
have killed him but the
romanoffs were always the soul of
chivalry he handed napoleon’s
sword back to him and said i
will give you another chance just then
the snow began to fall and
fell in a blinding storm they
fought for two hours in a snow
so dense they could not see
each others faces but only the
sword blades and the sparks from
their swords melted the snow that
touched them and they fought in
fog and steam my
grandfather romanoff wounded
him nine times and beat him
back and he left russia at once
but moscow had been ignited
by the sparks and the greater part
of it burned
JANUARY 14
Preliminary Peace
paris france
jan thirteen nine
teen nineteen well boss
i got into the
preliminary peace conference
yesterday but the czar remained
outside i went in his
pocket to the foreign
office in the quai
dorsay we got there just
after foch1 and
clemenceau2 and the czar
started to walk right past
the soldiers on guard
but could not get away with
it i dropped quietly to the
ground however and
entered—all those rulers and
premiers and so forth were
sitting at a long table
and for a minute
after i came in there was
nothing but a
solemn silence then foch
arose and went
down the table and
paused by clemenceau aha
thought i now we are
about to hear
something but all foch
said was do you have a
cigarette here are the
makings said the premier
bull3 asked foch and
everybody laughed
just then a man with a
silver chain around his
neck discovered me and
i beat a retreat
while the beating was good
and rejoined the
czar who was in the street
pretending he was not
the czar at all but
trying to pass himself
off as a bulsheviki
archy he told me later
if i can once get in
incognito i will
reveal my true identity
later i saw
your friends hermione and
fothergil in the crowd outside
hanging onto the
picket fence from which i
judge she is not
yet a delegate
JANUARY 20
No Water Bug
paris france jan
twenty nineteen nineteen
well boss what were you
doing to let them slip
this bone dry stuff1
over when i was
out of the country i
thought you would look
after my interests
better than that i
think i will stay here
in france now
although the language
is a little difficult
and i have a
lot of competition
the news has taken my
thoughts away from the
peace conference
completely what matter
which kind of a world
they make if you
can not get a
drink in it
i am no water bug
FEBRUARY 24
Safer in America
paris somewhere in february
well boss we are
about to start for
america the czar and i
in the stokehold
if i cannot get a
hearing before the
peace conference
as the czar of all
the romanoffs my friend
says to me today i
will go to
america and be a
bolshevist
czar i said to him
why not go to russia
if you feel inclined to
be a bolshevist it
is safer in america
he replied
MARCH 5
An Interview with Mehitabel
I was surprised the other day, watching a detachment of soldiers leaving a troopship, to see a large cat slip quietly through the crowd, and, looking closely, saw to my joy that it was Mehitabel.
Anxious to hear from her, I overtook her in a quiet street and invited her into a saloon, where I quickly engaged a private room. Poor Mehitabel was looking rather seedy, and when I ordered milk for her and something else for myself, she shook her head. “No milk for me, child,” she said, “but I don’t mind taking a little of what you’re taking. I had a terrible time on that ship—such weather—and I find a little wine of the country, or Eau de Vie1—yes, Rye will do very nicely, thanks.”
I found she had been in Paris, with Archy, and asked after him. She was not quite satisfied with Archy. “Of course,” she went on, “I would never go back on a Cher vieux Ami2 like Archy: I am too much of a gentlewoman to do that—noblesse oblige,3 mon Capitain—but since he took up with this Czar, or Caesar (as I prefer to give the title), he has been acting strangely. I warned him against this person, but it was no use; and while I found in Paris that a little wine of the country was very beneficial (thank you, Rye will do very nicely), between ourselves, Archy should stick to grapejuice au naturel.” Here she laughed quite a little. “To see Archy try to get home after a little conviviality—his gait, even with all his legs, is quite alarming. You know, between ourselves, Colonel, only la Haute Classe4 really know how to carry their wine, and speaking for myself—thank you, Rye will do very nicely, I never could find out what Archy’s antecedents were. Some of us,” she looked at me proudly—“have Royal traditions behind us, but Archy has always been silent about his past. Of course, there is Royalty and Royalty, and I have had only too much reason to distrust all Caesars; one of them came between me and dear Mark Antony5 [here Mehitabel almost broke down] and caused, oh! so much suffering! I will never forget it: nothing that occurred in any of my other existences came near that tragedy, and I have suffered, child—suffered with the Borgias, and the Medicis. Even in later times, as the Lily6 of the stage—but I can scarcely bear to think of it all; it makes me quite faint, and it is really no wonder that I take a little wine—thank you, Rye will do very nicely. But though you see me now in a humble form, it will not always be so: many of my friends have been released into opera singers, and I have strong hopes that you, mon cher Generale, may yet be applauding me at the Metropolitan. I have quite a good voice, even now, and if you are sure the door is closed I will be glad—”
I feared the lady was becoming a little excited, and made a diversion.
“Tell
me, Mehitabel,” I said, “did you and Archy ever see the Sun Dial in Paris?”
“Why, certainly,” she replied. “Not every day, but very frequently; in fact it was about all I read, for the papers—what with Bolsheviki and the demands of labor—were scarcely fit for a gentlewoman to read. I cannot bear to see the cannaille7 forgetting themselves. Now in Antony’s time—but I will not go back to that! By the way, Archy is a little cross with the ‘Boss,’ as he vulgarly calls the gentleman with the Spanish title who conducts our column.8 He has scarcely published anything from Archy for some time, but, as I say, how do we know he ever received the wireless? Since the Government took it over there is quite too much of the Arrow and the Song9 about it. Then he began to criticize the column. ‘What does he mean?’ he cried one day with the paper before him. ‘What does he mean—“wried whim-scrambled flesh”?’ I looked at the verses, over his head. “ ‘Why,’ I said, ‘that’s only his Poetic License. Any Poet is allowed a certain amount of license.’ ‘Well,’ said Archy, ‘his License ought to be revoked.’ Fancy talking like that! Poor Archy really is painfully bourgeois sometimes. I hear he is on his way across with the Caesar, but I doubt if I will stay to meet them. You know, there is something exhilarating about the wines of France—did you ever try Pontet Canet?—thank you, Rye will do very nicely! And then after July the First!10—the place will be unbearable; really, I think this country is becoming painfully bourgeois.”
Mehitabel sat silent for some time, and nodded a little. Then she woke with a start and said something about the wine of the country, but I took her home with me, and gave her a nice bed in the parlor. “Toujours joyeuse,11 Mon Prince, toujours gai,” she murmured with a pathetic smile, as I covered her up. I left her some milk and saw that the window was a little open for air. In the morning she was gone, and the milk was untouched. I feel very anxious about her.
—SAMUEL CARNEW
MARCH 3
No Beer No Work
well boss the
czar is now parading
around with one
of these no
beer no work buttons1
on his coat
from which i take it
that unless
some one sets
them up again he
will refuse to
consider being an
emperor any more
MARCH 17
Royal Blood and Anarchy
well boss the
czar is thinking of
becoming a bolshevik1 after
all he read somewhere in a
paper the other day that
