Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle

by M. E. Durham

"I can come now if His Royal Highness pleases!"

The Marshal of the Court eyed me doubtfully and hesitated. "I can wash my hands," said I firmly, "and that is all; I have no clothes but what I have on." My only other things were in the wash, and I had repaired myself so far as circumstances allowed. The Marshal of the Court returned with the message that His Royal Highness would receive me at once "as a soldier."

I trotted obediently off with him. We arrived at the Palace. It was a full-dress day, and the Montenegrins never let slip an occasion for peacocking. The situation pleased me immensely. The Marshal himself was in his very best white cloth coat and silken sash, gold waistcoat, and all in keeping. Another glittering functionary received me and between the two I proceeded upstairs. At the top of the flight is a large full-length looking-glass, and for the first time for four months I "saw myself as others saw me." Between the two towering glittering beings was a small, wiry, lean object, with flesh burnt copper-colour and garments that had never been anything to boast of, and were now long past their prime. I could have laughed aloud when I saw the Prince in full-dress with rows of medals and orders across his wide chest, awaiting me. It is a popular superstition, fostered by newspapers in the pay of modistes, that in order to get on it is necessary to spend untold sums on dress. But in truth if people really want to get something out of you they do not care what you look like. Nor will any costume in the world assist you if you have nothing to say.

The Prince conducted me to an inner room, greeted me politely, begged me to be seated and then launched into a torrent of questions about my previous years journey to Ipek. He seemed to think that my life had not been worth a para, and that the Rugova route was impossible. "Do you know, Mademoiselle, that what you did was excessively dangerous?"

"Sire," said I, "it was your Montenegrins who made me do it." He made no reply to this, but lamented that for him such a tour was out of the question. And of all things he desired to see the Patriarchia at Ipek and the Church of Dechani and the relics of the Sveti Kralj. He had been told I had secured photographs of these places. If so, would I give him copies?

I promised to send him prints from London. He thanked me, and there was a pause. I wondered if this was what I had been summoned for, and if I now ought to go. Then Nikita looked at me and suddenly began: "I think, Mademoiselle, that you are acquainted with my son-in-law, King Petar of Serbia."

Dear me, thought I, this is delicate ground. "I have not that honour, Sire," I said. Now how far dare I go? I asked myself. Let us proceed with caution. "I was in Serbia, Sire," I continued boldly, "during the lifetime of the—er—late King Alexander." Nikita looked at me. I looked at Nikita. Then he heaved a portentous sigh, a feat for which his huge chest specially fitted him.

"A sad affair, was it not, Mademoiselle?" he asked. And he sighed again.

Now or never, thought I, is the time for kite-flying. I gazed sadly at Nikita; heaved as large a sigh as I was capable of, and said deliberately: "Very sad, Sire—but perhaps necessary!"

The shot told. Nikita brought his hand down with a resounding smack on his blue-knickerbockered thigh and cried aloud with the greatest excitement: "Mon Dieu, but you are right, Mademoiselle! A thousand times right! It was necessary, and it is you alone that understand. Return, I beg you, to England. Explain it to your Foreign Office—to your politicians—to your diplomatists!" His enthusiasm was boundless and torrential. All would now be well, he assured me. Serbia had been saved. If I would go to Belgrade all kinds of facilities would be afforded me.