An Observer in the Near East

by William Le Queux

I bowed over it, thanked her for the audience, and retired, charmed by her marvellous personality, her sweet silver voice, her kindly manner, and her queenly bearing, all of which combined to create an impression which will always remain with me—an hour spent with a woman who is unique in the whole world.

Next day Her Majesty sent me the autographed photograph which appears on another page, together with a very charming note of thanks for a slight service I had been able to render her.

One morning a few days later, by the Queen’s order, I was shown over her Blind Institute, which is called the “Vatra Luminoasa Regina Elizaveta,” and is in the Boulevardul Carol, in Bucharest.

A large comfortable house, standing back from the road in its own grounds, it is the first institution to be founded under the new scheme, and the nucleus of what will most certainly become a great and important charitable work. Mr. Monske, the Director, a pleasant-faced, youngish man, with a bright, open expression, received me, in the business-like office, where a blind typist was busy with correspondence, using a Remington machine with celluloid caps on each third key.

“Ah!” exclaimed the poor afflicted typist in French, “you do not know what this place means to us! Take myself, for example. I was a clerk in an office here, in Bucharest, and eight years ago I went totally blind. My life after my misfortune was one of misery. I was in the depths of despair, for the blind are not wanted on the earth. And then came the good Queen, and saved me. My story is the same as all of us here—lifted out of despair and placed in a position of comfort and independence, for all of us are paid for our work.”

The poor clerk seemed thankful from the very bottom of his heart. He was full of praise of Her Majesty’s great goodness, and the kindness of the private persons helping her. Of Mr. Monske he sang praises, and then when he was told who and what I was, he asked me in the name of his fellow-inmates of the Institute to tell the English what a grand and noble work “Carmen Sylva” was doing.

Mr. Monske then took me to the music-room, a large bright apartment with a fine organ,—the gift of a blind Austrian gentleman,—two pianos, and other musical instruments. On the walls were the portraits of the King and Queen, while the floor was of polished oak. Here, one afternoon each week, Her Majesty comes, accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting and some friends, and gives the blind inmates and their families a musical entertainment. Thus the Queen keeps the Institute under her own personal supervision.

In another room—a play-room—I saw a homely-looking woman playing with a little blind child of four years, while the oldest inmate I saw was about sixty. The dormitories for the thirty-two inmates that were there at the time of my visit were scrupulously clean and very airy. Each man had his bed, his washstand, his lock-up wardrobe, while the floors everywhere were covered with linoleum.

I was taken to a long new building, just erected in the grounds, which is being fitted as a rope-works. There is room for thirty men to work with ease. Close beside it is about to be erected a private chapel, given by a gentleman in Bucharest, while on the other side of the house I was shown the chair-making workshops, the overseer of which was a blind man himself. Here, while some were expert menders of cane chairs, others were being taught the trade. The Director explained that he had just signed a big contract with a firm of chair-makers, and showed me the hundreds upon hundreds of frames ready to go into the hands of the blind.