Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Sorcery and Everhard beautiful in the world, or possibly of any vil- lage, much less of a city. Nor can there be such a thing as the most wicked woman in the world. The rivalry is too great. Zoronna, caring little for her reputation and much for her publicity, inflamed curi- osity. Nothing so sets people on tiptoes as the chance to see a wicked woman if she is at all passable in appearance. Remember the theatrical contracts that women make after afi acquittal for murder; remember the sordid details of the trial which are followed with enormous interest; and one can under- stand why Zoronna found it profitable to be thought wicked. She played to-packed houses at double prices. Zoronna was too spectacular to be sordid. No one seemed to know from where she came, or anything of her early life. But scanda] had it that many men had died for love of her; her kiss was a kiss of death. Petrograd, then St. Petersburg, was where she first made her appearance; and a nephew of the Czar had killed himself, hold- ing her picture to his lips. Some people, of a less romantic nature than the general pub- lic, said that Nihilists had shot the young libertine, and that likely as not he had never heard of Zoronna. That was an ex- aggeration, for she had stormed St. Peters- burg and then moved on to Vienna. I had met, and had for friends, a Russian and his. wife. The wife was the woman whose death had brought me down: upon Hurgronje. This Russian and his wife had not been in St. Petersburg at the time, nor had they spoken to me of Zoronna except casually; but they had said that she had in- spired many Russians—and Russian nobles are always prodigal with favors—with an almost ruinous generosity; and she was re- ported to be wealthy. Probably more had been done for: Zo- ronna’s necromatic kiss by a young Russian poet than could have been done by all the adroit press agents without his help. He was a Starveling, and like an amazing num- ber of Russians thought suicide was a way out of trouble. It may be, but I doubt if the Fates who often with seeming malig- nancy load a man’s shoulders are to be so easily evaded; and it is my fancy that there are aS many ways of getting into trouble after death as before it. Anyway the poet had seen Zoronna, and he wrote a’ poem called “The Kiss” and killed himself.. Shortly afterward the licen- 59 tious son of a grand duke was also found dead; and in hushing the matter up after the traditional manner of the Russian Court, whispering scandal put her picture into his hands; and, remembering the fever- ish poem of the dead starveling, credited her kiss with what the Nihilists claimed for their bullet. Vienna contributed to the legends of Zoronna; and when she reached Paris.a fetish was made of her name. Fashions followed her. What she wore became law. The hectic French fops, later to astonish the world with steel nerves and courage on bat- tle-fields, besieged her hotel and ruined themselves with gifts. A duel—several, it was said; but one seems to be authenticated—was fought in the dawn because of her smiles; and she— so report had it—was a masked onlooker from a near-by carriage. She rewarded the victor with a kiss. A week later he killed himself. She went over Europe, and her name grew and grew. Theatrical managers finally got her to New York, and after a great- success she vanished; and, so to speak, reappeared in Lord Bob’s apartment with only me to welcome her. IT WAS an interesting honor thus forced upon me; but I would just as soon that Lord Bob would have been there. I shall probably make Zo- ronna seem ridiculous in trying to describe her. Just as I could not possibly give any- thing near a likeness if I took paint and canvas and a brush, so I am anything but skilful with a pen in describing women, none of whom I understand anyway. After the first second or so, in which I was a little surprized, perhaps rather daz- zled, I had the impression of having seen her before, without at all associating her with the woman I remembered amid the grotesque scenery on the stage. That im- pression passed away for a time; but in a most tantalizing way, again and again, I tried to place the vague resemblance. It was scarcely a resemblance, for Zo- ronna was unlike any woman that I ever met; not in her beauty, for many women have that, some of them too much of it. I mean that mere regularity of so-called per- fection of features is usually combined with .« an inanity of expression that serves very well for the models of some artists; but-such Clo@@ CN Vp) CO ©