Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1879 — TWO REMARKABLE WOMEN. [ARTICLE]

TWO REMARKABLE WOMEN.

Personal Reminisoenoes of a Oonnt— Who Visited Mew - York on Her Way Around the World. To tha Editor of Maw York Hamid.* Curiously enough, I find in the same number of a recent issue of the Herald interesting reference to two ladies, both foreigners, both possessed of titles, both women of extraordinary and most romantic history. Both are personally known in the same small social circle in New York* while the name of neither is well known here, though both are famous in Europe. They are the Russian Countess Poach kofif and the Wallachian Princess von Raoowltx. The first is reported to have attempted suicide recently in Odessa, and the other (perhaps ft would be cruel to note the coincidence) to have published a book in Breslau. About the beginning of the year 1877, the Countess Paschhofl came to New York in the course of that journey around the world spoken of in the sketch published by the Goloe and reproduced in the Herald. While she was here she met Mr. Harrisse, of the Haytien diplomatic service, and by him was introduced to a small coterie in which she found an old friend, the Countess Blavateky. It was the Bohemian colony of the city, and at least a lozen well-known artists and scribblers of the city promptly surrendered their hearts to her keeping. I met her in the studio of one of the number, at a small evening party given in her honor. The room was one of the most picturesque of studios, and across one end of it was an improvised divau, with a gay Eastern carpet thrown over it. Here naif reclined and half sat the queen of the evening and Mme. Blavatxky, the only ladies present. The others were artists, poets, musicians or journalists, perhaps a dozen in all. The talk was in French, English and Russian. There were music, cigarettes for all, tea for the ladies and wine for the men.

Mme. Pascbkoff was slender, end as graceful and sinuous in her form and movements as a serpent- Her face vas one of great though irregular beauty. She was not above the medium height, but, by reason of her form, her flowing robes and her exaggerated slipper heels she seemed tall. Her large, brilliant eyes and her hair were blacker than ink. She wore a strange dress, of a fashion-defying fashion, of the richest colors, and at her throat, brow and ears and on her slender fingers were a profusion of rare jewels. Pendant from ier breastpin was a pearl as large as a wren’s egg, a gift from the mother of the Khedive of Egypt, whose guest she had been for a month. The was the only woman lever saw who might have sat to Shakspeare for his pen portrait of Cleopatra. The talk was the idlest, frothiest, merest persiflage of cultivated minds. No one was in earnest about anything except laughter. The music was good, except when Mme. Paschkoff played of sang. Then it was mere fragments—suggestions of what an artist might do if she cared to toy- .

Mme. Paschofl was then “member of the Geographical Society of France,” “corresponding member of the Tour du Monde,” and a correspondent aud member of the “Picnic Department” of the Figaro. In the latter capacity she wrote one letter from the Fifth Avenue Hotel during her stay In New York. This was a fair exponent of the woman as she appeared—brilliant, witty, quaintly distorted as to fact, and intensely satirical. Among her sentences descriptive of America (as she had learned America in two weeks) 1 ! quote: There is a Society of the Immaculate Conception, which expects to bring about a pure and lofty humanity by methods which I could only explain to you in Latin. I don’t know Latin. There is also a Society of Propagators of Love. A man has eight wives, who work for him. Each earns $2 a day, which gives him an income of 80 francs a day; enough to keep him. He is President of this nice society. • * • * * Even more surprising is the case of a gentleman who * * wastes his time preaching against the alcoholism of the Sclavs. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Who knows it better than I? • * • • * Men will find themselves nicely caught by this invention. (The phonograph.) Every time any one makes declarations to me I will roll up the paper and put it aside. Years afterward you can make the traitors listen to their broken oaths. No young American girl goes out without her phonograph. After a few weeks’ stay the brilliant lady went across the continent and from San Francisco to Japan, leaving here, as she had left all over the world, men to whom she had taught unhappiness. i

The Princess von Racowitc, when L first met her, lived in Hoboken, having married a New York journalist I was presented to her by Mme. Blavatsky (her friend also) in the Central Park, the day Mazziui’s statue was unveiled and the poet Bryant received a fatal sunstroke. She stood on the lawn away from the crowd, when the sunlight, falling through tne foliage above, made her wonderful hair look like an aureole. She, like Mme. Paschkoff, Is past her youth, but is still beautiful. She is tall and large, having A commanding appearance and air. qHerfeoe is almost pre ter naturally fair, and her features are finely chiseled and delicate. Her hair is lustrously red —not auburn or golden in any shade, but the reddest fed. She talks English rather fluently, though with a strong accent, and is witty, as well as well read. Her conversation is most charming, combining the archness of a Parisfenne with the aplomb which distinguishes her as an actress.

There were in the Central Park group two or three political exiles, two or three diplomatists and several theosophists, besides the inevitable journalist. We dined together at the so-call-ed fete that followed the unveiling of the statue, and chatted wickedly, while speeches—since happily forgotten—were made after dinner. The notice which I find in the Herald of the book published contains a number of allusions which differ from the story she told me of her life as I eat in her pleasant parlor long afterward. I have not seen the book, but l Judge that the reviewer who is quoted must have read with colored glasses. One day last autumn she told me the

story. .We sat by an open window looking over the Hudson, and her pet Newfoundland, as big as a small lion, and by no means aflhble to strangers, !*y on the floor watching me quietly. She showed me the report of what Bismarck had recently said to the German Reichstag about “the scapegrace leader of the socialists.” It was as follows; From the moment I first saw aud spoke with Lassalle I did not regret it * * Therp was sometlvng about the man that attracted me to him in an extraordinary degree. He was one of the most intellectual and lovable men I have ever come in contact with: a man who was ambitious in a lofty style—not at all republican in spirit. V”' * These pretty fellows who place themselves on a level with him he would have scornfully refused to acknowledge; nor would ne have given them the opportunity to use his name. • • Our conversations lasted for hours, and I was always sorry when they came to an end. • • I regret that the difference between his political attitude and mine did not permit me to associate with him more than I did, and I would rejoioe*to find to-day a man possessed of a nature so gifted and so intellectual.

Surely these were strange words for Bismarck to speak to a “scapegrace!” The reviewer says that Mme. von Racowitz’s renunciation of Lossalle led to the duel in which he lost his life, and thatshe married the Count (Prince) who killed him. It ehauced that I asked her in our conversation about these two points. She said that after she had run a way from home and had gone to Lassalle be persuaded her to return and took her back to her mother, and that her father treated her from the moment of her retekoa with such unbearable cruelty that, while she refused to give up her love, she seized the first opportunity of escape. While she was still a prisonecin her father’s house, and while her correspondence with Lassalle—letters from both sides —was intercepted by her father, the old man so managed the affhir that even the King of Bavaria,, who interfered in it, was misled as to the facts, and gave up all concern. Lassalle, still continuing in his efforts to bring influence enough to bear on the fatner to force him to con-, sent to the match, became so enraged at it he insulted the man he should have tried to conciliate, and the Prince von Rapowltz, a friend of the family, took up the quarrel and fought anti killed Lassalle. “I never renounced Lassalle,” she said earnestly, “although my father declared that I had done so. I loved him truly and dearly.” “Then how did you come to many the man who killed him?” 1 asked.” “The Prince declared tnat he had not meant to kill him, and I believed him. He told me himself of the duel at once, and I declared that I would always hate him, though we had been children together, and I had been much attached to him. But when, in the crtiel persecutions that my fother subjected me to, he proved the only friend I had, and when he urged me to marry him for the love he bore me, I consented to do so if he would be content with a wife who would always love the man he had killed. It was my only avenue of escape from my parents, and then, too, I felt sorry for him, ror he was consumptive. So I married him. A month after be died and I was then free. My fother had no authority over me—a widow,” It seems to me that if facts are worthy of record they should Lie put in their right light, and for this I have detailed the conversation. The rest of the story was her personal history, and abounded in strange incident and romance. Very pleasantly, and with a full appreciation of the interest of her own story, she told me of the career she has had, of the acquaintances she had made in two hemispheres, and of her coming to this country She is well known in the West, where, as in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and St. Peterebugh, site is known as a talented actress. W re It not for her imperfect English she would, doubtless, be also known in New York to more than the German theater-goers. Reporter.