The Kiss Of the Leper

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 720, 20 July 1929, Page 18

The Kiss Of the Leper

Grim Story From Monaco

Claude Condclz'cr, recently rctired Monte Carlo Groupier, relates one of the most terrible episodes of love, jealousy and revenge that value undcr his personal notice at the Casino. PERHAPS the queerest “love story” I recollect in all my years at the Casino concerns a beautiful dark Frenchwoman who came to Monte Carlo and caused a sensation both by her beauty and the manner in which she prodigally spent her husband‘s money.

Her husband was an exceedingly rich but not noble Russian. He was in charge, one gathered, of certain important commercial afiairs for the Imperial Government of Russia. He sold Siberian timber and was the controller of. mining'concessions. He was reputed to be a millionaire. Madame, his wife, was inclined to be flirtatious. There were stories of “scenes" in their expensive suite; it was said that once the Russian had chastised his wife with a cane. But he never got rid of her. She evidently fascinated him, and she would not leave him; he was too rich. Lover Thrashed

Then the war came~and the revolution. The Russian worked on the side of the White Russians and Im—perialists. He was an agent of the Grand Duke Nicholas, and by his brain assisted to carry out a great deal of the organisation which was and is now a constant source of worry to the Soviet. Government. But his great estates and all his huge wealth had gone.

He still visited Monte Carlo, but his Wife no longer had control of the great sums of money to spend. It was in these days that she met a rich young American, and a. love affair began to develop. That was cut short by the Russian meeting the American at a lonely place on the road one night. taking him away in a. car and half killing him. 'The Russian had tremendous strength; he stood over six feet high and had a chest like a. gorilla. The American retired from the field. ,

Later, there. was a Rumnian millionaire who was attracted to Madame, but this time the lady was careful not to let her husband get to know anything that was going on. She was discretion itself.

Now very shortly afterwards the Russian had to make one of his surreptitious and secret journeys to Russia, in disguise, for he was one of the most wanted men in that unhappy land. Betrayal By accident, Madame overheard a. conversation between a White Russian agent of the Imperial party and her husband, found out exactly when he was travelling, the name he was taking and the appearance he would have. This information she speedily transmitted to the Bolsheviks, the result being that her husband was immediately arrested as -soon as he crossed the frontier. Notice of his trial and execution came through in due course, and he was lamented by the little colony of Russian Imperialists at Monte Carlo. Madame went into expensive black—and set off onfla world tour with the ananian mil onaire.

The next season she was back in Monte Carlo with her Rumanian; indeed, it was stated that they were married. Then another season came, and once more she appeared with the Rumauian. _

One night, in the Casino, it was plain to be seen that something terrible had happened. Madame fainted and had to be restored in a, lounge. I saw her just as I was crossing the

lounge for dinner. She was in th: midst of u. little group of Russians. One, whom I recognised as a friend of the Grand Duke Nicholas, was eviA Gently insisting grimly and sternly upon something she protested against. Later I heard that. What had happened was that her Russian husband had returned and was staying in a little Villa. on the hill, which was rented by a Russian count. He had insisted upon his wife going to see him, and this little group of Russians had come to carry her OK to her husband—one gathered by force if necessary. The Kiss Madame went to visit her husband accompanied by her lady’s maid, who told me exactly what had occurred. When she got to the villa she was taken to the room in which her husband lay and was told that he was sick. The room was in darkness—they told her that the light hurt her husband’s eyes.

He spoke to her in a. weak, thick voice from the bed, and told her that. he never Wished to see her face again. but that he wished to kiss her once for the last time before he died. She crossed the room to kiss him, and while he embraced her she shrieked with horror. . . .

Two months later the doctors, after consultation with the specialists of Berlin and Paris, pronounced her doom—she was like Newman “a leper as white as snow.” Her husband, instead of being executed, had been sent to a remote district in Siberia. at the time of the terrible famine. The Soviet authorities only provided transport facilities to the food distributing centres for “good citizens.” This man was an outcast, and with others in the same predicament left to die. The little colony had trekked over the wastes until they came to a nomadic Mongol tribe with whom they settled. The tribe was infected with the dread disease and the Russian contracted it. .

Later he managed to get into touch with the “Underground Post” of the White Russians and was helped until, ultimately, his influential and rich friends got; into touch with him and helped him to carry out his diabolical revenge upon the woman who had betrayed him. The beautiful Frenchwoman, her maid told me, tried several times to commit suicide, but ever lacked the courage at. the last moment. She tried to travel. but as the monthS'went by she became worse and was forbidden the crossing of frontier after frontier until at last she was forcibly carried off shrieking in wild hysteria, from the sunshine and blue seas of Monte Carlo to her present home—a French leper colony.