The Washington times. [volume], October 17, 1920, FINAL EDITION, Page 7, Image 38

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Miss Martan Sanvine, Daughter of
Who Becamne Engaged to
SHEHEDREZADE, the beautiful bride of
the Caliph, in the Arabian Nights,
told her lord a wondrous tale of ro
mance on her nuptial n~ht, hoping he
would *ant to hear another one and thus
would refrain from cutting off her head in
the morning, as wasn his dustom with all
liis brides.
The nexnt night she told him another, and
the next night another, each more -won
drous than the last, and so on until a
thousand and one nights had passed away
and the Caliph had become so attached to
her that he decided to allow her to keep
her heed and retain her place on the
eushion at his feet where she was wont to
intrigue his romantic fancies.
The stories Sheheresade told have come
down through the centuries, translated
into all languages, as the most fascinating.
most stirring, most thrilling love tales ever
told.
But, if fiction cannot rival these age old
stories of the gifted Sheheresade, there is
one story out real life that can. It is the
love story and its tragic climan of a beau
tiful American girl, just ntft of her teens,
who was loved by an Oriental Prince, and
who Jolt him just as many a fair maiden
lost her gallant Prince in the narratives of
Sheherasade. Even the wooing of her;
how the prince fell in love with her when,
t , she was only the cold, marble fig
Sthat adorned a fountain in his father's
em; how be sotught her around the
in until he found her, more lovely even
- the sculptor's dream of her; and how
it aside his hundred wives and vowed
'he would never have another, queen
a she-it was all just as If this Amern
irn had lifted out of the Arabian
i a whole chapter that she might
l' in her own life.
ii-ing the last years of the war one of
vealthiest and most powerful bf the
M of lndia, His Royal Highness, .Tu
0. Raja of Manipur, chanced to meet,
Paris,. a famous sculptor of feminine
'rty, who had spent much of his time in
'v York for many years.
The RaJa, possessor of three hundred
-efully selected women in his great
alto at Manipur, and, therefore, an ex
: . conoisseur of feminine appeal, was
. rmed by the varied handiwork of the
.inst. He commissioned the sculptor to
iike for him a complete fountain, to be
- t up Is his harem at home. IJe central
figure. the Raja commanded. mdht be that
ofan Ameria girl-a young womaan who,
in the eyes of the sculptor, would best rep
reet he grace ad charm and the inet
fable intiness of American feminine
ovelinees.
erhO armasttan yar fonda inesto Emeni
- i
ihe Wealthy John Sanville, of New
the Son and Heir of the Raja of Ma
del Piatta. the sculptor-best known, per
haps, for his portrait busts of famous men .
and women of America--in Havana, at
work upon the bronze images of President
Menocal, the great Cuban statesman
Gomes, and their dark-eyed wives -.
daughters. In Havana, too, there was
family of John Sanville, of New York an'
Newport. The Banville sugar plantations
are the largest in Cuba and the Sanville
fortune is imposing.
When the sculptor met, at A ball In the
President's palace, the beautiful Miss
Marta Sanville, debutante daughter of the
wealthy plantation owner, who had gone
to the Cuban capital with her mother for
the Winter gayeties, he remembered his
commission from the Raja of Manipur.
Here, he believed, was the typical Ameri
can girl-lithe and gr~ceful, eyes and
cheeks eloquent of health giving tennis
and golf and horseback, shapely hands and
slender feet a tribute to her ancestry.
Miss Banville's eyes twinkled merrily
when she heard from the .sculptor's lips of
the desire of the Indiae ruler to ornament
his harem with a marble statue represen
tattive of the femininity of America. She
pleaded with her amused mother and her
austere father until they gave their per
mision.
After many weeks of posing and model
ing, a masterpiece took form under the
deft ipsgers of the sculptor. With great
care the completed figure, daintily poised
on the rim of the fountain basin, was de
livered to the Raja's palace.
The fame of the statue spread through
out Manipur. British officers and their
wives were admitted to the harem to gase
upon it. One and all they declared it to
1,e a true delineation of the typical- Ameri.
can girl.
When Prince Masthan, the Raja's son
and heir to the throne of Manipur, re
turned from his service in France with
the troops ment by his father to aid the
Allies, he asked at once to be shown the
beautiful statue, the fame of which had
reached him at Parts.
His visits to his father's harem became~
more and more frequent. His division of
caresses among the hundred wives in his
oen seraglio became less and less gen
erous. Each day, while he gamed at the
bronse image of the unktiown American
girt he moved the divan and dwelt anew
upon the beauty of the silent, dainty fig
ure with new and changing heart thrills.
Determined that time and distance
should not thwart him, the Indian Prine
came to America, arriving in New York
last Fall. He brought with him a suite of
court dignitaries and royal ministers, but
traelled~ i.nnio uch toen ae...
Fzd~de
The RajafMa pur and His
ment of the sculptor the Prineo appeared
at the latter's New York studio and asked
in the name of love to be presented to the
young woman who had been the Inspira
tion for his father's fountain.
The artist could only persist in his re
fusal. He Invited the Prince to be his
guest at his country estate, which nestles
among the Berkshires. Here the host
tried to assuage his guest4 disappoint
ment-but to no avail.
At last, so persistently was he Impor
tuned, the artist wrote to the father and
mnother of Miss San
vile, explaining the In
fatuation of the Indian
Priee and his ditermi
nation. to find Miss
Marta and put his. heart
-et her feet. The situa
tion again brought that
same merry twinkle to
Miss Marta's eyes.
Father Sauville and
Mither Sanville never
have been able to
port and Cuba, withstand the Innocent
nipur. whims of pretty Marts.
They shortly were re
turning to their Newport home anyway.
As Marta said. "what could be the harm?"
So, when their misgivings all were routed
by their prankish daughter, they notified
the sculptor they would come to spend the
week-end with him Immediatelf after.
'heir arrival from Cuba.
And the pretty and romantic Miss Marta
ioved the Prince almost at first sight-just
as he had loved her at his first glimpse of
her bronze image perched at the edge of
his father's harem fountain!
Father Sanville'was shocked. Then he
was angry Then he became arguments
tive. ,And when he began to argue Marts
had him at her mercy. No one could
argue with the dimpled and charming Miss
Marta.
Before she gave her consent, however,
Miss Sanville asked 'pointed questions
about the hundred other wives In the
harem of the Prince back at Manipur-and
about all those Oriental traditions and cus
toms which make of the wife a chattel, a
mnere plaything1 of her husband, one of
many ornaments in a domestic treasure
bor.,
The Prince swore that he would send
ahead of hinm orders for the dispersal of
hi. harem. He would take a Christian
vow as well as an oath to Mahomad, his
prophet, that none but she should ever
have even the littlest corner of his heart
or the smallest mite of his affection.
There was one inmate of the Prince's
harem, however, who did not submit with
meekness t~o her dismissal. This was
Purna, a Tamil girl, who had been pre
sented to the Prince by his father upon
the birthday which marked his son's ar
rival at the "age of sagacity." Parna, who
came from Malabar, long had ruled the
harem of the Prince as his favorite. She
had built up for herself a great power in
the state affairs of Manipur, wielding het
influence over both the son and the Raja
himself, through servile ministers and
court attaches.
Purna tossed her pretty head with silent
defiance when she was told the Prine
was about to discard her.
The pre-nuptial banquet, a ceremony
upon which the bride-to-be insisted as a
sign of the new era her installation in the
kingdom as the only wife' of the heir ap
parent, was celebrated in the great hareta
halls of the Raja's palace. 't'o the banquet
came all the dignitaries of the neighboring
states. Some, even, came from far Cal
cutta and Singapore. The British Resi
dent and other representatives of the King
of England and Emperor of India also
came to sit at the barnnet spread on the
cushions espe.ally pnl e. fo hm.
k. Fantastic Expedences of an Ainican
Gil with Whosi Statue a Raja Fei
n Lovmwad the Swift Harem
Vengeance That Foiowed
I.
Da the tr
nuptial toast to the
bride was called
the Prinos was Atrst
to lift the goblet to Ae
his lips-the first
to drink to the hap
piness all Manipur
wished for the
strange little belu
tante from =b
known America.
Price ellbelp f aprthala. She ieMs Saaville, Issted
_&- ROt*Ta e idsH bWt-oPoiet Dispes HisHm oe
contorted. As the Nabs Her His 0.17 Wife, and Accord Her, the raloge Cus
wine trickled down tessary with European and American Women.
hig throat heb ree"
Ize tht b ba drnk lioO~tdeadly of been poured Into the Prince's golden gob.
all the -vent eac potions". of Inda. let. A royal minister was strangled, too
While death s" " wayto his 4eart he for hq confessed that Puya had persuaded
threw up b had ienipd tO Ume bal- him to pour the deadly potiod with -his
eony above. -"She has done thi." he own bands Into the pro-nuptial wine cup. j
gasped. Miss Sauvills arms reached out It war many week.3 before Mir., 1ativiie
to him and caught his body Just as It recovered from the sbock of her je9nee's
collapsed. While *he held him to her In death in her arms-and the haunting of
A& last embrace-he diedl those crtwl, glinting eyes of the discarded
Horror stricken, the celebrants looked Puma. She was brought back to her home
up to where the- Prince had pointed. They by her father and mother-with nothing
(were just in time to see the cruel. impas- left of her love but her memory of a Y
mIve tace of Puma, the Tamil girl who romance and Its tragic ending just like
had been the Prince's favorite. While those that are told In the Arabian Nights
they looked, spell bound,
the face disappeared.
When the taja's ministers
rushed up -to. t~e balconyC
Purma was go. They
found her after*aad. of
course, and strangled her
by order of this Ksaa She
laughed as they drew the
death cord tight about her
beautiful neck - laughed 4
and confessed that she had
mixed with her Own hands
the deadly cootion of
diamoad dust and the
fti a gust pspedtertatt.teAe~a i h pe s ...de dm..... us began to take feet