of Napo− leon has loomed an omen of the doom of ancient authority and the shattering of
nations in Europe. That faithless, incalculable idealist Alexander, plans he knows not what
of imperial glory in the Eastern and Western world. Rezanov is his ser− vant, a man of
ambition, perhaps in all favor at court, desirous of doing some great service for his master.
He dreams of dominion in this sun−soaked land so lazily held in the lax grasp of Spain. He
has come from failure. He had been to Japan with presents to the emperor, was received by
minor officials with a hospitality that poorly concealed the fact that he was virtually a
prisoner, and then dis− missed without admission to the audience he sought with the
mikado. He had gone then to bleak, in− hospitable Sitka, to find the settlement there in a
plague of scurvy and starvation only slightly miti− gated by vodka. Down the coast then he
sailed to the Spanish settlement for food for the settlement. He comes to that place where in
his vision he sees arise that city of the future which we know now as San Francisco.
Masterful man that he is, he feels that here some great thing awaits him. The Spaniards are
wary of him. They will not trade with him, but they receive him courteously and they are
fascinated by his self−possessed, well−poised but withal so gracious personality. The life
there at the time is a sort of lotus−eating existence. It is a piece of Spain translated to a more
luscious, a lovelier land, overlooking beautiful seas and peril− ous. Into the dolce far niente
Rezanov enters with some surrender to its softening spell, but with the courtier's prudence.
And he meets the girl, Concha Arguello. He sees her in the setting of burning and sweet
Cas− tilian roses – a girl who has had the benefit of edu− cation, who keeps the graces of old
Madrid in this realm beyond sea, a burgeoning bud of womanhood, daughter of the
commandante. The doom of both is upon them at once. They have drunk the pois− oned cup.
Rezanov resists the first approaches of the delightful delirium, remembering Russia, his
duty, his ambition, the poor starving men of the Sitka factory. At a party he dances with
Concha and they both know that for each there is none other. So in that setting so wild, so
strange, so remote, so lovely for the old world grace that is made native there by this bright,
deep, fond girl, the high gods proceed to have their will upon the two. The little community
life pulses around them the faster because they are there. Their love be− comes a motive in
the diplomatic drama which has for end, first, the securing of food for those fam− ishing
folk at Sitka, and beyond that, possibly the seizing of the region for Russia, lest that new
young power of the West, the United States, pre− empt the rich domain. Concha would help
the Rus− sian to those ends immediate which he reveals to her, and succeeds. He tells her of
Russia and his mighty position there. He would have her for his wife, his helper in the vast
imperial affairs at the Russian capitol, his princess in his palace, augment− ing his official
and personal distinction. She shares his vision, rising to all the heights it unfolds in a
splendid future. Child she is, but she is transformed into a woman by the prospect not of her
own pleas− ure, but of participation in splendid achievement with this man so keen, so
supple, yet so firm in high purpose. And as the prospect opens to her desire and his there
looms the obstacle. They can− not marry, for Rezanov is a heretic. And now the passion
flames. This child woman will go with him. Ah, but the church, the king of Spain, will they
per− mit? And the Czar! Rezanov will see to it that the Czar will clear the way for them
through power exercised at Rome and at Madrid. Conditioned upon this, the girl's parents
Rezanov
INTRODUCTION 4