of his has told me that in the middle of a laughing conversation
he threw out a hint of this, and like a cloud blown suddenly across a
summer sky, Pribi[vc]evi['c]'s face grew black. Unhappily he is not even
Fortinbras and yet imagines he is Hamlet. A good many people in
Yugoslavia call him _un homme fatal_, most of the others _l'homme
fatal_. It is said that in the Democratic party he is actively supported
by not more than ten deputies, but that the others, to preserve the
party, take no steps. He himself, however, would probably have not the
least hesitation in choosing another party, if he could otherwise not
stay in the Cabinet; for his permanence in office is the one idea that
crushes every other from his mind. If he cannot be Minister of the
Interior--a post from which he has been more than once, and happily for
Yugoslavia, ejected--then he insists on being Minister of Education.
What are his qualifications? Years ago he gave instruction at a school
for elementary teachers, and so faint a conception has he of the
educational needs of his country that one day when a Professor of
Belgrade University asked him if no steps could be taken to diminish the
prohibitive cost of books, especially foreign books, the Minister
simply stared at him as if he had been talking Chinese. And yet in a
recent book of national verses, published by his brother Adam, we are
told that:

"At the table also sat the sage Pribi[vc]evi['c],
Who can converse with Emperors...."

There are some who, curiously, have compared Radi['c]'s party with the
Sinn Feiners; Radi['c] may have announced that he would approach the
Serbs as the representative of an independent country, but he never
proposed, even when his views were most extreme, to realize them with
physical force. At a great open-air meeting of his adherents the
speeches were so mild that only twice did the Chief of Police, who was
next to me, raise a warning finger, and on each occasion to keep the
orator from very innocent digressions. Nevertheless, there is no
concealing the fact that even in these unsatisfactory times--"It seems
to me," said a philosophic peasant recently at Valjevo, in the heart of
Serbia, "it seems to me that if we had a plebiscite then Valjevo might
not wish to remain with Serbia!"--even in a world that is so awry the
Croats are more reserved towards the union than is good for the State.
Perhaps they would cherish fewer grievances if they had gained their
fr