The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-07-02
KILLED HIS SON.
A Graphic Story Of Russian Nj
hilism and Misfortune.


The full moon shed its mellow light
over one of those mild. dreamy land
scapes of Southern Russia which are so
common, SO uniform and yet so varied
in their simple beauty; broad stream,
its rippled surface glittering in the
silver rays; sleepy willows bathing
their oyerhanging boughs in the water;
the endless, undulating steppe, yelled
in a dreamy mist, extending on the
left bank of the river, on the right OF
which the ground rose in steep slope,
covered with fruit trees respondent
with The white blossoms of spring. On
the crest of the slope, where the trees
clustered the thickest, a high wooden
roof was visible, shining in the moon
light, and from behind the foliage the
ruddy light of a lamp-lit window cast
a slanting ray into the silvery night
The ray of light was the only trace
of human life. Not a sound came to
disturb it except those voices of the
night which in themselves seem to
the crickets, the frogs choir chanting
their evening song in the reeds below
the sleepy bark of dog in the dis
lance. A peaceful repose seemed to
have spread over the earth, bidding
rest to all troubled, aching hearts,
peace to all hatred and strife.
And yet ting man who paced up and
down the short gravel walk in front of
the house hardly felt the influence of
the peaceful scene. His step was
troubled md unsteady, and though his
department, evidently through long
habit was as stiff and rigid as that Of
a soldier pacing the parade ground,
yet the head, covered with snowy white
hair, was bowed low on his breast.
The fingers of his clasped hands
worked nervously and occasionally a
suppressed exclamation or heavy,
half-subdued sigh issued from between
the irmly-set lips, with the thick.
bushy white mustache overshadoMing
them.
The martial figure of this old man
was well know throughout the whole
province of Goltava, and whenever
General Savelie1f, or ''the old Gen
erNl, " as he was Familiarity called, APP
peared he wa gladly and respectfully
greeted by every one, without distinc-
ton of age, of class or of position.
Peasant or noble, young or old, all felt
an instructive respect for him, all came
under the influence of that peculiar at
mosphore with which an honest life, a
SIR oh nd i. i
age, winning the hearts of the honest
and awning knayes into respect. After
resigning his position in the army at
the close OF the Crimean war General
Savelieff retired ON his small estate as
poor man as when he entered the
Government service, and resolutely le-
fused to accept any other Office. Il
am too old for these times" he used
to answer. My Emperor is dead Che
meant the Emperor Nicholas), and /
do not understand all your new ways
and reforms
Military discipline and the will of the
Gar, when he considered as being an
emanation of the will of God on earth,
had been the only guiding principles
of his whole life. Benevolent towards
al. indulgent for all faults and short
comings, on these two points he was
unfinchingly severe. "a foe of the
Gar is foe of God" he was wont to
say. When in 1S47 he had to superin-
tend the execution of a so-called poll
teal CRIMINAL child nineteen years
Old-he prepared himself for the task
as for holy sacrifice, and went to the
communion on the eve of the bloody
day. On the other hand, this rigid,
fanatical loyalty did not in the least
impair his naturally honest, straight.
forward, benevolent disposition. The
poor Of his parish venerated him and
even his enemies could not help re.
spccting the character OF a man whom
they hated as the ready tool of brutal
tyranny.
He had married young the woman
he had loved when yet school-boy.
Eight years their union remained
childless. When at length in 1S47 a
child 4 boy, was born, the fathers ioy
know no bounds, but was of short du.
ration, for few weeks after the event
the mother died. Since then all that
there was of gentleness and love in the
heart of the lonely, rigid soldier was
shed on that one boy, the little Andr,l.
sha (diminutiye for Andrel, and vet
no rarely gave vent 10 his feeling and
his son had scarcely any occasion to
become aware of it. Strict obedience
was the Generals rule in education as
well as in politics; the hierarchy OF
sacred power eliminating in the Czal
began for him in the father Thus this
strange man lived on, proud and hon.
est, without fear or reproach, one Of
the last true knights of decaying and
corrupted autocracy. From the soil.
tude of his modest country seat the old
General neither saw nor cared to know
how the ideal, the deity he had wor-
shipped had long ago fallen to pieces
and lost the last glitter of its former
prestige. For him the Gar was still
the father of his people, the ordained
and hallowed representative of God on
earth.
Needless 10 say, he had educated his
son in precisely the same creed. From
his tenderest infancy Andrusha had
been isolated from the outward world
and lived with his father curious life
of the past-the life Of an old man, not
looking forward into the dazzling un-
certainty of the future, but seeking in
the remembrance of the past all that is
good, sacred and joyful The hoy
grew up behind Chinese wall apart
from all the joyful excitement, the busy
yproaf of his generation. "heavily Ia
don, " as the great Russian poet Ler-
montoff says, with the hoary wisdom
of his sires.
When Andrusha was fourteen years
Of age his father brought him to st.
Petersburg to the Corps des Pages, the
first military school of the Empire. On
taking leave Of his son in the recep-