Wichita eagle., 1888-11-07
THE STORY OF AN EXILE.

The following from the November
Century is one of the most touching
stories that Mr. Keenan, has yet told Of
the fate of Siberian exiles: "To me
perhaps the most attractive and sympa-
thetic of the Tomsk exiles was the Rus
sian author Felix Volkofski, who was
banished to Siberia for life in 1878, upon
the charge of belonging to society
that intends, at more or less remote
time In the future, to overthrow the ex-
listing form of government He was
about thirty-eight years of age at the
time | made his acquaintance, and was
a man of cultivated mind, warm heart,
and high aspirations. He knew English
well, was familiar with American his
tory and literature, and had, | believe,
translated, into Russian many Of the
poems of Longfellow. He spoke to me
with great admiration, / remember OF
Longfellows Arsenal at Springfield, and
recited 1t to me aloud. He was one OF
the most winning and loveable men that
it has ever been my good fortune to
know; but his life had been terrible
tragedy. His health had been shattered
by long imprisonment in the fortress OF
Petropavlovsk; his hair was prematurely
white, and when his face was In repoSe
there seemed to be an expression of pro-
found melancholy in his dark brown
eyes. became intimately acquainted
with him and very warmly attached to
him; and when l babe him goodbye for
the last time on my return from eastern
Siberia in 1886, he put his arms around
me and kissed me, and said, George
Ivanovitch, please don't forget US! In
bidding you goodbye, feel as if some
thing were going out of my life that
would never again come into 1t.
''.Since my return TO America l have
heard from Mr.. Volkhofsh only once.
He wrote me last winter profoundly
sad and touching letter, in which he in
formed me of the death of his wife by
suicide. He himself had been thrown
out of employment by the suppression of
the liberal Tomsk newspaper, the 'Si-
berian Gazette; and his wife whom |
remember as pale, delicate, sad-faced
woman, 20 or 80 years of age, had tried
to help him supp TT their family Of
young children by giving private lessons
and taking in sewing, Anxiety and
overwork had finally broken Down her
health; she had become an invalid, and
in morbid state of mind, brought on by
and disease she reasoned
herself into the belief that she was an
rather that help to her
husband and her children, and that they
would ultimately be better off if she
were dead. A little more than year ago
she put an end to her unhappy life by
shooting herself through the head with
a pistol. Her husband was devotedly
to her, and her death, under
such circumstances and in such way,
was a terrible blow TO him. In letter
to ne he referred to James Russell Low
ellis poems that [ had caused to be sent
TO him, and said that in reading After
the Burial he wildly realized for the
first time that grief is Of no nationality:
the lines although written by bereaved
expresses the deepest
thoughts and feelings of bereaved Rus
rian. He sent me with his letter a small,
worn, leather matchbox, which had
been given him by Prince Pierre Krapot-
kin to his eXiled brother Alexander;
which the latter had left to Volkshofski;
and which Volkhefski had in turn pre-
scented to his wife a short time before
her death. He hoped, he said, that it
would have some value to me, on &C.
count OF its association with the lives of
four political offenders. all of whom
had known. One of them was refugee
in London, another was an exile IN
Tomsk, and two had escaped the juris-
diction Of the Russian Government by
taking their own lives.
II tried to read Volkhofski's letter
aloud to my Wife: but as l recalled the
high character and lovable personality
of the writer, and imagined what this
last blow of fate must have been to such
a man,-in exile, in broken health. and
with family of helpless chilcren de-
pendent upon him,-the written lines |
in a mist of tears, ana with a |
choking in my throat l put the letter
and the little matchbox away.
THE Tsar may whiten the hair of |
such men as Felix Volkhofski in the |
silent boomb-proof classmates of the
fortress, and ne may send them in grey
convict overcoats to Siberia: but time |
will come, in the providence of God,
when their names will stand higher |
than his on the roll of history. and when |
The record of their lives and sufferings |
will be source Of heroic inspiration to |
all Russians who love liberty and their