Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-11-22
The Story of an Exile.


Century is one of the most touching
stories that Mr.. KEENAN, has yet told of
the fate of Siberian exiles: "To me per-
haps the most attractive and sympathetic
of the Tonsk exiles, was the Russian au-
thor, Felix Volkhofski, who was banished
to Siberia for life in 1875 on the charge
of belonging to society that intends at
more or less remote time in the future,
TO overthrow the existing form of govern
ment. He was about thirty eight years
of age at the time I made his acquain-
taince, and was man OF cultivated mind,
warm heart and high aspirations. He
knew English well, was familiar with
Americas history and literature, and had
I believe, translated into Russian many
of the poems of LoDgfeIlow. he spoke
to me with great admiration, I remember,
of Longfello1's Arsenal at Springfield
and recited it to me aloud. He was one
of the most winning and lovable of men
that 1t mas ever been my good fortune to
know; but his life had been terrible
tragedy. His health had been shattered
by long i'm prisonment in the fortress of
Petropavlogsk; 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 1 bade him good bye for the last
time on my return from eastern Siberia
in 1886, he put his arms around me and
kissed me and said: George Ivancvitch,
please don't forget us Ia bidding you
good bye, feel DIS if something were go
ing out Of my life that would never again
come into it,
''Since my return TO America, have
heard from Mr.. Volkhofski only once.
He wrote me last winter profoundly sad
and touching letter, IN which he informed
me of the death of his wife by suicide.
He himself, had been thrown out of en-
ployment by the suppression of the
liberal Tomsk newspaper, the Siberian
Gazette; and his wife, whom I remember
as a pale, delicate, sad faced woman, 25
or 80 years of age, had tried to help him
support their family of young children
by giving private lessons and by taking
in sewing. Anxiety and overwork had
finally broken down her health, shethad
become an invalid, and in morbid state
of mind, brought on by unhappiness and
disease, she reasoned herself into the
belief that she was al incumbrsnce,
rather than help to her husband and
mately better of if she were dead. A
little more than a year ago she put an
end to her unhappy life by shooting her
self through the head with pistol. Her
husband was devotedly attached to her;
and her death under such circumstances
and in such way, was terrible blow to
him. In his letter to me, he referred to
COPY of James Russell Lowell's 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, al
though written by bercaved American,
expressed the deepest thoughts and feel
ings of q bereaved Russian. He sent me
with his letter, small, worn leather
match box, which had been given by
Prince Pierre Krapotkin to his exiled
brother Alexander; which the latter had
left to Voikhofski; and which he In turn
presented to his wife short time before
her death. He hoped, he said, it would
have some value to me, on account of it's
ASSOCIATION with the lives of four politi-
cal offenders, all of whom l had known.
One of them was refugee IL London,
another was an exile in Tomsk, and two
had escaped the jurisdiction Of the Rus
sian government by taking their own
lives.
81 Tried to read Volkhofski's letter
aloud to my wife: but as l recalled the
high character and lovable person Atty of
the writer, and imagined what this last
blow of fate must have been to such
man-ip exile, in broken health and with
family of helpless children dependent
upon him-the written lines vanished in q
mist of tears, and with choking in my
throat I put the letter and the little box
away.
"The Tsar may whiten the heads of
such men as Felix Volk hofski in the
silent, bomb-proof classmates of the fort
rsss, aud he may send them in gray con-
vict overcoats to Siberia; but time will
come in the providence of God, when
their names shall 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 Rus
SLAMS who love liberty and their country"