The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1888-12-06
THE STORY OF AN EXILE,

/ Inc toiloWang from the Century is
one of the most touching stories that
Mr. Kennan has yet told of the fate of
Siberian exiles: TO me perhaps the
most attractive. and sympathetic of the
fofnsk exiles was the Russian author
Felix Volkhofski, who was banished to
Siberia for life in 1878, upon the Charge
OF belonging to society that intends,
at a more or less, remote time in the
future, TO overthrow the existing 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. l remember. of
Longfellow's Arsenal at Springfield
and recited it to me aloud. He was
one OF the most winning and loyable
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 Petropavioysk: his
hair was prematureiy white; and when
>his face was in repose there seemed to
be an expression of profound melan-
choly in his dark brown eyes. | be-
came 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 ST.
IBERIA in. 1856. he put his arms around
me and kissed me, and said: George
lyanovitch, please dent forget usi In
bidding you goodbye, L feel as if
something were going out of my life
that would never again come into it.
"Sinee my return To America L have
heard from Mr.. Volkhofski only once.
He wrote me last wintera profoundly
sad and touching letter, in which he
informed me'of the deathsof his wife
by suicide. He himself had been
thrown out of employment by the sup
preston Of the liberal Tomsk news
paper, the Siberian Gazette; and his
wife, whom l remember as pale,
delicate. sad-faced woman, twenty-five
or thirty 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; she had become an invalid,
and in morbid state of mind, brought
on by unhappiness and disease, she
reasoned herself into the belief that
she was an incumbrance, rather than
a help, to her husband and her child
rem, 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 her.
rnh fhn
Her husband was devotedly attached
to her; and her death, under such cir
and in such way, was q
terrible blow to him. In his letter to
me he referred to a copy of James
Russell .Lowell's poems that had
caused to be sent to him, and said that
in reading After the Burial he vividly
realized for The first time that grief is
OF no nationality; the lines, although
by bereaved American, ex-
pressed the deepest thoughts and feel
ings of bereaved Russian. He sent
me with his letter small, worn,
leather matchbox, which had been
given by Prince, Pierre Krapotkin to
his exiled brother Alexander; which
the latter had left to VoIkhofski; and
which Volkhofski had in turn present.
ed TO his wife a short time before her
death. He hoped, he said, that it
would have some value to me, on ac-
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 jurisdiction of the Russian Gov
ernment by taking their own lives.
Il tried to read Volkhofski's letter
aloud to my wife, but as recalled the
higher character and lovable PERSONAL
ity of the writer and imagined what
this last blow of fate must have been
to such man,-in exile, in broken
health, and with family of helpless
children dependent upon .him,-the
written lines vanished in a mist of
tears, and with choking in my throat
Iput the letter and the little match
box away.
''The Tsar may whiten the hair of
such men as Felix Volkhofski in the
silent bomb-roof classmates of the for
tress, and he may send them in gray
convict oyercoats. to Siberia; but a
time will come, in the providence of
God, when their names will stand
higher than his Oh the roll of history,
and when the record of their lives and
sutferings5 will be of heroic inspiration
to. all Russians who love liberty and
their country" :
Is