St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-11-12
THE STORY OF AN EXILE.
The Life and Sad Bereavement OF

The Life and Sad Bereavement Of
aRussian Author in Siberia.
Mr. KEENAN, in the November Century.
To me perhaps the most attractive and
sympathetic of the Tomsk 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 more or less
remote time in the future, to overthrow
the existing form of government. He
was about thirty-eight years of age at
at the time l made his acquaintance,
and was man of cultivated mind,
warm heart and high aspirations. He
knew English well, was familiar with
American history and literature, and
had, l believe, translated into Rus
sian many of the poems OF LOngfel-
low. He spoke to me with great adj
miration, remember, of LOngfellOW'S
arsenal at Springfield" and recited it
to me aloud. He was one of the most
winning and lovable 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 Petre-
pavlOvSk; his hair was prematurely
white, and when his face was in repoSe
there seemed to be an expression OF
profound melancholy in his dark brown
eyes. | became intimately acquainted
will. him and very warmly attached to
him, and when l babe him good-by for
the last time Oh my return from Eastern
Siberia in 1856, he put his arms around
me and kissed me and said: George
Ivanovitch, please don't forget us. In
bidding you gOod-by feel as if some
thing were going out of my life that
would never again come into it."
Since my return to America L have
heard from Mr.. VoIkhofski only once.
He wrote me last winter profoundly
sad ana touching letter, in which he in
suicide. He himself had been thrown
of the liberal TOmSk newspaper, the
Siberian Gazette, and his wife, whom [
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 pri-
vate lessons and by taking in sewing.
Anxiety and Overwork had finally
broken down her health; she had be-
come 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 children, and that they would ulti-
mately be better off if she were dead. A
little more than 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 circnm-
stances and in such way, was terri
bic blow to him.
In his letter to me he referred to
copy of James Russell LowelPs poems
that l. had caused to be sent to him, and
said that in reading ''After the Burial"
he wildly realized for the first time
although written by bereaved Ameri-
can, expressed the deepest thoughts
and feelings 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 VolkhofSki, and which
VOlkhOfski had i'll turn presented to his
wife short time before her death. He
hoped. lie said, that it would have some
value to me on account of its asSOcia
ton with the lives of four political of
Tenders, all of whom had known. One
of them was a refugee in London, an
other was exile in Tomsk, and two
had escaped the jurisdiction of the
Russian government by taking their
own lives. @ go ~ q
/ tried to read Volkhofski's letter to
my wife, but as l recalled the high char
acter and lovable personality 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 de-
pendent upon him-the written lines
vanished in a mist of tears, and, with a
choking in my throat, put the letter
and the little matchbox away.