Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1891-04-16
STORY OF A NIHILIST.
SHE IS VERY BEAUTIFUL BUT
FULL OF HATRED.
Sophie Gunsburg's Plot Against the
Cxar-Love Her Chief Weapon
Pathetic Scene at the
Court Trial

No authentic account has yet been
given of the late political trial-or
rather condemnation-of Russian nihil-
lists for high treason; for trial, in the
English sense of the term, there was
none, writes the St. Petersburg cOrre-
spondent OF the London Daily Tele-
graph have just had long CONVEX
sation with one Of the dignitaries who
played the part Of judge jury and
counsel for the crown during the brief
ceremony. which began by accusation
was continued by voluntary confession
and ended in condemnation to death;
and the details communicated by him
which are worthy OF implicit cred
ence-throw a strong if lurid light up
on Russian nihilists in particular and
the Russian character generally, and If
properly worked up by Zolaistic
realist would make a most sensational
novel.
The ringleader of the conspirators,
and now the chief Of the prisoners, is
as is frequently the case in Russian
politics. woman; in this instance
woman of excellent education, of iron
will, of ravishing beauty and of un-
daunted courage; woman in many
respects superior to the celebrated
Sophia Perousky. who directed the
operations that eliminated in the foul
murder of the late emperor, whom she
SO soon afterward followed to the
grave. This person, Sophia Gunsburg
by name, narrated the eventful story
of her checkered life to her unsym-
pathetic judges, and narrated it in
most calm, unimpassioned, objective
way, which the most impartial of his
torians might well envy.
She was Jewess by birth. she said,
and had been brought up in the pale of
settlement, outside of which Jews are
not allowed to wander at large. Her
parents had given her the best educa-
ton that was to be had under the un-
favorable public and private conditions
in which their lot was cast. Natural
aptitude and the oppression that stimu-
lates when it does not crush effected
the rest and in time Sophia Gunsburg
became a sort of Jewish Hypatia of the
pale. The religious and moral princi-
pies, however, instilled into her by her
mother and her early teachers were
soon washed away by the surge of daily
life as it rolled on in the narrow chan
mel of the pale, *recking young hopes
and burying legitimate desires. She
saw some OF the most estimable men
and women of her nation compelled
daily to barter their religion for mess
of pottage or for still less, the barren
right to work for it. She grew accus-
toned to the sight, and in time the
finer moral fiber of her nature was
eaten into by the cancer of hatred
hatred for the government, which she
deemed responsible for this cruel per-
secutlon, unparalleled since the days of
the most tyrannical of the Roman Ca-
sars. After having graduated in the
ordinary establishments of intermedi-
ate education, Sophia left her birth
place, to which she refuses the name Of
latherland, and went abroad to breathe
..he bracing air of freedom.
In Geneva her vague inclinations
and tendencies were gradually nodded
into a perfect system of cruel, cold
blooded revenge, which has scarcely
it's parallel in history. 1t was in that
historic town that she meditated and
brooded over the wrongs inflicted by
Russia, until at last she Matched plot,
the bare outlines of which make one
shudder, and which was certainly more
worthy of a fury in human shape than
of a beautiful maiden standing upon
life's threshold with all the joys and
pleasures of existence before her.
Holding the government responsible
for the innumerable evils that deluge
the country. she applied the autocratic
principle to the extent of admitting
that the government is the Garland
the car she determined to Stay! Such
was the object of the plot. :.
The means she intended to employ
in order to attain it were to the full as
abominable as the end in view. She
resolved to gather select band of
young men and, dazzling them by the
almost irresistible charms of her beau
~, to administer to each, unknown to
the other, a solemn oath binding him
to her behests, and to assassinate the
emperor on day and in manner
fixed by her. She was determined that
If one failed another should take his
place, and still another after him, until
at last the foul deed should be done.
The emperOr's successor, too, unless
he struck out new line Of policy, was
to be stamped out OF existence in the
same ruthless way. and thus red terror
was to struggle with white until the
evils complained of were either abol-
ished or intensified to such an extent
that the most phlegmatic Russian
peasant could no longer endure them.
Sophia Gunsburg had no difficulty in
attracting sufficient number of love.
sick young Russians who were smitten
by her beauty and grace or made en-
thusiastic by her eloquence. She
sacrificed without hesitation or regret
all that pure woman holds dearest in
life in order to maintain her hold over
these young Catilines. She was not,
however. wholly a monster, nor was
she exempt from all human weaknesses.