The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1892-10-20
CHAPTER XVII.

| The difficulties which surrounded her.
and the trying circumstances under which
| she was endeavouring to carry out her self
| mission did not daunt or crush Rachel
On the contrary the innate qualities of
| nobleness and self-relance of her nature
were called into play, and she rose equal
| to the occasion. She had already learned
| too much of the hard, cruel officialism of
| Russia to expect or hope for a moment
| that she would meet with sympathy or as
| siStance from the strangers amongst whom
she found herself.
Moreover. she was only too painfully
aware that her faith caused the hand of
every man now of her own persuasion to be
against her. while Christian women regard
| ed her with contempt and dislike, and
steeled their heart against and appeal for
| help or consolation she might have felt dis
| posed to make. Butshe asked not for help.
| She was proud, and neither suffering nor
persecution could break her pride Never
theless she suffered anguish and great dis
tress when she found herself separated
from Ivan Alexieff upon whom she had
relied to carry out her purpose.
She did not love him; she could never
love him; but she believed that he truly
| loved her and the wrongs she had suffered
| had prompted her to use him. Her love
had been given to Moshka, and though
she had not the faintest shadow offs hope
| that he and she would ever come together
again, she had resolved to be true to him
| 1t may seem somewhat singular that in
conceiving her project of journeying to
| Siberia, it was no though of Moshka that
prompted her. She regarded him as one
dead, and she had resigned herself to her
fate. But she viewed the position of her
father from different standpoint.
| Filial duty is ever very strong in a
Jewess, and Rachel Arama was Que of
the most attached, most devouted,
most affectionate of daughters. And
| when she remembered how her father had
been broken and ruined. and treated worse
than the deepest stained criminal, her very
blood curdled with indignation. To have
| sat still with folded arms and have held
her peace as she thought of the malic-
ious persecution her father and she had
suffered at the hands ofPeter Alexeff, and
how with fierce and unrelenting, cruelty
| Peter had pursued her father to his ruin,
was an impossibility. All her gentle WON
anhood was transformed as she dwelt upon
it, Her sweetness was turned to gall and
she had changed to hard, stern woman,
thirsting for the downfall of her persecu-
tor.
To the chief of the police at Perm she
made an eloquent appeal on the behalf Of
her travelling companion, But this man,
like all his class throughout Russia with a
few exceptions, was brutal and unsympa-
thetic. The constant and almost daily suf-
| fering and misery he witnessed as the exile
parties passed through the city on their
way to their destination had hardened him,
and he was utterly without any pity for
the wretched convicls.
Indeed, it may be said that the clanking
chains, the groans OF suffering men, the
signs of anguish-wrung women, and the
affrighted cries of young children were
music to his ears. At any rate they did
not affect him, and in common with his
kind he had most exalted and exaggsrat-
ed notion of his own Importance. He was
an official, chief of the police, and he
wore the Cars uniform, therefore he con-
sidered that everyone who was not of equal
rank with him should show him homage
and pay him Difference; while as tor the
conyicts with whom he came in contact,
they should do nothing less than bow
down and worship him. Let it not be sup
posed he was singular in this respect. Out
of the many thousands of officials scattered
through Siberia or for the matter of that
throughout the Russian empire, there are
but very few who are not possessed of the
same spirit of self-importance.
Racheps appeal was, as might have been
expected not only useless, but was met by
coarse insult, and cruel and heartless ref.
erence to her being the daughter of Jew
convict. So she passed from the presence
of this Unconditional man with heavy
and sore heart, while with a sense of lone
illness and desolatlon she set her face once
more to the east.
She had by this time learnt the necessity