The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1892-10-06


not fail to weigh with such man as Peter
Alexietf; and though for the time he would
| have to abandon. the comforts and gaiety
OF the great city, he felt that he would be
| compensated for that by the power that
would be his. A fallen official in St. Peters
burg would have to remain a nonentity,
but i'll Siberia, where he was far removed
from the seat of government, he could be-
come person of Importance, and rule his
subjects with rod of iron, according to
his caprice and his will.
And so Alexieff set off for his new sphere
of action with a sense of delight, consider
ably enhanced by the knowledge that pre-
ceding him was the unfortunate victim of
his hatred, Aaron Arama, who, without
trial and i'll accordance with the barbarous
Russian law, had been condemned to exile,
on the grounds that he was suspected Of
subversive ideas" and had shown ''revolu-
tionary spirit against the authorities" The
place of his exile was Sakhalin, whittier
Alexieff was going as governor.
Peter AlexieH would have liked to have
taken his son with him, but Ivan was
studying for the Civil Service and
he absolutely refused to accom-
pany his father, who consoled himself with
the thought that all danger of Ivan and
Rachel ever coming together had now pass
ed.
To those unacquainted with the ways
and mysteries oflegal procedure in Russia,
which, more than any other country in the
world, is hampered with red tape and
moves in rut from which it seems as if no
power on earth could lift it, it will appear
strange that Rachel Arama was not releas-
ed Immediately. But when once the Gov
eminent, i'll the name of the law, gets its
hold upon person, it is singularly reluct-
ant to let 20 that hold. TO us, with our
Western notions of the sacred rights Of the
subject all this sounds almost incredible,
| Il a. - -
by the rod, and her people groan i'll chains.
Some day they will rend these chains, and
then woe to them who have kept them so
long enthralled, until they have hardly
been able to call their souls their own.
And so it came to pass that
more than year elapsed before Rachel
Arama recovered her freedom, and then
it was only bestowed upon her as
all extreme favor notwithstanding that it
was proved that she had been committed
on groundleSs charge. When she emer-
ged from the prison she was an utterly
changed woman. The iron had ground it.
selfinto her very heart, and had empoison-
all she had endured and suffered madden
ed her, and she was stirred and led
with fierce desire for vengeance on him
who had wrought all the wrong, and shat
tered her hopes and blighted her life and
the lives of those so dear to her. Those
weary months she passed as a prisoner
had seemed to her like years. They had
been iraught with a misery that had no
words whereWiths to express itself. No
news ever came to her OF the dear ones,
and so suspense was added to her we;ghty
burden of woe Was it surprising, there
fore, that silver threads began to show
themselves in her raven hair, and the
brightness of her eyes grew dim? She had
entered the prison as atender, gentle, guile
less girl. She came forth as hard, stern
woman, with only one aim, one object in
life.
The Rachel of yore was dead, and new
Rachel had come to life Her beauty still
confinement, the fetid atmosphere peculiar
to Russian prison, and the vile and
coarse fare. Her sorrow and shame might
have prompted her-as many hundreds of
unfortunates have been prompted--to end
her broken life. But one hope sustained
her, and she dreamed of a day when ven
geance might be hers.
To understand how such change could
have been wrought in one SO fair and
gentle as she, you must go through what
she went through; you must have your
dearest treasures torn ruthlessly from YOU;
you must every hour of the day and night
feel that you are the victim ola barbarous
wrong; you must nurse this wrong until it
takes possession of you, and slowly per-
meates you with thesunquenchable desire
to crush your wronger, you must be bowed
down with a knowledge that the sunshine
taken out of your life can never, never be
restored that the fires that have turned to
grey ashes on your hearth .can be reIighted
10 more; you must be shut off for months
and months rom the sound of loved voices
and tho look ofloving eyes; you must be-
come acquainted with human nature in its
most debased and brutal forms; oaths and
curses must ring in your ears, alternating
with groans, signs, and wailing ofIthose
who have to bear the inhumanty of their
fe low-men. Then, and not till then, could
you properly comprehend the change that
would come about; for the human being is
| not born who could endure il and remain
the same.
In Nekrassohs house Rachel again found
shelter and protection, and, of course, she
learned that her father had been sent to
Siberia, and was already many months on
the journey; and, further, that the deposed
Chief of the Police land her own and her
fathers enemy had been appointed to the
goyernorship of Sakhalin, whittier her
lover, Moshka had been banished. Phen