The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-07-21

You sell your novels now, but the time
will probably come when you will sell your
self"
For time the storm raised in this way
crushed the aspirations OF the sisters, but
in the end the old general relented. He
heard Aniuta read her story, and promised
her to make Dostoevsky's acquaintance on
his next visit to St. Petersburg. After
this the girls themselves were taken to the
capital where the poet became a frequent
visitor to the house. Then came the COM
plication that Dostoevsky fell in love with
Aniuta, and Sonya, though child, fell in
love with him. There was a period of
keen jealousy on the part OF the younger
sister, but the elder laughed her out of it,
and Sonya emerged from the passion to
feel that she had ceased to be q child and
become young woman.
At this point ends Sonya's personal mar
ratiye of the recollections of her childhood
The biography is taken up then by her
friend, Anna Charlotte Letter, Duchess of
Caianello, who begins her story when
Sonya, at the age of IL, was taken by her
parents to pass the winter at st. Peters
burg. Just at that time in 1867 strong
movement was making itself felt among
the thinking portion of the rising genera
ton in Russia. This movement, which
may be described as an ardent desire for
the freedom and progress of their father
3,
hundreds of them belonging to the best
families abandoned their homes and be-
took themselves to foreign universities in
order to study science.
As the parents in a majority of cases
opposed the movement, the daughters had
recourse to strange tactics characteristic of
the time and the country to effect their
purpose. They went through the form of
marriage with young men devoted to the
same ideas, which they held sacred, and
in this manner as married women they
escaped from parental authority and were
enabled to go abroad at the first opportu-
nity. Sonya, her sister Aniuta and
friend, Inez, decided to make one of these
platonic marriages, it being the idea that
if one of them married and went abroad,
the parents of the other two could have no
objection to their going with her.
After reviewing the circle of their &C.
auaintance, the three girls decided to invite
a Young professor at the university to
marry one of them. The call was made
and the proposal offered in due form, but
the professor declined. A second attempt
was more successful. A young student,
Kovalevsky, who was about to go to Ger
to, and he consented to enter upon the
mock marriage, and selected Sonya as his
partner To force her fathers consent to
the marriage, Sonya left her home, went to
KovaIevsky's room, and in the evening
sent back note containing only these
words: "Father l am with Vladimir,
and beg yen will no longer oppose, our
note and surrendered. The marriage took
place at once, and Sonya, with her sister,
their friend Inez and the mock husband,
Koyalevsky, set out for Heidelberg.
Sonya and her husband prosecuted their
studies seriously. Aniuta and her friend
soon left the university town and went to
Paris, where Anirta became infatuated
with young Frenchman, leader in the
commune, and went to live with him as
his wife. The two were afterward married,
and returning to Russia they lived on the
estate of General Krukovsky, the gifted
Aniuta seeming to have no other ambition
afterward than that of winning the love
of her husband, which she never did.
For Sonya life now began to be earnest.
She visited England, made the acquaint-
ance of such people as George Eliot, OAR
win, Huxley and Spencer. She made
real marriage with her husband and at the
same time prosecuted her studies with new
ardor. 1t was not long before she became
distinguished as mathematician, and
when, in 1874, they returned to Russia
both herself and her husband had become
persons of distinction in intellectual cir
cles.
In st. Petersburg the gifted woman
turned from mathematics to literature and
began to write, anonymously, newspaper
articles, poetry, theatrical criticisms, and
she also completed a novel, 1.-THE Privat-
Decent" descriptive of life In German
university town. This period of her life
was, terminated by differences with her
husband concerning the family finances,
and Sonya, taking her child with her, left
Russia to return to Germany. An incident
of the trip shows one of the remarkable
characteristics OF the woman. An elderly
man, moved by her weeping and Judging
from her dress that she was young
woman in poor circumstances, spoke to
her some words of consolation. In this
way an acquaintance sprang up, which
pleased Sonya SO much that when the gen.
tleman proposed they stop in town they
were passing through she consented to do
80, and they spent there two days in sight
seeing.
The biographer in telling this story says:
1.-THE episode is characteristic of Sonya's
love of adventure. The stranger had been
sympathetic to her. She felt alone in the
which chance had thrown in her way?
Another woman might have hopelessly
compromised herself in mans eyes by
such conduct. But Sonya knew well how
to draw the line whenever she chose. No
man ever misunderstood her."
A few years later bonya, WnlIe living In
Parts, entered upon an equally strange re-
lation with young man who was fire.
quently seen leaving her rooms at 2 In the
morning after spending all day with her.
Nevertheless it is said the friendship exist
ing between these two was of the most
ideal kind imaginable.
Shortly after this her repute as mathe-
matician, which by this time was WIDELY
established, obtained for her an appoint.
ment as assistant professor of mathematics
at the University of Stockholm. Here she
performed her greatest work and for relax
alton undertook the writing of dramas and
novels. In 1883 she received from the
French Academy of Science the Prix
Bordin, the greatest scientific honor which
any woman has ever gained, and one of
the greatest honors indeed to which the
votaries of science can aspire. In this
supreme triumph, however, she was not
happy. She had fallen in love with man
who disliked to see her seeking mbitiously
for honor and distinction, and she was
unable either to renounce love or to re-
nounce ambition. 1t was not long, how
ever, that she had to suffer in this per-
plexity. She had exhausted herself by her
ambitions and her passions and two years
after her success at Paris she died.
Sonya is thus described by the biog-
rapher: "She had serious and marked