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

The recently published memoirs of Sonya
Kovalevsky have attracted much attention
in Europe and win probably prove as inter-
esting to American readers. They have
three distinct charms. First, they are the
records of the life and experiences of one of
the most gifted and remarkable women of
the century; second, they reveal new
aspects of that strange evolution that is
going on in the higher circles of Russian
society, and out of which have come such
extraordinary developments as Nihilism
and anarchy; and, thirdly, they narrate
the events of career sufficiently varied
and adventurous to be interesting as a
work of fiction had there been no reality
in it.
Sonys Kovalevsky, the daughter of
General Krukovsky, was born in 1850, and
as her nurse afterward told her she came
into the world at the wrong time. Her
birth, it seems, occurred just at time
when her father, through bad luck at cards,
had lost so large sum of money he was
compelled to let everything go and pawn
his wife's diamonds in order to pay his
gambling debts. He and his wife, more
over, were very DESTROYS the child should
be a boy, as they had already daughter.
The family, therefore, was in no good
humor when the little girl was born.
Sonya always believed her parents did not
love her as they loved her sister and the
brother who came afterward, and perhaps
this feeling nurtured in childhood had
much to do with the development of that
jealous trait in her disposition, which be-
came in afterlife 30 serious defect in
character and the source Of 80 much
wretchedness to herself.
In great rambling country house in
the pine forests of Russia, the two Krukov.
sky sisters grew up together. The elder
sister Aniuta, being favorite with her
mother and q spoiled beauty, soon man.
aged to get herself emancipated from the
schoolroom, and thereafter Sonya had her
struggles with the English governess sin
tons of childhood which the memoir con-
tains, there are some excellent pictures
given of Russian country life. The rela-
tons of master and servant as they APP
peared in the eyes of child and incidents
growing out of that relationship furnish
Sonya with some of the most impressive Of
her memories. One was the awful story of
an aunt who was murdered by her SER
wants because of her cruelty, and another
the strange story of midd1e-aged woman
among the servants, who fell in love with
young man and then systematically
robbed the house in order to provide him
with luxuries and presents.
AS the two sisters grew to young woman
hood their minds and feelings became
affected by influences outside the narrow
domain Of their country home. An extra
ordinary impulse was moving upon the
younger generation of Russia 1t that time
Sonya says: Between the years 1880 and
1870 all the educated classes of Russian
society were occupied exclusively with one
questionable family discord between the
old and the young. Ask about whatever
noble family you would at that time, you
always heard one and the same thing-the
parents had quarreled with the children.
And the quarrels had not arisen from any
upon questions of q purely theoretical.
abstract character. They could not agree
about their convictions. 1t was only that,
but this only sufficed to make children
abandon their parents and parents disown
their children. An epidemic seemed to
seize upon the children-especially the
girls-an epidemic of fleeing from the
parental roof. In our immediate neighbor-
hood all was well, but from other places
this or that landed proprietor had run
away; this one abroad, the other to st.
Petersburg to join the nihilists."
wholly unscathed from this epidemic.
Aniuta, under the influence of Bulwer's
novels, set about writing stories herself,
and was so successful as to obtain the inn
mediate acceptance Of them by Dostocv-
sky, ut that time one of the Leading literary
men and foremost editors in Russia.
When Krukovsky discovered that his
daughter was not only writing stories, but
was accepting money for them, his rage
knew no bounds.
Anything" he said to his daughter,
"may be expected from girl who IL cspa-