The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1917-05-04


came torture To me. The sun shOne
so brightly without the prison walls
and here | was shut up. The church
bells which tolled so solemnly and joy
fully outside, here in the prison sound
ed like the ringing of bells at a funer-
al"
She was seventeen years old when
she was sentenced to be eXiled to
eastern Siberia for life.
Down the dusty road to the railroad
station the political prisoners were
marched, fettered wrist to wrist with
murderers and robbers. In the "for-
warding PRISONS" where they stopped
along the route, they slept on the filthy
floors with no covering save the gray
overcoats with yellow diamond
athwart the shoulders, which marks
the Russian convict. After sixteen
days of travel they reached the ST.
berian city from which they were to
be distributed in exile. Marie Sukloff
was TO 90 alone TO tiny village.
1t was village of thirty huts. She
was to stay in the house of the church
watchman, and every day the village
constable should call to see that she
was still there. The women came out
and wept over her.
$50 young! So young! How your
mother must have wept!"
Her white-haired host found out that
she could read. He brought out a let
ter from his son, soldier in the war
against Japan, to have her read it to
him. Soon the news spread through
the village-here was one who could
read! The simple people brought her
everything they had to read-she must
read aloud to them. They treated
her with great reverence.
II was no longer in prison. l saw
no more the prison walls, but did not |
feel myself free. The purpOseless life
in a remote Siberian village seemed |
to me worse than prison. The peas !
ants, together with the priest, drank |
for two or three days during the week.
government liquor shop and when they
had no ready cash they pawned any
thing they could conveniently carry
cut of the house. 1t seemed that only
The vodka gave them the possibility
If forgetting the miseries of the
Eretched existence. In those drunken
lays | hid myself in some corner that
10 one might see me, and sat looking
It the heaps of snow which separated
ne from the rest of the living. You
must escape, you must escape from
lere,' an inner voice grew more and
more insistent."
She did escape. A forged passport I
vas procured, and money from revo-
utiOnists, eXiles in Siberia. She set
'ut on foot through the snow to
illdge 2S miles away. A peasant in |
sleigh helped her on her way. In |
his village were man and his wife
nd a child with whom she had come I
nto exile. Marie Sukloff took the {
hid with her, because no one would
e looking for a woman with a child.
hey went by Sleigh-On and on t
through the endless snow and cold. /
Everywhere the child proved protec-
ION; no heed was paid to the pair. c
hey reached Wilma; the child was de-
vered to its grandparents and Marie
ukloff saw her parents once more.
Ter father tried to press upon her t
loney he had borrowed, that she might Ii
0 abroad and live in safety, but she S
Ould not.
Father, ! cannot do that. The k
ling which was done to me and thou b
lnds of others cannot go unpublished. Il
cannot let 1t go! replied" she says. "
my father took my head in his
lnds and looked with his soft eyes Il
raight at mine. S
"'Oh, God What have they made OF
you? You do not even cry, and IL
ere is so much hatred in your eyes, W
zen at the sight of your old parents m
She went to Geneva and became e,
rrorist. They sent her back to Rus el
a to slay. NichOlai, the painter, a.