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as servant to one of the banished sectaries, and my
sleeping-place is near the door, so I have been exposed to draught
and got a severe chill.”
In the following spring the Dukhobortsi gave him a small
holding, which he cultivated as a kitchen-garden. His wife
and children joined him in July, 1892, in voluntary
participation of his exile.
Cholera broke out in the late summer. Khilkov had a little
store of medicine, and the Dukhobortsi collected forty roubles,
with which they asked him to purchase the most necessary
drugs. Both Prince and Princess Khilkov threw themselves
into the work of tending the cholera patients with untiring
assiduity, and had the satisfaction of keeping down the deaths
to a comparatively small number. Besides this small stock of
medicines, procured by the exiles themselves, there was no
other in the district, nor any physicians. It is true a “medical
commission” did come from official quarters, but they had no
remedies with them, and even wanted to take what they found in
Baschkitchet. This was, however, refused them. My
trustworthy informant told me that “these gentlemen do not visit
the patients, but hunt the cholera, which they wish to frighten
away, carefully avoiding all cholera-stricken people who could
infect them.”
Prince Khilkov and his wife were not married according to
the rites of the Orthodox Church. Hence, as another blow at
the heretic, the authorities have declared their children
illegitimate. By the Russian law, they should be therefore under
the care of the Princess, who belongs to the Lutheran Church;
but by order of the late Tsar, Alexander III., they were taken
from their parents altogether and placed under guardians in St.
Petersburg, to be brought up in the “Orthodox” faith. To an
appeal made to him by the Princess the Tsar vouchsafed no
reply. Letters from Russia received at the moment of writing
bring the information that the present Tsar has treated
another appeal sent to him personally in the like courteous
fashion. Their infant girl, not yet one year old, they have,
however, so far been permitted to keep.
By request Khilkov wrote out for circulation among his
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