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- XIII. A Ruined Family
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CHAPTER XIII.
A RUINED FAMILY.
Wealth and Rank—A Good Landowner and His Clever
Son—Schooldays—Liberal Opinions and Their Dangers—Disorder in the Schools—Accession
to the Estate—Scientific Research and Police Suspicion—At Moscow—A
Cruel Plot—Solitary Confinement Uncondemned—The Sentence—Exile to
Siberia—Destitution—Better Things—“No Rights”—Police and Love
Affairs—Fate of a Refugee—Waste of Human Life—Loss of the
Estate—A Young Girl’s Religious Experiences—Education—Good
Prospects—Struggle after Truth—Reading the New Testament—Persecution by
Priests and Police—Exile—A Generous Revenge—Another Sister’s
Fate—And a Brother’s—Mammon and Priestcraft.
There is no lack of ruined families in Russia. Not merely
those who by reckless and vicious living have worked their
own destruction, but families of the highest repute and
blameless life, who owe their misfortunes entirely to the machinations
of a “paternal” Government. They could be counted by the
thousand, these householders whose happiness has been crushed
by the Juggernaut of a cruel despotism, but we will here
content ourselves with one specimen. Ex uno disce omnes.
I met in different parts of Russia the débris, as one may say,
of this scattered family, whose reputation stood very high in
the eyes of wide and influential circles. One of the daughters,
who is well known to the authors, has supplied the following
facts concerning the origin and growth of their misfortunes,
chiefly centring round the history of her brother, whom we
will call Alexander.
This young man is the son of a rich estate owner, who
possessed 1,400 hectares (about 2 1/2 acres each) of land in two
provinces, with large herds of cattle and very many serfs, and
surrounded himself and family with all the comforts of life
usually enjoyed by the wealthy members of the nobility. He
was not, however, one of the many who spent all their means
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