Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIII. A Ruined Family
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difficult for him. He had been a child among them, and they
considered him as one of their own. They gratefully received
his counsels and tried to profit by them.
But not even on his ancestral estate could he be left in peace.
The local police became inquisitive and put all manner of
questions to his mother. Why did he dress so plainly? Why
did he work as a common labourer in the fields? Why did he
talk so much and so intimately with the peasants?
One thing especially aroused their liveliest suspicions. He
had built a little house for himself at some distance from the
family residence. Certainly this could have no other object
than to serve as a centre for revolutionary meetings. Here
they visited him at all hours of the night and day, searching
for something compromising. They could, however, find
nothing illegal, for the simple reason that he had built the
place solely for the purpose of pursuing his mechanical
studies and experiments without interruption or
disturbance—a purpose they succeeded in effectually frustrating. Even
this entire absence of anything on which to rest suspicion did
not satisfy them, for they were, as a matter of fact, instigated
by the kulacks or financial harpies of the district, who wanted
to remove him so that they might have a hand in the
administration of the estate—from purely benevolent motives, of
course.
Life under these conditions of eternal police interference
became unbearable; he resolved to leave the estate for a time,
and entered the Technical Institute at Moscow. Here he won
golden opinions from all: his teachers were proud of his
splendid abilities and earnest application to his studies; his
fellow-students loved him for his gentleness, and respected his
stable character and firm convictions. Soon there gathered
round him another circle of liberal-minded young men, as in
his former schooldays, with the same results.
The authorities keep an especially strict watch over the
students in large cities, and Alexander and his room-mate
speedily became suspected persons. Private enmity supplied
what was lacking in Government suspicion, and a diabolical
plot was hatched against him.
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