Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/271

Rh The case of Madame Tsébrikova herself is a recent case in point. For merely writing out the above story of injustice and other stories like it, and sending them to Alexander III. with an earnest and respectful letter imploring him to right such wrongs, Madame Tsébrikova has been exiled by administrative process to a remote village in the province of Vólogda. The only results of her letter were a decree of banishment and a contemptuous inquiry from the Tsar, "What business is it of hers?"

The two things that are most exasperating to a liberal and warm-hearted young Russian are, first, official lawlessness [próizvól] in the sphere of personal rights, and second, the suffering brought by such lawlessness upon near relatives and dear friends. In exile by administrative process these two exasperating agencies operate conjointly. The suffering of a loved wife, or the loss of an affectionate child, is hard enough to bear when it comes in the ordinary course of nature and seems to be inevitable; but when it comes as the direct result of unnecessary causes, such as injustice, tyranny, and official caprice, it has more than the bitterness of death, and it arouses fiercer passions than those that carry men into the storm of battle. As an illustration of this I will relate briefly the story of a young Russian surgeon who is known to a number of persons in the United States.

In the year 1879 there was living in the town of Ivángorod, in the province of Chernígof, a skilful and accomplished young surgeon named Dr. Biéli. Although he was a man of liberal views, he was not an agitator nor a revolutionist, and had taken no active part in political affairs. Some time in the late winter or early spring of 1879 there came to him, with letters of introduction, two young women who had been studying in one of the medical schools for women in St. Petersburg, and had been expelled and ordered to return to their homes in central Russia on account of their alleged political "untrustworthiness"