FROM POVERTY TO WEALTH.
Ivan Strogoff was a Russian nobleman at the University of St.
Petersburg. Together with many of his noble colleagues, he imbibed
radical theories concerning freedom and the abuses practiced by the
imperial government. Added to this, he married a pretty but poor
Polish girl, who died in giving birth to a son, Paul. Ivan one day was
arrested, secretly tried and condemned to Siberia. He, however, bought
his freedom from corrupt public officials, and fled to New York with
his son. Then he began a battle with the world in which starvation and
misery constantly held the upper hand. Nothing succeeded with him. He
could gain no foothold. His nature, naturally honest and bright, became
soured, until at times he actually hated even his son, Paul. The latter
was a noble specimen of physical humanity, and apparently seemed to
thrive on the hardships which both father and son seemed compelled by
cruel fate to endure. This continued until Paul was about 10 years
old. Then it was that Ivan brought home one night a long envelope,
and while Paul slept in their garret in the slums, Ivan, his father,
sat long into the night, until the candle burned out in the socket,
reading documents with long, gold seals on them. It was a promise from
an influential Russian official, toward a restoration of Strogoff’s
estates, if the exile should return and swear anew his allegiance to
the Czar. Now Strogoff’s vain struggles in the new world had sobered
him. Many of the wild dreams of youth had disappeared, and he was ready
and quite prepared to accept good fortune again, even if it meant a
sacrifice of those poetic dreams that had caused the misfortunes of his
earlier days.
He had but enough money left to barely get back to St. Petersburg
alone, and the great question was: What could be done with Paul? He
finally saw the keeper of the lodging, and received every assurance
that Paul would be cared for until his father could send for him.
So Ivan kissed the sleeping boy, and ere the sun had started on his
course, was on the broad Atlantic, his brain busy with teeming projects
for the newer and noble future that seemed to spread out before him.
Politics in Russia, however, are even worse and more complicated than
in New York under Tammany. By the time Ivan reached the seat of Russia
government, his friend had lost imperial favor. The plots against the
life of the Czar had rendered a restoration to wealth and power of
great difficulty, and almost an impossibility. Then began a struggle
which slowly but surely sapped the vital energy of the returned exile.
Each day brought forth fresh complications. Three times during a period
of ten years the poor devil was compelled to fly to save himself from
the enforcement of the old sentence, that like the sword of Damocles,
hung over him. But with a perseverance worthy of all admiration, he
persisted, and something he could not define, would not let him die.
To add to his misery, Paul had apparently been swallowed up, and never
again while life remained, did the doubly unfortunate man ever hear of
the boy he had abandoned to the cold charity of the New York lodging
house keeper.
At length the great day came! Ivan Strogoff was ushered into the
presence of the Czar, kissed the imperial hand, and once again trod his
ancestral halls. But the struggle was too hard. All vitality had been
sapped up in the battle, and the exile died before he had had time to
enjoy his return to prosperity.
Upon his bed of death he gathered to himself that trusty friend who
had been faithful, and conjured him to search out Paul and in some way
compensate him for the terrible injustice inflicted upon the abandoned
boy. “Seek him out in poverty or shame, and win from his lips my
forgiveness, or I shall not rest in Heaven or in Hell.” Consoled by the
sacred promise of his friend so died he, and nature was gracious to vex
his tired soul no more, for truly had the man endured an undue share
of the mortal grief. But so is the world, and no man can measure the
amount of agony he can live through. He who fears death is a criminal
and a coward. A man should so live his life that death is the most
welcome gift of nature.