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Exiled To Siberia

Exiled To Siberia image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
April
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Count Kazimoff's Awful Fifty Years of Life as a Convict.

How a Russian Nobleman Was Convicted of a Crime of Which He Was Innocent--Horrors of the Mines.

There recently arrived in St. Petersburg a broken down old man whose life story is one of the most remarkable in the annals of the world. This old man was Count Theodore Kazimoff, who had just returned from Siberia, whither he was exiled fifty years ago for the murder of his best friend, Count Demetri Dolgorouki.

The beginning of this remarkable story takes us back to the year 1852, when Count Theodore Kazimoff was a gay young officer in the cavalry guards. His father was the head of the Kazimoffs, one of the foremost noble families of the Russian empire, and, being the eldest son, Count Theodore was the heir to the greater part of the vast estates and wealth which his forefathers had accumulated. He was twenty-five years old, tall and handsome and a favorite in St. Petersburg's exclusive circles.

Count Demetri Dolgorouki, his most intimate friend, was a young man in similarly fortunate circumstances. He, too, was an eldest son and the heir to immense wealth and estates, hardly less extensive than those of Count Kazimoff, on which they bordered.

Finally the young men fell out because of a handsome actress, to whom both were paying attention. Of course the result was a duel, in which Count Kazimoff was wounded in the arm. The young men shook hands and agreed that their friendship should be resumed on its old footing.

The reconciliation seemed complete, and not long afterward Count Dolgorouki accepted an invitation from Count Kazimoff to go hunting on his estate at Ljubjana, in the province of Novgorod.

On the third day of their stay came the tragedy that meant death to the one and lifelong penal servitude to the other. Kazimoff and Dolgorouki were out hunting together, and the topic of Fedora Tebloff seems to have been raised again, for the huntsmen and beaters in attendance on them noticed that the two noblemen were engaged in a hot dispute. Their voices were raised in anger, and the attendants heard Count Dolgorouki threaten to inform Count Kazimoff's fiancee of his fondness for Fedora Tebloff, to which Kazimoff replied that he would kill him if he did.

At the height of their quarrel, when both men were beside themselves, they suddenly found themselves at close quarters with two wild boars and started off in hot haste to get a shot at the game. The attendants were left behind, but they heard the sound of many gunshots and concluded that the two noblemen were having good sport.

Nearly an hour later Count Kazimoff rejoined the party of beaters and inquired where Dolgorouki was. Dolgorouki, however, had not been seen, and as he did not appear when darkness set in a search was made for him, but in vain. The next day the search was resumed, and, guided by marks of blood, the rescue party found his dead body buried in ten feet of snow about half a mile from the spot where he had last been seen in the company of his host, Count Kazimoff, who was at once arrested on suspicion of having committed the murder.

Of course the evidence against the count was overwhelming. The enmity between the two young men which had led to the duel, the sudden reconciliation, the invitation to hunt on Kazimoff's estate, the renewed quarrel and the gunshots heard by the beaters all pointed to Kazimoff's guilt. He was accused of having feigned reconciliation with Dolgorouki in order to lure him to his remote estate and there to murder him in the woods, confident in the assumption that his own retainers would not give evidence against him. No stranger had been seen in the neighborhood for weeks, and no one else was in that part of the forest when the crime was committed.

Kazimoff  protested his innocence, but his protestations were disregarded, and he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to one of lifelong banishment to Siberia, with penal servitude for the first ten years. Before his start eastward Count Kazimoff had to undergo the terrible ordeal of being formally degraded from his rank as an officer. Count Kazimoff was brought to the parade grounds in chains, and two common soldiers stripped him of his uniform and dressed him in convict garb before the eyes of the assembled regiment. This accomplished, they took his sword out of its scabbard, broke it and beat him with the blunt edge of the severed halves.

Next, one half of Kazimoff's head was shaved bald and the hair on the remaining half cropped close. Finally he was led around in front of all the ranks, while the two soldiers showered blows on his bare back with the dreaded knouts used by the Cossacks.

Count Kazimoff broke down utterly before the degrading ceremony was half over and wept bitterly and toward the end had to be dragged around in a fainting condition. A day or two later he started on his long and terrible journey to Siberia. To put the finishing touches to it all, the last two items of news that he heard from the outside world before leaving St. Petersburg were that his fiancee had become the betrothed of another man and that Fedora Tebloff had cursed him as the murderer of her lover, Dolgorouki.

Kazimoff was henceforth "Convict No. 108" and was dispatched into exile in company with a gang of other unfortunates condemned to the same fate.

Their destination was Zistam, some hundred miles north of Tomsk, and on their arrival there they were put to work in the mines. Kazimoff was chained night and day to four other convicts, all coarse, brutal fellows, and all undergoing punishment for crimes of exceptional violence.

For ten hours every day the five prisoners had to work together in the mines, and at night they slept together in a miserable hut. When there was work to be done, the four plebeian criminals combined to give their aristocratic companion the biggest share of it, and when rations were served they took care that he received the smallest share.

It is a mystery how Kazimoff lived through these terrible years at all, for when they were over he resembled a broken down man of seventy, though he was only thirty-five. Thenceforth he was allowed to inhabit his own hut and to do practically what he liked so long as he did not leave the village and reported himself to the authorities twice a day. Rations were served to him, and he received a small allowance of money for necessary expenses.

The truth about the mystery came out before the death of a workman named Tebloff recently. Tebloff was the brother of the pretty Fedora, who had been the cause of the quarrel between Kazimoff and Dolgorouki, and on his deathbed he sent for a priest to hear his confession that he had murdered Count Dolgorouki. The count, he told the priest, had seduced his sister Fedora, and he, the brother, had sworn to avenge her wrongs. He had followed Count Dolgorouki to Ljubjana, had waited for his opportunity and had murdered him in the wood and buried his body in the snow. He had come and gone without seeing any one and without being seen, and after the crime was committed he escaped from the neighborhood without attracting attention.

He had heard that Count Kazimoff had been condemned for the murder, but he had not had the courage to come forward and admit that he himself had been the real culprit. He desired, however, to unburden his mind of this secret before his death and to obtain forgiveness for the double sin which he had committed. Tebloff swore to his confession on the crucifix, and it was considered sufficient to justify Count Kazimoff's immediate pardon.