At last I arrived at an age when departure from home became compulsory, and one eventful day I bade farewell to those I loved and was drafted to Vologda to perform my military service. From a life of luxurious ease to a soldier’s existence in the barren district around Lake Kubinskoi was by no means a pleasurable change, especially as, according to law, no Jew can rise to the rank of officer, although he is bound to serve in the rank and file like all other Russians. Nevertheless, I endured the wearying monotony of eternal drill, receiving occasional letters that came from my distant home like brief rays of sunshine upon my otherwise dark, unhappy life. Suddenly, when I had been at Vologda about two years, they ceased. Several times I wrote, but received no answer. I telegraphed, but with the same result. I wrote to relatives in Petersburg inquiring the cause of my parents’ strange silence, yet even these letters remained unanswered. Unable to obtain leave of absence, the days passed slowly, and I grew sorely puzzled at the mystery. Imagine my feelings when one morning a comrade, who had had a _Novoë Vremya_ sent to him, handed me the newspaper and pointing to a line, asked— “Is he any relation of yours?” I looked eagerly where he indicated. My heart stood still, and the paper fell from my nerveless grasp. It was an announcement to the effect that “Isaac Prèhznev, Jew, of the Isàkievskaya, St. Petersburg,” had formed one of the convoy of prisoners exiled by administrative process to Siberia during the past week! Ignorant of the whereabouts of my mother and sister, and apprehensive regarding their future, I was refused leave and forced to continue my military service until the day arrived when I was free to return and seek them. To preserve the continuity of this narrative, events must here be described which were afterwards related to me by Mascha. From some unknown cause my unfortunate father had fallen into disfavour with the Tzar, although nothing was known of it until one night, during the progress of a ball at home, half-a-dozen men from the _Okhrannoë Otdelenïe_,[1] entered and arrested him. A fortnight later he was sent, without trial, to the mines of the Trans-Baikal, all he possessed was confiscated by the Government, and my mother and sister turned into the streets to starve. Our relations were poor and could do little to assist them; therefore, in order to hide their poverty, Mascha and her mother went to Mstislavl, a small sleepy town in the Government of Moghilev, where for nearly a year they earned a precarious livelihood by doing needlework and making lace. But the year was disastrous to Russia, for a terrible famine spread over the land, and, alas! for my unfortunate family, its effects were keenly felt in Moghilev. At the time I arrived at Petersburg in search of them, they had no work and were starving.