34 ADVENTURES IN IDEALISM 



and whatever he could lay his hands on. He expected 

 to do the same thing while my husband was the man- 

 ager on his son's estate. Now, while my husband was 

 perfectly willing to let 'him have a reasonable quan- 

 tity of the produce for his home table, he would not 

 allow an extravagant robbing of the farms, as he had 

 to show the owner the practical results of his farming 

 methods. A clash could hardly be avoided. 



It happened that my husband's grandmother de- 

 cided to come and visit us, and she set out without 

 informing us beforehand. She stopped at the stanitza, 

 at the priest's house, to inquire how to reach her 

 grandson. Then only did he find out that the man 

 who was managing his son's estate was a Jew. This 

 was more than his pious Christian soul could bear. 

 He began to bombard his son with letters, imploring 

 him to consider what he was doing, begging him to 

 think of his soul his after-life. And although his 

 son had written to my husband again and again to 

 tell him how much he was pleased with the improve- 

 ments and the results obtained in so short a time from 

 his methods; how much he appreciated the splendid 

 relation between my husband, the tenants and all the 

 neighboring villagers, yet the passionate, incessant 

 appeals of the father to his son had their effect. 



In February, 1887, with our two daughters, Marie 

 and Vera, we left for America. The two experiences, 

 one with the editor of Agriculture, and the other 

 with the owner of the Caucasus estate, showed my 



