Fortunately for Alexander, one of his stories was published by the journalist "Alexander Yablonovsky" in the popular newspaper "Syn Otechestva". The article was read by K.K. Rochet, a French-Russian living in Zhitomir, who decided to adopt the boy. Alexander entered a Zhitomir gymnasium, from which he was also eventually expelled after a conflict with the principal. Alexander served two years in the Army and then got a job as a customs officer in the village of Novosiltsy on the border with Austria-Hungary. In 1904, he returned to his adoptive family in Zhitomir and worked as a journalist for the magazine "Volynsky Vestnik". The magazine went bankrupt within two months, and Alexander decided to continue his journalistic career in Saint Petersburg.