On the morning of that same day, at nine o'clock, a well-dressed lady
presented at the Bank of Commerce a number of unsigned bank shares. At
the same time a young man, also elegantly dressed, presented a series
of signed shares, made out in the name of "Princess Anna
Chechevinski." They were properly indorsed, the signature
corresponding to that in the bank books.
After a short interval the cashier of the bank paid over to the
well-dressed lady a hundred and fifty thousand rubles in bills, and to
the elegantly dressed young man seventy thousand rubles. The lady
signed her receipt in French, Teresa Dore; the young man signed his
name, Ivan Afonasieff, son of a merchant of Kostroma.
A little later on the same day--namely, about two o'clock--a light
carriage carried two passengers along the Pargoloff road: a quietly
dressed young woman and a quietly dressed young man. Toward evening
these same young people were traveling in a Finnish coach by the stony
mountain road in the direction of Abo.
Four days later the old Princess Chechevinski was buried in the Nevski
monastery.
On his return from the monastery, young Prince Chechevinski went
straight for the strong box, which he had hitherto seen only at a
distance, and even then only rarely. He expected to find a great deal
more money in it than he found--some hundred and fifty thousand
rubles; a hundred thousand in his late mother's name, and fifty
thousand in his own. This was the personal property of the old
princess, a part of her dowry. The young prince made a wry face--the
money might last him two or three years, not more. During the lifetime
of the old princess no one had known accurately how much she
possessed, so that it never even entered the young prince's head to
ask whether she had not had more. He was so unmethodical that he never
even looked into her account book, deciding that it was uninteresting
and not worth while.
That same day the janitor of one of the huge, dirty tenements in
Vosnesenski Prospekt brought to the police office notice of the fact
that the Pole, Kasimir Bodlevski, had left the city; and the
housekeeper of the late Princess Chechevinski informed the police that
the serf girl Natalia Pavlovna (Natasha) had disappeared without
leaving a trace, which the housekeeper now announced, as the three
days' limit had elapsed.
At that same hour the little ship of a certain Finnish captain was
gliding down the Gulf of Bothnia. The Finn stood at the helm and his
young son handled the sails. On the deck sat a young man and a young
woman. The young woman carried, in a little bag hung round her neck,
two hundred and forty-four thousand rubles in bills, and she and her
companion carried pistols in their pockets for use in case of need.
Their passports declared that the young woman belonged to the noble
class, and was the widow of a college assessor, her name being Maria
Solontseva, while the young man was a Pole, Kasimir Bodlevski.
The little ship was crossing the Gulf of Bothnia toward the coast of
Sweden.