In the year 1858, in the month of September, the "Report of the St.
Petersburg City Police" among the names of "Arrivals" included the
following:
_Baroness van Döring, Hanoverian subject.
Ian Vladislav Karozitch, Austrian subject_.
The persons above described might have been recognized among the
fashionable crowds which thronged the St. Petersburg terminus of
the Warsaw railway a few days before: A lady who looked not
more than thirty, though she was really thirty-eight, dressed
with simple elegance, tall and slender, admirably developed,
with beautifully clear complexion, piercing, intelligent gray eyes,
under finely outlined brows, thick chestnut hair, and a firm
mouth--almost a beauty, and with an expression of power, subtlety and
decision. "She is either a queen or a criminal," a physiognomist would
have said after observing her face. A gentleman with a red beard, whom
the lady addressed as "brother," not less elegantly dressed, and with
the same expression of subtlety and decision. They left the station in
a hired carriage, and drove to Demuth's Hotel.
Before narrating the adventures of these distinguished persons, let us
go back twenty years, and ask what became of Natasha and Bodlevski.
When last we saw them the ship that carried them away from Russia was
gliding across the Gulf of Bothnia toward the Swedish coast. Late in
the evening it slipped into the port of Stockholm, and the worthy
Finn, winding in and out among the heavy hulls in the harbor--he was
well used to the job--landed his passengers on the wharf at a lonely
spot near a lonely inn, where the customs officers rarely showed their
noses. Bodlevski, who had beforehand got ready the very modest sum to
pay for their passage, with pitiable looks and gestures and the few
Russian phrases the good Finn could understand, assured him that he
was a very poor man, and could not even pay the sum agreed on in full.
The deficit was inconsiderable, some two rubles in all, and the good
Finn was magnanimous; he slapped his passenger on the shoulder, called
him a "good comrade," declared that he would not press a poor man, and
would always be ready to do him a service. He even found quarters for
Bodlevski and Natasha in the inn, under his protection. The Finn was
indeed a very honest smuggler. On the next morning, bidding a final
farewell to their nautical friend, our couple made their way to the
office of the British Consul, and asked for an opportunity to speak
with him. At this point Natasha played the principal rôle.
"My husband is a Pole," said the handsome girl, taking a seat opposite
the consul in his private office, "and I myself am Russian on the
father's side, but my mother was English. My husband is involved in a
political enterprise; he was liable to transportation to Siberia, but
a chance made it possible for us to escape while the police were on
their way to arrest him. We are now political fugitives, and we
intrust our lives to the protection of English law. Be generous,
protect us, and send us to England!"
The ruse, skillfully planned and admirably presented, was completely
successful, and two or three days later the first passenger ship under
the English flag carried the happy couple to London.
Bodlevski destroyed his own passport and that of the college
assessor's widow, Maria Solontseva, which Natasha had needed as a
precaution while still on Russian soil. When they got to England, it
would be much handier to take new names. But with their new position
and these new names a great difficulty presented itself: they could
find no suitable outlet for their capital without arousing very
dangerous suspicions. The many-sided art of the London rogues is known
to all the world; in their club, Bodlevski, who had lost no time in
making certain pleasant and indispensable acquaintances there, soon
succeeded in getting for himself and Natasha admirably counterfeited
new passports, once more with new names and occupations. With these,
in a short time, they found their way to the Continent. They both felt
the full force of youth and a passionate desire to live and enjoy
life; in their hot heads hummed many a golden hope and plan; they
wished, to begin with, to invest their main capital somewhere, and
then to travel over Europe, and to choose a quiet corner somewhere
where they could settle down to a happy life.
Perhaps all this might have happened if it had not been for cards and
roulette and the perpetual desire of increasing their capital--for the
worthy couple fell into the hands of a talented company, whose agents
robbed them at Frascati's in Paris, and again in Hamburg and various
health resorts, so that hardly a year had passed when Bodlevski one
fine night woke up to the fact that they no longer possessed a ruble.
But they had passed a brilliant year, their arrival in the great
cities had had its effect, and especially since Natasha had become a
person of title; in the course of the year she succeeded in purchasing
an Austrian barony at a very reasonable figure--a barony which, of
course, only existed on paper.
When all his money was gone, there was nothing left for Bodlevski but
to enroll himself a member of the company which had so successfully
accomplished the transfer of his funds to their own pockets. Natasha's
beauty and Bodlevski's brains were such strong arguments that the
company willingly accepted them as new recruits. The two paid dear for
their knowledge, it is true, but their knowledge presently began to
bear fruit in considerable abundance. Day followed day, and year
succeeded year, a long series of horribly anxious nights, violent
feelings, mental perturbations, crafty and subtle schemes, a complete
cycle of rascalities, an entire science of covering up tracks, and the
perpetual shadow of justice, prison, and perhaps the scaffold.
Bodlevski, with his obstinate, persistent, and concentrated character,
reached the highest skill in card-sharping and the allied wiles. All
games of "chance" were for him games of skill. At thirty he looked at
least ten years older. The life he led, with its ceaseless effort,
endless mental work, perpetual anxiety, had made of him a fanatical
worshiper at the shrine of trickery. He dried up visibly in body and
grew old in mind, mastering all the difficult arts of his profession,
and only gained confidence and serenity when he had reached the
highest possible skill in every branch of his "work." From that moment
he took a new lease of life; he grew younger, he became gay and
self-confident, his health even visibly improved, and he assumed the
air and manner of a perfect gentleman.
As for Natasha, her life and efforts in concert with Bodlevski by no
means had the same wearing effect on her as on him. Her proud, decided
nature received all these impressions quite differently. She continued
to blossom out, to grow handsomer, to enjoy life, to take hearts
captive. All the events which aroused so keen a mental struggle in her
companion she met with entire equanimity. The reason was this: When
she made up her mind to anything, she always decided at once and with
unusual completeness; a very short time given to keen and accurate
consideration, a rapid weighing of the gains and losses of the matter
in hand, and then she went forward coldly and unswervingly on her
chosen path. Her first aim in life had been revenge, then a brilliant
and luxurious life--and she knew that they would cost dear. Therefore,
once embarked on her undertaking, Natasha remained calm and
indifferent, brilliantly distinguished, and ensnaring the just and the
unjust alike. Her intellect, education, skill, resource, and innate
tact made it possible for her everywhere to gain a footing in select
aristocratic society, and to play by no means the least rôle there.
Many beauties envied her, detested her, spoke evil of her, and yet
sought her friendship, because she almost always queened it in
society. Her friendship and sympathy always seemed so cordial, so
sincere and tender, and her epigrams were so pointed and poisonous,
that every hostile criticism seemed to shrivel up in that glittering
fire, and there seemed to be nothing left but to seek her friendship
and good will. For instance, if things went well in Baden, one could
confidently foretell that at the end of the summer season Natasha
would be found in Nice or Geneva, queen of the winter season, the
lioness of the day, and the arbiter of fashion. She and Bodlevski
always behaved with such propriety and watchful care that not a shadow
ever fell on Natasha's fame. It is true that Bodlevski had to change
his name once or twice and to seek a new field for his talents, and to
make sudden excursions to distant corners of Europe--sometimes in
pursuit of a promising "job," sometimes to evade the too persistent
attentions of the police. So far everything had turned out favorably,
and his name "had remained unstained," when suddenly a slight mishap
befell. The matter was a trifling one, but the misfortune was that it
happened in Paris. There was a chance that it might find issue in the
courts and the hulks, so that there ensued a more than ordinarily
rapid change of passports and a new excursion--this time to Russia,
back to their native land again, after an absence of twenty years.
Thus it happened that the papers announced the arrival in St.
Petersburg of Baroness von Döring and Ian Vladislav Karozitch.