On the wharf of the Fontauka, not far from Simeonovski Bridge, a crowd
was gathered. In the midst of the crowd a dispute raged between an old
woman, tattered, disheveled, miserable, and an impudent-looking youth.
The old woman was evidently stupid from misery and destitution.
While the quarrel raged a new observer approached the crowd. He was
walking leisurely, evidently without an aim and merely to pass the
time, so it is not to be wondered at that the loud dispute arrested
his attention.
"Who are you, anyway, you old hag? What is your name?" cried the
impudent youth.
"My name? My name?" muttered the old woman in confusion. "I am a--I am
a princess," and she blinked at the crowd.
Everyone burst out laughing. "Her Excellency, the Princess! Make way
for the Princess!" cried the youth.
The old woman burst into sudden anger.
"Yes, I tell you, I am a princess by birth!" and her eyes flashed as
she tried to draw herself up and impose on the bantering crowd.
"Princess What? Princess Which? Princess How?" cried the impudent
youth, and all laughed loudly.
"No! Not Princess How!" answered the old woman, losing the last shred
of self-restraint; "but Princess Che-che-vin-ski! Princess Anna
Chechevinski!"
When he heard this name Count Kallash started and his whole expression
changed. He grew suddenly pale, and with a vigorous effort pushed his
way through the crowd to the miserable old woman's side.
"Come!" he said, taking her by the arm. "Come with me! I have
something for you!"
"Something for me?" answered the old woman, looking up with stupid
inquiry and already forgetting the existence of the impudent youth.
"Yes, I'll come! What have you got for me?"
Count Kallash led her by the arm out of the crowd, which began to
disperse, abashed by his appearance and air of determination.
Presently he hailed a carriage, and putting the old woman in, ordered
the coachman to drive to his rooms.
There he did his best to make the miserable old woman comfortable, and
his housekeeper presently saw that she was washed and fed, and soon
the old woman was sleeping in the housekeeper's room.
To explain this extraordinary event we must go back twenty years.
In 1838 Princess Anna Chechevinski, then in her twenty-sixth year, had
defied her parents, thrown to the winds the traditions of her princely
race, and fled with the man of her choice, followed by her mother's
curses and the ironical congratulations of her brother, who thus
became sole heir.
After a year or two she was left alone by the death of her companion,
and step by step she learned all the lessons of sorrow. From one stage
of misfortune to another she gradually fell into the deepest misery,
and had become a poor old beggar in the streets when Count Kallash
came so unexpectedly to her rescue.
It will be remembered that, as a result of Natasha's act of vengeance,
the elder Princess Chechevinski left behind her only a fraction of the
money her son expected to inherit. And this fraction he by no means
hoarded, but with cynical disregard of the future he poured money out
like water, gambling, drinking, plunging into every form of
dissipation. Within a few months his entire inheritance was
squandered.
Several years earlier Prince Chechevinski had taken a deep interest in
conjuring and had devoted time and care to the study of various forms
of parlor magic. He had even paid considerable sums to traveling
conjurers in exchange for their secrets. Naturally gifted, he had
mastered some of the most difficult tricks, and his skill in card
conjuring would not have done discredit even to a professional
magician.
The evening when his capital had almost melted away and the shadow of
ruin lay heavy upon him, he happened to be present at a reception
where card play was going on and considerable sums were staked.
A vacancy at one of the tables could not be filled, and, in spite of
his weak protest of unwillingness, Prince Chechevinski was pressed
into service. He won for the first few rounds, and then began to lose,
till the amount of his losses far exceeded the slender remainder of
his capital. A chance occurred where, by the simple expedient of
neutralizing the cut, mere child's play for one so skilled in
conjuring, he was able to turn the scale in his favor, winning back in
a single game all that he had already lost. He had hesitated for a
moment, feeling the abyss yawning beneath him; then he had falsed,
made the pass, and won the game. That night he swore to himself that
he would never cheat again, never again be tempted to dishonor his
birth; and he kept his oath till his next run of bad luck, when he
once more neutralized the cut and turned the "luck" in his direction.
The result was almost a certainty from the outset, Prince Chechevinski
became a habitual card sharper.
For a long time fortune favored him. His mother's reputation for
wealth, the knowledge that he was her sole heir, the high position of
the family, shielded him from suspicion. Then came the thunderclap. He
was caught in the act of "dealing a second" in the English Club, and
driven from the club as a blackleg. Other reverses followed: a public
refusal on the part of an officer to play cards with him, followed by
a like refusal to give him satisfaction in a duel; a second occasion
in which he was caught redhanded; a criminal trial; six years in
Siberia. After two years he escaped by way of the Chinese frontier,
and months after returned to Europe. For two years he practiced his
skill at Constantinople. Then he made his way to Buda-Pesth, then to
Vienna. While in the dual monarchy, he had come across a
poverty-stricken Magyar noble, named Kallash, whom he had sheltered in
a fit of generous pity, and who had died in his room at the Golden
Eagle Inn. Prince Chechevinski, who had already borne many aliases,
showed his grief at the old Magyar's death by adopting his name and
title; hence it was that he presented himself in St. Petersburg in the
season of 1858 under the high-sounding title of Count Kallash.
An extraordinary coincidence, already described, had brought him face
to face with his sister Anna, whom he had never even heard of in all
the years since her flight. He found her now, poverty-stricken,
prematurely old, almost demented, and, though he had hated her
cordially in days gone by, his pity was aroused by her wretchedness,
and he took her to his home, clothed and fed her, and surrounded her
with such comforts as his bachelor apartment offered.
In the days that followed, every doubt he might have had as to her
identity was dispelled. She talked freely of their early childhood, of
their father's death, of their mother; she even spoke of her brother's
coldness and hostility in terms which drove away the last shadow of
doubt whether she was really his sister. But at first he made no
corresponding revelations, remaining for her only Count Kallash.