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Updated: June 24, 2025
When, two hours later, the doctor, coming for the third time, wished to see his patient and entered her bedroom, he found only the old woman's lifeless body. The blow had been too much the daughter of the ancient and ever honorable line of Chechevinski a fugitive and a thief! Natasha had had her revenge.
He had forgotten to liberate his housekeeper and her daughter, and, as he was a bachelor, his estate went to his next of kin, the elder Princess Chechevinski. Between the brother and sister a cordial hatred had existed, and they had not seen one another for years. Coming to take possession of the estate, Princess Chechevinski carried things with a high hand.
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.
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.
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.
PRINCESS ANNA CHECHEVINSKI!" he continued with emphasis, indicating his poor, decrepit sister. "Of course you would not have recognized her, baroness." "But I recognized Natasha immediately," said the old woman quietly, her eyes still fixed on Natasha's face. The baroness suddenly turned as white as a sheet, and with trembling hands caught the back of a heavy armchair.
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.
"The former mistress has recognized her former maid that is all." "How does this woman come to be here? Who is she?" "I have told you already; Princess Anna Chechevinski. And as to how she came here, that was also a coincidence, and a strange one." "Impossible!" exclaimed the baroness. "Why impossible? They say the dead sometimes return from the tomb, and the princess is still alive.
"I'll go and get drunk," he decided, going through the door, and gloomily wending his way to the public house. Princess Anna Chechevinski for the last time looked at the home of her girlhood, over which the St. Petersburg twilight was descending. Defying the commands of her mother, the traditions of her family, she had decided to elope with the man of her choice.
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.
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