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I did not know very much about him except that he was a very wealthy merchant, who had made his money by selling cheap sweets to the peasant. He lived, I knew, an immoral and self-indulgent life, and his hobby was the quite indiscriminate collection of modern Russian paintings, his walls being plastered with innumerable works by Benois, Somoff, Dobeijinsky, Yakofflyeff, and Lançeray.

Were M. Somoff and his wife alive, or had they perished, like numbers of their fellow-countrymen, by famine or by fire, or amid the numerous ills of a captured city? This was a problem not to be solved for many long years. Nothing could be heard of them, so Catharine left her native place with her kind friend and protectress, the sutler's wife.

It is difficult to imagine what the tenderly-nurtured Catharine Somoff had to undergo in this perilous journey. The hills and forests around presented only some white, indistinct masses, scarcely visible through the thick fog.

M. Somoff and his long-lost Catharine returned to Moscow, where they were welcomed with surprise and joy by the delighted mother, who forgot all her sorrows when once more embracing her child, who had been lost to her for so many long years. Very soon the young Russian's marvellous history became known.

They set off in the direction of the forest whence the report of the gun had proceeded the identical spot where Catharine Somoff had been threatened by the bear some years ago. Great anxiety was felt at the Castle during the hour that passed before the brave Barezewski appeared, followed by his men, who bore the body of a bleeding Russian on a litter.

Amid the confusion and panic that prevailed in the burning city, Catharine Somoff, the little daughter of a Russian merchant, had been separated from her relations and friends, and to her dismay found herself alone in the crowd. The weather was intensely cold. Forsaken and half frozen, the child wandered up and down, not knowing where to find shelter.

Artists Somoff and Benois and Dobujinsky; novelists like Sologub and Merejkowsky; dancers like Karsavina actors from all over Petrograd they were there, I expect, to add criticism and argument to the adulation of friends and of the carelessly observant rich Jews and merchants who had come simply to display their jewellery.

On the anniversary of the Russian child's wonderful and providential deliverance from a frightful death, it was customary each year to have a grand feast at the Castle, when the gentle and beloved Catharine Somoff would relate anew her thrilling history, and review the kindness shown her by her generous protectors, who looked upon her in every respect as their own child.