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Updated: May 27, 2025
The Frantsiya is a very comfortable hotel, conducted upon French lines, and the two days I spent in Kazan were certainly quite enjoyable ones. On the evening of the third day my friend the hotel clerk sent a message to my room, and in response I at once descended to the bureau, when he informed me that the ladies had just arrived, a Madame Strepoff, and her maid Mademoiselle Kamensky.
He described the first-named, and I at once recognised her as the Tsaritza herself, though, of course, the tall, pale young man had no idea of her identity. I had merely told him that I expected the arrival of a lady whom I had met in Moscow some time ago. "Madame has taken the best suite of rooms in the hotel," the clerk said. "She is evidently an aristocrat though she is only Madame Strepoff.
"You know so few artists, don't you; so few people of talent. As to people, your life is narrow, isn't it so? I have met so many great people in my life, first through my father and then through Tante. Painters, poets, musicians. You will probably know them now, too; some of them certainly, for some are also friends of mine. Strepoff, for example; oh how I shall like you to meet him.
You have read him, of course, and about his escape from Siberia and his long exile." "Strepoff? Yes, I think so. A dismal sort of fellow, isn't he?" Gregory's delight was merging now in a more definite amusement, tinged, it may be confessed, with alarm. He remembered to have seen a photograph of this celebrity, very turbulently haired and very fixed and fiery of eye.
"I have never had a great friend of my own. Friends, of course; the Lippheims and the Belots; and Strepoff; and you, of course, Mrs. Talcott; but never, really, a great friend quite of my own, for they are Tante's friends first and come through Tante. Of course you have come through Tante, too," said Karen, with evident satisfaction; "only not quite in the same way."
"Just Strepoff; everybody calls him that. Dear Belot, too," Karen pursued. "He could not fail to interest you. Perhaps you have already met him. He has been in London." "Belot? Does he write poetry?" "Poetry? No. Belot is a painter; a great painter. Surely you have heard of Belot?" "Well, I'm afraid that if I have I've forgotten. You see, as you say, I live so out of the world of art."
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