The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

Part 1 out of 8

This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.

The Lock and Key Library

The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

Edited by Julian Hawthorne

North Europe--Russian--Swedish--Danish--Hungarian

Table of Contents

ALEXANDER SERGEIEVITCH PUSHKIN

The Queen of Spades

VERA JELIHOVSKY

The General's Will

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOYEVSKY

Crime and Punishment

ANTON CHEKHOFF

The Safety Match

VSEVOLOD VLADIMIROVITCH KRESTOVSKI

Knights of Industry

JORGEN WILHELM BERGSOE

The Amputated Arms

OTTO LARSSEN

The Manuscript

BERNHARD SEVERIN INGEMANN

The Sealed Room

STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER

The Rector of Veilbye

HUNGARIAN MYSTERY STORIES

FERENCZ MOLNAR

The Living Death

MAURUS JOKAI

Thirteen at Table

ETIENNE BARSONY

The Dancing Bear

ARTHUR ELCK

The Tower Room

Russian Mystery Stories

Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin

The Queen of Spades

I

There was a card party at the rooms of Naroumoff, of the Horse
Guards. The long winter night passed away imperceptibly, and it
was five o'clock in the morning before the company sat down to
supper. Those who had won ate with a good appetite; the others sat
staring absently at their empty plates. When the champagne
appeared, however, the conversation became more animated, and all
took a part in it.

"And how did you fare, Souirin?" asked the host.

"Oh, I lost, as usual. I must confess that I am unlucky. I play
mirandole, I always keep cool, I never allow anything to put me
out, and yet I always lose!"

"And you did not once allow yourself to be tempted to back the red?
Your firmness astonishes me."

"But what do you think of Hermann?" said one of the guests,
pointing to a young engineer. "He has never had a card in his hand
in his life, he has never in his life laid a wager; and yet he sits
here till five o'clock in the morning watching our play."

"Play interests me very much," said Hermann, "but I am not in the
position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the
superfluous."

"Hermann is a German; he is economical--that is all!" observed
Tomsky. "But if there is one person that I cannot understand, it
is my grandmother, the Countess Anna Fedorovna!"

"How so?" inquired the guests.

"I cannot understand," continued Tomsky, "how it is that my
grandmother does not punt."

"Then you do not know the reason why?"

"No, really; I haven't the faintest idea. But let me tell you the
story. You must know that about sixty years ago my grandmother
went to Paris, where she created quite a sensation. People used to
run after her to catch a glimpse of the 'Muscovite Venus.'
Richelieu made love to her, and my grandmother maintains that he
almost blew out his brains in consequence of her cruelty. At that
time ladies used to play at faro. On one occasion at the Court,
she lost a very considerable sum to the Duke of Orleans. On
returning home, my grandmother removed the patches from her face,
took off her hoops, informed my grandfather of her loss at the
gaming-table, and ordered him to pay the money. My deceased
grandfather, as far as I remember, was a sort of house-steward to
my grandmother. He dreaded her like fire; but, on hearing of such
a heavy loss, he almost went out of his mind. He calculated the
various sums she had lost, and pointed out to her that in six
months she had spent half a million of francs; that neither their
Moscow nor Saratoff estates were in Paris; and, finally, refused
point-blank to pay the debt. My grandmother gave him a box on the
ear and slept by herself as a sign of her displeasure. The next
day she sent for her husband, hoping that this domestic punishment
had produced an effect upon him, but she found him inflexible. For
the first time in her life she entered into reasonings and
explanations with him, thinking to be able to convince him by
pointing out to him that there are debts and debts, and that there
is a great difference between a prince and a coachmaker.

"But it was all in vain, my grandfather still remained obdurate.
But the matter did not rest there. My grandmother did not know
what to do. She had shortly before become acquainted with a very
remarkable man. You have heard of Count St. Germain, about whom so
many marvelous stories are told. You know that he represented
himself as the Wandering Jew, as the discoverer of the elixir of
life, of the philosopher's stone, and so forth. Some laughed at
him as a charlatan; but Casnova, in his memoirs, says that he was a
spy. But be that as it may, St. Germain, in spite of the mystery
surrounding him, was a very fascinating person, and was much sought
after in the best circles of society. Even to this day my
grandmother retains an affectionate recollection of him, and
becomes quite angry if anyone speaks disrespectfully of him. My
grandmother knew that St. Germain had large sums of money at his
disposal. She resolved to have recourse to him, and she wrote a
letter to him asking him to come to her without delay. The queer
old man immediately waited upon her, and found her overwhelmed with
grief. She described to him in the blackest colors the barbarity
of her husband, and ended by declaring that her whole hope depended
upon his friendship and amiability.

"St. Germain reflected.

"'I could advance you the sum you want,' said he, 'but I know that
you would not rest easy until you had paid me back, and I should
not like to bring fresh troubles upon you. But there is another
way of getting out of your difficuity: you can win back your
money.'

"'But, my dear Count,' replied my grandmother, 'I tell you that I
haven't any money left!'

"'Money is not necessary,' replied St. Germain, 'be pleased to
listen to me.'

"Then he revealed to her a secret, for which each of us would give
a good deal."

The young officers listened with increased attention. Tomsky lit
his pipe, puffed away for a moment, and then continued:

"That same evening my grandmother went to Versailles to the jeu de
la reine. The Duke of Orleans kept the bank; my grandmother
excused herself in an offhanded manner for not having yet paid her
debt by inventing some little story, and then began to play against
him. She chose three cards and played them one after the other;
all three won sonika,* and my grandmother recovered every farthing
that she lost."

* Said of a card when it wins or loses in the quickest possible
time.

"Mere chance!" said one of the guests.

"A tale!" observed Hermann.

"Perhaps they were marked cards!" said a third.

"I do not think so," replied Tomsky, gravely.

"What!" said Naroumoff, "you have a grandmother who knows how to
hit upon three lucky cards in succession, and you have never yet
succeeded in getting the secret of it out of her?"

"That's the deuce of it!" replied Tomsky, "she had four sons, one
of whom was my father; all four were determined gamblers, and yet
not to one of them did she ever reveal her secret, although it
would not have been a bad thing either for them or for me. But
this is what I heard from my uncle, Count Ivan Ilitch, and he
assured me, on his honor, that it was true. The late Chaplitsky--
the same who died in poverty after having squandered millions--once
lost, in his youth, about three hundred thousand roubles--to
Zoritch, if I remember rightly. He was in despair. My
grandmother, who was always very severe upon the extravagance of
young men, took pity, however, upon Chaplitsky. She gave him three
cards telling him to play them one after the other, at the same
time exacting from him a solemn promise that he would never play at
cards again as long as he lived. Chaplitsky then went to his
victorious opponent, and they began a fresh game. On the first
card he staked fifty thousand roubles, and won sonika; he doubled
the stake, and won again; till at last, by pursuing the same
tactics, he won back more than he had lost."

"But it is time to go to bed, it is a quarter to six already."
And, indeed, it was already beginning to dawn; the young men
emptied their glasses and then took leave of each other.

II

The old Countess A---- was seated in her dressing-room in front of
her looking-glass. Three waiting maids stood around her. One held
a small pot of rouge, another a box of hairpins, and the third a
tall cap with bright red ribbons. The Countess had no longer the
slightest pretensions to beauty, but she still preserved the habits
of her youth, dressed in strict accordance with the fashion of
seventy years before, and made as long and as careful a toilette as
she would have done sixty years previously. Near the window, at an
embroidery frame, sat a young lady, her ward.

"Good-morning, grandmamma," said a young officer, entering the
room. "Bonjour, Mademoiselle Lise. Grandmamma, I want to ask you
something."

"What is it, Paul?"

"I want you to let me introduce one of my friends to you, and to
allow me to bring him to the ball on Friday."

"Bring him direct to the ball and introduce him to me there. Were
you at B----'s yesterday?"

"Yes; everything went off very pleasantly, and dancing was kept up
until five o'clock. How charming Eletskaia was!"

"But, my dear, what is there charming about her? Isn't she like
her grandmother, the Princess Daria Petrovna? By the way, she must
be very old, the Princess Daria Petrovna?"

"How do you mean, old?" cried Tomsky, thoughtlessly, "she died
seven years ago."

The young lady raised her head, and made a sign to the young
officer. He then remembered that the old Countess was never to be
informed of the death of her contemporaries, and he bit his lips.
But the old Countess heard the news with the greatest indifference.

"Dead!" said she, "and I did not know it. We were appointed maids
of honor at the same time, and when we were presented to the
Empress--"

And the Countess for the hundredth time related to her grandson one
of her anecdotes.

"Come, Paul," said she, when she had finished her story, "help me
to get up. Lizanka,* where is my snuffbox?"

* Diminutive of Lizaveta (Elizabeth).

And the Countess with her three maids went behind a screen to
finish her toilette. Tomsky was left alone with the young lady.

"Who is the gentleman you wish to introduce to the Countess?" asked
Lizaveta Ivanovna in a whisper.

"Naroumoff. Do you know him?"

"No. Is he a soldier or a civilian?"

"A soldier."

"Is he in the Engineers?"

"No, in the Cavalry. What made you think that he was in the
Engineers?"

The young lady smiled, but made no reply.

"Paul," cried the Countess from behind the screen, "send me some
new novel, only pray don't let it be one of the present day style."

"What do you mean, grandmother?"

"That is, a novel, in which the hero strangles neither his father
nor his mother, and in which there are no drowned bodies. I have a
great horror of drowned persons."

"There are no such novels nowadays. Would you like a Russian one?"

"Are there any Russian novels? Send me one, my dear, pray send me
one!"

"Good-by, grandmother. I am in a hurry. . . . Goodby, Lizavetta
Ivanovna. What made you think that Naroumoff was in the
Engineers?"

And Tomsky left the boudoir.

Lizaveta Ivanovna was left alone. She laid aside her work, and
began to look out of the window. A few moments afterwards, at a
corner house on the other side of the street, a young officer
appeared. A deep flush covered her cheeks; she took up her work
again, and bent her head down over the frame. At the same moment
the Countess returned, completely dressed.

"Order the carriage, Lizaveta," said she, "we will go out for a
drive."

Lizaveta rose from the frame, and began to arrange her work.

"What is the matter with you, my child, are you deaf?" cried the
Countess. "Order the carriage to be got ready at once."

"I will do so this moment," replied the young lady, hastening into
the anteroom.

A servant entered and gave the Countess some books from Prince Paul
Alexandrovitch.

"Tell him that I am much obliged to him," said the Countess.
"Lizaveta! Lizaveta! where are you running to?"

"I am going to dress."

"There is plenty of time, my dear. Sit down here. Open the first
volume and read to me aloud."

Her companion took the book and read a few lines.

"Louder," said the Countess. "What is the matter with you, my
child? Have you lost your voice? Wait--Give me that footstool--
a little nearer--that will do!"

Lizaveta read two more pages. The Countess yawned.

"Put the book down," said she, "what a lot of nonsense! Send it
back to Prince Paul with my thanks. . . . But where is the
carriage?"

"The carriage is ready," said Lizaveta, looking out into the
street.

"How is it that you are not dressed?" said the Countess. "I must
always wait for you. It is intolerable, my dear!"

Liza hastened to her room. She had not been there two minutes
before the Countess began to ring with all her might. The three
waiting-maids came running in at one door, and the valet at
another.

"How is it that you cannot hear me when I ring for you?" said the
Countess. "Tell Lizaveta Ivanovna that I am waiting for her."

Lizaveta returned with her hat and cloak on.

"At last you are here!" said the Countess. "But why such an
elaborate toilette? Whom do you intend to captivate? What sort of
weather is it? It seems rather windy."

"No, your Ladyship, it is very calm," replied the valet.

"You never think of what you are talking about. Open the window.
So it is; windy and bitterly cold. Unharness the horses, Lizaveta,
we won't go out--there was no need to deck yourself like that."

"What a life is mine!" thought Lizaveta Ivanovna.

And, in truth, Lizaveta Ivanovna was a very unfortunate creature.
"The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his
staircase hard to climb." But who can know what the bitterness of
dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of
quality? The Countess A---- had by no means a bad heart, but she
was capricious, like a woman who had been spoiled by the world, as
well as being avaricious and egotistical, like all old people, who
have seen their best days, and whose thoughts are with the past,
and not the present. She participated in all the vanities of the
great world, went to balls, where she sat in a corner, painted and
dressed in old-fashioned style, like a deformed but indispensable
ornament of the ballroom; all the guests on entering approached her
and made a profound bow, as if in accordance with a set ceremony,
but after that nobody took any further notice of her. She received
the whole town at her house, and observed the strictest etiquette,
although she could no longer recognize the faces of people. Her
numerous domestics, growing fat and old in her antechamber and
servants' hall, did just as they liked, and vied with each other in
robbing the aged Countess in the most bare-faced manner. Lizaveta
Ivanovna was the martyr of the household. She made tea, and was
reproached with using too much sugar; she read novels aloud to the
Countess, and the faults of the author were visited upon her head;
she accompanied the Countess in her walks, and was held answerable
for the weather or the state of the pavement. A salary was
attached to the post, but she very rarely received it, although she
was expected to dress like everybody else, that is to say, like
very few indeed. In society she played the most pitiable role.
Everybody knew her, and nobody paid her any attention. At balls
she danced only when a partner was wanted, and ladies would only
take hold of her arm when it was necessary to lead her out of the
room to attend to their dresses. She was very self-conscious, and
felt her position keenly, and she looked about her with impatience
for a deliverer to come to her rescue; but the young men,
calculating in their giddiness, honored her with but very little
attention, although Lizaveta Ivanovna was a hundred times prettier
than the bare-faced, cold-hearted marriageable girls around whom
they hovered. Many a time did she quietly slink away from the
glittering, but wearisome, drawing-room, to go and cry in her own
poor little room, in which stood a screen, a chest of drawers, a
looking-glass, and a painted bedstead, and where a tallow candle
burnt feebly in a copper candle-stick.

One morning--this was about two days after the evening party
described at the beginning of this story, and a week previous to
the scene at which we have just assisted--Lizaveta Ivanovna was
seated near the window at her embroidery frame, when, happening to
look out into the street, she caught sight of a young Engineer
officer, standing motionless with his eyes fixed upon her window.
She lowered her head, and went on again with her work. About five
minutes afterwards she looked out again--the young officer was
still standing in the same place. Not being in the habit of
coquetting with passing officers, she did not continue to gaze out
into the street, but went on sewing for a couple of hours, without
raising her head. Dinner was announced. She rose up and began to
put her embroidery away, but glancing casually out of the window,
she perceived the officer again. This seemed to her very strange.
After dinner she went to the window with a certain feeling of
uneasiness, but the officer was no longer there--and she thought no
more about him.

A couple of days afterwards, just as she was stepping into the
carriage with the Countess, she saw him again. He was standing
close behind the door, with his face half-concealed by his fur
collar, but his dark eyes sparkled beneath his cap. Lizaveta felt
alarmed, though she knew not why, and she trembled as she seated
herself in the carriage.

On returning home, she hastened to the window--the officer was
standing in his accustomed place, with his eyes fixed upon her.
She drew back, a prey to curiosity, and agitated by a feeling which
was quite new to her.

From that time forward not a day passed without the young officer
making his appearance under the window at the customary hour, and
between him and her there was established a sort of mute
acquaintance. Sitting in her place at work, she used to feel his
approach, and, raising her head, she would look at him longer and
longer each day. The young man seemed to be very grateful to her;
she saw with the sharp eye of youth, how a sudden flush covered his
pale cheeks each time that their glances met. After about a week
she commenced to smile at him. . . .

When Tomsky asked permission of his grandmother, the Countess, to
present one of his friends to her, the young girl's heart beat
violently. But hearing that Naroumoff was not an Engineer, she
regretted that by her thoughtless question, she had betrayed her
secret to the volatile Tomsky.

Hermann was the son of a German who had become a naturalized
Russian, and from whom he had inherited a small capital. Being
firmly convinced of the necessity of preserving his independence,
Hermann did not touch his private income, but lived on his pay,
without allowing himself the slightest luxury. Moreover, he was
reserved and ambitious, and his companions rarely had an
opportunity of making merry at the expense of his extreme
parsimony. He had strong passions and an ardent imagination, but
his firmness of disposition preserved him from the ordinary errors
of young men. Thus, though a gamester at heart, he never touched a
card, for he considered his position did not allow him--as he said--
"to risk the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous,"
yet he would sit for nights together at the card table and follow
with feverish anxiety the different turns of the game.

The story of the three cards had produced a powerful impression
upon his imagination, and all night long he could think of nothing
else. "If," he thought to himself the following evening, as he
walked along the streets of St. Petersburg, "if the old Countess
would not reveal her secret to me! If she would only tell me the
names of the three winning cards. Why should I not try my fortune?
I must get introduced to her and win her favor--become her
lover. . . . But all that will take time, and she is eighty-seven
years old. She might be dead in a week, in a couple of days even.
But the story itself? Can it really be true? No! Economy,
temperance, and industry; those are my three winning cards; by
means of them I shall be able to double my capital--increase it
sevenfold, and procure for myself ease and independence."

Musing in this manner, he walked on until he found himself in one
of the principal streets of St. Petersburg, in front of a house of
antiquated architecture. The street was blocked with equipages;
carriages one after the other drew up in front of the brilliantly
illuminated doorway. At one moment there stepped out onto the
pavement the well-shaped little foot of some young beauty, at
another the heavy boot of a cavalry officer, and then the silk
stockings and shoes of a member of the diplomatic world. Fur and
cloaks passed in rapid succession before the gigantic porter at the
entrance. Hermann stopped. "Whose house is this?" he asked of the
watchman at the corner.

"The Countess A----'s," replied the watchman.

Hermann started. The strange story of the three cards again
presented itself to his imagination. He began walking up and down
before the house, thinking of its owner and her strange secret.
Returning late to his modest lodging, he could not go to sleep for
a long time, and when at last he did doze off, he could dream of
nothing but cards, green tables, piles of banknotes, and heaps of
ducats. He played one card after the other, winning
uninterruptedly, and then he gathered up the gold and filled his
pockets with the notes. When he woke up late the next morning, he
sighed over the loss of his imaginary wealth, and then sallying out
into the town, he found himself once more in front of the
Countess's residence. Some unknown power seemed to have attracted
him thither. He stopped and looked up at the windows. At one of
these he saw a head with luxuriant black hair, which was bent down,
probably over some book or an embroidery frame. The head was
raised. Hermann saw a fresh complexion, and a pair of dark eyes.
That moment decided his fate.

III

Lizaveta Ivanovna had scarcely taken off her hat and cloak, when
the Countess sent for her, and again ordered her to get the
carriage ready. The vehicle drew up before the door, and they
prepared to take their seats. Just at the moment when two footmen
were assisting the old lady to enter the carriage, Lizaveta saw her
Engineer standing close beside the wheel; he grasped her hand;
alarm caused her to lose her presence of mind, and the young man
disappeared--but not before he had left a letter between her
fingers. She concealed it in her glove, and during the whole of
the drive she neither saw nor heard anything. It was the custom of
the Countess, when out for an airing in her carriage, to be
constantly asking such questions as "Who was that person that met
us just now? What is the name of this bridge? What is written on
that sign-board?" On this occasion, however, Lizaveta returned
such vague and absurd answers, that the Countess became angry with
her.

"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she exclaimed. "Have you
taken leave of your senses, or what is it? Do you not hear me or
understand what I say? Heaven be thanked, I am still in my right
mind and speak plainly enough!"

Lizaveta Ivanovna did not hear her. On returning home she ran to
her room, and drew the letter out of her glove: it was not sealed.
Lizaveta read it. The letter contained a declaration of love; it
was tender, respectful, and copied word for word from a German
novel. But Lizaveta did not know anything of the German language,
and she was quite delighted.

For all that, the letter caused her to feel exceedingly uneasy.
For the first time in her life she was entering into secret and
confidential relations with a young man. His boldness alarmed her.
She reproached herself for her imprudent behavior, and knew not
what to do. Should she cease to sit at the window, and, by
assuming an appearance of indifference towards him, put a check
upon the young officer's desire for further acquaintance with her?
Should she send his letter back to him, or should she answer him in
a cold and decided manner? There was nobody to whom she could turn
in her perplexity, for she had neither female friend nor adviser.
At length she resolved to reply to him.

She sat down at her little writing table, took pen and paper, and
began to think. Several times she began her letter and then tore
it up; the way she had expressed herself seemed to her either too
inviting or too cold and decisive. At last she succeeded in
writing a few lines with which she felt satisfied.

"I am convinced," she wrote, "that your intentions are honorable,
and that you do not wish to offend me by any imprudent behavior,
but our acquaintance must not begin in such a manner. I return you
your letter, and I hope that I shall never have any cause to
complain of this undeserved slight."

The next day, as soon as Hermann made his appearance, Lizaveta rose
from her embroidery, went into the drawing-room, opened the
ventilator, and threw the letter into the street, trusting that the
young officer would have the perception to pick it up.

Hermann hastened forward, picked it up, and then repaired to a
confectioner's shop. Breaking the seal of the envelope, he found
inside it his own letter and Lizaveta's reply. He had expected
this, and he returned home, his mind deeply occupied with his
intrigue.

Three days afterwards a bright-eyed young girl from a milliner's
establishment brought Lizaveta a letter. Lizaveta opened it with
great uneasiness, fearing that it was a demand for money, when,
suddenly, she recognized Hermann's handwriting.

"You have made a mistake, my dear," said she. "This letter is not
for me."

"Oh, yes, it is for you," replied the girl, smiling very knowingly.
"Have the goodness to read it."

Lizaveta glanced at the letter. Hermann requested an interview.

"It cannot be," she cried, alarmed at the audacious request and the
manner in which it was made. "This letter is certainly not for
me," and she tore it into fragments.

"If the letter was not for you, why have you torn it up?" said the
girl. "I should have given it back to the person who sent it."

"Be good enough, my dear," said Lizaveta, disconcerted by this
remark, "not to bring me any more letters for the future, and tell
the person who sent you that he ought to be ashamed."

But Hermann was not the man to be thus put off. Every day Lizaveta
received from him a letter, sent now in this way, now in that.
They were no longer translated from the German. Hermann wrote them
under the inspiration of passion, and spoke in his own language,
and they bore full testimony to the inflexibility of his desire,
and the disordered condition of his uncontrollable imagination.
Lizaveta no longer thought of sending them back to him; she became
intoxicated with them, and began to reply to them, and little by
little her answers became longer and more affectionate. At last
she threw out of the window to him the following letter:

"This evening there is going to be a ball at the Embassy. The
Countess will be there. We shall remain until two o'clock. You
have now an opportunity of seeing me alone. As soon as the
Countess is gone, the servants will very probably go out, and there
will be nobody left but the Swiss, but he usually goes to sleep in
his lodge. Come about half-past eleven. Walk straight upstairs.
If you meet anybody in the anteroom, ask if the Countess is at
home. You will be told 'No,' in which case there will be nothing
left for you to do but to go away again. But it is most probable
that you will meet nobody. The maidservants will all be together
in one room. On leaving the anteroom, turn to the left, and walk
straight on until you reach the Countess's bedroom. In the
bedroom, behind a screen, you will find two doors: the one on the
right leads to a cabinet, which the Countess never enters; the one
on the left leads to a corridor, at the end of which is a little
winding staircase; this leads to my room."

Hermann trembled like a tiger as he waited for the appointed time
to arrive. At ten o'clock in the evening he was already in front
of the Countess's house. The weather was terrible; the wind blew
with great violence, the sleety snow fell in large flakes, the
lamps emitted a feeble light, the streets were deserted; from time
to time a sledge drawn by a sorry-looking hack, passed by on the
lookout for a belated passenger. Hermann was enveloped in a thick
overcoat, and felt neither wind nor snow.

At last the Countess's carriage drew up. Hermann saw two footmen
carry out in their arms the bent form of the old lady, wrapped in
sable fur, and immediately behind her, clad in a warm mantle, and
with her head ornamented with a wreath of fresh flowers, followed
Lizaveta. The door was closed. The carriage rolled heavily away
through the yielding snow. The porter shut the street door, the
windows became dark.

Hermann began walking up and down near the deserted house; at
length he stopped under a lamp, and glanced at his watch: it was
twenty minutes past eleven. He remained standing under the lamp,
his eyes fixed upon the watch impatiently waiting for the remaining
minutes to pass. At half-past eleven precisely Hermann ascended
the steps of the house and made his way into the brightly-
illuminated vestibule. The porter was not there. Hermann hastily
ascended the staircase, opened the door of the anteroom, and saw a
footman sitting asleep in an antique chair by the side of a lamp.
With a light, firm step Hermann passed by him. The drawing-room
and dining-room were in darkness, but a feeble reflection
penetrated thither from the lamp in the anteroom.

Hermann reached the Countess's bedroom. Before a shrine, which was
full of old images, a golden lamp was burning. Faded stuffed
chairs and divans with soft cushions stood in melancholy symmetry
around the room, the walls of which were hung with china silk. On
one side of the room hung two portraits painted in Paris by Madame
Lebrun. One of these represented a stout, red-faced man of about
forty years of age, in a bright green uniform, and with a star upon
his breast; the other--a beautiful young woman, with an aquiline
nose, forehead curls, and a rose in her powdered hair. In the
corner stood porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, dining-room
clocks from the workshop of the celebrated Lefroy, bandboxes,
roulettes, fans, and the various playthings for the amusement of
ladies that were in vogue at the end of the last century, when
Montgolfier's balloons and Niesber's magnetism were the rage.
Hermann stepped behind the screen. At the back of it stood a
little iron bedstead; on the right was the door which led to the
cabinet; on the left, the other which led to the corridor. He
opened the latter, and saw the little winding staircase which led
to the room of the poor companion. But he retraced his steps and
entered the dark cabinet.

The time passed slowly. All was still. The clock in the drawing-
room struck twelve, the strokes echoed through the room one after
the other, and everything was quiet again. Hermann stood leaning
against the cold stove. He was calm, his heart beat regularly,
like that of a man resolved upon a dangerous but inevitable
undertaking. One o'clock in the morning struck; then two, and he
heard the distant noise of carriage-wheels. An involuntary
agitation took possession of him. The carriage drew near and
stopped. He heard the sound of the carriage steps being let down.
All was bustle within the house. The servants were running hither
and thither, there was a confusion of voices, and the rooms were
lit up. Three antiquated chambermaids entered the bedroom, and
they were shortly afterwards followed by the Countess, who, more
dead than alive, sank into a Voltaire armchair. Hermann peeped
through a chink. Lizaveta Ivanovna passed close by him, and he
heard her hurried steps as she hastened up the little spiral
staircase. For a moment his heart was assailed by something like a
pricking of conscience, but the emotion was only transitory, and
his heart became petrified as before.

The Countess began to undress before her looking-glass. Her rose-
bedecked cap was taken off, and then her powdered wig was removed
from off her white and closely cut hair. Hairpins fell in showers
around her. Her yellow satin dress, brocaded with silver, fell
down at her swollen feet.

Hermann was a witness of the repugnant mysteries of her toilette;
at last the Countess was in her night-cap and dressing-gown, and in
this costume, more suitable to her age, she appeared less hideous
and deformed.

Like all old people, in general, the Countess suffered from
sleeplessness. Having undressed, she seated herself at the window
in a Voltaire armchair, and dismissed her maids. The candles were
taken away, and once more the room was left with only one lamp
burning in it. The Countess sat there looking quite yellow,
mumbling with her flaccid lips and swaying to and fro. Her dull
eyes expressed complete vacancy of mind, and, looking at her, one
would have thought that the rocking of her body was not a voluntary
action of her own, but was produced by the action of some concealed
galvanic mechanism.

Suddenly the death-like face assumed an inexplicable expression.
The lips ceased to tremble, the eyes became animated: before the
Countess stood an unknown man.

"Do not be alarmed, for Heaven's sake, do not be alarmed!" said he
in a low but distinct voice. "I have no intention of doing you any
harm; I have only come to ask a favor of you."

The old woman looked at him in silence, as if she had not heard
what he had said. Hermann thought that she was deaf, and, bending
down towards her ear, he repeated what he had said. The aged
Countess remained silent as before.

"You can insure the happiness of my life," continued Hermann, "and
it will cost you nothing. I know that you can name three cards in
order--"

Hermann stopped. The Countess appeared now to understand what he
wanted; she seemed as if seeking for words to reply.

"It was a joke," she replied at last. "I assure you it was only a
joke."

"There is no joking about the matter," replied Hermann, angrily.
"Remember Chaplitsky, whom you helped to win."

The Countess became visibly uneasy. Her features expressed strong
emotion, but they quickly resumed their former immobility.

"Can you not name me these three winning cards?" continued Hermann.

The Countess remained silent; Hermann continued:

"For whom are you preserving your secret? For your grandsons?
They are rich enough without it, they do not know the worth of
money. Your cards would be of no use to a spendthrift. He who
cannot preserve his paternal inheritance will die in want, even
though he had a demon at his service. I am not a man of that sort.
I know the value of money. Your three cards will not be thrown
away upon me. Come!"

He paused and tremblingly awaited her reply. The Countess remained
silent. Hermann fell upon his knees.

"If your heart has ever known the feeling of love," said be, "if
you remember its rapture, if you have ever smiled at the cry of
your new-born child, if any human feeling has ever entered into
your breast, I entreat you by the feelings of a wife, a lover, a
mother, by all that is most sacred in life, not to reject my
prayer. Reveal to me your secret. Of what use is it to you? May
be it is connected with some terrible sin, with the loss of eternal
salvation, with some bargain with the devil. Reflect, you are old,
you have not long to live--I am ready to take your sins upon my
soul. Only reveal to me your secret. Remember that the happiness
of a man is in your hands, that not only I, but my children and my
grandchildren, will bless your memory and reverence you as a
saint."

The old Countess answered not a word.

Hermann rose to his feet.

"You old hag!" he exclaimed, grinding his teeth, "then I will make
you answer!" With these words he drew a pistol from his pocket.
At the sight of the pistol, the Countess for the second time
exhibited strong emotions. She shook her head, and raised her
hands as if to protect herself from the shot. Then she fell
backwards, and remained motionless.

"Come, an end to this childish nonsense!" said Hermann, taking hold
of her hand. "I ask you for the last time: will you tell me the
names of your three cards, or will you not?"

The Countess made no reply. Hermann perceived that she was dead!

IV

Lizaveta Ivanovna was sitting in her room, still in her ball dress,
lost in deep thought. On returning home, she had hastily dismissed
the chambermaid, who very reluctantly came forward to assist her,
saying that she would undress herself, and with a trembling heart
had gone up to her own room, expecting to find Hermann there, but
yet hoping not to find him. At the first glance he was not there,
and she thanked her fate for having prevented him keeping the
appointment. She sat down without undressing, and began to call to
mind all the circumstances which in a short time had carried her so
far. It was not three weeks since the time when she had first seen
the young officer from the window--and yet she was already in
correspondence with him, and he had succeeded in inducing her to
grant him a nocturnal interview. She knew his name only through
his having written it at the bottom of some of his letters; she had
never spoken to him, had never heard his voice, and had never heard
him spoken of until that evening. But, strange to say, that very
evening at the ball, Tomsky, being piqued with the young Princess
Pauline N----, who, contrary to her usual custom, did not flirt
with him, wished to revenge himself by assuming an air of
indifference: he therefore engaged Lizaveta Ivanovna, and danced an
endless mazurka with her. During the whole of the time he kept
teasing her about her partiality for Engineer officers, he assured
her that he knew far more than she imagined, and some of his jests
were so happily aimed, that Lizaveta thought several times that her
secret was known to him.

"From whom have you learned all this?" she asked, smiling.

"From a friend of a person very well known to you," replied Tomsky,
"from a very distinguished man."

"And whom is this distinguished man?"

"His name is Hermann." Lizaveta made no reply, but her hands and
feet lost all sense of feeling.

"This Hermann," continued Tomsky, "is a man of romantic
personality. He has the profile of a Napoleon, and the soul of a
Mephistopheles. I believe that he has at least three crimes upon
his conscience. How pale you have become!"

"I have a headache. But what did this Hermann, or whatever his
name is, tell you?"

"Hermann is very dissatisfied with his friend. He says that in his
place he would act very differently. I even think that Hermann
himself has designs upon you; at least, he listens very attentively
to all that his friend has to say about you."

"And where has he seen me?"

"In church, perhaps; or on the parade. God alone knows where. It
may have been in your room, while you were asleep, for there is
nothing that he--"

Three ladies approaching him with the question: "oubli ou regret?"
interrupted the conversation, which had become so tantalizingly
interesting to Lizaveta.

The lady chosen by Tomsky was the Princess Pauline herself. She
succeeded in effecting a reconciliation with him during the
numerous turns of the dance, after which he conducted her to her
chair. On returning to his place, Tomsky thought no more either of
Hermann or Lizaveta. She longed to renew the interrupted
conversation, but the mazurka came to an end, and shortly
afterwards the old Countess took her departure.

Tomsky's words were nothing more than the customary small talk of
the dance, but they sank deep into the soul of the young dreamer.
The portrait, sketched by Tomsky, coincided with the picture she
had formed within her own mind, and, thanks to the latest romances,
the ordinary countenance of her admirer became invested with
attributes capable of alarming her and fascinating her imagination
at the same time. She was now sitting with her bare arms crossed,
and with her head, still adorned with flowers, sunk upon her
uncovered bosom. Suddenly the door opened and Hermann entered.
She shuddered.

"Where were you?" she asked in a terrified whisper.

"In the old Countess's bedroom," replied Hermann. "I have just
left her. The Countess is dead."

"My God! What do you say?"

"And I am afraid," added Hermann, "that I am the cause of her
death."

Lizaveta looked at him, and Tomsky's words found an echo in her
soul: "This man has at least three crimes upon his conscience!"
Hermann sat down by the window near her, and related all that had
happened.

Lizaveta listened to him in terror. So all those passionate
letters, those ardent desires, this bold, obstinate pursuit--all
this was not love! Money--that was what his soul yearned for! She
could not satisfy his desire and make him happy. The poor girl had
been nothing but the blind tool of a robber, of the murderer of her
aged benefactress! She wept bitter tears of agonized repentance.
Hermann gazed at her in silence; his heart, too, was a prey to
violent emotion, but neither the tears of the poor girl, nor the
wonderful charm of her beauty, enhanced by her grief, could produce
any impression upon his hardened soul. He felt no pricking of
conscience at the thought of the dead old woman. One thing only
grieved him: the irreparable loss of the secret from which he had
expected to obtain great wealth.

"You are a monster!" said Lizaveta at last.

"I did not wish for her death," replied Hermann, "my pistol was not
loaded." Both remained silent. The day began to dawn. Lizaveta
extinguished her candle, a pale light illumined her room. She
wiped her tear-stained eyes, and raised them towards Hermann. He
was sitting near the window, with his arms crossed, and with a
fierce frown upon his forehead. In this attitude he bore a
striking resemblance to the portrait of Napoleon. This resemblance
struck Lizaveta even.

"How shall I get you out of the house?" said she at last. "I
thought of conducting you down the secret staircase."

"I will go alone," he answered.

Lizaveta arose, took from her drawer a key, handed it to Hermann,
and gave him the necessary instructions. Hermann pressed her cold,
inert hand, kissed her bowed head, and left the room.

He descended the winding staircase, and once more entered the
Countess's bedroom. The dead old lady sat as if petrified, her
face expressed profound tranquillity. Hermann stopped before her,
and gazed long and earnestly at her, as if he wished to convince
himself of the terrible reality. At last he entered the cabinet,
felt behind the tapestry for the door, and then began to descend
the dark staircase, filled with strange emotions. "Down this very
staircase," thought he, "perhaps coming from the very same room,
and at this very same hour sixty years ago, there may have glided,
in an embroidered coat, with his hair dressed a l'oiseau royal, and
pressing to his heart his three-cornered hat, some young gallant
who has long been mouldering in the grave, but the heart of his
aged mistress has only today ceased to beat."

At the bottom of the staircase Hermann found a door, which he
opened with a key, and then traversed a corridor which conducted
him into the street.

V

Three days after the fatal night, at nine o'clock in the morning,
Hermann repaired to the Convent of -----, where the last honors
were to be paid to the mortal remains of the old Countess.
Although feeling no remorse, he could not altogether stifle the
voice of conscience, which said to him: "You are the murderer of
the old woman!" In spite of his entertaining very little religious
belief, he was exceedingly superstitions; and believing that the
dead Countess might exercise an evil influence on his life, he
resolved to be present at her obsequies in order to implore her
pardon.

The church was full. It was with difficulty that Hermann made his
way through the crowd of people. The coffin was placed upon a rich
catafalque beneath a velvet baldachin. The deceased Countess lay
within it, with her hands crossed upon her breast, with a lace cap
upon her head, and dressed in a white satin robe. Around the
catafalque stood the members of her household; the servants in
black caftans, with armorial ribbons upon their shoulders and
candles in their hands; the relatives--children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren--in deep mourning.

Nobody wept, tears would have been an affectation. The Countess
was so old that her death could have surprised nobody, and her
relatives had long looked upon her as being out of the world. A
famous preacher delivered the funeral sermon. In simple and
touching words he described the peaceful passing away of the
righteous, who had passed long years in calm preparation for a
Christian end. "The angel of death found her," said the orator,
"engaged in pious meditation and waiting for the midnight
bridegroom."

The service concluded amidst profound silence. The relatives went
forward first to take a farewell of the corpse. Then followed the
numerous guests, who had come to render the last homage to her who
for so many years had been a participator in their frivolous
amusements. After these followed the members of the Countess's
household. The last of these an old woman of the same age as the
deceased. Two young women led her forward by the hand. She had
not strength enough to bow down to the ground--she merely shed a
few tears, and kissed the cold hand of the mistress.

Herman now resolved to approach the coffin. He knelt down upon the
cold stones, and remained in that position for some minutes; at
last he arose as pale as the deceased Countess herself; he ascended
the steps of the catafalque and bent over the corpse. . . . At
that moment it seemed to him that the dead woman darted a mocking
look at him and winked with one eye. Hermann started back, took a
false step, and fell to the ground. Several persons hurried
forward and raised him up. At the same moment Lizaveta Ivanovna
was borne fainting into the porch of the church. This episode
disturbed for some minutes the solemnity of the gloomy ceremony.
Among the congregation arose a deep murmur, and a tall, thin
chamberlain, a near relative of the deceased, whispered in the ear
of an Englishman, who was standing near him, that the young officer
was a natural son of the Countess, to which the Englishman coldly
replied "Oh!"

During the whole of that day Hermann was strangely excited.
Repairing to an out of the way restaurant to dine, be drank a great
deal of wine, contrary to his usual custom, in the hope of
deadening his inward agitation. But the wine only served to excite
his imagination still more. On returning home he threw himself
upon his bed without undressing, and fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke up it was already night, and the moon was shining into
the room. He looked at his watch: it was a quarter to three.
Sleep had left him; he sat down upon his bed, and thought of the
funeral of the old Countess.

At that moment somebody in the street looked in at his window and
immediately passed on again. Hermann paid no attention to this
incident. A few moments afterwards he heard the door of his
anteroom open. Hermann thought that it was his orderly, drunk as
usual, returning from some nocturnal expedition, but presently he
heard footsteps that were unknown to him: somebody was walking
softly over the floor in slippers. The door opened, and a woman
dressed in white entered the room. Hermann mistook her for his old
nurse, and wondered what could bring her there at that hour of the
night. But the white woman glided rapidly across the room and
stood before him--and Hermann thought he recognized the Countess.

"I have come to you against my wish," she said in a firm voice,
"but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace,
will win for you if played in succession, but only on these
conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-
hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life.
I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my companion,
Lizaveta Ivanovna."

With these words she turned round very quietly, walked with a
shuffling gait towards the door, and disappeared. Hermann heard
the street door open and shut, and again he saw someone look in at
him through the window.

For a long time Hermann could not recover himself. He then rose up
and entered the next room. His orderly was lying asleep upon the
floor, and he had much difficulty in waking him. The orderly was
drunk as usual, and no information could be obtained from him. The
street door was locked. Hermann returned to his room, lit his
candle, and wrote down all the details of his vision.

VI

Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than
two bodies can occupy one and the same physical world. "Three,
seven, ace" soon drove out of Hermann's mind the thought of the
dead Countess. "Three, seven, ace" were perpetually running
through his head, and continually being repeated by his lips. If
he saw a young girl, he would say: "How slender she is; quite like
the three of hearts." If anybody asked "What is the time?" he
would reply: "Five minutes to seven." Every stout man that he saw
reminded him of the ace. "Three, seven, ace" haunted him in his
sleep, and assumed all possible shapes. The threes bloomed before
him in the forms of magnificent flowers, the sevens were
represented by Gothic portals, and the aces became transformed into
gigantic spiders. One thought alone occupied his whole mind--to
make a profitable use of the secret which he had purchased so
dearly. He thought of applying for a furlough so as to travel
abroad. He wanted to go to Paris and tempt fortune in some
gambling houses that abounded there. Chance spared him all this
trouble.

There was in Moscow a society of rich gamesters, presided over by
the celebrated Chekalinsky, who had passed all his life at the card
table, and had amassed millions, accepting bills of exchange for
his winnings, and paying his losses in ready money. His long
experience secured for him the confidence of his companions, and
his open house, his famous cook, and his agreeable and fascinating
manners, gained for him the respect of the public. He came to St.
Petersburg. The young men of the capital flocked to his rooms,
forgetting balls for cards, and preferring the emotions of faro to
the seductions of flirting. Naroumoff conducted Hermann to
Chekalinsky's residence.

They passed through a suite of rooms, filled with attentive
domestics. The place was crowded. Generals and Privy Counsellors
were playing at whist, young men were lolling carelessly upon the
velvet-covered sofas, eating ices and smoking pipes. In the
drawing-room, at the head of a long table, around which were
assembled about a score of players, sat the master of the house
keeping the bank. He was a man of about sixty years of age, of a
very dignified appearance; his head was covered with silvery white
hair; his full, florid countenance expressed good-nature, and his
eyes twinkled with a perpetual smile. Naroumoff introduced Hermann
to him. Chekalinsky shook him by the hand in a friendly manner,
requested him not to stand on ceremony, and then went on dealing.

The game occupied some time. On the table lay more than thirty
cards. Chekalinsky paused after each throw, in order to give the
players time to arrange their cards and note down their losses,
listened politely to their requests, and more politely still,
straightened the corners of cards that some player's hand had
chanced to bend. At last the game was finished. Chekalinsky
shuffled the cards, and prepared to deal again.

"Will you allow me to take a card?" said Hermann, stretching out
his hand from behind a stout gentleman who was punting.

Chekalinsky smiled and bowed silently, as a sign of acquiescence.
Naroumoff laughingly congratulated Hermann on his abjuration of
that abstention from cards which he had practised for so long a
period, and wished him a lucky beginning.

"Stake!" said Hermann, writing some figures with chalk on the back
of his card.

"How much?" asked the banker, contracting the muscles of his eyes,
"excuse me, I cannot see quite clearly."

"Forty-seven thousand roubles," replied Hermann. At these words
every head in the room turned suddenly round, and all eyes were
fixed upon Hermann.

"He has taken leave of his senses!" thought Naroumoff.

"Allow me to inform you," said Chekalinsky, with his eternal smile,
"that you are playing very high; nobody here has ever staked more
than two hundred and seventy-five roubles at once."

"Very well," replied Hermann, "but do you accept my card or not?"

Chekalinsky bowed in token of consent.

"I only wish to observe," said he, "that although I have the
greatest confidence in my friends, I can only play against ready
money. For my own part I am quite convinced that your word is
sufficient, but for the sake of the order of the game, and to
facilitate the reckoning up, I must ask you to put the money on
your card."

Hermann drew from his pocket a bank-note, and handed it to
Chekalinsky, who, after examining it in a cursory manner, placed it
on Hermann's card.

He began to deal. On the right a nine turned up, and on the left a
three.

"I have won!" said Hermann, showing his card.

A murmur of astonishment arose among the players. Chekalinsky
frowned, but the smile quickly returned to his face. "Do you wish
me to settle with you?" he said to Hermann.

"If you please," replied the latter.

Chekalinsky drew from his pocket a number of banknotes and paid at
once. Hermann took up his money and left the table. Naroumoff
could not recover from his astonishment. Hermann drank a glass of
lemonade and returned home.

The next evening he again repaired to Chekalinsky's. The host was
dealing. Hermann walked up to the table; the punters immediately
made room for him. Chekalinsky greeted him with a gracious bow.

Hermann waited for the next deal, took a card and placed upon it
his forty-seven thousand roubles, together with his winnings of the
previous evening.

Chekalinsky began to deal. A knave turned up on the right, a seven
on the left.

Hermann showed his seven.

There was a general exclamation. Chekalinsky was evidently ill at
ease, but he counted out the ninety-four thousand roubles and
handed them over to Hermann, who pocketed them in the coolest
manner possible, and immediately left the house.

The next evening Hermann appeared again at the table. Everyone was
expecting him. The generals and privy counsellors left their whist
in order to watch such extraordinary play. The young officers
quitted their sofas, and even the servants crowded into the room.
All pressed round Hermann. The other players left off punting,
impatient to see how it would end. Hermann stood at the table, and
prepared to play alone against the pale, but still smiling
Chekalinsky. Each opened a pack of cards. Chekalinsky shuffled.
Hermann took a card and covered it with a pile of bank-notes. It
was like a duel. Deep silence reigned around.

Chekalinsky began to deal, his hands trembled. On the right a
queen turned up, and on the left an ace.

"Ace has won!" cried Hermann, showing his card.

"Your queen has lost," said Chekalinsky, politely.

Hermann started; instead of an ace, there lay before him the queen
of spades! He could not believe his eyes, nor could he understand
how he had made such a mistake.

At that moment it seemed to him that the queen of spades smiled
ironically, and winked her eye at him. He was struck by her
remarkable resemblance. . . .

"The old Countess!" he exclaimed, seized with terror. Chekalinsky
gathered up his winnings. For some time Hermann remained perfectly
motionless. When at last he left the table, there was a general
commotion in the room.

"Splendidly punted!" said the players. Chekalinsky shuffled the
cards afresh, and the game went on as usual.

. . . . .

Hermann went out of his mind, and is now confined in room number
seventeen of the Oboukhoff Hospital. He never answers any
questions, but he constantly mutters with unusual rapidity: "Three,
seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!"

Lizaveta Ivanovna has married a very amiable young man, a son of
the former steward of the old Countess. He is in the service of
the State somewhere, and is in receipt of a good income. Lizaveta
is also supporting a poor relative.

Tomsky has been promoted to the rank of captain, and has become the
husband of the Princess Pauline.

Vera Jelihovsky

The General's Will

It happened in winter, just before the holidays. Ivan Feodorovitch
Lobnitchenko, the lawyer, whose office is in one of the main
streets of St. Petersburg, was called hurriedly to witness the last
will and testament of one at the point of death. The sick man was
not strictly a client of Ivan Feodorovitch; under other
circumstances, he might have refused to make this late call, after
a day's heavy toil . . . but the dying man was an aristocrat and a
millionaire, and such as he meet no refusals, whether in life, or,
much more, at the moment of death.

Lobnitchenko, taking a secretary and everything necessary, with a
sigh scratched himself behind the ear, and thrusting aside the
thought of the delightful evening at cards that awaited him, set
out to go to the sick man.

General Iuri Pavlovitch Nasimoff was far gone. Even the most
compassionate doctors did not give him many days to live, when he
finally decided to destroy the will which he had made long ago, not
in St. Petersburg, but in the provincial city where he had played
the Tsar for so many years. The general had come to the capital
for a time, and had lain down--to rise no more.

This was the opinion of the physicians, and of most of those about
him; the sick man himself was unwilling to admit it. He was a
stalwart-hearted and until recently a stalwart-bodied old man,
tall, striking, with an energetic face, and a piercing, masterful
glance, hard to forget, even if you saw him only once.

He was lying on the sofa, in a richly furnished hotel suite,
consisting of three of the best rooms. He received the lawyer
gayly enough. He himself explained the circumstances to him,
though every now and then compelled to stop by a paroxysm of pain,
with difficulty repressing the groans which almost escaped him, in
spite of all his efforts. During these heavy moments, Ivan
Feodorovitch raised his eyes buried in fat to the sick man's face,
and his plump little features were convulsed in sympathy with the
sufferer's pain. As soon as the courageous old man, fighting hard
with the paroxysms of pain, had got the better of them, taking his
hands from his contorted face, and drawing a painful breath, he
began anew to explain his will. Lobnitchenko dropped his eyes
again and became all attention.

The general explained in detail to the lawyer. He had been married
twice, and had three children, a son and a daughter from his first
marriage, who had long ago reached adultship, and a nine-year-old
daughter from his second marriage. His second wife and daughter he
expected every day; they were abroad, but would soon return. His
elder daughter would also probably come.

The lawyer was not acquainted with Nazimoff's family; indeed he had
never before seen the general, though, like all Russia, he knew of
him by repute. But judging from the tone of contempt or of pity
with which he spoke of his second wife or her daughter, the lawyer
guessed at once that the general's home life was not happy. The
further explanations of the sick man convinced him of this. A new
will was to be drawn up, directly contrary to the will signed six
years before, which bequeathed to his second wife, Olga
Vseslavovna, unlimited authority over their little daughter, and
her husband's entire property. In the first will he had left
nearly everything, with the exception of the family estate, which
he did not feel justified in taking from his son, to his second
wife and her daughter. Now he wished to restore to his elder
children the rights which he had deprived them of, and especially
to his eldest daughter, Anna Iurievna Borissova, who was not even
mentioned in the first will. In the new will, with the exception
of the seventh part, the widow's share, he divided the whole of his
land and capital between his children equally; and he further
appointed a strict guardianship over the property of his little
daughter, Olga Iurievna.

The will was duly arranged, drawn up and witnessed, and after the
three witnesses had signed it, it was left, by the general's wish,
in his own keeping.

"I will send it to you to take care of," he said to the lawyer.
"It will be safer in your hands than here, in my temporary
quarters. But first I wish to read it to my wife, and . . . to my
eldest daughter . . . if she arrives in time."

The lawyer and the priest, who was one of the witnesses, were
already preparing to take leave of the general, when voices and
steps were heard in the corridor; a footman's head appeared through
the door, calling the doctor hurriedly forth. It appeared that the
general's lady had arrived suddenly, without letting anyone know by
telegram that she was coming.

The doctor hastily slipped out of the room; he feared the result of
emotion on the sick man, and wished to warn the general's wife of
his grave danger, but the sick man noticed the move, and it was
impossible to guard him against disturbance.

"What is going on there?" he asked. "What are you mumbling about,
Edouard Vicentevitch? Tell me what is the matter? Is it my
daughter?"

"Your excellency, I beg of you to take care of yourself!" the
doctor was beginning, evidently quite familiar with the general's
family affairs, and therefore dreading the meeting of husband and
wife. "It is not Anna Iurievna. . . ."

"Aha!" the sick man interrupted him; "she has come? Very well.
Let her come in. Only the little one . . . I don't wish her to
come . . . to-day."

Suffering was visible in his eyes, this time not bodily suffering.

The door opened, with the rustling of a silk dress. A tall, well-
developed, and decidedly handsome woman appeared on the threshhold.
She glanced at the pain-stricken face, which smiled contemptuously
toward her. In a moment she was beside the general, kneeling
beside him on the carpet, bending close to him, and pressing his
hand, as she repeated in a despairing whisper:

"Oh, Georges! Georges! Is it really you, my poor friend?"

It would be hard to define the expression of rapidly changing
emotions which passed over the sick man's face, which made his
breast heave, and his great heart quiver and tremble painfully.
Displeasure and pity, sympathy and contempt, anger and grief, all
were expressed in the short, sharp, bitter laugh, and the few words
which escaped his lips when he saw his little daughter timidly
following her mother into his room.

"Do not teach her to lie!" and he nodded toward the child, and
turned toward the wall, with an expression of pain and pity on his
face. The lawyer and the priest hastened to take their leave and
disappear.

"Ah! Sinners! sinners!" muttered the latter, as he descended the
stairs.

"Things are not in good shape between them?" asked Lobnitchenko.
"They don't get on well together?"

"How should they be in good shape, when he came here to get a
divorce?" whispered the priest, shaping his fur cap. "But God
decided otherwise. Even without a divorce, he will be separated
forever from his wife!"

"I don't believe he is so very far gone. He is a stalwart old man.
Perhaps he will pull through," went on the man of law.

"God's hand is over all," answered the priest, shrugging his
shoulders. And so they went their different ways.

II

"OLGA!" cried the sick man, without turning round, and feeling near
him the swift movement of his wife, he pushed her away with an
impatient movement of his hand, and added, "Not you! my daughter
Olga!"

"Olga! Go, my child, papa is calling you," cried the general's
wife in a soft voice, in French, to the little girl, who was
standing undecidedly in the center of the room.

"Can you not drop your foreign phrases?" angrily interrupted the
general. "This is not a drawing-room! You might drop it, from a
sense of decency."

His voice became shrill, and made the child shudder and begin to
cry. She went to him timidly.

The general looked at her with an expression of pain. He drew her
toward him with his left hand, raising the right to bless her.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!" he
whispered, making the sign of the cross over her. "God guard you
from evil, from every bad influence. . . . Be kind . . . honest . . .
most of all, be honest! Never tell lies. God guard you from
falsehood, from lying, even more than from sorrow!"

Tears filled the dying man's eyes. Little Olga shuddered from head
to foot; she feared her father, and at the same time was so sorry
for him. But pity got the upper hand. She clung to him, wetting
him with her tears. Her father raised his hand, wishing to make
the sign of the cross once more over the little head which lay on
his breast, but could not complete the gesture. His hand fell
heavily, his face was once more contorted, with pain; he turned to
those who stood near him, evidently avoiding meeting his wife's
eyes, and whispered:

"Take her away. It is enough. Christ be with her!" And for a
moment he collected strength to place his hand on the child's head.

The doctor took the little girl by the hand, but her mother moved
quickly toward her.

"Kiss him! Kiss papa's hand!" she whispered, "bid him good-by!"

The general's wife sobbed, and covered her face with her
handkerchief, with the grand gesture of a stage queen. The sick
man did not see this. At the sound of her voice he frowned and
closed his eyes tight, evidently trying not to listen. The doctor
led the little girl away to another room and gave her to her
governess.

When he came back to the sick man, the general, lying on the sofa,
still in the same position, and without looking at his wife who
stood beside his pillow, said to her:

"I expect my poor daughter Anna, who has suffered so much injustice
through you. . . . I have asked her to forgive me. I shall pray
her to be a mother to her little sister . . . . I have appointed
her the child's guardian. She is good and honest . . . she will
teach the child no evil. And this will be best for you also. You
are provided for. You will find out from the new will. You could
not have had any profit from being her guardian. If Anna does not
consent to take little Olga to live with her, and to educate her
with her own children, as I have asked her, Olga will be sent to a
school. You will prefer liberty to your daughter; it will be
pleasanter for you. Is it not so?"

Contempt and bitter irony were perceptible in his voice. His wife
did not utter a syllable. She remained so quiet that it might have
been thought she did not even hear him, but for the convulsive
movement of her lips, and of the fingers of her tightly clasped
hands.

The doctor once more made a movement to withdraw discreetly, but
the general's voice stopped him.

"Edouard Vicentevitch? Is he here?"

"I am here, your excellency," answered the doctor, bending over the
sick man. "Would not your excellency prefer to be carried to the
bed? It will be more comfortable lying down."

"More comfortable to die?" sharply interrupted the general. "Why
do you drivel? You know I detest beds and blankets. Drop it!
Here, take this," and he gave him a sheet of crested paper folded
in four, which was lying beside him. "Read it, please. Aloud! so
that she may know."

He turned his eyes toward his wife. The doctor unwillingly began
his unpleasant task. He was a man of fine feeling, and although he
had no very high opinion of the general's wife, still she was a
woman. And a beautiful woman. He would have preferred that she
should learn from someone else how many of the pleasures of life
were slipping away from her, in virtue of the new will. But there
was nothing for it but to do as he was ordered. It was always hard
to oppose Iuri Pavlovitch; now it was quite impossible.

Olga Vseslavovna listened to the reading of the will with complete
composure. She sat motionless, leaning back in an armchair, with
downcast eyes, and only showing her emotion when her husband was no
longer able to stifle a groan. Then she turned toward him her
pale, beautiful face, with evident signs of heartfelt sympathy, and
was even rising to come to his assistance. The sick man
impatiently refused her services, significantly turning his eyes
toward the doctor, who was reading his last will and testament, as
though he would say: "Listen! Listen! It concerns you."

It did concern her, without a doubt. General Nazimoff's wife
learned that, instead of an income of a hundred thousand a year,
which she had had a right to expect, she could count only on a sum
sufficient to keep her from poverty; what in her opinion was a mere
pittance.

The doctor finished reading, coughing to hide his confusion, and
slowly folded the document.

"You have heard?" asked the general, in a faint, convulsive voice.

"I have heard, my friend," quietly answered his wife.

"You have nothing to say?"

"What can I say? You have a right to dispose of what belongs to
you. . . . But . . . still I . . ."

"Still you what?" sharply asked her husband.

"Still, I hope, my friend, that this is not your last will. . . ."

General Nazimoff turned, and even made an effort to raise himself
on his elbow.

"God willing, you will recover. Perhaps you will decide more than
once to make other dispositions of your property," calmly continued
his wife.

The sick man fell back on the pillows.

"You are mistaken. Even if I do not die, you will not be able to
deceive me again. This is my last will!" he replied convulsively.

And with trembling hand he gave the doctor a bunch of keys.

"There is the dispatch box. Please open it, and put the will in."

The doctor obeyed his wish, without looking at Olga Vseslavovna.
She, on her part, did not look at him. Shrugging her shoulders at
her husband's last words, she remained motionless, noticing nothing
except his sufferings. His sufferings, it seemed, tortured her.

Meanwhile the dying man followed the doctor with anxious eyes, and
as soon as the latter closed the large traveling dispatch box he
stretched out his hand to him for the keys.

"So long as I am alive, I will keep them!" he murmured, putting the
bunch of keys away in his pocket. "And when I am dead, I intrust
them to you, Edouard Vicentevitch. Take care of them, as a last
service to me!" And he turned his face once more to the wall.

"And now, leave me alone! The pain is less. Perhaps I shall go to
sleep. Leave me!"

"My friend! Permit me to remain near you," the general's wife
began, bending tenderly over her husband.

"Go!" he cried sharply. "Leave me in peace, I tell you!"

She rose, trembling. The doctor hastily offered her his arm. She
left the room, leaning heavily on him, and once more covering her
face with her handkerchief, in tragic style.

"Be calm, your excellency!" whispered the doctor sympathetically,
only half conscious of what he was saying. "These rooms have been
prepared for you. You also need to rest, after such a long
journey."

"Oh, I am not thinking about myself. I am so sorry for him. Poor,
poor, senseless creature. How much I have suffered at his hands.
He was always so suspicious, so hard to get on with. And whims and
fantasies without end. You know, doctor, I have sometimes even
thought he was not in full possession of his faculties."

"Hm!" murmured the doctor, coughing in confusion.

"Take this strange change of his will, for instance," the general's
wife continued, not waiting for a clearer expression of sympathy.
"Take his manner toward me. And for what reason?"

"Yes, it is very sad," murmured the doctor.

"Tell me, doctor, does he expect his son and daughter?"

"Only his daughter, Anna Iurievna. She promised to come, with her
oldest children. A telegram came yesterday. We have been
expecting her all day."

"What is the cause of this sudden tenderness? They have not seen
each other for ten years. Does he expect her husband, too? His
son-in-law, the pedagogue?" contemptuously asked the general's
wife.

"No! How could he come? He could not leave his service. And his
son, too, Peter Iurevitch, he cannot come at once. He is on duty,
in Transcaspia. It is a long way."

"Yes, it is a long way!" assented the general's wife, evidently
busy with other thoughts. "But tell me, Edouard Vicentevitch, this
new will, has it been written long?"

"It was drawn up only to-day. The draft was prepared last week,
but the general kept putting it off. But when his pains began this
morning. . . ."

"Is it the end? Is it dangerous?" interrupted Olga Vseslavovna.

"Very--a very bad sign. When they began, Iuri Paylovitch sent at
once for the lawyer. He was still here when you arrived."

"Yes. And the old will, which he made before, has been destroyed?"

"I do not know for certain. But I think not. Oh, no, I forgot.
The general was going to send a telegram."

"Yes? to send a telegram?"

The general's wife shrugged her shoulders, sadly shook her head,
and added:

"He is so changeable! so changeable! But I think it is all the
same. According to law, only the last will is valid?"

"Yes, without doubt; the last."

The general's wife bowed her head.

"What hurts me most," she whispered, with a bitter smile, bending
close to the young doctor, and leaning heavily on his arm, "what
hurts me most, is not the money. I am not avaricious. But why
should he take my child away from me? Why should he pass over her
own mother, and intrust her to her half-sister? A woman whom I do
not know, who has not distinguished herself by any services or good
actions, so far as I know. I shall not submit. I shall contest
the will. The law must support the right of the mother. What do
you think, doctor?"

The doctor hastily assented, though, to tell the truth, he was not
thinking of anything at the moment, except the strange manner in
which the general's wife, while talking, pressed close to her
companion.

At that moment a bell rang, and the general's loud voice was heard:

"Doctor! Edouard Vicentevitch!"

"Coming!" answered the doctor.

And leaving Olga Vseslavovna at the threshold of her room, he ran
quickly to the sick man.

"A vigorous voice--for a dying man! He shouts as he used to at the
manoeuvers!" thought the general's wife.

And her handsome face at once grew dark with the hate which stole
over it. This was only a passing expression, however; it rapidly
gave place to sorrow, when she saw the manservant coming from the
sick man.

"What is the matter with your master, Yakov? Is he worse?"

"No, madam. God has been gracious. He told me to push the box
nearer him, and ordered Edouard Vicentevitch to open it. He wants
to send some telegram or other."

"Thank God, he is not worse. Yakov, I am going to send a telegram
to the station myself, in a few minutes, by my coachman. You can
give him the general's telegram, too."

"Very well, madam."

"And another thing. I shall not go to bed. If there is any change
in your master's condition, Yakov, come and knock at my door at
once. I beg of you, tell me the very moment anything happens.
Here is something for you, Yakov;--you have grown thin, waiting
upon your master!"

"I thank you most humbly, your excellency. We must not grudge our
exertions," the man answered, putting a note of considerable value
in his pocket.

III

Contrary to expectation, the night passed quietly enough. Emotion
and weariness claimed their own; Olga Vseslavovna, in spite of all
her efforts, fell into a sleep toward morning; and when she awoke,
she started in dismay, noticing that the sun had already climbed
high in the sky, and was pouring into her room.

Her maid, a deft Viennese, who had remained with this accommodating
mistress for five years, quieted her by telling her that the master
was better, that he was still asleep, not having slept for the
greater part of the night.

"The doctor and Yakov were busy with him most of the night," she
explained. "They were sorting all sorts of papers; some of them
they tied up, writing something on them; others they tore up, or
threw into the fire. The grate is full of ashes. Yakov told me."

"And there were no more telegrams?"

"No, madam, there were no more. Yakov and our Friedrich would have
let me know at once; I was there in the anteroom; they both kept
coming through on errands. But there were no more telegrams,
except the two that were sent last night."

Olga Vseslavovna dressed, breakfasted, and went to her husband.
But at the threshold of his room she was stopped by the direction
of the sick man to admit no one without special permission except
the doctor, or his eldest daughter, if she should come.

"Tell Edouard Vicentevitch to come out to me," ordered the
general's wife. The doctor was called, and in great confusion
confirmed the general's orders.

"But perhaps he did not think that such an order could apply to
me?" she said, astonished.

The doctor apologized, but had to admit that it was she who was
intended, and that his excellency had sent word to her excellency
that she should not give herself the trouble of visiting him.

"He is out of his mind," declared the general's wife quietly, but
with conviction, shrugging her shoulders. "Why should he hate me
so--for all my love to him, an old man, who might have been my
father?"

And Olga Vseslavovna once more took refuge in her pocket
handkerchief, this time, instead of tears, giving vent to sobs of
vexation.

The doctor, always shy in the presence of women, stood with hanging
head and downcast eyes, as though he were to blame.

"What is it they are saying about you burning papers all night?"
Olga Vseslavovna asked, in a weak voice.

"Oh, not nearly all night. Iuri Pavlovitch remembered that he
ought to destroy some old letters and papers. There were some to
be put in order. There, in the box, there is a packet addressed to
your excellency. I was told to write the address."

"Indeed! Could I not see it?"

"Oh no, on no account. They are all locked up in the box along
with the last will. And the general has the keys."

A bitter smile of humiliation played about the young woman's lips.

"So the new will has not been burned yet?" she asked. And to the
startled negative of the doctor, who repeated that "it was lying on
the top of the papers in the box," she added:

"Well, it will be burned yet. Do not fear. Especially if God in
His mercy prolongs my husband's life. You see, he has always had a
mysterious passion for writing new documents, powers of attorney,
deeds of gift, wills, whatever comes into his mind. He writes new
ones, and burns the old ones. But what can you do? We must submit
to each new fancy. We cannot contradict a sick man."

Olga Vseslavovna went back to her room. She only left her bedroom
for a few minutes that day, to hear the final word of the lights of
the medical profession, who had come together for a general
consultation in the afternoon; all the rest of the day she shut
herself up. The conclusions of the physicians, though they
differed completely in detail, were similar in the main, and far
from comforting; the life and continued suffering of the sick man
could not last more than a few days.

In the evening a telegram came from Anna Iurievna; she informed her
father that she would be with him on the following day, at five in
the afternoon.

"Shall I be able to hold out? Shall I last so long?" sighed the
sick man, all day long. And the more he was disturbed in mind, the
more threatening were his attacks of pain. He passed a bad night.
Toward morning a violent attack, much worse than any that had gone
before, almost carried him away. He could hardly breathe, owing to
the sharp suffering. Hot baths for his hands and steam inhalations
no longer had any beneficial effect, though they had alleviated his
pain hitherto.

The doctor, the Sister of Mercy, and the servant wore themselves
out. But still, as before, his wife alone was not admitted to him.
She raged with anger, trying, and not without success, to convince
everyone that she was going mad with despair. Little Olga had been
taken away on the previous day by a friend of the general's, to
stay there "during this terrible time." That night Madame Nazimoff
did not go to bed at all; and, as befitted a devoted wife, did not
quit her husband's door. When the violent attack just before dawn
quieted down, she made an attempt to go in to him; but no sooner
did the sick man see her at the head of his couch, on which he had
at last been persuaded to lie, than strong displeasure was
expressed in his face, and, no longer able to speak, he made an
angry motion of his hand toward her, and groaned heavily. The
Sister of Mercy with great firmness asked the general's wife not to
trouble the sick man with her presence.

"And I am to put up with this. I am to submit to all this?"
thought Olga Vseslavovna, writhing with wrath. "To endure all this
from him, and after his death to suffer beggary? No, a thousand
times no! Better death than penury and such insults." And she
fell into gloomy thought.

That gesture of displeasure at the sight of his wife was the last
conscious act of Iuri Pavlovitch Nazimoff. At eight in the morning
he lost consciousness, in the midst of violent suffering, which
lasted until the end. By the early afternoon he was no more.

During the last hour of his agony his wife knelt beside his couch
without let or hindrance, and wept inconsolably. The formidable
aristocrat and millionaire was dead.

Everything went on along the usual lines. The customary stir and
unceremonious bustle, instead of cautious whispering, rose around
the dead body, in preparation for a fashionable funeral. No near
relatives were present except his wife, and she was confined to her
room, half-fainting, half-hysterical. All responsibility fell on
the humble doctor, and he busied himself indefatigably,
conscientiously, in the sweat of his brow, making every effort to
omit nothing. But, as always happens, he omitted the most
important thing of all. The early twilight was already descending
on St. Petersburg, shrouded in chilly mist, when Edouard
Vicentevitch Polesski struck his brow in despair; he had suddenly
remembered the keys and the box, committed to his care by the dying
man. At that moment, the body, dressed in full uniform, with all
his regalia, was lying in the great, darkened room on a table,
covered with brocade, awaiting the coffin and the customary
wreaths. The doctor rushed into the empty bedroom. Everything in
it was already in order; the bed stood there, without mattress or
pillows. There was nothing on the dressing table, either.

Where were the keys? Where was the box? The box was standing as
before, untouched, locked. His heart at once felt lighter. But
the keys? No doubt the police would come in a few minutes. It was
astonishing that they had not come already. They would seal
everything. Everything must be in order. Where was Yakov?
Probably he had taken them. Or . . . the general's wife?

Polesski rushed to look for the manservant, but could not find him.
There was so much to do; he had gone to buy something, to order
something. "Oh Lord! And the announcement?" he suddenly
remembered. It must be written at once, and sent to the
newspapers. He must ask the general's wife, however, what words he
should use. However much he might wish to avoid her, still she was
now the most important person. And he could ask at the same time
whether she had seen the keys.

The doctor went to the rooms of the general's wife. She was lying
down, suffering severely, but she came out to him. "What words was
he to use? It was all the same to her. 'With deep regret,' 'with
heartfelt sorrow,' what did she care? The keys? What keys? No!
she had not seen any keys, and did not know where they were. But
why should he be disturbed about them? The servants were
trustworthy; nothing would go astray."

"Yes, but we must have them ready for the police. They will come
in a few minutes, to seal up the dead man's papers!"

"To seal up the papers? Why?"

"That is the law. So that everything should be intact, until after
the last will and testament of the deceased has been read,
according to his wishes."

General Nazimoff's wife paled perceptibly. She knew nothing of
such an obstacle, and had not expected it. The doctor was too busy
to notice her pallor.

"Very well; I shall write the announcement at once, and send it to
the newspapers. I suppose 'Novoe Vremya' and 'Novosti' will be
enough?"

"Do as you think best. Write it here, in my room. Here is
everything you require; pens, paper. Write, and then read it to
me. I shall be back in a moment. I want to put a bandage round my
head. It aches so. Wait for me here." And the general's wife
went from the sitting-room to her bedroom.

"Rita!" she whispered to her faithful maid, who was hurriedly
sewing a mourning gown of crape for her. "Do not let the doctor go
till I return. Do you understand? Do what you please, but do not
let him go." The general's wife slipped from the bedroom into the
passage through a small side door, and disappeared.

The two rooms between hers and the chamber where the dead man lay
were quite empty and nearly dark; there were no candles in them.
From the chamber came the feeble glimmer of the tiny lamps burning
before the icons.* The tapers were not lit yet, as the deacon had
not yet arrived. He was to come at the same time as the priest and
the coffin. For the moment there was no one near the dead man; in
the anteroom sat the Sister of Mercy.

* Sacred images.

"You wish to pray?" she asked the general's wife.

"Yes, I shall pray there, in his room."

She slipped past the dead body without looking at it, to the room
that had been the general's bedroom, and closed the door behind
her. She was afraid to lock it, and after all, was it necessary?
It would only take a moment. There it is, the box! She knows it
of old! And she knows its key of old, too; it is not so long since
her husband had no secrets from her.

The key was quickly slipped into the lock, and the lid rose
quickly. The paper? That new, detestable paper, which might
deprive her of everything. Ah! there it is!

To close the lid quickly, and turn the key in the lock; to hide the
keys somewhere; here, between the seat and the back of the sofa, on
which he lay. That's it!

A sigh of relief from fear escaped the beautiful lips of the
handsome woman, lips which were pale through those terrible days.
She could feel secure at last!

She must look at the document, the proof of his cruelty, his
injustice, his stupidity! She must make sure that there was no
mistake! Olga Vseslavovna went up to the window, and taking
advantage of the last ray of the gray day, unfolded the will.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!" she
read. Yes, that is it, the will.

"How he pronounced those same words, when he was blessing little
Olga," she remembered. "Blessing her! And his hand did not
tremble, when he signed this. To deprive her, to deprive them
both, of everything, all on account of those hated people? But
now--it should never be! On no account! Your down-at-the-heel
pedagogue shall not strut about in peacock's feathers! Olga
and I . . . require the money more!"

And the general's wife was tempted to snap her fingers in triumph
in the direction of the dead man.

Suddenly, quite close to the door, the sound of steps was heard.
Good heavens! And she held the big sheet of crested paper in her
hand! Where could she put it? She had no time to think of folding
it up. There! they are coming in already! Who can it be?

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