on the morning of that same day, at nine o'clock, a well-dressed lady presented at the bank of commerce a number of unsigned bank shares. at the same time a young man, also elegantly dressed, presented a series of signed shares, made out in the name of "princess anna chechevinski." they were properly indorsed, the signature corresponding to that in the bank books.
after a short interval the cashier of the bank paid over to the well-dressed lady a hundred and fifty thousand rubles in bills, and to the elegantly dressed young man seventy thousand rubles. the lady signed her receipt in french, teresa dore; the young man signed his name, ivan afonasieff, son of a merchant of kostroma.
a little later on the same day—namely, about two o'clock—a light carriage carried two passengers along the pargoloff road: a quietly dressed young woman and a quietly dressed young man. toward evening these same young people were traveling in a finnish coach by the stony mountain road in the direction of abo.
four days later the old princesss chechevinski was buried in the
nevski monastery.
on his return from the monastery, young prince chechevinski went straight for the strong box, which he had hitherto seen only at a distance, and even then only rarely. he expected to find a great deal more money in it than he found—some hundred and fifty thousand rubles; a hundred thousand in his late mother's name, and fifty thousand in his own. this was the personal property of the old princess, a part of her dowry. the young prince made a wry face—the money might last him two or three years, not more. during the lifetime of the old princess no one had known accurately how much she possessed, so that it never even entered the young prince's head to ask whether she had not had more. he was so unmethodical that he never even looked into her account book, deciding that it was uninteresting and not worth while.
that same day the janitor of one of the huge, dirty tenements in vosnesenski prospekt brought to the police office notice of the fact that the pole, kasimir bodlevski, had left the city; and the housekeeper of the late princess chechevinski informed the police that the serf girl natalia pavlovna (natasha) had disappeared without leaving a trace, which the housekeeper now announced, as the three days' limit had elapsed.
at that same hour the little ship of a certain finnish captain was gliding down the gulf of bothnia. the finn stood at the helm and his young son handled the sails. on the deck sat a young man and a young woman. the young woman carried, in a little bag hung round her neck, two hundred and forty-four thousand rubles in bills, and she and her companion carried pistols in their pockets for use in case of need. their passports declared that the young woman belonged to the noble class, and was the widow of a college assessor, her name being maria solontseva, while the young man was a pole, kasimir bodlevski.
the little ship was crossing the gulf of bothnia toward the coast of sweden.
