Part 2 — CHAPTER XXXV. FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER.

Fifteen years had passed away; the year 1796 was drawing to its end. It was in the beginning of the reign of Pavel I. All Petersburg was hailing joyfully the liberation of the celebrated Novikoff from the fortress, and the return from Siberia of Radischeff. The emperor, with his august consort and several courtiers, went to visit the fortress of Petropavlovski. The chief of the police, Arharoff, asked the emperor if he would not like to visit the Ravelin of Alexéef, where great alterations and repairs were taking place. One of the dungeons attracted the attention of the Imperial visitors.

“Were any Italians ever confined here?” asked the emperor of the commandant.

“Never, your Highness; only schismatics.”

“Well, look here,” and the Emperor pointed to the window, “here’s an inscription on the glass, cut with a diamond. ‘O, Dio mio.’”

Arharoff and the commandant both bent towards the window eagerly. The commandant was new, and therefore had not yet had time to become acquainted with all the legends and past days of the fortress.

“It would be very interesting to know,” said the Empress Marie Feodorovna. “It’s a woman’s hand. Poor thing, who could it have been?”

“Was it not Tarakanova?” said Nelidova, standing by. “Have you forgotten, your Highness, the unfortunate Konsov, and the young lady from Little Russia?”

“Tarakanova was drowned here at the time of the inundation,” said somebody.

Every one was silent; the Empress Marie Feodorovna alone looked at Nelidova, and pointed with her eyes out of the window at a solitary silver birch tree, growing in the middle of the little neglected garden of the Ravelin.

“That’s her grave,” she whispered. “Do you remember? But what can have become of the diary?”

It was plain that the emperor had heard the words. As he took his seat in the carriage, he remarked to Arharoff, “At whatever cost this affair must be looked into; a most painful event here took place. They were troublous times; the attempt of Merovitch, the insurrection of Pougachoff, and then … this unfortunate.… I saw my mother’s tears; to her very last days she could not forgive herself for allowing the poor girl to be interrogated during her absence from Petersburg.”

The police were all set on foot.

Somewhere in an almshouse they discovered the poor blind invalid, Antipitch. He had been watchman in the fortress twenty years before. The invalid directed them to a gardener, and this one again to the warden of the cathedral of Kazan, who said that he had found a trunk filled with papers after the death of Father Peter, and that he knew that in it there had been a roll of very important papers. Search was made for the family of Father Peter. He had left no direct heirs, but his grand-niece, the daughter of his niece Vâra, was found. Arharoff went himself to see her, but she knew nothing. No one knew what had become of the trunk of papers of Father Peter, or whether it had been sent to Moscow with his other things. Everything was found out in time. In the poor retired nunnery of the Oukraine, where Irena had sought refuge, after having taken the veil, she peacefully died, at an advanced age, fervently praying for her fiancé, the lost Konsov. Amongst the effects of the deceased lay a packet of papers, with the inscription “From Father Peter,” and there, together with a letter from a very influential personage, a faded myrtle leaf. A neighbour, who was very fond of antiquities, had borrowed these papers from the Lady Superior. He had subsequently died abroad.

Count Alexis Gregorevitch Orloff-Chesmenski married, the very year that the Count and Countess du Nord were travelling abroad. His illegitimate son by the Princess Tarakanova, Alexander Chesmenski, died, in the rank of Brigadier, at the close of the last century. Having survived the Empress Ekaterina and the Emperor Pavel, the Count Orloff died in Moscow, in the reign of the Emperor Alexander I., on Christmas Eve, 1807, leaving an only unmarried daughter, the well-known Countess Anna Alexéevna. It remains a secret till now whether his conscience tormented him for his treachery to Tarakanova, or whether the stings of remorse had no hold on his hardened soul. However, it is a well-known fact, that the agonies of death must have been for Count Orloff especially terrible, because, in order to drown the horrible screams and groans of the dying “Giant of his time,” it was found necessary to make his private orchestra, at that time learning a sonata in the neighbouring pavilion, play as loudly as possible.

THE END.