been revenge, then a brilliant and luxurious life—and
she knew that they would cost dear. Therefore,
once embarked on her undertaking, Natasha remained
calm and indifferent, brilliantly distinguished, and
ensnaring the just and the unjust alike. Her
intellect, education, skill, resource, and innate
tact made it possible for her everywhere to gain a
footing in select aristocratic society, and to play
by no means the least role there. Many beauties
envied her, detested her, spoke evil of her, and yet
sought her friendship, because she almost always queened
it in society. Her friendship and sympathy always
seemed so cordial, so sincere and tender, and her
epigrams were so pointed and poisonous, that every
hostile criticism seemed to shrivel up in that glittering
fire, and there seemed to be nothing left but to seek
her friendship and good will. For instance, if
things went well in Baden, one could confidently foretell
that at the end of the summer season Natasha would
be found in Nice or Geneva, queen of the winter season,
the lioness of the day, and the arbiter of fashion.
She and Bodlevski always behaved with such propriety
and watchful care that not a shadow ever fell on Natasha’s
fame. It is true that Bodlevski had to change
his name once or twice and to seek a new field for
his talents, and to make sudden excursions to distant
corners of Europe—sometimes in pursuit
of a promising “job,” sometimes to evade
the too persistent attentions of the police.
So far everything had turned out favorably, and his
name “had remained unstained,” when suddenly
a slight mishap befell. The matter was a trifling
one, but the misfortune was that it happened in Paris.
There was a chance that it might find issue in the
courts and the hulks, so that there ensued a more than
ordinarily rapid change of passports and a new excursion—this
time to Russia, back to their native land again, after
an absence of twenty years. Thus it happened
that the papers announced the arrival in St. Petersburg
of Baroness von Doering and Ian Vladislav Karozitch.
IX
THE CONCERT OF THE POWERS
A few days after there was a brilliant reunion at
Princess Shadursky’s. All the beauty and
fashion of St. Petersburg were invited, and few who
were invited failed to come. It happened that
Prince Shadursky was an admirer of the fair sex, and
also that he had had the pleasure of meeting the brilliant
Baroness von Doering at Hamburg, and again in Paris.
It was, therefore, to be expected that Baroness von
Doering should be found in the midst of an admiring
throng at Princess Shadursky’s reception.
Her brother, Ian Karozitch, was also there, suave,
alert, dignified, losing no opportunity to make friends
with the distinguished company that thronged the prince’s
rooms.
Late in the evening the baroness and her brother might
have been seen engaged in a tete-a-tete, seated
in two comfortable armchairs, and anyone who was near
enough might have heard the following conversation: