The princess had long ago formed a habit of looking over her financial documents, and verifying the accounts of income and expenditure.  This deep-seated habit, which had become a second nature, did not leave her, now she was ill; at any rate, every morning, as soon as consciousness and tranquillity returned to her, she took out the key of her wardrobe, ordered the strong box to be brought to her, and, sending the day nurse out of the room, gave herself up in solitude to her beloved occupation, which had by this time become something like a childish amusement.  She drew out her bank securities, signed and unsigned, now admiring the colored engravings on them, now sorting and rearranging them, fingering the packets to feel their thickness, counting them over, and several thousands in banknotes, kept in the house in case of need, and finally carefully replaced them in the strong box.  The girl, recalled to the bedroom by the sound of the bell, restored the strong box to its former place, and the old princess, after this amusement, felt herself for some time quiet and happy.

The nurses had had the opportunity to get pretty well used to this foible; so that the daily examination of the strong box seemed to them a part of the order of things, something consecrated by custom.

After taking her medicine, and having her hands and face wiped with a towel moistened with toilet water, the princess ordered certain prayers to be read out to her, or the chapter of the Gospel appointed for the day, and then received her son.  From the time of her illness—­that is, from the day when she signed the will making him her sole heir—­he had laid it on himself as a not altogether pleasant duty to put in an appearance for five minutes in his mother’s room, where he showed himself a dutiful son by never mentioning his sister, but asking tenderly after his mother’s health, and finally, with a deep sigh, gently kissing her hand, taking his departure forthwith, to sup with some actress or to meet his companions in a wine shop.

When he soon went away, the old lady, as was her habit, ordered her strong box to be brought, and sent the nurse out of the room.  It was a very handsome box of ebony, with beautiful inlaid work.

The key clicked in the lock, the spring lid sprang up, and the eyes of the old princess became set in their sockets, full of bewilderment and terror.  Twenty-four thousand rubles in bills, which she herself with her own hands had yesterday laid on the top of the other securities, were no longer in the strong box.  All the unsigned bank securities were also gone.  The securities in the name of her daughter Anna had likewise disappeared.  There remained only the signed securities in the name of the old princess and her son, and a few shares of stock.  In the place of all that was gone, there lay a note directed “to Princess Chechevinski.”

The old lady’s fingers trembled so that for a long time she could not unfold this paper.  Her staring eyes wandered hither and thither as if she had lost her senses.  At last she managed somehow to unfold the note, and began to read: