Page:Diamonds To Sit On.pdf/135

 

FROM PILLAR TO POST

ND where was Father Theodore all this time? We left him intending to go and see Citizen Bruns at Number 34 Vinogradny Street. Greed had taken possession of him. He had been overcome with a desire for wealth, and now he was travelling about Russia in search of the chairs and writing letters to his wife.

'

'I feel very guilty towards you. I have deserted you, my poor Katerina, and left you alone at such a difficult time.

'I must tell you everything. You will understand everything, and I hope you will approve.

'Of course I have not joined the Living Church. May the Lord preserve me from it! Now read this letter carefully. You and I will soon begin a new life. Do you remember I once spoke to you about a candle factory? Well, we shall have one, and perhaps something else besides. Yes, we shall have a factory and you won't need to cook dinners for strangers any more. We shall go to Samara and keep a servant.

'Now I shall tell you what I am doing, but you must keep it a dead secret. Don't tell any one, not even Marie Ivanovna. I am looking for treasure. Do you remember the late Claudia Ivanovna Petukhov, Hippolyte's mother-in-law? Well, just before she died she revealed to me that she had hidden her diamonds in one of her drawing-room chairs (there were twelve chairs in all in their Stargorod home).