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. FOOTNOTES [1] Lit., _word and deed_. [2] _The original painting (by Constantine Flavitski) hangs in the famous private gallery of M. Tretiakoff._ [3] The Bulgarian language is similar to the Russian, being a Sclavonic dialect. [4] The Russians have no “Mr.,” “Mrs.” or “Miss” before names. They use the patronymic, which consists in adding _vitch_, for the masculine, and _vna_, for the feminine, to the name of the father, with sometimes a contraction. [5] Little mother,--a caressing term. [6] Pavel the son of Efstaffi (see note on page 8). [7] Pet name for Irena. [8] The man who cries the hour for prayer from one of the mosque towers. [9] The banks on either side of the Volga. [10] A Persian garment worn by Russian men. [11] A Polish garment. [12] Seven days after the accession to the throne of Ekaterina II. her husband, Peter III., died, it is supposed, a violent death. Some time after a simple Cossack, named Pougachoff, an escaped convict from the mines of Siberia (whose torn nostrils showed that his crime had been murder), succeeded in raising the whole of the Urals (such was the credulity of Russians at that time) by giving himself out as Peter III. [13] _Lit._ “mistress-woman,” _i.e._, a clever manager, one quite capable of conducting her affairs. [14] The Pânins were, and are, a celebrated noble family holding various court appointments.