"No, everyone is dead. His mother worshipped him, but she died when he
was scarcely eighteen, and his father before that. His mother is his
adored memory. In all the mad scenes which he and his companions, I am
afraid, have enacted in the Fontonka house, there is one set of rooms
no one has dared to enter--her rooms--and he keeps flowers there, and
an ever-burning lamp. There is a strange touch of sentiment and
melancholy in Gritzko, and of religion too. Sometimes I think he is
unhappy, and then he goes off to his castle in the Caucasus or to
Milasláv, and no one sees him for weeks. Last year we hoped he would
marry a charming Polish girl--he quite paid her attention for several
nights; but he said she laughed one day when he felt sad, and answered
seriously when he was gay, and made crunching noises with her teeth
when she eat biscuits!--and her mother was fat and she might grow so
too! And for these serious reasons he could not face her at breakfast
for the rest of his life! Thus that came to an end. No one has any
influence upon him. I have given up trying. One must accept him as he
is, or leave him alone--he will go his own way."

Tamara had ceased fighting with herself about the interest she took in
conversations relating to the Prince. She could not restrain her desire
to hear of him, but she explained it now by telling herself he was a
rather lurid and unusual foreign character, which must naturally be an
interesting study for a stranger.

"It was an escape for the girl at least, perhaps," she said, when the
Princess paused.

"Of that I am not sure; he is so tender to children and animals, and
his soul is full of generosity and poetry--and justice too. Poor
Gritzko," and the Princess sighed.