Count Sapieha

A real Polish noble, described in the letter as "chamberlain of the Austrian court, a Pole who helps Poles," said to have passed through Siberia shortly before Chekhov. An elderly Polish station clerk tells Chekhov that Sapieha's carriage stopped near the station without the clerk realizing who it was; the clerk had written to him in Vienna asking for help and never received a reply. Chekhov's rhetorical aside -- "Why am I not Sapieha? I'd have sent the poor fellow home" -- closes the anecdote. Likely a member of the Sapieha (Sapieha-Kodenski or related) magnate family, several of whom held Austrian court appointments in this period; not further identified from the letter alone.