第22章

She asked after the health of the young man very prettily and embraced Matrena, in truth as one embraces a much-beloved mother.

She complained again of Matrena's night-watch.

"You have not stopped it, mamma; you have not stopped it, eh? You are not going to be a little reasonable at last? I beg of you!

What has given me such a mother! Why don't you sleep? Night is made for sleep.Koupriane has upset you.All the terrible things are over in Moscow.There is no occasion to think of them any more.

That Koupriane makes himself important with his police-agents and obsesses us all.I am convinced that the affair of the bouquet was the work of his police.""Mademoiselle," said Rouletabille, "I have just had them all sent away, all of them - because I think very much the same as you do.""Well, then, you will be my friend, Monsieur Rouletabille I promise you, since you have done that.Now that the police are gone we have nothing more to fear.Nothing.I tell you, mamma; you can believe me and not weep any more, mamma dear.""Yes, yes; kiss me.Kiss me again!" repeated Matrena, drying her eyes."When you kiss me I forget everything.You love me like your own mother, don't you?""Like my mother.Like my own mother."

"You have nothing to hide from me? - tell me, Natacha.""Nothing to hide."

"Then why do you make Boris suffer so? Why don't you marry him?""Because I don't wish to leave you, mamma dear."She escaped further parley by jumping up on the garden edge away from Khor, who had just been set free for the day.

"The dear child," said Matrena; "the dear little one, she little knows how much pain she has caused us without being aware of it, by her ideas, her extravagant ideas.Her father said to me one day at Moscow, 'Matrena Petrovna, I'll tell you what I think - Natacha is the victim of the wicked books that have turned the brains of all these poor rebellious students.Yes, yes; it would be better for her and for us if she did not know how to read, for there are moments - my word! - when she talks very wildly, and I have said to myself more than once that with such ideas her place is not in our salon hut behind a barricade.All the same,' he added after reflection, 'I prefer to find her in the salon where Ican embrace her than behind a barricade where I would kill her like a mad dog.' But my husband, dear little monsieur, did not say what he really thinks, for he loves his daughter more than all the rest of the world put together, and there are things that even a general, yes, even a governor-general, would not be able to do without violating both divine and human laws.He suspects Boris also of setting Natacha's wits awry.We really have to consider that when they are married they will read everything they have a mind to.My husband has much more real respect for Michael Korsakoff because of his impregnable character and his granite conscience.More than once he has said, 'Here is the aide I should have had in the worst days of Moscow.He would have spared me much of the individual pain.' I can understand how that would please the general, but how such a tigerish nature succeeds in appealing to Natacha, how it succeeds in not actually revolting her, these young girls of the capital, one never can tell about them - they get away from all your notions of them."Rouletabille inquired:

"Why did Boris say to Michael, 'We will return together'? Do they live together?""Yes, in the small villa on the Krestowsky Ostrov, the isle across from ours, that you can see from the window of the sitting-room.

Boris chose it because of that.The orderlies wished to have camp-beds prepared for them right here in the general's house, by a natural devotion to him; but I opposed it, in order to keep them both from Natacha, in whom, of course, I have the most complete confidence, but one cannot be sure about the extravagance of men nowadays."Ermolai came to announce the petit-dejeuner.They found Natacha already at table and she poured them coffee and milk, eating away all the time at a sandwich of anchovies and caviare.

"Tell me, mamma, do you know what gives me such an appetite? It is the thought of the way poor Koupriane must have taken this dismissal of his men.I should like to go to see him.""If you see him," said Rouletabille, "it is unnecessary to tell him that the general will go for a long promenade among the isles this afternoon, because without fail he would send us an escort of gendarmes.""Papa! A promenade among the islands? Truly? Oh, that is going to be lovely!"Matrena Petrovna sprang to her feet.

"Are you mad, my dear little domovoi, actually mad?""Why? Why? It is fine.I must run and tell papa.""Your father's room is locked," said Matrena brusquely.

"Yes, yes; he is locked in.You have the key.Locked away until death! You will kill him.It will be you who kills him."She left the table without waiting for a reply and went and shut herself also in her chamber.

Matrena looked at Rouletabille, who continued his breakfast as though nothing had happened.

"Is it possible that you speak seriously?" she demanded, coming over and sitting down beside him."A promenade! Without the police, when we have received again this morning a letter saying now that before forty-eight hours the general will be dead!""Forty-eight hours," said Rouletabille, soaking his bread in his chocolate, "forty-eight hours? It is possible.In any case, Iknow they will try something very soon."

"My God, how is it that you believe that? You speak with assurance.""Madame, it is necessary to do everything I tell you, to the letter.""But to have the general go out, unless he is guarded - how can you take such a responsibility? When I think about it, when I really think about it, I ask myself how you have dared send away the police.