第87章

"I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU"

At the hotel a note from Gounsovski: "Don't forget this time to come to-morrow to have luncheon with me.Warmest regards from Madame Gounsovski." Then a horrible, sleepless night, shaken with echoes of explosions and the clamor of the wounded; and the solemn shade of Pere Alexis, stretching out toward Rouletabille a phial of poison and saying, "Either Natacha or you!" Then, rising among the shades the bloody form of Michael Nikolaievitch the Innocent!

In the morning a note from the Marshal of the Court.

Monsieur le Marechal had no particular good news, evidently, for in terms quite without enthusiasm he invited the young man to luncheon for that same day, rather early, at midday, as he wished to see him once more before he left for France."I see," said Rouletabille to himself; "Monsieur le Marechal pronounces my expulsion from the country "- and he forgot once more the Gounsovski luncheon.The meeting-place named was the great restaurant called the Bear.

Rouletabille entered it promptly at noon.He asked the schwitzar if the Grand Marshal of the Court had arrived, and was told no one had seen him yet.They conducted him to the huge main hall, where, however, there was only one person.This man, standing before the table spread with zakouskis, was stuffing himself.At the sound of Rouletabille's step on the floor this sole famished patron turned and lifted his hands to heaven as he recognized the reporter.The atter would have given all the roubles in his pocket to have avoided the recognition.But he was already face to face with the advocate so celebrated for his table-feats, the amiable Athanase Georgevitch, his head swathed in bandages and dressings from the midst of which one could perceive distinctly only the eyes and, above all, the mouth.

"How goes it, little friend?"

"How are you?"

"Oh, I! There is nothing the matter.In a week we shall have forgotten it.""What a terrible affair," said the reporter, "I certainly believed we were all dead men.""No, no.It was nothing.Nitchevo!"

"And poor Thaddeus Tchitchnikoff with his two poor legs broken!""Eh! Nitchevo! He has plenty of good solid splints that will make him two good legs again.Nitchevo! Don't you think anything more about that! It is nothing.You have come here to dine? A very celebrated house this.Caracho!" He busied himself to do the honors.One would have said the restaurant belonged to him.He boasted of its architecture and the cuisine "a la Francaise.""Do you know," he inquired confidently, "a finer restaurant room anywhere in the world?"In fact, it seemed to Rouletabille as he looked up into the high glass arch that he was in a railway station decorated for some illustrious traveler, for there were flowers and plants everywhere.

But the visitor whom the ball awaited was the Russian eater, the ogre who never failed to come to eat at The Bear.Pointing out the lines of tables shining with their white cloths and bright silver, Athanase Georgevitch, with his mouth full, said:

"Ah, my dear little French monsieur, you should see it at supper-time, with the women, and the jewels, and the music.There is nothing in France that can give you any idea of it, nothing! The gayety - the champagne - and the jewels, monsieur, worth millions and millions of roubles! Our women wear them all - everything they have.They are decked like sacred shrines! All the family jewels - from the very bottom of the caskets! it is magnificent, thoroughly Russian - Muscovite! What am I saying? It is Asiatic.

Monsieur, in the evening, at a fete, we are Asiatic.Let me tell you something on the quiet.You notice that this enormous dining ail is surrounded by those windowed balconies.Each of those windows belongs to a separate private room.Well, you see that window there? - yes, there - that is the room of a grand duke - yes, he's the one I mean - a very gay grand duke.Do you know, one evening when there was a great crowd here - families, monsieur, family parties, high-born families - the window of that particular balcony was thrown open, and a woman stark naked, as naked as my hand, monsieur, was dropped into the dining-hall and ran across it full-speed.It was a wager, monsieur, a wager of the jolly grand duke's, and the demoiselle won it.But what a scandal! Ah, don't speak of it; that would be very bad form.But - sufficiently Asiatic, eh? Truly Asiatic.And - something much more unfortunate - you see that table? It happened the Russian New Year Eve, at supper.All the beauty, the whole capital, was here.Just at midnight the orchestra struck up the Bodje tsara krani* to inaugurate the joyful Russian New Year, and everybody stood up, according to custom, and listened in silence, as loyal subjects should.Well, at that table, accompanying his family, there was a young student, a fine fellow, very correct, and in uniform.This unhappy young student, who had risen like everybody else, to listen to the Bodje tsara krani, inadvertently placed his knee on a chair.

Truly that is not a correct attitude, monsieur, but really it was no reason for killing him, was it now? Certainly not.Well, a brute in uniform, an officer quite immaculately gotten-up, drew a revolver from his pocket and discharged it at the student point-blank.You can imagine the scandal, for the student was dead! There were Paris journalists there, besides, who had never been there before, you see!

Monsieur Gaston Leroux was at that very table.What a scandal!

They had a regular battle.They broke carafes over the head of the assassin - for he was neither more nor less than an assassin, a drinker of blood - an Asiatic.They picked up the assassin, who was bleeding all over, and carried him off to look after him.As to the dead man, he lay stretched out there under a table-cloth, waiting for the police - and those at the tables went on with their drinking.