The Secret of the Night
“Madame, they are going to try to kill your husband within forty-eight
hours. Do you desire me to save him perhaps for a long time--for good,
perhaps?”
“Ah, listen to him! Listen to him, the dear little domovoi! But what
will Koupriane say? He will not permit any venturing beyond the villa;
none, at least for the moment. Ah, now, how he looks at me, the dear
little domovoi! Oh, well, yes. There, I will do as you wish.”
“Very well, come into the garden with me.”
She accompanied him, leaning on his arm.
“Here’s the idea,” said Rouletabille. “This afternoon you will go with
the general in his rolling-chair. Everybody will follow. Everyone,
you understand, Madame--understand me thoroughly, I mean to say that
everyone who wishes to come must be invited to. Only those who wish
to remain behind will do so. And do not insist. Ah, now, I see, you
understand me. Why do you tremble?”
“But who will guard the house?”
“No one. Simply tell the servant at the lodge to watch from the
lodge those who enter the villa, but simply from the lodge, without
interfering with them, and saying nothing to them, nothing.”
“I will do as you wish. Do you want me to announce our promenade
beforehand?”
“Why, certainly. Don’t be uneasy; let everybody have the good news.”
“Oh, I will tell only the general and his friends, you may be sure.”
“Now, dear Madame, just one more word. Do not wait for me at luncheon.”
“What! You are going to leave us?” she cried instantly, breathless. “No,
no. I do not wish it. I am willing to do without the police, but I am
not willing to do without you. Everything might happen in your absence.
Everything! Everything!” she repeated with singular energy. “Because,
for me, I cannot feel sure as I should, perhaps. Ah, you make me say
these things. Such things! But do not go.”
“Do not be afraid; I am not going to leave you, madame.”
“Ah, you are good! You are kind, kind! Caracho! (Very well.)”
“I will not leave you. But I must not be at luncheon. If anyone asks
where I am, say that I have my business to look after, and have gone to
interview political personages in the city.”
“There’s only one political personage in Russia,” replied Matrena
Petrovna bluntly; “that is the Tsar.”
“Very well; say I have gone to interview the Tsar.”
“But no one will believe that. And where will you be?”
“I do not know myself. But I will be about the house.”
“Very well, very well, dear little domovoi.”
She left him, not knowing what she thought about it all, nor what she
should think--her head was all in a muddle.
In the course of the morning Athanase Georgevitch and Thaddeus
Tchnitchnikof arrived. The general was already in the veranda. Michael
and Boris arrived shortly after, and inquired in their turn how he had
passed the night without the police. When they were told that Feodor
was going for a promenade that afternoon they applauded his decision.
“Bravo! A promenade a la strielka (to the head of the island) at the
hour when all St. Petersburg is driving there. That is fine. We will all
be there.” The general made them stay for luncheon. Natacha appeared for
the meal, in rather melancholy mood. A little before luncheon she had
held a double conversation in the garden with Michael and Boris. No one
ever could have known what these three young people had said if some
stenographic notes in Rouletabille’s memorandum-book did not give us
a notion; the reporter had overheard, by accident surely, since all
self-respecting reporters are quite incapable of eavesdropping.
The memorandum notes:
Natacha went into the garden with a book, which she gave to Boris, who
pressed her hand lingeringly to his lips. “Here is your book; I return
it to you. I don’t want any more of them, the ideas surge so in my
brain. It makes my head ache. It is true, you are right, I don’t love
novelties. I can satisfy myself with Pouchkine perfectly. The rest are
all one to me. Did you pass a good night?”
Boris (good-looking young man, about thirty years old, blonde, a little
effeminate, wistful. A curious appurtenance in the military household of
so vigorous a general). “Natacha, there is not an hour that I can call
truly good if I spend it away from you, dear, dear Natacha.”
“I ask you seriously if you have passed a good night?”
She touched his hand a moment and looked into his eyes, but he shook his
head.
“What did you do last night after you reached home?” she demanded
insistently. “Did you stay up?”
“I obeyed you; I only sat a half-hour by the window looking over here at
the villa, and then I went to bed.”
“Yes, it is necessary you should get your rest. I wish it for you as
for everyone else. This feverish life is impossible. Matrena Petrovna is
getting us all ill, and we shall be prostrated.”
“Yesterday,” said Boris, “I looked at the villa for a half-hour from
my window. Dear, dear villa, dear night when I can feel you breathing,
living near me. As if you had been against my heart. I could have wept
because I could hear Michael snoring in his chamber. He seemed happy.
At last, I heard nothing more, there was nothing more to hear but the
double chorus of frogs in the pools of the island. Our pools, Natacha,
are like the enchanted lakes of the Caucasus which are silent by day and
sing at evening; there are innumerable throngs of frogs which sing on
the same chord, some of them on a major and some on a minor. The chorus
speaks from pool to pool, lamenting and moaning across the fields and
gardens, and re-echoing like AEolian harps placed opposite one another.”
“Do AEolian harps make so much noise, Boris?”
“You laugh? I don’t find you yourself half the time. It is Michael who
has changed you, and I am out of it. (Here they spoke in Russian.)
I shall not be easy until I am your husband. I can’t understand your
manner with Michael at all.”
(Here more Russian words which I do not understand.)
“Speak French; here is the gardener,” said Natacha.
“I do not like the way you are managing our lives. Why do you delay our
marriage? Why?”
(Russian words from Natacha. Gesture of desperation from Boris.)
“How long? You say a long time? But that says nothing--a long time. How
long? A year? Two years? Ten years? Tell me, or I will kill myself at
your feet. No, no; speak or I will kill Michael. On my word! Like a
dog!”
“I swear to you, by the dear head of your mother, Boris, that the date
of our marriage does not depend on Michael.”
(Some words in Russian. Boris, a little consoled, holds her hand
lingeringly to his lips.)
Conversation between Michael and Natacha in the garden:
“Well? Have you told him?”
“I ended at last by making him understand that there is not any hope.
None. It is necessary to have patience. I have to have it myself.”
“He is stupid and provoking.”
“Stupid, no. Provoking, yes, if you wish. But you also, you are
provoking.”
“Natacha! Natacha!”
(Here more Russian.) As Natacha started to leave, Michael placed his
hand on her shoulder, stopped her and said, looking her direct in the
eyes:
“There will be a letter from Annouchka this evening, by a messenger
at five o’clock.” He made each syllable explicit. “Very important and
requiring an immediate reply.”
These notes of Rouletabille’s are not followed by any commentary.
After luncheon the gentlemen played poker until half-past four, which
is the “chic” hour for the promenade to the head of the island.
Rouletabille had directed Matrena to start exactly at a quarter to five.
He appeared in the meantime, announcing that he had just interviewed
the mayor of St. Petersburg, which made Athanase laugh, who could not
understand that anyone would come clear from Paris to talk with men like
that. Natacha came from her chamber to join them for the promenade. Her
father told her she looked too worried.
They left the villa. Rouletabille noted that the dvornicks were before
the gate and that the schwitzar was at his post, from which he could
detect everyone who might enter or leave the villa. Matrena pushed the
rolling-chair herself. The general was radiant. He had Natacha at his
right and at his left Athanase and Thaddeus. The two orderlies followed,
talking with Rouletabille, who had monopolized them. The conversation
turned on the devotion of Matrena Petrovna, which they placed above the
finest heroic traits in the women of antiquity, and also on Natacha’s
love for her father. Rouletabille made them talk.
Boris Mourazoff explained that this exceptional love was accounted for
by the fact that Natacha’s own mother, the general’s first wife, died in
giving birth to their daughter, and accordingly Feodor Feodorovitch had
been both father and mother to his daughter. He had raised her with the
most touching care, not permitting anyone else, when she was sick, to
have the care of passing the nights by her bedside.
Natacha was seven years old when Feodor Feodorovitch was appointed
governor of Orel. In the country near Orel, during the summer, the
general and his daughter lived on neighborly terms near the family of
old Petroff, one of the richest fur merchants in Russia. Old Petroff
had a daughter, Matrena, who was magnificent to see, like a beautiful
field-flower. She was always in excellent humor, never spoke ill of
anyone in the neighborhood, and not only had the fine manners of a
city dame but a great, simple heart, which she lavished on the little
Natacha.
The child returned the affection of the beautiful Matrena, and it was
on seeing them always happy to find themselves together that Trebassof
dreamed of reestablishing his fireside. The nuptials were quickly
arranged, and the child, when she learned that her good Matrena was to
wed her papa, danced with joy. Then misfortune came only a few weeks
before the ceremony. Old Petroff, who speculated on the Exchange for a
long time without anyone knowing anything about it, was ruined from top
to bottom. Matrena came one evening to apprise Feodor Feodorovitch of
this sad news and return his pledge to him. For all response Feodor
placed Natacha in Matrena’s arms. “Embrace your mother,” he said to
the child, and to Matrena, “From to-day I consider you my wife, Matrena
Petrovna. You should obey me in all things. Take that reply to your
father and tell him my purse is at his disposition.”
The general was already, at that time, even before he had inherited
the Cheremaieff, immensely rich. He had lands behind Nijni as vast as
a province, and it would have been difficult to count the number of
moujiks who worked for him on his property. Old Pretroff gave his
daughter and did not wish to accept anything in exchange. Feodor wished
to settle a large allowance on his wife; her father opposed that, and
Matrena sided with him in the matter against her husband, because of
Natacha. “It all belongs to the little one,” she insisted. “I accept the
position of her mother, but on the condition that she shall never lose a
kopeck of her inheritance.”
“So that,” concluded Boris, “if the general died tomorrow she would be
poorer than Job.”
“Then the general is Matrena’s sole resource,” reflected Rouletabille
aloud.
“I can understand her hanging onto him,” said Michael Korsakoff, blowing
the smoke of his yellow cigarette. “Look at her. She watches him like a
treasure.”
“What do you mean, Michael Nikolaievitch?” said Boris, curtly.
“You believe, do you, that the devotion of Matrena Petrovna is not
disinterested. You must know her very poorly to dare utter such a
thought.”
“I have never had that thought, Boris Alexandrovitch,” replied the other
in a tone curter still. “To be able to imagine that anyone who lives
in the Trebassofs’ home could have such a thought needs an ass’s head,
surely.”
“We will speak of it again, Michael Nikolaievitch.”