The Secret of the Night
watchfulness, sat and looked long at Rouletabille, who did not stir, but
caught every word, every gesture of each one there. Finally, sighing,
she sat down by Feodor and asked how his leg felt. Michael and Natacha,
in a corner, were deep in conversation, and Boris watched them with
obvious impatience, still strumming the guzla. But the thing that struck
Rouletabille’s youthful imagination beyond all else was the mild face of
the general. He had not imagined the terrible Trebassof with so paternal
and sympathetic an expression. The Paris papers had printed redoubtable
pictures of him, more or less authentic, but the arts of photography and
engraving had cut vigorous, rough features of an official--who knew no
pity. Such pictures were in perfect accord with the idea one naturally
had of the dominating figure of the government at Moscow, the man who,
during eight days--the Red Week--had made so many corpses of students
and workmen that the halls of the University and the factories had
opened their doors since in vain. The dead would have had to arise for
those places to be peopled! Days of terrible battle where in one quarter
or another of the city there was naught but massacre or burnings, until
Matrena Petrovna and her step-daughter, Natacha (all the papers told of
it), had fallen on their knees before the general and begged terms for
the last of the revolutionaries, at bay in the Presnia quarter, and had
been refused by him. “War is war,” had been his answer, with irrefutable
logic. “How can you ask mercy for these men who never give it?” Be it
said for the young men of the barricades that they never surrendered,
and equally be it said for Trebassof that he necessarily shot them.
“If I had only myself to consider,” the general had said to a Paris
journalist, “I could have been gentle as a lamb with these unfortunates,
and so I should not now myself be condemned to death. After all, I fail
to see what they reproach me with. I have served my master as a brave
and loyal subject, no more, and, after the fighting, I have let others
ferret out the children that had hidden under their mothers’ skirts.
Everybody talks of the repression of Moscow, but let us speak, my
friend, of the Commune. There was a piece of work I would not have
done, to massacre within a court an unresisting crowd of men, women and
children. I am a rough and faithful soldier of His Majesty, but I am
not a monster, and I have the feelings of a husband and father, my dear
monsieur. Tell your readers that, if you care to, and do not surmise
further about whether I appear to regret being condemned to death.”
Certainly what stupefied Rouletabille now was this staunch figure of
the condemned man who appeared so tranquilly to enjoy his life. When the
general was not furthering the gayety of his friends he was talking with
his wife and daughter, who adored him and continually fondled him, and
he seemed perfectly happy. With his enormous grizzly mustache, his ruddy
color, his keen, piercing eyes, he looked the typical spoiled father.
The reporter studied all these widely-different types and made his
observations while pretending to a ravenous appetite, which served,
moreover, to fix him in the good graces of his hosts of the datcha des
Iles. But, in reality, he passed the food to an enormous bull-dog
under the table, in whose good graces he was also thus firmly planting
himself. As Trebassof had prayed his companions to let his young friend
satisfy his ravening hunger in peace, they did not concern themselves to
entertain him. Then, too, the music served to distract attention from
him, and at a moment somewhat later, when Matrena Petrovna turned to
speak to the young man, she was frightened at not seeing him. Where had
he gone? She went out into the veranda and looked. She did not dare to
call. She walked into the grand-salon and saw the reporter just as he
came out of the sitting-room.
“Where were you?” she inquired.
“The sitting-room is certainly charming, and decorated exquisitely,”
complimented Rouletabille. “It seems almost a boudoir.”
“It does serve as a boudoir for my step-daughter, whose bedroom opens
directly from it; you see the door there. It is simply for the present
that the luncheon table is set there, because for some time the police
have pre-empted the veranda.”
“Is your dog a watch-dog, madame?” asked Rouletabille, caressing the
beast, which had followed him.
“Khor is faithful and had guarded us well hitherto.”
“He sleeps now, then?”
“Yes. Koupriane has him shut in the lodge to keep him from barking
nights. Koupriane fears that if he is out he will devour one of the
police who watch in the garden at night. I wanted him to sleep in the
house, or by his master’s door, or even at the foot of the bed, but
Koupriane said, ‘No, no; no dog. Don’t rely on the dog. Nothing is more
dangerous than to rely on the dog. ‘Since then he has kept Khor locked
up at night. But I do not understand Koupriane’s idea.”
“Monsieur Koupriane is right,” said the reporter. “Dogs are useful only
against strangers.”
“Oh,” gasped the poor woman, dropping her eyes. “Koupriane certainly
knows his business; he thinks of everything.”
“Come,” she added rapidly, as though to hide her disquiet, “do not
go out like that without letting me know. They want you in the
dining-room.”
“I must have you tell me right now about this attempt.”
“In the dining-room, in the dining-room. In spite of myself,” she said
in a low voice, “it is stronger than I am. I am not able to leave the
general by himself while he is on the ground-floor.”
She drew Rouletabille into the dining-room, where the gentlemen were now
telling odd stories of street robberies amid loud laughter. Natacha was
still talking with Michael Korsakoff; Boris, whose eyes never quitted
them, was as pale as the wax on his guzla, which he rattled violently
from time to time. Matrena made Rouletabille sit in a corner of the
sofa, near her, and, counting on her fingers like a careful housewife
who does not wish to overlook anything in her domestic calculations, she
said:
“There have been three attempts; the first two in Moscow. The first
happened very simply. The general knew he had been condemned to
death. They had delivered to him at the palace in the afternoon the
revoluntionary poster which proclaimed his intended fate to the whole
city and country. So Feodor, who was just about to ride into the city,
dismissed his escort. He ordered horses put to a sleigh. I trembled and
asked what he was going to do. He said he was going to drive quietly
through all parts of the city, in order to show the Muscovites that a
governor appointed according to law by the Little Father and who had in
his conscience only the sense that he had done his full duty was not to
be intimidated. It was nearly four o’clock, toward the end of a winter
day that had been clear and bright, but very cold. I wrapped myself
in my furs and took my seat beside him, and he said, ‘This is fine,
Matrena; this will have a great effect on these imbeciles.’ So we
started. At first we drove along the Naberjnaia. The sleigh glided like
the wind. The general hit the driver a heavy blow in the back, crying,
‘Slower, fool; they will think we are afraid,’ and so the horses
were almost walking when, passing behind the Church of Protection and
intercession, we reached the Place Rouge. Until then the few passers-by
had looked at us, and as they recognized him, hurried along to keep
him in view. At the Place Rouge there was only a little knot of women
kneeling before the Virgin. As soon as these women saw us and recognized
the equipage of the Governor, they dispersed like a flock of crows, with
frightened cries. Feodor laughed so hard that as we passed under
the vault of the Virgin his laugh seemed to shake the stones. I felt
reassured, monsieur. Our promenade continued without any remarkable
incident. The city was almost deserted. Everything lay prostrated under
the awful blow of that battle in the street. Feodor said, ‘Ah, they give
me a wide berth; they do not know how much I love them,” and all through
that promenade he said many more charming and delicate things to me.
“As we were talking pleasantly under our furs we came to la Place
Koudrinsky, la rue Koudrinsky, to be exact. It was just four o’clock,
and a light mist had commenced to mix with the sifting snow, and the
houses to right and left were visible only as masses of shadow. We
glided over the snow like a boat along the river in foggy calm. Then,
suddenly, we heard piercing cries and saw shadows of soldiers rushing
around, with movements that looked larger than human through the mist;
their short whips looked enormous as they knocked some other shadows
that we saw down like logs. The general stopped the sleigh and got out
to see what was going on. I got out with him. They were soldiers of the
famous Semenowsky regiment, who had two prisoners, a young man and a
child. The child was being beaten on the nape of the neck. It writhed
on the ground and cried in torment. It couldn’t have been more than nine
years old. The other, the young man, held himself up and marched
along without a single cry as the thongs fell brutally upon him. I was
appalled. I did not give my husband time to open his mouth before I
called to the subaltern who commanded the detachment, ‘You should be
ashamed to strike a child and a Christian like that, which cannot defend
itself.’ The general told him the same thing. Then the subaltern told
us that the little child had just killed a lieutenant in the street by
firing a revolver, which he showed us, and it was the biggest one I
ever have seen, and must have been as heavy for that infant to lift as a
small cannon. It was unbelievable.
“‘And the other,’ demanded the general; ‘what has he done?’
“‘He is a dangerous student,’ replied the subaltern, ‘who has delivered
himself up as a prisoner because he promised the landlord of the house
where he lives that he would do it to keep the house from being battered
down with cannon.’
“‘But that is right of him. Why do you beat him?’
“‘Because he has told us he is a dangerous student.’
“‘That is no reason,’ Feodor told him. ‘He will be shot if he deserves
it, and the child also, but I forbid you to beat him. You have not been
furnished with these whips in order to beat isolated prisoners, but to
charge the crowd when it does not obey the governor’s orders. In such a
case you are ordered “Charge,” and you know what to do. You understand?’
Feodor said roughly. ‘I am General Trebassof, your governor.’
“Feodor was thoroughly human in saying this. Ah, well, he was badly
compensed for it, very badly, I tell you. The student was truly
dangerous, because he had no sooner heard my husband say, ‘I am General
Trebassof, your governor,’ than he cried, ‘Ah, is it you, Trebassoff’
and drew a revolver from no one knows where and fired straight at
the general, almost against his breast. But the general was not hit,
happily, nor I either, who was by him and had thrown myself onto the
student to disarm him and then was tossed about at the feet of the
soldiers in the battle they waged around the student while the revolver
was going off. Three soldiers were killed. You can understand that the
others were furious. They raised me with many excuses and, all together,
set to kicking the student in the loins and striking at him as he lay on
the ground. The subaltern struck his face a blow that might have blinded
him. Feodor hit the officer in the head with his fist and called,
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ The officer fell under the blow and
Feodor himself carried him to the sleigh and laid him with the dead
men. Then he took charge of the soldiers and led them to the barracks.