The Secret of the Night
him stand up, spread out his arms and cry:
“I have found it!”
Such joy shone in his countenance that there seemed to be an aureole
around him, and none of those there doubted that he had the solution of
the impossible problem.
“I have found it! I have found it!”
They gathered around him. He waved them away as in a waking dream.
“Give me room. I have found it, if my experiment works out. One, two,
three, four, five...”
What was he doing? He counted his steps now, in long paces, as in
dueling preliminaries. And the others, all of them, followed him in
silence, puzzled, but without protest, as if they, too, were caught in
the same strange day-dream. Steadily counting his steps he crossed
thus the court, which was vast. “Forty, forty-one, forty-two,” he cried
excitedly. “This is certainly strange, and very promising.”
The others, although they did not understand, refrained from questioning
him, for they saw there was nothing to do but let him go ahead without
interruption, just as care is taken not to wake a somnambulist abruptly.
They had no mistrust of his motives, for the idea was simply untenable
that Rouletabille was fool enough to hope to save himself from them by
an imbecile subterfuge. No, they yielded to the impression his
inspired countenance gave them, and several were so affected that they
unconsciously repeated his gestures. Thus Rouletabille reached the edge
of the court where judgment had been pronounced against him. There he
had to mount a rickety flight of stairs, whose steps he counted. He
reached a corridor, but moving away from the side where the door was
opening to the exterior he turned toward a staircase leading to the
upper floor, and still counted the steps as he climbed them. Some of the
company followed him, others hurried ahead of him. But he did not seem
aware of either the one or the other, as he walked along living only
in his thoughts. He reached the landing-place, hesitated, pushed open a
door, and found himself in a room furnished with a table, two chairs,
a mattress and a huge cupboard. He went to the cupboard, turned the key
and opened it. The cupboard was empty. He closed it again and put the
key in his pocket. Then he went out onto the landing-place again. There
he asked for the key of the chamber-door he had just left. They gave it
to him and he locked that door and put that key also in his pocket. Now
he returned into the court. He asked for a chair. It was brought him.
Immediately he placed his head in his hands, thinking hard, took the
chair and carried it over a little behind the shed. The Nihilists
watched everything he did and they did not smile, because men do not
smile when death waits at the end of things, however foolish.
Finally, Rouletabille spoke:
“Messieurs,” said he, his voice low and shaken, because he knew that
now he touched the decisive minute, after which there could only be an
irrevocable fate. “Messieurs, in order to continue my experiment I am
obliged to go through movements that might suggest to you the idea of an
attempt at escape, or evasion. I hope you don’t regard me as fool enough
to have any such thought.”
“Oh, monsieur,” said the chief, “you are free to go through all the
maneuvers you wish. No one escapes us. Outside we should have you
within arm’s reach quite as well as here. And, besides, it is entirely
impossible to escape from here.”
“Very well. Then that is understood. In such a case, I ask you now to
remain just where you are and not to budge, whatever I do, if you don’t
wish to inconvenience me. Only please send someone now up to the next
floor, where I am going to go again, and let him watch what happens from
there, but without interfering. And don’t speak a word to me during the
experiment.”
Two of the revolutionaries went to the upper floor, and opened a window
in order to keep track of what went on in the court. All now showed
their intense interest in the acts and gestures of Rouletabille.
The reporter placed himself in the shed, between his death-stool and his
hanging-rope.
“Ready,” said he; “I am going to begin”
And suddenly he jumped like a wild man, crossed the court in a straight
line like a flash, disappeared in the touba, bounded up the staircase,
felt in his pocket and drew out the keys, opened the door of the chamber
he had locked, closed it and locked it again, turned right-about-face,
came down again in the same haste, reached the court, and this time
swerved to the chair, went round it, still running, and returned at the
same speed to the shed. He no sooner reached there than he uttered a cry
of triumph as he glanced at the watch banging from a post. “I have won,”
he said, and threw himself with a happy thrill upon the fatal scaffold.
They surrounded him, and he read the liveliest curiosity in all their
faces. Panting still from his mad rush, he asked for two words apart
with the chief of the Secret committee.
The man who had pronounced judgment and who had the bearing of Jesus
advanced, and there was a brief exchange of words between the two
young men. The others drew back and waited at a distance, in impressive
silence, the outcome of this mysterious colloquy, which certainly would
settle Rouletabille’s fate.
“Messieurs,” said the chief, “the young Frenchman is going to be allowed
to leave. We give him twenty-four hours to set Natacha Feodorovna free.
In twenty-four hours, if he has not succeeded, he will return here to
give himself up.”
A happy murmur greeted these words. The moment their chief spoke thus,
they felt sure of Natacha’s fate.
The chief added:
“As the liberation of Natacha Feodorovna will be followed, the young
Frenchman says, by that of our companion Matiew, we decide that, if
these two conditions are fulfilled, M. Joseph Rouletabille is allowed to
return in entire security to France, which he ought never to have left.”
Two or three only of the group said, “That lad is playing with us; it is
not possible.”
But the chief declared:
“Let the lad try. He accomplishes miracles.”
XIX. THE TSAR
“I have escaped by remarkable luck,” cried Rouletabille, as he found
himself, in the middle of the night, at the corner of the Katharine and
the Aptiekarski Pereoulok Canals, while the mysterious carriage which
had brought him there returned rapidly toward the Grande Ecurie. “What a
country! What a country!”
He ran a little way to the Grand Morskaia, which was near, entered the
hotel like a bomb, dragged the interpreter from his bed, demanded that
his bill be made out and that he be told the time of the next train for
Tsarskoie-Coelo. The interpreter told him that he could not have his
bill at such an hour, that he could not leave town without his passport
and that there was no train for Tsarskoie-Coelo, and Rouletabille made
an outcry that woke the whole hotel. The guests, fearing always “une
scandale,” kept close to their rooms. But Monsieur le directeur came
down, trembling. When he found all that it was about he was inclined to
be peremptory, but Rouletabille, who had seen “Michael Strogoff” played,
cried, “Service of the Tsar!” which turned him submissive as a sheep. He
made out the young man’s bill and gave him his passport, which had been
brought back by the police during the afternoon. Rouletabille rapidly
wrote a message to Koupriane’s address, which the messenger was directed
to have delivered without a moment’s delay, under the pain of death! The
manager humbly promised and the reporter did not explain that by “pain
of death” he referred to his own. Then, having ascertained that as a
matter of fact the last train had left for Tsarskoie-Coelo, he ordered a
carriage and hurried to his room to pack.
And he, ordinarily so detailed, so particular in his affairs, threw
things every which way, linen, garments, with kicks and shoves. It was
a relief after the emotions he had gone through. “What a country!” he
never ceased to ejaculate. “What a country!”
Then the carriage was ready, with two little Finnish horses, whose gait
he knew well, an evil-looking driver, who none the less would get him
there; the trunk; roubles to the domestics. “Spacibo, barine. Spacibo.”
(Thank you, monsieur. Thank you.)
The interpreter asked what address he should give the driver.
“The home of the Tsar.”
The interpreter hesitated, believing it to be an unbecoming pleasantry,
then waved vaguely to the driver, and the horses started.
“What a curious trot! We have no idea of that in France,” thought
Rouletabille. “France! France! Paris! Is it possible that soon I shall
be back! And that dear Lady in Black! Ah, at the first opportunity I
must send her a dispatch of my return--before she receives those ikons,
and the letters announcing my death. Scan! Scan! Scan! (Hurry!)”
The isvotchick pounded his horses, crowding past the dvornicks who
watched at the corners of the houses during the St. Petersburg night.
“Dirigi! dirigi! dirigi! (Look out!)”
The country, somber in the somber night. The vast open country. What
monotonous desolation! Rapidly, through the vast silent spaces, the
little car glided over the lonely route into the black arms of the
pines.
Rouletabille, holding on to his seat, looked about him.
“God! this is as sad as a funeral display.”
Little frozen huts, no larger than tombs, occasionally indicated the
road, but there was no mark of life in that country except the noise of
the journey and the two beasts with steaming coats.
Crack! One of the shafts broken. “What a country!” To hear Rouletabille
one would suppose that only in Russia could the shaft of a carriage
break.
The repair was difficult and crude, with bits of rope. And from then
on the journey was slow and cautious after the frenzied speed. In vain
Rouletabille reasoned with himself. “You will arrive anyway before
morning. You cannot wake the Emperor in the dead of night.” His
impatience knew no reason. “What a country! What a country!”
After some other petty adventures (they ran into a ravine and
had tremendous difficulty rescuing the trunk) they arrived at
Tsarskoie-Coelo at a quarter of seven.
Even here the country was not pleasant. Rouletabille recalled the bright
awakening of French country. Here it seemed there was something more
dead than death: it was this little city with its streets where no one
passed, not a soul, not a phantom, with its houses so impenetrable,
the windows even of glazed glass and further blinded by the morning
hoar-frost shutting out light more thoroughly than closed eyelids.
Behind them he pictured to himself a world unknown, a world which
neither spoke nor wept, nor laughed, a world in which no living chord
resounded. “What a country! ‘Where is the chateau? I do not know; I have
been here only once, in the marshal’s carriage. I do not know the way.
Not the great palace! The idiot of a driver has brought me to this great
palace in order to see it, I haven’t a doubt. Does Rouletabille look
like a tourist? Dourak! The home of the Tsar, I tell you. The Tsar’s
residence. The place where the Little Father lives. Chez Batouchka!”
The driver lashed his ponies. He drove past all the streets. “Stoi!
(Stop!)” cried Rouletabille. A gate, a soldier, musket at shoulder,
bayonet in play; another gate, another soldier, another bayonet; a park
with walls around it, and around the walls more soldiers.
“No mistake; here is the place,” thought Rouletabille. There was only
one prisoner for whom such pains would be taken. He advanced towards the
gate. Ah! They crossed bayonets under his nose. Halt! No fooling, Joseph
Rouletabille, of “L’Epoque.” A subaltern came from a guard-house and
advanced toward him. Explanation evidently was going to be difficult.
The young man saw that if he demanded to see the Tsar, they would think