The Secret of the Night
him crazed and that would further complicate matters. He asked for the
Grand-Marshal of the Court. They replied that he could get the Marshal’s
address in Tsarskoie. But the subaltern turned his head. He saw someone
advancing. It was the Grand-Marshal himself. Some exceptional service
called him, without doubt, very early to the Court.
“Why, what are you doing here? You are not yet gone then, Monsieur
Rouletabille?”
“Politeness before everything, Monsieur le Grand-Marechal! I would not
go before saying ‘Au revoir’ to the Emperor. Be so good, since you are
going to him and he has risen (you yourself have told me he rises at
seven), be so good as to say to him that I wish to pay my respects
before leaving.”
“Your scheme, doubtless, is to speak to him once more regarding Natacha
Feodorovna?”
“Not at all. Tell him, Excellency, that I am come to explain the mystery
of the eider downs.”
“Ah, ah, the eider downs! You know something?”
“I know all.”
The Grand Marshal saw that the young man did not pretend. He asked him
to wait a few minutes, and vanished into the park.
A quarter of an hour later, Joseph Rouletabille, of the journal
“L’Epoque,” was admitted into the cabinet that he knew well from the
first interview he had had there with His Majesty. The simple work-room
of a country-house: a few pictures on the walls, portraits of the
Tsarina and the imperial children on the table; Oriental cigarettes in
the tiny gold cups. Rouletabille was far from feeling any assurance, for
the Grand-Marshal had said to him:
“Be cautious. The Emperor is in a terrible humor about you.”
A door opened and closed. The Tsar made a sign to the Marshal, who
disappeared. Rouletabille bowed low, then watched the Emperor closely.
Quite apparently His Majesty was displeased. The face of the Tsar,
ordinarily so calm, so pleasant, and smiling, was severe, and his eyes
had an angry light. He seated himself and lighted a cigarette.
“Monsieur,” he commenced, “I am not otherwise sorry to see you before
your departure in order to say to you myself that I am not at all
pleased with you. If you were one of my subjects I would have already
started you on the road to the Ural Mountains.”
“I remove myself farther, Sire.”
“Monsieur, I pray you not to interrupt me and not to speak unless I ask
you a question.”
“Oh, pardon, Sire, pardon.”
“I am not duped by the pretext you have offered Monsieur le
Grand-Marechal in order to penetrate here.”
“It is not a pretext, Sire.”
“Again!”
“Oh, pardon, Sire, pardon.”
“I say to you that, called here to aid me against my enemies, they
themselves have not found a stronger or more criminal support than in
you.”
“Of what am I accused, Sire?”
“Koupriane--”
“Ah! Ah! ... Pardon!”
“My Chief of Police justly complains that you have traversed all his
designs and that you have taken it upon yourself to ruin them. First,
you removed his agents, who inconvenienced you, it seems; then, the
moment that he had the proof in hand of the abominable alliance of
Natacha Feodorovna with the Nihilists who attempt the assassination of
her father your intervention has permitted that proof to escape him. And
you have boasted of the feat, monsieur, so that we can only consider you
responsible for the attempts that followed.
“Without you, Natacha would not have attempted to poison her father.
Without you, they would not have sent to find physicians who could blow
up the datcha des Iles. Finally, no later than yesterday, when this
faithful servant of mine had set a trap they could not have escaped
from, you have had the audacity, you, to warn them of it. They owe their
escape to you. Monsieur, those are attempts against the security of the
State which deserves the heaviest punishment. Why, you went out one day
from here promising me to save General Trebassof from all the plotting
assassins who lurked about him. And then you play the game of the
assassins! Your conduct is as miserable as that of Natacha Feodorovna is
monstrous!”
The Emperor ceased, and looked at Rouletabille, who had not lowered his
eyes.
“What can you say for yourself? Speak--now.”
“I can only say to Your Majesty that I come to take leave of you because
my task here is finished. I have promised you the life of General
Trebassof, and I bring it to you. He runs no danger any more! I say
further to Your Majesty that there exists nowhere in the world a
daughter more devoted to her father, even to the death, a daughter more
sublime than Natacha Feodorovna, nor more innocent.”
“Be careful, monsieur. I inform you that I have studied this affair
personally and very closely. You have the proofs of these statements you
advance?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“And I, I have the proofs that Natacha Feodorovna is a renegade.”
At this contradiction, uttered in a firm voice, the Emperor stirred,
a flush of anger and of outraged majesty in his face. But, after this
first movement, he succeeded in controlling himself, opened a drawer
brusquely, took out some papers and threw them on the table.
“Here they are.”
Rouletabille reached for the papers.
“You do not read Russian, monsieur. I will translate their purport for
you. Know, then, that there has been a mysterious exchange of letters
between Natacha Feodorovna and the Central Revolutionary Committee,
and that these letters show the daughter of General Trebassof to be in
perfect accord with the assassins of her father for the execution of
their abominable project.”
“The death of the general?”
“Exactly.”
“I declare to Your Majesty that that is not possible.”
“Obstinate man! I will read--”
“Useless, Sire. It is impossible. There may be in them the question of
a project, but I am greatly surprised if these conspirators have been
sufficiently imprudent to write in those letters that they count on
Natacha to poison her father.”
“That, as a matter of fact, is not written, and you yourself are
responsible for it not being there. It does not follow any the less that
Natacha Feodorovna had an understanding with the Nihilists.”
“That is correct, Sire.”
“Ah, you confess that?”
“I do not confess; I simply affirm that Natacha had an understanding
with the Nihilists.”
“Who plotted their abominable attacks against the ex-Governor of
Moscow.”
“Sire, since Natacha had an understanding with the Nihilists, it was not
to kill her father, but to save him. And the project of which you hold
here the proofs, but of whose character you are unaware, is to end the
attacks of which you speak, instantly.”
“You say that.”
“I speak the truth, Sire.”
“Where are the proofs? Show me your papers.”
“I have none. I have only my word.”
“That is not sufficient.”
“It will be sufficient, once you have heard me.”
“I listen.”
“Sire, before revealing to you a secret on which depends the life of
General Trebassof, you must permit me some questions. Your Majesty holds
the life of the general very dear?”
“What has that to do with it?”
“Pardon. I desire that Your Majesty assure me on that point.”
“The general has protected my throne. He has saved the Empire from one
of the greatest dangers that it has ever run. If the servant who has
done such a service should be rewarded by death, by the punishment that
the enemies of my people prepare for him in the darkness, I should never
forgive myself. There have been too many martyrs already!”
“You have replied to me, Sire, in such a way that you make me understand
there is no sacrifice--even to the sacrifice of your amour-propre the
greatest a ruler can suffer--no sacrifice too dear to ransom from death
one of these martyrs.”
“Ah, ah! These gentlemen lay down conditions to me! Money. Money. They
need money. And at how much do they rate the head of the general?”
“Sire, that does not touch Your Majesty, and I never will come to offer
you such a bargain. That matter concerns only Natacha Feodorovna, who
has offered her fortune!”
“Her fortune! But she has nothing.”
“She will have one at the death of the general. Now she engages to give
it all to the Revolutionary Committee the day the general dies--if he
dies a natural death!”
The Emperor rose, greatly agitated.
“To the Revolutionary Party! What do you tell me! The fortune of the
general! Eh, but these are great riches.”
“Sire, I have told you the secret. You alone should know it and guard it
forever, and I have your sacred word that, when the hour comes, you will
let the prize go where it is promised. If the general ever learns of
such a thing, such a treaty, he would easily arrange that nothing should
remain, and he would denounce his daughter who has saved him, and then
he would promptly be the prey of his enemies and yours, from whom you
wish to save him. I have told the secret not to the Emperor, but to the
representative of God on the Russian earth. I have confessed it to the
priest, who is bound to forget the words uttered only before God. Allow
Natacha Feodorovna her own way, Sire! And her father, your servant,
whose life is so dear to you, is saved. At the natural death of the
general his fortune will go to his daughter, who has disposed of it.”
Rouletabille stopped a moment to judge of the effect produced. It was
not good. The face of his august listener was more and more in a frown.
The silence continued, and now the reporter did not dare to break it. He
waited.
Finally, the Emperor rose and walked forward and backward across the
room, deep in thought. For a moment he stopped at the window and waved
paternally to the little Tsarevitch, who played in the park with the
grand-duchesses.
Then he returned to Rouletabille and pinched his ear.
“But, tell me, how have you learned all this? And who then has poisoned
the general and his wife, in the kiosk, if not Natacha?”
“Natacha is a saint. It is nothing, Sire, that she has been raised in
luxury, and vows herself to misery; but it is sublime that she guards
in her heart the secret of her sacrifice from everyone, and, in spite of
all, because secrecy is necessary and has been required of her. See her
guarding it before her father, who has been brought to believe in the
dishonor of his daughter, and still to be silent when a word would have
proved her innocent; guarding it face to face with her fiance, whom she
loves, and repulses because marriage is forbidden to the girl who is
supposed to be rich and who will be poor; guarding it, above all--and
guarding it still--in the depths of the dungeon, and ready to take the
road to Siberia under the accusation of assassination, because that
ignominy is necessary for the safety of her father. That, Sire--oh,
Sire, do you see!”
“But you, how have you been able to penetrate into this guarded secret?”
“By watching her eyes. By observing, when she believed herself alone,
the look of terror and the gleams of love. And, beyond all, by looking
at her when she was looking at her father. Ah, Sire, there were moments
when on her mystic face one could read the wild joy and devotion of the
martyr. Then, by listening and by piecing together scraps of phrases
inconsistent with the idea of treachery, but which immediately acquired
meaning if one thought of the opposite, of sacrifice. Ah, that is it,
Sire! Consider always the alternative motive. What I finally could see
myself, the others, who had a fixed opinion about Natacha, could not
see. And why had they their fixed opinion? Simply because the idea of
compromise with the Nihilists aroused at once the idea of complicity!
For such people it is always the same thing--they never can see but
the one side of the situation. But, nevertheless, the situation had two
sides, as all situations have. The question was simple. The compromise
was certain. But why had Natacha compromised herself with the Nihilists?