And it seemed frightful to Rouletabille that he should be present at one of those horrible family dramas the issue of which in the wild times of Peter the Great would have sent the general to the hangman either as a father or as a husband.
The general did not deign even to consider for any length of time Matrena's delirium.He said to his daughter, who shook with sobs on the floor, "Rise, Natacha Feodorovna." And Feodor's daughter understood that her father never would believe in her guilt.She drew herself up towards him and kissed his hands like a happy slave.
At this moment repeated blows shook the veranda door.Matrena, the watch-dog, anxious to die after Feodor's reproach, but still at her post, ran toward what she believed to be a new danger.But she recognized Koupriane's voice, which called on her to open.She let him in herself.
"What is it?" she implored.
"Well, he is dead."
A cry answered him.Natacha had heard.
"But who - who - who?" questioned Matrena breathlessly.
Koupriane went over to Feodor and grasped his hands.
"General," he said, "there was a man who had sworn your ruin and who was made an instrument by your enemies.We have just killed that man.""Do I know him?" demanded Feodor.
"He is one of your friends, you have treated him like a son.""His name?"
"Ask your daughter, General."
Feodor turned toward Natacha, who burned Koupriane with her gaze, trying to learn what this news was he brought - the truth or a ruse.
"You know the man who wished to kill me, Natacha?""No," she replied to her father, in accents of perfect fury."No, I don't know any such man.""Mademoiselle," said Koupriane, in a firm, terribly hostile voice, "you have yourself, with your own hands, opened that window to-night;and you have opened it to him many other times besides.While everyone else here does his duty and watches that no person shall be able to enter at night the house where sleeps General Trebassof, governor of Moscow, condemned to death by the Central Revolutionary Committee now reunited at Presnia, this is what you do; it is you who introduce the enemy into this place.""Answer, Natacha; tell me, yes or no, whether you have let anybody into this house by night.""Father, it is true."
Feodor roared like a lion:
"His name!"
"Monsieur will tell you himself," said Natacha, in a voice thick with terror, and she pointed to Koupriane."Why does he not tell you himself the name of that person? He must know it, if the man is dead.""And if the man is not dead," replied Feodor, who visibly held onto himself, "if that man, whom you helped to enter my house this night, has succeeded in escaping, as you seem to hope, will you tell us his name?""I could not tell it, Father."
"And if I prayed you to do so?"
Natacha desperately shook her head.
"And if I order you?"
"You can kill me, Father, but I will not pronounce that name.""Wretch!"
He raised his stick toward her.Thus Ivan the Terrible had killed his son with a blow of his boar-spear.
But Natacha, instead of bowing her head beneath the blow that menaced her, turned toward Koupriane and threw at him in accents of triumph:
"He is not dead.If you bad succeeded in taking him, dead or alive, you would already have his name."Koupriane took two steps toward her, put his hand on her shoulder and said:
"Michael Nikolajevitch."
"Michael Korsakoff!" cried the general.
Matrena Petrovna, as if revolted by that suggestion, stood upright to repeat:
"Michael Korsakoff!"
The general could not believe his ears, and was about to protest when he noticed that his daughter had turned away and was trying to flee to her room.He stopped her with a terrible gesture.
"Natacha, you are going to tell us what Michael Korsakoff came here to do to-night.""Feodor Feodorovitch, he came to poison you."It was Matrena who spoke now and whom nothing could have kept silent, for she saw in Natacha's attempt at flight the most sinister confession.Like a vengeful fury she told over with cries and terrible gestures what she had experienced, as if once more stretched before her the hand armed with the poison, the mysterious hand above the pillow of her poor invalid, her dear, rigorous tyrant; she told them about the preceding night and all her terrors, and from her lips, by her voluble staccato utterance that ominous recital had grotesque emphasis.Finally she told all that she had done, she and the little Frenchman, in order not to betray their suspicions to The Other, in order to take finally in their own trap all those who for so many days and nights schemed for the death of Feodor Feodorovitch.As she ended she pointed out Rouletabille to Feodor and cried, "There is the one who has saved you."Natacha, as she listened to this tragic recital, restrained herself several times in order not to interrupt, and Rouletabille, who was watching her closely, saw that she had to use almost superhuman efforts in order to achieve that.All the horror of what seemed to be to her as well as to Feodor a revelation of Michael's crime did not subdue her, but seemed, on the contrary, to restore to her in full force all the life that a few seconds earlier had fled from her.
Matrena had hardly finished her cry, " There is the one who has saved you," before Natacha cried in her turn, facing the reporter with a look full of the most frightful hate, "There is the one who has heen the death of an innocent man!" She turned to her father.
"Ah, papa, let me, let me say that Michael Nikolaievitch, who came here this evening, I admit, and whom, it is true, I let into the house, tbat Michael Nikolaievitch did not come here yesterday, and that the man who has tried to poison you is certainly someone else."At these words Rouletabille turned pale, but he did not let himself lose self-control.He replied simply:
"No, mademoiselle, it was the same man."
And Koupriane felt compelled to add:
