登陆注册
15678100000015

第15章

"I believe so, monsieur, I believe so sincerely.Yes, she loves me, and there is not any reason why she should not love me.I believe - understand me thoroughly, because it comes from my heart - that we all here in this house love one another.Our friends are old proved friends.Boris has been orderly to my husband for a very long time.We do not share any of his too-modern ideas, and there were many discussions on the duty of soldiers at the time of the massacres.I reproached him with being as womanish as we were in going down on his knees to the general behind Natacha and me, when it became necessary to kill all those poor moujiks of Presnia.It was not his role.A soldier is a soldier.My husband raised him roughly and ordered him, for his pains, to march at the head of the troops.It was right.What else could he do? The general already had enough to fight against, with the whole revolution, with his conscience, with the natural pity in his heart of a brave man, and with the tears and insupportable moanings, at such a moment, of his daughter and his wife.Boris understood and obeyed him, but, after the death of the poor students, he behaved again like a woman in composing those verses on the heroes of the barricades; don't you think so? Verses that Natacha and he learned by heart, working together, when they were surprised at it by the general.There was a terrible scene.It was before the next-to-the-last attack.

The general then had the use of both legs.He stamped his feet and fairly shook the house.""Madame," said Rouletabille, "a propos of the attacks, you must tell me about the third."As he said this, leaning toward her, Matrena Petrovna ejaculated a "Listen!" that made him rigid in the night with ear alert.What had she heard? For him, he had heard nothing.

"You hear nothing?" she whispered to him with an effort."Atick-tack?"

"No, I hear nothing."

"You know - like the tick-tack of a clock.Listen.""How can you hear the tick-tack? I've noticed that no clocks are running here.""Don't you understand? It is so that we shall be able to hear the tick-tack better.""Oh, yes, I understand.But I do not hear anything.""For myself, I think I hear the tick-tack all the time since the last attempt.It haunts my ears, it is frightful, to say to one's self: There is clockwork somewhere, just about to reach the death-tick - and not to know where, not to know where! When the police were here I made them all listen, and I was not sure even when they had all listened and said there was no tick-tack.It is terrible to hear it in my ear any moment when I least expect it.

Tick-tack! Tick-tack! It is the blood beating in my ear, for instance, hard, as if it struck on a sounding-board.Why, here are drops of perspiration on my hands! Listen!""Ab, this time someone is talking - is crying," said the young man.

"Sh-h-h!" And Rouletabille felt the rigid hand of Matrena Petrovna on his arm."It is the general.The general is dreaming!"She drew him into the dining-room, into a corner where they could no longer hear the moanings.But all the doors that communicated with the dining-room, the drawing-room and the sitting-room remained open behind him, by the secret precaution of Rouletabille.

He waited while Matrena, whose breath he heard come hard, was a little behind.In a moment, quite talkative, and as though she wished to distract Rouletabille's attention from the sounds above, the broken words and sighs, she continued:

"See, you speak of clocks.My husband has a watch which strikes.

Well, I have stopped his watch because more than once I have been startled by hearing the tick-tack of his watch in his waistcoat-pocket.Koupriane gave me that advice one day when he was here and had pricked his ears at the noise of the pendulums, to stop all my watches and clocks so that there would be no chance of confusing them with the tick-tack that might come from an infernal machine planted in some corner.He spoke from experience, my dear little monsieur, and it was by his order that all the clocks at the Ministry, on the Naberjnaia, were stopped, my dear little friend.The Nihilists, he told me, often use clockworks to set off their machines at the time they decide on.No one can guess all the inventions that they have, those brigands.In the same way, Koupriane advised me to take away all the draught-boards from the fireplaces.By that precaution they were enabled to avoid a terrible disaster at the Ministry near the Pont-des-chantres, you know, petit demovoi? They saw a bomb just as it was being lowered nto the fire-place of the minister's cabinet.* The Nihilists held ____________________________________________________________________*Actual attack on Witte.

____________________________________________________________________it by a cord and were up on the roof letting it down the chimney.

One of them was caught, taken to Schlusselbourg and hanged.Here you can see that all the draught-boards of the fireplaces are cleared away.""Madame," interrupted Rouletabille (Matrena Petrovna did not know that no one ever succeeded in distracting Rouletabille's attention), "madame, someone moans still, upstairs.""Oh, that is nothing, my little friend.It is the general, who has bad nights.He cannot sleep without a narcotic, and that gives him a fever.I am going to tell you now how the third attack came about.

And then you will understand, by the Virgin Mary, how it is I have yet, always have, the tick-tack in my ears.

"One evening when the general had got to sleep and I was in my own room, I heard distinctly the tick-tack of clockwork operating.All the clocks had been stopped, as Koupriane advised, and I had made an excuse to send Feodor's great watch to the repairer.You can understand how I felt when I heard that tick-tack.I was frenzied.

同类推荐
  • 寄四明山子

    寄四明山子

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 飞花咏

    飞花咏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • The Man Who Was Afraid

    The Man Who Was Afraid

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 涅槃经游意

    涅槃经游意

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 三字经

    三字经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 奇遇奇谈

    奇遇奇谈

    妖,鬼怪,精灵,甚至还有一些不知名的东西时不时地出现在自己面前晃悠是什么感觉?我并未招谁惹谁,却因为自己身上极重的阴气,后天的阴阳眼,身边竟成了他们的聚集地,他们有善有恶,一旦看错便会步入万丈深渊……
  • 原来你一直在,原地踏步

    原来你一直在,原地踏步

    这是一本关于青春校园的小说,它写了沫语曦,沫语晨,白若轩,白澈轩的爱情是状况百出,复杂的关系!初写请尽量!
  • 校园霸道女生

    校园霸道女生

    霸气一身,女生的保护神,男生的致命克星,她就是若梦,身高一米七二,力大无穷,是一个柔道高手,容貌美丽动人,气质却霸道无比,多少男生望而止步,学校各种流氓富二代,官二代,在她面前完全被当成狗,玩得团团转!
  • 闺蜜三人的学生时代

    闺蜜三人的学生时代

    这本书主要介绍闺蜜三人的学生时代,让我们一起来看看吧
  • 午夜惊悚游戏

    午夜惊悚游戏

    我是一个出租车司机,在我原本公司倒闭的时候,被好友介绍到了一家叫做程运的出租车公司。在这里,每到半夜三更的时候,便会有一档叫做‘死亡接力’的栏目,我的生活,便在这个午夜,彻底的发生了改变……
  • 江山渡

    江山渡

    前一世,一家四口,三张遗像挂在客厅,只剩她苏瑾一人。这一世,连父母的影子都没见到,跌跌撞撞一个人成长。女儿身无法长大,那就化名九卿,成为玖园的传奇当家!两世为人,她停不下寻找的脚步,直到那抹黑黝黝的眸子静静地看她,抬了手,将她按向胸膛:九卿,停下来,歇一歇,我再陪你一起走!她摇头:你有江山要守,我停三年,陪你拿下!三爷想笑,却落了泪,她本该换上女儿装,在阳光下翩然而舞,却因为他,握紧双生,厮杀在前。九卿说,江山他担着,才能天下太平,可若踏上高位,九卿又将远远遁去,再不会路过他的一生。江山是责任,九卿是爱人,不到最后,谁又知道,三爷选了谁...
  • 我的同桌是天使

    我的同桌是天使

    我的名字叫张晓平,本来做为一个非常普通的转校生的我却遇见了这个叫绿荫的新同桌的那一刻,我的人生轨迹就发生了转变。一次次致命的意外悄然发生:只是好奇看个热闹结果差点就死掉,好端端的过马路差点被撞死,而且还在不经意间发现我的这个新同桌居然是个……天使!?一个惊天的秘密正在我面前一点一点的揭开它那神秘的面纱——我,是神的儿子……
  • 英雄联盟之无尽之争

    英雄联盟之无尽之争

    无尽之地,这是一个全新而神秘的世界。无数的英雄在这里诞生,离开,只留下一段段美丽的传说。这是一片介乎于现实和虚拟之间的天地,在这里死亡不会复活,战斗却可以升级。这里的一切与一款名为《英雄联盟》的游戏世界惊人的相似,英雄模板,符文之地,战斗排位......罗煜来了!一篇波澜壮阔的史诗正在展开,一位注定要光耀这片大地的英雄正在崛起!
  • 凌天魔路

    凌天魔路

    道为何,佛为何,魔又为何,被表哥杀掉挚爱的林轩,无意中踏入修真道,而后道佛同修,为何引来了魔劫,为何成为了传说中有史以来的第一位大天魔,是以杀戮灭世重开青天,抑或是以良善行造化?
  • 夏若知己不过尔尔

    夏若知己不过尔尔

    呐,原来的乌鸦,是蓝色的呢,很蓝很蓝的颜色就像夏尔的眼睛。可是啊,他喜欢上了一只孤傲的孔雀,孔雀说,你的颜色那么单调,你配不上我。然后他便飞到世界各地,将所有的颜色都抹在自己的身上,颜色越来越多,越来越浑浊,他就变成黑色的呢。回不去了啊。