Гастон Леру
The Secret of the Night
XVIII. A SINGULAR EXPERIENCE
The five minutes ticked away and the watch commenced to strike the hour’s seven strokes. Did it sound the death of Rouletabille? Perhaps not! For at the first silver tinkle they saw Rouletabille shake himself, and raise his head, with his face alight and his eyes shining. They saw 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, reframed 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 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 Roidetabille?”
“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?”
“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 he 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? Was it necessarily in order to lose her father? Might it not be, on the contrary, in order to save him? When one has rendezvous with an enemy it is not necessarily to enter into his game, sometimes it is to disarm him with an offer. Between these two hypotheses, which I alone took the trouble to examine, I did not hesitate long, because Natacha’s every attitude proclaimed her innocence: and her eyes, Sire, in which one read purity and love, prevailed always with me against all the passing appearances of disgrace and crime.
“I saw that Natacha negotiated with them. But what had she to place in the scales against the life of her father? Nothing—except the fortune that she would have one day.
“Some words she spoke about the impossibility of immediate marriage, about poverty which could always knock at the door of any mansion, remarks that I was able to overhear between Natacha and Boris Mourazoff, which to him meant nothing, put me definitely on the right road. And I was not long in ascertaining that the negotiations in this formidable affair were taking place in the very house of Trebassof! Pursued without by the incessant spying of Koupriane, who sought to surprise her in company with the Nihilists, watched closely, too, by the jealous supervision of Boris, who was jealous of Michael Nikolaievitch, she had to seize the only opportunities possible for such negotiations, at night, in her own home, the sole place where, by the very audacity of it, she was able to play her part in any security.
“Michael Nikolaievitch knew Annouchka. There was certainly the point of departure for the negotiations which that felon-officer, traitor to all sides, worked at will toward the realization of his own infamous project. I do not think that Michael ever confided to Natacha that he was, from the very first, the instrument of the revolutionaries. Natacha, who sought to get in touch with the revolutionary party, had to entrust him with a correspondence for Annouchka, following which he assumed direction of the affair, deceiving the Nihilists, who, in their absolute penury, following the revolt, had been seduced by the proposition of General Trebassof’s daughter, and deceiving Natacha, whom he pretended to love and by whom he believed himself loved. At this point in the affair Natacha came to understand that it was necessary to propitiate Michael Nikolaievitch, her indispensable intermediary, and she managed to do it so well that Boris Mourazoff felt the blackest jealousy. On his side, Michael came to believe that Natacha would have no other husband than himself, but he did not propose to marry a penniless girl! And, fatally, it followed that Natacha, in that infernal intrigue, negotiated for the life of her father through the agency of a man who, underhandedly, sought to strike at the general himself, because the immediate death of her father before the negotiation was completed would enrich Natacha, who had given Michael so much to hope. That frightful tragedy, Sire, in which we have lived our most painful hours, appeared to me, confident of Natacha’s innocence, as absolutely simple as for the others it seemed complicated. Natacha believed she had in Michael Nikolaievitch a man who worked for her, but he worked only for himself. The day that I was convinced of it, Sire, by my examination of the approach to the balcony, I had a mind to warn Natacha, to go to her and say, ‘Get rid of that man. He will betray you. If you need an agent, I am at your service.’ But that day, at Krestowsky, destiny prevented my rejoining Natacha; and I must attribute it to destiny, which would not permit the loss of that man. Michael Nikolaievitch, who was a traitor, was too much in the ‘combination,’ and if he had been rejected he would have ruined everything. I caused him to disappear! The great misfortune then was that Natacha, holding me responsible for the death of a man she believed innocent, never wished to see me again, and, when she did see me, refused to have any conversation with me because I proposed that I take Michael’s place for her with the revolutionaries. She would have nothing to do with me in order to protect her secret. Meantime, the Nihilists believed they were betrayed by Natacha when they learned of the death of Michael, and they undertook to avenge him. They seized Natacha, and bore her off by force. The unhappy girl learned then, that same evening, of the attack which destroyed the datcha and, happily, still spared her father. This time she reached a definite understanding with the revolutionary party. Her bargain was made. I offer you for proof of it only her attitude when she was arrested, and, even in that moment, her sublime silence.”
While Rouletabille urged his view, the Emperor let him talk on and on, and now his eyes were dim.
“Is it possible that Natacha has not been the accomplice, in all, of Michael Nikolaievitch?” he demanded. “It was she who opened her father’s house to him that night. If she was not his accomplice she would have mistrusted him, she would have watched him.”
“Sire, Michael Nikolaievitch was a very clever man. He knew so well how to play upon Natacha, and Annouchka, in whom she placed all her hope. It was from Annouchka that she wished to hold the life of her father. It was the word, the signature of Annouchka that she demanded before giving her own. The evening Michael Nikolaievitch died, he was charged to bring her that signature. I know it, myself, because, pretending drunkenness, I was able to overhear enough of a conversation between Annouchka and a man whose name I must conceal. Yes, that last evening, Michael Nikolaievitch, when he entered the datcha, had the signature in his pocket, but also he carried the weapon or the poison with which he already had attempted and was resolved to reach the father of her whom he believed was assuredly to be his wife.”
“You speak now of a paper, very precious, that I regret not to possess, monsieur,” said the Tsar coldly, “because that paper alone would have proved to me the innocence of your protegee.”
“If you have not it, Sire, you know well that it is because I have wished you to have it. The corpse had been searched by Katharina, the little Bohemian, and I, Sire, prevented Koupriane from finding that signature in Katharina’s possession. In saving the secret I have saved General Trebassof’s life, who would have preferred to die rather than accept such an arrangement.”
