“Permettez!  Permettez!  You others, of the young generation, what do you know of it?  You need to have lived a long time and in all its districts to appreciate Russia at its true value.  Russia, my young sir, is as yet a closed book to you.”

“Naturally,” Rouletabille answered, smiling.

“Well, well, here’s your health!  What I would point out to you first of all is that it is a good buyer of champagne, eh?” — and he gave a huge grin.  “But the hardest drinker I ever knew was born on the banks of the Seine.  Did you know him, Feodor Feodorovitch?  Poor Charles Dufour, who died two years ago at fete of the officers of the Guard.  He wagered at the end of the banquet that he could drink a glassful of champagne to the health of each man there.  There were sixty when you came to count them.  He commenced the round of the table and the affair went splendidly up to the fifty-eighth man.  But at the fifty-ninth — think of the misfortune! — the champagne ran out!  That poor, that charming, that excellent Charles took up a glass of vin dore which was in the glass of this fifty-ninth, wished him long life, drained the glass at one draught, had just time to murmur, ‘Tokay, 1807,’ and fell back dead!  Ah, he knew the brands, my word! and he proved it to his last breath!  Peace to his ashes!  They asked what he died of.  I knew he died because of the inappropriate blend of flavors.  There should be discipline in all things and not promiscuous mixing.  One more glass of champagne and he would have been drinking with us this evening.  Your health, Matrena Petrovna.  Champagne, Feodor Feodorovitch!  Vive la France, monsieur!  Natacha, my child, you must sing something.  Boris will accompany you on the guzla.  Your father will enjoy it.”

All eyes turned toward Natacha as she rose.

Rouletabille was struck by her serene beauty.  That was the first enthralling impression, an impression so strong it astonished him, the perfect serenity, the supreme calm, the tranquil harmony of her noble features.  Natacha was twenty.  Heavy brown hair circled about er forehead and was looped about her ears, which were half-concealed.  Her profile was clear-cut; her mouth was strong and revealed between red, firm lips the even pearliness of her teeth.  She was of medium height.  In walking she had the free, light step of the highborn maidens who, in primal times, pressed the flowers as they passed without crushing them.  But all her true grace seemed to be concentrated in her eyes, which were deep and of a dark blue.  The impression she made upon a beholder was very complex.  And it would have been difficult to say whether the calm which pervaded every manifestation of her beauty was the result of conscious control or the most perfect ease.

She took down the guzla and handed it to Boris, who struck some plaintive preliminary chords.

“What shall I sing?” she inquired, raising her father’s hand from the back of the sofa where he rested and kissing it with filial tenderness.