“Everything goes very well, very well indeed, dear little domovoi,” said Matrena.  “How glad it is to see you and thank you.  If you only knew how I suffered in your absence, I who know how unjust my daughter was to you.  But dear Natacha knows now what she owes you.  She doesn’t doubt your word now, nor your clear intelligence, little angel.  Michael Nikolaievitch was a monster and he was punished as he deserved.  You know the police have proof now that he was one of the Central Revolutionary Committee’s most dangerous agents.  And he an officer!  Whom can we trust now!”

“And Monsieur Boris Mourazoff, have you seen him since?” inquired Rouletabille.

“Boris called to see us to-day, to say good-by, but we did not receive him, under the orders of the police.  Natacha has written to tell him of Koupriane’s orders.  We have received letters from him; he is quitting St. Petersburg.

“What for?”

“Well, after the frightful bloody scene in his little house, when he learned how Michael Nikolaievitch had found his death, and after he himself had undergone a severe grilling from the police, and when he learned the police had sacked his library and gone through his papers, he resigned, and has resolved to live from now on out in the country, without seeing anyone, like the philosopher and poet he is.  So far as I am concerned, I think he is doing absolutely right.  When a young man is a poet, it is useless to live like a soldier.  Someone has said that, I don’t know the name now, and when one has ideas that may upset other people, surely they ought to live in solitude.”

Rouletabille looked at Natacha, who was as pale as her white gown, and who added no word to her mother’s outburst.  They had drawn near the kiosk.  Rouletabille saluted the general, who called to him to come up and, when the young man extended his hand, he drew him abruptly nearer and embraced him.  To show Rouletabille how active he was getting again, Feodor Feodorovitch marched up and down the kiosk with only the aid of a stick.  He went and came with a sort of wild, furious gayety.

“They haven’t got me yet, the dogs.  They haven’t got me!  And one (he was thinking of Michael) who saw me every day was here just for that.  Very well.  I ask you where he is now.  And yet here I am!  An attack!  I’m always here!  But with a good eye; and I begin to have a good leg.  We shall see.  Why, I recollect how, when I was at Tiflis, there was an insurrection in the Caucasus.  We fought.  Several times I could feel the swish of bullets past my hair.  My comrades fell around me like flies.  But nothing happened to me, not a thing.  And here now!  They will not get me, they will not get me.  You know how they plan now to come to me, as living bombs.  Yes, they have decided on that.  I can’t press a friend’s hand any more without the fear of seeing him explode.  What do you think of that?  But they won’t get me.  Come, drink my health.  A small glass of vodka for an appetizer.  You see, young man, we are going to have zakouskis here.  What a marvelous panorama!  You can see everything from here.  If the enemy comes,” he added with a singular loud laugh, “we can’t fail to detect him.”