“He is stupid and provoking.”

“Stupid, no.  Provoking, yes, if you wish.  But you also, you are provoking.”

“Natacha!  Natacha!”

(Here more Russian.) As Natacha started to leave, Michael placed his hand on her shoulder, stopped her and said, looking her direct in the eyes: 

“There will be a letter from Annouchka this evening, by a messenger at five o’clock.”  He made each syllable explicit.  “Very important and requiring an immediate reply.”

These notes of Rouletabille’s are not followed by any commentary.

After luncheon the gentlemen played poker until half-past four, which is the “chic” hour for the promenade to the head of the island.  Rouletabille had directed Matrena to start exactly at a quarter to five.  He appeared in the meantime, announcing that he had just interviewed the mayor of St. Petersburg, which made Athanase laugh, who could not understand that anyone would come clear from Paris to talk with men like that.  Natacha came from her chamber to join them for the promenade.  Her father told her she looked too worried.

They left the villa.  Rouletabille noted that the dvornicks were before the gate and that the schwitzar was at his post, from which he could detect everyone who might enter or leave the villa.  Matrena pushed the rolling-chair herself.  The general was radiant.  He had Natacha at his right and at his left Athanase and Thaddeus.  The two orderlies followed, talking with Rouletabille, who had monopolized them.  The conversation turned on the devotion of Matrena Petrovna, which they placed above the finest heroic traits in the women of antiquity, and also on Natacha’s love for her father.  Rouletabille made them talk.

Boris Mourazoff explained that this exceptional love was accounted for by the fact that Natacha’s own mother, the general’s first wife, died in giving birth to their daughter, and accordingly Feodor Feodorovitch had been both father and mother to his daughter.  He had raised her with the most touching care, not permitting anyone else, when she was sick, to have the care of passing the nights by her bedside.

Natacha was seven years old when Feodor Feodorovitch was appointed governor of Orel.  In the country near Orel, during the summer, the general and his daughter lived on neighborly terms near the family of old Petroff, one of the richest fur merchants in Russia.  Old Petroff had a daughter, Matrena, who was magnificent to see, like a beautiful field-flower.  She was always in excellent humor, never spoke ill of anyone in the neighborhood, and not only had the fine manners of a city dame but a great, simple heart, which she lavished on the little Natacha.