“That deserves a rebuff, I know, madame, but from the moment the Emperor of all the Russias had desired to see me I could not admit that any mere man with glasses had not the curiosity to see what I looked like.  It was not natural.  As soon as the train was off I sat down by this man and told him who I thought he was.  I was right.  He removed his glasses and, looking me straight in the eyes, said he was glad to have a little talk with me before anything unfortunate happened.  A half-hour later the entente-cordiale was signed.  I gave him to understand that I was coming here simply on business as a reporter and that there was always time to check me if I should be indiscreet.  At the German frontier he left me to go on, and returned tranquilly to his nitro-glycerine.”

“You are a marked man also, my poor boy.”

“Oh, they have not got us yet.”

Matrena Petrovna coughed.  That us overwhelmed her.  With what calmness this boy that she had not known an hour proposed to share the dangers of a situation that excited general pity but from which the bravest kept aloof either from prudence or dismay.

“Ah, my friend, a little of this fine smoked Hamburg beef?”

But the young man was already pouring out fresh yellow beer.

“There,” said he.  “Now, madame, I am listening.  Tell me first about the earliest attack.”

“Now,” said Matrena, “we must go to dinner.”

Rouletabille looked at her wide-eyed.

“But, madame, what have I just been doing?”

Madame Matrena smiled.  All these strangers were alike.  Because they had eaten some hors-d’ceuvres, some zakouskis, they imagined their host would be satisfied.  They did not know how to eat.

“We will go to the dining-room.  The general is expecting you.  They are at table.”

“I understand I am supposed to know him.”

“Yes, you have met in Paris.  It is entirely natural that in passing through St. Petersburg you should make him a visit.  You know him very well indeed, so well that he opens his home to you.  Ah, yes, my step-daughter also " — she flushed a little — " Natacha believes that her father knows you.”

She opened the door of the drawing-room, which they had to cross in order to reach the dining-room.

From his present position Rouletabille could see all the corners of the drawing-room, the veranda, the garden and the entrance lodge at the gate.  In the veranda the man in the maroon frock-coat trimmed with false astrakhan seemed still to be asleep on the sofa; in one of the corners of the drawing-room another individual, silent and motionless as a statue, dressed exactly the same, in a maroon frock-coat with false astrakhan, stood with his hands behind his back seemingly struck with general paralysis at the sight of a flaring sunset which illumined as with a torch the golden spires of Saints Peter and Paul.  And in the garden and before the lodge three others dressed in maroon roved like souls in pain over the lawn or back and forth at the entrance.  Rouletabille motioned to Madame Matrena, stepped back into the sitting-room and closed the door.