hools. Then I
have seen her almost faint, which proves she has a great heart under
her tranquil beauty. Poor Natacha! I have seen her excited as I over the
life of her father. My little friend, I have seen her searching in the
middle of the night, with me, for infernal machines under the furniture,
and then she has expressed the opinion that it is nervous, childish,
unworthy of us to act like that, like timid beasts under the sofas, and
she has left me to search by myself. True, she never quits the general.
She is more reassured, and is reassuring to him, at his side. It has
an excellent moral effect on him, while I walk about and search like a
beast. And she has become as fatalistic as he, and now she sings verses
to the guzla, like Boris, or talks in corners with Michael, which makes
the two enraged each with the other. They are curious, the young women
of St. Petersburg and Moscow, very curious. We were not like that in our
time, at Orel. We did not try to enrage people. We would have received a
box on the ears if we had."

Natacha came in upon this conversation, happy, in white voile, fresh and
smiling like a girl who had passed an excellent night. She asked after
the health of the young man very prettily and embraced Matrena, in truth
as one embraces a much-beloved mother. She complained again of Matrena's
night-watch.

"You have not stopped it, mamma; you have not stopped it, eh? You are
not going to be a little reasonable at last? I beg of you! What has
given me such a mother! Why don't you sleep? Night is made for sleep.
Koupriane has upset you. All the terrible things are over in Moscow.
There is no occasion to think of them any more. That Koupriane makes
himself important with his police-agents and obsesses us all. I am
convinced that the affair of the bouquet was the work of his police."

"Mademoiselle," said Rouletabille, "I have just had them all sent away,
all of them--because I think very much the same as you do."

"Well, then, you will be my friend, Monsieur Rouletabille I promise you,
since you have done that. Now that the police are gone we have nothing
more to fear. Nothing. I tell you, mamma; you can believe me and not
weep any more, mamma dear."

"Yes, yes; kiss me. Kiss me again!" repeated Matrena, drying her eyes.
"When you kiss me I forget everything. You love me like your own mother,
don't you?"

"Like my mother. Like my own mother."

"You have nothing to hide from me?--tell me, Natacha.