"Yes—sincerely," replied Matrena Petrovna, withdrawing her hand from those of Rouletabille.
"And she—does she love you?"
"I believe so, monsieur, I believe so sincerely. Yes, she loves me, and there is not any reason why she should not love me. I believe—understand me thoroughly, because it comes from my heart—that we all here in this house love one another. Our friends are old proved friends. Boris has been orderly to my husband for a very long time. We do not share any of his too–modern ideas, and there were many discussions on the duty of soldiers at the time of the massacres. I reproached him with being as womanish as we were in going down on his knees to the general behind Natacha and me, when it became necessary to kill all those poor moujiks of Presnia. It was not his role. A soldier is a soldier. My husband raised him roughly and ordered him, for his pains, to march at the head of the troops. It was right. What else could he do? The general already had enough to fight against, with the whole revolution, with his conscience, with the natural pity in his heart of a brave man, and with the tears and insupportable moanings, at such a moment, of his daughter and his wife. Boris understood and obeyed him, but, after the death of the poor students, he behaved again like a woman in composing those verses on the heroes of the barricades; don't you think so? Verses that Natacha and he learned by heart, working together, when they were surprised at it by the general. There was a terrible scene. It was before the next–to–the–last attack. The general then had the use of both legs. He stamped his feet and fairly shook the house."
"Madame," said Rouletabille, "a propos of the attacks, you must tell me about the third."
As he said this, leaning toward her, Matrena Petrovna ejaculated a "Listen!" that made him rigid in the night with ear alert. What had she heard? For him, he had heard nothing.
"You hear nothing?" she whispered to him with an effort. "A tick–tack?"
"No, I hear nothing."
"You know—like the tick–tack of a clock. Listen."
"How can you hear the tick–tack? I've noticed that no clocks are running here."
"Don't you understand? It is so that we shall be able to hear the tick–tack better."
"Oh, yes, I understand. But I do not hear anything."
"For myself, I think I hear the tick–tack all the time since the last attempt. It haunts my ears, it is frightful, to say to one's self: There is clockwork somewhere, just about to reach the death–tick—and not to know where, not to know where! When the police were here I made them all listen, and I was not sure even when they had all listened and said there was no tick–tack. It is terrible to hear it in my ear any moment when I least expect it. Tick–tack! Tick–tack! It is the blood beating in my ear, for instance, hard, as if it struck on a sounding–board. Why, here are drops of perspiration on my hands! Listen!"
"Ah, this time someone is talking—is crying," said the young man.
"Sh–h–h!" And Rouletabille felt the rigid hand of Matrena Petrovna on his arm. "It is the general. The general is dreaming!"
She drew him into the dining–room, into a corner where they could no longer hear the moanings. But all the doors that communicated with the dining–room, the drawing–room and the sitting–room remained open behind him, by the secret precaution of Rouletabille.
He waited while Matrena, whose breath he heard come hard, was a little behind. In a moment, quite talkative, and as though she wished to distract Rouletabille's attention from the sounds above, the broken words and sighs, she continued:
"See, you speak of clocks. My husband has a watch which strikes. Well, I have stopped his watch because more than once I have been startled by hearing the tick–tack of his watch in his waistcoat–pocket. Koupriane gave me that advice one day when he was here and had pricked his ears at the noise of the pendulums, to stop all my watches and clocks so that there would be no chance of confusing them with the tick–tack that might come from an infernal machine planted in some corner. He spoke from experience, my dear little monsieur, and it was by his order that all the clocks at the Ministry, on the Naberjnaia, were stopped, my dear little friend. The Nihilists, he told me, often use clockworks to set off their machines at the time they decide on. No one can guess all the inventions that they have, those brigands. In the same way, Koupriane advised me to take away all the draught–boards from the fireplaces. By that precaution they were enabled to avoid a terrible disaster at the Ministry near the Pont–des–chantres, you know, petit demovoi? They saw a bomb just as it was being lowered into the fire–place of the minister's cabinet.[3] The Nihilists held it by a cord and were up on the roof letting it down the chimney. One of them was caught, taken to Schlusselbourg and hanged. Here you can see that all the draught–boards of the fireplaces are cleared away."
"Madame," interrupted Rouletabille (Matrena Petrovna did not know that no one ever succeeded in distracting Rouletabille's attention), "madame, someone moans still, upstairs."
"Oh, that is nothing, my little friend. It is the general, who has bad nights. He cannot sleep without a narcotic, and that gives him a fever. I am going to tell you now how the third attack came about. And then you will understand, by the Virgin Mary, how it is I have yet, always have, the tick–tack in my ears.
"One evening when the general had got to sleep and I was in my own room, I heard distinctly the tick–tack of clockwork operating. All the clocks had been stopped, as Koupriane advised, and I had made an excuse to send Feodor's great watch to the repairer. You can understand how I felt when I heard that tick–tack. I was frenzied. I turned my head in all directions, and decided that the sound came from my husband's chamber. I ran there. He still slept, man that he is! The tick–tack was there. But where? I turned here and there like a fool. The chamber was in darkness and it seemed absolutely impossible for me to light a lamp because I thought I could not take the time for fear the infernal machine would go off in those few seconds. I threw myself on the floor and listened under the bed. The noise came from above. But where? I sprang to the fireplace, hoping that, against my orders, someone had started the mantel–clock. No, it was not that! It seemed to me now that the tick–tack came from the bed itself, that the machine was in the bed. The general awaked just then and cried to me, 'What is it, Matrena? What are you doing?' And he raised himself in bed, while I cried, 'Listen! Hear the tick–tack. Don't you hear the tick–tack?' I threw myself upon him and gathered him up in my arms to carry him, but I trembled too much, was too weak from fear, and fell back with him onto the bed, crying, 'Help!' He thrust me away and said roughly, 'Listen.' The frightful tick–tack was behind us now, on the table. But there was nothing on the table, only the night–light, the glass with the potion in it, and a gold vase where I had placed with my own hands that morning a cluster of grasses and wild flowers that Ermolai had brought that morning on his return from the Orel country. With one bound I was on the table and at the flowers. I struck my fingers among the grasses and the flowers, and felt a resistance. The tick–tack was in the bouquet! I took the bouquet in both hands, opened the window and threw it as far as I could into the garden. At the same moment the bomb burst with a terrible noise, giving me quite a deep wound in the hand. Truly, my dear little domovoi, that day we had been very near death, but God and the Little Father watched over us."
And Matrena Petrovna made the sign of the cross.
"All the windows of the house were broken. In all, we escaped with the fright and a visit from the glazier, my little friend, but I certainly believed that all was over."
"And Mademoiselle Natacha?" inquired Rouletabille. "She must also have been terribly frightened, because the whole house must have rocked."