"Come," she added rapidiy, as though to hide her disquiet, "do not
go out like that without letting me know. They want you in the
dining-room."

"I must have you tell me right now about this attempt."

"In the dining-room, in the dining-room. In spite of myself," she
said in a low voice, "it is stronger than I am. I am not able to
leave the general by himself while he is on the ground-floor."

She drew Rouletabille into the dining-room, where the gentlemen were
now telling odd stories of street robberies amid loud laughter.
Natacha was still talking with Michael Korsakoff; Boris, whose eyes
never quitted them, was as pale as the wax on his guzla, which he
rattled violently from time to time. Matrena made Rouletabille sit
in a corner of the sofa, near her, and, counting on her fingers
like a careful housewife who does not wish to overlook anything in
her domestic calculations, she said:

"There have been three attempts; the first two in Moscow. The first
happened very simply. The general knew he had been condemned to
death. They had delivered to him at the palace in the afternoon the
revoluntionary poster which proclaimed his intended fate to the
whole city and country. So Feodor, who was just about to ride into
the city, dismissed his escort. He ordered horses put to a sleigh.
I trembled and asked what he was going to do. He said he was going
to drive quietly through all parts of the city, in order to show the
Muscovites that a governor appointed according to law by the Little
Father and who had in his conscience only the sense that he had
done his full duty was not to be intimidated. It was nearly four