singular disappearance. Had someone already carried off "their"
Rouletabille? Their friends were gone and the orderlies had taken
leave without being able to say where this boy of a journalist had
gone. But it would be foolish to worry about the disappearance of
a Journalist, they had said. That kind of man - these journalists
- came, went, arrived when one least expected them, and quitted
their company - even the highest society - without formality. It
was what they called in France "leaving English fashion." However,
it appeared it was not meant to be impolite. Perhaps he had gone
to telegraph. A journalist had to keep in touch with the telegraph
at all hours. Poor Matrena Petrovna roamed the solitary garden in
tumult of heart. There was the light in the general's window on
the first floor. There were lights in the basement from the
kitchens. There was a light on the ground-floor near the
sitting-room, from Natacha's chamber window. Ah, the night was
hard to bear. And this night the shadows weighed heavier than ever
on the valiant breast of Matrena. As she breathed she felt as
though she lifted all the weight of the threatening night. She
examined everything - everything. All was shut tight, was perfectly
secure, and there was no one within excepting people she was
absolutely sure of - but whom, all the same, she did not allow to
go anywhere in the house excepting where their work called them.
Each in his place. That made things surer. She wished each one
could remain fixed like the porcelain statues of men out on the
lawn. Even as she thought it, here at her feet, right at her very
feet, a shadow of one of the porcelain men moved, stretched itself
out, rose to its knees, grasped her skirt and spoke in the voice
of Rouletabille. Ah, good! it was Rouletabille. "Himself, dear
madame; himself."