"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.* 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."
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*Actual attack on Witte.
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"Madame," interrupted Rouletabille (Matrena Petrovna did not know