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 hed 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