Little friend! One hears there sometimes things which are the
secret of the night! You understand me?"

"To the general's chamber, at once, madame."

Abruptly she decided to take him there, agitated, upset as she was
by ideas and sentiments which held her without respite between the
wildest inquietude and the most imprudent audacity.




IV

"THE YOUTH OF MOSCOW IS DEAD"

Rouletabille let himself be led by Matrena through the night, but
he stumbled and his awkward hands struck against various things.
The ascent to the first floor was accomplished in profound silence.
Nothing broke it except that restless moaning which had so affected
the young man just before.

The tepid warmth, the perfume of a woman's boudoir, then, beyond,
through two doors opening upon the dressing-room which lay between
Matrena's chamber and Feodor's, the dim luster of a night-lamp
showed the bed where was stretched the sleeping tyrant of Moscow.
Ah, he was frightening to see, with the play of faint yellow light
and diffused shadows upon him. Such heavy-arched eyebrows, such
an aspect of pain and menace, the massive jaw of a savage come from
the plains of Tartary to be the Scourge of God, the stiff, thick,