Part 3 (1/2)
* In this story according to Russian habit General Treba.s.sof is called alternately by that name or the family name Feodor Feodorovitch, and Madame Treba.s.sof by that name or her family name, Matrena Petrovna.-Translator's Note.
Rouletabille hurried over to him and they shook hands like friends who meet after a long separation. The reporter was presented to the company as a close young friend from Paris whom they had enjoyed so much during their latest visit to the City of Light. Everybody inquired for the latest word of Paris as of a dear acquaintance.
”How is everybody at Maxim's?” urged the excellent Athanase Georgevitch.
Thaddeus, too, had been once in Paris and he returned with an enthusiastic liking for the French demoiselles.
”Vos gogottes, monsieur,” he said, appearing very amiable and leaning on each word, with a guttural emphasis such as is common in the western provinces, ”ah, vos gogottes!”
Matrena Perovna tried to silence him, but Thaddeus insisted on his right to appreciate the fair s.e.x away from home. He had a turgid, sentimental wife, always weeping and cramming her religious notions down his throat.
Of course someone asked Rouletabille what he thought of Russia, but he had no more than opened his mouth to reply than Athanase Georgevitch closed it by interrupting:
”Permettez! Permettez! You others, of the young generation, what do you know of it? You need to have lived a long time and in all its districts to appreciate Russia at its true value. Russia, my young sir, is as yet a closed book to you.”
”Naturally,” Rouletabille answered, smiling.
”Well, well, here's your health! What I would point out to you first of all is that it is a good buyer of champagne, eh?”-and he gave a huge grin. ”But the hardest drinker I ever knew was born on the banks of the Seine. Did you know him, Feodor Feodorovitch? Poor Charles Dufour, who died two years ago at fete of the officers of the Guard. He wagered at the end of the banquet that he could drink a gla.s.sful of champagne to the health of each man there. There were sixty when you came to count them. He commenced the round of the table and the affair went splendidly up to the fifty-eighth man. But at the fifty-ninth-think of the misfortune!-the champagne ran out! That poor, that charming, that excellent Charles took up a gla.s.s of vin dore which was in the gla.s.s of this fifty-ninth, wished him long life, drained the gla.s.s at one draught, had just time to murmur, 'Tokay, 1807,' and fell back dead! Ah, he knew the brands, my word! and he proved it to his last breath! Peace to his ashes! They asked what he died of. I knew he died because of the inappropriate blend of flavors. There should be discipline in all things and not promiscuous mixing. One more gla.s.s of champagne and he would have been drinking with us this evening. Your health, Matrena Petrovna. Champagne, Feodor Feodorovitch! Vive la France, monsieur! Natacha, my child, you must sing something. Boris will accompany you on the guzla. Your father will enjoy it.”
All eyes turned toward Natacha as she rose.
Rouletabille was struck by her serene beauty. That was the first enthralling impression, an impression so strong it astonished him, the perfect serenity, the supreme calm, the tranquil harmony of her n.o.ble features. Natacha was twenty. Heavy brown hair circled about er forehead and was looped about her ears, which were half-concealed. Her profile was clear-cut; her mouth was strong and revealed between red, firm lips the even pearliness of her teeth. She was of medium height. In walking she had the free, light step of the highborn maidens who, in primal times, pressed the flowers as they pa.s.sed without crus.h.i.+ng them. But all her true grace seemed to be concentrated in her eyes, which were deep and of a dark blue. The impression she made upon a beholder was very complex. And it would have been difficult to say whether the calm which pervaded every manifestation of her beauty was the result of conscious control or the most perfect ease.
She took down the guzla and handed it to Boris, who struck some plaintive preliminary chords.
”What shall I sing?” she inquired, raising her father's hand from the back of the sofa where he rested and kissing it with filial tenderness.
”Improvise,” said the general. ”Improvise in French, for the sake of our guest.”
”Oh, yes,” cried Boris; ”improvise as you did the other evening.”
He immediately struck a minor chord.
Natacha looked fondly at her father as she sang:
”When the moment comes that parts us at the close of day, when the Angel of Sleep covers you with azure wings; ”Oh, may your eyes rest from so many tears, and your oppressed heart have calm; ”In each moment that we have together, Father dear, let our souls feel harmony sweet and mystical; ”And when your thoughts may have flown to other worlds, oh, may my image, at least, nestle within your sleeping eyes.”
Natacha's voice was sweet, and the charm of it subtly pervasive. The words as she uttered them seemed to have all the quality of a prayer and there were tears in all eyes, excepting those of Michael Korsakoff, the second orderly, whom Rouletabille appraised as a man with a rough heart not much open to sentiment.
”Feodor Feodorovitch,” said this officer, when the young girl's voice had faded away into the blending with the last note of the guzla, ”Feodor Feodorovitch is a man and a glorious soldier who is able to sleep in peace, because he has labored for his country and for his Czar.”
”Yes, yes. Labored well! A glorious soldier!” repeated Athanase Georgevitch and Ivan Petrovitch. ”Well may he sleep peacefully.”
”Natacha sang like an angel,” said Boris, the first orderly, in a tremulous voice.
”Like an angel, Boris Nikolaievitch. But why did she speak of his heart oppressed? I don't see that General Treba.s.sof has a heart oppressed, for my part.” Michael Korsakoff spoke roughly as he drained his gla.s.s.
”No, that's so, isn't it?” agreed the others.
”A young girl may wish her father a pleasant sleep, surely!” said Matrena Petrovna, with a certain good sense. ”Natacha has affected us all, has she not, Feodor?”