Joseph Rouletabille

“ And it was that instinct which made Rouletabille’s last pipe die out unpuffed.
The young man was furious with himself, and he grew pale with the fear that he might not succeed in mastering this emotion, he took fierce hold of himself and his members, which had stiffened at the contact of seizure by rough hands, relaxed, and he allowed himself to be led. Truly, he was disgusted with his faintness and weakness. He had seen men die who knew they were going to die. His task as reporter had led him more than once to the foot of the guillotine. ”

“ Why then, if you knew he was going to come, didn’t you leave me in the bedroom and you watch below yourself?”
“Because so long as I was below he would not have come. He only comes when there is no one downstairs.”
“Ah, Saints Peter and Paul pity a poor woman. Who do you think it is, then? Who do you think it is? I can’t think any more. Tell me, tell me that. You ought to know—you know everything. Come—who? I demand the truth. Who? Still some agent of the Committee, of the Central Committee? Still the Nihilists?”
“If it was only that!” said Rouletabille quietly. ”

“ Finally, Rouletabille spoke:
“Messieurs,” said he, his voice low and shaken, because he knew that now he touched the decisive minute, after which there could only be an irrevocable fate. “Messieurs, in order to continue my experiment I am obliged to go through movements that might suggest to you the idea of an attempt at escape, or evasion. I hope you don’t regard me as fool enough to have any such thought.”
“Oh, monsieur,” said the chief, “you are free to go through all the maneuvers you wish. No one escapes us. Outside we should have you within arm’s reach quite as well as here. ”

“ Rouletabille looked at the view and looked at the general, and in all his young vibrating soul there was a sense of infinite sadness, for he recalled those terrible words in the night: “They have gone into all the corners of the Russian land, and they have not found a single corner of that land where there are not moanings.” “Well,” thought he, “they have not come into this corner, apparently. I don’t know anything lovelier or happier in the world.” No, no, Rouletabille, they have not come here. ”

“ The others drew back and waited at a distance, in impressive silence, the outcome of this mysterious colloquy, which certainly would settle Rouletabille’s fate.
“Messieurs,” said the chief, “the young Frenchman is going to be allowed to leave. We give him twenty-four hours to set Natacha Féodorovna free. In twenty-four hours, if he has not succeeded, he will return here to give himself up.” ”

“ But what will Koupriane say? He will not permit any venturing beyond the villa; none, at least for the moment. Ah, now, how he looks at me, the dear little domovoi! Oh, well, yes. There, I will do as you wish.”
“Very well, come into the garden with me.”
She accompanied him, leaning on his arm.
“Here’s the idea,” said Rouletabille. “This afternoon you will go with the general in his rolling-chair. Everybody will follow. Everyone, you understand, Madame—understand me thoroughly, I mean to say that everyone who wishes to come must be invited to. Only those who wish to remain behind will do so. ”

“ But Athanase Georgevitch had told a “good story” which raised so much hubbub that nothing else could be heard. Feodor Feodorovitch was so amused that he had tears in his eyes. Rouletabille said to himself as Matrena talked, “I never have seen men so gay, and yet they know perfectly they are apt to be blown up all together any moment.”
General Trebassof, who had steadily watched Rouletabille, who, for that matter, had been kept in eye by everyone there, said:
“Eh, eh, monsieur le journaliste, you find us very gay?”
“I find you very brave,” said Rouletabille quietly. ”

“ To show Rouletabille how active he was getting again, Féodor Féodorovitch marched up and down the kiosk with only the aid of a stick. He went and came with a sort of wild, furious gayety.
“They haven’t got me yet, the dogs. They haven’t got me! And one (he was thinking of Michael) who saw me every day was here just for that. Very well. I ask you where he is now. And yet here I am! An attack! I’m always here! But with a good eye; and I begin to have a good leg. We shall see. Why, I recollect how, when I was at Tiflis, there was an insurrection in the Caucasus. We fought. ”

“ You will pass a good night, I am sure.”
“I can sleep only if you sleep, Matrena.”
“I promise you. It is quite possible now that we have our dear little domovoi. You know, Féodor, that he smokes his pipe just like the dear little porcelain domovoi.”
“He does resemble him, he certainly does,” said Féodor. “That makes us feel happy, but I wish him to sleep also.”
“Yes, yes,” smiled Rouletabille, “everybody will sleep here. That is the countersign. We have watched enough. Since the police are gone we can all sleep, believe me, general.” ”

“ The chances of war! Nichevo!” He pressed Rouletabille’s hand, and Matrena Pétrovna took, as was her habit, Féodor Féodorovitch on her back and lugged him to his chamber. In that also she refused aid from anyone. The general clung to his wife’s neck during the ascent and laughed like a child. Rouletabille remained in the hallway, watching the garden attentively. Ermolai walked out of the villa and crossed the garden, going to meet a personage in uniform whom the young man recognized immediately as the grand-marshal of the court, who had introduced him to the Tsar. ”

“ Under the veranda the schwitzar was spreading a mattress for Ermolai. She asked him if he had seen the young Frenchman anywhere, and after the answer, could only say to herself, “Where is he, then?” Where had Rouletabille gone? The general, whom she had carried up to his room on her back, without any help, and had helped into bed without assistance, was disturbed by this 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. ”

“ Rouletabille would have believed himself stronger, more courageous, more stoical at least. But blind instinct swept all of this away, that instinct of conservation which had no concern with the minor bravadoes of the reporter, no concern with the fine heroic manner, of the determined pose to die finely, because the instinct of conservation, which is, as its rigid name indicates, essentially materialistic, demands only, thinks of nothing but, to live. ”

“ Not an hour passes without bringing some new evidence against him. The examining magistrate is overwhelmed by it—and blind.”
“Frédéric Larsan, however, is not a novice,” I said.
“I thought so,” said Rouletabille, with a slightly contemptuous turn of his lips, “I fancied he was a much abler man. I had, indeed, a great admiration for him, before I got to know his method of working. It ’s deplorable. He owes his reputation solely to his ability; but he lacks reasoning power,—the mathematics of his ideas are very poor.” ”

“ And Rouletabille felt the rigid hand of Matrena Petrovna on his arm. “It is the general. The general is dreaming!”
She drew him into the dining-room, into a corner where they could no longer hear the moanings. But all the doors that communicated with the dining-room, the drawing-room and the sitting-room remained open behind him, by the secret precaution of Rouletabille. ”

“ And she carried him back into the apartment while she said quickly to Rouletabille:
“Go, little domovoi! And God protect us!”
Rouletabille disappeared at once through the door to the main staircase, and the group attended by Koupriane, passed through the dressing-room and the general’s chamber, Matrena Petrovna in the lead with her precious burden. Ivan Petrovitch had his hand already on the famous bolt which locked the door to the servants’ staircase when they all turned at the sound of a quick step behind them. Rouletabille had returned. ”

“ Rouletabille understood at last that hanging him in the room where judgment had been pronounced was rendered impossible by the violence of the prisoner just executed. Not only the rope and the ring-bolt had been torn away, but part of the beam had splintered.
“There is nothing more,” replied Rouletabille. ”

“ Only one man watched it, and he had not the air of watching. Certainly Rouletabille had not the air of constantly watching anything. He had the manner, out in the night, of an easy little man in porcelain, neither more nor less, yet he could see everything—if anything were there to see—and he could hear everything—if there were anything to hear. One passed beside him without suspecting him, and men might talk to each other without an idea that he heard them, and even talk to themselves according to the habit people have sometimes when they think themselves quite alone. ”

“ When a young man is a poet, it is useless to live like a soldier. Someone has said that, I don’t know the name now, and when one has ideas that may upset other people, surely they ought to live in solitude.”
Rouletabille looked at Natacha, who was as pale as her white gown, and who added no word to her mother’s outburst. They had drawn near the kiosk. Rouletabille saluted the general, who called to him to come up and, when the young man extended his hand, he drew him abruptly nearer and embraced him. ”

“ That, of course, is only an hypothesis.”
Rouletabille sat down in an armchair, lit his pipe, which he was never without, smoked for a few minutes in silence—no doubt to calm the excitement which, visibly, dominated him—and then replied:—
“Young man,” he said, in a tone the sad irony of which I will not attempt to render, “young man, you are a lawyer and I doubt not your ability to save the guilty from conviction; but if you were a magistrate on the bench, how easy it would be for you to condemn innocent persons!—You are really gifted, young man!” ”

“ Here you can see that all the draught-boards of the fireplaces are cleared away.”
“Madame,” interrupted Rouletabille (Matrena Pétrovna did not know 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. ”

“ He returned, saying, “No one sick.”
Like the marshal, Matrena Pétrovna and Féodor Féodorovitch looked at one another, repeating in French, “No one sick! That is strange!”
Rouletabille came forward and gave the only explanation that was plausible—for the others.
“But, General, that is not strange at all. The grapes have been stolen and eaten by some domestic, and if the servant has not been sick it is simply that the grapes monsieur le maréchal brought escaped the spraying of the Bordeaux mixture. That is the whole mystery.”
“The little fellow must be right,” cried the delighted marshal. ”

“ He is in the same state of mind as he was in at the door of The Yellow Room when his daughter was being murdered, and when he broke open the door and did not find the murderer. He is persuaded, since he could discover nothing, that there ’s no reason why we should be able to discover more than he did. But he has made it his duty, since Larsan expressed his theory, not to oppose us.”
Rouletabille buried himself in thought again for some time. He aroused himself later to tell me of how he came to set the two concierges free. ”

“ Now the police had gone from cellar to garret. Koupriane came from the Trébassof villa and joined them, Rouletabille followed him. The reporter could not stand the sight of that body, that still had a lingering warmth, of the great open eyes that seemed to stare at him, reproaching him for this violent death. He turned away in distaste, and perhaps a little in fright. Koupriane caught the movement.
“Regrets?” he queried.
“Yes,” said Rouletabille. “A death always must be regretted. None the less, he was a criminal. ”

“ As I have already several times observed, Monsieur Rouletabille, you reason too much; you do not allow yourself to be guided by what you have seen. What do you say to the handkerchief full of blood, and the red mark of the hand on the wall? You have seen the stain on the wall, but I have only seen the handkerchief.”
“Bah!” cried Rouletabille, “the murderer was wounded in the hand by Mademoiselle Stangerson’s revolver!”
“Ah!—a simply instinctive observation! Take care!—You are becoming too strictly logical, Monsieur Rouletabille; logic will upset you if you use it indiscriminatively. ”

“ At the second window he found Daddy Jacques in contemplation.
“Well, Daddy Jacques,” he said, “what are you looking at?”
“That policeman who is always going round and round the lake. Another of those fellows who think they can see better than anybody else!”
“You don’t know Frédéric Larsan, Daddy Jacques, or you would n’t speak of him in that way,” said Rouletabille in a melancholy tone. “If there is anyone who will find the murderer, it will be he.” And Rouletabille heaved a deep sigh. ”

“ All we found was two feathers, this morning, in the boudoir of the Empress, which leads us to think that the eider downs were taken out that way. I am taking the two feathers to Koupriane.”
“Let me see them,” asked the reporter.
Rouletabille looked them over and handed them back.
“And what do you think the whole affair means?”
“We are inclined to regard it as a threat by the revolutionaries. If they can carry away the eider downs, it would be quite as easy for them to carry away...” ”