that have been treated as they deserved at Court,
certainly. Madame Daquin, the wife of His Majesty's head-cook, whom
you certainly know, and the nephew of the second Maid of Honor to the
Empress, who stands very well with his aunt, have told us so; servants'
stories that might have ruined us but have not produced any effect on
His Majesty, for whom we would give our lives, Christ knows. Well,
you understand now that if you were to say to Koupriane, 'Gaspadine
Gounsovski has spoken ill to me of Priemkof,' he would not care to hear
a word further. Still, Priemkof is in the scheme for the living bombs,
that is all I can tell you; at least, he was before the affair of the
poisoning. That poisoning is certainly very astonishing, between us. It
does not appear to have come from without, whereas the living bombs will
have to come from without. And Priemkof is mixed up in it."

"Yes, yes," approved Madame Gounsovski again, "he is committed to it.
There have been stories about him, too. Other people as well as he can
tell tales; it isn't hard to do. He has got to make some showing now if
he is to keep in with Annouchka's clique."

"Koupriane, our dear Koupriane," interrupted Gounsovski, slightly
troubled at hearing his wife pronounce Annouchka's name, "Koupriane
ought to be able to understand that this time Priemkof must bring things
off, or he is definitely ruined."

"Priemkof knows it well enough," replied Madame as she re-filled the
glasses, "but Koupriane doesn't know it; that is all we can tell you. Is
it enough? All the rest is mere gossip."

It certainly was enough for Rouletabille; he had had enough of it! This
idle gossip and these living bombs! These pinchbecks, these
whispering tale-tellers in their bourgeois, countrified setting; these
politico-police combinations whose grotesque side was always uppermost;
while the terrible side, the Siberian aspect, prisons, black holes,
hangings, disappearances, exiles and deaths and martyrdoms remained
so jealously hidden that no one ever spoke of them! All that weight of
horror, between a good cigar and "a little glass of anisette, monsieur,
if you won't take champagne." Still, he had to drink before he
left, touch glasses in a health, promise to come again, whenever he
wished--the house was open to him. Rouletabille knew it was open to
anybody--anybody who had a tale to tell, something that would send
some other person to prison or to death and oblivion. No guard at the
en