world. The sky
presses in its stainless arms the bosom of earth, Night kisses the rose
that dawn gave to the twilight. And the night air is sweet and fresh
from across the shivering gulf, Like the breath of young girls from the
world still farther north. Beneath the two lighted horizons, sinking and
rising at once, The sun rolls rebounding from the gods at the north of
the world. In this moment, beloved, when in the clear shadows of this
rose-stained evening I am here alone with you, Respond, respond with a
heart less timid to the holy, accustomed cry of 'Good-evening.'"

Ah, how Boris Nikolaievitch and Michael Korsakoff watched her as she
sang! Truly, no one ever can guess the anger or the love that broods in
a Slavic heart under a soldier's tunic, whether the soldier wisely plays
at the guzla, as the correct Boris, or merely lounges, twirling his
mustache with his manicured and perfumed fingers, like Michael, the
indifferent.

Natacha ceased singing, but all seemed to be listening to her still--the
convivial group on the terrace appeared to be held in charmed attention,
and the porcelain statuettes of men on the lawn, according to the mode
of the Iles, seemed to lift on their short legs the better to hear pass
the sighing harmony of Natacha in the rose nights at the north of the
world.

Meanwhile Matrena wandered through the house from cellar to attic,
watching over her husband like a dog on guard, ready to bite, to throw
itself in the way of danger, to receive the blows, to die for its
master--and hunting for Rouletabille, who had disappeared again.

III. THE WATCH

She went out to caution the servants to a strict watch, armed to the
teeth, before the gate all night long, and she crossed the deserted
garden. 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. But it would be foolish to worry about the
disappearance of a Journalist, they had said. That kind of man--these
journalists--came,