e 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, spreading beard. This was a
form akin to the gallery of old nobles at Kasan, and young Rouletabille
imagined him as none other than Ivan the Terrible himself. Thus appeared
as he slept the excellent Feodor Feodorovitch, the easy, spoiled father
of the family table, the friend of the advocate celebrated for his feats
with knife and fork and of the bantering timber-merchant and amiable
bear-hunter, the joyous Thaddeus and Athanase; Feodor, the faithful
spouse of Matrena Petrovna and the adored papa of Natacha, a brave
man who was so unfortunate as to have nights of cruel sleeplessness or
dreams more frightful still.

At that moment a hoarse sigh heaved his huge chest in an uneven
rhythm, and Rouletabille, leaning in the doorway of the dressing-room,
watched--but it was no longer the general that he watched, it was
something else, lower down, beside the wall, near the door, and it was
that which set him tiptoeing so lightly across the floor that it gave
no sound. There was no slightest sound in the chamber, except the heavy
breathing lifting the rough chest. Behind Rouletabille Matrena raised
her arms, as though she wished to hold him back, because she did not
know where he was going. What was he doing? Why did he stoop thus beside
the door and why did he press his thumb all along the floor at the
doorway? He rose again and returned. He passed again