eighteen
winters, the virgin of Moscow, flower of the snow.
Who gave her kisses to the workmen struck by the bullets
from the soldiers of the Czar;
"She aroused the admiration of the very soldiers who, weeping,
killed her:
"What killing! All the houses shuttered, the windows with heavy
eyelids of plank in order not to see!--
"And the Kremlin itself has closed its gates--that it may
not see.
"The youth of Moscow is dead!"

"Feodor! Feodor!"

She had caught him in her arms, holding him fast, comforting him while
still he raved, "The youth of Moscow is dead," and appeared to thrust
away with insensate gestures a crowd of phantoms. She crushed him to
her breast, she put her hands over his mouth to make him stop, but he,
saying, "Do you hear? Do you hear? What do they say? They say nothing,
now. What a tangle of bodies under the sleigh, Matrena! Look at those
frozen legs of those poor girls we pass, sticking out in all directions,
like logs, from under their icy, blooded skirts. Look, Matrena!"

And then came further delirium uttered in Russian, which was all the
more terrible to Rouletabille because he could not comprehend it.

Then, suddenly, Feodor became silent and thrust away Matrena Petrovna.

"It is that abominable narcotic," he said with an immense sigh. "I'll
drink no more of it. I do not wish to drink it."

With one hand he pointed to a large glass on the table beside him, still
half full of a soporific mixture with which he moistened his lips each
time he woke; with the other hand he wiped the perspiration from his
face. Matrena Petrovna stayed trembling near him, suddenly overpowered
by the idea that he might discover there was someone there behind the
door, who had seen and heard the sleep of General Trebassof! Ah, if he
learned that, everything was over. She might say her prayers; she should
die.

But Rouletabille was careful to give no sign. He barely breathed. What
a nightmare! He understood now the emotion of the general's friends when
Natacha had sung in her low, sweet voice, "Good-night. May your eyes
have rest from tears and calm re-enter your heart oppressed." The
friends had certainly been made aware, by Matrena's anxious talking, of
the general's insomnia, and they could not repress their tears as they
listened to the poetic wish of charming Natacha. "All the same," thought
Rouletabille, "no one could imagine what I have just seen. They are not
dead for ev