Chapter 15

XV

"I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU"

At the hotel a note from Gounsovski: "Don't forget this time to come
to-morrow to have luncheon with me. Warmest regards from Madame
Gounsovski." Then a horrible, sleepless night, shaken with echoes
of explosions and the clamor of the wounded; and the solemn shade
of Pere Alexis, stretching out toward Rouletabille a phial of poison
and saying, "Either Natacha or you!" Then, rising among the shades
the bloody form of Michael Nikolaievitch the Innocent!

In the morning a note from the Marshal of the Court.

Monsieur le Marechal had no particular good news, evidently, for in
terms quite without enthusiasm he invited the young man to luncheon
for that same day, rather early, at midday, as he wished to see him
once more before he left for France. "I see," said Rouletabille to
himself; "Monsieur le Marechal pronounces my expulsion from the
country "- and he forgot once more the Gounsovski luncheon. The
meeting-place named was the great restaurant called the Bear.
Rouletabille entered it promptly at noon. He asked the schwitzar if
the Grand Marshal of the Court had arrived, and was told no one had
seen him yet. They conducted him to the huge main hall, where,
however, there was only one person. This man, standing before the
table spread with zakouskis, was stuffing himself. At the sound of
Rouletabille's step on the floor this sole famished patron turned
and lifted his hands to heaven as he recognized the reporter. The
atter would have given all the roubles in his pocket to have avoided
the recognition. But he was already face to face with the advocate
so celebrated for his table-feats, the amiable Athanase Georgevitch,
his head swathed in bandages and dressings from the midst of which
one could perceive distinctly only the eyes and, above all, the
mouth.

"How goes it, little friend?"

"How are you?"

"Oh, I! There is nothing the matter. In a week we shall have
forgotten it."

"What a terrible affair," said the reporter, "I certainly believed
we were all dead men."

"No, no. It was nothing. Nitchevo!"

"And poor Thaddeus Tchitchnikoff with his two poor legs broken!"

"Eh! Nitchevo! He has plenty of good solid splints that will make
him two good legs again. Nitchevo! Don't you think anything more
about that! It is nothing. You have come here to dine? A very
celebrated house this. Caracho!" He busied himself to do the
honors. One would have said the restaurant belonged to him. He
boasted of its architecture and the cuisine "a la Francaise."

"Do you know," he inquired confidently, "a finer restaurant room
anywhere in the world?"

In fact, it seemed to Rouletabille as he looked up into the high