“You expect M. Koupriane for dinner?” inquired the young man, still examining the watch.
“Yes, but since he is so late, we’ll not delay any longer. Your healths, my children,” said the general as Rouletabille handed him back the watch and he put it in his pocket.
“Your health, Feodor Feodorovitch,” replied Matrena Petrovna, with her usual tenderness.
Rouletabille and Natacha only touched their lips to the vodka, but Feodor Feodorovitch and Matrena drank theirs in the Russian fashion, head back and all at a draught, draining it to the bottom and flinging the contents to the back of the throat. They had no more than performed this gesture when the general uttered an oath and tried to expel what he had drained so heartily. Matrena Petrovna spat violently also, looking with horror at her husband.
“What is it? What has someone put in the vodka?” cried Feodor.
“What has someone put in the vodka?” repeated Matrena Petrovna in a thick voice, her eyes almost starting from her head.
The two young people threw themselves upon the unfortunates. Feodor’s face had an expression of atrocious suffering.
“We are poisoned,” cried the general, in the midst of his chokings. “I am burning inside.”
Almost mad, Natacha took her father’s head in her hands. She cried to him:
“Vomit, papa; vomit!”