Feodor heaved an immense sigh and his breast descended under the bed-clothes, the fist relaxed and fell, the great head lay over on its ear. There was silence. Had he repose at last? No, no. He sighed, he choked anew, he tossed on his couch like the damned in torment, and the words written by his daughter—by his daughter—blazed in his eyes, which now were wide open—words written on the wall, that he read on the wall, written in blood.
“The youth of Moscow is dead! They had gone so young into the
fields and into the mines,
And they had not found a single corner of the Russian land where
there were not moanings.
Now the youth of Moscow is dead and no more moanings are heard,
Because those for whom all youth died do not dare even to moan
any more.
But—what? The voice of Feodor lost its threatening tone. His breath came as from a weeping child. And it was with sobs in his throat that he said the last verse, the verse written by his daughter in the album, in red letters:
“The last barricade had standing there the girl of 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.