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Updated: May 10, 2025
Rouletabille was so occupied by thought of the conversation he was going to have with Natacha that he had completely forgotten the excellent Monsieur Gounsovski and his invitation. The reporter found Koupriane's agents making a close-linked chain around the grounds and each watching the other. Matrena had not wished any agent to be in house. He showed Koupriane's pass and entered.
You think a chief of Secret Police should be an ogre," replied the advocate as he nodded here and there to his friends. "Why, certainly not. He needs to be a sheep in a place like that, a thorough sheep. Gounsovski is soft as a sheep. The time I dined with him he had mutton streaked with fat. He is just like that. I am sure he is mainly layers of fat.
Maybe he would be able to run across some revolutionaries to whom he could explain about Natacha, as prudently as possible; he might even see Natacha herself. Gounsovski could not have spoken vain words to him.
While Thaddeus and the officers told each other stories of Bakou or paid compliments to the women, Gounsovski, who was through with raillery, leaned toward Rouletabille and gave that young man fatherly counsel with great unction.
His eyes burned somberly, in spite of the panic that deformed his features Rouletabille recognized one of the unintroduced friends whom Gounsovski had brought with him to the supper at Krestowsky. Evidently since then the always-threatening misfortune had fallen upon him. They were proceeding with his trial. The one who seemed to preside over these strange sessions pronounced a name: "Annouchka!"
Petersburg, where his martial bearing and his well-known bravery had given him a sort of popularity in society, which, on the other hand, had great disdain for Gounsovski, the head of the Secret Police, who was known to be capable of anything underhanded and had been accused of sometimes playing into the hands of the Nihilists, whom he disguised as agents-provocateurs, without anybody really doubting it, and he had to fight against these widespread political suspicions.
Even now he won't compromise his career by being seen at the home of a woman who is never from under the eyes of Gounsovski's agents and who hasn't been nicknamed 'Stool-pigeon' for nothing." "Then why do we go to supper tonight with Annouchka?" asked Ivan. "That's not the same thing. We are invited by Gounsovski himself.
"We would have found Natacha without you; Gounsovski notified us that she was going to embark in the Bay of Lachtka this evening with Priemkof." "Natacha with Priemkof!" exclaimed Rouletabille. "Natacha with the man who introduced the two living bombs into her father's house!
"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.
"Koupriane, our dear Koupriane," interrupted Gounsovski, slightly troubled at hearing his wife pronounce Annouchka's name, "Koupriane ought to be able to understand that this time Priemkof must bring things off, or he is definitely ruined." "Priemkof knows it well enough," replied Madame as she re-filled the glasses, "but Koupriane doesn't know it; that is all we can tell you. Is it enough?
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