Secret of the Night

"e;BARINIA, the young stranger has arrived."e;"e;Where is he?"e;"e;Oh, he is waiting at the lodge."e;"e;I told you to show him to Natacha's sitting-room. Didn't you understand me, Ermolai?"e;"e;Pardon, Barinia, but the young stranger, when I asked to search him, as you directed, flatly refused to let me."e;"e;Did you explain to him that everybody is searched before being allowed to enter, that it is the order, and that even my mother herself has submitted to it?"e;"e;I told him all that, Barinia; and I told him about madame your mother."e;"e;What did he say to that?"e;"e;That he was not madame your mother. He acted angry."e;"e;Well, let him come in without being searched."e;"e;The Chief of Police won't like it."e;"e;Do as I say."e;Ermolai bowed and returned to the garden. The "e;barinia"e; left the veranda, where she had come for this conversation with the old servant of General Trebassof, her husband, and returned to the dining-room in the datcha des Iles, where the gay Councilor Ivan Petrovitch was regaling his amused associates with his latest exploit at Cubat's resort. They were a noisy company, and certainly the quietest among them was not the general, who nursed on a sofa the leg which still held him captive after the recent attack, that to his old coachman and his two piebald horses had proved fatal. The story of the always-amiable Ivan Petrovitch (a lively, little, elderly man with his head bald as an egg) was about the evening before. After having, as he said, "e;recure la bouche"e; for these gentlemen spoke French like their own language and used it among themselves to keep their servants from understanding after having wet his whistle with a large glass of sparkling rosy French wine, he cried: