His Excellency the Governor by Leonid Andreyev

Two weeks before the Governor's death, a linen-covered package was handed in to the Government House -- its value declared at three roubles. It proved to be an infernal machine -- a bomb intended to explode on being opened. But it was badly made by the unskilled hands of one who had only read of such things -- so it missed fire. Yet in the very homemade simplicity of the outfit there was something sinister and terrifying, as if blind Death had stretched forth his hand and was fumbling clumsily about in the dark.

The police sounded the alarm, and Maria Petrovna insisted upon her husband's wiring to St. Petersburg that very day, to ask for sick leave. She herself drove first to the tailor's, and then wrote her son a long letter full of horrors -- all in French.