Gaston Leroux

“ Gounsovski has done everybody so many services that no one really wishes him ill, poor man. Besides, have you noticed, my dear old friends, that no one ever tries to work harm to chiefs of Secret Police? One goes after heads of police, prefects of police, ministers, grand-dukes, and even higher, but the chiefs of Secret Police are never, never attacked. They can promenade tranquilly in the streets or in the gardens of Krestowsky or breathe the pure air of the Finland country or even the country around Paris. ”

“ Why, that is Prince Galitch, who was one of the richest lords of the North Country. Now he is practically ruined.”
“Thanks, gentlemen; certainly it is he. I know him,” said Rouletabille, seating himself and mastering his emotion.
“They say he is a great admirer of Annouchka,” hazarded Thaddeus. Then he walked away from the box.
“The prince has been ruined by women,” said Athanase Georgevitch, who pretended to know the entire chronicle of gallantries in the empire.
“He also has been on good terms with Gounsovski,” continued Thaddeus.
“He passes at court, though, for an unreliable. ”

“ In the audience there were mysterious allusions being made to this second number of Annouchka, but no one seemed able to say what it was to be, and it was, as a matter of fact, very simple. After the whirlwind of dances and choruses and all the splendor with which she had been accompanied the first time, Annouchka appeared as a poor Russian peasant in a scene representing the barren steppes, and very simply she sank to her knees and recited her evening prayers. Annouchka was singularly beautiful. ”

“ 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. When you shake hands you feel as though you had grabbed a piece of fat. My word! And when he eats he wags his jaw fattishly. ”

“ Summer theater, winter theater, open-air theater, hall for spectacles, scenic mountain, exercise-ground, diversions of all sorts, garden promenades, cafés, restaurants, private dining-rooms, everything is combined here that can amuse, charm, lead to the wildest orgies, or provide those who never think of sleep till toward three or four o’clock of a morning the means to await the dawn with patience. ”

“ 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.
“You have undertaken, young man, a noble task and one all the more difficult because General Trébassof is condemned not only by his enemies but still more by the ignorance of Koupriane. Understand me thoroughly: Koupriane is my friend and a man whom I esteem very highly. He is good, brave as a warrior, but I wouldn’t give a kopeck for his police. ”

“ Onoto was an artist too, and the pique she felt at first over Annouchka’s success could not last after the emotion aroused by the evening prayer before the hut.
“Come to supper,” Annouchka had said to her.
“With whom?” inquired the Spanish artist.
“With Gounsovski.”
“Never.”
“Do come. You will help me pay my debt and perhaps he will be useful to you as well. He is useful to everybody.” ”

“ If there is no such luck, they are sure at least to find every evening some old beau, and often some officer, who willingly pays twenty-five roubles for the sole pleasure of having a demoiselle born on the banks of the Seine for his companion at the supper-table. After their turn at the singing, these women display their graces and their eager smiles in the promenades of the garden or among the tables where the champagne-drinkers sit. ”

“ He addressed a lively compliment to Annouchka, who threw him a kiss.
“Rouletabille!” cried la belle Onoto. “Why, then, he is the little fellow who solved the mystery of the Yellow Room.”
“Himself.”
“What are you doing here?”
“He came to save the life of General Trébassof,” sniggered Gounsovski. “He is certainly a brave little young man.”
“The police know everything,” said Rouletabille coldly. And he asked for champagne, which he never drank. ”

“ He did not look at Annouchka, but fixed his eyes on Prince Galitch. His finger pointed him out:
“There is the man,” he hissed, “who has told you all these fine things.”
“Yes, it is I,” said the Prince, tranquilly.
“Caracho!” barked Gounsovski, instantaneously regaining his coolness.
“Ah, yes, but you’ll not touch him,” clamored the spirited girl of the Black Land; “you are not strong enough for that.”
“I know that monsieur has many friends at court,” agreed the chief of the Secret Service with an ominous calm. “I ‘don’t wish ill to monsieur. ”

“ I have a little well down Bakou way, nothing big; and a little house, a very small one for my small business.”
“What a monopolist Thaddeus is,” declared Athanase Georgevitch, hitting him a formidable slap on the thigh with his enormous hand. “Gounsovski has come himself to keep an eye on Annouchka’s début, eh? Only he goes into Onoto’s dressing-room, the rogue.”
“Oh, he doesn’t trouble himself. Do you know who he is to have supper with? With Annouchka, my dears, and we are invited.” ”

“ The head-liners, naturally, are not driven to this wearying perambulation, but can go away to their rest if they are so inclined. However, the management is appreciative if they accept the invitation of some dignitary of the army, of administration, or of finance, who seeks the honor of hearing from the chanteuse, in a private room and with a company of friends not disposed to melancholy, the Bohemian songs of the Vieux Derevnia. They sing, they loll, they talk of Paris, and above all they drink. ”

“ The most celebrated companies of the old and the new world play there amid an enthusiasm that is steadily maintained by the foresight of the managers: Russian and foreign dancers, and above all the French chanteuses, the little dolls of the cafés-concerts, so long as they are young, bright, and elegantly dressed, may meet their fortune there. ”

“ Annouchka had a brother, Vlassof, an engineer on the Kasan line, whom the Strike Committee had ordered to take out a train as the only means of escape for the leaders of the revolutionary troops when Trébassof’s soldiers, aided by the Semenowsky regiment, had become masters of the city. The last resistance took place at the station. It was necessary to get started. All the ways were guarded by the military. There were soldiers everywhere! Vlassof said to his comrades, ‘I will save you;’ and his comrades saw him mount the engine with a woman. ”

“ Only a woman was wounded. She got a ball in the chest.”
“There!” cried Annouchka.
With a magnificent gesture she flung open her white and heaving chest, and put her finger on a scar that Gounsovski, whose fat began to melt in heavy drops of sweat about his temples, dared not look at.
“Fifteen days later,” continued the prince, “Vlassof entered an inn at Lubetszy. He didn’t know it was full of soldiers. His face never altered. They searched him. They found a revolver and papers on him. They knew whom they had to do with. He was a good prize. Vlassof was taken to Moscow and condemned to be shot. ”

“ They have done so many little favors for this one and that, here and there, that no one wishes to do them the least injury. Each person always thinks, too, that others have been less well served than he. That is the secret of the thing, my friends, that is the secret. What do you say?”
The others said: “Ah, ah, the good Gounsovski. He knows. He knows. Certainly, accept his supper. With Annouchka it will be fun.”
“Messieurs,” asked Rouletabille, who continued to make discoveries in the audience, “do you know that officer who is seated at the end of a row down there in the orchestra seats? ”

“ But what a girl wishes the gods bring about. That’s the way.”
“That’s so, I know,” put in Athanase. “Ivan Pétrovitch is right. Natacha hasn’t been able to hold herself in since she read that Annouchka was going to make her début at Krestowsky. She said she wasn’t going to die without having seen the great artist.”
“Her father had almost drawn her away from that crowd,” affirmed Ivan, “and that was as it should be. She must have fixed up this affair with Boris and his parents.” ”

“ You can believe that I bought it without any haggling. And it was a very good bargain. It was worth at least three roubles. Your health, belle Onoto.”
“I always take my revolver when I go out,” said Athanase. “It is more prudent. I say this before the police. But I would rather be arrested by the police than stabbed by the hooligans.”
“There’s no place any more to buy revolvers,” dedared Ivan Pétrovitch. “All such places are closed.”
Gounsovski settled his glasses, rubbed his fat hands and said:
“There are some still at my locksmith’s place. ”

“ I don’t know. Boris’s father likes to have the family lunch at the Barque when it is fine. Calm yourself, little domovoi. What ails you? Bad news, eh? Any bad news?”
“No, no; everything is all right. Quick, the address of Boris’s family.”
“The house at the corner of La Place St. Isaac and la rue de la Poste.”
“Good. Thank you. Adieu.”
He started for the Place St. Isaac, and picked up an interpreter at the Grand Morskaia Hotel on the way. ”

“ At ten that evening he stepped out of his carriage before the Krestowsky. The establishment of Krestowsky, which looms among the Isles much as the Aquarium does, is neither a theater, nor a music-hall, nor a cafe-concert, nor a restaurant, nor a public garden ”

“ Thaddeus continued: “It is necessary to explain that at Bakou my little house is one of the first before you reach the quay. I had some Armenian employees there. When arrived, what do you suppose I saw? A file of soldiers with cannon, yes, with a cannon, on my word, turned against my house and an officer saying quietly, ‘there it is. ”