Gaston Leroux

“ Messieurs the commercial travelers for champagne, who talk together importantly in the lobbies of the Grand Morskaia Hotel and who have studied the Russian people even in the most distant cities where champagne is sold, will tell you that over any table of hors-d’œuvres, and will regulate the whole question of the Revolution between two little glasses of vodka, swallowed properly, quickly, elbow up, at a single draught, in the Russian manner. ”

“ Ah, ah, one mocks at it all in such air, provided one has roubles in one’s pockets, plenty of roubles, and that one is not besotted by reading those extraordinary books that preach the happiness of all humanity to students and to poor girl-students too. Ah, ah, seed of the Nihilists, all that! These poor little fellows and poor little girls who have their heads turned by lectures that they cannot digest! ”

“ Koupriane bounded from his chair.
“Occupied by Boris. Parbleu! Now we have them. I see it all now. Boris, another cracked brain! And he is engaged. If he plays the part of the Revolutionaries, the affair would work out big for him.”
“That villa,” said Rouletabille quietly, “is also occupied by Michael Korosakoff.” “He is the most loyal, the most reliable soldier of the Tsar.”
“No one is ever sure of anything, my dear Monsieur Koupriane.”
“Oh, I am sure of a man like that.”
“No man is ever sure of any man, my dear Monsieur Koupriane.” ”

“ And Rouletabille handed Koupriane the message he had received that same morning.
“Oh, oh,” cried Koupriane. “You are under watch! Look out.”
“I have nothing to fear; I’m not bothering myself about anything further. Yes, we have an affair of the revolutionaries, but not of the usual kind. The way they are going about it isn’t like one of their young men that the Central Committee arms with a bomb and who is sacrificed in advance.” ”

“ Monsieur Rouletabille! Ah, yes. Please be seated. Delighted, M. Koupriane will be very happy to receive you, but just at this moment he is at inspection. Yes, the inspection of the police dormitories in the barracks. We will take you there. His own idea! He doesn’t neglect anything, does he? A great Chief. Have you seen the police-guards’ dormitory? Admirable! The first dormitories of the world. We say that without wishing to offend France. We love France. A great nation! I will take you immediately to M. Koupriane. ”

“ I order it,” commanded Koupriane.
“I answer, Your Excellency,” said Touman firmly, “that I don’t know what Your Excellency means.”
“I mean that you have helped a man get into the Trébassof villa by night when you were on guard under the window of the little sitting-room. You see that there is no use deceiving us any longer. I play with you frankly, good play, good money. The name of that man, and you have a thousand roubles.” ”

“ Something that can serve you in the enterprise you are going to undertake, because I trust you can catch the murderer right in his nest. To do that, I’ll not conceal from you that I think your agents will have to be enormously clever. They will have to watch the datcha des Iles at night, without anyone possibly suspecting it. No more maroon coats with false astrakhan trimmings, eh? But Apaches, Apaches on the war-trail, who blend themselves with the ground, with the trees, with the stones in the roadway. ”

“ No, no; no one knows the joy of mere breathing if he has not breathed the air there, the finest in the north of the world, which gives food and drink of beautiful white eau-de-vie and yellow pivo, and strikes the blood and makes one a beast vigorous and joyful and fatalistic, and mocks at the Nihilists and, as well, at the ten thousand eyes of the police staring from under the porches of houses, from under the skulls of dvornicks—all police, the dvornicks ”