in the purest air, the
lightest, the most transparent on earth. 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; all police, also the joyous concierges with extended hands.
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! That is
all the trouble, the digestion. The digestion is needed. 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'oeuvres, 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. Simply an affair of digestion, they tell you. Who is the
fool that would dare compare a young gentleman who has well digested
a bottle of champagne or two, and another young man who has poorly
digested the lucubrations of, who shall we say?--the lucubrations of the
economists? The economists? The economists! Fools who compete which
can make the most violent statements! Those who read them and don't
understand them go off like a bomb! Your health! Nichevo! The world goes
round still, doesn't it?

Discussion political, economic, revolutionary, and other in the room
where they munch hors-d'oeuvres! You will hear it all as you pass
through the hotel to your chamber, young Rouletabille. Get quickly
now to the home of Koupriane, if you don't wish to arrive there at
luncheon-time; then you would have to put off these serious affairs
until evening.

The Department of Police. Massive entrance, heavily guarded, a great
lobby, halls with swinging doo