Rouletabille took a long walk which led him to the Troitsky Bridge, then, re-descending the Naberjnaia, he reached the Winter Palace. He seemed to have chased away all preoccupation, and took a child’s pleasure in the different aspects of the life that characterizes the city of the Great Peter. He stopped before the Winter Palace, walked slowly across the square where the prodigious monolith of the Alexander Column rises from its bronze socket, strolled between the palace and the colonnades, passed under an immense arch: everything seemed Cyclopean to him, and he never had felt so tiny, so insignificant. None the less he was happy in his insignificance, he was satisfied with himself in the presence of these colossal things; everything pleased him this morning. The speed of the isvos, the bickering humor of the osvotchicks, the elegance of the women, the fine presences of the officers and their easy naturalness under their uniforms, so opposed to the wooden posturing of the Berlin military men whom he had noticed at the “Tilleuls” and in the Friederichstrasse between two trains. Everything enchanted him — the costume even of the moujiks, vivid blouses, the red shirts over the trousers, the full legs and the boots up to the knees, even the unfortunates who, in spite of the soft atmosphere, were muffled up in sheepskin coats, all impressed him favorably, everything appeared to him original and congenial.
Order reigned in the city. The guards were polite, decorative and superb in bearing. The passers-by in that quarter talked gayly among themselves, often in French, and had manners as civilized as anywhere in the world. Where, then, was the Bear of the North? He never had seen bears so well licked. Was it this very city that only yesterday was in revolution? This was certainly the Alexander Park where troops a few weeks before had fired on children who had sought refuge in the trees, like sparrows. Was this the very pavement where the Cossacks had left so many bodies? Finally he saw before him the Nevsky Prospect, where the bullets rained like hail not long since upon a people dressed for festivities and very joyous. Nichevo! Nichevo! All that was so soon forgotten. They forgot yesterday as they forget to-morrow. The Nihilists? Poets, who imagined that a bomb could accomplish anything in that Babylon of the North more important than the noise of its explosion! Look at these people who pass. They have no more thought for the old attack than for those now preparing in the shadow of the “tracktirs.” Happy men, full of serenity in this bright quarter, who move about their affairs and their pleasures 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 doors, many obsequious schwitzars on the lookout for tips, many poor creatures sitting against the walls on dirty benches, desks and clerks, brilliant boots and epaulets of gay young officers who are telling tales of the Aquarium with great relish.
“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 shall be delighted.”
“I also,” said Rouletabille, who put a rouble into the honorable functionary’s hand.
“Permit me to precede you.”
Bows and salutes. For two roubles he would have walked obsequiously before him to the end of the world.
“These functionaries are admirable,” thought Rouletabille as he was led to the barracks. He felt he had not paid too much for the services of a personage whose uniform was completely covered with lace. They tramped, they climbed, they descended. Stairways, corridors. Ah, the barracks at last. He seemed to have entered a convent. Beds very white, very narrow, and images of the Virgin and saints everywhere, monastic neatness and the most absolute silence. Suddenly an order sounded in the corridor outside, and the police-guard, who sprang from no one could tell where, stood to attention at the head of their beds. Koupriane and his aide appeared. Koupriane looked at everything closely, spoke to each man in turn, called them by their names, inquired about their needs, and the men stammered replies, not knowing what to answer, reddening like children. Koupriane observed Rouletabille. He dismissed his aide with a gesture. The inspection was over. He drew the young man into a little room just off the dormitory. Rouletabille, frightened, looked about him. He found himself in a chapel. This little chapel completed the effect of the guards’ dormitory. It was all gilded, decorated in marvelous colors, thronged with little ikons that bring happiness, and, naturally, with the portrait of the Tsar, the dear Little Father.
“You see,” said Koupriane, smiling at Rouletabille’s amazement, “we deny them nothing. We give them their saints right here in their quarters.” Closing the door, he drew a chair toward Rouletabille and motioned him to sit down. They sat before the little altar loaded with flowers, with colored paper and winged saints.
“We can talk here without being disturbed,” he said. “Yonder there is such a crowd of people waiting for me. I’m ready to listen.”
“Monsieur,” said Rouletabille, “I have come to give you the report of my mission here, and to terminate my connection with it. All that is left for clearing this obscure affair is to arrest the guilty person, with which I have nothing to do. That concerns you. I simply inform you that someone tried to poison the general last night by pouring arsenate of soda into his sleeping-potion, which I bring you in this phial, arsenate which was secured most probably by washing it from grapes brought to General Trebassof by the marshal of the court, and which disappeared without anyone being able to say how.”
“Ah, ah, a family affair, a plot within the family. I told you so,” murmured Koupriane.
“The affair at least has happened within the family, as you think, although the assassin came from outside. Contrary to what you may be able to believe, he does not live in the house.”
“Then how does he get there?” demanded Koupriane.
“By the window of the room overlooking the Neva. He has often come that way. And that is the way he returns also, I am sure. It is there you can take him if you act with prudence.”
“How do you know he often comes that way?”
“You know the height of the window above the little roadway. To reach it he uses a water-trough, whose iron rings are bent, and also the marks of a grappling-iron that he carries with him and uses to hoist himself to the window are distinctly visible on the ironwork of the little balcony outside. The marks are quite obviously of different dates.”
“But that window is closed.”
“Someone opens it for him.”
“Who, if you please?”
“I have no desire to know.”
“Eh, yes. It necessarily is Natacha. I was sure that the Villa des Iles had its viper. I tell you she doesn’t dare leave her nest because she knows she is watched. Not one of her movements outside escapes us! She knows it. She has been warned. The last time she ventured outside alone was to go into the old quarters of Derewnia. What has she to do in such a rotten quarter? I ask you that. And she turned in her tracks without seeing anyone, without knocking at a single door, because she saw that she was followed. She isn’t able to get to see them outside, therefore she has to see them inside.”
“They are only one, and always the same one.”
“Are you sure?”
“An examination of the marks on the wall and on the pipe doesn’t leave any doubt of it, and it is always the same grappling-iron that is used for the window.”
“The viper!”
“Monsieur Koupriane, Mademoiselle Natacha seems to preoccupy you exceedingly. I did not come here to talk about Mademoiselle Natacha. I came to point out to you the route used by the man who comes to do the murder.”
“Eh, yes, it is she who opens the way.”
“I can’t deny that.”
“The little demon! Why does she take him into her room at night? Do you think perhaps there is some love-affair . . .?”
“I am sure of quite the opposite.”
“I too. Natacha is not a wanton. Natacha has no heart. She has only a brain. And it doesn’t take long for a brain touched by Nihilism to get so it won’t hesitate at anything.”
Koupriane reflected a minute, while Rouletabille watched him in silence.
“Have we solely to do with Nihilism?” resumed Koupriane. “Everything you tell me inclines me more and more to my idea: a family affair, purely in the family. You know, don’t you, that upon the general’s death Natacha will be immensely rich?”
“Yes, I know it,” replied Rouletabille, in a voice that sounded singular to the ear of the Chief of Police and which made him raise his head.
“What do you know?”
“I? Nothing,” replied the reporter, this time in a firmer tone. “I ought, however, to say this to you: I am sure that we are dealing with Nihilism . . . ”
“What makes you believe it?”
“This.”
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.”
“Where are the tracks that you have traced?”
“Right up to the little Krestowsky Villa.”
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.”
“............