THE LITILE CHAPEL OF THE GUARDS
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
