Chapter 15 - Page 2

glass arch that he was in a railway station decorated for some
illustrious traveler, for there were flowers and plants everywhere.
But the visitor whom the ball awaited was the Russian eater, the
ogre who never failed to come to eat at The Bear. Pointing out the
lines of tables shining with their white cloths and bright silver,
Athanase Georgevitch, with his mouth full, said:

"Ah, my dear little French monsieur, you should see it at
supper-time, with the women, and the jewels, and the music. There
is nothing in France that can give you any idea of it, nothing! The
gayety - the champagne - and the jewels, monsieur, worth millions
and millions of roubles! Our women wear them all - everything they
have. They are decked like sacred shrines! All the family jewels
- from the very bottom of the caskets! it is magnificent,
thoroughly Russian - Muscovite! What am I saying? It is Asiatic.
Monsieur, in the evening, at a fete, we are Asiatic. Let me tell
you something on the quiet. You notice that this enormous dining
ail is surrounded by those windowed balconies. Each of those
windows belongs to a separate private room. Well, you see that
window there? - yes, there - that is the room of a grand duke - yes,
he's the one I mean - a very gay grand duke. Do you know, one
evening when there was a great crowd here - families, monsieur,
family parties, high-born families - the window of that particular
balcony was thrown open, and a woman stark naked, as naked as my
hand, monsieur, was dropped into the dining-hall and ran across it
full-speed. It was a wager, monsieur, a wager of the jolly grand
duke's, and the demoiselle won it. But what a scandal! Ah, don't
speak of it; that would be very bad form. But - sufficiently
Asiatic, eh? Truly Asiatic. And - something much more unfortunate
- you see that table? It happened the Russian New Year Eve, at
supper. All the beauty, the whole capital, was here. Just at
midnight the orchestra struck up the Bodje tsara krani* to
inaugurate the joyful Russian New Year, and everybody stood up,
according to custom, and listened in silence, as loyal subjects
should. Well, at that table, accompanying his family, there was a
young student, a fine fellow, very correct, and in uniform. This
unhappy young student, who had risen like everybody else, to listen
to the Bodje tsara krani, inadvertently placed his knee on a chair.
Truly that is not a correct attitude, monsieur, but really it was
no reason for killing him, was it now? Certainly not. Well, a brute
in uniform, an officer quite immaculately gotten-up, drew a revolver
from his pocket and discharged it at the student point-blank. You
can imagine the scandal, for the student was dead! There were Paris
journalists there, besides,