Still, even these may be exaggerated, for the police
have to deal with a people very much different from our own. It is
rather curious that at this moment I am in vague trouble concerning
the police. I am sure this place is watched, and I am also almost
certain that my friend Jack is being shadowed. He dresses like a
workman; his grimy blouse would delight the heart of his friend
Tolstoi, but he is known to be a Prince, and I think the authorities
imagine he is playing up to the laboring class, whom they despise. I
lay it all to that unfortunate explosion, which gathered the police
about us as if they had sprung from the ground. There was an official
examination, of course, and Jack explained, apparently to everybody's
satisfaction, exactly how he came to make the mistake that resulted in
the loss of his beard and his windows. I don't know exactly how to
describe the feeling of uneasiness which has come over me. At first
sight this city did not strike me as so very much different from New
York or London, and meeting, as I did, so many refined gentlemen in
high places, I had come to think St. Petersburg was after all very
much like Paris, or Berlin, or Rome. But it is different, and the
difference makes itself subtly felt, just as the air in some coast
towns of Britain is relaxing, and in others bracing. In these towns a
man doesn't notice the effect at first, but later on he begins to feel
it, and so it is here in St.
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