A woman smoking awakens in my soul (or in my body, if you prefer) sinful feelings. I don’t know why, but I imagine that one so sensible to such a vaporous pleasure that he cannot be deprived of it even in public must in private be more so to other more serious pleasures, if pleasure can be taken at all seriously in this vale of tears we inhabit. On the other hand, a woman smoker when smoking acquires a certain air, both provocative and militant, so that it seems that with the whistle in her mouth she sounds the alarm and calls for war. And then in the lip movements and pressure used to hold this whistle there is I know not what voluptuous enchantment, revealing a nervous and convulsive kiss. All of which leads me to I repeat that, if the smoker is neither very old nor very ugly, my blood ignites somewhat. However, on this occasion I was so distracted and absorbed by certain almost mystical and platonic amours left behind in Petersburg that I didn’t consider or notice as I should have the smokers’ beauty, although I did notice that two or three of them were far from ugly.

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On the Petersburg to Moscow train you can pass from one carriage to another, and not a few came to ours, attracted by the freedom and freedom of choice created by being able to smoke in it, which was inscribed in golden capitals on the carriage door as follows: dlia kurenie[,] para fumatura or smoking, so that we could say it in both ways and thus enrich our language. I heard it said there that this freedom had been granted by the current emperor, Alexander II, and for this reason marvellous things were said about him, all predicting that this freedom was the start of, or let us say the prelude to, other more substantial liberties, and that in the wake of the freedom to smoke would come who knows how many more, and in particular the freedom of the press, of which those gentlemen seemed so desirous that I understood that freedom of thought and speech had already been won, but that it was not as obvious, not being written in letters of gold.