This is what your talk has brought you to! How is it that experience has taught you nothing? How do you know that among those who talk to you then• isn't each time some scoundrel5 who asks nothing better than to come here a minute later to give information?'
'If you can explain to me what all this means, you will greatly oblige me. I am racking my brains and cannot understand what your words are leading up to, or what they are hinting at.'
'What are they leading to? Hm . . . . Come, did you hear that a sentry at the Blue Bridge killed and robbed a man at night?'
'Yes, I did,' I ans\vered with great simplicity.
'And perhaps you repeated it?'
' I believe I did repeat i t.'
'With comments, I dare say?'
'Very likely.'
4 Dubeh, Leonty Vasilevich ( l i92-1862). Chief of Staff of the Corps of Gendarmes (from 1835 ) nnd Director of the Third Division ( 1 839-56 ) .
(A.S. )
5 I declare, on my word of honour. thnt the word 'scoundrel' was used by this worthy old gentleman.
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"\Yith what sort of comments? There it is: a propensity to censure the government. I tell you frankly, the one thing that does you credit is your sincere avowa class="underline" it \viii certainly be taken into consideration by the Count.'
'Upon my word,' I said, 'what is there to avow? All the town was talking of the story; it was talked of in the secretariat of the Ministry of Home Affairs and in the shops. \Vhat's surprising i n my having spoken about the incident?'
'The (!iffusion of false and mischievous rumours is a crime that the laws do not tolerate.'
'You seem to be charging me with having invented the affair.'
'In the note of information to the Tsar it is merely stated that you assisted in the propagation of this mischievous rumour, upon which followed the decision of His Majesty concerning your return to Vyatka.'
'You arC' simply trying to frighten me,' I answered. 'How is it possible, for such a trivial business, to send a man with a family a thousand miles away, and, what's more, to condemn and sentence him without even inquiring whether it is true or not ? '
'You have admitted i t yourself.'
'But how was it the report was submitted and the matter settled bdore you spoke to me?'
'Read for yourself.'
The old man went owr to a table, fumbled among a small heap of papers, composedly pulled one out and handed it to me. I read it and could not believe my eyes: such complete absence of justice, such insolent, shameless disregard of the law was amazing, even in Russia.
I did not speak. I fancied that the old gentleman himsclass="underline" 'lf felt tha t it \vas a very absurd and extremely silly business, so that he did not think it necessary to defend it further, but after a brief silence asked:
'I believe :-:ou said you were married? '
' I a m married.'
'It is a pity that we did not know that before. However, i f an:-.·thing can b e dorw tlw Count "·ill d o i t . I shall tell h i m o f our conversation. /rz arz_r casr you will be banished from Petersburg.'
l k looked at me. I did not speak, but felt tha t my facP was burning. E\·erything I could not uttPr. Pvcrything held back within me, could bP sePn in my facP.
ThE> old gPntlE>man dropp('(l his P)"PS, considPrPd for a momPnt, and suddenly, in an apathetic voice, with an a ffectation of urbane dP! icacy, s<•.id to me:
Moscow, Petersburg and Novgorod 259
'I shall not venture to detain you further. I sincerely wish you-however, you will hear later.'
I rushed home. My heart boiled with a consuming fury-that feeling of impotence; of having no rights, the condition of a caged beast, jeered at by a sneering street-boy, who knows that all the tiger's strength is not enough to break the bars.
I found my wife in a fever; she had been taken ill that day and, having another fright in the evening, was prematurely confined a few days later.6 The baby only lived a day, and after three or four years she had hardly recovered her strength.
They say that that tender paterfamilias, Nicholas Pavlovich, wept when his daughter died. . . .
And passionately fond they are of raising a turmoil, galloping hell for leather, kicking up a dust, and doing everything at headlong speed, as though the town were on fire, the throne were tottering, or the dynasty in danger-and all this without the slightest necessity! It is the romanticism of the gendarmes, the dramatic exercises of the detectives, the lavish setting for the display of loyal zeal . . . the oprichniki,i the whippers-in, the hounds !
O n the evening o f the day o n which I had been t o the Third Division we were sitting sorrowfully at a small table-the baby was playing with his toys on it, and we were saying little ; suddenly someone pulled the bell so violently that we could not help starting. Matvey rushed to open the door, and a second later an officer of g�>ndarmes dart£'d into the room, clashing his sabre and jingling his spurs, and began in choice language apologising to my wife. He could not have imagined, he had had no suspicion, no idea that there was a lady and children in the case. It was extremely unpleasant . . . .
Gendarmes arc the very flower of courtesy; if it were not for their duty, for the sacred obligations of the service, they would never make secret reports, or even fight with post-boys and drivers at departures. I know this from the Krutitsky Barracks where the desolc officer was so deeply distressed at the necessity of searching my pockets.
Paul Louis Courier8 observed in his day that executioners and 6 H. was summoned to the Third Di,·ision on 7 December 1 8-1-0: the child (Ivan) was born two months later, in February 1 84 1 . (A.S. ) i The lifeguards of Ivan IV. ('Inm the Terrible.') (R.) R Paul Louis Courier ( 1 772- 1 825) , a learned and brilliant writer of political pamphlets and letters, who discovered a complete manuscript of
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prosecutors are the most courteous of men. 'My dear executionPr,' writes the prosecutor, 'if it is not disturbing you too much, you will do me the greatest service if you will kindly take the trouble to chop off So-and-so's head to-morrow morning.'
And the executioner hastens to answer that 'he esteems himself fortunate indeed that hP can by so trifling a service do something agreeable for the prosecutor and remains, always his devoted and obedient servant. the executioner' ; and the other man, the third, remains devoted without his head.
·General Dubelt asks vou to see him.'
'When?'
'Upon my word 1 now, a t once, this minute.'
'l\'latvPy. gin• me my overcoat.'
I pressed my wife's hand-hl'r face was flushed, hPr hand \Va s burning. "'hy this hurry at ten o'clock in the evening? Had a plot bePll d i scovPrecP Had somPone run away? \Vas the precious lift' of :'\ icholas Pado\·ich in d anger? I really had bet'n unfair to that sPntry. I thought. I t was not surprising that with a governmPnt likE> th is ont> of i ts agents should murdPr two or thrPe pa s�Prs-by; were thP sentries of the SPcond and Third grades any bPtter than their comrade on the Bhw Bridgt>' And what about thP head sPntry of alP