'Prefect of Police,
'A. Carlier.
'Confirmed by the general secretary of the Prefecture.
'Clement Reyre.'
On the margin:
'Read and approved April 1 9th, 1 850,
'Minister of Home Affairs,
'G. Baroche.
'In the year eighteen hundred and fifty, April the twenty-fourth.
'\Ve, Emile Boullay, Commissaire of Police of the city of Paris and in particular of the Tuileries arrondissement, in execution of the ordPrs of M. le Prefet de Police of April 23rd:
'Have notified the Sieur Alexandre Herzen, telling him in words as written herewith.' Hen• follows the whole text over again. It is just as children tell the story of the \Vhite Bull, prefacing it every time they tell it with the same phrase: 'Shall I tell you the tale of the White Bull?'
Then: '\Ve have invited le dit Hcr:::en to present himself in the course of the next twenty-four hours at the Prefecture for the obtaining of a passport and the assignment of the frontier by which he will quit France.
'And that le dit Sieur Hcr:::en n'cn pretende cause d'ignorance ( what jargon! ) nous lui avons laissc cette copie tant du dit arrete en tete de ceile presente de notre proces-verbal de notification.'
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Oh, my Vyatka colleagues in the secretariat of Tyufyayev ; oh, Ardashov, who would write a dozen sheets at one sitting, Veprcv, Shtin, and my drunken head-clerk ! Would not their hearts rejoice to know that in Paris, after Voltaire, Beaumarchais, George Sand and Hugo, documents are written like this?
And, indeed, not only they would be delighted, but also my father's village foreman, Vasily Yepifanov, who from profound considerations of politeness would write to his master: 'Your commandment by this present preceding post received, and by
-
the same I have the honour to report . . .'
Ought there to be left one stone upon another of this stupid, vulgar temple des us et coutumes, only fitting for a blind, doting old goddess like Themis?
The reading of this document did not produce the result expected; a Parisian thinks that exile from Paris is as bad as the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, and without Eve into the bargain. To me, on the contrary, it was a matter of indifference, and I had already begun to be sick of Parisian life.
'When am I to present myself at the Prefecture?' I asked, assuming a polite air in spite of the wrath which was tearing me to pieces.
'I advise ten o'clock to-morrow morning.'
'With pleasure.'
'How early the spring is beginning this year! ' observed the commissaire of the city of Paris, and in particular of the Tuileries arrondissement.
'Extraordinarily.'
'This is an old-fashioned hotel. Mirabeau used to dine here ; that is why it bears his name. Have you really been well satisfied with it?'
'Very well satisfied. Only fancy what it must be to leave it so abruptly! '
'It's certainly unpleasant . . . . The hostess is a n intelligent, beautiful \\·oman-Mlle Cousin; she was a great friend of the celebrated Le Normand.'�
'Imagine that! What a pity I did not knovv it! Perhaps she has inherited her art of fortune-telling and might have predicted my billet doux from earlier.'
'Ha, ha! . . . It is my duty, you knmv. Allow me to wish you good-day.'
'To be sure, anything may happen. I have the honour to wish you good-bye.'
5 Mile Le Normand ( 1 772-1843), was a well known fortune-teller of the period. ( Tr.)
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Next day I presented myself in the Rue Jerusalem, more celebrated than Le Normand herself. First, I was received by some sort of a youthful spy, with a little beard, a little moustache, and all the manners of an abortive journalist and an unsuccessful democrat. His face and the look in his eyes bore the stamp of that refined corruption of soul, that envious hunger for enjoyment, power, and acquisition, which I have so well learned to read on Western European faces, and which is completely absent from those of the English. It cannot have been long since he had taken up his appointment; he still took pleasure in it, and therefore spoke somewhat condescendingly. He informed me that I must leave within three days, and except for particularly important reasons it was impossible to defer the date. His impudent face, his accent and his gestures were such that without entering into further discussion with him I bowed and then asked, first putting on my hat, wh<'n I could see the Prefect.
'The Prefect only receives persons who have asked him for an audience in writing.'
'Allow me to write to him at once.'
He rang the bell, and an old huissier with a chain on his breast walked in; saying to him with an air of importance, 'Pen and paper for this gentleman,' the youth nodded at me.
The huissier led me into another room. There I wrote to Carlier that I wished to see him in order to explain to him why I had to defer my departure.
On the evening of the same day I received from the Prefecture the laconic answer: '!'vi. le Prcfet is ready to receive So-and-So tomorrow at two o'clock.'
The same repulsive youth met me next day: he had his own room, from which I concluded that he was something in the nature of the head of a department. Having begun his career so early and with such success, he will go far, if God grants him a long l ife.
This time he led me into a big office. There a tall, stout, rosycheeked gentleman was sitting in a big easy-chair at a huge table. He was one of those persons who are always hot, with white flesh, fat but flabby, plump, carefully tended hands, a necktie reduced to a minimum, colourless eyes and the jovial expression which is usually found in men \vho are completely immersed in love for their own well-being, and who can have recourse, coldly and without great effort, to extraordinary infamies.
'You wished to see the Prefect,' he said to me ; 'but he asks you to excuse him; he has been obliged to go out on very important
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business. If I can do anything in any way for your pleasure I ask nothing better. Here is an easy-chair: will you sit down?'
All this he brought out smoothly, very politely, screwing up his eyes a little and smiling with the little cushions of flesh which adorned his cheekbones. 'Well, this fellow has been in the service for a long time,' I thought.
'You surely know what I've come about.' He made that gentle movement of the head which everyone makes on beginning to swim, and did not answer.
'I have received an order to leave within three days. Since I know that your minister has the right of expulsion without giving a reason or holding an inquiry, I am not going to inquire
·hy I a m being expelled, nor to defend myself; but I have, besides my own house . . . '
'Where is your house?'
'Fourteen, Rue Amsterdam . . . very important business in Paris, and it is difficult for me to abandon it at once.'
'Allow me to ask, what is your business? Is it to do with the house or . . . ?'
'My business is with Rothschild. I have to receive four hundred thousand francs.'
'What?'
'A little over a hundred thousand silver roubles.'
'That's a considerable sum ! '
'C'est une somme ronde.'
'How much time do you need for completing your business?'
he asked, looking at me more blandly, as people look at pheasants stuffed with truffles in the shop-windO\vs.