The governor sent a list of his ingenious plans for the reception of the Tsarevich to the Tsar-as though to say, 'See how we fete your son.' On reading this document the Tsar flew into a rage, and said to the Minister of Home Affairs: 'The governor and the bishop are fools; leave the holiday as it was.' The Minister gave the governor a good scolding, the Synod did the I A plaintive. wheedlin:.; son:.; sung by beggars. (R.) 2 The lists of names were sent up to the priest, who said a prayer for the owner of each name. (R.)
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same t o the bishop, and St Nicholas the guest kept t o his old habits.
Among the various instructions from Petersburg, orders came that in every provincial town an exhibition should be held of the various natural products and handicrafts of the district, and that the things exhibited should be arranged according to the three natural kingdoms. This division into animal, vegetable and mineral greatly worried the officials, and even Tyufyayev to some extent. In order not to make a mistake he made up his mind in spite of his ill will to summon me to give advice.
'Now, for instance, honey,' he said, '\vhere would you put honey? or a gilt frame-how are you to decide where it is to go? '
Seeing from m y ans\vers that I had wonderfully precise information concerning the three natural kingdoms, he offered me the task of arranging the exhibition.
\Vhile I was busy arranging wooden vessels and Votyak dresses, honey and iron sieves, and Tyufyayev went on taking the most ferocious measures for the entertainment of his Imperial Highness at Vyatka, the Highness in question was graciously pleased to arrive at Orlov, and the news of the a rrest of the mayor of Orlov burst like a clap of thunder on the town.
Tyufyayev turned yellow, and there was an uncertainty apparent in his gait.
Five days before the Tsarevich arrived at Orlov, the mayor had written to Tyufyayev that the widow whose floor had been broken up to make the sidev'>·alk was making a fuss, and that Soand-so, a wealthy merchant and a prominent person in the town,
\vas boasting that he would tell the Tsarevich everything.
Tyufyayev disposed of the man very cleverly; he told the mayor to have doubts of his sanity ( the precedent of Petrovsky pleased him3 ) , and to send him to Vyatka to be examined by the doctors; while the affair was going on the Tsarevich vvould have left the province of Vyatka, and that \Vould be the end of it. The mayor did as he was bid ; the merchant was in the hospital at Vyatka.
At last the Tsarevich arrived.4 He gave Tyufyayev a frigid bow, did not invite him to visit him, but at once sent Dr Enokhin to examine the arrested merchant. He knew all about it. The Orlov widow had given him her petition; the other mprchants and townsmen had told him all that was going on.
Tyufyayev's face was more avvry than ever. Things looked black
:J SeC' pp. 1 76-7. ( D.M.)
4 1 8th May, 1 837. ( A .S.)
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for him. The mayor said straight out that he had had written instructions for everything from the governor.
Dr Enokhin declared that the merchant was perfectly sane.
Tyufyayev was lost.
Between seven and eight in the evening the Tsarevich visited the exhibition with his suite. Tyufyayev conducted him, explaining things incoherently, getting into a muddle and speaking of a
'Tsar Tokhtamysh.'5 Zhukovsky and Arsenev, seeing that things were not going well, asked me to show them the exhibition: I took them round.
The Tsarevich's expression had none of that narrow severity, that cold, merciless cruelty which was characteristic of his father; his features were more suggestive of good nature and listlessness. He was about twenty, but was already beginning to grow stout.
The few words he said to me were friendly and very different from the hoarse, abrupt tones of his Uncle Constantine and without his father's custom of making his hearer almost faint with terror.
When he had gone away Zhukovsky and Arsenev began asking me how I had come to Vyatka . They were surprised to hear a Vyatka official speak like a gentleman. They at once offered to speak of my situation to the Tsarevich, and did in fact do all that they could for me. The Tsarevich approached the Tsar for permission for me to travel to Petersburg. The Tsar replied that that would be unfair to the other exiles, but, in consideration of the Tsarevich's representations, he ordered me to be transferred to Vladimir which was geographically an improvement, being seven hundred versts nearer home. But of that later.
In the evening there was a ball at the Assembly Rooms. The musicians who had been sent for expressly from one of the factories had arrived dead drunk; the governor had arranged that they should be locked up for twenty-four hours before the ball, escorted straight from the police-station to their seats in the orchestra, which none of them should be allowed to leave till the ball was over.
The ball was a stupid, awkward, extremely poor and extremely gaudy affair, as balls always are in little towns on exceptional occasions. Police officers fussed about, government 5 The Tatar khan of the Golden Horde, who in 1 382 sacked the Kremlin at Moscow and massacred 24,000 people. (R.)
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officials in uniform huddled against the wall, ladies flocked round the Tsarevich as savages do round travellers . . . . A propos the ladies, in one little town a gouter was arranged after the exhibition. The Tsarevich took nothing but one peach, the stone of which he threw on the window-sill. Suddenly a tall figure saturated with spirits stepped out from the crowd of officials; it was the district assessor, notoriously a dissolute character, who with measured steps approached the window, picked up the stone and put it in his pocket.
After the ball or the gouter, he approached one of the ladies of most consequence and offered her the stone gnawed by royalty; the lady was in raptures. Then he approached a second, then a third : all were in ecstasies.
The a ssessor had bought fiye peaches, cut out the stones, and made six ladies happy. Which had the real one? Each was suspicious of the genuineness of her own stone. . . .
After the departure of the Tsarevich, Tyufyayev with a heavy heart prepared to exchange his pashalik for the chair of a senator; but worse than tha t happened.
Three weeks later the post brought from Petersburg papers addressed to 'the administrator of the province.' Everything was turned upside down in the secretariat; the registrar ran in to say that they had received an uka:.:; the officer manager rushed to Tyufyayev ; Tyufyayev gave out that he was ill and did not go to the office.
Within an hour we learned that he had been dismissed sans phrase.
The \vhole town was delighted at the fall of the governor; there was something stifling, unclean, about his rule, a fetid odour of red tape, but for all that it was nasty to watch the rejoicings of the officials.