Yes, every ass gave a parting kick to this wounded boar. The meanness of men was just as apparent as at the fall of Napoleon, though the catastrophe was on a different scale. Of late I had been on tPrms of open hostility with him, and he would have certainly sPnt me off to some obscure little town such as Kav, if he had not been sPnt away himself. I had held aloof from him, and I had no reason to change my bPhaviour to him. But the others, who only the day before had bPen cap in hand to him, who had grudged him his carriage, eagerly anticipating his wishes. fawning on his dog and offering snuff to his valet, now barely grePtPd him and made an outcry all over the town against the irregularities, thf' guilt of which thcr shared with him. This
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21 5
is nothing ne,v; it has been repeated so continually in every age and in every place that we must accept this meanness as a common trait of humanity a nd a t a ny rate feel no surprise a t it.
The new governor, Kornilov, arrived. He was a man of quite a different type: a talL stout, lymphntic man of about fifty with a pleasantly smiling face and a cultured manner. He expressed himself \Vith unusual ordinary grammatical correctness, and at great length, with a precision and clarity calculated by the1r very excess to obscure the simplest subject. He had bPen at tlw Lyceum of Tsarskoye Selo. had been a schoolfellow of Pushkin's, had served in the Guards, bought the new French books, liked talking of important subjects, and gave me Tocqueville's book on democracy in America on the day after his arrival.
The change was very striking. The same rooms, the same furniture, but instead of a Tatar baskak (tnx-collector) , with the exterior of a Tungus and the habits of a Siberian-a doctrinaire, something of a pedant, but at the same time qui te a decent man.
The new govPrnor was intelligent, but his intelligence seemed somehow to slwd light without gi dng warmth. like a bright, winter day which is pleasant though one does not look for fruits from it. 1\:loreover, he wns a terrible formalist-not in a pettifogging way, but . . . how shall I express it? . . . it was formalism of the second degree, but just as tiresome as a ny other.
Since the new governor was really married, the house lost its ultrn-bachelor and polygamous character. Of course this brought all the councillors back to their lawful spouses; bald old men no longer boasted of their conquests a mong the fair, but, on the contrary, n l luded tenderly to tlwir fadPd. stiff. nngularly bony, or monstrously fat wives.
Kornilov had some years before coming to Vyatka been promoted to be civil governor somewhere, straight from being a colonel in the Semcnovskv or Izmaylonky rc>giment. He went to his province knowing nothing of his dutic>s. To begin with, like all novices, he set to work to read everything. One da:v a document came to him from another province which he could make nothing of, though he read it two or three times.
He called the secrctary and gn,·e it to him to read. The secretary could not explain the business clearly either.
'What will you do with that document,' Kornilov asked him,
'if I pass it on to the office?'
'I shall hand it in to the third table, it's their job.'
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2 1 6
'Then the head-clerk o f the third table knows what t o do?'
'To be sure he does, Your Excellency, he has been in charge of that table for seven years.'
'Send him to me.'
The head-clerk came in. Kornilov handed him the paper and asked what was to be done. The head-clerk glanced through the file and informed him that they ought to make an inquiry in the palace of justice and send an order to the police-captain.
'But order what?'
The head-clerk was nonplussed, and at last admitted that it was difficult to express it in words, but thnt it was easy to write it.
'Here is a chair: please write the answer.'
The head-clerk took up the pen and without hesitation briskly scribbled off two documents.
The governor took them, read them once, read them twice, but could make nothing of them.
'I saw,' he told me, smiling, 'that it really \vas an answer to the document, and I thanked God and signed it. Nothing more was heard of the business-the answer was completely satisfactory.'
The news of my transfer to Vladimir came just before Christmas; I was soon ready and set off.
My parting with Vyatka society was very warm. In that remote town I had made two or three genuine friends a mong the young merchants.
Everyone vied in showing sympathy and kindness to the exile.
Several sledges accompnnied me as far as the first postingstation, and in spite of all my efforts to defend myself my sledge was filled up with a perfect load of provisions and wine. Next day I reached Yaransk.
From Yaransk the road goes through endless pine forests. It was moonlight and very frosty at night. The little sledge flew along the narrow road. I ha\·e never seen such forests since; they go on likl' thnt unbwkl'n as fa r as Arkhang-r·l. and sonwtimes reindeer coml' through tlwm to tlw pr0\·inc1• of Vyatka. The forest is for the most part composed of large trees; the pines, extraordinarily strnight, ran past the sledge like soldiers, tall and covered with snow from under which their black needles stuck out like bristles; one would drop asleep and wake up again and still the regiments of pines would be marching rapidly by, sometimes shaking off the snow. The horses are changed at little clearings ; there is a tiny house lost among the trees, the horsl's are tied up to a trunk, the sledge-bells begin tinkling, and two or three Cheremis boys in embroidered shirts run out, looking
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21 7
sleepy. The Votyak driver swears at his companion in a husky alto, shouts 'Ayda,' begins singing a song on two notes . . . and again pines and snow, snow and pines.
Just as I drove out of Vyatka Province it was my lot to take my last farewell of the official world, and it showed itself in all its glory pour La cloture.
We stopped at a posting-station, and the driver had begun unharnessing the horses, when a tall peasant appeared in the porch and asked:
'Who is travelling through?'
'What's that to do with you?'
'Why, the police-captain told me to inquire, and I am the messenger of the rural court.'
'Well then, go into the station hut; my travelling permit is there.'
The peasant went away and came back a minute later, saying to the driver,
'He is not to have horses.'
That was too much. I jumped out of the sledge and went into the hut. A half-tipsy police-captain was sitting on a bench, dictating to a half-tipsy clerk. A man with fetters on his hands and feet was sitting or rather lying on another bench in the corner.
Several bottles, glasses, tobacco ash, and bundles of papers were scattered about.
'Where is the police-captain?' I asked in a loud voice as I went In.
'The police-captain's here,' answered the half-tipsy man whom I recognised as Lazarev, a man I had seen in Vyatka. As he spoke he fixed a rude and impudent stare upon me-and suddenly rushed at me with open arms.