I was preparing to sell my horse and a variety of rubbish, when the inspector of police appeared with an order that I was to leave in twenty-four hours. I explained to him that the Governor had granted me an extension, but he actually produced a written order, requiring him to see me off within twenty-four hours ; and this order had been signed by the Governor after his conversation with me.
'I can explain it,' said the inspector; 'the great man wishes to shuffle off the responsibility on me.'
'Let us go and confront him with his signature,' I said.
'By all means,' said the inspector.
The Governor said that he had forgotten his promise to me, and the inspector shyly asked if the order had not better be rewritten. 'Is it worth the trouble ? ' asked the Governor, with an air of indifference.
'We had him there,' said the inspector to me, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. 'What a mean shabby fellow he is I '
8
This inspector belonged to a district class of officials, who are half soldiers and half civilians. They are men who, while serving in the Army, have been lucky enough to run upon a bayonet or stop a bullet, and have therefore been rewarded with positions in the police service. Military life has given them an air of frankness ; they have learned some phrases about the point of honour and some terms of ridicule for humble civilians. The youngest of them have read Marlinsky and Zagoskin,5 and can repeat the beginning of The Prisoner of the Caucasus,6 and they like to quote the verses they know. For instance, whenever they find a friend smoking, they invariably say :
5· Popular novelists of the 'patriotic' school, now forgotten.
6. A poem by Pushkin.
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The amber smoked between his teeth.7
They are one and all deeply convinced, and let you know their conviction with emphasis, that their position is far below their merits, and that poverty alone keeps them down ; but for their wounds and want of money, they would have been generals-inwaiting or commanders of army-corps. Each of them can point to some comrade-in-arms who has risen to the top of the tree. 'You see what Kreyz is now,' he says ; 'well, we two were gazetted together on the same day and lived in barracks like brothers, on the most familiar terms. But I'm not a German, and I had no kind of interest ; so here I sit, a mere policeman. But you understand that such a position is distasteful to anyone with the feelings of a gentleman.'
Their wives are even more discontented. These poor sufferers travel to Moscow once a year, where their real business is to deposit their little savings in the bank, though they pretend that a sick mother or aunt wishes to see them for the last time.
And so this life goes on for fifteen years. The husband, railing at fortune, flogs his men and uses his fists to the shopkeepers, curries favour with the Governor, helps thieves to get qff, steals State papers, and repeats verses from The Fountain of Bakhchisaray.8
The wife, railing at fortune and provincial life, takes all she can lay her hands on, robs petitioners, cheats tradesmen, and has a sentimental weakness for moonlight nights.
I have described this type at length, because I was taken in by these good people at first, and really thought them superior to others of their class ; but I was quite wrong.
9
I took with me from Perm one personal recollection which I value.
At one of the Governor's Saturday reviews of the exiles, a Roman Catholic priest invited me to his house. I went there and
' found several Poles. One of them sat there, smoking a short pipe and never speaking ; misery, hopeless misery, was visible in every feature. His figure was clumsy and even crooked; his face was of that irregular Polish-Lithuanian type which surprises you at first 7· The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, line 2.
8. Another of Pushkin's early works.
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and becomes attractive later : the greatest o f all Poles, Thaddeus Kosciuszko,9 had that kind of face. The man's name was Tsekhanovich, and his dress showed that he was terribly poor.
Some days later, I was walking along the avenue which bounds Perm in one direction. It was late in May ; the young leaves of the trees were opening, and the birches were in flower - there were no trees but birches, I think, on both sides of the avenue - but not a soul was to be seen. People in the provinces have no taste for Platonic perambulations. After strolling about for a long time, at last I saw a figure in a field by the side of the avenue : he was botanising, or simply picking flowers, which are not abundant or varied in that part of the world. When he raised his head, I recognised Tsekhanovich and went up to him.
He had originally been banished to V erkhoturye, one of the remotest towns in the Government of Perm, hidden away in the Ural Mountains, buried in snow, and so far from all roads that communication with it was almost impossible in winter. Life there is certainly worse than at Omsk or Krasnoyarsk. In his complete solitude there, Tsekhanovich took to botany and collected the meagre flora of the Ural Mountains. He got permission later to move to Perm, and to him this was a change for the better : he could hear once more his own language spoken and meet his companions in misfortune. His- wife, who had remained behind in Lithuania, wrote that she intended to join him, walking from the Government of Vilna. He was expecting her.
When I was transferred so suddenly to Vyatka, I went to say goodbye to Tsekhanovich. The small room in which he lived was almost bare - there was a table and one chair, and a little old portmanteau standing on end near the meagre bed ; and that was all the furniture. My cell in the Krutitsky barracks carne back to me at once.
He was sorry to hear of my departure, but he was so accustomed to privations that he soon smiled almost brightly as he said, 'That's why I love Nature ; of her you can never be deprived, wherever you are.'
Wishing to leave him some token of remembrance, I took off a small sleeve-link and asked him to accept it.
'Your sleeve-link is too fine for my shirt,' he said; 'but I shall keep it as long as I live and wear it in my coffin.'
g. The famous Polish general and patriot (1746-t817).
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After a little thought, he began to rummage hastily in his portmanteau. He took from a small bag a wrought-iron chain with a peculiar pattern, wrenched off some of the links, and gave them to me.
'I have a great value for this chain,' he said ; 'it is connected with the most sacred recollections of my life, and I won't give it all to you ; but take these links. I little thought that I should ever give them to a Russian, an exile like myself.'
I embraced him and said goodbye.
'When do you start ? ' he asked.
'Tomorrow morning ; but don't come : when I go back, I shall find a policeman at my lodging, who will never leave me for a moment.'
'Very well. I wish you a good journey and better fortune than mine.'
By nine o'clock next morning the inspector appeared at my house, to hasten my departure. My new keeper, a much tamer creature than his predecessor, and openly rejoicing at the prospect of drinking freely during the 3 50 versts of our journey, was doing something to the carriage. All was ready. I happened to look into the street and saw Tsekhanovich walking past. I ran to the window.