VVhat monstrous crimes are obscurely buried in the archives of the wicked, immoral reign of Nicholas! vVe are used to them, tl!('y "·pre committPd every day, committed as though nothing was wrong, unnoticed, lost in the terrible distance, noiselessly sunk in the silent sloughs of officialdom or kept back by the censorship of the police.
Have we not seen with our own eyes seven hungry peasants from Pskov, who were being forcibly removed to the province of Tobolsk, wandering, without food or lodging for the night, about Tverskoy Square in Moscow until Prince D. V. Golitsyn ordered them to be looked after at his own expense?
THE GovER:\'OR of Vyatka did not receive me, but sent word tha t I was to present myself nPx l morning at tPn o'clock.
I found in the room next morning the district police-captain, the politsmcystcr, and two officials: they were all standing talking in whispers and looking uneasily at the door. The door opPned and tlwrP walkPd in a short, broad-shouldered old man
\vith a head set on his shoul(lers like a bull-dog's, and with big jaws, which completed his resemblance to that animal and moreover wore a carnivorous-looking smile; the elderly and at the same time priapic expression of his face, the quick little grey
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eyes, and the sparse, stiff hair made an incredibly disgusting impression.
To begin with he gave the district police-captain a good dressing-down for the state of the road on which he had driven the day before. The district police-captain stood with his head somewhat bowed in token of respect and submission, and replied to everything as servants used to do in the old days,
'I hear, Your Excellency.'
When he had done with the district police-captain, he turned to me. He looked at me i nsolently and asked:
'Did you finish your studies at Mosco"v University?'
'I took my degree.'
'And then served?'
'In the Kremlin Department.'
'Ha, ha, ha ! a fine sort of service! Of course, you had plenty of time there for supper parties and singing songs. Alenitsyn ! ' he shouted.
A scrofulous young man walked in.
'Listen, my boy: here is a graduate of Moscow University. I expect he knows everything except his duties in the service; it is His Majesty's pleasure that he should learn them with us. Take him into your office and send me special reports on him. Tomorrow you will come to the office at nine o'clock, and now you may go. But stay, I forgot to ask how you write.'
I did not at once understand.
'Come, your handwriting.'
'I have nothing with me.'
'Bring paper and pen,' and Alenitsyn handed me a pen.
'What am I to write?'
'What you like,' observed the secretary. '"Write, "On inquiry' it appears-" '
'\Veil, you \von't be corresponding with the Tsar,' the governor remarked, laughing ironically.
Before I left Perm I had heard a great deal about Tyufyayev, but he far surpassed all my expectations.
What does not Russian life produce!
Tyufyayev was born at Tobolsk. His father had nearly been exiled, and belonged to the poorest class of townsfolk. At thirteen young Tyufyayev joined a troupe of travelling acrobats who wandered from fair to fair, dancing on the tight-rope, turning somersaults and cart-wheels, and so on. \Vith these he travelled from Tobolsk to the Polish province<>, entertaining good Christian people. There, I do not know "'·hy, he was arrested, and
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since he llil d no passport he was treated a s a vagrant, and sen t on foot with a party of prisoners back to Tobolsk . His mother was by then a widow and was li,·ing in great poverty. The son rebuilt the stow with his own hands when it was broken: he had to find some trade; the boy had learned to read and wri te, and he
\vas engaged as a copying clerk in the local court. Bei ng naturally of a free-and-easy character and having developed his a bi l ities by a many-si(led Pducation i n the troupe of acroba ts and the parties of com·icts with whom he had passed from one end of Russia to the o tltPr, lw had made himself an enterprising, practical man.
At the beginning of till' reign of Akxander some sort of inspector came to Tobolsk. He needed capabh- clerks, and someone recommcncll•cl Tyufyayev. The i nspector \va s so well satisfied with him that he suggested tha t he should go with him to PetPrsburg. Tlwn TyufyayPv, whose ambi tion, i n his own \Yords, had nPver risen above the post of secretary in a district court, formed a higher opi n ion of himself, a nd with an iron will rPsohed to make a career.
And lw did makP i t . TPn years later we find him the indefatigable sPcretary of Kankrin,1 \vho was a t that time a general in the commissariat, A year la ter still he was superintending a departnwnt in Arakcheyev's secretariat whi ch administered tlw whole of Russia . He was \vith Arakcheyc\· i n Pa ris at the time
\Yhen it \vas occupiPd by the allied troops.
T:n1f:-·ayev spent the who!(' time sitting in the secreta ri at of tlw PX]JPdi tiona ry anny and litera lly did not sec one strePt i n Paris. He sa t day and nigh t collating a nd copying papers with h i s worthY coll eague. K!Pimnikhel .
ArakchPYPv's secretariat \vas like thosp copper mines i nto wh ich nw;1 arP sPnt to work only for a fe\\· months, because i f tlwv stav longPr tlw:-· cl iP. Ewn Tyufyaycv \vas tired at last in that factory of ordPrs and clPcrePs, of rpgula tions a n d i nstitution.;,
;md bega n asking for a ([U iPtPr post. A rakchl')"PV could not fail to l i kP a m;m like TyufyayPv, a man frpe from higher prPtPnsions, from a l l i tHPr·Psts awl opin ions, formally horwst, devoured by ambi tion, and n•ga nl ing olwdiPncP a;; the foremost human virtu£>. Arakc!H')'P\" rPw;Jn!Pd Tvufyayev with tlw post of dqmty governor. A few vPars later he madP him governor of the Perm PrO\·ince. Tlw provinCl'. through which Tyufyayl'v had walked oncP on a ropP and onc0 tiPd to a rope, lay a t his feet.
1 Tyufya · ·t)Y \vas not Kankriu's Sf'CJ"('tary. ( A .S. )
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A governor's power generally increases i n direct ratio to his distance from Petersburg, but it increases i n geometrical progression in the provinces where there are no gentlefolk, as i n Perm, Vyatka, and Siberia. Such a remote region was just what Tyufyayev needed.
He was an Oriental satrap, only an active, restless one, meddling in everything and for ever busy. Tyufyayev would have been a ferocious Commissaire of the Convention in 1 794, a Carrier.2
Dissolute in his life, coarse by nature, intolerant of the slightest objection, his influence was extremely pernicious. He did not take bribes, though he did make his fortune, as it appeared after his death. He was strict with his subordinates, he punished without mercy those who were detected in wrongdoing, yet his officials stole more than ever. He carried the abuse of influence to an incredible point; for instance, when he sent a n official on an inquiry h e would ( that is, if h e was interested i n the case) tell him that probably this o r that would b e discovered; and woe to the official if he discovered something else.