Perm was still full of the fame of Tyufyayev ; there was a party of his adherents there, hostile to the new governor, who, of course, had surrounded himself with his own coterie.
On the other hand, there were people who hated him. One of them, a rather singular product of the warping influence of Russian life, particularly warned me what Tyufyayev was like. I am speaking of a doctor in one of the factories. This doctor, whose name was Chebotarev, an intelligent, very nervous man, had made an unfortunate marriage soon after he completed his studies; then he was sent off to Yekaterinburg and without any experience stuck into the slough of provincial life. Though placed in a fairly independent position in these surroundings, none the less he was debased by them ; all his activity took the form of a sarcastic persecution of the officials. He laughed at them to their faces, he said the most insulting things to them with leers and grimaces. Since no one was spared, no one particularly resented the doctor's spiteful tongue. He made a social position for himself by his attacks and forced a flabby set of people to put up with the lash with which he chastised them without resting.
2 Jean-Baptiste Carrier ( 1 756-94) , was responsible for the noyades and massacre of hundreds of people at Nantes, while suppressing the counter·
revolutionary rising of La Vendee. (Tr.)
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I was warned that he was a good doctor, but crazy and extremely impertinent.
His gossip and jokes were neither coarse nor pointless; quite the contrary, they were full of humour and concentrated bile ; they \vere his poetry, his revenge, his outcry of exasperation and, to some extent, perhaps, of despair as well. He had studied the circle of officials like an artist, and as a doctor he knew all their petty, concealed passions and, encouraged by their cowardice and lack of resource, took any liberty with them he liked.
At every word he would add, 'It won't make a ha'p'orth of difference to you.'
Once in joke I remarked upon his repeating this.
'Why are you surprised? ' the doctor replied. 'The object of everything that is said is to convince. I hasten to add the strongest argument that exi sts. Convince a man that to kill his own father won"t cost him a halfpenny, and he will kill him.'
Chebotarcv never refused to lend small sums of a hundred or two hundred paper roubles. \\'hen any one a sked him for a loan, he "·ould take out his note-book and inquire the exnct date when the borrower would return the money.
'Now,' he would say, 'allow me to make a bet of a silver rouble that you won't rPpay it then.'
'Upon my soul,' the otlwr would object, 'what do you take me for?'
'It makes not a ha'p'orth of difference to you what I take you for,' the doctor would answer, 'but the fact is I have been keeping a record for six years, and not one person has paid me up to time yet. and hardly any <HIP has repnid mP later either.'
The dny fixed \Votdd pass and the doctor would very gravely ask for the silwr rouble he had won.
A tax-farmer at Perm wns selling a travelling coach. The doctor presented himself before him and made, without stopping, the following speech:
'You have a coach to sell, I need it; you are a wea lthy man, you are a millionaire, everyone respects you for it and I hav!'
therefore come to pay you my respects also ; as you are a wealthy man, it makes not a ha'p'orth of difference to you whether you sell the coach or not, whilP I need it very much and have very li ttle morlf'y. You want to squeeze me, to take advantage of my necessi ty and ask fifteen hundred for the coach. I offer you seven hundrPd roubles. I shall be coming every day to bargain with you and in a week you will let me have it for seven-fifty or eight hundred; wouldn't it be better to begin with that? I am ready to give it.'
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'Much better,' answered the astonished tax-farmer, and he let him have the coach.
Chcbotarev's anecdotes and mischievous tricks were endless. I will add two more.s
'Do you believe in magnetism?' a rather intelligent and cultured lady asked him in my presence.
'What do you mean by magnetism?'
The lady talked some vague nonsense in reply.
'It makes not a ha'p'orth of difference to you whether I believe in magnetism or not, but if you like I will tell you what I have seen in that way.'
'Please do.'
'Only listen attentively.'
After this he described in a very l ively, witty and interesting way the experiments of a Kharkov doctor, an acquaintance of his.
In the middle of the conversation, a servant brought in some lunch on a tray.
As he was going out the lady said to him,
'You have forgotten to bring the mustard.'
Chcbotarev stopped.
'Go on, go on,' said the lady, a little scared already, 'I am listening.'
'Has he brought the salt?'
'So you arc angry a lready,' said the lady, turning red.
'Not in the least, I assure you ; I know that you were listening attentively. But I also know that, however intelligent a woman is and whatever is being talked about, she can never rise above the kitchen-so how could I dare to be angry with you personally?'
At Countess Polier's factory, where he also practised, he took a liking to a stout lad, and invited him to enter his service. The boy was willing, but the foreman said that he could not let him go without permission from the countess. Chcbotarcv wrote to the lady. She told the foreman to let the lad have his passport on condition that the doctor paid five years' obrok in advance. The doctor promptly wrote to the countess that he agreed to her terms, but asked her as a preliminary to decide one point that troubled him: from whom could he recover the monev if Encke's Comet should intersect the earth's orbit and knock it out of its course-which might occur a year and a half before the term fixed.
3 These two anecdotes were• not m the first edition. I recollected them when I was revising the sheets.
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On the day of my departure for Vyatka the doctor appeared early in the morning and began with the follo,ving foolishness:
'Like Horace, once you sang, and to this day you are a lways being translated.'4
Then he took out his notecase and asked if I did not need some money for the journey. I thanked him and refused.
'Why won't you take any? It won't make a ha'p'orth of difference to you.'
' I have money.'
'That's bad,' he said ; 'the end of the \Vorld must be at hand.'
He opened his note-book and \HOte down: 'After fifteen years of practice I have for the first time met a man who 'von't borrow, even though he is going away.'
Having finished playing the fool, he sat do\vn on my bed and said gravely:
'You are going to a frightful man. Be on your guard against him and keep as far away from him as you can. If he likes you it will be a poor recommendation ; if he dislikes you, he ,..,.ill finish you off by slander, chicanery, and I don't know what, but he will finish you, and it won't make a ha'p'orth of difference to him.'