Kokoshkin was indeed very stern and forbidding and inspired great fear in everyone, but he sometimes indulged pranksters and good fun-lovers among the military, and there were many such pranksters then, and more than once they chanced to find in his person a powerful and zealous protector. Generally, he could do much and knew how to do it, if only he wanted to. Svinyin and Captain Miller both knew this about him. Miller also strengthened his battalion commander’s resolve to go immediately to Kokoshkin and trust in his magnanimity and “many-sided tact,” which would probably dictate to the general how to wriggle out of this vexing incident without provoking the sovereign’s wrath, which Kokoshkin, to his credit, always made great efforts to avoid.
Svinyin put on his overcoat, raised his eyes aloft, and, exclaiming “Lord, Lord!” several times, drove off to Kokoshkin.
It was now past four o’clock in the morning.
X
Superintendent of Police Kokoshkin was awakened, and it was announced to him that Svinyin had come on an important matter that would brook no delay.
The general immediately got up and came out to Svinyin in a house robe, rubbing his forehead, yawning, and shivering. Kokoshkin listened to everything that Svinyin told him with great attention, but calmly. During all these explanations and requests for leniency, he said only one thing:
“The soldier left his sentry box and saved a man?”
“That’s right,” replied Svinyin.
“And the sentry box?”
“Remained empty during that time.”
“Hm … I know it remained empty. Very glad it wasn’t stolen.”
At that Svinyin became even more convinced that everything was already known to him and that he had, of course, already decided how he was going to present it in his morning report to the sovereign, and that the decision was not to be changed. Otherwise such an event as a sentry’s abandoning his post in the palace guard should undoubtedly have caused much greater alarm in the energetic superintendent of police.
But Kokoshkin knew nothing. The police chief to whom the invalid officer had come with the saved drowned man saw no particular importance in this matter. In his eyes it was even not at all such a matter as called for troubling the weary superintendent during the night, and, besides, the event itself appeared rather suspicious to the police chief, because the invalid officer was completely dry, which could not possibly have been so if he had saved a drowning man at the risk of his own life. The police chief saw in this officer only an ambitious man and a liar, itching to have a new medal on his chest, and therefore, while his man on duty was drawing up the report, the police chief kept the officer with him and tried to extort the truth from him through inquiries into small details.
The police chief was also not pleased that such an occurrence had taken place in his precinct and that the drowning man had been pulled out, not by a policeman, but by a palace officer.
As for Kokoshkin’s calm, it could be explained simply, first, by the terrible fatigue he felt at that time, after a whole day’s bustling about and a nighttime participation in the extinguishing of two fires, and, second, by the fact that for him, mister superintendent of police, the sentry Postnikov’s doings were of no direct concern.
However, Kokoshkin at once gave the appropriate orders.
He sent for the police chief of the Admiralty precinct and ordered him to appear immediately, along with the invalid officer and the saved drowned man, and Svinyin he asked to wait in the small anteroom outside his office. Thereupon Kokoshkin retired to his office and, without closing the door behind him, sat at his desk and set about signing papers; but his head sank onto his arms at once, and he fell asleep in the chair behind his desk.
XI
Back then there were as yet neither city telegraphs nor telephones, and to rapidly transmit the orders of the authorities, “forty thousand messengers” went galloping in all directions, the long-lasting memory of which would be preserved in Gogol’s comedy.6
That, naturally, was not as speedy as the telegraph or telephone, but on the other hand it imparted to the city a considerable animation and testified to the unremitting vigilance of the authorities.
By the time the breathless police chief and the officer-savior, as well as the saved drowned man, arrived from the Admiralty police station, the nervous and energetic General Kokoshkin had had a nap and refreshed himself. That could be seen in the expression on his face and in the manifestation of his mental faculties.
Kokoshkin summoned all the new arrivals to his office and invited Svinyin to join them.
“The report?” Kokoshkin asked the police chief tersely in a refreshed voice.
The man silently handed him a folded sheet of paper and whispered softly:
“I must ask permission to add a few words to Your Excellency in private …”
“Very well.”
Kokoshkin stepped into the embrasure of the window, and the police chief followed him.
“What is it?”
The indistinct whispering of the police chief and the distinct grunting of the general were heard:
“Hm … Yes! … Well, what about it? … That could be … Insists he came out dry … Nothing else?”
“Nothing, sir.”
The general stepped away from the embrasure, sat down at his desk, and began to read. He read the report to himself, betraying neither fear nor doubt, and then turned immediately to the saved man with a loud and firm question:
“How is it, brother, that you wound up in a pool in the ice opposite the palace?”
“I’m sorry,” replied the saved man.
“Well, so! You were drunk?”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t drunk, but I’d had a drop.”
“Why did you wind up in the water?”
“I wanted to take a short cut across the ice, lost my way, and wound up in the water.”
“Meaning it was dark ahead of you?”
“Dark, it was dark all around, Your Excellency!”
“And you couldn’t make out who pulled you out?”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t make anything out. It was him, it seems.” He pointed to the officer and added: “I couldn’t make out, I was too afeared.”
“There it is. You gad about when you should be asleep! Take a good look now and remember forever who your benefactor is. This noble man risked his life for you!”
“All my life I’ll remember.”
“Your name, mister officer?”
The officer gave his name.
“Do you hear?”
“I hear, Your Excellency.”
“Are you Orthodox?”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“Write his name down and remember him in your prayers.”
“I will, Your Excellency.”
“Pray to God for him and be on your way: you’re no longer needed.”
The man made a low bow and darted off, immeasurably pleased that they had let him go.
Svinyin stood and wondered how, by the grace of God, everything could have taken such a turn!
XII
Kokoshkin turned to the invalid officer:
“So you risked your own life to save this man?”
“That’s right, Your Excellency.”
“There were no witnesses to this occurrence, and given the lateness of the hour there couldn’t have been?”
“Yes, Your Excellency, it was dark, and there was no one on the embankment except the sentries.”
“There’s no cause to mention sentries: a sentry guards his post and shouldn’t be distracted by anything extraneous. I believe what’s written in the report. So it’s in your own words?”
Kokoshkin uttered these words with special emphasis, as if he were threatening him or berating him.
But the officer did not quail, and, with his eyes goggling and his chest puffed out, replied:
“In my own words and perfectly correct, Your Excellency.”