IV
A Voltairian of Siberia
A month passed. I had transacted my business, and was returning to the city of N⸺ by post relays.
About noon we reached, the station, where the stout postmaster stood on the porch, smoking a cigar.
“I suppose you want fresh horses?” he asked, before I had time to utter a greeting.
“Yes,” I replied.
“All gone!”
“Please, don’t say that, Vasíli Ivánovitch! Cannot I see that …”
For I distinctly saw a partly harnessed troika standing under the shed.
He laughed.
“Truly, I know you are not in haste just now, and I will ask you to wait awhile.”
“For what reason? Are you expecting the governor?”
“Not quite so high a personage as the governor, I should hope; no, only a privy councillor, but I should like to accommodate this fellow. … Don’t get vexed, for I am quite as anxious to accommodate you; but your need is not urgent, and this is in the interests of justice and humanity in general, so to speak.”
“What have you to do with justice? What business is it?”
“If you will wait I will tell you all about it. But why stand here? Come into my ‘cabin,’ will you?”
I agreed, and followed Vasíli Ivánovitch into his “cabin,” where his wife, a stout, good-natured person, was waiting for us at the tea-table.
“You were speaking about justice,” began Vasíli Ivánovitch; “have you heard the name of Proskuróf?”
“No, I have not.”
“How should he?” interposed Matróna Ivánovna. “He is just such another lawless fellow as my husband; he even writes for the papers.”
“You are very much mistaken, Matróna Ivánovna,” said Vasíli Ivánovitch, warmly; “Proskuróf is a highly respectable man, and in favor with his superiors. You ought to burn a wax taper to my patron saint as a thanks-offering for your husband’s respectable acquaintances. If that’s your opinion in regard to Proskuróf, I should like to ask if you suppose that they would send a good-for-nothing man as examining magistrate on such important business as this?”
“What are you talking about?” I inquired. “What about an examining magistrate on important business?”
“That’s what I say!” said Matróna Ivánovna, encouraged. “I think you are talking nonsense. Do you take me for a fool, pray? Do important magistrates look like that?”
“You have made Matróna Ivánovna doubt me,” said the stationmaster, shaking his head reproachfully, “and without any sufficient knowledge on your part. True, no office like that exists; but if a man is appointed owing to the special confidence that is reposed in him, it is still better. …”
“I am at a loss to understand you,” I remarked.
“That is just what I complain of; you admit that you don’t understand, and yet you don’t hesitate to excite doubts in the mind of an inexperienced woman! Yes, and are you not aware that a stock-company, so to speak, has been organized, that manages all this highway and dark night business? Is it possible that you know nothing about it!”
“I have heard such rumors, of course.”
“I thought you must have heard of it. It is a company that embraces every class of society. The business is conducted on a large scale, having for its motto: ‘One hand washes the other.’ They have no objection to a certain notoriety; and it is a fact that everyone knows of the existence of such a company, and even the names of the individuals who are interested in it. I say everyone—His Excellency, of course, excepted. Not very long ago, a notorious affair occurred, after which His Excellency conceived a brilliant idea. He had come to the determination that, if it was possible, this evil should be suppressed. Of course, such attempts have been made before. The members of the company, for instance, have suppressed themselves, and all ended well. But this time the idea was particularly brilliant. His Excellency was very much enraged, and empowered his private clerk, Proskuróf, with ample authority to act on every occasion—not only in regard to affairs that have already taken place, but also in all future ones or in such as might have any connection with those that had previously occurred.”
“What is there so remarkable in that?”
“Well, sometimes the Lord sees fit to enlighten even babes. But the wonder is that an honest and energetic man has been found: he has been engaged in this business of suppression for the past three months, and such a commotion as he has raised, the Lord help us! About a dozen horses have been ruined.”
“Well, what good does that do you?”
“It was not Proskuróf who ruined the horses. … He would not do such a thing. It is the rural police, the men who follow him about on private horses—competition, you know—trying to get ahead of him and to be the first on the spot where a crime has been committed, for the sake of duty, of course. However, they seldom succeed. Proskuróf is our Lecocq. Once, to be sure, they succeeded in stealing some evidence from under his very nose. … He felt much aggrieved at it, poor fellow, so much so that he actually forgot himself in the official report, and stated ‘that, owing to the endeavor of the rural police, all measures had been taken to conceal the evidences of crime!’ Ha-ha-ha!”
“Yes, that’s the reason why I say that he is a case—like yourself!”
“No, he is all right,” rejoined Vasíli Ivánovitch. “And, supposing he did make a blunder, that is what might happen to the most careful person. He acknowledged his own mistake, when they pressed him, and, to justify himself, he declared that it was a clerical error. ‘Guard against such errors in the future,’ was the reply, ‘lest you be discharged on account of poor health.’ He is a funny fellow, I must say! Ha-ha-ha!”
“And what have you to do with all this?” I asked.
“I lend my cooperation. Ask my wife; we have a regular compact—a secret treaty. He does the suppressing, and I always keep horses in readiness for him. For instance, today a murder was committed somewhere along the highway, and his man was despatched to inform him of it, which means that the ‘Eradicator’ himself will be here shortly; so my horses are partly ready, and, moreover, I have sent word to my colleagues to have others in readiness at their stations. So, you see, even though one occupies the humble post of stationmaster, one may do some good to humanity—yes, sir. …”
At the end of this tirade, the jolly stationmaster dropped his serious tone and began to laugh.
“Stop laughing,” I said to him, “and tell me seriously, do you believe in this policy of eradication yourself, or are you only an observer?”
Vasíli Ivánovitch took a long pull at his cigar, and remained silent for a time.
At last he replied, in an earnest tone, “Well, I don’t know that I have asked myself this question. Let me consider. No, I cannot say that I do! All this mission is devilish nonsense! He will soon be discharged; there is no doubt about that! But he is a most interesting subject. It is true that, at the bottom of my heart, I have very little faith in his success. Sometimes he appears ridiculous to me; still, I go on helping him, and I dare say my wife is right—very likely I shall irritate my superiors against me. And that will do me small good. But am I the only one? There are many others who sympathize with him. That is what makes him strong, of course. But, strange to say, no one really believes in his success. You have just heard Matróna Ivánovna say that genuine magistrates are not like him, and that is only the echo of public opinion. Meanwhile, however, while this infant pushes ahead, ‘holding high his banner,’ as the papers express it, every man with a particle of feeling, every disinterested man, takes the trouble to kick stones out of the said infant’s path, lest he stumble and fall. Still, this is no remedy. …”
“Why not? With the sympathy of a population, naturally interested in all this?”
“Ah, but that is just the point! It is not pure sympathy! You will probably see for yourself what kind of an infant this is! He pushes ahead without discretion, with no definite plan, quite indifferent to the fact that he will probably be gobbled up in the end. Meanwhile, outsiders look on, and shake their heads, as much as to say, ‘That infant will be eaten up sooner or later!’ Of course, one feels sorry for him. One says, ‘Your path shall be smoothed here for a space, but, after all is done, you will certainly be devoured further on.’ But he reeks nothing of danger. What does sympathy amount to, when faith in the success of one’s enterprise is lacking? A genuine magistrate is needed; a man with the wisdom of a serpent, one who knows the ins and outs, who could overawe men at times, and not disdain to receive a bribe occasionally—for, after all, who can be a true magistrate who refuses that! In such a man the community would have faith. He is the one to eradicate! But, then, the deuce take it! there would be no sympathy, and the matter would be attributed to the clashing of official interests. … So there you have it! … Such is our country! … We had better drink our tea!” Vasíli Ivánovitch finished abruptly, and shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Pour the tea, Matréyntchik,” he said, in caressing tones, turning to his wife, who was listening with an air of profound interest to her husband’s words. “And don’t you think we had better take a glass of something before tea?”
Vasíli Ivánovitch himself was a very interesting character, such as is to be found only in Siberia, for in no other country is one likely to encounter a philosopher occupying the position of stationmaster. Had Vasíli Ivánovitch been an exile, this would have been nothing unusual. Fortune’s wheel, in its rotation, has hurled many a man from high position into some remote corner of the world, who, while seeking to rise again, introduces into these lower spheres new methods of education and culture. But with Vasíli Ivánovitch it was just the reverse; in his radicalism he was descending slowly but surely from the upper to the lower stages. He looked upon this state of things with the serenity of a true philosopher. Under some educational influence, not uncommon in this country of exiles, he had in his youth acquired the tastes and inclinations of an intelligent man, and had always prized them above all other advantages of life. Besides, he was something of an artist. When he was in a mood for talking, one could listen to him until one forgot all about one’s own business. While he was relating anecdotes and stories, and giving descriptions, a panorama of the characteristic and local types of the times previous to the reform seemed to pass before the eyes of the listener: all those rapacious and eager inspectors; and well fed bailiffs, who were beginning to realize the comforts of life; bailiffs at the top of the ladder, who had reached the height of felicity; counsellors, senior-counsellors, commission employees of all kinds … and enthroned above all this world, so familiar to Vasíli Ivánovitch in its minutest details, sat the local Jupiters in their good-nature and grandeur, with their demonstrative Pompadour storms, their childlike ignorance of the country, their horizon imported from the St. Petersburg departments, and the sense of power of the mighty satrap. All these elements in the stories of Vasíli Ivánovitch were vivified by the sympathetic touches of the true artist who loves his subject. And for Vasíli Ivánovitch, his country, although he often painted it in such unattractive colors, was a subject of deepest interest. As an intelligent man, he might truly apply to himself the poet’s verse:—
“I love my country, but with a strange love!”
And his love was sincere, although it brought him to a gradual “degradation,” as he expressed it. When, after one of those reverses brought upon him by his insatiable craving for exposing the truth, he was offered a fair position in Russia, he, after some hesitation, replied, “No, sir; I am much obliged to you, but it goes against me. … I could not do it! What should I do there? Everything would be strange to me. Bless you! I should have no one to abuse!”
Whenever I read or hear a comparison between Siberia and Russia as it was before the reform, a subject very much in vogue at one time, it always brings to my mind one very decided difference, which was personified in the stout figure of my humorous friend. The fact is that Russia before the reform had not the advantage that Siberia possesses, of living in the neighborhood of a Russia reformed. For instance, one often meets in Siberia persons, not particularly intelligent either, who speak of their own country in terms of ironical criticism. Our Russian Skvozník-Dmukhanóvsky, in the simplicity of his intellectual directness, supposed that “God had thus ordained it, and the disciples of Voltaire vainly rebelled against it.” The Siberian Skvozník witnessed the disappearance of his Russian prototype, saw the triumph of the disciples of Voltaire, and his directness has long since vanished. He is always agitating, but has very little faith himself in his providential mission. When favorable influences prevail, he is cheerful; but let the wind blow from the wrong quarter, he gnashes his teeth and grows morbid. True, there is always a slender ray of hope shining through his despair—“Perhaps the next time it may succeed”; but, on the other hand, every hope is embittered by the poignant doubt, “Will it endure?” For, as the proverb says, “Chips fly in Siberia when trees are felled beyond the Ural.” And beside him, smiling, stands the native “Voltairian,” in his woollen coat, and by his smile he seems to say, “Still alive, my friend? Is it possible?” while he clandestinely scribbles his correspondence for unlicensed Russian papers.
“By the way,” said Vasíli Ivánovitch, after tea, when, having lighted our cigars, we still continued our chat, “you have never told me what happened to you that time in the Hollow?”
And then I told him what the reader already knows.
Vasíli Ivánovitch remained pensive, scrutinizing the ashes on the end of his cigar.
“Yes, they are peculiar people, no doubt.”
“Do you know them?”
“How shall I say? Yes; I have met and talked with them, and have taken tea with them, as I did with you just now. But, as to knowing them—no, I can’t say I do. I can see through inspectors, or isprávniks, probably because we are kindred spirits; but those people, I must confess, I do not understand. But of one thing I am confident, and that is that this Seelín will come to an unfortunate end. He will be made way with, sooner or later.”
“Why do you think so?”
“How can it be otherwise! Your case was not the first. On all such dangerous expeditions, when almost every driver refuses, they have recourse to this fellow, and he is always ready. And you must remember that he never takes any weapons. It is true, he overawes them all. Since he killed Bezrúky, a wonderful prestige has attached itself to him, and he seems to believe in it himself. But this is only an illusion. Already they begin to say that a charmed bullet will kill the ‘Slayer.’ I suspect that the persistence with which this Constantine fires at him is explained by the fact that he has a supply of just such charmed bullets.”