The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький

and such another kept a paid mistress, and that such and such a third was troubled with a gadabout wife; whereby there became interwoven with and welded into Chichikov’s past history and the story of the dead souls such a crop of scandals and innuendoes that by no manner of means could any mortal decide to which of these rubbishy romances to award the palm, since all them presented an equal claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at length, the dossier reached the Governor-General himself it simply flabbergasted the poor man; and even the exceptionally clever and energetic secretary to whom he deputed the making of an abstract of the same very nearly lost his reason with the strain of attempting to lay hold of the tangled end of the skein. It happened that just at that time the Prince had several other important affairs on hand, and affairs of a very unpleasant nature. That is to say, famine had made its appearance in one portion of the province, and the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to the people had done their work badly; in another portion of the province certain Raskolniki⁵¹ were in a state of ferment, owing to the spreading of a report than an Antichrist had arisen who would not even let the dead rest, but was purchasing them wholesale — wherefore the said Raskolniki were summoning folk to prayer and repentance, and, under cover of capturing the Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning non-Antichrists in batches; lastly, the peasants of a third portion of the province had risen against the local landowners and superintendents of police, for the reason that certain rascals had started a rumour that the time was come when the peasants themselves were to become landowners, and to wear frockcoats, while the landowners in being were about to revert to the peasant state, and to take their own wares to market; wherefore one of the local volosts⁵², oblivious of the fact that an order of things of that kind would lead to a superfluity alike of landowners and of superintendents of police, had refused to pay its taxes, and necessitated recourse to forcible measures. Hence it was in a mood of the greatest possible despondency that the poor Prince was sitting plunged when word was brought to him that the old man who had gone bail for Chichikov was waiting to see him.

⁵¹ Dissenters or Old Believers: i.e. members of the sect which refused to accept the revised version of the Church Service Books promulgated by the Patriarch Nikon in 1665.

⁵² Fiscal districts.

      “Show him in,” said the Prince; and the old man entered.

      “A fine fellow your Chichikov!” began the Prince angrily. “You defended him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to business which even the lowest thief would not have touched!”

      “Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are referring.”

      “I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought to have been given a public flogging for it.”

      “Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention, might I ask you whether you do not think the case is non-proven? At all events, sufficient evidence against him is still lacking.”

      “What? We have as chief witness the woman who personated the deceased, and I will have her interrogated in your presence.”

      Touching a bell, the Prince ordered her to be sent for.

      “It is a most disgraceful affair,” he went on; “and, ashamed though I am to have to say it, some of our leading tchinovniks, including the local Governor himself, have become implicated in the matter. Yet you tell me that this Chichikov ought not to be confined among thieves and rascals!” Clearly the Governor-General’s wrath was very great indeed.

      “Your Highness,” said Murazov, “the Governor of the town is one of the heirs under the will: wherefore he has a certain right to intervene. Also, the fact that extraneous persons have meddled in the matter is only what is to be expected from human nature. A rich woman dies, and no exact, regular disposition of her property is made. Hence there comes flocking from every side a cloud of fortune hunters. What else could one expect? Such is human nature.”

      “Yes, but why should such persons go and commit fraud?” asked the Prince irritably. “I feel as though not a single honest tchinovnik were available — as though every one of them were a rogue.”

      “Your Highness, which of us is altogether beyond reproach? The tchinovniks of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them are men of worth, and nearly all of them men skilled in business — though also, unfortunately, largely inter-related.”

      “Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said the Prince, “for you are about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in you such a penchant for defending rascals?”

      “This,” replied Murazov. “Take any man you like of the persons whom you thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being. That being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one knows that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and stupidity? Each of us commits faults with every step that we take; each of us entails unhappiness upon others with every breath that we draw — and that although we may have no evil intention whatever in our minds. Your Highness himself has, before now, committed an injustice of the gravest nature.”

      “I have?” cried the Prince, taken aback by this unexpected turn given to the conversation.

      Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating something in his thoughts. Then he said:

      “Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case of the lad Dierpiennikov.”

      “What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!”

      “I am not seeking to justify him; I am only asking you whether you think it right that an inexperienced youth who had been tempted and led away by others should have received the same sentence as the man who had taken the chief part in the affair. That is to say, although Dierpiennikov and the man Voron-Drianni received an equal measure of punishment, their CRIMINALITY was not equal.”

      “If,” exclaimed the Prince excitedly, “you know anything further concerning the case, for God’s sake tell it me at once. Only the other day did I forward a recommendation that St. Petersburg should remit a portion of the sentence.”

      “Your Highness,” replied Murazov, “I do not mean that I know of anything which does not lie also within your own cognisance, though one circumstance there was which might have told in the lad’s favour had he not refused to admit it, lest another should suffer injury. All that I have in my mind is this. On that occasion were you not a little over-hasty in coming to a conclusion? You will understand, of course, that I am judging only according to my own poor lights, and for the reason that on more than one occasion you have urged me to be frank. In the days when I myself acted as a chief of gendarmery I came in contact with a great number of accused — some of them bad, some of them good; and in each case I found it well also to consider a man’s past career, for the reason that, unless one views things calmly, instead of at once decrying a man, he is apt to take alarm, and to make it impossible thereafter to get any real confession from him. If, on the other hand, you question a man as friend might question friend, the result will be that straightway he will tell you everything, nor ask for mitigation of his penalty, nor bear you the least malice, in that he will understand that it is not you who have punished him, but the law.”

      The Prince relapsed into thought; until presently there entered a young tchinovnik. Portfolio in hand, this official stood waiting respectfully. Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia upon his fresh young face; for evidently he had not been in the Service for nothing. As a matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and successfully to unravel it.

      At this point a long hiatus occurs in the original.

      “I will send corn to the localities where famine is worst,” said Murazov, “for I understand that