No one else was expected. The dining-room table was being set for
supper. Suddenly there was a loud, violent bell-ring. The housemaid
ran quickly to answer it. Some one in the drawing-room remarked in
astonishment:
“A rather late visitor.”
Every one suddenly felt depressed for some reason. There was an air of
ominous expectancy. Were robbers about to break in? Was it a telegram
containing an unpleasant announcement? Or would some one come in
panting and exhausted and divulge a piece of terrible news? But the
words they addressed to each other were of quite a different nature.
“But who can it be at such a late hour?” said one woman to another.
“Who else can it be but Piotr Ivanitch!”
“That’s so; he likes coming late.”
“Do you remember--once at the Taranovs?”
Piotr Ivanitch, approaching at that moment, overheard the remark.
“You are unfair to me, Marya Ivanovna! I’ve been here a long time,”
said he.
“Forgive me, but who, then, can it be?” said Marya Ivanovna in
confusion.
“We’ll soon know. Let’s take a look.”
The inquisitive engineer put his head out into the hall and stumbled
upon some one in a grey uniform who was walking impetuously towards
the drawing-room. Some one whispered in suppressed horror:
“The police!”
When the maid, in response to the ring, opened the door, several men
filed into the hall, awkwardly jostling one another--house-porters,[23]
gendarmes, detectives, an Inspector of the police, an officer of the
gendarmerie, two petty constables. The maid stood speechless with
fright. The police inspector shouted at her:
“Get back to the kitchen!”
A detachment of policemen and porters remained outside under the
command of the Inspector of the constabulary. They watched to see that
no one entered or left the Svetilovitch house.
Altogether about twenty policemen entered the house. For some unknown
reason they were armed with rifles with fixed bayonets. Three
hideous-looking men in civilian clothes kept close to the policemen.
These were the detectives. Two policemen stationed themselves at the
entrance, two others ran to the telephone, which was attached to a
wall in the hall. It was evident that everything had been arranged
beforehand by a manager expert in such matters. The rest of the men
tumbled into the drawing-room. The Inspector of the police stretched
his neck and, assuming a tense red expression and bulging his eyes,
shouted very loudly.
“Don’t any one dare to move from his place!”
And he looked round in self-satisfaction at the officer of the
gendarmerie.
The men and the women remained transfixed in their places, as if they
were acting a tableau. They were looking silently at the new-comers.
The policemen, awkwardly holding their rifles, tramped with their
ponderous boots on the parquet-floor and made their way about the
rooms. They paused at all the doors, looked at the visitors timorously
and savagely, uneasily pressed the barrels of their rifles, and tried
to look like real soldiers. It was evident that these zealous people
were ready to fire at any one whomsoever at the first suspicious
movement: they thought that a band of conspirators had gathered here.
All the rooms were overrun with these strangers. It began to smell of
bad tobacco, sweat, and vodka. Many of them drank to keep their
courage up: they were afraid of a possible armed resistance.
A gendarme placed his Colonel’s voluminous portfolio on the grand
piano in the drawing-room. The Colonel, stepping forward to the middle
of the room, so that the light of the centre cluster of lamps fell
almost directly upon his bald forehead and upon his bushy,
sandy-haired moustache, pronounced in an official tone:
“Where’s the master of this house?”
He made a determined effort to give the impression that he did not
know Doctor Svetilovitch or the others. Actually he knew nearly all of
them personally. Doctor Svetilovitch walked up to him.
“I am the master of this house. I am Doctor Svetilovitch,” he said in
a no less official tone.
The Colonel in the blue uniform then announced:
“M. Svetilovitch, it is my duty to make a search of your house.”
Doctor Svetilovitch asked:
“Under whose authority are you doing this? And where is your warrant
for carrying out the search?”
The Colonel of the gendarmerie turned towards the piano and rummaged
in his portfolio, but produced nothing. He said:
“I assure you I have an order. If you have any doubts you can call up
on the telephone.”
Then the Colonel turned to the Inspector of the police and said:
“Please collect them all in one room.”
All, except Doctor Svetilovitch, were compelled to go into the
dining-room, which now became crowded and uncomfortable. Armed
constables were placed at both doors--the one entering the hall and
the other the dining-room--as well as in all the corners. Their faces
were dull, and their guns seemed unnecessary and absurd in these
peaceful surroundings--but then the guests felt even more
uncomfortable.
A detective looked out from time to time from the drawing-room door.
He looked searchingly into the faces. The look he had on his
disagreeable face with its white eyebrows and eyelashes gave the
impression that he was sniffing the air.
In the drawing-room the Colonel of the gendarmerie was saying to
Doctor Svetilovitch:
“And now, M. Svetilovitch, will you be so good as to tell me with what
object you have arranged this gathering?”
Doctor Svetilovitch replied with an ironic smile:
“With the object of dancing and dining, nothing more. You can see for
yourself that we are all peaceable folk.”
“Very well,” said the Colonel in an authoritative, rude tone. “Are the
names and families of all gathered here with the object you state
known to you?”
Doctor Svetilovitch shrugged his shoulders in astonishment and
replied:
“Of course they are known to me! Why shouldn’t I know my own guests? I
believe you know many of them yourself.”
“Be so good,” requested the Colonel, “as to give me the names of all
your guests.”
He produced a sheet of paper from his portfolio and placed it on the
piano. The Colonel wrote the names down as Doctor Svetilovitch gave
them. When the doctor stopped short the Colonel asked laconically:
“All?”
“Doctor Svetilovitch answered as briefly:
“All.”
“Show us into your study,” said the Colonel.
They went into the study and rummaged among everything there. They
turned over all the books and disarranged the writing-table. They
looked through the letters. The Colonel demanded:
“Open the bookcases, the bureau drawers.”
Doctor Svetilovitch answered: “The keys, as you see, are in their
places in the locks.”
He put his hands into his pockets and stood by the window.
“Will you be good enough to open them?” said the Colonel.
“I can’t do this,” replied Doctor Svetilovitch. “I do not consider it
obligatory to help you in your searches.”
Pride filled his Cadet’s soul. He felt that he was behaving correctly
and valiantly. What was the consequence? The uninvited guests opened
everything themselves and rummaged where they pleased. A constable put
aside all those books which looked suspicious. Several of these books
had been published in Russia quite openly and sold no less openly.
They took several books wholly innocent in their contents, simply
because they thought they detected a rebellious note in their titles.
The Colonel of the gendarmerie announced:
“We will take the correspondence and the manuscripts with us.”
Doctor Svetilovitch said in vexation:
“I assure you there’s nothing criminal there. The manuscripts are very
necessary to my work.”
“We’ll have a look at them,” said the Colonel dryly. “Don’t be
concerned about them, they will be kept in safety.”
Then they rummaged the other rooms. They searched the beds to see if
there were any concealed fire-arms.
When he returned into the study the Colonel of the gendarmerie said to
Doctor Svetilovitch:
“Well, try and see if you can find the papers of the strike
committee.”
“I have no such papers,” replied Doctor Svetilovitch.
“S-so! Now,” said the Colonel very significantly, “tell us frankly
where you keep the weapons concealed.”
“What weapons?” asked Doctor Svetilovitch in astonishment.
The Colonel replied with an ironic smile:
“Any sort that you may have about--revolvers, bombs, or machine-guns.”
“I haven’t any kind of weapons,” said Doctor Svetilovitch with an
amused laugh. “I haven’t even a gun for hunting. What kind of weapon
can I possibly have?”
“We’ll have a look!” said the Colonel in a meaningful voice.
They turned the whole house upside down. Of course they found no
weapons of any kind.
While all this was going on Trirodov was reading in the dining-room
his own verses and some which were not his. The constables listened in
a dull way. They did not understand anything, but waited patiently to
see if any rebellious words were mentioned, but their waiting remained
unrewarded.
The Inspector of the police then entered the dining-room. Every one
looked guardedly at him. He said solemnly, as if he were announcing
the beginning of an important and useful work:
“Gentlemen, now we must subject all those present to a personal
examination. One at a time, please. Suppose we begin with you,” said
he, turning to the engineer.
The face of the Inspector of the police expressed a consciousness of
his personal dignity. His movements were sure and significant. It was
evident that he not only was not ashamed of what he was saying and
doing, but that he had not the slightest comprehension that there was
anything in this to be ashamed of. The engineer, a young and handsome
man, shrugged his shoulders, smiled contemptuously and went into the
study, being directed there by an awkward motion of the red-palmed paw
of the Commissary of the rural police.
The priest’s wife found herself an arm-chair in the dining-room, but
she was not any more comfortable in it. Terrified in her arm-chair,
she trembled like jelly. With pale lips she whispered to the
parish-school girl she had won over to the cause:
“Irinushka, dearest, think of it--they are going to search us!”
The parish-school girl, Irinushka, looking slender, fresh, and red,
like a newly washed carrot, moved her ears in her fright--a faculty
which her companions envied her intensely--and whispered something to
the priest’s wife.
The constable looked savagely at the priest’s wife and at the
parish-school girl, and cried out in a shrill, somewhat hoarse voice,
which resembled the crowing of a cock:
“I must very humbly ask you not to whisper.”
The constables with the guns pricked up their ears. Their sudden zeal
made them perspire. The priest’s wife and the parish-school girl
almost fainted from fright, but the girl at once recovered herself and
began to get angry; she was now even more angry than she had been
frightened a little while ago. Small tears gleamed in her eyes; small
drops of perspiration appeared on her cheeks and on her forehead. The
angry girl’s face grew even redder, so that now she resembled no
longer a carrot but a wet beetroot. The only person in the room to be
refreshingly and youthfully indignant, and all aflame with a deep
anger, she looked truly beautiful in her ingenuous exasperation.
“Here is something new!” she cried. “Whispering is forbidden! Are you
afraid that we will say something against you, that we will hurt you?”
At this moment all the Cadets and their wives and daughters, who were
sitting around the table and against the walls, turned their horrified
faces at the parish-school girl, and all together hissed at her. They
would have laid hands on her, some one would have gagged her
mouth--but not one of them dared to make a move. They sat motionless,
looked at the parish-school girl with eyes dilated with fear, and
hissed.
The parish-school girl, overcome with fright, grew silent. Only the
hissing could be heard in the dining-room. Even the constables began
to smile at the friendly hissing of the Cadets of both sexes.
When they had finished hissing, Irinushka said almost tranquilly:
“We didn’t whisper anything criminal. I only said about you, Mr.
Constable, that you were fascinatingly handsome with your dark hair.”
When she saw that the Rameyev sisters were laughing, Irinushka turned
to Elisaveta:
“You do agree with me, Vetochka, that the constable is a fascinatingly
handsome man?”
The constable flushed. He was not sure whether the blushing girl was
laughing at him or in earnest. In any case he frowned, vigorously
twirled his dark moustache, and exclaimed:
“I must humbly ask you not to express yourself.”
Later, at home, Irinushka was scolded for her behaviour, regarded as
untactful by Priest Zakrasin. The priest’s wife was especially angry.
Poor Irinushka even cried several times.
But this was later. At this particular instant the Inspector of the
police and the Colonel of the gendarmerie were sitting in Doctor
Svetilovitch’s study and were examining the guests one by one; they
turned their pockets inside out and, for some unknown reason, deprived
their owners of letters, notes, and notebooks.
Rameyev was in a quiet, genial mood. He laughed on being searched.
Trirodov made an effort to be calm and was a little sharper than he
wished to be.
The women were searched in one of the bedrooms. A police-matron was
brought for this purpose. She was a dirty, cunning sycophant. The
contact of her coarse hands was repulsive. Elisaveta felt
uncomfortably unclean after she had passed through the policewoman’s
paws. Elena shivered with fear and nausea.
Those who had been searched were not permitted to enter the
dining-room but were led into the drawing-room. Nearly all the
searched ones were proud of this. They looked as if they were
celebrating a birthday.
No one was arrested. They began to draw up the official report.
Trirodov quietly addressed a gendarme, but the latter replied in a
whisper:
“We are not permitted to enter into conversation with any one. Those
scoundrelly spies are watching us, so that we shouldn’t speak with
liberals. They are quick to inform against us.”
“You are in an unfortunate business,” said Trirodov.
The Inspector of the police read the official report aloud. It was
signed by Doctor Svetilovitch, the Inspector, and the witnesses.
When the uninvited guests left, the hosts and the invited guests sat
down to supper.
It was presently discovered that the beer prepared for the occasion
had been consumed. At the same time the cap of one of the guests had
disappeared. Its owner was very much disturbed. The cap became almost
the sole topic of conversation.
On the next day there was much talk in town about the search at the
Svetilovitches, the consumed beer, and especially about the lost cap.
Not a little was said in the newspapers about the beer and the cap.
One newspaper in St. Petersburg devoted a very heated article to the
stolen cap. The author of the article made very broad generalizations.
He asked:
“Is it not one of those caps with which we were preparing to throw
back the foreign enemy? Is not all Russia seeking now its lost cap and
cannot be consoled?”[24]
Much less was said and written about the consumed beer. For some
reason or other it did not offend people so much. In accordance with
our general custom of placing substance above the form, it was found
that the stealing of the cap deserved the greater protest, inasmuch as
it is more difficult to get along without a cap than without beer.