The governor of S. was one of those good-natured, happy-go-lucky,
worldly generals who, endowed with wonderfully clean, snow-white bodies
and souls to match, of good breeding and education, are turned out of a
mill where they are never ground down to becoming the “shepherds of
the people.” Nevertheless they prove themselves capable of a tolerable
amount of administrative ability—do little work, but are forever
sighing after St. Petersburg and paying court to all the pretty women of
the place. These are men who in some unaccountable way become useful to
their province and manage to leave pleasant memories behind them. The
governor had only just got out of bed, and was comfortably seated before
his dressing-table in his night-shirt and silk dressing-gown, bathing
his face and neck with eau-de-cologne after having removed a whole
collection of charms and coins dangling from it, when he was informed of
the arrival of Sipiagin and Kollomietzev upon some urgent business. He
was very familiar with Sipiagin, having known him from childhood and
constantly run across him in St. Petersburg drawing-rooms, and lately he
had begun to ejaculate a respectful “Ah!” every time his name occurred
to him—as if he saw in him a future statesman. Kollomietzev he did not
know so well and respected less in consequence of various unpleasant
complaints that had been made against him; however, he looked upon him
as a man _qui fera chemin_ in any case.
He ordered his guests to be shown into his study, where he soon joined
them, as he was, in his silk dressing-gown, and not so much as excusing
himself for receiving them in such an unofficial costume, shook hands
with them heartily. Only Sipiagin and Kollomietzev appeared in the
governor’s study; Paklin remained in the drawing-room. On getting out
of the carriage he had tried to slip away, muttering that he had some
business at home, but Sipiagin had detained him with a polite firmness
(Kollomietzev had rushed up to him and whispered in his ear: _“Ne le
lâcher pas! Tonnerre de tonnerres!”_) and taken him in. He had not,
however, taken him to the study, but had asked him, with the same polite
firmness, to wait in the drawing-room until he was wanted. Even here
Paklin had hoped to escape, but a robust gendarme at Kollomietzev’s
instruction appeared in the doorway; so Paklin remained.
“I dare say you’ve guessed what has brought me to you, _Voldemar_,”
Sipiagin began.
“No, my dear, no, I can’t,” the amiable Epicurean replied, while a smile
of welcome played about his rosy cheeks, showing a glimpse of shiny
teeth, half hidden by his silky moustache.
“What? Don’t you know about Markelov?”
“What do you mean? What Markelov?” the governor repeated with the same
joyful expression on his face. He did not remember, in the first place,
that the man who was arrested yesterday was called Markelov, and, in
the second, he had quite forgotten that Sipiagin’s wife had a brother
of that name. “But why are you standing, Boris? Sit down. Would you like
some tea?”
Sipiagin’s mind was far from tea.
When at last he explained why they had both appeared, the governor
uttered an exclamation of pain and struck himself on the forehead, while
his face assumed a sympathetic expression.
“Dear me! what a misfortune! And he’s here now—today.... You know we
never keep _that sort_ with us for more than one night at the outside,
but the chief of police is out of town, so your brother-in-law has been
detained. He is to be sent on tomorrow. Dear me! what a dreadful thing!
What your wife must have gone through! What would you like me to do?”
“I would like to have an interview with him here, if it is not against
the law.”
“My dear boy! laws are not made for men like you. I do feel so sorry for
you.... _C’est affreux, tu sais!_”
He gave a peculiar ring. An adjutant appeared.
“My dear baron, do please make some arrangement there....” He told him
what he wanted and the baron vanished. “Only think, _mon cher ami_, the
peasants nearly killed him. They tied his hands behind him, flung him
in a cart, and brought him here! And he’s not in the least bit angry
or indignant with them you know! He was so calm altogether that I was
amazed! But you will see for yourself. _C’est un fanatique tranquille._”
_“Ce sont les pires,”_ Kollomietzev remarked sarcastically. The governor
looked up at him from under his eyebrows. “By the way, I must have a
word with you, Simion Petrovitch.”
“Yes; what about?”
“I don’t like things at all—”
“What things?”
“You know that peasant who owed you money and came here to complain—”
“Well?”
“He’s hanged himself.”
“When?”
“It’s of no consequence when; but it’s an ugly affair.”
Kollomietzev merely shrugged his shoulders and moved away to the window
with a graceful swing of the body. At this moment the adjutant brought
in Markelov.
The governor had been right; he was unnaturally calm. Even his habitual
moroseness had given place to an expression of weary indifference, which
did not change when he caught sight of his brother-in-law. Only in the
glance which he threw on the German adjutant, who was escorting him,
there was a momentary flash of the old hatred he felt towards such
people. His coat had been torn in several places and hurriedly stitched
up with coarse thread; his forehead, eyebrows, and the bridge of his
nose were covered with small scars caked with clotted blood. He had not
washed, but had combed his hair.
“Sergai Mihailovitch!” Sipiagin began excitedly, taking a step or two
towards him and extending his right hand, only so that he might touch
him or stop him if he made a movement in advance, “Sergai Mihailovitch!
I am not here to tell you of our amazement, our deep distress—you can
have no doubt of that! You _wanted_ to ruin yourself and have done
so! But I’ve come to tell you ... that ... that ... to give you the
chance of hearing sound common-sense through the voice of honour and
friendship. You can still mitigate your lot and, believe me, I will
do all in my power to help you, as the honoured head of this province
can bear witness!” At this point Sipiagin raised his voice. “A real
penitence of your wrongs and a full confession without reserve which
will be duly presented in the proper quarters——”
“Your excellency,” Markelov exclaimed suddenly, turning towards the
governor—the very sound of his voice was calm, though it was a little
hoarse; “I thought that you wanted to see me in order to cross-examine
me again, but if I have been brought here solely by Mr. Sipiagin’s wish,
then please order me to be taken back again. We cannot understand one
another. All he says is so much Greek to me.”
“Greek, eh!” Kollomietzev shrieked. “And to set peasants rioting, is
that Greek too? Is that Greek too, eh?”
“What have you here, your excellency? A landowner of the secret police?
And how zealous he is!” Markelov remarked, a faint smile of pleasure
playing about his pale lips.
Kollomietzev stamped and raged, but the governor stopped him.
“It serves you right, Simion Petrovitch. You shouldn’t interfere in what
is not your business.”
“Not my business ... not my business.... It seems to me that it’s the
business of every nobleman——”
Markelov scanned Kollomietzev coldly and slowly, as if for the last time
and then turned to Sipiagin.
“If you really want to know my views, my dear brother-in-law, here they
are. I admit that the peasants had a right to arrest me and give me up
if they disapproved of what I preached to them. They were free to
do what they wanted. I came to them, not they to me. As for the
government—if it does send me to Siberia, I’ll go without grumbling,
although I don’t consider myself guilty. The government does its work,
defends itself. Are you satisfied?”
Sipiagin wrung his hands in despair.
“Satisfied!! What a word! That’s not the point, and it is not for us
to judge the doings of the government. The question, my dear Sergai,
is whether you feel” (Sipiagin had decided to touch the tender strings)
“the utter unreasonableness, senselessness, of your undertaking and are
prepared to repent; and whether I can answer for you at all, my dear
Sergai.”
Markelov frowned.
“I have said all I have to say and don’t want to repeat it.”
“But don’t you repent? Don’t you repent?”
“Oh, leave me alone with your repentance! You want to steal into my very
soul? Leave that, at any rate, to me.”
Sipiagin shrugged his shoulders.
“You were always like that; never would listen to common-sense. You have
a splendid chance of getting out of this quietly, honourably——”
“Quietly, honourably,” Markelov repeated savagely. “We know those words.
They are always flung at a man when he’s wanted to do something mean!
That is what these fine phrases are for!”
“We sympathise with you,” Sipiagin continued reproachfully, “and you
hate us.”
“Fine sympathy! To Siberia and hard labour with us; that is your
sympathy. Oh, let me alone! let me alone! for Heaven’s sake!”
Markelov lowered his head.
He was agitated at heart, though externally calm. He was most of all
tortured by the fact that he had been betrayed—and by whom? By Eremy of
Goloplok! That same Eremy whom he had trusted so much! That Mendely the
sulky had not followed him, had really not surprised him. Mendely was
drunk and was consequently afraid. But Eremy! For Markelov, Eremy stood
in some way as the personification of the whole Russian people, and
Eremy had deceived him! Had he been mistaken about the thing he was
striving for? Was Kisliakov a liar? And were Vassily Nikolaevitch’s
orders all stupid? And all the articles, books, works of socialists and
thinkers, every letter of which had seemed to him invincible truth, were
they all nonsense too? Was it really so? And the beautiful simile of
the abscess awaiting the prick of the lancet—was that, too, nothing more
than a phrase? “No! no!” he whispered to himself, and the colour spread
faintly over his bronze-coloured face; “no! All these things are true,
true... only I am to blame. I did not know how to do things, did not
put things in the right way! I ought simply to have given orders, and
if anyone had tried to hinder, or object—put a bullet through his head!
there is nothing else to be done! He who is against us has no right to
live. Don’t they kill spies like dogs, worse than dogs?”
All the details of his capture rose up in Markelov’s mind. First the
silence, the leers, then the shrieks from the back of the crowd...
someone coming up sideways as if bowing to him, then that sudden
rush, when he was knocked down. His own cries of “What are you doing,
my boys?” and their shouts, “A belt! A belt! tie him up!” Then the
rattling of his bones ... unspeakable rage ... filth in his mouth, his
nostrils.... “Shove him in the cart! shove him in the cart!” someone
roared with laughter....
“I didn’t go about it in the right way....” That was the thing that
most tormented him. That he had fallen under the wheel was his personal
misfortune and had nothing to do with the cause—it was possible to bear
that ... but Eremy! Eremy!!
While Markelov was standing with his head sunk on his breast, Sipiagin
drew the governor aside and began talking to him in undertones. He
flourished two fingers across his forehead, as though he would suggest
that the unfortunate man was not quite right in his head, in order to
arouse if not sympathy, at any rate indulgence towards the madman. The
governor shrugged his shoulders, opened and shut his eyes, regretted
his inability to do anything, but made some sort of promise in the
end. _“Tous les égards ... certainement, tous les égards,”_ the soft,
pleasant words flowed through his scented moustache. “But you know the
law, my boy!”
“Of course I do!” Sipiagin responded with a sort of submissive severity.
While they were talking in the corner, Kollomietzev could scarcely stand
still in one spot. He walked up and down, hummed and hawed, showed every
sign of impatience. At last he went up to Sipiagin, saying hastily,
_“Vous oublier l’autre!”_
“Oh, yes!” Sipiagin exclaimed loudly. “_Merci de me l’avoir rappelé._
Your excellency,” he said, turning to the governor (he purposely
addressed his friend Voldemar in this formal way, so as not to
compromise the prestige of authority in Markelov’s presence), “I must
draw your attention to the fact that my brother-in-law’s mad attempt
has certain ramifications, and one of these branches, that is to say,
one of the suspected persons, is to be found not very far from here, in
this town. I’ve brought another with me,” he added in a whisper, “he’s
in the drawing-room. Have him brought in here.”
“What a man!” the governor thought with admiration, gazing respectfully
at Sipiagin. He gave the order and a minute later Sila Paklin stood
before him.
Paklin bowed very low to the governor as he came in, but catching sight
of Markelov before he had time to raise himself, remained as he
was, half bent down, fidgetting with his cap. Markelov looked at him
vacantly, but could hardly have recognised him, as he withdrew into his
own thoughts.
“Is this the branch?” the governor asked, pointing to Paklin with a long
white finger adorned with a turquoise ring.
“Oh, no!” Sipiagin exclaimed with a slight smile. “However, who knows!”
he added after a moment’s thought. “Your excellency,” he said aloud,
“the gentleman before you is Mr. Paklin. He comes from St. Petersburg
and is a close friend of a certain person who for a time held the
position of tutor in my house and who ran away, taking with him a
certain young girl who, I blush to say, is my niece.”
“Ah! _oui, oui,_” the governor mumbled, shaking his head, “I heard the
story.... The princess told me——”
Sipiagin raised his voice.
“That person is a certain Mr. Nejdanov, whom I strongly suspect of
dangerous ideas and theories—”
_“Un rouge à tous crins,”_ Kollomietzev put in.
“Yes, dangerous ideas and theories,” Sipiagin repeated more
emphatically. “He must certainly know something about this propaganda.
He is... in hiding, as I have been informed by Mr. Paklin, in the
merchant Falyaeva’s factory—”
At these words Markelov threw another glance at Paklin and gave a slow,
indifferent smile.
“Excuse me, excuse me, your excellency,” Paklin cried, “and you, Mr.
Sipiagin, I never... never—”
“Did you say the merchant Falyaeva?” the governor asked, turning to
Sipiagin and merely shaking his fingers in Paklin’s direction, as much
as to say, “Gently, my good man, gently.” “What is coming over our
respectable, bearded merchants? Only yesterday one was arrested in
connection with this affair. You may have heard of him—Golushkin, a
very rich man. But he’s harmless enough. He won’t make revolutions; he’s
grovelling on his knees already.”
“The merchant Falyaeva has nothing whatever to do with it,” Sipiagin
began; “I know nothing of his ideas; I was only talking of his factory
where Mr. Nejdanov is to be found at this very moment, as Mr. Paklin
says—”
“I said nothing of the kind!” Paklin cried; “you said it yourself!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Paklin,” Sipiagin pronounced with the same relentless
precision, “I admire that feeling of friendship which prompts you to
deny it.” (“A regular Guizot, upon my word!” the governor thought to
himself.) “But take example by me. Do you suppose that the feeling of
kinship is less strong in me than your feeling of friendship? But there
is another feeling, my dear sir, yet stronger still, which guides all
our deeds and actions, and that is duty!”
_“Le sentiment du devoir,”_ Kollomietzev explained.
Markelov took both the speakers in at a glance.
“Your excellency!” he exclaimed, “I ask you a second time; please have
me removed out of sight of these babblers.”
But there the governor lost patience a little.
“Mr. Markelov!” he pronounced severely, “I would advise you, in your
present position, to be a little more careful of your tongue, and to
show a little more respect to your elders, especially when they give
expression to such patriotic sentiments as those you have just heard
from the lips of your _beau-frère!_ I shall be delighted, my dear
Boris,” he added, turning to Sipiagin, “to tell the minister of your
noble action. But with whom is this Nejdanov staying at the factory?”
Sipiagin frowned.
“With a certain Mr. Solomin, the chief engineer there, Mr. Paklin says.”
It seemed to afford Sipiagin some peculiar pleasure in tormenting poor
Sila. He made him pay dearly for the cigar he had given him and the
playful familiarity of his behaviour.
“This Solomin,” Kollomietzev put in, “is an out-and-out radical and
republican. It would be a good thing if your excellency were to turn
your attention to him too.”
“Do you know these gentlemen... Solomin, and what’s his name. ..
Nejdanov?” the governor asked Markelov, somewhat authoritatively.
Markelov distended his nostrils malignantly.
“Do you know Confucius and Titus Livius, your excellency?”
The governor turned away.
_“Il n’y a pas moyen de causer avec cette homme,”_ he said, shrugging
his shoulders. “Baron, come here, please.”
The adjutant went up to him quickly and Paklin seized the opportunity of
limping over to Sipiagin.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a whisper. “Why do you want to ruin
your niece? Why, she’s with him, with Nejdanov!”
“I am not ruining any one, my dear sir,” Sipiagin said loudly, “I am
only doing what my conscience bids me do, and—”
“And what your wife, my sister, bids you do; you dare not stand up
against her!” Markelov exclaimed just as loudly.
Sipiagin took no notice of the remark; it was too much beneath him!
“Listen,” Paklin continued, trembling all over with agitation, or may
be from timidity; there was a malignant light in his eyes and the tears
were nearly choking him—tears of pity for _them_ and rage at himself;
“listen, I told you she was married—it wasn’t true, I lied! but they
must get married—and if you prevent it, if the police get there—there
will be a stain on your conscience which you’ll never be able to wipe
out—and you—”
“If what you have just told me be true,” Sipiagin interrupted him
still more loudly, “then it can only hasten the measures which I
think necessary to take in this matter; and as for the purity of my
conscience, I beg you not to trouble about that, my dear sir.”
“It’s been polished,” Markelov put in again; “there is a coat of St.
Petersburg varnish upon it; no amount of washing will make it come
clean. You may whisper as much as you like, Mr. Paklin, but you won’t
get anything out of it!”
At this point the governor considered it necessary to interfere.
“I think that you have said enough, gentlemen,” he began, “and I’ll ask
you, my dear baron, to take Mr. Markelov away. _N’est ce pas,_ Boris,
you don’t want him any further—”
Sipiagin made a gesture with his hands.
“I said everything I could think of!”
“Very well, baron!”
The adjutant came up to Markelov, clinked his spurs, made a horizontal
movement of the hand, as if to request Markelov to make a move; the
latter turned and walked out. Paklin, only in imagination it is true,
but with bitter sympathy and pity, shook him by the hand.
“We’ll send some of our men to the factory,” the governor continued;
“but you know, Boris, I thought this gentleman” (he moved his chin in
Paklin’s direction) “told you something about your niece... I understood
that she was there at the factory. Then how——”
“It’s impossible to arrest her in any case,” Sipiagin remarked
thoughtfully; “perhaps she will think better of it and return. I’ll
write her a note, if I may.”
“Do please. You may be quite sure ... _nous Coffrerons le quidam ...
mais nous sommes galants avec les dames et avec celle-là donc!_”
“But you’ve made no arrangements about this Solomin,” Kollomietzev
exclaimed plaintively. He had been on the alert all the while, trying to
catch what the governor and Sipiagin were saying. “I assure you he’s the
principal ringleader! I have a wonderful instinct about these things!”
“_Pas trop de zèle_, my dear Simion Petrovitch,” the governor remarked
with a smile. “You remember Talleyrand! If it is really as you say the
fellow won’t escape us. You had better think of your—” the governor put
his hand to his throat significantly. “By the way,” he said, turning to
Sipiagin, “_et ce gaillard-là”_ (he moved his chin in Paklin’s direction).
_“Qu’en ferons nous?_ He does not appear very dangerous.”
“Let him go,” Sipiagin said in an undertone, and added in German,
_“Lass’ den Lumpen laufen!”_
He imagined for some reason that he was quoting from Goethe’s _Götz von
Berlichingen_.
“You can go, sir!” the governor said aloud. “We do not require you any
longer. Good day.”
Paklin bowed to the company in general and went out into the street
completely crushed and humiliated. Heavens! this contempt had utterly
broken him.
“Good God! What am I? A coward, a traitor?” he thought, in unutterable
despair. “Oh, no, no! I am an honest man, gentlemen! I have still some
manhood left!”
But who was this familiar figure sitting on the governor’s step and
looking at him with a dejected, reproachful glance? It was Markelov’s
old servant. He had evidently come to town for his master, and would
not for a moment leave the door of his prison. But why did he look so
reproachfully at Paklin? He had not betrayed Markelov!
“And why did I go poking my nose into things that did not concern me?
Why could I not sit quietly at home? And now it will be said and written
that Paklin betrayed them—betrayed his friends to the enemy!” He
recalled the look Markelov had given him and his last words, “Whisper as
much as you like, Mr. Paklin, but you won’t get anything out of it!” and
then these sad, aged, dejected eyes! he thought in desperation. And as
it says in the scriptures, he “wept bitterly” as he turned his steps
towards the oasis, to Fomishka and Fimishka and Snandulia.