Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

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