§7
Such was the man who now undertook to teach me the business of administration, a worthy pupil of Arakchéyev, acrobat, tramp, clerk, secretary, Governor, a tender-hearted, unselfish being, who shut up sane men in mad-houses and made away with them there.
I was entirely at his mercy. He had only to write some nonsense to the Minister at Petersburg, and I should be packed off to Irkutsk. Indeed, writing was unnecessary; he had the right to transfer me to some savage place like Kai or Tsarevo-Sanchursk, where there were no resources and no means of communication. He sent one young Pole to Glazov, because the ladies had the bad taste to prefer him as a partner in the mazurka to His Excellency. In this way Prince Dolgorúkov was transferred from Perm to Verchoturye, a place in the Government of Perm, buried in mountains and snow-drifts, with as bad a climate as Beryózov and even less society.