When Andrusha reached the assistant procureur’s part in the case he sketched off a pompous imbecile. There was no love lost between the public attorney and the gendarme officers, so Safonoff described, with many a gurgle of merriment, how, during the attempted examination of the prisoner, Zendorf, the assistant procureur (he burlesqued an obeisance as the epitome of snobbishness) had tried to impress his uniformed rivals with his intellectual and social superiority.
“You see, my chief is a rough and ready sort of customer. Whatever else he may be, frills and fakes are not in his line. So he went right at it. ‘Speak up,’ he squeaked at the prisoner, ‘speak up, or I’ll have your mouth opened for you.’ So Zendorf called him gently to order and fixed his dignified peepers at the prisoner. He expected to cast some sort of spell over him, I suppose, but it was no go. As to me, I was just choking. As bad luck would have it I took it into my head at that moment that the best way to make that fellow talk would be to have his armpits tickled till he roared. Well, I had to leave the room to have my giggle out.”
Safonoff was indifferent to his sister’s revolutionary ventures because he never vividly realised the danger she incurred. His mind retained the most lifelike impressions, but its sensitiveness was of the photographic kind; it was confined to actual experiences. He had no imagination for the future. He was an easy-going man, incapable of fear. People often arrived at the conclusion that he was “a fool after all.” But then there are fools who are endowed with a keen perception and a lively sense of character.
Speaking of the warden of the jail, Safonoff impersonated a cringing, hand-kissing, crafty time-server. He had never met a convert Jew or convert Pole who was not an adventurer and an all-round knave, he said, and Rodkevitch was the most typical convert Pole he had ever come across. The sight of money took his breath away, gave him the vertigo, made his eyes start from their sockets. Rustle a crisp paper ruble in his ear and he will faint away.
“He’s a candidate for Siberia anyhow and he needs money to pull him out of some of the roguish schemes he is tangled up in. The contractors who furnish his prisoners sand for flour and garbage for potatoes are his partners in some of his outside swindles also. Do you understand, prince?” The question was put with special emphasis, which Pavel interpreted as a direct hint at the possibility of bribing the warden.
It occurred to Boulatoff that Makar’s luggage was quite likely to contain some incriminating papers or other things that might aggravate the case. To fear this in view of Makar’s notorious absent-mindedness was quite reasonable. But this was not all. He had been bent upon making his arrest as important in the eyes of the Third Section as possible, and Pavel was almost certain he had left something in his lodgings on purpose. “You never know what you are at with a crazy, obstinate bull-dog like that,” he thought in a qualm of anxiety.
When Safonoff had gone Pavel wrote a note to his imprisoned friend asking for the address of his lodgings.
“Can you get this to him, and an answer brought back?” he demanded of Mlle. Safonoff in a peremptory tone.
“I think so. My aunt will probably get it through. I am almost sure of it, in fact.”
“There you are. You’re almost sure. Was this enough to let a man put himself in the hands of the Third Section?”