“Who is Fyodor Ivanovitch?”
“Why, Colonel Miller.”
“Yes, it was he.”
“Ah, I understand, Sir”—and he winked to the red-haired man, who showed not the slightest interest. The other did not continue the conversation; seeing that I was not charged as drunk and disorderly, he thought me unworthy of further attention; or perhaps he was afraid to converse with a political prisoner.
A little later, several policemen appeared, rubbing their eyes and only half awake; and finally the petitioners and suitors.
A woman who kept a disorderly house made a complaint against a publican. He had abused her publicly in his shop, using language which she, as a woman, could not venture to repeat before a magistrate. The publican swore he had never used such language; the woman swore that he had used it repeatedly and very loudly, and she added that he had raised his hand against her and would have laid her face open, had she not ducked her head. The shopman said, first, that she owed him money, and, secondly, that she had insulted him in his own shop, nay more, had threatened to kill him by the hands of her bullies.
She was a tall, slatternly woman with swollen eyes; her voice was piercingly loud and high, and she had an extraordinary flow of language. The shopman relied more on gesture and pantomime than on his eloquence.
In the absence of the judge, one of the policemen proved to be a second Solomon. He abused both parties in fine style. “You’re too well off,” he said; “that’s what’s the matter with you; why can’t you stop at home and keep the peace, and be thankful to us for letting you alone? What fools you are! Because you have had a few words you must run at once before His Worship and trouble him! How dare you give yourself airs, my good woman, as if you had never been abused before? Why your very trade can’t be named in decent language!” Here the shopman showed the heartiest approval by his gestures; but his turn came next. “And you, how dare you stand there in your shop and bark like an angry dog? Do you want to be locked up? You use foul language, and raise your fist as well; it’s a sound thrashing you want.”
This scene had the charm of novelty for me; it was the first specimen I had seen of patriarchal justice as administered in Russia, and I have never forgotten it.
The pair went on shouting till the magistrate came in. Without even asking their business, he shouted them down at once. “Get out of this! Do you take this place for a bad house or a gin-shop?” When he had driven out the offenders, he turned on the policeman: “I wonder you are not ashamed to permit such disorder. I have told you again and again. People lose all respect for the place; it will soon be a regular bear-garden for the mob; you are too easy with them.” Then he looked at me and said: