“We had him there,” said the inspector to me, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. “What a mean shabby fellow he is!”
§8
This inspector belonged to a distinct class of officials, who are half soldiers and half civilians. They are men who, while serving in the Army, have been lucky enough to run upon a bayonet or stop a bullet, and have therefore been rewarded with positions in the police service. Military life has given them an air of frankness; they have learned some phrases about the point of honour and some terms of ridicule for humble civilians. The youngest of them have read Marlinski and Zagóskin,[[83]] and can repeat the beginning of The Prisoner of the Caucasus,[[84]] and they like to quote the verses they know. For instance, whenever they find a friend smoking, they invariably say:
“The amber smoked between his teeth.”[[85]]
[83]. Popular novelists of the “patriotic” school, now forgotten.
[84]. A poem by Púshkin.
[85]. The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, I. 2.
They are one and all deeply convinced, and let you know their conviction with emphasis, that their position is far below their merits, and that poverty alone keeps them down; but for their wounds and want of money, they would have been generals-in-waiting or commanders of army-corps. Each of them can point to some comrade-in-arms who has risen to the top of the tree. “You see what Kreutz is now,” he says; “well, we two were gazetted together on the same day and lived in barracks like brothers, on the most familiar terms. But I’m not a German, and I had no kind of interest; so here I sit, a mere policeman. But you understand that such a position is distasteful to anyone with the feelings of a gentleman.”
Their wives are even more discontented. These poor sufferers travel to Moscow once a year, where their real business is to deposit their little savings in the bank, though they pretend that a sick mother or aunt wishes to see them for the last time.
And so this life goes on for fifteen years. The husband, railing at fortune, flogs his men and uses his fists to the shopkeepers, curries favour with the Governor, helps thieves to get off, steals State papers, and repeats verses from The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.[[86]] The wife, railing at fortune and provincial life, takes all she can lay her hands on, robs petitioners, cheats tradesmen, and has a sentimental weakness for moonlight nights.