The ball was a dull, ill-arranged affair, both mean and motley, as balls always are in small towns on great occasions. The police-officers bustled up and down; the officials, in full uniform, squeezed up against the walls; the ladies crowded round the Prince, just as savages mob a traveller from Europe.
Apropos of the ladies, I may tell a story. One of the towns offered a “collation” after their exhibition. The Prince partook of nothing but a single peach; when he had eaten it, he threw the stone out of the window. Suddenly a tall figure emerged from the crowd of officials standing outside the building; it was a certain rural judge, well known for his irregular habits; he walked deliberately up to the window, picked up the stone, and put it in his pocket. When the collation was over, he went up to one of the important ladies and offered her the stone; she was charmed to get such a treasure. Then he went to several other ladies and made them happy in the same way. He had bought five peaches and cut out the stones. Not one of the six ladies could ever be sure of the authenticity of her prize.
§6
When the Prince had gone, the Governor prepared with a heavy heart to exchange his satrapy for a place on the bench of the Supreme Court at home; but he was not so fortunate as that.
Three weeks later the post brought documents from Petersburg addressed to “The Acting Governor of the Province.” Our office was a scene of confusion; officials came and went; we heard that an edict had been received, but the Governor pretended illness and kept his house.
An hour later we heard that Tufáyev had been dismissed from his office; and that was all that the edict said about him.
The whole town rejoiced over his fall. While he ruled, the atmosphere was impure, stale, and stifling; now one could breathe more freely. And yet it was hateful to see the triumph of his subordinates. Asses in plenty raised their heels against this stricken wild-boar. To compare small things with great, the meanness of mankind was shown as clearly then as when Napoleon fell. Between Tufáyev and me there had been an open breach for a long time; and if he had not been turned out himself, he would certainly have sent me to some frontier town like Kai. I had therefore no reason to change my behaviour towards him; but others, who only the day before had pulled off their hats at the sight of his carriage and run at his nod, who had smiled at his spaniel and offered their snuffboxes to his valet—these same men now would hardly salute him and made the whole town ring with their protests against the irregularities which he had committed and they had shared in. All this is an old story and repeats itself so regularly from age to age, in all places, that we must accept this form of baseness as a universal trait of human nature, and, at all events, not be surprised by it.
§7
His successor, Kornilov, soon made his appearance. He was a very different sort of person—a man of about fifty, tall and stout, rather flabby in appearance, but with an agreeable smile and gentlemanly manners. He formed all his sentences with strict grammatical accuracy and used a great number of words; in fact, he spoke with a clearness which was capable, by its copiousness, of obscuring the simplest topic. He had been at school with Púshkin and had served in the Guards; he bought all the new French books, liked to talk on serious topics, and gave me a copy of Tocqueville’s[[112]] Democracy in America the day after he arrived at Vyatka.
[112]. Alexis de Tocqueville, a French statesman and publicist (1805-1859).