“An assistant ... of the director of the governor’s office—”
“What’s his name?”
“The director’s?”
“No, the assistant’s.”
“His name is ... Ulyashevitch. He is a very honest man, your excellency. As soon as I heard of the affair, I hastened to tell you.”
“Yes, yes. I am very grateful to you indeed. But what utter madness! downright madness! Don’t you think so, Mr. Paklin?”
“Utter madness!” Paklin exclaimed, while the perspiration rolled down his back in a hot stream, “it just shows,” he continued, “the folly of not understanding the peasant. Mr. Markelov, so far as I know him, has a very kind and generous heart, but he has no conception of what the Russian peasant is really like.” (Paklin glanced at Sipiagin who sat slightly turned towards him, gazing at him with a cold, though not unfriendly, light in his eyes.) “The Russian peasant can never be induced to revolt except by taking advantage of that devotion of his to some high authority, some tsar. Some sort of legend must be invented—you remember Dmitrius the pretender—some sort of royal sign must be shown him, branded on the breast.”
“Just like Pugatchev,” Sipiagin interrupted him in a tone of voice which seemed to imply that he had not yet forgotten his history and that it was really not necessary for Paklin to go on. “What madness! what madness!” he added, and became wrapped in the contemplation of the rings of smoke as they rose quickly one after another from the end of his cigar.
“Your excellency,” Paklin began apologetically, “I have just said that I didn’t smoke ... but it was not true. I do smoke and your cigar smells so nice—”
“Eh? What?” Sipiagin asked as if waking up; and without giving Paklin time to repeat his request, he proved in the most unmistakable manner that he had heard every word, and had merely asked his questions for the sake of dignity, by offering him his cigar-case.