The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

Under the same oak, over the same swamp where Ryzhov had cried out in the words of Isaiah, “Woe to the mighty,” he finally received the spirit which gave him the thought of becoming mighty himself, in order to shame the mightiest. And he accepted this consecration and carried it along all of his nearly hundred-year path till the grave, never once stumbling, never going lame either in the right knee, or in the left.

Enough examples await us further on of his astonishing strength, stifled in narrowness, and at the end of the story an unexpected act of daring fearlessness, which crowned him, like a knight, with a knightly reward.

III

In that far-off time which the story I am passing on about Ryzhov goes back to, the most important person in every small Russian town was the mayor. It has been said more than once and disputed by no one that, in the understanding of many Russian people, every mayor was “the third person of the state.” From its primary source—the monarch—state power in the popular notion ramifies like this: the first person in the state is the sovereign, who rules over the whole state; second after him is the governor, who rules over a province; and then, right after the governor, immediately follows the third—the mayor, who “sits over a town.” There were no district police chiefs then, and therefore no opinion was offered about them in this division of powers. However, it remained that way later on as well: the police chief was a traveling man, and he whipped only country people, who then still had no independent notion of hierarchy, and no matter who whipped them, twitched their legs in the same way.

The introduction of new legal institutions, limiting the former theocratic omnipotence of local administrators, has spoiled all that, especially in the towns, where it has contributed significantly to the decline not only of the mayor’s, but even of the governor’s prestige, which can no longer be raised to its former heights—at least for the mayor, whose high authority has been replaced by innovation.

But back then, when “Singlemind” pondered and decided his fate, all this was still in its well-established order. Governors sat in their centers like little kings: access to them was difficult, and appearing before them was “attended by fear”; they aimed at being rude to everybody, everybody bowed down before them, and some, in their zeal, even bowed very low; archpriests “came forth to meet” them with crosses and holy water at the entrances to churches, and the second-rate nobility honored them with expressions of base fawning and barely dared, in the persons of a few of their chosen representatives, to ask them to “stand godfather at the font.” And even when they agreed to condescend to such a favor, they behaved in kingly fashion: they did not come to the baptism themselves, but in their place sent special envoys or adjutants, who drove up with the “trappings” and accepted the honor “in the person of the sender.” Back then everything was majestic, dignified, and earnest, as befitted that good and earnest time, often contrasted with our present time, which is neither good nor earnest.

Ryzhov came upon an excellent line of approach to the source of local power and, without leaving his native Soligalich, of stepping onto the fourth rung in the state: the old police constable died in Soligalich, and Ryzhov thought of asking for his post.

IV

The post of police constable, though not a very high one, despite the fact that it constituted the first rung below the mayor, was nevertheless rather advantageous, if only the man who filled it was good at filching a piece of firewood, a couple of turnips, or a head of cabbage from every cart; but if he wasn’t, things were bad for him, because the official salary for this fourth officer of the state amounted to ten roubles a month in banknotes, which is about two roubles and eighty-five kopecks by today’s rates. On this the fourth person of the state was supposed to maintain himself and his family decently, but since that was impossible, every constable “tacked on” from those who turned to him for some “matter of concern.” Without this “tacking on” it was impossible to get by, and even the Voltaireans themselves did not rise up against it.⁹ No one ever thought of a “non-taking” constable, and therefore, since all constables took, Ryzhov also had to take. The authorities themselves could not wish for or tolerate his spoiling of the official line. Of that there could be no doubt, and there could be no talk of it.