The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

The mayor, to whom Ryzhov had applied for the post of constable, naturally did not ask himself any questions about his ability to take bribes. He probably thought that Ryzhov would be like all the others, and therefore there were no special agreements between them on that score. The mayor took into consideration only his immense height, imposing figure, and the great fame he enjoyed for his strength and tirelessness in walking, which Ryzhov had demonstrated by his carrying the mail on foot. These were all qualities very suitable for the police work Ryzhov was seeking—and he was made the Soligalich constable, while his mother went on baking and selling her pies at that same market where her son was supposed to establish and maintain good order: to watch over the correct weight and the full, shaken-down measure.

The mayor made him only one admonition:

“Beat without crippling and don’t poke your fingers into matters of my concern.”

Ryzhov promised to fulfill that and went into action, but soon began to awaken strange doubts about himself, which started to worry the third person of the state, and put the former Alexashka himself, now Alexander Afanasyevich, through some quite painful ordeals.

From his first day on the job, Ryzhov proved zealous and correct in his duties: coming to the market, he positioned the carts and seated the women with their pies differently, not putting his mother in the best place. Some drunken muzhiks he brought to reason, and some he taught with his powerful hand, but with pleasantness, as nicely as if he were doing them a great favor, and he took nothing for the lesson. On that same day he also turned down an offering from the cabbage women, who came begging to him on a matter of concern, and declared further that on matters of concern there was nothing owing to him from anybody, because for all his matters of concern “the tsar pays him a salary, and God forbids the taking of bribes.”

Ryzhov spent the day well, and the night better still: he patrolled the whole town, and whoever he caught out walking at a late hour, he questioned: where from, where to, and on what necessity? He had a talk with a nice man, even accompanied him and gave him advice, but he boxed the ears of one or two drunkards, and locked up a sentry’s wife who went around putting spells on cows, and in the morning he appeared before the mayor to report that in the sentries he saw nothing but a hindrance to his work.

“They spend their time in idleness,” he said, “and needlessly go about half asleep, pestering people on matters of concern and corrupting themselves. Better remove them from lazy emptiness and send them to Your Excellency to weed the kitchen-garden beds, and I’ll manage everything alone.”

The mayor had no objections to that, and it was quite to the liking of his thrifty wife; only the sentries might not like it, and it was not in accordance with the law; but who thought of asking the sentries, and as for the law … the mayor judged that in a Russian way: “The law is like a horse: wherever you want to go, you turn its head so.” But Alexander Afanasyevich placed highest of all the law:

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,”¹⁰

and from that law it followed that any superfluous “hangers-on” were an unnecessary burden, which had to be unhung and rehung to some other real, “sweaty” work.

And the matter was arranged as Ryzhov indicated, and it was pleasing in the eyes of the ruler and the people, and it turned the hearts of the grateful populace towards Ryzhov. And Ryzhov himself went about town during the day, went about alone at night, and little by little his good managerial supervision began to be felt everywhere, and again this was pleasing in the eyes of all. In short, everything went well and promised imperturbable peace, but that was just the trouble: if folks don’t heat up, generals don’t eat up—there was nothing of concern from anywhere, and apart from weeding the kitchen garden, there was no profit for the ruler, neither big, nor medium, nor small.

The mayor became roused in spirit. He looked into the matter, saw that it was impossible like that, and raised up a bitter persecution against Ryzhov.

He asked the archpriest to find out whether there was not in the “concernless” Ryzhov some sort of unorthodoxy, but the archpriest replied that he did not perceive any obvious unorthodoxy in Ryzhov, but noticed only a certain pride, proceeding, of course, from the fact that his mother baked pies and gave some to him.

“I advise putting a stop to this trade, improper for her now on account of her son, and his boundless pride will then be done away with, and he will become concerned.”

“I’ll put a stop to it,” replied the mayor, and he told Ryzhov: “It’s not fitting for your mother to sit in the market.”

“Very well,” Ryzhov replied, and he took his mother with her trays from the market, but kept up the same reprehensible behavior as before—he did not become concerned.