spies on the womenfolk in case they are up to mischief—he’s like a father-in-law.… The other day he went round all the houses ordering us not to sing songs and not to burn lights!”
“Wait a bit,” said the magistrate. “You’ll be given an opportunity to testify later. For the present Prishibeyev may proceed. Proceed, Prishibeyev!”
“Oh yes, sir!” the sergeant croaked. “Your Honor, you’ve been pleased to say it’s not my business to disperse the crowd. Very good, sir. But supposing there is a breach of the peace. You can’t permit people to behave in an unbecoming manner. What law says people can be free? I won’t permit it. If I don’t run after them and punish them, who will? No one here knows anything about law and order, and in the whole village, Your Honor, there’s only me who knows how to deal with the common folk, and, Your Honor, there isn’t anything I don’t know. I’m not a peasant. I’m a non-commissioned officer, a retired quartermaster sergeant! I did my service in Warsaw attached to headquarters, and later on, may it please Your Honor, upon receiving an honorable discharge I was seconded into the fire brigade, and then, seeing as how I was retired from the fire brigade due to infirmities consequent to illness, I served for two years as doorkeeper in a junior high school for boys.… I know all the rules and regulations, sir. Take an ignorant peasant who doesn’t understand anything—he has to do what I tell him to do, because it’s for his own good. Then there’s this little trouble we’re talking about. Well, it is quite true I broke up the crowd, but right there on the shore, lying on the sands, there was a dead body, see. Man drowned. So I says to myself: What right does he have to lie there? What’s right and proper about it? What’s the officer doing there, gaping away? So I address myself to the officer, and I say: ‘You ought to notify the authorities. Maybe the drowned fellow drowned himself, or maybe there’s a smell of Siberia about the business. Maybe it’s a question of criminal homicide.…’ Well, Officer Zhigin didn’t pay any attention to me; he only went on smoking a cigarette. ‘Who’s giving orders here?’ he says. ‘Where does he come from, eh? Don’t we know how to behave without him butting in?’ ‘You’re a damned fool!’ says I. ‘The truth is you don’t know what you’re doing. You just stand there and don’t pay attention to anything.’ Says he: ‘I notified the district police inspector yesterday.’ Why,’ says I, ‘did you notify the district police inspector? Under what article of what code of law? In such cases, when it’s a matter of drowning or hanging or something of the sort, what is the inspector expected to do? Here we have what is properly speaking a criminal matter,’ says I. ‘A matter for the civil courts,’ I says. ‘Best thing you can do is to send an express to His Honor the examining magistrate and the judges. And then,’ says I, ‘before you do anything else, you have to draw up a charge and send it to the justice of the peace.’ And would you believe it, the officer hears me quite well and bursts out laughing. And the peasants laughed, too. They were all laughing, Your Honor. I testify to my aforesaid statement under oath. See that fellow over there—he was laughing. And that fellow, too. And Zhigin. All laughing. ‘So why do you show me the color of your teeth?’ says I. ‘Cases of this sort,’ says the officer, ‘don’t come under the jurisdiction of justices of the peace.’ That made my blood boil. ‘Didn’t you say those very words, Officer?’ ” the sergeant said, turning and confronting Officer Zhigin.
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Of course you did! The whole mob of people heard you. You said: ‘Cases like this don’t come under the jurisdiction of the justices of the peace.…’ Your Honor, my blood boiled! I was stunned. ‘Say that again, you so- and-so,’ says I. ‘Just you repeat it.…’ And so I said to him: ‘How can you bring yourself to say those words about His Honor? You, a police officer, dare to set yourself in opposition to constituted authority? Do you realize,’ says I, ‘that for speaking in that fashion His Honor can have you brought up before the provincial gendarmerie on the grounds of gross misconduct? Do you realize,’ says I, ‘that for those political observations His Honor could have you summarily dismissed?’ And then the village elder interfered and said: ‘His Honor can’t settle anything outside his powers—only minor cases come within his jurisdiction.’ That’s what he said, and everybody heard him. ‘How dare you set the authorities at nought?’ says I. ‘Don’t go playing jokes on me, brother, or you’ll come to grief. Why, when I was at Warsaw and later when I was appointed doorkeeper at the junior high school for boys, as soon as I heard about anything that wasn’t quite proper, I’d take a look down the street and see whether there was a policeman in sight. ‘Come along here, Officer,’ I’d say, and I’d make a full report to him. But here in the village, who does one report to? So my blood was boiling. I was outraged by the way people nowadays assert their rights and commit acts of insubordination. So I belted him—oh, I didn’t use undue force, just a gentle tap, you understand, to remind him not to talk about Your Honor in that way. The officer jumped to the side of the village elder. So, of course, I belted him, too.… That’s how it all began. I was in a rage, Your Honor. It’s understandable. You have to belt people sometimes. If you don’t sometimes belt one of those mugwumps, why, you have a sin on your conscience. Especially when, as it happens, he deserves it, and there’s a disturbance of the public peace.”
“Wait a moment. There are some people charged with the duty of keeping public order. The officer, the patrolman, the village elder …”
“The officer can’t keep an eye on everything. The officer just doesn’t understand things as I do.”
“Does it occur to you that it is none of your business?”
“What’s that, sir? None of my business? Why, that’s a queer thing to say. People can go on a rampage, and it’s none of my business! Am I supposed to pat them on the head? They are complaining because I won’t let them sing songs.… What’s the good of songs? Instead of getting on with something useful, they sing songs. And recently they’ve been sitting up at night, keeping the lights burning. They should be in bed. Instead of that they’re sitting up and talking and joking. I made a report about that.”
“What did you say in the report?”
“They sit up and keep their lights burning.”
Prishibeyev removed a greasy scrap of paper from his pocket, put on his spectacles, and read:
“The following peasants were seen sitting up with the lights on—Ivan Prokhorov, Savva Mikiphorov, Pyotr Petrov. The soldier’s widow Shustrova lives in sin with Semyon Kisslov. Ignat Sverchok practices witchcraft, and his wife Mavra is a witch who goes out milking other people’s cows at night.”
“That will do!” said the judge, and he began to examine the witnesses.
Sergeant Prishibeyev pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and gazed with amazement at the justice of the peace, who plainly was not on his side. The sergeant’s protruding eyes gleamed, and his nose began to turn scarlet. He looked at the judge, at the witnesses, and he could not understand why the judge was so perturbed or why there was so much suppressed laughter, so many whispers coming from all corners of the courtroom. And the verdict, too, was incomprehensible: one month in jail.
“Why? Why?” he asked, flinging out his hands in bewilderment. “What law said so?”
And it was clear to him that the world had changed, and it was utterly impossible for him to go on living. He was oppressed by melancholy thoughts. When he left the courtroom and saw the peasants wandering about and talking about nothing in particular, he drew himself to attention and barked in his hoarse, ill-tempered voice:
“Move along there! Stop crowding! Go on back to your homes!”
