An Austrian relative went home after spending two weeks with us and raved in all the salons about the “unfathomable soul of the Russian people.”
She had met two Russians: the excise officer who came at regular intervals to check on the brewery, and the judge from the closest county seat. For us, neither the excise officer, Alexander Tichonovitch, nor Judge Vladimir Stepanovitch was in the least unfathomable; nor in the matter of their souls was there much to remark. Alexander Tichonovitch always announced his arrival the day before – it would have been unpleasant for all if he had had to discover an irregularity in the brewery.
“Is there enough Astchistchinoye (vodka)?” asked my husband hanging up the telephone receiver. “Alexander Tichonovitch is coming tomorrow.”
He drove up in the forenoon. Hearty greetings all around; I sputtered a few words in broken Russian and led him to breakfast in the dining-room.
His little eyes shone as they glanced over the table. He sat down and drank clear, colourless spirits out of a water glass. As far as the effect was concerned, he might just as well have drunk water. He spent two hours in this way. Then he went with me to the paddock; he was a great horse fancier.
At luncheon he again drank quantities, and over coffee poured down one liqueur after another. His grey face did not become in the least flushed;
he only talked a little more volubly, and his little grey eyes had a moist gleam. At last, at about five o’clock he said lazily: “Really I must go to the brewery now, but I’ll be back for tea.”
I looked at him affectionately. “Alexander Tichonovitch, I should so like to make schnapps, but I haven’t any alcohol.”
“Ah, what a good Hausfrau!” he cried enthusiastically. “What a dear, noble soul, always thinking of her guests! She shall make schnapps, the dear Baroness, she shall indeed.”
And so, although it was strictly forbidden to take alcohol from the brewery, he came back from his inspection with three enormous bottles of “ninety degrees.” Sometimes he came back from the brewery with a wrinkled brow and a troubled expression on his face. On such occasions, my husband would tell me in the evening: “Poor Alexander Tichonovitch, he again has so many worries. His wife is not well, and his son’s education costs so much. He told me all about his troubles.”
In our brewery everything was always in order.
Vladimir Stepanovitch was a different type, tall and thin with the face of a hungry wolf. He came every year for a week to go hunting; it was advisable, in order to be prepared for any eventuality, to be sure to stay on good terms with him. As a passionate Russian he actually hated Germans, but he loved hunting more than anything. He was an exceptionally fine shot, and no wonder, for he was invited to hunt on all the estates in the neighbourhood.
It was not altogether impossible to touch his judicial heart; you had only to find the right “words.” How my rather taciturn husband managed to do this, I once saw for myself. We were at the horse fair at Fellin and were just about to have dinner when my husband was called to the telephone. He came back half laughing; yet at the same time irritated: “Can you imagine, Kubias Tönnison (the foreman) is being sent to Siberia!”
“What? Why?”
“Yes, our estate manager just telephoned. The uriadnik has reported Tönnison. Yesterday when they were weeding in the potato field Tönnison said to the workers: ‘Do your work well. There will be war next year with the Germans, and then we’ll have a revolution, and the land will belong to us.’ Today the gendarmes came and took Kubias to O. Tomorrow morning he will be sent on.”
“The uriadnik only did that because Tönnison stole his girlfriend from him. What are you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
“But poor Tönnison!”
“Poor Tönnison is a rotten apple, and if he says things like that he has it coming to him.”
There was no getting around my husband with sentimental arguments;
the only way to reach him was through his feudal feelings and his strong sense of being German.
“But you are not going to let that miserable uriadnik take away one of your best workers! It was an impudence on his part to go ahead with this without first informing you.”
“That is true.”
“And surely you’re not going to let a miserable Russian judge tell you how to manage the estate. All this is a lot less about Tönnison than about your authority.”
My husband got up. “I am going to telephone Vladimir Stepanovitch.”
He was angry when he came back. “Impossible to get anywhere with that stupid fool. He says we can’t talk about such serious matters over the telephone.”
“You see how that Russian is snapping his fingers at you.”
My husband laughed: “I know very well what your aim is. I don’t care about Kubias, but I won’t let Vladimir Stepanovitch get the better of me.
Tönnison is to be taken away at four in the morning. We just have time. Get changed, quickly. We are going to O.”
The last train had left long before; we made the first part of the trip with our own horses, the last by post-coach. It was pouring cats and dogs, a howling autumn wind was blowing. The post-coach rocked from side to side on the road like a ship in rough seas, but I was too worked up to notice it.
“Tell him we won’t invite him to hunt again if he doesn’t release Kubias.”
“That won’t be enough.”
“I’ll chip in two hundred rubles myself.”
“It will cost five.”
“All right. I’ll pay half.”
At four o’clock in the morning we arrived in O. Vladimir Stepanovitch was awakened, and disappeared into his study with my husband.
Half an hour later the two men emerged, looking very pleased.
“An unfortunate error, Germinia Viktorovna,” said the judge amiably.
“I’m so sorry you have had to make this long journey in the middle of the night. The uriadnik lied to me shamefully. He shall hear from me; it’s unpardonable to arrest an innocent man.”
He turned to my husband.
“Tönnison can go back with you, if you like.” We shook hands with the judge.
“Come to our place next week for some hunting, Vladimir Stepanovitch,”
I said affably. “We haven’t seen you in such a long time.”
“Thank you. With pleasure.”
When the carriage at last got under way with the liberated Tönnison on the box, my husband made a face: “These fellows are getting to be absolutely shameless. That little joke cost me seven hundred. But I’ll be taking Tönnison in hand myself now.”
The one who came off worst in the whole affair was the uriadnik. Three days later, as punishment for his bare-faced lie he was transferred to a less desirable post. In his place came a fat friendly man whose age was a safeguard against any mix-up with women, and who was interested only in crimes against property.
Not all functionaries made as high demands as Vladimir Stepanovitch – sometimes one got off for very little. Once, coming home from Reval, I sat alone smoking in a “non-smoking” compartment. A conductor appeared, called my attention to the “no smoking” sign and went away.
After a little while, assuming that he would not come back, I lighted another cigarette, only to be caught again by the conductor. This time he spoke more sternly and said something about a fine.
He came back a third time and found me again with a lighted cigarette.
Very dignified, raising himself to his full height, every inch the inexorable tchinovnik, he closed the door behind him and came over to me. “It is forbidden …”
The devil got into me. I held out my cigarette case to him: “Do you smoke?”
The conductor was speechless. Words stuck in his throat. But a moment later he was sitting opposite me, grinning, and praising the quality of my cigarettes. In the course of the ten-hour train ride, he came many times to my compartment and smoked my cigarettes. “So long as I am here,” he declared, “you will not get into trouble for smoking.”