Fathers and Sons

he town of ----, whither our friends now proceeded, lay under the dominion of one of those young, progressive, despotic provincial governors who afflict Russia in an unending sequence. As early as the first year of his rule this particular potentate had succeeded in quarrelling, not only with the President of the Provincial Council (who was a retired staff officer, a horse breeder, and an agriculturist), but also with his whole gubernatorial staff of tchinovniks: with the result that at the time of our story the commotion therefrom had attained a pitch which had just necessitated the sending down of a commissary empowered to hold an investigation. The Government's choice for this purpose had fallen upon Matvei Ilyitch Koliazin, the son of the Koliazin who had once acted as guardian to the brothers Kirsanov, and a man of the younger school--that is to say, a man who, though a little over forty, still aimed at attaining the dignity of a statesman, and having a breast covered with stars (including at least one of a foreign minor order), and who, also like the Governor whom he had come to examine, was accounted a Progressive, and held a high opinion of himself. Yet never did Matvei allow his boundless vanity to prevent him from affecting a stereotyped air of simplicity and good humour, or from listening indulgently to anything that might be said to him, or from cultivating so pleasant a laugh that everywhere he contrived to pass for "not a bad sort of a fellow." True, he could on important occasions (if I may quote the trite saying) "make dust fly" ("Energy is indispensable for a State worker," was a frequent saw of his--"L'énergie est la première qualité d'un homme d'état"); yet almost invariably did he end by being set down as a fool, while tchinovniks of more experience rode roughshod over him. Amongst other things, he had a custom of expressing a great respect for Guizot,[1] and also of striving to convince every one that he (Koliazin) was not one of "your men of routine, your retired bureaucrats," but, rather, a man who noted "every new and more important phenomenon of our social life." In fact, such phrases he had at his finger ends, and also he studied (though with a sort of careless pomposity only) the development of contemporary literature. Lastly, it not seldom befell that, on meeting a street procession of students, he would, though maturer of years than the majority of its members, add himself to its ranks. In short, only his circumstances and his epoch caused Matvei Ilyitch in any way to differ from those officials of the Alexandrine period who, before setting out to attend a reception at Madame Svietchin's[2] (then resident in St. Petersburg), would read a few pages of Condillac's[3] works. Yet, though an adroit courtier, Matvei was a mere glittering fraud, since, save that he knew how to hold his own against all comers (though, certainly, that is a great achievement in life), he was, in all matters of State, a complete stranger to common sense.