by Boris Akunin
“But just how is it kept warm, this climate of yours?” the governor asked, struggling to understand.
“One has to cultivate and foster the dignity in people. So that people will respect themselves and other people. A man who understands dignity will not steal, act meanly, or live by deceit—that will seem dishonorable to him.”
This almost made the baron feel disillusioned in the bishop and dismiss him as a hopeless case.
“Ah, but you are an idealist, Your Grace. We are in Russia, not Switzerland. How long is it since peasants were sold here by the head, like cattle? Where are you going to find dignity here? It takes centuries for such a tender plant to grow.”
Mitrofanii, who was younger at the time and therefore had a weakness for verbal theatrics, replied with a curt, didactic phrase, in the manner of the ancients.
“Legality, satiety, education. And nothing more, my good sir” (at that time he would still occasionally employ such apostrophes for rhetoric purposes).
“Ah, Your Grace, look how hard I struggle in the cause of legality, and what comes of it! No one, high or low, wishes to live according to the law.”
“And they will not want to. People only follow those laws that are rational and beneficial to the majority. A wise legislator is like an experienced gardener in a public park. When he has sown the lawns, he does not lay the paths immediately; he waits first to see which route people find it most convenient to follow—and that is the one he paves. So that afterward people will not trample their own paths through the grass.”
“Those are the wise laws,” said Anton Antonovich, lowering his voice in order to speak sedition. “But here in Russia we have all sorts of laws. You and I do not invent them; there are higher authorities for that. But I am the one charged with ensuring the observance of these laws.”
The bishop smiled.
“There is the law of God and the law of man. And only those human laws should be observed that do not contradict the laws of God.”
The governor only shrugged.
“I beg your pardon, but that I cannot understand. As you know, I am German. For me the law is the law.”
“That is why I am appointed to guide you,” Mitrofanii told the uncomprehending governor amiably. “You ask me, my dear sir, which law is from God and which from the devil. I will explain.”
And he did explain, only this explanation took not just an hour, or even two, but a great deal longer, and in time long conversations with His Grace became something of a habit for the young official….
THE CONVERSATIONS OF HIS GRACE MITROFANII
A brief interpolation
For those who are following our tale only in order to discover how it concludes, and who have no interest in the history of our region, it is permissible to omit this brief section completely. No damage will be caused to the elegant line of the narrative as a result. Here we adduce no more than brief excerpts from some of the intellectual dialogues between the bishop and the governor (only three, in fact, although there were many more than that), for these conversations had the most decisive consequences for Zavolzhie. At the same time, in the commentaries that follow each of the conversations, we shall indicate in brief which of these idealistic teachings were put into effect, and which were not.
On the pecuniary greed of officials
“Do you agree, my son, that no ruler, no matter how well-intentioned, can implement his beneficial ideas unless he possesses a sound and reliable set of tools in the form of capable and honest assistants, those self-same tools that in your bureaucratic dialect are referred to as ‘personnel’?”
“I entirely agree.”
“And what is to be done if this personnel is mired in base greed?”
“I do not know, father, that is why I have come to you. But the main problem is that all the officials are like that and there is nowhere to get any others from.”
“What do you mean, nowhere? In part you can invite high-minded individuals from St. Petersburg, and they will come, because they wish to apply their knowledge and convictions in practice. And honest officials can be found here; it is simply that at present they have no chance of advancement.”
“How am I to identify these honest men if they are not in open view?”
“I have been here for several years now, I know which men are worth something, and I will name them. But that is only a quarter of the job, because any man is corrupted by power if the wrong practices are established. And for the most part bureaucrats take to extorting money from people, not out of their own innate viciousness, but because that is the established practice, and if anyone does not extort, then he is regarded with suspicion by his superiors and his subordinates.”
“But how can the correct practices be established so that extortion becomes unfashionable?”
“Are you familiar, my son, with the saying according to which a fish rots from the head? This actually is the case, and medicine also affirms that all illnesses start in the head. To which I can add that in the reverse case the recovery of a sick person starts in the head. Before anyone can start to get better, he must wish to recover and believe in his own recovery.”
“But where should I begin? The most important thing here is to make a good beginning!”
“Choose yourself honest and efficient people to be your closest aides: the vice-governor, the manager of state property, the heads of the excise and provincial administrations, and also the chairmen of the chambers of justice, supervision, and the treasury. And, of course, the top people in the police, that is absolutely essential. For a start, that will be enough. We have already talked about where to find the people; we can find a dozen or so who will suit from around the province and across Russia. And the very first thing to do is to conclude a covenant among yourselves: We are not harnessing ourselves to this carriage in order to enrich ourselves, but in order to get things done. And if anyone feels that he has a weak spot, let him leave, or at least not take offense if he is asked to leave. Let every one of your close colleagues make a public declaration of his property and henceforth not conceal his income or his expenditures from anyone. In general, Anton Antonovich, I hold fast to the hope that Russia’s salvation will not come from its capital cities, but from its provinces. This also follows from common sense. It is easier to establish order in a single room than in an entire house, easier in one house than in an entire street, easier in one street than in an entire town, and easier in one town than in an entire country.”
“All right, then, let us assume that the head is honest, but lower down, what about lower down? I shall be delivering beautiful flowery speeches to my circle of friends, and we shall start admiring one another because we are so proud and incorruptible, and all through the province the bribe-takers will continue to run amok, just as they always have done. You cannot catch everyone in the act and hand them over for trial.”
“You don’t need to catch the thieves; you need to act so that the thieves do not appear in the first place.”
“That’s easy to say!”
“And not so difficult to do. Let your closest assistants, each of whom is responsible for an important area of activity, select his own deputies according to the same method—those who agree to accept the covenant. Here it is possible to leave some of the present officials in place, even if they have taken bribes, only not out of cupidity or malice, but because that has been the custom since olden times. And as for the most rabid extortioners and reprobates—whom I know, and you also know—of course, they should be handed over to the court and judged with all severity, that is absolutely essential.”
“Very well, let us assume that my deputies do not steal and neither do their deputies, then what?”
“Then this. It is called psychology, Anton Antonovich. The man at the top has nothing but his salary; he does not take bribes because he is afraid or feels ashamed. But his subordinate rides around in a carriage and four and his wife orders fine outfits from Paris. Will any normal man stand for that? Never. An
d his wife will not allow him to, because she has no outfits from Paris, while the wife of his subordinate Ivan Ivanovich does. And the boss will apply pressure to Ivan Ivanovich and tell him: You either live like I do, brother, or get out of the job. Ivan Ivanovich, if he stays on in the job after that, will start looking daggers at his bribe-taking subordinate Pyotr Petrovich, although formerly he connived with him and protected him. Why should Pyotr Petrovich have what he does not? And so on all the way down from the top to the very bottom of the pyramid. You will be amazed at how quickly our official will develop the habit of austerity and learn to love righteousness.”
Commentary. That, of course, was not the way things turned out, although Anton Antonovich invested a lot of time and effort in the construction of this ideal pyramid. Well, people are only people. Although Christ told us to love all alike, that is something of which only the holy hermits are capable, but ordinary mortals have friends and relatives—and one good turn always deserves another. There has never been an entirely just and impartial bureaucracy, and one did not take root in Zavolzhie, either. In these parts, too, people “look after their own” and oppress their enemies when they get the chance, and scratch the back of the person who has scratched theirs.
But at the same time it could not be said that His Grace’s theory proved a total failure. The national tradition, universal and even hallowed in Russia, of the “sealed envelope” fell into total desuetude here, although it was replaced in part by Gogol’s notorious “borzoi pups,” which are less easily detectable and yet still, let us agree, represent undoubted progress by comparison with the taking of direct bribes. Such direct bribes, and even more so extortion, came to be considered shameful by the Zavolzhie bureaucracy, which is to say that the “incorrect practices” of which the bishop spoke were changed after all. So that, although the kingdom of justice was not established and total equality of all before the law was also not achieved, shameless abuses, while not disappearing totally, were certainly greatly reduced. And until very recently our police also had the reputation of being honest, and the courts, too, and even the excise department, which is something that might have seemed quite impossible anywhere at all. But the matter of taxes forms the subject of the next conversation.
On obedience to the law
“Your Grace, I have thought a great deal about our previous conversation, and I cannot help but feel concerned about the following. You say that a fish rots from the head and that healing should also start from the head. That sounds reasonable, but in my opinion, the social order is less reminiscent of a fish than of a building of some kind.”
“Truly that is so.”
“But if that is so, will a house turn out well if it is built from the crown downward?”
“It will turn out badly, my son, and I am very glad that you have reached this conclusion yourself, without any prompting from me. With nothing but personnel, no matter how wonderful they might be, you can never make the crooked straight. The majority have to want the same thing that you want, and then your efforts and those of your aides will not encounter resistance, but support.”
“But what each man wants differs, and each man’s advantage is different. Many people, very many, find it more convenient and less trouble to carry on living as they do now—obeying the right people instead of the legal authorities. That makes things simpler and cheaper for both the merchants and the tradesmen, and for the factory owners, and for the general population. How can you change all of their minds? They will never listen.”
“One need not try to change their minds. Here in Russia no one has any faith in words, especially if they come from the top. The foundation of a sound social order, my son, consists in voluntary observance of the law.”
“Oh, Your Grace! What are you talking about? What voluntary observance of the law can there possibly be in Russia?”
“Why, the same as there is in this Switzerland that is so dear to your heart!”
“Please, father, do not be angry, only I would prefer us not to talk about ideal schemes, but about steps that can have practical consequences.”
“That is the subject of my exposition. Voluntary observance of a law is not a consequence of the advanced social consciousness of the average citizen, it is merely a sign of the fact that it is in people’s interest to keep this law rather than to break it. And if you think about it for a moment, you will see that in Russia it is by no means all the laws that are broken, but only certain of them. Is that not the case?”
“I suppose it is. Before the abolition of the state monopoly trade in vodka, many people distilled homebrew and sold it secretly, but now there is none of that. However, one area in which nine out of ten Russians are crooked is the payment of taxes and duties. You cannot argue about that, father.”
“Of course I cannot, my son, but I can tell you that you have unerringly defined the very source of this sickness known as lawlessness. Murderers are isolated individuals, and there are not many thieves, either, but no one wishes to pay all of the countless levies, duties, and taxes, many of which are both absurd and exorbitant. This is what causes all the harm: the bribery and corruption, the impoverishment of the treasury, and the appearance of these so-called right people against whom neither you nor your predecessors have ever been able to bring effective justice to bear. And the very worst harm of all is caused by the fact that, as you so rightly remarked, nine people out of ten feel themselves to be lawbreakers. This signifies that they feel the law is not there to protect them but to frighten them, and they themselves are not respectable members of society but petty thieves who can be called to account at any moment by the courts and the police. This is where the right people draw their support: They know precisely how much everyone has failed to pay the treasury. They charge less for their knowledge than the state takes, and they protect the transgressors from the servants of the law. And so it comes about that our society consists entirely of petty thieves who are governed by bandits. Is a man going to have any respect for himself when he knows that he is a thief and giver of bribes? No, Anton Antonovich, he is not, neither for himself nor for the laws.”
“But there is nothing one can do about this!”
“I hear despair in your voice, but it is entirely unfounded. What needs to be done is the following: For every taxpayer, no matter who he is, establish a single tax, not too great, which is known in advance and collectable immediately from all payments, deliveries, transactions, and income. And this tribute must not exceed one tenth part, because the holy church has tested this since ancient times and learned from its own rich experience that a man will agree to pay a tenth part of his wealth, but no more, not even out of fear of our Father in Heaven. And this means that there is no point in tempting him. Let him pay you his tenth part. If a man is poor and barely has ten rubles a month, take a ruble from him, and if someone earns a million, take a hundred thousand from him, but such a man should be given special thanks and respect, because the state is founded on his enterprising spirit and thrift.”
“All this is very fine, but it is not the governor who sets the taxes and duties. You know perfectly well, Your Grace, that the rates at which all kinds of duties are levied are determined in St. Petersburg, and I am powerless to change them. For that they will throw me out of my job and take me to court.”
“They will not take you to court. Because you will go to St. Petersburg and conclude an agreement with the government. Never once has it happened that the province of Zavolzhie paid all its prescribed taxes to the treasury in full, because the people here avoid paying and try not to pay anything at all. Nothing but shortfalls in these parts, just as in most of the other provinces. But you will guarantee them that you will return the prescribed sum on time, only you will collect it in your own way, and explain to them exactly how, so that they don’t see you as a tax farmer. And I for my part will vouch for you and explain to those who need to know exactly what your idea consists of. They will agree, because it is in the treasury’s direct intere
st. They will want to try it in one insignificant province that is always in arrears, to see what might come of this experiment. Note also, my son, that as a result of this experiment you rid yourself at a stroke of the right people and most of the bribe-takers. Nobody will pay them any money, because it will be more profitable and safer to pay the state its due, and then demand protection by the law. Our Zavolzhie bandits will be left without any support from below, and your police will press them from above, because it will no longer be corrupt, as it used to be, but honest.”
Commentary. In this case everything came about exactly as described, even exceeding what His Grace had promised. The bandits in the forests and the towns were all quickly caught, because this is not Moscow or Petersburg and what sort of man you are is well known to everyone. Of the right people, some moved to other provinces, some set out for penal servitude, and the cleverest ones kept their heads down and went in for some permitted form of trading or other legal business. The most remarkable thing is that after the establishment of a unified tax, for some reason all sorts of other crimes became much less frequent. Perhaps this was because the Zavolzhians all suddenly started putting on airs and became more grave in their speech, their actions, and even their movements? The number of bureaucrats we have here decreased somewhat, because many of those who collected, verified, and supervised became unnecessary, and an entire multitude of merchants and industrialists moved in from other provinces—they thought they saw an advantage in living in Zavolzhie and conducting their business here. Money appeared in the provincial treasury, so that in recent years a lot of new houses have been built, as well as hospitals and schools and roads, and we have even begun thinking about our own theater.
