And--with all of them--I would, without any effort, just by
instinct, get on their feeble side, change the whole expression of my
face,--even think like them, and love them,--and win. The instinct of
accommodation is a great thing,--and, it seems to me I possess it in
sufficient volume.
So--accepted in the ranks of those that go wherever they wish, that
do whatever their left foot feels like doing, those that continue to
remodel the country, those that are so free in every action--I sat
near the powerful man,--Comrade Nachman--as equal to equal.
But--what I really could not conceive,--was the range of his duties;
he was judge, and governor, and military commander, and lawyer, and
coroner, and administrator of the city, and the notary public--all
that used to be connected with business--was his concern.... They
could not do it in the olden days; they had to have a specially
trained man for every branch before,--and now!
"How perfectly you perform all of these different duties," I said.
42
I am a jailer; I guess the first in our family.
Together with Comrade Adolf Pashinsky,--a Pole from the dreadnaught
"Andrey Pervozvanny,"--I am walking on the Great Liberty Street,
and inside of the fence, watching the prisoners in the Mansion, and
watching to see that _supreme justice_--the will of the people--be
done.
My companion--is a muscular man of thirty, without front teeth; his
thin lips are always curved in a bad smile; his brain is such that
he cannot think and speak of anything that would not be vulgar and
vicious.
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