iting the doctors also took bribes, and the municipal doctor and
the veterinary surgeon levied taxes on the butcher shops and public
houses; the district school did a trade in certificates which gave
certain privileges in the civil service; the provosts took bribes from
the clergy and church-wardens whom they controlled, and on the town
council and various committees every one who came before them was
pursued with: "One expects thanks!"--and thereby forty copecks had to
change hands. And those who did not take bribes, like the High Court
officials, were stiff and proud, and shook hands with two fingers, and
were distinguished by their indifference and narrow-mindedness. They
drank and played cards, married rich women, and always had a bad,
insidious influence on those round them. Only the girls had any moral
purity; most of them had lofty aspirations and were pure and honest at
heart; but they knew nothing of life, and believed that bribes were
given to honour spiritual qualities; and when they married, they soon
grew old and weak, and were hopelessly lost in the mire of that vulgar,
bourgeois existence.

III

A railway was being built in our district. On holidays and thereabouts
the town was filled with crowds of ragamuffins called "railies," of whom
the people were afraid. I used often to see a miserable wretch with a
bloody face, and without a hat, being dragged off by the police, and
behind him was the proof of his crime, a samovar or some wet, newly
washed linen. The "railies" used to collect near the public houses and
on the squares; and they drank, ate, and swore terribly, and whistled
after the town prostitutes. To amuse these ruffians our shopkeepers used
to make the cats and dogs drink vodka, or tie a kerosene-tin to a dog's
tail, and whistle to make the dog come tearing along the street with the
tin clattering after him, and making him squeal with terror and think he
had some frightful monster hard at his heels, so that he would rush out
of the town and over the fields until he could run no more. We had
several dogs in the town which were left with a permanent shiver and
used to crawl about with their tails between their legs, and people said
that they could not stand such tricks and had gone mad.

The station was being built five miles from the town. It was said that
the engineer had asked for a bribe of fifty thousand roubles to bring
the station nearer, but the municipality would only agree to forty; t