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Updated: May 1, 2025
Nevertheless every youth aspired to be a chinovnik, because then you could retire early with a pension. Many men had lately returned from America with pockets full of cash. They preached that the duty of a government was to make "jobs." They used the English word, and their audience had not the least idea what "jobs" meant, except that it was a highly desirable something which brought in money.
Here man's ideals had found their fulfillment: no Tsar, no Cossack, no CHINOVNIK. The Republic! Glorious synonym of equality, freedom, brotherhood. Thus thought the two girls as they travelled, in the year 1886, from New York to Rochester. Soon, all too soon, disillusionment awaited them. The ideal conception of America was punctured already at Castle Garden, and soon burst like a soap bubble.
And what bitter disappointment followed as the young idealist began to familiarize herself with the conditions in the new land! Instead of one Tsar, she found scores of them; the Cossack was replaced by the policeman with the heavy club, and instead of the Russian CHINOVNIK there was the far more inhuman slave-driver of the factory.
He was short, fat, and dressed with great neatness and taste. He had a short black moustache, a head nearly bald, and a round chubby face with small smiling eyes. He was a Chinovnik, and held his position in some Government office with great pride and solemnity.
I should point out that in all I have said above, I refer not so much to the highest or to the lowest classes of Russian society, as to that middle stratum to which belong the families of the Chinovnik, of the infantry officer, or the well-to-do merchant. The aristocracy amuse themselves very much in the same way as our own.
I could not hear his words, but every one near me laughed. The little Chinovnik at my side said to me, "That's right. They're not going to shoot, whatever happens not on their brothers, they say. They'll let the fellow go in a moment. It's only just for discipline's sake. That's right. That's the spirit!" "But what about the police?" I asked. "Ah, the police!"
So far as my eye could see, the black stream flooded the shining way. I mingled with the crowd and found myself slowly propelled in an amiable, aimless manner up the street. "What's the matter?" I asked a cheerful, fat little "Chinovnik," who seemed to be tethered to me by some outside invincible force. "I don't know...." he said.
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