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Updated: May 11, 2025
Nekhludoff made a wry face at the mention of Toporoff. "It all depends on him. He will be consulted, anyhow. And perhaps he may himself meet your wishes." "If you advise it I shall go." "That's right. Well, and how does Petersburg agree with you?" shouted Bogatyreff. "Tell me. Eh?" "I feel myself getting hypnotised," replied Nekhludoff. "Hypnotised!" Bogatyreff repeated, and burst out laughing.
"I promise you most assuredly," answered Toporoff, laying a stress on the word I, as if quite convinced that his honesty, his word was the best guarantee. "It will be best if I write at once. Take a seat, please." He went up to the table and began to write.
Toporoff recollected the first time the case came to his notice: he had at that time hesitated whether he had not better put a stop to it.
As Nekhludoff sat down he looked at the narrow, bald skull, at the fat, blue-veined hand that was swiftly guiding the pen, and wondered why this evidently indifferent man was doing what he did and why he was doing it with such care. "Well, here you are," said Toporoff, sealing the envelope; "you may let your clients know," and he stretched his lips to imitate a smile.
It seemed perfectly clear to Nekhludoff that all these officials, beginning with his aunt's husband, the Senators, and Toporoff, down to those clean and correct gentlemen who sat at the tables in the Ministry Office, were not at all troubled by the fact that that in such a state of things the innocent had to suffer, but were only concerned how to get rid of the really dangerous, so that the rule that ten guilty should escape rather than that one innocent should be condemned was not observed, but, on the contrary, for the sake of getting rid of one really dangerous person, ten who seemed dangerous were punished, as, when cutting a rotten piece out of anything, one has to cut away some that is good.
I always begin with something substantial begin and finish, too. Ha! ha! ha! Well, then, have a glass of wine," he shouted, pointing to a decanter of claret. "I have been thinking of you. I will hand on the petition. I shall put it into his own hands. You may count on that, only it occurred to me that it would be best for you to call on Toporoff."
This divine and immutable God-established institution had to be sustained and defended by a human institution the Holy Synod, managed by Toporoff and his officials. Toporoff did not see this contradiction, nor did he wish to see it, and he was therefore much concerned lest some Romish priest, some pastor, or some sectarian should destroy that Church which the gates of hell could not conquer.
"But how is it that in the name of religion the very first demands of righteousness are violated families are separated?" Toporoff continued to smile patronisingly, evidently thinking what Nekhludoff said very pretty. Anything that Nekhludoff could say he would have considered very pretty and very one-sided, from the height of what he considered his far-reaching office in the State.
"It may seem so from the point of view of a private individual," he said, "but from an administrative point of view it appears in a rather different light. However, I must bid you good-bye, now," said Toporoff, bowing his head and holding out his hand, which Nekhludoff pressed. "The interests of the people! Your interests is what you mean!" thought Nekhludoff as he went out.
Thus thought Toporoff, not considering that the people only liked superstition because there always have been, and still are, men like himself who, being enlightened, instead of using their light to help others to struggle out of their dark ignorance, use it to plunge them still deeper into it.
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