se who bore it was comically painful.
They strove to prove that, though they held a post in the public
service, they were entirely free from the tchinovnik spirit--that there
was nothing of the genuine tchinovnik about them. Those who had formerly
paraded their tchin (official rank) on all occasions, in season and
out of season, became half ashamed to admit that they had the rank
of General; for the title no longer commanded respect, and had become
associated with all that was antiquated, formal, and stupid. Among
the young generation it was used most disrespectfully as equivalent
to "pompous blockhead." Zealous officials who had lately regarded the
acquisition of Stars and Orders as among the chief ends of man, were
fain to conceal those hard-won trophies, lest some cynical "Liberal"
might notice them and make them the butt of his satire. "Look at the
depth of humiliation to which you have brought the country"--such was
the chorus of reproach that was ever ringing in their ears--"with
your red tape, your Chinese formalism, and your principle of lifeless,
unreasoning, mechanical obedience! You asserted constantly that you were
the only true patriots, and branded with the name of traitor those who
warned you of the insane folly of your conduct. You see now what it has
all come to. The men whom you helped to send to the mines turn out to
have been the true patriots."*

* It was a common saying at that time that nearly all the
best men in Russia had spent a part of their lives in
Siberia, and it was proposed to publish a biographical
dictionary of remarkable men, in which every article was to
end thus: "Exiled to ---- in 18--." I am not aware how far
the project was seriously entertained, but, of course, the
book was never published.

And to these reproaches what could they reply? Like a child who has in
his frolics inadvertently set the house on fire, they could only look
contrite, and say they did not mean it. They had simply accepted without
criticism the existing order of things, and ranged themselves among
those who were officially recognised as "the well-intentioned." If they
had always avoided the Liberals, and perhaps helped to persecute them,
it was simply because all "well-intentioned" people said that Liberals
were "restless" and dangerous to the State. Those who were not convinced
of their errors simply kept silence, but the great majority passed over
to the ranks of the Pr