Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 17 July 1881

The old ones are out on business all day for the lawsuit. Dina, Coco and I keep the house — I have the connecting doors opened so that I can walk through more freely. In the evening everything is reported to us. There is no point giving money now — the examining magistrate Tolkatch has concluded his part, and in any case Alexandre holds him firmly in his great paws. He is one of the most extraordinary men one can meet: listening to him, his stories seem a continuation of the detective exploits narrated by Balzac. He dispatched a man of his own who came to live here and became friendly with Tolkatch — getting drunk with him, calling himself our enemy and especially Alexandre's — and after some time of this very warm friendship, the man departed, but continued corresponding with Tolkatch who, having opened up verbally, opened up all the more in letters, since the other wrote him provocative ones at Alexandre's dictation.
When sufficient letters had accumulated — and especially of a content such as Alexandre desired — he came and showed them to Tolkatch, who tore out his beard in despair but had to concede that a word from Alexandre would have him dismissed from his post.
You can imagine the poor man has no love for my uncle, who plays with him and takes an artist's pleasure in the tricks he arranges. Tolkatch orders a house search and arrives having brought along the local starovoi who is body and soul devoted to him — and the malicious tongues say to Madame: Mlle Catherine, the children's governess, has flown off to Kharkov with papers; and the starovoi, who has gotten his superior drunk, contrives to spirit away the important papers that remain and stuff them into his own bag — on which he sits Tolkatch, who thus makes the journey to the station without suspecting anything. But that is only a child's prank. What was really impressive was the disappearance from the archives of the entire body of lawsuit papers accumulated over nine years — forming a cartload. He managed it, and it is an offence punishable by hard labour — but executed with such art that nothing was ever found. They did begin the inquiry again two years ago, but half the antagonisms had cooled; many who had testified under the pressure of promises or incitement gave insignificant depositions the second time round; many had forgotten; others had died — in short, all this was accomplished in two years and coldly, so that the accusations are reduced to nothing.
In the last few days Tolkatch received an anonymous letter naming three servants — among them Triphon — whereupon, equipping himself with five hundred roubles (what government money goes on!) the examining magistrate and another set off by train and post-chaise at full speed, without stopping to breathe. Arriving there, they find the three named individuals who testify for us and add that the opposing party had tried to bribe them.
You can picture the face of the man who immediately guessed where the letter had come from. I expressed my greatest admiration to Alexandre, who is very touched by my flattery and will end by inventing further exploits to live up to my praises. He fought hard for us — but he also helped himself very thoroughly, perhaps not so much from my aunt's estate but from grandfather's... he made no scruple of it. Now he declares an income of ten or forty thousand roubles, and there were years when he was sending ten thousand francs to grandfather.
This year he is counting on a hundred thousand roubles from wheat alone; with two such years he will have settled all debts and will remain possessor of all the Babanine lands — not a kopek of debt, and with a credit and an influence that are considerable. He does not conceal the hope of then having two hundred and fifty or three hundred thousand roubles a year in income — that is to say, a million. Ave! It is marvellous, and all in all he has barely stolen from anyone.
But I have been dreaming! First of wheat so ripe and ears so vast and full it is a miracle. Then two nights running I dream of a comet — I had only glimpsed it once in passing and it had not impressed me at all — yet in my dream I see it again, enormous, blazing, with a human face, against a blue horizon above the sea. Then it descends, descends — the end of the world! people cry — but then I see it again floating on the water, as blazing and brilliant as in the sky.

Notes

Balzac's detective exploits: a reference to Balzac's crime narratives, particularly those featuring Vautrin (a criminal mastermind) and the detective Corentin in the Comédie humaine. Alexandre's manipulations strike Marie as worthy of a Balzac plot. ↩
Starovoi (stanovoi pristav): a Russian term for a local district police supervisor, roughly equivalent to a rural chief constable. The word is left untranslated as a Russian administrative term. ↩
Ave! — the Latin salutation (Ave Caesar!), used here in mock-heroic admiration of Alexandre's projected wealth and power. ↩
The Great Comet of 1881 (Comet Tebbutt) was visible in the northern hemisphere from June to August 1881 — a spectacular object that prompted widespread apocalyptic speculation. ↩