“ En un mot , I only wanted to say that he is one of those administrators who begin to have power at forty, who, till they’re forty, have been stagnating in insignificance and then suddenly come to the front through suddenly acquiring a wife, or some other equally desperate means.⁠ ⁠… That is, he has gone away now⁠ ⁠… that is, I mean to say, it was at once whispered in both his ears that I am a corrupter of youth, and a hotbed of provincial atheism.⁠ ⁠… He began making inquiries at once.”

“Is that true?”

“I took steps about it, in fact. When he was ‘informed’ that you ‘ruled the province,’ vous savez , he allowed himself to use the expression that ‘there shall be nothing of that sort in the future.’ ”

“Did he say that?”