The only contrition I can take upon myself is to ask your forgiveness and if you so desire, the admission I’ve made to you here, repeated in public, for instance in this very magazine.’

That was what I said, my words were not wholly ingenuous, but there was ingenuousness very obviously in them. The effect on him was more or less what I had imagined. Most older people have something deceptive or mendacious in their dealings with younger people; that is, you can live among them easily enough, think you get along, know their views on things, receive regular assurances of good feeling, think everything is as it appears to be and then suddenly, when something dramatic happens and the long-established peace is supposed to swing into effect, these old people get up like strangers and it turns out they hold deeper and stronger views than you thought, they unfurl their banner, so to speak, and only now do you read with alarm what is written on it. The alarm stems particularly from the fact that what the old people are now saying is much more justified, and sensible, as if there were some heightening of the natural modus that was even more natural. The claim they make, unsurpassable in its mendaciousness, is that they were basically always saying what they are saying now, and that it was somehow never possible to sense it amid the generalities.

I must have tunnelled a long way into the village schoolteacher because what he did now did not completely surprise me. ‘My boy,’ he said, laying his hand over mine, and patting it gently, ‘I wonder how you ever thought of getting involved in this matter in the first place. The very first time I came across your name I mentioned you to my wife.’ He moved away from the table, spread his arms and looked at the floor, as though the tiny figure of his wife were standing there for him to talk to. ‘ “For so many years,” I said to her, “we’ve been fighting on our own, but now in the city a powerful supporter seems to be entering the lists on our side, a city businessman by the name of such and such. Is that not cause for rejoicing? A businessman in the city, that means something. If it was some old farmer who believed in us and got up to say so, that wouldn’t do much for us, because what a farmer does is always improper, whether he says that old village schoolmaster is right, you know, or if he spits rudely when he hears of us – both have the same effect. And if it wasn’t one farmer, but 10,000 farmers, then the effect would be, if anything, worse. But a businessman in the city, that’s something else, a man like that will have connections, even casual remarks of his will make the rounds, new supporters will join him; one person says you can learn from village schoolteachers, and the following day a lot of people that from the look of them you would never expect will be saying it to each other in whispers. Then money starts to flow; one man starts a collection and others contribute, they are saying the village schoolteacher needs to be got out of his village. People turn up, they’re not bothered about what he looks like, they take him into their midst, and since there’s a wife and children as well, they get taken along too. Have you ever seen city people in action? They’re like little birds. If there’s a line of them, they will twitter from right to left and back again and on and on. And so they lift us twittering into their coach; there’s barely time to nod to all of them individually. The gentleman on the box adjusts his pince-nez, swings his whip, and we’re off. Everyone waves to the village as if we were still in it, and not sitting in their midst. From the city some coaches with especially impatient individuals have set out to meet us. At our approach, they get up off their seats and crane their necks to see us. The one who has collected money is in charge, and he tells everyone to remain calm. By the time we enter the city there’s a great line of coaches waiting. We had thought the welcome was over, but at the inn it’s only just beginning. In the city, a call is enough to bring a great many people together. The thing that interests the one will interest his neighbour as well. They breathe the same air and inhale the same opinions. Not all the people were able to ride out in carriages, and they’re waiting outside the inn. Others might have done so, but for reasons of prestige chose not to. They, too, are waiting now.