B604 <=> B606 [BTG XXXIV Russia, p. 605]

“But as to what I said, namely, that nobody applied for a permit to the staff of the mentioned department, this by no means happened because none of the inhabitants of this chief place of existence needed a chemical laboratory; no, on the contrary, never had there been in that town so many similar chemical laboratories as at this very period of the flow of time, and doubtless all the owners of the necessary permits had procured them from somewhere or other in some or other way.

“They could not help having them. It was just for this that there existed in this chief place of their existence, as in general there exists in all large and small communities in times of peace, a particular as they say ‘administrative body,’ which comprises the ‘basic-hope-of-a-complete-bliss-for-power-possessors,’ which they themselves call the ‘gendarmerie’ and ‘police,’ one of the chief obligations of the representatives of which is to see that everyone, for every kind of enterprise there, should have a corresponding permit, and indeed, it must not be supposed that the what are called ‘lynx-eyed’ beings, representatives of the said ‘basic-hope-of-a-complete-bliss-for-power-possessors,’ would ‘let anything slip by’ and allow anywhere any laboratory whatever without the corresponding permit from the power-possessors.

“A basic reason for this seeming contradiction was something quite different.

“It is necessary to tell you that there already in this community the attitude towards the laws and regulations fixed in the past by the beings for ‘normal’ – according to their understanding – mutual relationship and in general for ordinary existence, began to become such that only those of the ordinary beings could obtain and profit by everything to which they had objective right who knew how to act to the contrary, i.e., against laws and regulations existing there.