Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky. The character of the Russian people (№ 421284)

There is a characteristic story about the behavior of a peasant, who himself admitted that the state power, meeting a willful person, must sometimes force him to order by strict, even sometimes despotic measures. In St. Petersburg in the spring ice melted on the Neva, and it became dangerous to cross the river on ice. The mayor ordered to put police officers on the banks of the Neva and prohibit the passage on the ice. Some peasant, in spite of the cries of the policeman, walked on the ice, fell through and began to drown. The policeman saved him from death, and the peasant, instead of gratitude, began to reproach him: "What are you looking at?" The policeman says to him: "I shouted at you." - “Shouted! I should have kicked it in the face! "