Pushkin on the Magistrate’s Mien

A.S. Pushkin by Vasily Tropinin (1830)

Is it about the glory

Of our dear motherland?–I ask in vain!

Not on his lofty brow, nor in his looks

May one peruse his secret thoughts; always

The same aspect; lowly at once, and lofty–

Like some state magistrate grown gray in office,

Calmly alike he contemplates the just

And guilty, with indifference he hears

Evil and good, and knows neither wrath nor pity.

–Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, Борис Годунов, sc. 5 (1825)(S.H. transl.)