So the dignitaries started their denunciations in monosyllables, hints, whispers, but then more and more boldly (even if still informally), delicately, dropping hints in conversational lulls - that Germame took bribes and used them to build schools.
Now just imagine how worried these dignitaries must have been. After all, it was understandable that a governor accepted tributes; all the dignitaries accepted tributes. Power begat wealth, as it had since the beginning of the world. But the abnormality of it was this, that a governor should use these tributes to build schools. And the example at the top was a command to subordinates, which meant that all the dignitaries should give money for schools. Now just for a moment let us admit a base thought. Let us say that a second Germame springs up in a second province and starts to give away his bribes. Immediately we would have a mutiny of the dignitaries, protesting against this principle of giving away bribes. The result: the end of the Empire. A fine prospect-at first a few pennies, and finally the fall of the monarchy.
R. Kapuściński, The Emperor (1978), tr. W.R. Brand and K.Mroczkowska-Brand (1983), 66
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