The line that begins the third paragraph, Это я наврал про себя давеча, что я был злой чиновник, strikes me as continuing something of the subtly childish tone (just give me some tea with sugar) that enters in the final lines of the previous one, an impression that is reinforced when he continues, Я просто баловством занимался и с просителяма и с офицером. Or rather it isn’t that the tone is childish, it is the language of an adult describing the behavior of a child, which accords with the retrospective tone that rises and falls through the novella.
While that first verb is usually translated with some form of the English “to lie,” as in “to tell a falsehood,” I am inclined here to emphasize a bit more the narrative’s role playing, performative dimension and use the word “pretending” instead. It was a game he was playing with them and with himself, and this game continues in his elaboration in the next line, where баловством занимался could be rendered as “being mischievous” or “being naughty.” Here again that sense of an adult describing a child’s behavior tempts me to go with naughty, but I am also tempted by “playing around,” which has the advantage of the explicit use of play and feels more natural and colloquial. Might it be a bit too colloquial for a text published in 1864? I am not quite sure. This doubt will remain in my version for now, which for this:
Это я наврал про себя давеча, что я был злой чиновник. Со злости наврал. Я просто баловством занимался и с просителями и с офицером, и в сущности никогда не мог делаться злым.
has this:
I was pretending just now about being a malicious civil servant. Pretending out of maliciousness. I was just playing around with both the petitioners and the officer and could never bring myself to be truly malicious.
Russell Scott Valentino 