The Petersburg Tales (Nevsky Prospect, The Overcoat, The Nose, Diary of a Madman), Nikolai Gogol: Read FREE Full Text Online (English Translation)
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Petersburg Tales by Nikolai Gogol
Page Count: 192Year: 1842READ FREEProducts search The collection of stories by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol describes a multifaceted and ever-changing St. Petersburg. Having personally walked in the shoes of a petty official and become immersed in “state service,” Nikolai Vasilyevich depicts with amazing accuracy the morals of the “significant persons” of that time. And as if reflecting the soul of […]
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First published in 1842, Russian Empire
by Stepan Ponomarev in St. Petersburg
This book is in the public domain
Reprint by Publishing House №10
Publication date August 3, 2025
Translation from Russian
400 Pages, Font 12 pt, Bookman Old Style
Electronic edition, File size 933 KB
Cover design, Translate by Yulia Basharova
Copyright© Yulia Basharova 2025. All rights reserved
Table of Contents
NEVSKY PROSPEKT…………………………………….12
THE NOSE
THE PORTRAIT
THE OVERCOAT……………………………………….210
DIARY OF A MADMAN
Marchtember 86th. Between day and night 318
No specific date. The day had no number 321
I don’t remember the date. There was no month either. It was who knows what 322
Madrid. February thirtieth. 324
January of the same year, which happened after February. 327
No. 34, Month of Gdao, February 349. 330
ROME…………………………………………………….332
NEVSKY PROSPEKT
There is nothing better than Nevsky Prospekt, at least not in St. Petersburg; for it is everything. What doesn’t this street, the belle of our capital, sparkle with! I know that not a single one of its pale, official residents would trade the joys of Nevsky Prospekt for anything. Not only those who are twenty-five years of age, with a handsome mustache and a wonderfully tailored frock coat, but even those whose chins are sprouting white hairs and whose heads are as smooth as a silver platter are enchanted by Nevsky Prospekt. And the ladies! Oh, the ladies find Nevsky Prospekt even more delightful. And who doesn’t find it delightful? The moment you step onto Nevsky Prospekt, you can smell the walking. Even if you have some urgent, essential business, you’re sure to forget all about it the moment you step onto the street. This is the only place where people show up not out of necessity, where they haven’t been driven by need and the commercial interest that encompasses all of St. Petersburg. It seems that a person encountered on Nevsky Prospekt is less of an egoist than on Morskaia, Gorokhovaya, Liteynaya, Meshchanskaya, and other streets, where greed, self-interest, and necessity are etched on the faces of those walking and flying by in carriages and droshkies. Nevsky Prospekt is the universal communication of St. Petersburg. Here, a resident of the Petersburg or Vyborg side, who hasn’t seen his friend on the Sands or at the Moscow Gate for several years, can be sure to meet him. No address book or information office can provide such reliable information as Nevsky Prospekt. Almighty Nevsky Prospekt! The only entertainment for poor, walking St. Petersburg! How cleanly swept its sidewalks are, and, my God, how many feet have left their marks on them! Both the clumsy, dirty boot of the retired soldier, under whose weight even the granite seems to crack, and the miniature, light-as-smoke slipper of the young lady, who turns her head towards the gleaming shop windows like a sunflower to the sun, and the rattling saber of the hopeful ensign, which makes a sharp scratch on the pavement — all express the power of strength or the power of weakness on it. What a rapid phantasmagoria takes place on it in just one day! How many changes it endures in a single twenty-four-hour period! Let’s start with the very early morning, when all of St. Petersburg smells of hot, freshly baked bread and is filled with old women in tattered dresses and cloaks, making their rounds to churches and to compassionate passersby. Then Nevsky Prospekt is empty: the well-fed shopkeepers and their clerks are still sleeping in their Dutch shirts or lathering their noble cheeks and drinking coffee; beggars gather at the doors of pastry shops, where a sleepy Ganymede, who yesterday flew about like a fly with chocolate, emerges, broom in hand, without a tie, and throws them stale pies and scraps. The working people trudge along the streets: sometimes Russian peasants cross it, hurrying to work, in boots stained with lime, which even the Ekaterininsky Canal, known for its cleanliness, would not be able to wash off. It is usually inappropriate for ladies to walk at this time, because the Russian people like to express themselves in such harsh terms that they certainly wouldn’t hear even in the theater. Sometimes a sleepy official trudges along with a briefcase under his arm, if his way to the department lies through Nevsky Prospekt. It can be said with certainty that at this time, that is, until twelve o’clock, Nevsky Prospekt is not a destination for anyone; it only serves as a means: it is gradually filled with people who have their own occupations, their own worries, their own grievances, but who are not thinking about it at all. The Russian peasant talks about a grivna or seven copper kopecks, old men and women wave their arms or talk to themselves, sometimes with quite striking gestures, but no one listens to them or laughs at them, except perhaps for boys in multi-colored robes, with empty glass bottles or ready-made boots in their hands, running like lightning along Nevsky Prospekt. At this time, no matter what you put on, even if you have a cap on your head instead of a hat, even if your collars stick out too far from your tie, no one will notice.
At twelve o’clock, Nevsky Prospekt is invaded by governors of all nations with their charges in cambric collars. The English Joneses and the French Cockes walk arm-in-arm with the pupils entrusted to their parental care and, with a decent seriousness, explain to them that the signs above the shops are made so that one can learn what is inside the shops by means of them. Governesses, pale misses and rosy Slavs, walk majestically behind their light, fidgety little girls, ordering them to raise their shoulders a little higher and to stand up straighter; in short, at this time, Nevsky Prospekt is a pedagogical Nevsky Prospekt. But the closer it gets to two o’clock, the number of governors, pedagogues and children decreases: they are finally displaced by their affectionate parents, walking arm-in-arm with their motley, multi-colored, nervous companions. Little by little, everyone who has finished their rather important household chores joins their company, such as: those who have talked with their doctor about the weather and a small pimple that has popped up on their nose, who have learned about the health of their horses and children, who, by the way, show great talent, who have read the playbill and an important article in the newspapers about arrivals and departures, and finally, who have drunk a cup of coffee and tea; they are joined by those whom an enviable fate has endowed with the blessed title of officials for special assignments. They are also joined by those who serve in the Foreign College and are distinguished by the nobility of their occupations and habits. My God, what beautiful positions and services there are! How they elevate and sweeten the soul! but, alas! I do not serve and am deprived of the pleasure of seeing the subtle treatment of my superiors. Everything you meet on Nevsky Prospekt is full of propriety: men in long frock coats, with their hands in their pockets, ladies in pink, white, and pale blue satin redingotes and hats. Here you will meet unique sideburns, grown with unusual and amazing skill under a tie, sideburns of velvet, satin, black as sable or coal, but, alas, belonging only to the Foreign College. Providence has denied black sideburns to those serving in other departments; they must, to their great displeasure, wear reddish ones. Here you will meet wonderful mustaches, which no pen, no brush can depict; mustaches to which the best half of one’s life is dedicated, – the subject of long vigils during the day and night, mustaches on which the most delightful perfumes and aromas have been poured and which have been anointed with all the most precious and rarest kinds of pomades, mustaches that are wrapped at night with thin vellum paper, mustaches to which their possessors breathe the most touching affection and which passersby envy. A thousand kinds of hats, dresses, scarves – colorful, light, to which their owners are sometimes attached for two whole days, will dazzle anyone on Nevsky Prospekt. It seems as if an entire sea of butterflies has suddenly risen from the stems and is a brilliant cloud over the black male beetles. Here you will find waists you have never even dreamed of: thin, narrow waists, no thicker than the neck of a bottle, upon meeting which you will respectfully step aside so as not to accidentally push them with an impolite elbow; your heart will be seized with timidity and fear that from even your careless breath the most beautiful creation of nature and art might not break. And what women’s sleeves you will find on Nevsky Prospekt! Oh, what a delight! They are somewhat similar to two air balloons, so that a lady would suddenly rise into the air if a man did not support her; because a lady is as easy and pleasant to lift into the air as a glass filled with champagne brought to your mouth. Nowhere do people bow to each other so nobly and naturally as on Nevsky Prospekt. Here you will find a unique smile, a smile of the highest art, sometimes so that you can melt from pleasure, sometimes so that you suddenly see yourself lower than the grass and lower your head, sometimes so that you feel yourself higher than the Admiralty spire and raise it up. Here you will meet people talking about a concert or the weather with extraordinary nobility and a sense of self-worth. Here you will meet a thousand incomprehensible characters and phenomena. Creator! what strange characters you meet on Nevsky Prospekt! There are many such people who, when they meet you, will certainly look at your boots, and, if you pass by, they will turn back to look at your tails. I still can’t understand why this happens. At first, I thought they were shoemakers, but it turned out not to be the case: for the most part, they serve in various departments, many of them can write a report from one government office to another in an excellent manner; or they are people who spend their time walking, reading newspapers in pastry shops – in a word, for the most part, all decent people. At this blessed time from two to three o’clock in the afternoon, which can be called the moving capital of Nevsky Prospekt, the main exhibition of all the best human creations takes place. One shows off a dandyish frock coat with the best beaver, another – a beautiful Greek nose, a third carries excellent sideburns, a fourth – a pair of pretty eyes and a wonderful hat, a fifth – a ring with a talisman on his dandyish little finger, a sixth – a foot in a charming shoe, a seventh – a tie that arouses admiration, an eighth – a mustache that causes astonishment. But the clock strikes three, and the exhibition ends, the crowd thins out… At three o’clock – a new change. Spring suddenly arrives on Nevsky Prospekt: it is all covered with officials in green uniforms. Hungry titular, collegiate, and other councilors try with all their might to quicken their pace. Young collegiate registrars, provincial and collegiate secretaries hurry to take advantage of the time and walk along Nevsky Prospekt with an air that shows that they have not been sitting for six hours in a meeting. But old collegiate secretaries, titular and collegiate councilors walk quickly, with their heads bowed: they have no time to look at passersby; they have not yet completely broken away from their worries; in their heads is a jumble and a whole archive of started and unfinished business; for a long time instead of a sign they see a cardboard box with papers or the full face of the office manager.
From four o’clock, Nevsky Prospekt is empty, and you will hardly meet a single official on it. Some seamstress from a shop will run across Nevsky Prospekt with a box in her hands, some pathetic victim of a philanthropic clerk, who has been sent out into the world in a frieze overcoat, some visiting eccentric for whom all hours are the same, some tall, long-limbed Englishwoman with a reticule and a book in her hands, some artel member, a Russian man in a dimity frock coat with a waist at the back, with a narrow beard, who lives his whole life on a shoestring, in whom everything moves: his back, and arms, and legs, and head, when he politely walks along the sidewalk, sometimes a low-ranking artisan; you will meet no one else on Nevsky Prospekt.
But as soon as twilight falls on the houses and streets and the policeman, covering himself with a mat, climbs the ladder to light the lamp, and from the low windows of the shops those prints that do not dare to show themselves during the day look out, then Nevsky Prospekt comes to life again and begins to stir. Then comes that mysterious time when the lamps give everything some kind of seductive, wonderful light. You will meet a lot of young people, mostly single, in warm frock coats and overcoats. At this time, some kind of purpose is felt, or, rather, something similar to a purpose, something extremely unaccountable; everyone’s steps quicken and become very uneven in general. Long shadows flit across the walls and pavement and almost reach their heads to the Police Bridge. Young collegiate registrars, provincial and collegiate secretaries walk for a very long time; but old collegiate registrars, titular and collegiate councilors mostly sit at home, either because they are married people, or because their German cooks who live in their houses prepare food very well for them. Here you will meet respectable old men who walked with such importance and such amazing nobility at two o’clock on Nevsky Prospekt. You will see them running just like the young collegiate registrars, in order to look under the hat of a lady seen from afar, whose thick lips and cheeks, powdered with rouge, are so pleasing to many walkers, and most of all to shop clerks, artel members, merchants, who always walk in German frock coats in a whole crowd and usually arm-in-arm.
“Stop!” Lieutenant Pirogov shouted at this time, pulling the young man in a frock coat and cloak who was walking with him. “Did you see?”
“I saw, wonderful, completely Perugino’s Bianca.”
“But who are you talking about?”
“About her, about the one with the dark hair. And what eyes! My God, what eyes! The whole posture, and the contour, and the shape of the face are a miracle!”
“I’m talking to you about the blonde who walked past her in that direction. Why aren’t you going after the brunette, if you liked her so much?”
“Oh, how can I!” exclaimed the young man in the frock coat, blushing. “As if she is one of those who walk along Nevsky Prospekt in the evening; she must be a very noble lady,” he continued, sighing, “the cloak alone on her costs about eighty rubles!”
“Simpleton!” Pirogov shouted, forcibly pushing him in the direction where her bright cloak was fluttering. “Go, blockhead, you’ll miss her! And I’ll go after the blonde.”
The two friends parted ways.
“I know you all,” Pirogov thought to himself with a self-satisfied and self-assured smile, confident that there was no beauty that could resist him.
The young man in the frock coat and cloak walked with timid and trembling steps in the direction where the colorful cloak was fluttering in the distance, sometimes cast in a bright sheen as it approached the light of a lantern, and then instantly covered in darkness as it moved away. His heart was pounding, and he involuntarily quickened his pace. He didn’t dare even to think of gaining any right to the attention of the beauty flying away in the distance, much less to entertain such a dark thought as the one Lieutenant Pirogov had hinted at; but he only wanted to see the house, to note where this charming creature, who seemed to have flown from heaven straight onto Nevsky Prospekt, lived and would certainly fly away to who knows where. He flew so fast that he constantly bumped solid gentlemen with gray sideburns off the sidewalk. This young man belonged to that class, which is a rather strange phenomenon in our country and belongs to the citizens of St. Petersburg as much as a person who appears to us in a dream belongs to the real world. This exclusive class is very unusual in a city where everyone is either an official, a merchant, or a German craftsman. He was an artist. Isn’t that a strange phenomenon? A St. Petersburg artist! An artist in the land of snows, an artist in the country of the Finns, where everything is wet, smooth, even, pale, gray, and foggy. These artists are not at all like the Italian artists, proud and passionate, like Italy and its sky; on the contrary, for the most part they are good, gentle people, shy, carefree, loving their art quietly, drinking tea with their two friends in a small room, modestly discussing their favorite subject and not caring at all about superfluities. He would always invite some poor old woman to his house and make her sit for six solid hours in order to transfer her pathetic, insensitive expression to the canvas. He paints the perspective of his room, in which all sorts of artistic nonsense appear: plaster hands and feet that have turned coffee-colored from time and dust, broken easels, an overturned palette, a friend playing the guitar, walls stained with paint, with an open window through which a pale Neva and poor fishermen in red shirts flash. They almost always have a grayish, cloudy color scheme on everything — the indelible stamp of the north. Despite all this, they work on their work with true pleasure. They often have a true talent, and if only the fresh air of Italy would blow on them, it would certainly develop as freely, widely, and brightly as a plant that is finally taken out of the room into the fresh air. They are generally very timid: a star and a thick epaulet throw them into such confusion that they involuntarily lower the price of their works. They sometimes like to show off, but this ostentation always seems too sharp on them and somewhat resembles a patch. On them you will sometimes find an excellent frock coat and a stained cloak, an expensive velvet vest and a coat all in paint. In the same way, as on their unfinished landscape you will sometimes see a nymph drawn upside down, which he, not finding another place, sketched on the stained ground of his former work, once painted by him with pleasure. He never looks you directly in the eyes; if he does, it is somehow cloudy, indefinite; he does not pierce you with the hawk-like gaze of an observer or the falcon-like look of a cavalry officer. This is because at the same time he sees both your features and the features of some plaster Hercules standing in his room, or he imagines his own painting, which he is still thinking of creating. Because of this, he often answers incoherently, sometimes inappropriately, and the objects mixing in his head only increase his timidity. The young man we described belonged to this kind, the artist Piskarev, a shy, timid man, but in his soul he carried sparks of feeling, ready to turn into a flame at a convenient opportunity. With secret trembling he hurried after his subject, which had struck him so powerfully, and it seemed that he was amazed at his own audacity. The unknown being to whom his eyes, thoughts, and feelings were so attached suddenly turned her head and looked at him. My God, what divine features! The most beautiful forehead of dazzling whiteness was overshadowed by hair as beautiful as agate. They curled, these wonderful curls, and a part of them, falling from under her hat, touched a cheek tinged with a delicate fresh blush that had appeared from the evening cold. Her lips were locked in a whole swarm of the most beautiful dreams. Everything that remains from the memory of childhood, that gives daydreaming and quiet inspiration in the light of a lamp, all this, it seemed, had come together, merged, and was reflected in her harmonious lips. She looked at Piskarev, and at this look his heart trembled; she looked sternly, a feeling of indignation appeared on her face at the sight of such impudent persecution; but on this beautiful face, even anger was charming. Overwhelmed by shame and timidity, he stopped, lowering his eyes; but how could he lose this divinity and not even know the sanctuary where it had come to stay? Such thoughts came into the head of the young dreamer, and he decided to pursue her. But in order not to let this be noticed, he moved to a distant distance, looked around carelessly and examined the signs, and meanwhile did not lose sight of a single step of the stranger. The passersby began to flash by less often, the street became quieter; the beauty looked back, and it seemed to him as if a light smile flashed on her lips. He trembled all over and didn’t believe his eyes. No, it was the deceiving light of the lantern that expressed on her face the likeness of a smile; no, it was his own dreams laughing at him. But his breath was caught in his chest, everything in him turned into an indefinite tremor, all his feelings were burning, and everything before him was covered with some kind of fog. The sidewalk was rushing under him, carriages with galloping horses seemed motionless, the bridge was stretching and breaking on its arch, the house was standing roof down, the booth was falling towards him, and the halberd of the sentry, along with the golden words of the sign and the painted scissors, shone, it seemed, on his very eyelashes. And all this was produced by one glance, one turn of a pretty head. Not hearing, not seeing, not paying attention, he rushed along the light footprints of the beautiful feet, trying to moderate the speed of his step, which was flying to the beat of his heart. Sometimes doubt overcame him: was the expression on her face really so kind? – and then he stopped for a moment, but the pounding of his heart, the irresistible force and anxiety of all his feelings drove him forward. He didn’t even notice how a four-story house suddenly rose before him, all four rows of windows, lit with fire, looked at him at once, and the railings at the entrance opposed him with their iron push. He saw the stranger fly up the stairs, look back, put her finger on her lips and motion him to follow her. His knees were trembling; his feelings, his thoughts were burning; a lightning bolt of joy plunged into his heart with an unbearable sting. No, this is not a dream! God! so much happiness in one moment! such a wonderful life in two minutes!
But is all this not a dream? Could it be that she, for one heavenly glance of whom he would have been ready to give his whole life, to approach whose dwelling he already considered an inexpressible bliss, could it be that she was so kind and attentive to him just now? He flew up the stairs. He felt no earthly thought; he was not heated by the flame of earthly passion, no, he was at that moment pure and innocent, like a virginal youth still breathing an indefinite spiritual need for love. And what would have aroused daring thoughts in a depraved person, that very thing, on the contrary, sanctified them even more. This trust that the weak, beautiful creature had shown him, this trust imposed on him an oath of chivalric rigor, an oath to slavishly carry out all her commands. He only wished that these commands were as difficult and impossible to fulfill as possible, so that he could fly to overcome them with greater tension of his forces. He had no doubt that some secret and at the same time important event had caused the stranger to trust him; that significant services would certainly be required of him, and he already felt in himself the strength and determination for everything.
The stairs twisted, and with them his rapid dreams twisted. “Walk more carefully!” a voice, like a harp, sounded and filled all his veins with a new trembling. In the dark height of the fourth floor, the stranger knocked on a door, – it opened, and they entered together. A woman of a rather decent appearance met them with a candle in her hand, but looked at Piskarev so strangely and insolently that he involuntarily lowered his eyes. They entered the room. Three female figures in different corners presented themselves to his eyes. One was laying out cards; another was sitting at a piano and playing some pathetic semblance of an old polonaise with two fingers; a third was sitting in front of a mirror, combing her long hair with a comb, and did not think at all of leaving her toilette at the entrance of an unknown person. Some unpleasant disorder, which can only be found in the carefree room of a bachelor, reigned everywhere. The furniture, which was quite good, was covered with dust; a spider covered the stucco cornice with its cobweb; through the unclosed door of another room, a boot with a spur gleamed and the piping of a uniform glowed red; a loud male voice and female laughter rang out without any constraint.
My God, where had he ended up! At first, he did not want to believe and began to look more closely at the objects that filled the room; but the bare walls and windows without curtains showed no presence of a caring hostess; the worn faces of these pathetic creatures, one of whom sat almost in front of his nose and looked at him as calmly as a stain on someone else’s dress, – all this convinced him that he had entered that repulsive shelter where a miserable depravity, spawned by tinsel education and the terrible overcrowding of the capital, had established its dwelling. That shelter where a person had sacrilegiously suppressed and laughed at everything pure and holy that adorns life, where a woman, this beauty of the world, the crown of creation, had turned into some strange, ambiguous creature, where, along with the purity of her soul, she had lost everything feminine and had repulsively appropriated the mannerisms and insolence of a man and had already ceased to be that weak, that beautiful, and so different from us creature. Piskarev measured her from head to toe with astonished eyes, as if still wanting to make sure that this was the same one who had so enchanted him and carried him away on Nevsky Prospekt. But she stood before him just as beautiful; her hair was just as beautiful; her eyes still seemed heavenly. She was fresh; she was only seventeen years old; it was obvious that the terrible depravity had only recently caught up with her; it had not yet dared to touch her cheeks, they were fresh and lightly tinged with a delicate blush, – she was beautiful.
He stood motionless before her and was already ready to forget himself as naively as he had forgotten himself before. But the beauty got bored of such a long silence and smiled significantly, looking him straight in the eyes. But this smile was filled with some kind of pathetic insolence; it was so strange and suited her face as much as an expression of piety suits the face of a bribe-taker or an accountant’s ledger suits a poet. He shuddered. She opened her pretty lips and began to say something, but it was all so stupid, so vulgar… It was as if along with innocence, a person’s mind also leaves. He no longer wanted to hear anything. He was extremely ridiculous and simple, like a child. Instead of taking advantage of such kindness, instead of being happy about such an opportunity, which, without a doubt, anyone else would have been happy about in his place, he rushed off at full speed, like a wild goat, and ran out into the street.
With his head hung low and his hands hanging down, he sat in his room, like a poor man who had found a priceless pearl and then immediately dropped it into the sea. “Such a beauty, such divine features — and where? In what place!..” That was all he could say.
Indeed, pity never takes hold of us so strongly as at the sight of beauty touched by the corrupting breath of depravity. Let ugliness be friends with it, but beauty, delicate beauty… it merges in our thoughts only with innocence and purity. The beauty who had so enchanted poor Piskarev was indeed a wonderful, unusual phenomenon. Her presence in this despicable circle seemed even more unusual. All her features were so purely formed, all the expression of her beautiful face was marked with such nobility, that one could never have thought that depravity had spread its terrible claws over her. She would have constituted a priceless pearl, the whole world, the whole paradise, all the wealth of a passionate husband; she would have been a beautiful quiet star in an inconspicuous family circle and would have given sweet commands with a single movement of her beautiful lips. She would have constituted a deity in a crowded hall, on a bright parquet floor, in the glare of candles, in the silent reverence of a crowd of admirers prostrate at her feet; but, alas! she was thrown with a laugh into its abyss by some terrible will of an infernal spirit, thirsty to destroy the harmony of life.
Penetrated by heartbreaking pity, he sat before the burnt-out candle. Midnight had long passed, the clock on the tower struck half past one, and he sat motionless, sleepless, without active vigil. Drowsiness, taking advantage of his immobility, had already begun to quietly overcome him, the room had already begun to disappear, only the flame of the candle shone through the daydreams that were overcoming him, when a knock at the door made him start and wake up. The door opened, and a footman in rich livery entered. A rich livery had never looked into his secluded room, and at such an unusual time… He was at a loss and looked with impatient curiosity at the footman who had come.
“The lady,” the footman said with a polite bow, “whom you were kind enough to visit a few hours ago, has ordered me to ask you to come to her and has sent a carriage for you.”
Piskarev stood in silent amazement: “A carriage, a footman in livery!.. No, there must be some mistake here…”
“Listen, my dear,” he said with timidity, “you must have gone to the wrong place. The lady, no doubt, sent you for someone else, and not for me.”
“No, sir, I have not made a mistake. You were kind enough to accompany the lady on foot to the house on Liteynaya, to the room on the fourth floor, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
“Well, then please come quickly, the lady absolutely wants to see you and asks you to please come directly to their house.”
Piskarev ran down the stairs. A carriage was indeed standing in the yard. He got into it, the doors slammed shut, the cobblestones of the pavement rumbled under the wheels and hooves – and the illuminated perspective of the houses with bright signs rushed past the carriage windows. Piskarev thought the whole way and did not know how to solve this adventure. A private house, a carriage, a footman in rich livery… – he could not reconcile all this with the room on the fourth floor, the dusty windows and the out-of-tune piano.
The carriage stopped in front of a brightly lit entrance, and he was struck at once by: a row of carriages, the talk of the coachmen, brightly lit windows, and the sounds of music. The footman in rich livery helped him out of the carriage and respectfully escorted him into a hall with marble columns, with a doorman covered in gold, with coats and fur coats scattered about, with a bright lamp. An airy staircase with shiny railings, perfumed with aromas, rushed upwards. He was already on it, had already entered the first hall, having been frightened and having stepped back with his first step from the terrible crowd. The unusual motley of faces threw him into complete confusion; it seemed to him that some demon had crumbled the whole world into many different pieces and mixed all these pieces together without meaning, without sense. Sparkling ladies’ shoulders and black frock coats, chandeliers, lamps, airy flying gauze, ethereal ribbons and a thick contrabass, which looked out from behind the railings of the magnificent choirs, – everything was brilliant for him. He saw at once so many respectable old men and half-old men with stars on their frock coats, ladies who walked so easily, proudly, and gracefully on the parquet floor or sat in rows, he heard so many French and English words, and the young men in black frock coats were so full of nobility, they spoke and were silent with such dignity, they did not know how to say anything superfluous, they joked so majestically, they smiled so respectfully, they wore such excellent sideburns, they knew how to show off their excellent hands so skillfully by adjusting their ties, the ladies were so ethereal, so immersed in perfect self-satisfaction and rapture, they lowered their eyes so charmingly, that… but Piskarev’s humble appearance alone, leaning against a column with fear, showed that he was completely lost. At this time, a crowd surrounded the dancing group. They were flying, wrapped in a transparent creation of Paris, in dresses woven from the very air; they carelessly touched the parquet floor with their sparkling feet and were more ethereal than if they had not touched it at all. But one of them was the best, the most luxurious, and the most brilliantly dressed. An inexpressible, most subtle combination of taste was spread throughout her attire, and yet she, it seemed, did not care about it at all and it poured out involuntarily, by itself. She looked and did not look at the surrounding crowd of spectators, her beautiful long eyelashes lowered indifferently, and the sparkling whiteness of her face was even more blinding when a light shadow overshadowed her charming forehead when she tilted her head.
Piskarev made every effort to push through the crowd and examine her; but, to his great annoyance, some huge head with dark curly hair constantly blocked her; besides, the crowd pressed him so that he did not dare to move forward, did not dare to move back, fearing to somehow bump into some privy councilor. But then he finally pushed his way forward and looked at his clothes, wanting to get properly dressed. Heavenly Creator, what is this! He was wearing a frock coat and it was all stained with paint: hurrying to leave, he had forgotten to even change into a decent suit. He blushed to his ears and, lowering his head, wanted to disappear, but there was absolutely nowhere to disappear: chamberlains in a brilliant costume had moved behind him in a complete wall. He already wished to be as far away as possible from the beauty with the beautiful forehead and eyelashes. With fear he raised his eyes to see if she was looking at him: God! she is standing in front of him… But what is this? what is this? “It’s her!” he almost shouted out loud. In fact, it was she, the very one whom he had met on Nevsky and whom he had accompanied to her dwelling.
In the meantime, she raised her eyelashes and looked at everyone with her clear gaze. “Oh, oh, oh, how beautiful she is!..” was all he could say with bated breath. She looked around the entire circle, which was vying to attract her attention, but with some kind of fatigue and inattention she quickly averted them and met Piskarev’s eyes. Oh, what a heaven! what a paradise! give me the strength, Creator, to bear this! life will not contain it, it will destroy and carry away my soul! She gave a sign, but not with her hand, not with a tilt of her head, no, this sign was expressed in her overwhelming eyes with such a subtle, imperceptible expression that no one could see it, but he saw it, he understood it. The dance lasted a long time; the tired music seemed to fade and die out completely, and then burst out again, squealing and thundering; finally – the end! She sat down, her chest heaving under the thin smoke of the gauze; her hand (Creator, what a wonderful hand!) fell on her knees, squeezing her airy dress under her, and the dress under her, it seemed, began to breathe with music, and its delicate lilac color even more clearly marked the bright whiteness of this beautiful hand. Just to touch it – and nothing more! No other desires – they are all audacious… He stood behind her chair, not daring to speak, not daring to breathe.
“Were you bored?” she said. “I was also bored. I notice that you hate me…” she added, lowering her long eyelashes…
“Hate you! Me? I…” the completely lost Piskarev was about to say and would have certainly said a bunch of the most incoherent words, but at that moment a chamberlain with sharp and pleasant remarks, with a beautiful curled tuft on his head, approached. He showed a row of quite decent teeth rather pleasantly and with every witticism he hammered a sharp nail into his heart. Finally, someone from the outside, fortunately, turned to the chamberlain with some question.
“How unbearable this is!” she said, raising her heavenly eyes to him. “I’ll sit on the other side of the hall; be there!”
She slipped through the crowd and vanished. He pushed the crowd aside like a madman and was already there.
Yes, it was her! She was sitting like a queen, better and more beautiful than all the others, and was looking for him with her eyes.
“You’re here,” she said quietly. “I will be frank with you: the circumstances of our meeting must have seemed strange to you. Do you really think that I can belong to that despicable class of creatures in which you met me? My actions seem strange to you, but I will tell you a secret: will you be able,” she said, staring intently into his eyes, “never to betray it?”
“Oh, I will! I will! I will!..”
But at that moment, a rather elderly man approached, spoke to her in a language incomprehensible to Piskarev, and offered her his arm. She looked at Piskarev with a pleading look and motioned for him to stay in his place and wait for her to come, but in a fit of impatience he was unable to listen to any commands, even from her lips. He went after her; but the crowd separated them. He no longer saw the lilac dress; he walked anxiously from room to room and mercilessly pushed everyone he met, but in all the rooms, all the bigwigs were sitting at whist, immersed in a deathly silence. In one corner of the room, several elderly men were arguing about the superiority of military service over civil service; in another, men in excellent frock coats were making light remarks about the multi-volume works of a hard-working poet. Piskarev felt that an elderly man with a respectable appearance had grabbed the button of his frock coat and presented a very fair remark of his for his judgment, but he rudely pushed him away, not even noticing that there was a rather significant order on his neck. He ran to another room – and she wasn’t there. To a third – she wasn’t there either. “Where is she? Give her to me! Oh, I can’t live without looking at her! I want to hear what she wanted to say,” – but all his searches were in vain. Anxious, tired, he leaned against a corner and looked at the crowd; but his strained eyes began to present everything to him in some kind of unclear form. Finally, the walls of his room began to appear to him distinctly. He raised his eyes; a candlestick stood before him with a flame that was almost extinguished in its depth; the whole candle had melted away; wax was poured on his table.
So he was asleep! God, what a dream! And why did he have to wake up? Why couldn’t he have waited just one minute: she would have certainly appeared again! The annoying light looked into his windows with its unpleasant, dull glow. The room was in such a gray, such a cloudy mess… Oh, how disgusting reality is! What is it compared to a dream? He undressed in a hurry and went to bed, wrapping himself in a blanket, wanting to call back the dream that had flown away for a moment. Sleep, indeed, did not delay in coming to him, but it showed him something completely different from what he would have wanted to see: sometimes Lieutenant Pirogov appeared with a pipe, sometimes an academic watchman, sometimes a state councilor, sometimes the head of a Finnish woman, whose portrait he had once painted, and other such nonsense.
He lay in bed until noon, trying to fall asleep; but she did not appear. If only for a moment she would show her beautiful features, if only for a moment her light walk would rustle, if only her bare, bright, like a cloud-filled snow, hand would flash before him.
Having cast everything aside, having forgotten everything, he sat with a crushed, hopeless look, full of only one dream. He did not think of touching anything; his eyes, without any participation, without any life, looked out the window, which faced the courtyard, where a dirty water carrier was pouring water that was freezing in the air, and the goat-like voice of a peddler was rattling: “Old clothes to sell.” The everyday and real strangely struck his ears. He sat like that until evening and with greed threw himself into bed. He fought with insomnia for a long time, and finally overcame it. Again some kind of dream, some kind of vulgar, nasty dream. “God, have mercy: at least for a minute, at least for one minute, show her!” He again waited for the evening, again fell asleep, again dreamed of some official who was both an official and a bassoon; oh, this is unbearable! Finally she appeared! Her head and curls… she is looking… Oh, how short a time! again fog, again some stupid dream.
Finally, dreams became his life, and from this time on, his whole life took a strange turn: he, one might say, slept in reality and was awake in a dream. If anyone had seen him sitting silently in front of an empty table or walking down the street, they would have certainly mistaken him for a sleepwalker or a man broken by strong drinks; his gaze was completely without any meaning, his natural absent-mindedness finally developed and authoritatively drove all feelings, all movements from his face. He came to life only at the onset of night.
This state disturbed his strength, and the most terrible torment for him was that sleep finally began to leave him completely. Wanting to save this only wealth of his, he used all means to restore it. He heard that there is a way to restore sleep – for this you only need to take opium. But where to get this opium? He remembered one Persian who ran a shawl shop, who almost always, whenever he met him, asked him to paint a beautiful woman for him. He decided to go to him, assuming that he, no doubt, had this opium. The Persian received him sitting on a sofa and with his legs tucked under him.
“What do you need opium for?” he asked him.
Piskarev told him about his insomnia.
“Good, I’ll give you opium, just draw me a beautiful woman. A good beautiful woman! So that her eyebrows are black and her eyes are big, like olives; and so that I myself am lying next to her and smoking a pipe! Do you hear? So that she’s good! So that she’s a beauty!”
Piskarev promised everything. The Persian left for a minute and returned with a jar filled with a dark liquid, carefully poured a part of it into another jar and gave it to Piskarev with instructions to use no more than seven drops in water. He greedily grabbed this precious jar, which he would not have given away for a pile of gold, and rushed home.
When he got home, he poured a few drops into a glass of water and, swallowing it, went to sleep.
God, what joy! It’s her! It’s her again! But in a completely different form. Oh, how well she sits at the window of a bright village house! Her outfit breathes with a simplicity that only a poet’s thought can clothe. Her hairstyle… Creator, how simple this hairstyle is and how it suits her! A short scarf was lightly thrown over her graceful neck; everything in her is modest, everything in her is a secret, inexpressible feeling of taste. How sweet is her graceful gait! how musical is the rustle of her steps and her simple dress! how beautiful is her hand, clasped by a hair bracelet! She says to him with tears in her eyes: “Do not despise me: I am not at all the person you take me for. Look at me, look closer and tell me: am I capable of what you think?” – “Oh! No, no! Let the one who dares to think so, let that one…” But he woke up, touched, torn, with tears in his eyes. “It would have been better if you had not existed at all! not lived in the world, but had been the creation of an inspired artist! I would not have moved away from the canvas, I would have looked at you forever and kissed you. I would have lived and breathed with you, as with the most beautiful dream, and I would have been happy then. I would have extended no further desires. I would have called you, like a guardian angel, before sleep and vigil, and I would have waited for you when it happened to depict the divine and holy. But now… what a terrible life! What is the use of her being alive? Is the life of a madman pleasant to his relatives and friends who once loved him? God, what a life we have! a eternal conflict of dreams with reality!” Almost such thoughts occupied him incessantly. He thought of nothing, he even ate almost nothing and with impatience, with the passion of a lover, waited for the evening and the desired vision. The incessant striving of his thoughts to one thing finally took such power over his whole being and imagination that the desired image appeared to him almost every day, always in a position opposite to reality, because his thoughts were completely pure, like the thoughts of a child. Through these dreams, the subject somehow became purer and was completely transformed.
The use of opium made his thoughts even more inflamed, and if there was ever a person in love to the last degree of madness, impetuously, terribly, destructively, rebelliously, then this unfortunate one was him.
Of all the dreams, one was more joyful for him than all the others: he imagined his workshop, he was so cheerful, he sat with such pleasure with a palette in his hands! And she was right there. She was already his wife. She was sitting next to him, leaning her lovely elbow on the back of his chair, and looking at his work. In her eyes, languid, tired, was written the burden of bliss; everything in his room breathed with paradise; it was so bright, so tidy. Creator! she tilted her lovely head on his chest… He had never seen a better dream. He got up after it somehow fresher and less distracted than before. Strange thoughts were born in his head. “Maybe,” he thought, “she was led into depravity by some involuntary terrible incident; maybe the movements of her soul are inclined to repentance; maybe she herself would like to break out of her terrible state. And should I indifferently allow her to perish, and at the same time when I only need to lend a hand to save her from drowning?” His thoughts extended even further. “No one knows me,” he said to himself, “and what business is it of anyone, and I don’t care about them either. If she expresses pure repentance and changes her life, I will marry her then. I must marry her and, I’m sure, I will do much better than many who marry their housekeepers and even often the most despicable creatures. But my deed will be selfless and may even be great. I will return its most beautiful ornament to the world.”
Having made such a frivolous plan, he felt a blush flare up on his face; he went to the mirror and was frightened by his own hollow cheeks and the paleness of his face. He began to dress up carefully; he washed himself, smoothed his hair, put on a new frock coat, a dandyish vest, threw on a cloak and went out into the street. He breathed in the fresh air and felt freshness in his heart, like a convalescent who has decided to go out for the first time after a long illness. His heart was pounding when he approached the street on which his foot had not been since the fatal meeting.
He searched for the house for a long time; it seemed that his memory had failed him. He walked down the street twice and did not know which one to stop in front of. Finally, one seemed similar to him. He quickly ran up the stairs, knocked on the door: the door opened, and who came out to meet him? His ideal, his mysterious image, the original of his dreamy paintings, the one by whom he had lived, so terribly, so painfully, so sweetly lived. She herself stood before him: he trembled; he could barely stand on his feet from weakness, embraced by a surge of joy. She stood before him just as beautiful, although her eyes were sleepy, although paleness was creeping on her face, which was no longer so fresh, but she was still beautiful.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, seeing Piskarev and rubbing her eyes (it was already two o’clock). “Why did you run away from us then?”
He sat down on a chair in exhaustion and looked at her.
“And I just woke up; they brought me in at seven in the morning. I was completely drunk,” she added with a smile.
Oh, it would have been better if you were mute and had no tongue at all than to utter such speeches! She suddenly showed him, as in a panorama, her whole life. However, despite this, having steeled his heart, he decided to try whether his admonitions would have any effect on her. Gathering his courage, he began to present her terrible situation to her with a trembling and at the same time fervent voice. She listened to him with an attentive look and with that feeling of surprise that we express at the sight of something unexpected and strange. She looked, smiling lightly, at her friend who was sitting in the corner, who, having stopped cleaning her comb, was also listening attentively to the new preacher.
“It is true that I am poor,” Piskarev finally said after a long and instructive admonition, “but we will work; we will try, vying with each other, to improve our lives. There is nothing more pleasant than to be indebted to yourself for everything. I will sit at my paintings, you will, sitting next to me, inspire my work, embroider or do other needlework, and we will not lack anything.”
“How can you!” she interrupted his speech with an expression of some kind of contempt. “I am not a laundress or a seamstress to engage in work.”
God! In these words was expressed all the low, all the despicable life, – a life filled with emptiness and idleness, the faithful companions of depravity.
“Marry me!” her friend, who had been silent in the corner until then, picked up with an insolent look. “If I become a wife, I’ll sit just like this!”
With this, she made some stupid face on her pathetic face, with which she extremely amused the beauty.
Oh, this is too much! There is no strength to endure this. He rushed out, having lost his feelings and thoughts. His mind was clouded: stupidly, without a goal, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, he wandered all day. No one could know whether he spent the night somewhere or not; only on the next day, by some stupid instinct, he entered his apartment, pale, with a terrible look, with disheveled hair, with signs of madness on his face. He locked himself in his room and did not let anyone in, did not ask for anything. Four days passed, and his locked room was never opened; finally, a week passed, and the room was still locked. They rushed to the door, began to call him, but there was no answer; finally, they broke down the door and found his lifeless body with his throat cut. A bloody razor was lying on the floor. From the convulsively thrown hands and the terribly distorted appearance, one could conclude that his hand was not steady and that he had suffered for a long time before his sinful soul left his body.
Thus perished, a victim of insane passion, poor Piskarev, a quiet, timid, modest, childishly simple man, who carried within him a spark of talent that might have flared up widely and brightly in time. No one cried over him; no one was seen near his soulless body, except for the usual figure of the precinct overseer and the indifferent face of the city doctor. His coffin was quietly, even without religious rites, taken to Okhta; only one soldier-guard, who had drunk an extra bottle of vodka, walked behind it and cried. Even Lieutenant Pirogov did not come to look at the body of the unfortunate poor man, to whom he had shown his high patronage during his lifetime. However, he had no time for that at all: he was busy with an extraordinary event. But let’s return to him.
I do not like corpses and dead people, and it is always unpleasant for me when a long funeral procession crosses my path and a disabled soldier, dressed as some kind of Capuchin, sniffs snuff with his left hand, because his right hand is occupied with a torch. I always feel annoyed when I see a rich hearse and a velvet coffin; but my annoyance is mixed with sadness when I see how a drayman is dragging a red, uncovered coffin of a poor man and only one beggar, having met him at a crossroads, is trudging behind him, having nothing else to do.
We seem to have left Lieutenant Pirogov at the point where he parted with poor Piskarev and rushed after the blonde. This blonde was a light, rather interesting creature. She stopped in front of every shop and stared at the sashes, scarves, earrings, gloves, and other trinkets displayed in the windows, constantly turning around, looking in all directions, and looking back. “You, my little dove, are mine!” Pirogov said with self-confidence, continuing his pursuit and wrapping his face in the collar of his overcoat so as not to meet anyone he knew. But it is not out of place to inform the readers who Lieutenant Pirogov was.
But before we say who Lieutenant Pirogov was, it is not out of place to say a few things about the society to which Pirogov belonged. There are officers who form a kind of middle class of society in St. Petersburg. At an evening party, at a dinner with a state councilor or a real state councilor, who earned this rank with forty years of labor, you will always find one of them. Several pale, completely colorless, like St. Petersburg, daughters, some of whom are overripe, a tea table, a piano, home dances – all this is inseparable from a bright epaulet, which shines in the light of a lamp, between a well-behaved blonde and the black frock coat of a brother or a family acquaintance. It is extremely difficult to stir up and make these cold-blooded girls laugh; this requires a lot of skill or, better to say, no skill at all. You need to speak in such a way that it is neither too smart nor too funny, so that there is that triviality in everything that women love. In this, one must give credit to these gentlemen. They have a special gift for making these colorless beauties laugh and listen. Exclamations, smothered by laughter: “Oh, stop! Aren’t you ashamed to make me laugh so much!” – are often the best reward for them. In the higher class, they are very rarely found, or, better to say, never. From there, they are completely displaced by what is called aristocrats in this society; however, they are considered educated and well-mannered people. They like to talk about literature; they praise Bulgarin, Pushkin, and Grech and speak with contempt and witty jibes about A. A. Orlov. They do not miss a single public lecture, be it about accounting or even about forestry. In the theater, no matter what the play is, you will always find one of them, except perhaps if some “Filatkas” are being played, which offends their fastidious taste very much. In the theater, they are constantly present. They are the most profitable people for the theater management. They especially like good poetry in a play, and they also like to loudly call out actors; many of them, teaching in government institutions or preparing for government institutions, finally acquire a cabriolet and a pair of horses. Then their circle becomes wider; they finally reach the point where they marry a merchant’s daughter who knows how to play the piano, with a hundred thousand or so cash and a bunch of bearded relatives. However, they can only achieve this honor after having served, at least, to the rank of colonel. Because Russian beards, despite the fact that they still smell a little of cabbage, do not want to see their daughters with anyone other than generals or, at least, colonels. Such are the main features of this kind of young man. But Lieutenant Pirogov had a multitude of talents that belonged specifically to him. He was excellent at reciting verses from “Dmitry Donskoy” and “Woe from Wit,” and had a special skill in blowing smoke rings from a pipe so successfully that he could suddenly string about ten of them one after another. He knew how to very pleasantly tell an anecdote about how a cannon is one thing, and a unicorn is another. However, it is somewhat difficult to list all the talents with which fate has rewarded Pirogov. He liked to talk about actresses and dancers, but not as sharply as a young ensign usually expresses himself on this subject. He was very pleased with his rank, to which he had recently been promoted, and although sometimes, lying on a sofa, he would say: “Oh, oh! vanity, all is vanity! what’s the point of me being a lieutenant?” – but secretly this new dignity flattered him very much; in conversation, he often tried to hint at it obliquely, and once, when he met some clerk on the street who seemed to him impolite, he immediately stopped him and in a few but sharp words let him know that a lieutenant was standing in front of him, and not some other officer. He tried to state this more eloquently because two very decent ladies were walking past him at that time. Pirogov generally showed a passion for everything elegant and encouraged the artist Piskarev; however, this may have been because he very much wanted to see his masculine physiognomy in a portrait. But enough about Pirogov’s qualities. A person is such a wonderful creature that you can never list all his merits at once, and the more you look at him, the more new features appear, and their description would be endless.
So, Pirogov did not stop pursuing the stranger, from time to time engaging her with questions, to which she answered sharply, abruptly, and with some unclear sounds. They entered through the dark Kazan gates into Meshchanskaya Street, a street of tobacco and small shops, German craftsmen, and Finnish nymphs. The blonde ran faster and fluttered into the gate of a rather dirty house. Pirogov was right behind her. She ran up a narrow dark staircase and entered a door, through which Pirogov also boldly made his way. He found himself in a large room with black walls and a smoke-stained ceiling. A pile of iron screws, locksmith’s tools, shiny coffee pots, and candlesticks were on the table; the floor was littered with copper and iron filings. Pirogov immediately realized that this was a craftsman’s apartment. The stranger fluttered further into a side door. He hesitated for a moment, but, following the Russian rule, he decided to go forward. He entered a room that was not at all like the first one, decorated very neatly, showing that the owner was German. He was struck by an unusually strange sight.
Schiller was sitting in front of him, – not the Schiller who wrote “Wilhelm Tell” and “The History of the Thirty Years’ War,” but the famous Schiller, a tinsmith on Meshchanskaya Street. Next to Schiller stood Hoffmann, – not the writer Hoffmann, but a rather good shoemaker from Officers’ Street, a great friend of Schiller. Schiller was drunk and was sitting on a chair, stomping his foot and saying something with enthusiasm. All this would not have surprised Pirogov, but the extremely strange position of the figures surprised him. Schiller was sitting, with his rather thick nose sticking out and his head held up; and Hoffmann was holding him by this nose with two fingers and twisting the blade of his shoemaker’s knife on its very surface. Both individuals were speaking German, and therefore Lieutenant Pirogov, who only knew “gut morgen” in German, could not understand anything from this whole story. However, Schiller’s words were as follows.
“I don’t want, I don’t need a nose!” he said, waving his arms. “I spend three pounds of snuff a month on one nose. And I pay in a Russian rotten shop, because a German shop doesn’t keep Russian tobacco, I pay in a Russian rotten shop forty kopecks for each pound; that will be one ruble twenty kopecks; twelve times one ruble twenty kopecks – that will be fourteen rubles forty kopecks. Do you hear, my friend Hoffmann? on one nose fourteen rubles forty kopecks! And on holidays I sniff rapé, because I don’t want to sniff Russian rotten tobacco on holidays. In a year I sniffed two pounds of rapé, at two rubles a pound. Six and fourteen – twenty rubles forty kopecks for one tobacco. This is robbery! I ask you, my friend Hoffmann, isn’t that so?” – Hoffmann, who was also drunk, answered in the affirmative. “Twenty rubles forty kopecks! I’m a Swabian German; I have a king in Germany. I don’t want a nose! cut off my nose! here’s my nose!”
And if it were not for the sudden appearance of Lieutenant Pirogov, then, without a doubt, Hoffmann would have cut off Schiller’s nose for no reason at all, because he had already brought his knife into such a position as if he wanted to cut a sole.
Schiller seemed very annoyed that an unknown, uninvited person had so inopportunely disturbed him. Despite the fact that he was in an intoxicating stupor of beer and wine, he felt that it was somewhat inappropriate to be in such a state and with such an action in the presence of an outside witness. Meanwhile, Pirogov leaned slightly and, with a pleasantness characteristic of him, said:
“You will excuse me…”
“Get out!” Schiller answered with a drawn-out tone.
This puzzled Lieutenant Pirogov. Such a treatment was completely new to him. The smile that had slightly appeared on his face suddenly disappeared. With a feeling of offended dignity, he said:
“It’s strange to me, my dear sir… you probably didn’t notice… I’m an officer…”
“What is an officer! I’m a Swabian German. My self (at this Schiller hit the table with his fist) will be an officer: a year and a half a cadet, two years a lieutenant, and tomorrow I will be an officer immediately. But I don’t want to serve. I will do this with an officer: phooey!” – at this Schiller held out his palm and blew on it.
Lieutenant Pirogov saw that he had nothing left but to withdraw; however, such a treatment, which was not at all appropriate for his rank, was unpleasant to him. He stopped several times on the stairs, as if wanting to gather his courage and think about how to make Schiller feel his audacity. Finally, he decided that Schiller could be excused, because his head was filled with beer; in addition, the pretty blonde appeared to him, and he decided to consign this to oblivion. The next day, Lieutenant Pirogov appeared early in the morning at the tinsmith’s workshop. In the front room, the pretty blonde met him and asked in a rather stern voice, which suited her face very well:
“What do you want?”
“Ah, hello, my dear! You didn’t recognize me? You little rogue, what pretty eyes!” – at this Lieutenant Pirogov wanted to very nicely lift her chin with his finger.
But the blonde uttered a frightened exclamation and asked with the same sternness:
“What do you want?”
“To see you, I want nothing else,” Lieutenant Pirogov said, smiling rather pleasantly and moving closer; but, noticing that the frightened blonde wanted to slip through the door, he added: “I need to order spurs, my dear. Can you make spurs for me? although to love you, you don’t need spurs at all, but rather a bridle. What pretty little hands!”
Lieutenant Pirogov was always very charming in explanations of this kind.
“I’ll call my husband now,” the German woman shouted and left, and after a few minutes Pirogov saw Schiller coming out with sleepy eyes, barely having recovered from yesterday’s hangover. Looking at the officer, he recalled, as in a vague dream, the events of the previous day. He did not remember anything in the way it was, but he felt that he had done something stupid, and therefore he received the officer with a very stern look.
“I can’t take less than fifteen rubles for spurs,” he said, wanting to get rid of Pirogov, because, as an honest German, he was very ashamed to look at someone who had seen him in an inappropriate position. Schiller loved to drink completely without witnesses, with two or three friends, and locked himself up even from his workers at this time.
“Why so expensive?” Pirogov said kindly.
“German work,” Schiller said coolly, stroking his chin. “A Russian will undertake to do it for two rubles.”
“Very well, to prove that I love you and want to get to know you, I will pay fifteen rubles.”
Schiller remained in thought for a minute: as an honest German, he felt a little ashamed. Wanting to dissuade him from ordering, he announced that he could not do it in less than two weeks. But Pirogov, without any objection, expressed complete agreement.
The German fell into thought and began to ponder how best to do his work so that it would really be worth fifteen rubles. At this time, the blonde entered the workshop and began to rummage on the table, which was covered with coffee pots. The lieutenant took advantage of Schiller’s thoughtfulness, approached her, and squeezed her hand, which was bare up to the shoulder. Schiller did not like this at all.
“Mein Frau!” he shouted.
“Was wollen Sie doch?” the blonde replied.
“Gehen Sie in die Küche!”
The blonde left.
“So, in two weeks?” Pirogov said.
“Yes, in two weeks,” Schiller replied thoughtfully, “I have a lot of work now.”
“Goodbye! I’ll stop by.”
“Goodbye,” Schiller replied, locking the door behind him.
Lieutenant Pirogov decided not to abandon his pursuits, despite the fact that the German woman had shown clear resistance. He could not understand how anyone could resist him, especially since his charm and brilliant rank gave him every right to attention. It must be said, however, that Schiller’s wife, despite all her good looks, was very stupid. However, stupidity is a special charm in a pretty wife. At least, I knew many husbands who were delighted with the stupidity of their wives and saw in it all the signs of infantile innocence. Beauty works complete miracles. All the spiritual flaws in a beautiful woman, instead of causing disgust, become somehow unusually attractive; even vice breathes with a charming look in them; but if it disappears, a woman needs to be twenty times smarter than a man to inspire if not love, then at least respect. However, Schiller’s wife, despite all her stupidity, was always faithful to her duty, and therefore it was quite difficult for Pirogov to succeed in his bold undertaking; but pleasure is always associated with overcoming obstacles, and the blonde became more interesting to him every day. He began to inquire about the spurs quite often, so that Schiller finally got bored of it. He used all his efforts to finish the spurs he had started as soon as possible; finally, the spurs were ready.
“Oh, what excellent work!” Lieutenant Pirogov shouted, seeing the spurs. “Lord, how well this is done! Our general doesn’t have such spurs.”
A feeling of self-satisfaction spread through Schiller’s soul. His eyes began to look quite cheerful, and he was completely reconciled with Pirogov. “The Russian officer is a smart man,” he thought to himself.
“So you, then, can also make a frame, for example, for a dagger or other things?”
“Oh, I certainly can,” Schiller said with a smile.
“Then make me a frame for a dagger. I’ll bring it to you; I have a very good Turkish dagger, but I would like to have another frame made for it.”
This hit Schiller like a bomb. His forehead suddenly wrinkled. “Here we go again!” he thought to himself, internally scolding himself for having invited the work himself. He considered it dishonest to refuse, and besides, the Russian officer had praised his work. He, having shaken his head a little, expressed his consent; but the kiss that Pirogov impudently planted on the very lips of the pretty blonde as he left plunged him into complete bewilderment.
I consider it not superfluous to introduce the reader to Schiller a little more briefly. Schiller was a perfect German, in the full sense of the word. Since the age of twenty, from that happy time when a Russian lives on a whim, Schiller had already measured out his whole life and made no exceptions, under any circumstances. He decided to get up at seven o’clock, have dinner at two, be exact in everything, and be drunk every Sunday. He set himself the goal of building up a capital of fifty thousand in ten years, and this was already as certain and irresistible as fate, because an official would sooner forget to look into his boss’s Swiss watch than a German would decide to change his word. He never increased his expenses, and if the price of potatoes rose too much above the usual, he did not add a single kopeck, but only reduced the quantity, and although he sometimes remained a little hungry, he got used to it. His punctuality extended to the point that he decided to kiss his wife no more than twice a day, and so that he would not kiss her an extra time, he never put more than one spoonful of pepper in his soup; however, on Sunday this rule was not so strictly followed, because Schiller then drank two bottles of beer and one bottle of caraway vodka, which, however, he always scolded. He drank not at all like an Englishman, who immediately after dinner locks the door with a hook and gets drunk alone. On the contrary, he, as a German, always drank with inspiration, either with the shoemaker Hoffmann, or with the carpenter Kunz, also a German and a big drunkard. Such was the character of the noble Schiller, who was finally put in an extremely difficult position. Although he was phlegmatic and German, Pirogov’s actions aroused something similar to jealousy in him. He racked his brains and could not figure out how to get rid of this Russian officer. Meanwhile, Pirogov, smoking a pipe in the circle of his comrades, – because Providence had already arranged it so that where there are officers, there are pipes, – smoking a pipe in the circle of his comrades, hinted significantly and with a pleasant smile about a fling with a pretty German woman, with whom, according to him, he was already completely on short terms and whom he in fact had already almost given up hope of winning over.
One day he was walking along Meshchanskaya, looking at the house on which Schiller’s sign with coffee pots and samovars was displayed; to his great joy, he saw the blonde’s head hanging out of the window and looking at the passersby. He stopped, waved to her with his hand, and said: “Gut Morgen!” The blonde bowed to him as an acquaintance.
“Is your husband home?”
“Home,” the blonde replied.
“And when is he not home?”
“He is not home on Sundays,” the silly blonde said.
“This is not bad,” Pirogov thought to himself, “I need to take advantage of this.”
And on the following Sunday, he appeared before the blonde like a bolt from the blue. Schiller was indeed not at home. The pretty hostess was frightened; but Pirogov acted rather cautiously this time, treated her very respectfully, and, bowing, showed all the beauty of his flexible, slender waist. He joked very pleasantly and politely, but the silly German woman answered everything in monosyllables. Finally, having approached from all sides and seeing that nothing could occupy her, he offered to dance with her. The German woman agreed in one minute, because German women are always fond of dancing. On this, Pirogov based his hope very much: firstly, it already gave her pleasure, secondly, it could show his posture and dexterity, thirdly, in dancing one can get closer, hug a pretty German woman, and pave the way for everything; in short, he deduced a complete success from this. He began some kind of gavotte, knowing that German women need a gradual approach. The pretty German woman stepped into the middle of the room and raised her beautiful leg. This position so delighted Pirogov that he rushed to kiss her. The German woman began to scream and this only increased her charm in Pirogov’s eyes; he showered her with kisses. Suddenly the door opened, and Schiller entered with Hoffmann and the carpenter Kunz. All these worthy craftsmen were drunk as shoemakers.
But I leave it to the readers themselves to judge Schiller’s anger and indignation.
“Rude fellow!” he shouted in the greatest indignation, “how dare you kiss my wife? You are a scoundrel, not a Russian officer. Damn it, my friend Hoffmann, I’m a German, not a Russian pig!”
Hoffmann answered in the affirmative.
“Oh, I don’t want to have horns! take him, my friend Hoffmann, by the collar, I don’t want to,” he continued, waving his arms violently, his face resembling the red cloth of his vest. “I have lived in St. Petersburg for eight years, I have my mother in Swabia, and my uncle in Nuremberg; I’m a German, not a horned beef! get everything off him, my friend Hoffmann! hold his hands and feet, my comrade Kunz!”
And the Germans grabbed Pirogov by his hands and feet. He tried in vain to fight back; these three craftsmen were the strongest people of all the St. Petersburg Germans and treated him so roughly and impolitely that, I confess, I cannot find the words to describe this sad event.
I am sure that Schiller was in a strong fever the next day, that he trembled like a leaf, expecting the police to arrive from minute to minute, that he would have given God knows what for everything that had happened yesterday to be a dream. But what was, cannot be changed. Nothing could be compared to Pirogov’s anger and indignation. The very thought of such a terrible insult drove him into a rage. He considered Siberia and the lash to be the smallest punishment for Schiller. He flew home to get dressed and go directly to the general from there, to describe to him in the most striking colors the outrage of the German craftsmen. At the same time, he wanted to submit a written request to the Main Staff. And if the Main Staff deems the punishment insufficient, then he would go directly to the State Council, or else to the sovereign himself.
But all this somehow ended strangely: on the way, he went to a confectionery, ate two puff pastries, read a little from the “Northern Bee” and came out not in such an angry state. In addition, the rather pleasant cool evening made him walk a little along Nevsky Prospekt; by nine o’clock he had calmed down and found that it was not good to disturb the general on a Sunday, besides, he was undoubtedly called away somewhere, and so he went to an evening party at the house of a head of the Audit Board, where there was a very pleasant gathering of officials and officers. There he spent the evening with pleasure and distinguished himself in the mazurka so much that he delighted not only the ladies but even the gentlemen.
“The world is wonderfully arranged!” I thought, walking along Nevsky Prospekt the day before yesterday and recalling these two events. “How strange, how incomprehensibly our fate plays with us! Do we ever get what we want? Do we achieve what, it seems, our forces are specially prepared for? Everything happens the other way around. To one, fate gave the most beautiful horses, and he rides them indifferently, not noticing their beauty at all, – while another, whose heart is burning with a horse passion, walks and is content only with clicking his tongue when a trotter is led past him. One has an excellent cook, but, unfortunately, such a small mouth that he cannot swallow more than two pieces; another has a mouth the size of the arch of the Main Staff, but, alas! must be content with some German dinner of potatoes. How strangely our fate plays with us!”
But the strangest of all are the events that happen on Nevsky Prospekt. Oh, don’t believe this Nevsky Prospekt! I always wrap myself more tightly in my cloak when I walk along it, and I try not to look at the objects I encounter at all. Everything is a deception, everything is a dream, everything is not what it seems! Do you think that this gentleman, who is walking in an excellently tailored coat, is very rich? Not at all: he consists entirely of his coat. Do you imagine that these two fat men, who have stopped in front of a church under construction, are judging its architecture? Not at all: they are talking about how strangely two crows sat opposite each other. Do you think that this enthusiast, waving his arms, is talking about how his wife threw a ball out of the window at an officer he did not know at all? Not at all, he’s talking about Lafayette. Do you think that these ladies… but believe the ladies least of all. Look less into the windows of shops: the trinkets displayed in them are beautiful, but they smell of a terrible amount of banknotes. But God forbid you to look at the ladies under their hats! No matter how the cloak of a beautiful woman flutters in the distance, I will not go after her out of curiosity for anything. Further, for God’s sake, further away from the street lamp! and faster, as fast as possible, walk past it. It’s still a blessing if you get away with it only spilling its smelly oil on your dandyish coat. But besides the street lamp, everything breathes with deception. It lies at all times, this Nevsky Prospekt, but most of all when the night falls on it in a condensed mass and separates the white and pale walls of the houses, when the whole city turns into a roar and brilliance, millions of carriages roll off the bridges, outriders shout and jump on horses, and when the demon himself lights the lamps only to show everything not in its true form.
THE NOSE
I
An extraordinarily strange event happened in St. Petersburg on March 25. The barber Ivan Yakovlevich, who lived on Voznesensky Prospekt (his surname is lost, and even on his sign — which depicts a gentleman with a soaped cheek and the inscription: “And blood is let” — nothing more is displayed), the barber Ivan Yakovlevich woke up quite early and smelled hot bread. Leaning up a little in bed, he saw that his wife, a rather respectable lady who loved to drink coffee very much, was taking freshly baked loaves of bread out of the oven.
“Today, Praskovya Osipovna, I won’t drink coffee,” said Ivan Yakovlevich, “but instead, I’d like to eat some hot bread with onions.”
(That is, Ivan Yakovlevich would have liked both, but he knew that it was completely impossible to ask for two things at once, because Praskovya Osipovna did not like such whims at all.) “Let the fool eat bread; it’s better for me,” his wife thought to herself, “there will be an extra portion of coffee left.” And she threw a loaf of bread on the table.
For propriety’s sake, Ivan Yakovlevich put on a frock coat over his shirt and, sitting down at the table, sprinkled salt, prepared two heads of onion, took a knife in his hands, and, making a significant face, began to cut the bread. Having cut the bread into two halves, he looked into the middle and, to his surprise, saw something white. Ivan Yakovlevich carefully poked it with a knife and felt it with his finger. “It’s firm!” he said to himself, “what could this be?”
He stuck his fingers in and pulled it out — a nose! .. Ivan Yakovlevich dropped his hands; he began to rub his eyes and feel it: a nose, a real nose! and it even seemed as if it was someone familiar. Horror was depicted on Ivan Yakovlevich’s face. But this horror was nothing compared to the indignation that seized his wife.
“Where did you, you beast, cut off a nose?” she shouted with anger. “You scoundrel! You drunkard! I’ll report you to the police myself. What a robber! I’ve already heard from three people that you tug at their noses so hard when shaving that they can barely hold on.”
But Ivan Yakovlevich was neither dead nor alive. He recognized that this nose was none other than Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov’s, whom he shaved every Wednesday and Sunday.
“Wait, Praskovya Osipovna! I’ll put it, wrapped in a rag, in a corner; let it lie there for a little while, and then I’ll take it out.”
“I don’t want to hear about it! You think I would allow a cut-off nose to lie in my room?.. You toasted cracker! All you know how to do is run a razor over a strap, and you won’t be able to fulfill your duty soon at all, you slut, you scoundrel! You think I’m going to be responsible for you to the police?.. Oh, you slob, you stupid log! Get it out! Get it out! take it wherever you want! I don’t want to hear its smell!”
Ivan Yakovlevich stood as if he had been killed. He thought, thought – and did not know what to think.
“The devil knows how this happened,” he finally said, scratching his ear with his hand. “Whether I came back drunk yesterday or not, I can’t say for sure. But by all indications, it must be an impossible event: for bread is a baked thing, and a nose is something completely different. I can’t make anything out of it!..”
Ivan Yakovlevich fell silent. The thought that the police would find the nose at his place and accuse him brought him into a state of complete unconsciousness. He already imagined a scarlet collar, beautifully embroidered with silver, a sword… and he trembled all over. Finally, he got his underwear and boots, dragged all this junk on himself, and, accompanied by the difficult admonitions of Praskovya Osipovna, wrapped the nose in a rag and went out into the street.
He wanted to slip it somewhere: either into the post under the gate, or just accidentally drop it somehow, and then turn into a side street. But, to his misfortune, he met some acquaintance who immediately began with the question: “Where are you going?”, or: “Who are you going to shave so early?” – so that Ivan Yakovlevich could not find a minute. Another time he almost dropped it, but a watchman from a distance pointed at him with a halberd, saying: “Pick it up! you dropped something!” And Ivan Yakovlevich had to pick up the nose and hide it in his pocket. Despair seized him, all the more so since the people on the street were constantly multiplying, as shops and stalls began to open.
He decided to go to the Isaac Bridge: would he be able to throw it into the Neva somehow?.. But I’m a little to blame for not having said anything about Ivan Yakovlevich, a respectable man in many respects, until now.
Ivan Yakovlevich, like every decent Russian craftsman, was a terrible drunkard. And although he shaved other people’s chins every day, his own was always unshaved. Ivan Yakovlevich’s frock coat (Ivan Yakovlevich never wore a tailcoat) was dappled; that is, it was black, but all in brown-yellow and gray speckles; the collar was shiny, and instead of three buttons, only threads hung. Ivan Yakovlevich was a great cynic, and when Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov usually said to him while shaving: “Your hands, Ivan Yakovlevich, always stink!” – Ivan Yakovlevich would reply with the question: “Why should they stink?” – “I don’t know, my friend, they just stink,” the collegiate assessor would say, and Ivan Yakovlevich, having sniffed some snuff, would lather him for it both on the cheek, and under the nose, and behind the ear, and under the chin – in a word, wherever he wanted.
This respectable citizen was already on the Isaac Bridge. First of all, he looked around; then he bent over the railing, as if to see under the bridge: how many fish were swimming, and quietly threw the rag with the nose. He felt as if ten poods had been lifted from him at once; Ivan Yakovlevich even smiled. Instead of going to shave the chins of officials, he went to an establishment with the sign “Food and Tea” to ask for a glass of punch, when he suddenly noticed at the end of the bridge a precinct police officer of noble appearance, with wide sideburns, in a triangular hat, with a sword. He froze; and meanwhile, the precinct officer was beckoning him with his finger and saying:
“Come here, my dear fellow!”
Ivan Yakovlevich, knowing the drill, took off his cap from a distance and, approaching quickly, said:
“I wish you health, Your Honor!”
“No, no, my friend, not ‘Your Honor’; tell me, what were you doing there, standing on the bridge?”
“I swear to God, sir, I was walking to shave, and I only looked to see how fast the river was going.”
“You’re lying, you’re lying! That won’t do. Please answer!”
“I am ready to shave Your Grace twice a week, or even three times, without any objection,” Ivan Yakovlevich replied.
“No, my friend, that’s nonsense! Three barbers shave me, and they even consider it a great honor. But tell me, what were you doing there?”
Ivan Yakovlevich turned pale… But here the event is completely covered in fog, and what happened next is absolutely unknown.
II
Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov woke up quite early and made a “brr…” sound with his lips – which he always did when he woke up, although he himself could not explain why. Kovalyov stretched and ordered the small mirror on the table to be brought to him. He wanted to look at the pimple that had appeared on his nose the previous evening; but, to his greatest astonishment, he saw that instead of a nose, he had a completely smooth spot! Frightened, Kovalyov ordered water to be brought and wiped his eyes with a towel: sure enough, no nose! He began to feel with his hand to find out if he was dreaming: it didn’t seem so. Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov jumped out of bed, shook himself: no nose!… He immediately ordered his clothes to be brought to him and flew straight to the chief of police.
But in the meantime, it is necessary to say something about Kovalyov, so that the reader can see what kind of a collegiate assessor this was. Collegiate assessors who receive this rank with the help of academic certificates can in no way be compared with those collegiate assessors who were made in the Caucasus. These are two completely different types. Academic collegiate assessors… But Russia is such a wonderful land that if you say something about one collegiate assessor, all collegiate assessors, from Riga to Kamchatka, will certainly take it personally. The same goes for all ranks and titles. Kovalyov was a Caucasian collegiate assessor. He had only been in this rank for two years and therefore could not forget it for a minute; and to give himself more nobility and weight, he never called himself a collegiate assessor, but always a major. “Listen, my dear,” he would usually say, meeting a woman selling starched shirts on the street, “you come to my house; my apartment is in Sadovaya; just ask: does Major Kovalyov live here? – everyone will show you.” If he met some pretty woman, he would give her a secret instruction in addition, adding: “You ask for the apartment of Major Kovalyov, my dear.” For this very reason, we will henceforth call this collegiate assessor a major.
Major Kovalyov was in the habit of walking along Nevsky Prospekt every day. The collar of his starched shirt was always extremely clean and starched. His sideburns were of the kind that can still be seen today on provincial and district surveyors, on architects and regimental doctors, as well as on those who perform various police duties and, in general, on all those men who have full, rosy cheeks and play whist very well: these sideburns go right down the middle of the cheek and go straight up to the nose. Major Kovalyov wore a multitude of carnelian and signet rings, and ones on which were carved: Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, etc. Major Kovalyov came to St. Petersburg out of necessity, namely, to look for a position suitable for his rank: if he was lucky, then a vice-governor’s position, and if not – an executor’s position in some prominent department. Major Kovalyov was not averse to getting married either, but only in the case when the bride had a capital of two hundred thousand. And therefore the reader can now judge for himself what the situation of this major was when he saw instead of a rather decent and moderate nose, a very stupid, even, and smooth spot.
As luck would have it, not a single cab driver appeared on the street, and he had to walk, wrapped in his cloak and covering his face with a handkerchief, pretending as if he had a nosebleed. “But maybe it just seemed so to me: it can’t be that a nose just disappeared for no reason,” he thought and went into a confectionery on purpose to look in the mirror. Fortunately, there was no one in the confectionery; the boys were sweeping the rooms and arranging the chairs; some with sleepy eyes were carrying hot pastries on trays; on the tables and chairs lay yesterday’s newspapers, stained with coffee. “Well, thank God, no one is here,” he said, “now I can take a look.” He timidly approached the mirror and looked. “The devil knows what, what rubbish!” he said, spitting. “If only there was something instead of a nose, but there’s nothing at all!..”
Annoyed, he bit his lip, left the confectionery, and decided, contrary to his custom, not to look at anyone and not to smile at anyone. Suddenly he stood as if rooted to the spot at the door of one house; an inexplicable phenomenon occurred in his eyes: a carriage stopped in front of the entrance; the doors opened; a gentleman in a uniform jumped out, bent over, and ran up the stairs. What was Kovalyov’s horror and at the same time amazement when he recognized that it was his own nose! At this extraordinary sight, it seemed to him that everything had turned upside down in his eyes; he felt that he could barely stand; but he decided, no matter what, to wait for its return to the carriage, trembling all over, as if in a fever. After two minutes, the nose really came out. It was in a uniform embroidered with gold, with a large high collar; it had suede trousers on; a sword at its side. From the hat with a plume, it could be concluded that it was considered to be in the rank of a state councilor. It was noticeable from everything that it was going somewhere for a visit. It looked to both sides, shouted to the coachman: “Bring it here!” – sat down and drove away.
Poor Kovalyov almost went crazy. He did not know how to even think about such a strange event. How is it possible, in fact, that a nose, which was still on his face yesterday, could not drive and walk, – was in a uniform! He ran after the carriage, which, fortunately, had not gone far and stopped in front of the Kazan Cathedral.
He hurried to the cathedral, made his way through a row of beggar old women with their faces tied up and two holes for eyes, at whom he used to laugh so much, and entered the church. There were few worshipers inside the church; they were all standing only at the entrance to the doors. Kovalyov felt himself in such a disturbed state that he was in no way able to pray, and looked with his eyes for this gentleman in all corners. Finally, he saw it standing aside. The nose completely hid its face in a large high collar and prayed with an expression of the greatest piety.
“How do I approach it?” Kovalyov thought. “From everything, from the uniform, from the hat, it is clear that it is a state councilor. The devil knows how to do this!”
He began to cough near it; but the nose did not leave its pious position for a minute and bowed.
“My dear sir…” Kovalyov said, internally forcing himself to cheer up, “my dear sir…”
“What do you want?” the nose replied, turning around.
“It’s strange to me, my dear sir… it seems to me… you should know your place. And suddenly I find you, and where? – in a church. Agree…”
“Excuse me, I can’t understand what you are pleased to be talking about… Explain yourself…”
“How can I explain it to him?” Kovalyov thought and, gathering his courage, began:
“Of course, I… however, I am a major. It is unseemly for me to walk around without a nose, you must agree. Some market woman who sells peeled oranges on Voskresensky Bridge can sit without a nose; but, with a view to getting… besides, being acquainted with ladies in many houses: Chekhtareva, the state councilor’s wife, and others… You judge for yourself… I don’t know, my dear sir. (At this Major Kovalyov shrugged his shoulders.) Excuse me… if you look at this in accordance with the rules of duty and honor… you yourself can understand…”
“I understand absolutely nothing,” the nose replied. “Explain yourself more satisfactorily.”
“My dear sir…” Kovalyov said with a sense of his own dignity, “I don’t know how to understand your words… Here everything, it seems, is completely obvious… Or do you want to… But you are my own nose!”
The nose looked at the major, and its eyebrows frowned a little.
“You are mistaken, my dear sir. I am on my own. Besides, there can be no close relations between us. Judging by the buttons on your vice-uniform, you must serve in a different department.”
Having said this, the nose turned away and continued to pray.
Kovalyov was completely confused, not knowing what to do or even what to think. At this time, a pleasant rustle of a lady’s dress was heard; an elderly lady, all decorated with lace, approached, and with her a slender one in a white dress, which looked very nice on her slender waist, in a pale hat, light as a pastry. A tall footman with large sideburns and a whole dozen collars stopped behind them and opened a snuffbox.
Kovalyov stepped closer, poked out the batiste collar of his starched shirt, straightened his signet rings hanging on a gold chain, and, smiling to the sides, drew attention to the light lady, who, like a spring flower, was slightly bending and bringing her little white hand with translucent fingers to her forehead. The smile on Kovalyov’s face spread even further when he saw from under her hat her round, brightly white chin and part of her cheek, overshadowed by the color of the first spring rose. But suddenly he jumped back, as if he had been burned. He remembered that he had absolutely nothing instead of a nose, and tears squeezed out of his eyes. He turned around to tell the gentleman in the uniform directly that he was only pretending to be a state councilor, that he was a rascal and a scoundrel and that he was nothing more than his own nose… But the nose was no longer there; it had managed to gallop away, probably again to someone for a visit.
This plunged Kovalyov into despair. He went back and stood for a minute under the colonnade, carefully looking in all directions, to see if the nose would appear somewhere. He remembered very well that the hat on it had a plume and the uniform had gold embroidery; but he did not notice the greatcoat, or the color of its carriage, or the horses, or even whether it had any lackey behind it and in what livery. Besides, such a multitude of carriages was rushing back and forth and with such speed that it was difficult to even notice; but even if he had noticed one of them, he would have had no means of stopping it. The day was beautiful and sunny. There were a lot of people on Nevsky; a whole floral waterfall of ladies was pouring all over the sidewalk, from the Police Bridge to the Anichkov Bridge. There is a familiar collegiate councilor going, whom he called a lieutenant colonel, especially if it happened in the presence of strangers. There is Yarygin, the head of a department in the senate, a great friend, who was always out of cards in whist when he played eight. There is another major, who received an assessor’s rank in the Caucasus, waving his hand for him to come…
“Ah, damn it!” Kovalyov said. “Hey, cab driver, take me straight to the chief of police!”
Kovalyov got into the cab and only shouted to the cab driver: “Go full speed!”
“Is the chief of police in?” he shouted, having entered the front hall.
“No, he’s not,” the doorman replied, “he just left.”
“Oh no!”
“Yes,” the doorman added, “it wasn’t that long ago, but he left. If you had come a minute earlier, you might have caught him at home.”
Kovalyov, without taking the handkerchief from his face, sat down in the cab and shouted in a desperate voice:
“Go!”
“Where to?” the cab driver said.
“Go straight!”
“How straight? There’s a turn here: right or left?”
This question stopped Kovalyov and made him think again. In his situation, he should have first of all gone to the police station, not because it had a direct relationship to the police, but because its orders could be much faster than in other places; it would be reckless to seek satisfaction from the authorities of the place where the nose declared itself to be serving, because from the nose’s own answers it was already possible to see that there was nothing sacred for this person and it could lie in this case just as it lied, assuring that it had never seen him. So, Kovalyov was about to order to go to the police station, when the thought came to him again that this rascal and scoundrel, who had already acted in such a shameless way at the first meeting, could again conveniently, taking advantage of the time, somehow slip out of the city, – and then all searches would be in vain or could drag on, God forbid, for a whole month. Finally, it seemed, Heaven itself gave him a hint. He decided to go directly to the newspaper office and make a publication in advance with a detailed description of all the qualities, so that anyone who met it could immediately bring it to him or, at least, give him a notice of its whereabouts. So, having decided on this, he ordered the cab driver to go to the newspaper office and did not stop punching him in the back with his fist all the way, saying: “Faster, you scoundrel! Faster, you rascal!” – “Oh, master!” said the cab driver, shaking his head and lashing his horse, whose coat was long, like a lapdog’s, with the reins. The cab finally stopped, and Kovalyov, out of breath, ran into a small reception room, where a gray-haired official, in an old frock coat and glasses, was sitting at a table and, holding a pen in his teeth, was counting the copper money that had been brought in.
“Who takes announcements here?” Kovalyov shouted. “Ah, hello!”
“My respects,” said the gray-haired official, raising his eyes for a moment and lowering them again to the piles of money laid out.
“I wish to have printed…”
“Allow me. Please wait a little,” the official said, putting a number on the paper with one hand and moving two beads on the abacus with the fingers of his left hand.
A footman with gold braid and an appearance that showed his residence in an aristocratic house stood near the table, with a note in his hands, and considered it appropriate to show his sociability:
“Would you believe it, sir, that a little dog is not worth eight grivnas, that is, I wouldn’t have given eight kopecks for it; but the countess loves it, I swear to God, she loves it, – and here, to the one who finds it, a hundred rubles! To be honest, the tastes of people are not at all compatible, like you and I now: if you’re a hunter, then you keep a pointer or a poodle; don’t spare five hundred, give a thousand, but then you’ll have a good dog.”
The venerable official listened to this with a significant expression and at the same time was busy estimating: how many letters were in the note that was brought. On the sides stood a multitude of old women, shop assistants, and janitors with notes. In one it was stated that a coachman of sober behavior was available for service; in another, a lightly used carriage, brought from Paris in 1814; there a nineteen-year-old serf girl who had practiced laundry work and was also suitable for other jobs was available; a sturdy carriage without one spring; a young, spirited dappled gray horse, seventeen years old; new turnip and radish seeds, received from London; a dacha with all amenities: two stables for horses and a place where you can grow an excellent birch or spruce garden; also, there was an invitation for those wishing to buy old soles, with an invitation to appear for re-auction every day from eight to three in the morning. The room, in which all this company was packed, was small, and the air in it was extremely thick; but Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov could not smell it, because he had covered himself with a handkerchief and because his very nose was God knows where.
“My dear sir, allow me to ask you… I really need it,” he finally said impatiently.
“Just a minute, just a minute! Two rubles and forty-three kopecks! Right this minute! One ruble and sixty-four kopecks!” the gray-haired gentleman said, throwing notes in the faces of the old women and janitors. “What do you want?” he finally said, turning to Kovalyov.
“I ask…” Kovalyov said, “a piece of fraud or roguery has happened, I still can’t find out. I only ask to have it printed that whoever brings this scoundrel to me will receive a sufficient reward.”
“May I ask your last name?”
“No, why a last name? I can’t say it. I have many acquaintances: Chekhtareva, the state councilor’s wife, Palageya Grigorievna Podtochina, the staff officer’s wife… They’ll suddenly find out, God forbid! You can just write: collegiate assessor, or, even better, in the rank of major.”
“And the runaway was your serf?”
“What a serf? That wouldn’t be such a big fraud! My nose ran away from me…”
“Hmm! What a strange last name! And did this gentleman Nosov steal a large sum from you?”
“My nose, that is… you’re thinking of the wrong thing! My nose, my own nose, disappeared to who knows where. The devil wanted to play a trick on me!”
“But how did it disappear? I can’t quite understand.”
“Well, I can’t tell you how; but the main thing is that it is now driving around the city and calling itself a state councilor. And therefore I ask you to announce that the one who catches it should bring it to me immediately as soon as possible. You judge for yourself, really, what am I to do without such a noticeable part of the body? This is not like some little toe on the foot, which I can put in a boot – and no one will see if it’s not there. I go to the state councilor’s wife Chekhtareva’s on Thursdays; Podtochina Palageya Grigorievna, the staff officer’s wife, and she has a very pretty daughter, also very good acquaintances, and you judge for yourself, what am I to do now… I can’t appear before them now.”
The official fell into thought, which was indicated by his tightly compressed lips.
“No, I cannot place such an advertisement in the newspapers,” he finally said after a long silence.
“How? Why not?”
“Just so. The newspaper can lose its reputation. If everyone starts writing that their nose has run away, then… And they already say that a lot of inconsistencies and false rumors are printed.”
“But how is this matter inconsistent? There seems to be nothing of the sort here.”
“It only seems to you that there is not. But last week there was a similar case. An official came in the same way as you have now, brought a note, the money for the calculation came to two rubles and seventy-three kopecks, and the whole announcement consisted in the fact that a black-haired poodle had run away. It would seem, what’s so special about that? But a lampoon came out: this poodle was a treasurer, I don’t remember of what kind of institution.”
“But I’m not making an announcement about a poodle, but about my own nose: therefore, it’s almost the same as about myself.”
“No, I can’t place such an announcement. ”
“But I really have lost my nose!”
“If it’s lost, then that’s a doctor’s business. They say there are such people who can attach any nose you want. But, however, I notice that you must be a cheerful person and like to joke in society.”
“I swear to you, as God is holy! If it’s come to this, I’ll show you.”
“Why bother!” the official continued, sniffing snuff. “However, if it’s not too much trouble,” he added with a movement of curiosity, “I would like to take a look.”
The collegiate assessor took the handkerchief from his face.
“Indeed, it’s extremely strange!” the official said, “the place is completely smooth, as if it were a freshly baked pancake. Yes, it’s unbelievably smooth!”
“Well, will you argue now? You see for yourself that it’s impossible not to print it. I will be especially grateful to you; and I am very glad that this case gave me the pleasure of meeting you…”
The major, as can be seen from this, decided to fawn a little this time.
“To print it, of course, is a small matter,” the official said, “only I don’t foresee any benefit for you in this. If you really want to, then give it to someone who has a skillful pen to describe it as a rare work of nature and print this article in the ‘Northern Bee’ (here he sniffed snuff once more) for the benefit of the youth (here he wiped his nose) or so, for general curiosity.”
The collegiate assessor was completely disheartened. He lowered his eyes to the bottom of the newspaper, where there was an announcement about theatrical performances; his face was already ready to smile when he met the name of an actress, who was pretty, and his hand reached for his pocket: did he have a blue banknote with him, because, in Kovalyov’s opinion, staff officers should sit in armchairs, – but the thought of the nose spoiled everything!
The official himself, it seemed, was touched by Kovalyov’s difficult situation. Wanting to somehow ease his grief, he considered it appropriate to express his sympathy in a few words:
“I am truly very sorry that such a thing happened to you. Would you like to sniff some snuff? it breaks up headaches and sad moods; it’s even good for hemorrhoids.”
Saying this, the official offered Kovalyov his snuffbox, turning the lid with a portrait of some lady in a hat quite cleverly under it.
This unintentional act drove Kovalyov out of patience.
“I don’t understand how you find a place for jokes,” he said angrily, “don’t you see that I don’t have exactly what I could sniff with? May the devil take your snuff! I can’t look at it now, and not just at your nasty Berezinsky, but even if you offered me the finest rapé.”
Having said this, he left the newspaper office, deeply annoyed, and went to the police superintendent, a great lover of sugar. At his house, the entire front hall, which was also the dining room, was filled with sugar loaves, which the merchants had brought to him out of friendship. The cook at this time was taking the official boots off the police superintendent; the sword and all the military armor had already peacefully hung in the corners, and his three-year-old son was already touching the formidable triangular hat; and he, after a fighting, abusive life, was preparing to enjoy the pleasures of peace.
Kovalyov entered his house at the moment when he stretched, grunted, and said: “Ah, I’ll have a good two-hour nap!” And therefore it could be foreseen that the collegiate assessor’s arrival was completely untimely; and I don’t know, even if he had brought him several pounds of tea or cloth at that time, he would not have been received too warmly. The superintendent was a great promoter of all arts and manufactures, but he preferred the state banknote above all else. “This is a thing,” he would usually say, “there is nothing better than this thing: it doesn’t ask for food, it takes up little space, it always fits in a pocket, if you drop it – it won’t break.”
The superintendent received Kovalyov quite coldly and said that after dinner was not the time to conduct an investigation, that nature itself had intended for one to rest a little after eating (from this the collegiate assessor could see that the police superintendent was no stranger to the sayings of ancient sages), that a decent person would not have his nose torn off and that there are many kinds of majors in the world who do not even have their underwear in a decent state and hang out in all sorts of indecent places.
That is, not in the eyebrow, but straight in the eye! It should be noted that Kovalyov was an extremely touchy person. He could forgive everything that was said about him personally, but he would never forgive if it related to his rank or title. He even believed that in theatrical plays everything related to senior officers could be omitted, but staff officers should never be attacked. The superintendent’s reception confused him so much that he shook his head and said with a sense of dignity, spreading his arms a little: “I confess, after such offensive remarks on your part, I can’t add anything…” – and left.
He came home, barely feeling his feet under him. It was already dusk. The apartment seemed sad or extremely nasty to him after all these unsuccessful searches. Entering the front hall, he saw his lackey Ivan on a dirty leather sofa, who was lying on his back, spitting at the ceiling and hitting the same spot quite successfully. Such indifference of the man infuriated him; he hit him on the forehead with his hat, saying: “You, pig, are always doing stupid things!”
Ivan suddenly jumped up from his place and rushed at full speed to take off his cloak.
Having entered his room, the major, tired and sad, threw himself into an armchair and finally, after a few sighs, said:
“My God! My God! Why is this such a misfortune? If I were without an arm or a leg – that would be better; if I were without ears – it’s nasty, but still more bearable; but a person without a nose – the devil knows what: not a bird, not a citizen, – just take him and throw him out the window! And if it had been cut off in a war or a duel, or if I myself had been the cause; but it disappeared for no reason at all, it disappeared for nothing, for a grosh! .. No, it can’t be,” he added, thinking for a little while. “It’s unbelievable that a nose would disappear; it’s impossible in any way. This is probably either a dream, or I’m just hallucinating; maybe I mistakenly drank vodka instead of water, with which I wipe my beard after shaving. Ivan, the fool, didn’t notice, and I, for sure, took a swig of it.”
To really convince himself that he was not drunk, the major pinched himself so hard that he himself cried out. This pain completely assured him that he was acting and living in reality. He quietly approached the mirror and at first closed his eyes with the thought that maybe the nose would appear in its place; but at the same moment he jumped back, saying:
“What a lampooning sight!”
This was, indeed, incomprehensible. If a button, a silver spoon, a watch, or something similar had disappeared; but to disappear, and for whom to disappear? and besides, right in one’s own apartment! .. Major Kovalyov, having considered all the circumstances, assumed that the closest thing to the truth was that the culprit must be none other than the staff officer’s wife Podtochina, who wanted him to marry her daughter. He himself liked to flirt with her, but avoided a final settlement. When the staff officer’s wife told him directly that she wanted to marry her to him, he quietly sailed away with his compliments, saying that he was still young, that he needed to serve for about five more years to be exactly forty-two years old. And so the staff officer’s wife, probably out of revenge, decided to ruin him and hired some witch women for this purpose, because it was impossible to assume that the nose had been cut off: no one had entered his room; the barber Ivan Yakovlevich had shaved him on Wednesday, and throughout Wednesday and even all of Thursday his nose was intact – he remembered and knew this very well; besides, he would have felt pain, and, without a doubt, the wound could not have healed so quickly and been as smooth as a pancake. He made plans in his head: should he formally sue the staff officer’s wife or go to her himself and expose her. His thoughts were interrupted by a light that shone through all the cracks in the doors, which let him know that the candle in the front hall had already been lit by Ivan. Soon Ivan himself appeared, carrying it in front of him and brightly illuminating the whole room. Kovalyov’s first impulse was to grab a handkerchief and cover the place where his nose had been yesterday, so that the stupid man would not stare when he saw such a strangeness in his master.
Ivan had not had time to go into his closet when an unfamiliar voice was heard in the front hall, saying:
“Does Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov live here?”
“Come in. Major Kovalyov is here,” Kovalyov said, getting up hastily and opening the door.
A police official of handsome appearance entered, with sideburns that were neither too light nor too dark, with rather full cheeks, the very one who at the beginning of the story was standing at the end of the Isaac Bridge.
“Did you happen to lose your nose?”
“Exactly.”
“It has now been found.”
“What are you saying?” Major Kovalyov shouted. Joy took away his tongue. He stared at the precinct officer standing in front of him, on whose full lips and cheeks the trembling light of the candle flickered brightly. “How?”
“By a strange coincidence: it was intercepted almost on the road. It was already getting into a diligence and wanted to go to Riga. And the passport had long been written in the name of one official. And the strange thing is that I myself at first took it for a gentleman. But, fortunately, I had my glasses with me, and I immediately saw that it was a nose. You see, I am nearsighted, and if you stand in front of me, I only see that you have a face, but I won’t notice a nose, or a beard, or anything. My mother-in-law, that is, my wife’s mother, also doesn’t see anything.”
Kovalyov was beside himself.
“Where is it? Where? I’ll run there now.”
“Don’t worry. Knowing that you needed it, I brought it with me. And the strange thing is that the main accomplice in this matter is a rogue barber on Voznesenskaya Street, who is now in the police station. I have long suspected him of drunkenness and theft, and just the other day he stole a whole board of buttons from one shop. Your nose is completely as it was.”
At this, the precinct officer reached into his pocket and pulled out a nose wrapped in paper.
“Yes, it’s him!” Kovalyov shouted. “Exactly, it’s him! Have a cup of tea with me today.”
“I would consider it a great pleasure, but I can’t: I need to go to the correctional facility from here… The cost of all provisions has risen very much… My mother-in-law, that is, my wife’s mother, and children also live in my house; the eldest especially shows great promise: a very smart boy, but there are absolutely no means for education…”
Kovalyov guessed and, grabbing a red banknote from the table, slipped it into the hands of the supervisor, who, bowing, left the door, and at the same moment Kovalyov could already hear his voice on the street, where he was admonishing a stupid peasant who had driven his cart right onto the boulevard.
After the precinct officer left, the collegiate assessor remained in some indefinite state for a few minutes and only after a few minutes was he able to see and feel: such unconsciousness was caused by the unexpected joy. He carefully took the found nose in both hands, cupped together, and once again examined it carefully.
“Yes, it’s him, exactly him!” said Major Kovalyov. “Here’s the pimple on the left side that appeared yesterday.”
The major almost laughed for joy. But there is nothing long-lasting in the world, and so the joy in the minute following the first is no longer so lively; in the third minute it becomes even weaker and finally imperceptibly merges with the ordinary state of the soul, just as a circle on the water, born from a falling pebble, finally merges with the smooth surface. Kovalyov began to reflect and realized that the matter was not yet finished: the nose was found, but it still needed to be attached, to be put in its place.
“What if it doesn’t stick?”
At this question, which he asked himself, the major turned pale.
With a feeling of inexplicable fear, he rushed to the table, moved the mirror closer so as not to put the nose on crookedly. His hands were shaking. He carefully and cautiously placed it on its former place. Oh, horror! The nose did not stick!.. He brought it to his mouth, warmed it slightly with his breath, and again brought it to the smooth spot that was between his two cheeks; but the nose did not hold on in any way.
“Well! Come on! Get on there, you fool!” he said to it. But the nose was like wood and fell on the table with such a strange sound, as if it were a cork. The major’s face convulsively twisted. “Is it really not going to grow back?” he said in a fright. But no matter how many times he brought it to its own place, the effort was still unsuccessful.
He called Ivan and sent him for a doctor, who occupied the best apartment on the mezzanine floor in the same building. This doctor was a man of prominent appearance, had beautiful resinous sideburns, a fresh, healthy doctor’s wife, ate fresh apples in the morning, and kept his mouth extraordinarily clean, rinsing it every morning for almost three quarters of an hour and polishing his teeth with five different kinds of brushes. The doctor appeared at the same minute. Having asked how long the misfortune had occurred, he lifted Major Kovalyov by the chin and gave him a flick with his thumb in the very place where the nose had been before, so that the major had to throw his head back with such force that he hit the back of his head against the wall. The doctor said that this was nothing, and, having advised him to move away from the wall a little, told him to bend his head first to the right side and, having felt the place where the nose had been before, said: “Hmm!” Then he told him to bend his head to the left side and said: “Hmm!” – and in conclusion he again gave him a flick with his thumb, so that Major Kovalyov jerked his head like a horse whose teeth are being examined. Having made such a test, the doctor shook his head and said:
“No, it’s impossible. You’d better just stay as you are, because you could make it even worse. Of course, it can be attached; I would, perhaps, attach it to you right now; but I assure you that this will be worse for you. ”
“Well, that’s great! How am I supposed to live without a nose?” Kovalyov said. “It can’t get any worse than it is now. This is just who knows what! Where am I going to show myself with such a lampooning face? I have good acquaintances; just today I need to be at an evening party at two houses. I am acquainted with many people: the state councilor’s wife Chekhtareva, Podtochina – the staff officer’s wife… although after her present action I have nothing to do with her except through the police. Please,” Kovalyov said in a pleading voice, “is there no way? Attach it somehow; even if it’s not good, as long as it stays on; I can even support it slightly with my hand in dangerous cases. Besides, I don’t dance so that I could harm it with some careless movement. Everything that concerns gratitude for the visits, you can be sure, as much as my means will allow…”
“Do you believe,” the doctor said, in a voice that was neither loud nor quiet, but extremely amiable and magnetic, “that I never treat people out of greed. This is contrary to my principles and my art. It is true that I take money for visits, but only so as not to offend with my refusal. Of course, I would attach your nose; but I assure you on my honor, if you don’t believe my word, that it will be much worse. You’d better leave it to the action of nature itself. Wash it more often with cold water, and I assure you that, without a nose, you will be just as healthy as if you had one. And I advise you to put the nose in a jar with alcohol or, even better, pour two tablespoons of hot vodka and heated vinegar into it, – and then you can get a decent amount of money for it. I will even take it myself, if you don’t charge too much.”
“No, no! I won’t sell it for anything!” the desperate Major Kovalyov exclaimed, “I’d rather it disappear!”
“Excuse me!” the doctor said, bowing, “I wanted to be useful to you… What can I do! At least you’ve seen my effort.”
Having said this, the doctor with a noble posture left the room. Kovalyov did not even notice his face and in a deep state of insensibility saw only the cuffs of his white and clean shirt, like snow, looking out from the sleeves of his black frock coat.
He decided the next day, before filing a complaint, to write to the staff officer’s wife, to see if she would agree to return to him what was his without a fight. The letter was of the following content:
“My dear Alexandra Grigorievna!
I cannot understand your strange actions. Be sure that, by acting in this way, you will not gain anything and will not in any way force me to marry your daughter. Believe me, the story about my nose is completely known to me, as well as the fact that you are the main accomplice in this, and no one else. Its sudden separation from its place, its escape and its disguise, sometimes as one official, and then, finally, in its own form, is nothing more than the result of sorcery, performed by you or those who practice such noble occupations as you do. For my part, I consider it my duty to warn you: if the nose I mentioned is not in its place today, I will be forced to resort to the protection and patronage of the laws.
However, with complete respect to you, I have the honor to be,
Your humble servant,
Platon Kovalyov.”
“My dear Platon Kuzmich!
Your letter surprised me greatly. I confess to you in all frankness, I did not expect it at all, and even more so with regard to your unjust reproaches. I warn you that I have never received the official you mention in my house, neither in disguise nor in his real form. It is true that Philip Ivanovich Potachnikov has been to see me. And although he, indeed, sought the hand of my daughter, being a good, sober person of great learning, I never gave him any hope. You also mention a nose. If you mean by this that I supposedly wanted to leave you with a nose, that is, to give you a formal refusal, then I am surprised that you yourself are talking about this, whereas I, as you know, was of a completely opposite opinion, and if you now propose to my daughter in a lawful manner, I am ready to satisfy you this very hour, for this has always been the subject of my most lively desire, in the hope of which I remain always ready to serve you,
Alexandra Podtochina.”
“No,” said Kovalyov, who had read the letter. “She is definitely not to blame. It can’t be! The letter is written in a way that a person guilty of a crime cannot write. – The collegiate assessor was knowledgeable in this because he had been sent to an investigation several times in the Caucasian region. – How, then, by what fate did this happen? Only the devil will figure this out!” he finally said, dropping his hands.
Meanwhile, rumors about this unusual event spread throughout the capital, and, as is customary, not without special additions. At that time, everyone’s minds were precisely tuned to the extraordinary: only recently had the public been occupied by experiments with magnetism. In addition, the story of the dancing chairs on Konyushennaya Street was still fresh, and therefore it is not surprising that people soon began to say that the nose of Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov was walking along Nevsky Prospekt at exactly three o’clock. A multitude of curious people gathered every day. Someone said that the nose was supposedly in Junkers’ store – and such a crowd and crush was made near Junkers’ that the police even had to intervene. A respectable-looking speculator with sideburns, who sold various dry confectionery pastries at the entrance to the theater, specially made beautiful wooden sturdy benches, on which he invited the curious to stand for eighty kopecks from each visitor. A decorated colonel specially left his house early for this and with great difficulty made his way through the crowd; but, to his great indignation, he saw in the store window instead of a nose an ordinary wool flannel jacket and a lithographed picture with an image of a girl fixing her stocking and a fop with a folding vest and a small beard looking at her from behind a tree, – a picture that had been hanging in the same place for more than ten years. Having left, he said with annoyance: “How is it possible to disturb people with such stupid and improbable rumors?”
Then a rumor spread that the nose of Major Kovalyov was walking not on Nevsky Prospekt, but in the Tauride Garden, and that it had supposedly been there for a long time; that when Khosrev-Mirza was still living there, he was very surprised by this strange game of nature. Some students of the Surgical Academy went there. One noble, respectable lady asked with a special letter for the garden’s caretaker to show her children this rare phenomenon and, if possible, with a instructive and edifying explanation for the youth.
All these events were extremely welcome to all social, indispensable visitors to parties, who loved to make the ladies laugh, whose stock of stories had completely run out at that time. A small part of respectable and well-intentioned people were extremely dissatisfied. One gentleman said with indignation that he did not understand how in the present enlightened age such absurd fabrications could be spread, and that he was surprised that the government did not pay attention to this. This gentleman, as can be seen, belonged to the number of those gentlemen who would like to involve the government in everything, even in their daily quarrels with their wives. After this… but here again the whole event is hidden in a fog, and what happened next is completely unknown.
III
A completely ridiculous thing happens in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all: suddenly that very nose, which was driving around in the rank of a state councilor and had made so much noise in the city, ended up back in its place as if nothing had happened, that is, exactly between the two cheeks of Major Kovalyov. This happened on April 7. Waking up and accidentally glancing in the mirror, he sees: the nose! – grabs it with his hand – it’s definitely a nose! “Aha!” said Kovalyov and in his joy almost danced a hopak barefoot around the room, but the entrance of Ivan stopped him. He immediately ordered water to be brought for him to wash, and as he washed, he looked in the mirror once more: the nose! Wiping himself with a towel, he again looked in the mirror: the nose!
“And look, Ivan, it seems I have a pimple on my nose,” he said, and in the meantime thought: “Oh, what a disaster if Ivan says: no, sir, not only is there no pimple, there is no nose itself!”
But Ivan said:
“Nothing, sir, no pimple: the nose is clean!”
“Good, damn it!” the major said to himself and snapped his fingers. At this time, the barber Ivan Yakovlevich looked out the door, but so timidly, like a cat that had just been beaten for stealing bacon.
“Tell me in advance: are your hands clean?” Kovalyov shouted to him from a distance.
“Clean.”
“You’re lying!”
“I swear to God, they’re clean, sir.”
“Well, let’s see then.”
Kovalyov sat down. Ivan Yakovlevich covered him with a napkin and in a single moment, with the help of a brush, turned his entire beard and part of his cheek into a cream, like the one served at merchants’ name-day parties.
“Well, I’ll be!” Ivan Yakovlevich said to himself, glancing at the nose, and then tilted his head to the other side and looked at it from the side. “Well! Look at that, really, when you think about it,” he continued and looked at the nose for a long time. Finally, lightly, with all the care imaginable, he lifted two fingers to grab it by the tip. Such was Ivan Yakovlevich’s system.
“Hey, hey, hey, watch it!” Kovalyov shouted.
Ivan Yakovlevich dropped his hands, dumbfounded and confused as he had never been before. Finally, he carefully began to tickle him under the chin with the razor; and although it was completely inconvenient and difficult for him to shave without holding on to the sniffing part of the body, he somehow, leaning his rough thumb against his cheek and lower gum, finally overcame all obstacles and shaved him.
When everything was ready, Kovalyov hurried to get dressed, took a cab, and went straight to the confectionery. Entering, he shouted from a distance: “Boy, a cup of chocolate!” – and at the same moment he went to the mirror: the nose is there! He cheerfully turned back and with a satirical look, squinting his eyes a little, looked at two military men, one of whom had a nose no bigger than a waistcoat button. After that, he went to the office of the department where he was lobbying for a vice-governor’s position, and in case of failure, an executor’s position. Passing through the reception room, he looked in the mirror: the nose is there! Then he went to another collegiate assessor, or major, a great joker, to whom he often said in response to various barbed remarks: “Well, you, I know you, you’re a pin!” On the way, he thought: “If the major doesn’t burst out laughing when he sees me, then it’s a sure sign that everything that is there is in its place.” But the collegiate assessor said nothing. “Good, good, damn it!” Kovalyov thought to himself. On the road, he met the staff officer’s wife Podtochina together with her daughter, bowed to them and was met with joyful exclamations: so, there is nothing, there is no damage to him. He talked with them for a very long time and, having deliberately taken out his snuffbox, stuffed his nose for a very long time in front of them from both sides, saying to himself: “There, you see, women, chicken people! but I still won’t marry your daughter. Just like that, par amour – go on!” And Major Kovalyov from then on walked around as if nothing had happened on Nevsky Prospekt, and in theaters, and everywhere. And the nose also sat on his face as if nothing had happened, not even showing any sign that it had been away. And after that, Major Kovalyov was always seen in a good mood, smiling, pursuing absolutely all the pretty ladies and even stopping once in front of a shop in Gostiny Dvor and buying some kind of order ribbon, for reasons unknown, because he himself was not a knight of any order.
This is the story that happened in the northern capital of our vast state! Now, only after considering everything, do we see that there is a lot of improbability in it. Not to mention the fact that the supernatural separation of the nose and its appearance in different places in the form of a state councilor is truly strange, – how did Kovalyov not realize that it is impossible to announce a nose through the newspaper office? I am not saying this in the sense that it seemed expensive to me to pay for the announcement: that’s nonsense, and I am not at all among the greedy people. But it’s unseemly, awkward, not good! And again, too – how did the nose end up in a baked bread and how did Ivan Yakovlevich himself?.. no, I don’t understand this at all, I absolutely don’t understand it! But what is stranger, what is most incomprehensible, is how authors can take such subjects. I confess, this is completely incomprehensible, this is really… no, no, I don’t understand at all. Firstly, there is absolutely no benefit to the fatherland; secondly… but there is no benefit in the second place either. I just don’t know what this is…
And yet, despite all this, although, of course, one can admit both this, and that, and the third, maybe even… well, where are there no inconsistencies? .. But still, however, when you think about it, there is really something in all this. No matter what anyone says, such events happen in the world, – rarely, but they do happen.
THE PORTRAIT
Part I
Nowhere did so many people stop as they did in front of the picture shop in the Shchukin courtyard. This shop truly presented the most diverse collection of oddities: the paintings were mostly done in oil paints, covered with a dark green varnish, and set in dark yellow tinsel frames. A winter scene with white trees, a completely red evening resembling the glow of a fire, a Flemish peasant with a pipe and a broken arm, looking more like an Indian rooster in cuffs than a human — these were their usual subjects. To this, one must add a few engraved images: a portrait of Khosrev-Mirza in a lambskin hat, and portraits of some generals in triangular hats with crooked noses. Moreover, the doors of such a shop are usually hung with bundles of works, printed as woodcuts on large sheets, which testify to the native talent of the Russian people. On one was the Tsarevna Miliktrisa Kirbityevna, on another, the city of Jerusalem, whose houses and churches were unceremoniously painted with red paint, which also covered a part of the ground and two praying Russian peasants in mittens. There were usually few buyers of these works, but a lot of spectators. Some drunken footman was probably gaping at them, holding in his hand lunch bowls from a tavern for his master, who would undoubtedly be eating his soup not too hot. A soldier in a greatcoat, this cavalier of the flea market, selling two penknives, was certainly standing in front of him; an Okhta market woman with a box full of shoes. Everyone admired them in their own way: peasants usually poked them with their fingers; gentlemen looked seriously; young footmen and apprentice boys laughed and teased each other with the caricatures; old footmen in frieze coats looked on only to gape somewhere; and market women, young Russian peasant women, hurried instinctively to listen to what the people were chattering about and to see what they were looking at.
At this time, a young artist named Chartkov, who was passing by, involuntarily stopped in front of the shop. His old greatcoat and shabby clothes showed him to be a man who was selflessly devoted to his work and had no time to worry about his attire, which always has a mysterious appeal for youth. He stopped in front of the shop and at first laughed internally at these ugly paintings. Finally, he was overcome by involuntary contemplation: he began to think about who would need these works. That the Russian people would stare at the likes of Yeruslan Lazarevich, the gluttons and drunkards, at Foma and Yerema, did not seem strange to him: the depicted subjects were very accessible and understandable to the people; but where were the buyers of these motley, dirty oil paintings? Who needed these Flemish peasants, these red and blue landscapes, which showed some claim to a slightly higher step of art, but in which its entire deep humiliation was expressed? These did not seem to be the works of a self-taught child at all. Otherwise, in them, for all their insensitive caricature of the whole, a sharp impulse would burst forth. But here, one could simply see dullness, powerless, decrepit mediocrity, which had arbitrarily entered the ranks of the arts, whereas its place was among the low crafts, a mediocrity that was, however, faithful to its calling and brought its craft into the very art. The same colors, the same manner, the same well-worn, habitual hand, belonging more to a crudely made automaton than to a man!.. He stood for a long time in front of these dirty paintings, no longer thinking about them at all, while the owner of the shop, a gray little man in a frieze coat, with a beard unshaved since Sunday, had been talking to him for a long time, bargaining and haggling over the price, without even knowing what he liked or needed.
“I’ll take a white one for these little peasants and the landscape. What a painting! It will just hit you in the eye; just received from the exchange; the varnish hasn’t even dried yet. Or here’s the winter, take the winter! Fifteen rubles! The frame alone is worth something. Look at what a winter it is!” Here the merchant gave the canvas a light flick, probably to show the goodness of the winter. “Shall I tie them together and carry them after you? Where do you live? Hey, boy, get a string.”
“Wait, brother, not so fast,” said the artist, who had come to his senses, seeing that the quick-witted merchant had started to seriously tie them together. He felt somewhat ashamed not to take anything after standing in the shop for so long, and he said:
“Wait a minute, I’ll see if there’s anything for me here,” and, bending down, he began to pull out from the floor a bulky pile of old, worn-out, dusty paintings, which, as it was clear, were not held in any esteem. There were old family portraits, the descendants of which perhaps could not be found in the world, completely unknown images with torn canvases, frames devoid of gilding, – in a word, all kinds of old trash. But the artist began to examine them, thinking in secret: “Maybe something will turn up.” He had heard stories more than once about how great masters’ paintings were sometimes found in the trash of woodcut sellers.
The owner, seeing where he had climbed, abandoned his fussiness and, taking his usual position and due seriousness, settled down again at the door, beckoning passers-by and pointing to the shop with one hand: “Come here, my good man, here are pictures! Come in, come in; just received from the exchange.” He had already shouted to his heart’s content and for the most part fruitlessly, had talked enough with the rag seller who stood opposite him also at the door of his little shop, and, finally remembering that he had a customer in his shop, he turned his back to the people and went inside. “Well, my good man, have you chosen something?” But the artist had already been standing motionless for some time in front of one portrait in a large, once magnificent frame, but on which only traces of gilding now barely shone.
It was an old man with a bronze-colored, gaunt, bony face; the features of the face seemed to have been captured in a moment of convulsive movement and did not resonate with northern strength. A fiery midday was imprinted in them. He was draped in a wide Asian costume. No matter how damaged and dusty the portrait was, but when he managed to wipe the dust from the face, he saw traces of a great artist’s work. The portrait, it seemed, was not finished; but the power of the brush was striking. Most unusual of all were the eyes: it seemed as if the artist had used all the power of his brush and all his careful diligence on them. They simply looked, looked even out of the portrait itself, as if destroying its harmony with their strange vitality. When he brought the portrait to the door, the eyes looked even more intensely. They produced almost the same impression on the people. A woman who had stopped behind him exclaimed: “It’s looking, it’s looking,” and backed away. He felt some kind of unpleasant, incomprehensible feeling and put the portrait on the ground.
“Well, then, take the portrait!” said the owner.
“How much?” said the artist.
“Why haggle over it? Give me three-quarters of a ruble!”
“No.”
“Well, what will you give?”
“Twenty kopecks,” said the artist, preparing to leave.
“What a price you’ve set! You can’t buy a frame alone for twenty kopecks. I guess you’re planning to buy it tomorrow? Sir, sir, come back! Add at least ten kopecks. Take it, take it, give me twenty kopecks. I swear, just for a start, you’re just the first buyer.”
Then he made a gesture with his hand, as if to say: “So be it, let the painting be gone!”
Thus, Chartkov unexpectedly bought the old portrait and at the same time thought: “Why did I buy it? What do I need it for?” But there was nothing to be done. He took twenty kopecks out of his pocket, gave it to the owner, took the portrait under his arm, and dragged it with him. On the way, he remembered that the twenty kopecks he had given away was his last. His thoughts suddenly darkened; annoyance and an indifferent emptiness embraced him at the same moment. “Damn it! It’s disgusting in the world!” he said with the feeling of a Russian whose affairs are bad. And he walked almost mechanically with quick steps, full of insensibility to everything. The red light of the evening sunset still remained on half of the sky; the houses facing that side were still barely illuminated by its warm light; and in the meantime, the cold bluish radiance of the moon was becoming stronger. Semitransparent light shadows fell in tails on the ground, cast by the houses and the feet of pedestrians. The artist was already beginning to look at the sky, illuminated by some transparent, thin, doubtful light, and almost at the same time the words flew out of his mouth: “What a light tone!” – and the words: “Annoying, damn it!” And he, adjusting the portrait that was constantly slipping from under his arm, quickened his pace.
Tired and all in a sweat, he dragged himself to his place on the Fifteenth Line on Vasilyevsky Island. With difficulty and out of breath, he climbed the stairs, which were covered with slop and decorated with the tracks of cats and dogs. There was no answer to his knock on the door: the man was not at home. He leaned against the window and settled down to wait patiently, until finally the footsteps of a guy in a blue shirt, his assistant, model, paint grinder, and floor sweeper, who smeared them right there with his boots, sounded behind him. The guy was named Nikita and spent all his time outside the gate when the master was not at home. Nikita struggled for a long time to get the key into the keyhole, which was not noticeable at all due to the darkness. Finally, the door was unlocked. Chartkov entered his front hall, which was unbearably cold, as is always the case with artists, which, however, they do not notice. Without giving Nikita his greatcoat, he entered his studio with it, a square room, large but low, with freezing windows, cluttered with all kinds of artistic junk: pieces of plaster hands, frames covered with canvas, sketches, started and abandoned, drapery hung on chairs. He was very tired, took off his greatcoat, distractedly placed the brought portrait between two small canvases, and threw himself onto a narrow couch, which one could not say was covered with leather, because a row of copper nails that once fastened it had long since been on their own, and the leather also remained on top on its own, so that Nikita shoved black stockings, shirts, and all his unwashed laundry under it. Having sat and reclined as much as he could on this narrow couch, he finally asked for a candle.
“There’s no candle,” said Nikita.
“What do you mean, there’s no candle?”
“Well, there wasn’t one yesterday either,” said Nikita.
The artist remembered that there had indeed been no candle yesterday either, calmed down, and fell silent. He let himself be undressed and put on his firmly and heavily worn dressing gown.
“And also, the landlord was here,” said Nikita.
“Well, he came for money? I know,” the artist said, waving his hand.
“But he didn’t come alone,” said Nikita.
“With whom?”
“I don’t know with whom… some kind of precinct officer.”
“And why a precinct officer?”
“I don’t know why; he said, because the rent hasn’t been paid. ”
“Well, what will come of that?”
“I don’t know what will come of it; he said: if he doesn’t want to, then let him, he said, move out of the apartment; they wanted to come again tomorrow, both of them.”
“Let them come,” Chartkov said with sad indifference. And a gloomy mood took hold of him completely.
The young Chartkov was an artist with a talent that promised a lot; in flashes and moments his brush was marked by observation, thoughtfulness, a swift impulse to get closer to nature. “Look, brother,” his professor had told him more than once, “you have talent; it will be a sin if you destroy it. But you are impatient. One thing will entice you, one thing will please you – you are occupied with it, and the rest is trash to you, the rest is nothing to you, you don’t even want to look at it. Be careful not to become a fashionable painter. Even now your colors are starting to cry out too boldly. Your drawing is not strict, and sometimes completely weak, the line is not visible; you’re already chasing after fashionable lighting, after what hits the eye first. Be careful; the world is already starting to pull you; I already see you sometimes with a foppish scarf on your neck, a polished hat… It’s tempting, you can start painting fashionable pictures, portraits for money. But talent is destroyed on this, not unfolded. Be patient. Think through every work, abandon foppery – let others collect money. What’s yours won’t leave you.”
The professor was partly right. Sometimes, indeed, our artist wanted to have a good time, to show off – in a word, to show his youth here and there. But despite all this, he could control himself. At times he could forget everything, taking up the brush, and would not tear himself away from it except as from a beautiful interrupted dream. His taste was noticeably developing. He did not yet understand the full depth of Raphael, but he was already fascinated by Guido’s fast, broad brush, stopped in front of Titian’s portraits, and admired the Flemish painters. The darkened image that enveloped old paintings had not yet completely come off for him; but he was already discerning something in them, although he internally disagreed with the professor that the old masters had gone so inaccessibly far from us; it even seemed to him that the nineteenth century had significantly surpassed them in some respects, that the imitation of nature had somehow become brighter, livelier, closer now; in a word, he thought in this case as youth thinks, which has already comprehended something and feels it in a proud inner consciousness. Sometimes it became annoying to him when he saw how a visiting painter, a Frenchman or a German, sometimes not even a painter by calling at all, with only a habitual stroke, a briskness of the brush and the brightness of colors, produced a general sensation and instantly accumulated a money capital for himself. This came to his mind not when, completely occupied with his work, he forgot about drinking, and food, and the whole world, but when necessity finally strongly pressed, when there was nothing to buy brushes and paints with, when the persistent landlord came ten times a day to demand payment for the apartment. Then the fate of a rich painter was enviably depicted in his hungry imagination; then the thought even flashed, a thought that often flashes in a Russian head: to drop everything and go on a bender out of spite. And now he was almost in such a situation.
“Yes! Be patient, be patient!” he said with annoyance. “There is an end to patience after all. Be patient! And with what money will I have lunch tomorrow? No one will lend me money. And if I go to sell all my paintings and drawings, they will give me twenty kopecks for all of them. They are useful, of course, I feel that: each of them was undertaken for a reason, in each of them I learned something. But what’s the use? studies, attempts – and they will all be studies, attempts, and there will be no end to them. And who will buy them, not knowing my name? And who needs drawings from antiquities from a life class, or my unfinished love of Psyche, or the perspective of my room, or the portrait of my Nikita, although, I swear, it’s better than the portraits of some fashionable painter? What, really? Why do I torment myself and, like a student, dig into the alphabet, when I could shine no worse than others and be like them, with money.”
Having said this, the artist suddenly trembled and turned pale: someone’s convulsively distorted face was looking at him, sticking out from behind the canvas. Two terrible eyes stared straight at him, as if preparing to devour him; a formidable command to be silent was written on the lips. Frightened, he wanted to scream and call Nikita, who had already managed to let out a heroic snore in his front hall; but he suddenly stopped and laughed. The feeling of fear instantly disappeared. It was the portrait he had bought, which he had completely forgotten about. The moonlight, illuminating the room, fell on it and gave it a strange vitality. He began to examine it and wipe it. He dipped a sponge in water, ran it over it several times, washed off almost all the accumulated and ingrained dust and dirt, hung it in front of him on the wall, and was even more amazed at the unusual work: the whole face almost came to life, and the eyes looked at him so that he finally shuddered and, backing away, said in an astonished voice: “It’s looking, it’s looking with human eyes!” A story he had long ago heard from his professor about a portrait by the famous Leonardo da Vinci, over which the great master had worked for several years and still considered it unfinished, and which, according to Vasari, was, however, honored by all as the most perfect and definitive work of art, suddenly came to his mind. The most definitive thing in it was the eyes, which contemporaries marveled at; even the smallest, barely visible veins in them were not missed and were given to the canvas. But here, however, in this portrait that was now before him, there was something strange. This was no longer art: this even destroyed the harmony of the portrait itself. These were living, these were human eyes! It seemed as if they had been cut out of a living person and inserted here. Here there was no longer that high pleasure that embraces the soul at the sight of an artist’s work, no matter how terrible the subject he has taken; here there was some kind of sickly, agonizing feeling. “What is this?” the artist involuntarily asked himself. “But this is, however, nature, this is living nature; why is this a strangely unpleasant feeling? Or is a slavish, literal imitation of nature already an offense and seems like a bright, discordant scream? Or, if you take a subject indifferently, insensitively, without sympathy for it, it will certainly appear only in its one terrible reality, not illuminated by the light of some incomprehensible, hidden thought in everything, will appear in that reality that is revealed when, wanting to comprehend a beautiful person, you arm yourself with an anatomical knife, dissect his insides and see a repulsive person? Why does simple, low nature appear in some artist in some kind of light, and you don’t feel any low impression; on the contrary, it seems as if you enjoyed it, and after that everything flows and moves around you more calmly and evenly? And why does that very same nature in another artist seem low, dirty, and yet, he was just as faithful to nature? But no, there is something not illuminating in it. It’s the same as a view in nature: no matter how magnificent it is, something is still missing if there is no sun in the sky.”
He again approached the portrait, to examine those wonderful eyes, and with horror noticed that they were truly looking at him. This was no longer a copy from nature; it was the strange liveliness that would illuminate the face of a dead man who had risen from the grave. Whether the moonlight, which brings with it the delirium of dreams and clothes everything in different images, opposite to the positive day, or something else was the cause, he suddenly, for some unknown reason, became terribly afraid to sit alone in the room. He quietly walked away from the portrait, turned to the other side, and tried not to look at it, and yet his eye involuntarily, on its own, glanced at it sideways. Finally, he became even afraid to walk around the room; it seemed to him as if someone else would start walking behind him this very moment, and he timidly looked back every time. He had never been a coward; but his imagination and nerves were sensitive, and on this evening he himself could not explain his involuntary fear. He sat down in a corner, but even here it seemed to him that someone was about to look over his shoulder into his face. The very snoring of Nikita, which came from the front hall, did not drive away his fear. He finally timidly, without raising his eyes, got up from his place, went behind his screen, and lay down in bed. Through the cracks in the screen, he saw his room illuminated by the moon and saw the portrait hanging directly on the wall. The eyes stared at him even more terribly, even more significantly, and, it seemed, did not want to look at anything else, but only at him. Full of a heavy feeling, he decided to get out of bed, grabbed a sheet, and, approaching the portrait, wrapped it all up.
Having done this, he lay down in bed more calmly, began to think about poverty and the pitiful fate of an artist, about the thorny path that lay before him in this world; and in the meantime, his eyes involuntarily looked through the crack in the screen at the portrait wrapped in a sheet. The moonlight intensified the whiteness of the sheet, and it seemed to him that the terrible eyes had even begun to shine through the canvas. With fear, he stared more intently, as if wanting to make sure that it was nonsense. But finally, it was really… he sees, he sees clearly: the sheet is no longer there… the portrait is completely open and looks past everything that is around, directly at him, looks simply into his soul… His heart froze. And he sees: the old man moved and suddenly leaned on the frame with both hands. Finally, he got up on his hands and, sticking out both feet, jumped out of the frame… Through the crack in the screen, only the empty frame was visible. The sound of footsteps echoed in the room, which finally became closer and closer to the screen. The heart of the poor artist began to beat more strongly. With his breath seized by fear, he waited for the old man to look over the screen at him. And there he looked, indeed, over the screen, with the same bronze face and moving his large eyes. Chartkov tried to scream – and felt that he had no voice, he tried to move, to make some movement – his limbs would not move. With his mouth open and his breath frozen, he looked at this terrible phantom of great height, in some kind of wide Asian cassock, and waited to see what he would do. The old man sat down almost at his very feet and then pulled something out from under the folds of his wide clothes. It was a bag. The old man untied it and, grabbing it by the two ends, shook it: with a dull sound, heavy bundles in the form of long columns fell to the floor; each was wrapped in blue paper, and on each it was written: “1000 chervonets.” Sticking his long bony hands out of his wide sleeves, the old man began to unwrap the bundles. The gold gleamed. No matter how great the oppressive feeling and the senseless fear of the artist was, he was all focused on the gold, looking motionless as it was unwrapped in the bony hands, shone, rang thinly and dully, and was wrapped up again. There he noticed one bundle that had rolled away from the others, at the very foot of his bed, at his head. He grabbed it almost convulsively and, full of fear, watched to see if the old man would notice. But the old man seemed to be very busy. He collected all his bundles, put them back in the bag, and, without looking at him, went behind the screen. Chartkov’s heart beat strongly when he heard the rustle of the retreating footsteps echoing in the room. He squeezed his bundle tighter in his hand, trembling all over for it, and suddenly heard the footsteps approaching the screen again, – it was clear that the old man remembered that one bundle was missing. And there – he looked at him again over the screen. Full of despair, he squeezed the bundle in his hand with all his strength, made every effort to make a movement, screamed – and woke up.
A cold sweat covered him all over; his heart was beating as hard as it could; his chest was so constricted, as if his last breath wanted to fly out of it. “Was that a dream?” he said, taking his head with both hands, but the terrible vitality of the phenomenon was not like a dream. He had seen, already awake, how the old man had gone into the frame, even the hem of his wide clothes had flashed, and his hand clearly felt that a minute before it had been holding some kind of weight. The moonlight illuminated the room, making a canvas, a plaster hand, a piece of drapery left on a chair, trousers, and uncleaned boots stand out from its dark corners. It was only then that he noticed that he was not lying in bed, but was standing on his feet directly in front of the portrait. How he got there – he could not understand at all. It amazed him even more that the portrait was completely open and the sheet was indeed not on it. With motionless fear, he looked at it and saw how the living human eyes were staring directly at him. A cold sweat appeared on his face; he wanted to walk away, but felt that his feet were as if rooted to the ground. And he sees: this is no longer a dream: the features of the old man moved, and his lips began to stretch towards him, as if they wanted to suck him out… With a cry of despair, he jumped back – and woke up.
“Was that a dream too?” With his heart beating to the point of breaking, he felt around him with his hands. Yes, he was lying on the bed in the exact same position as he had fallen asleep. In front of him was the screen; the moonlight filled the room. Through the crack in the screen – the portrait was visible, covered with a sheet as it should be, – just as he himself had covered it. So, that was also a dream! But his clenched hand still feels as if there was something in it. The heartbeat was strong, almost terrible; the weight in his chest was unbearable. He stared at the crack and looked intently at the sheet. And there he sees clearly that the sheet is beginning to open, as if hands were struggling under it and trying to throw it off. “My God, what is this!” he exclaimed, crossing himself desperately, and woke up.
And this was also a dream! He jumped out of bed, half-witted, senseless, and could no longer explain what was happening to him: whether it was the pressure of a nightmare or a brownie, the delirium of a fever or a living vision. Trying to calm his mental agitation and the agitated blood, which beat with a tense pulse through all his veins, he went to the window and opened the casement. The cold wind that blew in revived him. The moonlight still lay on the roofs and white walls of the houses, although small clouds began to move more often across the sky. Everything was quiet: from time to time the distant rattling of a cab driver’s carriage reached his ears, who was sleeping somewhere in an unseen alley, lulled by his lazy nag, waiting for a late passenger. He looked out for a long time, sticking his head out of the casement. Signs of the approaching dawn were already being born in the sky; finally, he felt an approaching drowsiness, closed the casement, walked away, lay down in bed, and soon fell asleep like a log, with the deepest sleep.
He woke up very late and felt that unpleasant state that takes hold of a person after a stupor; his head ached unpleasantly. The room was dim; an unpleasant dampness was sown in the air and passed through the cracks of his windows, which were blocked by paintings or primed canvas. Gloomy, dissatisfied, like a wet rooster, he sat down on his torn couch, not knowing himself what to do, what to do, and finally remembered his entire dream. As he remembered, this dream was presented in his imagination so oppressively vividly that he even began to suspect whether it was really a dream and simple delirium, whether there was something else here, whether it was a vision. Pulling off the sheet, he examined this terrible portrait in the daylight. The eyes, indeed, struck with their unusual vitality, but he found nothing unusually terrible in them; only some kind of inexplicable, unpleasant feeling remained in his soul every time. Despite all this, he still could not completely convince himself that it was a dream. It seemed to him that in the midst of the dream there was some terrible fragment of reality. It even seemed that in the very look and expression of the old man, something said that he had been with him that night; his hand felt the weight that had just been in it, as if someone had just snatched it from him a minute before. It seemed to him that if he had held the bundle tighter, it would have surely remained in his hand even after he woke up.
“My God, if only a part of this money!” he said, sighing heavily, and in his imagination all the bundles he had seen with the tempting inscription: “1000 chervonets” began to pour out of the bag. The bundles were unwrapped, the gold shone, was wrapped up again, and he sat, staring his motionless and senseless eyes into the empty air, unable to tear himself away from such a subject, – like a child sitting in front of a sweet dish and seeing, swallowing his saliva, how others eat it. Finally, there was a knock at the door, which made him unpleasantly come to. The landlord entered with a precinct superintendent, whose appearance for small people, as is known, is even more unpleasant than the face of a petitioner for the rich. The owner of the small house in which Chartkov lived was one of the creations that are usually the owners of houses somewhere in the Fifteenth Line of Vasilyevsky Island, on the St. Petersburg Side, or in a distant corner of Kolomna, – a creation of which there are many in Russia and whose character is as difficult to define as the color of a worn-out frock coat. In his youth, he was a captain and a loudmouth, was also used in civilian affairs, was good at flogging, was both quick-witted, and a fop, and stupid; but in his old age he merged all these sharp features into some kind of dull indefiniteness. He was already a widower, was already retired, no longer showed off, no longer boasted, no longer picked quarrels, loved only to drink tea and talk all sorts of nonsense over it; walked around the room, adjusting a greasy candle stump; accurately, at the end of each month, he visited his tenants for money; went out into the street with a key in his hand, in order to look at the roof of his house; drove the janitor out of his closet, where he hid to sleep, several times; in one word, a retired person, for whom after all his dissolute life and shaking on post horses, only trivial habits remain.
“You can see for yourself, Varukh Kuzmich,” the landlord said, turning to the precinct officer and spreading his hands, “he doesn’t pay for the apartment, he doesn’t pay.”
“Well, what if there’s no money? Wait, I’ll pay.”
“My good man, I can’t wait,” the landlord said angrily, making a gesture with the key he held in his hand, “I have Lieutenant Colonel Potogonkin living here, he’s been living here for seven years; Anna Petrovna Bukhmisterova rents a shed and a stable for two stalls, with three serfs with her, – these are the kind of tenants I have. I, to be frank with you, do not have such an institution that people don’t pay for the apartment. You must pay the money right now, and move out.”
“Yes, if you’ve made an agreement, then please pay,” said the precinct superintendent, with a slight shake of his head and putting his finger behind a button on his uniform.
“But what am I to pay with? – that’s the question. I don’t have a single grosh now.”
“In that case, satisfy Ivan Ivanovich with the products of your profession,” said the precinct officer, “he may agree to take paintings.”
“No, my good man, thanks for the paintings. It would be good if they were paintings with a noble content, so that they could be hung on the wall, at least some general with a star or a portrait of Prince Kutuzov, but he painted a peasant, a peasant in a shirt, the rumors are that he grinds paints. And to paint a portrait of him, the pig; I’ll beat his neck: he pulled all the nails out of my door bolts, the scoundrel. Look at what kind of subjects there are: he’s drawing a room. It would be good if he had taken a tidy, neat room, but he drew it like this, with all the rubbish and trash that was lying around. Look at how he’s messed up my room, you can see for yourself. But I have tenants who have lived here for seven years, colonels, Bukhmisterova Anna Petrovna… No, I’ll tell you: there’s no worse tenant than a painter: he lives like a pig, may God save me from it. ”
And all this the poor painter had to listen to patiently. Meanwhile, the precinct superintendent was busy examining the paintings and sketches and showed right there that his soul was livelier than the landlord’s and was not even alien to artistic impressions.
“Heh,” he said, poking his finger at one canvas where a naked woman was depicted, “a subject, that is… playful. And why is it so black under his nose? Did he fill it with tobacco, or what?”
“Shadow,” Chartkov answered to this sternly and without looking at him.
“Well, it could have been moved somewhere else, but under the nose is too conspicuous a place,” said the precinct officer, “and whose portrait is this?” he continued, walking up to the portrait of the old man, “he’s too scary. Was he really that scary; oh my, he’s just looking! Oh, what a Gromoboy! Who did you paint him from?”
“And this is from one…” Chartkov said and did not finish the word: a crack was heard. The precinct officer, it seemed, had squeezed the portrait frame too hard, thanks to the clumsy structure of his police hands; the side boards broke inward, one fell to the floor, and with it, a bundle in blue paper fell with a heavy clink. The inscription “1000 chervonets” flashed before Chartkov’s eyes. Like a madman, he rushed to pick it up, grabbed the bundle, squeezed it convulsively in his hand, which dropped from the weight.
“The money rattled, didn’t it?” said the precinct officer, who had heard the sound of something falling to the floor and could not see it because of the speed of the movement with which Chartkov rushed to pick it up.
“And what business is it of yours to know what I have?”
“And it’s my business that you must pay the landlord for the apartment right now; that you have money, but you don’t want to pay, – that’s what. ”
“Well, I’ll pay him today.”
“Well, and why didn’t you want to pay before, and you cause inconvenience to the landlord, and you also disturb the police?”
“Because I didn’t want to touch this money; I will pay him everything this evening and move out of the apartment tomorrow, because I don’t want to stay with such a landlord.”
“Well, Ivan Ivanovich, he will pay you,” the precinct officer said, turning to the landlord. “And if you are not satisfied as you should be this evening, then you must excuse me, Mr. painter.”
Having said this, he put on his triangular hat and went out into the hall, and the landlord followed him, holding his head down and, it seemed, in some kind of thought.
“Thank God, the devil took them away!” said Chartkov when he heard the door close in the front hall.
He looked out into the front hall, sent Nikita away for something, in order to be completely alone, locked the door behind him and, returning to his room, with a strong tremor in his heart, began to unwrap the bundle. In it were chervonets, all of them new, hot as fire. Almost out of his mind, he sat over the golden pile, still asking himself if all this was a dream. There were exactly a thousand of them in the bundle; its appearance was exactly the same as in his dream. For several minutes he sorted through them, examined them, and still could not come to his senses. All the stories about treasures, caskets with hidden drawers, left by ancestors for their ruined grandchildren, in a firm belief in their future dissipated state, suddenly came to life in his imagination. He thought: “Didn’t some grandfather now come up with the idea of leaving a gift to his grandson, enclosing it in the frame of a family portrait?” Full of romantic delirium, he even began to think whether there was some secret connection with his fate: was the existence of the portrait not connected with his own existence, and was the very acquisition of it not some kind of predestination? He began to examine the portrait frame with curiosity. In one side of it there was a hollowed-out groove, pushed in by a board so cleverly and imperceptibly that if the massive hand of the precinct superintendent had not made a hole, the chervonets would have remained in peace until the end of time. Examining the portrait, he was again amazed at the high quality of the work, the extraordinary finish of the eyes; they no longer seemed terrible to him, but still some kind of inexplicable, unpleasant feeling remained in his soul every time. “No,” he said to himself, “whose grandfather you are, I will put you behind glass and make you golden frames for it.” Here he threw his hand on the golden pile lying in front of him, and his heart beat strongly from such a touch. “What should I do with them?” he thought, staring at them. “Now I am provided for, at least for three years, I can lock myself in the room, work. I have money for paints now; I have money for lunch, for tea, for living, for the apartment; no one will interfere with me or bother me now; I will buy myself an excellent mannequin, order a plaster torso, mold feet, put up a Venus, buy engravings of the first paintings. And if I work for three years for myself, without rushing, not for sale, I will beat them all, and I can be a famous artist.”
So he spoke in unison with the reason that prompted him; but from within another voice rang out, more audible and sonorous. And as he looked at the gold once more, it was not that twenty-two years and hot youth spoke in him. Now he had in his power everything that he had looked at until now with envious eyes, what he had admired from afar, swallowing his saliva. Ugh, how his heart beat when he just thought about it! To put on a fashionable frock coat, to break his long fast, to rent a glorious apartment, to go to the theater right now, to a confectionery, to… and so on, – and he, grabbing the money, was already on the street.
First of all, he went to a tailor, dressed from head to toe, and, like a child, began to constantly examine himself; he bought perfumes, pomades, rented, without bargaining, the first most magnificent apartment he came across on Nevsky Prospekt, with mirrors and solid glass; accidentally bought an expensive lorgnette in a store, accidentally bought a lot of different ties, more than he needed, had his curls styled at a barber’s, rode twice around the city in a carriage for no reason, ate an immoderate amount of sweets in a confectionery, and went to a French restaurant, about which he had heard such vague rumors until now as about the Chinese state. There he had lunch with his arms akimbo, casting rather proud glances at others and constantly adjusting his styled curls in front of the mirror. There he drank a bottle of champagne, which until now was also more familiar to him by hearsay. The wine made his head a little dizzy, and he went out into the street lively, brisk, in the Russian expression: not a brother to the devil. He strutted along the sidewalk, pointing his lorgnette at everyone. On the bridge, he noticed his former professor and deftly slipped past him, as if he had not noticed him at all, so that the stunned professor stood motionless on the bridge for a long time, depicting a question mark on his face.
All the things and everything there was — the easel, the canvas, the paintings — were moved that same evening to the magnificent apartment. He arranged the better ones in prominent places, and the worse ones he threw into a corner. He paced around the magnificent rooms, constantly looking at himself in the mirrors. An unconquerable desire was born in his soul to grab fame by the tail this very instant and show himself to the world. He was already imagining the shouts: “Chartkov, Chartkov! Have you seen Chartkov’s painting? What a fast brush Chartkov has! What a strong talent Chartkov has!” He walked around his room in an ecstatic state, carried away by some unknown fantasy. The next day, he took ten chervonets and went to an editor of a popular newspaper, asking for generous help; he was received warmly by the journalist, who immediately called him “most esteemed,” shook both his hands, asked him in detail about his name, patronymic, and place of residence, and the next day, following an advertisement for newly invented tallow candles, an article appeared in the newspaper with the following title: “On the Extraordinary Talents of Chartkov”: “We hasten to delight the educated inhabitants of the capital with a beautiful, one can say, acquisition in all respects. Everyone agrees that we have many beautiful physiognomies and beautiful faces, but there has not been a way until now to transfer them to the miraculous canvas, to pass them on to posterity; now this deficiency has been filled: an artist has been found who combines what is needed. Now a beauty can be sure that she will be transferred with all the grace of her ethereal, light, enchanting, wonderful beauty, like butterflies fluttering over spring flowers. The esteemed head of a family will see himself surrounded by his family. The merchant, the warrior, the citizen, the statesman — everyone will continue their career with new zeal. Hurry, hurry, come in from a walk, from a stroll undertaken to a friend, to a cousin, to a brilliant store, hurry, from wherever you may be. The artist’s magnificent studio (Nevsky Prospekt, such and such a number) is entirely furnished with portraits of his brush, worthy of Van Dycks and Titians. You don’t know what to admire: the fidelity and resemblance to the originals or the unusual brightness and freshness of the brush. Praise be to you, artist! You have drawn a lucky ticket from the lottery. Viva, Andrey Petrovich (the journalist, it seems, loved familiarity)! Glorify yourself and us. We know how to appreciate you. A general rush, and at the same time money, although some of our brothers, journalists, rebel against it, will be your reward.”
With secret pleasure, the artist read this advertisement; his face beamed. They were talking about him in print — this was new to him; he reread the lines several times. The comparison to Van Dyck and Titian flattered him greatly. He also liked the phrase “Viva, Andrey Petrovich!” very much; they were calling him by his first name and patronymic in print — an honor he had been completely unfamiliar with until now. He began to walk quickly around the room, ruffling his hair, then sat down in an armchair, then jumped up from it and sat down on the couch, constantly imagining how he would receive visitors, both male and female, approached the canvas and made a daring gesture with the brush, trying to give graceful movements to his hand. The next day, the doorbell rang; he ran to open it. A lady entered, led by a footman in a fur-lined livery greatcoat, and with the lady entered a young eighteen-year-old girl, her daughter.
“Are you Monsieur Chartkov?” the lady said.
The artist bowed.
“They write so much about you; your portraits, they say, are the height of perfection.” Having said this, the lady put a lorgnette to her eye and quickly ran to examine the walls, on which there was nothing. “And where are your portraits?”
“They were taken out,” the artist said, somewhat confused, “I have just moved into this apartment, so they are still on the way… they haven’t arrived yet.”
“Have you been to Italy?” the lady said, pointing the lorgnette at him, having found nothing else to point it at.
“No, I haven’t been, but I wanted to be… however, for now, I have postponed it… Here are the armchairs, you are tired?..”
“Thank you, I was sitting in the carriage for a long time. Ah, finally I see your work!” said the lady, running to the opposite wall and pointing the lorgnette at his studies, programs, perspectives, and portraits that were standing on the floor. “C’est charmant! Lise, Lise, venez ici! The room is in the style of Teniers, you see: a mess, a mess, a table, on it a bust, a hand, a palette; there’s dust, – do you see how the dust is painted! C’est charmant! And on the other canvas, a woman washing her face, – quelle jolie figure! Oh, a peasant! Lise, Lise, a peasant in a Russian shirt! look: a peasant! So you don’t just do portraits?”
“Oh, that’s nonsense… Just a bit of fooling around… studies…”
“Tell me, what is your opinion of today’s portraitists? Isn’t it true that there are none like Titian was now? There is no such strength in color, there is no such… what a pity that I can’t express it in Russian (the lady was a lover of painting and had run around all the galleries in Italy with a lorgnette). However, Monsieur Nol… oh, how he paints! What an unusual brush! I find that he even has more expression in the faces than Titian. You don’t know Monsieur Nol?”
“Who is this Nol?” asked the artist.
“Monsieur Nol. Oh, what a talent! He painted her portrait when she was only twelve years old. You must absolutely come to us. Lise, show him your album. You know, we came so that you would start her portrait this very instant.”
“Of course, I am ready this very minute.”
And in an instant, he moved the easel with the ready canvas, took the palette in his hands, stared into the pale face of the daughter. If he had been a connoisseur of human nature, he would have read on it in one minute the beginning of a childish passion for balls, the beginning of boredom and complaints about the length of time until dinner and after dinner, a desire to run around in new clothes at parties, the heavy traces of indifferent diligence in various arts, inspired by her mother to elevate her soul and feelings. But the artist saw in this delicate face only the almost porcelain transparency of the body that was alluring for the brush, an captivating light languor, a thin, light neck, and the aristocratic lightness of her figure. And he was already preparing in advance to triumph, to show the lightness and brilliance of his brush, which had until now only dealt with the harsh features of rough models, with strict antiques and copies of some classical masters. He was already imagining in his thoughts how this light little face would turn out.
“You know,” the lady said with a somewhat even touching expression on her face, “I would like… she is wearing a dress now; I, I confess, would not want her to be in a dress we are so used to; I would like her to be dressed simply and to sit in the shade of greenery, in view of some fields, with herds in the distance or a grove… so that it is not noticeable that she is going to a ball or a fashionable evening. Our balls, I confess, kill the soul so much, they kill the remnants of feelings… simplicity, there should be more simplicity.”
Alas! it was written on the faces of both the mother and the daughter that they had danced so much at balls that both had become almost waxen.
Chartkov got to work, seated the original, thought it all over a little in his head; passed the brush through the air, mentally setting the points; squinted his eyes a little, backed away, looked from a distance – and in one hour began and finished the underpainting. Satisfied with it, he began to paint, and his work drew him in. He had already forgotten everything, even that he was in the presence of aristocratic ladies, and even began to sometimes show some artistic gestures, making various sounds aloud, sometimes singing along, as happens with an artist who is absorbed with all his soul in his work. Without any ceremony, with a single movement of the brush, he made the original raise her head, who finally began to twist strongly and express complete fatigue.
“Enough, for the first time, enough,” the lady said.
“Just a little more,” the artist said, having forgotten himself.
“No, it’s time! Lise, it’s three o’clock!” she said, taking out a small watch that hung on a gold chain from her belt, and exclaimed: “Oh, how late!”
“Just a minute,” Chartkov said in the simple and begging voice of a child.
But the lady, it seems, was not at all disposed to indulge his artistic needs this time and promised instead to sit longer next time.
“This is annoying, however,” Chartkov thought to himself, “my hand has just gotten into the swing of things.” And he remembered that no one had interrupted or stopped him when he was working in his studio on Vasilyevsky Island; Nikita, he would sit without moving in one place – he could be painted as much as he wanted; he even fell asleep in the position he was asked to hold. And, dissatisfied, he put his brush and palette on a chair and stood confused in the same place in front of his portrait. The compliment said by the society lady woke him from his drowsiness. He rushed quickly to the doors to see them out; on the stairs he received an invitation to visit, to come to dinner next week, and returned to his room with a cheerful look. The aristocratic lady completely charmed him. Until now, he had looked at such beings as something inaccessible, who were born only to be carried in a magnificent carriage with liveried footmen and a stylish coachman and to cast an indifferent glance at a man walking on foot in a shabby coat. And suddenly now one of these beings had entered his room; he was painting her portrait, he was invited to dinner at an aristocratic house. An unusual contentment took hold of him; he was completely intoxicated and rewarded himself for this with a glorious dinner, an evening performance, and again rode around the city in a carriage for no reason.
Throughout all these days, his usual work did not come to his mind at all. He was only preparing and waiting for the moment when the bell would ring. Finally, the aristocratic lady arrived with her pale daughter. He seated them, moved the canvas with dexterity and a claim to social manners, and began to paint. The sunny day and clear lighting helped him a lot. He saw in his light little original many things that, if caught and transferred to the canvas, could give the portrait a high dignity; he saw that he could do something special if he executed everything with the finality that nature now presented to him. His heart even began to tremble slightly when he felt that he would express something that others had not yet noticed. The work occupied him completely, he plunged entirely into the brush, again forgetting about the aristocratic origin of the original. With his breath seized, he saw how the light features and this almost transparent body of the seventeen-year-old girl came out for him. He caught every shade, the slight yellowness, the barely noticeable blueness under the eyes, and was already preparing to even catch a small pimple that had appeared on her forehead, when he suddenly heard the voice of the mother above him. “Oh, why is that? That’s not necessary,” the lady said. “You also have… here, in some places… it’s as if it’s a little yellow and here it’s completely like dark spots.” The artist began to explain that these very spots and yellowness were playing out well, that they constituted pleasant and light tones of the face. But he was told that they would not constitute any tones and would not play out at all; and that it only seemed that way to him. “But allow me to touch it with a little yellow paint in just one place,” the artist said artlessly. But he was not allowed to do that. It was announced that Lise was only a little unwell today, and that there was no yellowness in her at all and her face was especially striking with its freshness of color. With sadness, he began to erase what his brush had made appear on the canvas. Many almost imperceptible features disappeared, and with them, the resemblance partly disappeared. He insensibly began to give it that general coloring that is given by heart and turns even faces taken from nature into some kind of cold-ideal ones, visible in student programs. But the lady was pleased that the offensive coloring had been completely driven out. She only expressed surprise that the work was taking so long and added that she had heard that he completely finished a portrait in two sittings. The artist had nothing to answer to this. The ladies got up and were about to leave. He put down his brush, saw them to the door, and after that remained confused for a long time in the same place in front of his portrait. He looked at it stupidly, and in his head, in the meantime, those light, feminine features, those shades and airy tones he had noticed, which his brush had mercilessly destroyed, were floating. Being completely full of them, he set the portrait aside and found somewhere a long-abandoned head of Psyche, which he had sketched on a canvas a long time ago. It was a deftly painted face, but completely ideal, cold, consisting of only general features, not having taken on a living body. For lack of anything to do, he now began to go over it, recalling on it everything that he had happened to notice in the face of the aristocratic visitor. The features, shades, and tones he had caught here lay down in that purified form in which they appear when an artist, having looked at nature enough, already moves away from it and produces a creation equal to it. Psyche began to come to life, and the barely visible thought began to gradually take on a visible body. The type of face of the young society girl was involuntarily communicated to Psyche, and through this, she received a peculiar expression, which gives the right to the name of a truly original work. It seemed that he had taken advantage of it in parts and at the same time everything that the original had presented to him, and he had become completely attached to his work. For several days he was busy only with it. And it was at this very work that the arrival of the familiar ladies found him. He did not have time to take the painting off the easel. Both ladies gave a joyful cry of amazement and clapped their hands.
“Lise, Lise! Oh, how similar! Superbe, superbe! How well you thought of dressing her in a Greek costume. Oh, what a surprise!”
The artist did not know how to get the ladies out of their pleasant delusion. Feeling ashamed and lowering his head, he said quietly:
“This is Psyche.”
“In the form of Psyche? C’est charmant!” said the mother, smiling, and the daughter also smiled. “Isn’t it true, Lise, that it suits you best to be depicted as Psyche? Quelle idée délicieuse! But what a work! This is Correggio. I confess, I read and heard about you, but I did not know that you had such a talent. No, you must also paint a portrait of me.”
The lady, it seems, also wanted to appear as some kind of Psyche.
“What am I to do with them?” the artist thought. “If they themselves want it, then let Psyche go for what they want,” – and he said aloud:
“Please sit down a little more, I will touch up something a little.”
“Oh, I’m afraid that you might somehow not… she is so similar now.”
But the artist understood that the fear was about the yellowness and reassured them by saying that he would only add more brilliance and expression to the eyes. And to be fair, he was too ashamed and wanted to add at least a little more resemblance to the original, so that no one would reproach him for outright shamelessness. And indeed, the features of the pale girl finally began to emerge more clearly from the image of Psyche.
“Enough!” said the mother, who was beginning to fear that the resemblance might finally get too close.
The artist was rewarded with everything: a smile, money, a compliment, a sincere handshake, an invitation to dinners; in a word, he received a thousand flattering rewards. The portrait made a stir in the city. The lady showed it to her friends; everyone marveled at the skill with which the artist had managed to preserve the resemblance and at the same time give beauty to the original. The latter was, of course, noticed not without a slight blush of envy on her face. And the artist was suddenly besieged with work. It seemed that the whole city wanted to be painted by him. The doorbell rang every minute. On the one hand, this could be good, presenting him with endless practice through the variety and multitude of faces. But, unfortunately, all of them were people who were difficult to get along with, people who were in a hurry, busy, or belonged to society, – that is, even more busy than anyone else, and therefore extremely impatient. From all sides, they only demanded that it be good and fast. The artist saw that it was absolutely impossible to finish things, that everything had to be replaced with dexterity and a quick, brisk brush. To capture only the whole, only the general expression and not delve into refined details with the brush; in a word, it was absolutely impossible to follow nature in its finality. In addition, it must be added that almost all those who were being painted had many other claims to various things. Ladies demanded that their soul and character be predominantly depicted in the portraits, that the rest should sometimes not be adhered to at all, that all angles should be rounded, all flaws should be lightened and even, if possible, avoided altogether. In a word, so that the face could be looked at, even if not completely fallen in love with. And as a result, when they sat down to be painted, they sometimes adopted such expressions that amazed the artist: one tried to portray melancholy in her face, another dreaminess, a third wanted to reduce her mouth no matter what and squeezed it to such an extent that it finally turned into a single point, no bigger than a pinhead. And, despite all this, they demanded resemblance and unforced naturalness from him. The men were no better than the ladies. One demanded to be depicted in a strong, energetic turn of the head; another with inspired eyes raised upwards; a guards lieutenant demanded that Mars be visible in his eyes without fail; a civil dignitary tried to make sure that there was more straightforwardness and nobility in his face and that his hand rested on a book on which the words “Always stood for the truth” would be clearly written. At first, such demands made the artist sweat: all this had to be considered, thought out, and in the meantime, the deadline was very short. Finally, he got to the bottom of the matter and was no longer at all embarrassed. He could even guess in advance from two or three words what each person wanted to portray themselves as. If someone wanted Mars, he put Mars in their face; if someone aimed for Byron, he gave them a Byronic pose and turn. Whether the ladies wanted to be Corinne, Undine, or Aspasia, he gladly agreed to everything and added enough grace to each of them on his own, which, as is known, will not spoil anything and for which the artist will sometimes even be forgiven for a lack of resemblance. Soon he himself began to be amazed at the wonderful speed and briskness of his brush. And those who were being painted, of course, were in raptures and proclaimed him a genius.
Chartkov became a fashionable painter in every respect. He began to go to dinners, to accompany ladies to galleries and even to walks, to dress smartly, and to publicly assert that an artist must belong to society, that he must uphold his title, that artists dress like shoemakers, do not know how to behave properly, do not observe high tone, and are devoid of any education. At home, in his studio, he introduced a high degree of tidiness and cleanliness, hired two magnificent footmen, got stylish students, changed his clothes several times a day into different morning suits, curled his hair, took up the improvement of various manners with which to receive visitors, took up the decoration of his appearance by all possible means to make a pleasant impression on ladies; in a word, it was soon impossible to recognize in him at all the modest artist who once worked unnoticed in his hovel on Vasilyevsky Island. He now spoke sharply about artists and art: he claimed that too much dignity had been attributed to the former artists, that all of them up to Raphael had painted not figures but herrings; that it existed only in the imagination of the viewers to think that some kind of holiness was visible in them; that Raphael himself did not even paint everything well and that the fame of many of his works was only retained by tradition; that Michelangelo was a boaster, because he only wanted to boast of his knowledge of anatomy, that there was no grace in him at all and that the real brilliance, strength of brush, and color should be sought only now, in the current century. Here, naturally, the matter involuntarily came to himself.
“No, I don’t understand,” he would say, “the tension of others to sit and toil over a work. That man who spends several months on a painting, in my opinion, is a toiler, not an artist. I won’t believe that he has talent. A genius creates boldly, quickly. Here with me,” he would usually say, turning to visitors, “I painted this portrait in two days, this head in one day, this in a few hours, this in a little over an hour. No, I… I, I confess, do not recognize as art that which is molded line by line; that is already a craft, not art.”
So he told his visitors, and the visitors were amazed at the strength and briskness of his brush, even exclaiming when they heard how quickly they were produced, and then telling each other: “He is a talent, a true talent! Look at how he speaks, how his eyes shine! Il y a quelque chose d’extraordinaire dans toute sa figure!” (There is something extraordinary in his whole face!)
The artist was flattered to hear such rumors about himself. When printed praise for him appeared in journals, he rejoiced like a child, although this praise was bought by him with his own money. He carried such a printed sheet everywhere and, as if by accident, showed it to acquaintances and friends, and this pleased him with the most simple-minded naivety. His fame grew, his work and orders increased. He was already beginning to get bored with the same portraits and faces, whose positions and turns had become rote for him. He no longer painted with great enthusiasm and, trying to just sketch a head somehow, he gave the rest to his students to finish. Before, he still tried to give some new position, to strike with strength, with effect. Now this also became boring for him. His mind was tired of inventing and thinking. This was unbearable for him, and he had no time: the scattered life and society, where he tried to play the role of a socialite, – all this carried him far away from work and thoughts. His brush grew cold and dull, and he insensibly confined himself to monotonous, defined, long-worn-out forms. The monotonous, cold, eternally tidy and, so to speak, buttoned-up faces of officials, military men, and civilians did not provide much scope for the brush: it forgot both magnificent draperies, and strong movements, and passions. There was no need to talk about groups, about artistic drama, about its high plot. Before him were only a uniform, a corset, and a frock coat, before which an artist feels cold and all imagination falls. Even the most ordinary merits were no longer visible in his works, and in the meantime, they still enjoyed fame, although true connoisseurs and artists only shrugged their shoulders, looking at his last works. And some, who knew Chartkov before, could not understand how the talent, the signs of which had already appeared brightly in him at the very beginning, could disappear in him, and tried in vain to solve how a talent can fade in a person, when he has only just reached the full development of all his strengths.
But the intoxicated artist did not hear these rumors. He was already beginning to reach the age of sobriety of mind and years; he began to get fat and noticeably spread out in width. In the newspapers and journals, he was already reading the adjectives: “our esteemed Andrey Petrovich,” “our distinguished Andrey Petrovich.” He was already being offered honorary positions, invited to exams, to committees. He was already beginning, as always happens in honorary years, to strongly take the side of Raphael and the old artists, – not because he was fully convinced of their high dignity, but in order to poke the young artists in the eye with them. He was already beginning, according to the custom of everyone who enters such years, to reproach the youth without exception for immorality and a bad direction of spirit. He was already beginning to believe that everything in the world is done simply, that there is no inspiration from above and everything must necessarily be subjected to one strict order of tidiness and monotony. In a word, his life had already touched those years when everything that breathes with impulse is compressed in a person, when the mighty bow reaches the soul more weakly and does not coil around the heart with piercing sounds, when the touch of beauty no longer turns virgin forces into fire and flame, but all the burned-out feelings become more accessible to the sound of gold, listen more carefully to its alluring music and little by little insensibly allow it to completely lull them to sleep. Fame cannot give pleasure to one who has stolen it, not deserved it; it produces a constant trembling only in one who is worthy of it. And therefore all his feelings and impulses turned to gold. Gold became his passion, his ideal, his fear, his pleasure, his goal. Piles of banknotes grew in his chests, and like everyone who is given this terrible gift, he began to become boring, inaccessible to everything but gold, a pointless miser, a dissolute collector and was already ready to turn into one of those strange creatures, of which there are many in our insensitive world, at whom a person full of life and heart looks with horror, to whom they seem like moving stone tombs with a dead man inside instead of a heart. But one event strongly shook and awakened his entire vital system.
One day he saw a note on his desk, in which the Academy of Arts asked him, as a worthy member of it, to come and give his judgment on a new work sent from Italy by a Russian artist who had improved there. This artist was one of his former comrades, who from an early age had a passion for art, plunged into it with all his soul with the fiery soul of a toiler, broke away from friends, from relatives, from dear habits and rushed there, where a majestic nursery of arts ripens in view of beautiful skies, – to that wonderful Rome, at the name of which the fiery heart of an artist beats so full and strong. There, like a hermit, he plunged into work and into occupations distracted by nothing. It was no concern of his whether they talked about his character, about his inability to deal with people, about his failure to observe social proprieties, about the humiliation he caused the title of artist by his meager, unfashionable attire. He did not need to know whether his brothers were angry with him or not. He neglected everything, gave everything to art. He tirelessly visited galleries, stood for hours in front of the works of great masters, catching and pursuing the wonderful brush. He did not finish anything without checking himself several times with these great teachers and without reading a silent and eloquent piece of advice in their creations. He did not enter into noisy conversations and disputes; he was neither for the purists nor against the purists. He gave everything its due part equally, extracting from everything only that which was beautiful in it, and finally left only the divine Raphael as his teacher. Just as a great poet-artist, having read many different works, full of many charms and majestic beauties, finally left only Homer’s “Iliad” as his desktop book, discovering that it contains everything you want and that there is nothing that has not already been reflected there in such deep and great perfection. And so he took from his school the majestic idea of creation, the mighty beauty of thought, the high charm of a heavenly brush.
Entering the hall, Chartkov already found a whole huge crowd of visitors gathered in front of the painting. The deepest silence, which is rarely found among numerous connoisseurs, reigned everywhere this time. He hastened to assume a significant physiognomy of a connoisseur and approached the painting; but, God, what he saw!
A pure, immaculate, beautiful, like a bride, a work of art stood before him. Modestly, divinely, innocently and simply, like a genius, it rose above everything. It seemed that the heavenly figures, amazed by so many glances fixed on them, shyly lowered their beautiful eyelashes. With a feeling of involuntary amazement, the connoisseurs contemplated a new, unseen brush. Everything here, it seemed, was combined together: the study of Raphael, reflected in the high nobility of the positions, the study of Correggio, breathing in the final perfection of the brush. But most of all, the power of creation, already enclosed in the soul of the artist himself, was visible. The last object in the painting was penetrated by him; the law and inner strength were comprehended in everything. This floating roundness of lines, enclosed in nature, which only the eye of the creator-artist sees and which comes out with angles in a copyist, was caught everywhere. It was visible how the artist first enclosed everything extracted from the external world in his soul and only from there, from the source of the soul, directed it with one harmonious, solemn song. And it became clear even to the uninitiated what an immeasurable abyss exists between creation and a simple copy from nature. It was almost impossible to express that unusual silence with which everyone who fixed their eyes on the painting was involuntarily embraced, – not a rustle, not a sound; and in the meantime, the painting seemed higher and higher every minute; brighter and more wonderful it separated from everything and everyone and finally turned into a single moment, the fruit of a thought that had flown down from heaven to the artist, a moment for which all human life is only one preparation. Involuntary tears were ready to roll down the faces of the visitors who surrounded the painting. It seemed that all tastes, all daring, incorrect deviations of taste merged into some kind of silent hymn to the divine work. Motionless, with his mouth open, Chartkov stood before the painting, and finally, when the visitors and connoisseurs gradually began to make noise and began to discuss the merits of the work and when they finally turned to him with a request to announce his thoughts, he came to his senses; he wanted to assume an indifferent, ordinary appearance, he wanted to say the ordinary, trite judgment of hardened artists, something like the following: “Yes, of course, it’s true, you can’t take away talent from the artist; there is something; it is clear that he wanted to express something; however, as for the main thing…” And after that, of course, add such praises from which no artist would feel well. He wanted to do this, but the words died on his lips, tears and sobs broke out in a disorderly response, and he ran out of the hall like a madman.
For a minute, motionless and insensitive, he stood in the middle of his magnificent studio. His whole being, his whole life was awakened in an instant, as if youth had returned to him, as if the extinguished sparks of talent had flared up again. The blindfold suddenly flew from his eyes. My God! and to destroy so mercilessly the best years of his youth; to destroy, to extinguish the spark of fire, which, perhaps, had been smoldering in his chest, which, perhaps, would have developed now in greatness and beauty, which, perhaps, would have also elicited tears of amazement and gratitude! And to destroy all this, to destroy it without any pity! It seemed as if at that moment, all at once, those tensions and impulses that he had once known came to life in his soul. He grabbed his brush and approached the canvas. The sweat of effort appeared on his face; he turned into a single desire and was inflamed with a single thought: he wanted to depict a fallen angel. This idea was most of all in harmony with the state of his soul. But alas! his figures, poses, groups, thoughts lay down forced and incoherent. His brush and imagination were already too confined to a single measure, and the powerless impulse to cross the boundaries and fetters he himself had cast upon himself already echoed with irregularity and error. He neglected the tiring, long staircase of gradual knowledge and the first fundamental laws of the future great. His vexation penetrated. He ordered all his last works, all the lifeless fashionable pictures, all the portraits of hussars, ladies, and state councilors to be taken out of his studio. He locked himself alone in his room, ordered no one to be let in, and plunged entirely into work. Like a patient youth, like a student, he sat at his work. But how mercilessly ungrateful was everything that came out from under his brush! At every step, he was stopped by the ignorance of the most elementary elements; a simple, insignificant mechanism cooled all impulse and stood as an uncrossable threshold for his imagination. The brush involuntarily turned to memorized forms, his hands folded in a single memorized manner, his head did not dare to make an unusual turn, even the folds of the dress echoed with what was memorized and did not want to obey and drape themselves in an unfamiliar position of the body. And he felt it, he felt and saw it himself!
“But did I really have talent?” he finally said, “was I mistaken?” And, having uttered these words, he approached his former works, which were once worked on so cleanly, so selflessly, there, in a poor hovel on the secluded Vasilyevsky Island, away from people, from abundance, and from all kinds of whims. He now approached them and began to carefully examine all of them, and along with them, all his former poor life began to appear in his memory. “Yes,” he said desperately, “I had talent. Its signs and traces are visible everywhere, on everything…”
He stopped and suddenly trembled all over his body: his eyes met with eyes that were staring motionlessly at him. It was that extraordinary portrait that he had bought in the Shchukin court. All this time it had been covered, cluttered with other paintings and had completely left his thoughts. Now, as if on purpose, when all the fashionable portraits and paintings that filled the studio had been taken out, it looked out from above along with the former works of his youth. As he remembered its whole strange story, as he remembered that in some way it, this strange portrait, was the cause of his transformation, that the money treasure he had received in such a miraculous way had given birth to all the vain impulses that had ruined his talent, – almost a frenzy was about to break into his soul. He immediately ordered the hateful portrait to be taken away. But his mental turmoil did not subside because of this: all his feelings and his whole being were shaken to the bottom, and he learned that terrible torment, which, as a striking exception, sometimes appears in nature, when a weak talent tries to show itself in a size that exceeds it and cannot show itself; that torment, which in a youth gives birth to greatness, but in one who has crossed the boundary of dreams turns into a fruitless thirst; that terrible torment that makes a person capable of terrible atrocities. A terrible envy, envy to the point of frenzy, took hold of him. Bile appeared on his face when he saw a work that bore the stamp of talent. He gnashed his teeth and devoured it with the gaze of a basilisk. In his soul, the most hellish intention that a person had ever harbored was born, and with a frantic force, he rushed to carry it out. He began to buy up all the best things that art produced. Having bought a painting at a high price, he carefully brought it into his room and, with the frenzy of a tiger, pounced on it, tore it, tore it apart, cut it into pieces and trampled it underfoot, accompanying it with a laugh of pleasure. The countless riches he had accumulated provided him with all the means to satisfy this hellish desire. He untied all his golden bags and opened his chests. Never has a single monster of ignorance destroyed so many beautiful works as this fierce avenger destroyed. At all auctions where he only appeared, everyone in advance despaired of acquiring an artistic creation. It seemed as if an angry heaven had specially sent this terrible scourge into the world, wanting to take away all its harmony. This terrible passion cast some kind of terrible color on him: an eternal bile was present on his face. Blasphemy against the world and denial were depicted in his features by themselves. It seemed that that terrible demon, whom Pushkin had ideally depicted, was personified in him. Apart from a poisonous word and eternal censure, his lips uttered nothing. Like some kind of harpy, he would be found on the street, and all his acquaintances, seeing him from a distance, tried to turn away and avoid such a meeting, saying that it was enough to poison the whole day afterwards.
Fortunately for the world and the arts, such a tense and violent life could not last long: the size of the passions was too irregular and colossal for her weak forces. Fits of rage and madness began to appear more often, and finally, all this turned into the most terrible disease. A cruel fever, combined with the most rapid consumption, took hold of him so fiercely that in three days only a shadow remained of him. To this were added all the signs of hopeless insanity. Sometimes several people could not hold him back. He began to imagine the long-forgotten, living eyes of the unusual portrait, and then his frenzy was terrible. All the people who surrounded his bed seemed to him to be terrible portraits. He doubled, quadrupled in his eyes; all the walls seemed to be hung with portraits that stared at him with their motionless living eyes. Terrible portraits looked from the ceiling, from the floor, the room expanded and continued endlessly, in order to accommodate more of these motionless eyes. The doctor, who had undertaken the duty of treating him and had already heard something about his strange story, tried with all his might to find a secret connection between the ghosts that he imagined and the events of his life, but he could not succeed at all. The patient understood and felt nothing except his torments and uttered only terrible screams and incomprehensible speeches. Finally, his life was cut short in a final, already voiceless, burst of suffering. His corpse was terrible. Nothing could be found of his huge riches either; but, seeing the cut pieces of those high works of art, the price of which exceeded millions, they understood their terrible use.
Part II
A multitude of carriages, droshkies, and carts stood at the entrance of a house where an auction was taking place for the belongings of one of those wealthy art lovers who had drowsed away their whole lives, immersed in zephyrs and cupids, who had innocently earned a reputation as patrons of the arts and had naively spent millions for this purpose, millions accumulated by their sensible fathers, and often even by their own previous labors. Such patrons, as is well known, no longer exist, and our 19th century has long since acquired the dull face of a banker, who enjoys his millions only in the form of figures displayed on paper. The long hall was filled with a very motley crowd of visitors, who had swooped in like birds of prey on an untended body. Here was an entire flotilla of Russian merchants from the Gostiny Dvor and even the flea market, in blue German frock coats. Their appearance and facial expressions were somehow firmer, freer here, and were not marked by that cloying subservience which is so visible in a Russian merchant when he is in his shop in front of a buyer. Here, they were not at all constrained, despite the fact that in this same hall there were many of those aristocrats before whom they would have been ready to sweep away the dust brought in by their own boots with their bows in another place. Here they were completely at ease, feeling books and paintings without ceremony, wanting to know the quality of the goods, and boldly interrupting the price being raised by the count-connoisseurs. Here were many of the necessary auction visitors, who had decided to be there every day instead of breakfast; aristocrat-connoisseurs who considered it their duty not to miss an opportunity to increase their collection and found no other occupation from 12 to 1 o’clock; finally, those noble gentlemen whose clothes and pockets were very thin, who appeared daily without any mercenary purpose, but solely to see what would happen, who would bid more, who less, who would outbid whom, and who would end up with what. Many paintings were scattered completely without any sense; mixed in with them were furniture and books with the monograms of the former owner, who perhaps had no commendable curiosity to look into them at all. Chinese vases, marble tops for tables, new and old furniture with curved lines, with griffins, sphinxes, and lion’s paws, gilded and without gilding, chandeliers, wall lamps — everything was piled up, and not at all in the same order as in stores. Everything presented some kind of chaos of the arts. In general, the feeling we experience at the sight of an auction is terrible: everything in it echoes something similar to a funeral procession. The hall in which it is held is always somehow gloomy; the windows, cluttered with furniture and paintings, pour out a meager light, the silence spread on the faces, and the funeral voice of the auctioneer, tapping his hammer and singing a requiem for the poor arts that met so strangely here. All this, it seems, only increases the strange unpleasantness of the impression.
The auction, it seemed, was in full swing. A whole crowd of respectable people, huddled together, were vying with each other for something. The words: “A ruble, a ruble, a ruble,” resounding from all sides, did not give the auctioneer time to repeat the raised price, which had already grown four times more than the announced one. The surrounding crowd was clamoring over a portrait that could not fail to stop everyone who had any idea about painting. The high brush of the artist was obviously showing in it. The portrait, apparently, had been restored and refreshed several times and depicted the dark features of some kind of Asian in a wide robe, with an unusual, strange expression on his face; but most of all, the people around were struck by the unusual liveliness of the eyes. The more they looked into them, the more they seemed to stare into the soul of each person. This strangeness, this unusual trick of the artist, attracted the attention of almost everyone. Many of those competing for it had already backed down, because the price had been driven up to an unbelievable amount. Only two well-known aristocrats, art lovers, remained, who did not want to give up such an acquisition for anything. They became heated and would probably have driven the price to an impossibility, if one of those who were also examining it had not suddenly said:
“Allow me to interrupt your dispute for a while. I, perhaps more than anyone else, have a right to this portrait.”
These words immediately drew everyone’s attention to him. He was a slender man, about thirty-five years old, with long black curls. A pleasant face, full of some kind of bright nonchalance, showed a soul alien to all the tormenting worldly upheavals; there were no pretensions to fashion in his attire: everything in him showed the artist. It was, indeed, the artist B., known personally to many of those present.
“However strange my words may seem to you,” he continued, seeing the general attention directed at him, “but if you decide to listen to a short story, you may see that I was right to utter them. Everyone assures me that the portrait is the very one I am looking for.”
A very natural curiosity flared up on the faces of almost everyone, and the auctioneer himself, with his mouth agape, stopped with the hammer raised in his hand, preparing to listen. At the beginning of the story, many involuntarily turned their eyes to the portrait, but then everyone stared at the storyteller alone, as his story became more and more engaging.
“You are familiar with that part of the city which is called Kolomna.” – So he began. “Everything here is unlike other parts of St. Petersburg; it is neither the capital nor the provinces; it seems that when you cross into the streets of Kolomna, you hear all your young desires and impulses leaving you. The future does not enter here, here it is all quiet and retired, everything that has settled down from the movement of the capital. Retired officials, widows, poor people who have acquaintances with the senate and have therefore condemned themselves to a life here; retired cooks who push their way through the markets all day, chatting nonsense with a peasant in a small shop and getting five kopecks worth of coffee and four kopecks worth of sugar every day, and, finally, that entire category of people who can be called by one word: ashen — people who, with their clothes, faces, hair, eyes, have some kind of cloudy, ashen appearance, like a day when there is neither a storm nor the sun in the sky, but it’s simply neither one thing nor the other: a fog is sowing and taking away all sharpness from objects. To this can be added retired theater ushers, retired titular councilors, retired pets of Mars with a gouged-out eye and a swollen lip. These people are completely dispassionate: they walk, not paying attention to anything, they are silent, thinking about nothing. There is not much good in their rooms; sometimes just a bottle of pure Russian vodka, which they monotonously sip all day without any strong rush to the head, which is usually produced by a strong drink that a young German craftsman, that daredevil of Meshchanskaya Street, likes to give himself on Sundays, who owns the entire sidewalk alone, when the time has passed twelve o’clock at night.
Life in Kolomna is terribly secluded: a carriage rarely appears, except perhaps the one in which actors ride, which with its thunder, ringing, and clatter alone disturbs the general silence. Here, everyone is a pedestrian; the cabman very often plods along without a passenger, dragging hay for his bearded nag. An apartment can be found for five rubles a month, even with coffee in the morning. Widows receiving a pension are the most aristocratic families here; they behave well, often sweep their room, chat with their friends about the high cost of beef and cabbage; they often have a young daughter with them, a silent, voiceless, sometimes pretty creature, a nasty little dog, and a wall clock with a sadly ticking pendulum. Then come the actors, whose salaries do not allow them to leave Kolomna, a free people, like all artists, who live for pleasure. Sitting in their bathrobes, they fix a pistol, glue various little things useful for the house out of cardboard, play checkers and cards with a friend who has come, and so they spend the morning, doing almost the same thing in the evening, with the addition of a little punch sometimes. After these grandees and aristocracy of Kolomna follows an extraordinary fraction and trifle. It is as difficult to name them as it is to count the multitude of insects that are born in old vinegar. Here there are old women who pray; old women who get drunk; old women who both pray and get drunk together; old women who make ends meet by incomprehensible means, like ants — they drag old rags and linen with them from Kalinkin Bridge to the flea market, in order to sell it there for fifteen kopecks; in a word, often the most unfortunate residue of humanity, for whom not a single benevolent political economist would have found the means to improve their condition.
I brought them up to show you how often these people are in need of only some sudden, temporary help, to resort to loans; and then a special kind of usurers settle among them, who provide small sums for collateral and at high interest rates. These small usurers are several times more insensitive than any large ones, because they arise in the midst of poverty and clearly displayed beggar’s rags, which a rich usurer, who only deals with those who arrive in carriages, does not see. And therefore, every feeling of humanity is removed from their souls too early. Among such usurers there was one… but it is worth telling you that the event that I have set out to tell relates to the last century, namely to the reign of the late Empress Catherine the Second. You can understand for yourself that the very appearance of Kolomna and the life within it must have changed significantly. So, among the usurers there was one — a being in all respects unusual, who had settled in this part of the city a long time ago. He walked in a wide Asian outfit; the dark color of his face indicated his southern origin, but no one could say for sure what his nationality was: Indian, Greek, Persian. His tall, almost unusual height, his dark, thin, inflamed face and its incomprehensibly terrible color, his large eyes of unusual fire, his overhanging thick eyebrows distinguished him strongly and sharply from all the ashen inhabitants of the capital. His very dwelling was not like the other small wooden houses. It was a stone building, like those that the Genoese merchants once built in abundance — with irregular windows of unequal size, with iron shutters and bolts. This usurer was different from other usurers in that he could provide any amount of money to everyone, from a destitute old woman to a wasteful court grandee. The most brilliant carriages often appeared in front of his house, from the windows of which the head of a luxurious society lady sometimes looked out. Rumor, as usual, spread that his iron chests were full of countless money, valuables, diamonds, and all kinds of collateral, but that, however, he did not have the same greed that is characteristic of other usurers. He gave money willingly, distributing the payment terms, it seemed, very profitably; but with some strange arithmetic calculations, he made them rise to exorbitant interest rates. At least, that’s what the rumor said. But what was strangest of all and what could not fail to strike many was the strange fate of all those who received money from him: they all ended their lives in an unfortunate way. Whether this was simply a popular opinion, absurd superstitious rumors, or rumors deliberately spread — this remained unknown. But several examples that happened in a short time before the eyes of everyone were vivid and striking.
Of the aristocracy of the time, a young man of a good family soon attracted attention. He had already distinguished himself in his youth in state service, was an ardent admirer of all that was true and sublime, a zealot for everything that art and the human mind had created, and saw himself as a patron of the arts. Soon he was deservedly distinguished by the Empress herself, who entrusted him with a significant position, perfectly in line with his own requirements — a position where he could produce much for the sciences and for good in general. The young dignitary surrounded himself with artists, poets, and scholars. He wanted to give everyone work, to encourage everything. He undertook a great number of useful publications at his own expense, gave out a great number of commissions, announced incentive prizes, spent a lot of money on this, and finally went broke. But, full of a magnanimous impulse, he did not want to abandon his work, sought to borrow everywhere, and finally turned to the well-known usurer. Having taken out a significant loan from him, this man changed completely in a short time: he became a persecutor and an oppressor of developing minds and talents. He began to see the bad side in all writings, interpreted every word crookedly. Then, unfortunately, the French Revolution happened. This suddenly served as a tool for all kinds of nastiness for him. He began to see some kind of revolutionary direction in everything, he imagined hints in everything. He became suspicious to such an extent that he finally began to suspect himself, began to compose terrible, unfair denunciations, and caused a great number of unfortunate events. It goes without saying that such actions could not fail to reach the throne in the end. The generous Empress was horrified and, full of the nobility of soul that adorns crowned heads, uttered words that, although they could not be conveyed to us in all their accuracy, their deep meaning was imprinted on the hearts of many. The Empress noted that it is not under a monarchical rule that the high, noble impulses of the soul are oppressed, that creations of the mind, poetry, and arts are not despised and persecuted there; that, on the contrary, monarchs alone were their patrons; that Shakespeares and Molières flourished under their generous protection, while Dante could not find a corner in his republican homeland; that true geniuses arise during the brilliance and power of sovereigns and states, and not during ugly political phenomena and republican terrorism, which until now have not given the world a single poet; that one must distinguish between poets-artists, for they bring only peace and beautiful tranquility to the soul, and not unrest and grumbling; that scholars, poets, and all producers of the arts are pearls and diamonds in the imperial crown: the era of a great sovereign is adorned and receives even greater brilliance from them. In a word, the Empress who uttered these words was divinely beautiful at that moment. I remember that the old people could not speak of this without tears. Everyone took part in the case. To the credit of our national pride, it must be noted that in the Russian heart there always lives a beautiful feeling to take the side of the oppressed. The dignitary who had betrayed his trust was punished exemplarily and removed from his post. But he read a much more terrible punishment on the faces of his compatriots. This was a decisive and universal contempt. It is impossible to describe how his vain soul suffered; pride, thwarted ambition, shattered hopes — everything combined, and in fits of terrible madness and rage, his life was cut short.
Another striking example also occurred in front of everyone: of the beauties with whom our northern capital was not poor then, one had a decisive primacy over all. It was some kind of wonderful fusion of our northern beauty with the beauty of the south, a diamond that is rarely found in the world. My father admitted that he had never seen anything like it in his entire life. Everything, it seemed, was combined in her: wealth, intelligence, and charm of soul. There was a crowd of suitors, and among them, the most remarkable was Prince R., the most noble, the best of all young men, beautiful both in face and in chivalrous, magnanimous impulses, a high ideal of novels and women, a Grandison in all respects. Prince R. was in love passionately and madly; such a fiery love was his answer. But the relatives considered the match uneven. The ancestral estates of the prince no longer belonged to him, his family was in disfavor, and the poor state of his affairs was known to all. Suddenly, the prince leaves the capital for a while, supposedly to improve his affairs, and after a short time appears surrounded by unimaginable luxury and brilliance. Brilliant balls and parties make him known at court. The father of the beauty becomes favorable, and the most interesting wedding takes place in the city. Where such a change and the unheard-of wealth of the groom came from, no one could explain for sure; but they said on the side that he had entered into some conditions with the incomprehensible usurer and had taken out a loan from him. Be that as it may, the wedding occupied the whole city, and the groom and bride were the subject of general envy. Everyone was aware of their hot, constant love, the long languor endured on both sides, the high merits of both. Fiery women pre-sketched that heavenly bliss that the young spouses would enjoy. But everything turned out differently. In one year, a terrible change took place in the husband. The theretofore noble and beautiful character was poisoned by the venom of suspicious jealousy, intolerance, and inexhaustible whims. He became a tyrant and tormentor of his wife and, what no one could have foreseen, resorted to the most inhuman actions, even beatings. In one year, no one could recognize the woman who had recently shone and attracted crowds of submissive admirers. Finally, unable to bear her heavy fate any longer, she was the first to speak of a divorce. The husband went into a frenzy at the very thought of it. In the first movement of fury, he broke into her room with a knife and, no doubt, would have stabbed her right there, if he had not been seized and held back. In a fit of frenzy and despair, he turned the knife on himself — and ended his life in the most terrible torment.
Besides these two examples that happened in the eyes of the whole society, they told of many that happened in the lower classes, almost all of which had a terrible end. There, an honest, sober man became a drunkard; there, a merchant’s clerk robbed his master; there, a cabman who had driven honestly for several years, for a penny, killed a passenger. It is impossible that such events, sometimes told not without additions, would not have instilled a kind of involuntary horror in the modest inhabitants of Kolomna. No one doubted the presence of an unclean force in this man. They said that he offered such conditions that one’s hair stood on end and that the unfortunate person never dared to tell another afterwards; that his money had a burning property, glowed on its own, and bore some strange signs… in a word, there were many all kinds of absurd rumors. And it is remarkable that this whole Kolomna population, this whole world of poor old women, petty officials, petty artists, and, in a word, all the small fry that we have just named, would rather endure and suffer the last extremity than turn to the terrible usurer; they even found old women who had died of hunger, who would rather have their bodies killed than lose their souls. Meeting him on the street, they involuntarily felt fear. A pedestrian would cautiously step back and for a long time after that would look back, following his excessively tall figure disappearing in the distance. In his image alone there was so much unusual that it would involuntarily make anyone attribute a supernatural existence to him. These strong features, carved so deeply, as does not happen in a person; this hot bronze color of his face; this excessive thickness of his eyebrows, the unbearable, terrible eyes, even the very wide folds of his Asian clothes — everything, it seemed, as if to say that before the passions that moved in this body, all the passions of other people were pale. My father would stop motionless every time he met him, and every time he could not help but say: “The devil, a complete devil!” But I must introduce you to my father as soon as possible, who, by the way, is the real subject of this story.
My father was a remarkable man in many respects. He was an artist, of whom there are few, one of those wonders that only Russia casts out from its uninitiated bosom, a self-taught artist, who found the rules and laws in his own soul, without teachers or a school, carried away only by a thirst for improvement and who followed, for reasons perhaps unknown to himself, a path indicated only from the soul; one of those natural wonders whom contemporaries often honor with the offensive word “ignorant” and who are not cooled by censure and their own failures, only receive new zeal and strength, and have already gone far in their soul from those works for which they received the title of ignorant. With a high internal instinct, he sensed the presence of thought in every subject; he comprehended the true meaning of the word “historical painting” by himself; he comprehended why a simple head, a simple portrait of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Correggio can be called historical painting and why a huge picture of historical content will still be a tableau de genre (genre painting), despite all the artist’s claims to historical painting. And his inner feeling and his own conviction turned his brush to Christian subjects, the highest and last stage of the sublime. He had no ambition or irritability, which are so inseparable from the character of many artists. He was a firm character, an honest, straightforward man, even coarse, covered on the outside with a somewhat callous crust, not without some pride in his soul, who spoke of people both condescendingly and sharply. “Why look at them,” he would usually say, “I’m not working for them. I won’t take my paintings to the drawing-room, they will be placed in a church. Whoever understands me will thank me, whoever doesn’t understand will still pray to God. A society person should not be blamed for not understanding painting; but he understands cards, he knows a good wine, horses — why should a gentleman know more? And if he tries one thing and another and starts to show off, then there will be no living with him! To each his own, let everyone do their own thing. For me, that man is better who says directly that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about than one who plays the hypocrite, says he knows what he doesn’t know, and only messes things up and spoils them.” He worked for a small fee, that is, for a fee that he needed only to support his family and to provide the opportunity to work. In addition, he never refused to help another and lend a helping hand to a poor artist; he believed with the simple, pious faith of his ancestors, and for that reason, perhaps, that high expression, which brilliant talents could not get to, appeared by itself on the faces he depicted. Finally, by the constancy of his work and the unwaveringness of the path he had outlined for himself, he even began to gain respect from those who called him an ignorant person and a home-grown autodidact. He was constantly given commissions in churches, and he never ran out of work. One of the works occupied him greatly. I no longer remember what exactly its subject was, I only know that a spirit of darkness had to be placed in the painting. For a long time, he thought about what image to give him; he wanted to embody in his face all that was heavy and oppressing a person. During such reflections, the image of the mysterious usurer sometimes flashed through his head, and he involuntarily thought: “This is who I should have painted the devil from.” Judge then his amazement when once, working in his studio, he heard a knock on the door, and immediately after that the terrible usurer entered directly. He could not help but feel some kind of inner tremor that involuntarily ran through his body.
“Are you an artist?” he said to my father without any ceremony.
“An artist,” said my father in bewilderment, waiting for what would come next.
“Good. Paint my portrait. I may die soon, I have no children; but I don’t want to die completely, I want to live. Can you paint a portrait that will be completely like a living person?”
My father thought: “What could be better? He himself is asking to be the devil in my painting.” He gave his word. They agreed on the time and price, and the next day, grabbing his palette and brushes, my father was already with him. The high courtyard, the dogs, the iron doors and bolts, the arched windows, the chests covered with ancient carpets, and, finally, the unusual owner himself, sitting motionless in front of him — all this made a strange impression on him. The windows, as if on purpose, were blocked and cluttered from below so that they gave light only from the very top. “Damn it, how well his face is lit now!” he said to himself and began to paint greedily, as if afraid that the happy lighting would somehow disappear. “What a power!” he repeated to himself. “If I depict him even halfway as he is now, he will kill all my saints and angels; they will pale before him. What a devilish power! He will simply jump out of the canvas if I am only a little faithful to nature. What unusual features!” he repeated incessantly, redoubling his zeal, and already saw for himself how some features began to be transferred to the canvas. But the closer he got to them, the more he felt some kind of burdensome, disturbing feeling, incomprehensible to himself. However, despite this, he decided to pursue with literal accuracy every imperceptible feature and expression. First of all, he set about finishing the eyes. There was so much power in those eyes that it seemed impossible to even think of conveying them exactly as they were in nature. However, he decided at all costs to find the last small feature and shade in them, to comprehend their secret… But as soon as he began to enter and delve into them with his brush, such a strange aversion, such an incomprehensible burden arose in his soul that he had to put down the brush for a while and then take it up again. Finally, he could no longer bear it, he felt that these eyes were piercing his soul and causing an incomprehensible anxiety in it. On the second and third day, it was even stronger. He became afraid. He threw down his brush and said flatly that he could no longer paint him. One had to see how the strange usurer changed at these words. He threw himself at his feet and begged him to finish the portrait, saying that his fate and existence in the world depended on it, that he had already touched his living features with his brush, that if he transferred them faithfully, his life would be held in the portrait by a supernatural power, that he would not die completely because of this, that he needed to be present in the world. My father felt horror from such words: they seemed so strange and terrible to him that he threw down both his brushes and his palette and rushed out of the room headfirst.
The thought of it bothered him all day and all night, and in the morning he received the portrait from the usurer, which some woman brought him, the only person who was in his service, who also announced that the owner did not want the portrait, was not giving him anything for it, and was sending it back. In the evening of the same day, he learned that the usurer had died and that they were already preparing to bury him according to the rites of his religion. All this seemed to him inexplicably strange. And in the meantime, from that time on, a noticeable change appeared in his character: he felt a restless, anxious state, the reason for which he himself could not understand, and he soon committed an act that no one could have expected from him. For some time, the works of one of his students had begun to attract the attention of a small circle of connoisseurs and amateurs. My father had always seen talent in him and showed him his special favor for it. Suddenly he felt envy towards him. The general participation and talk about him became unbearable for him. Finally, to top off his vexation, he learns that his student had been offered to paint a picture for a newly built rich church. This blew him up. “No, I won’t let this whippersnapper triumph!” he said. “It’s too early, brother, for you to think of putting old men in the mud! Thank God, I still have strength. We’ll see who puts whom in the mud faster.” And the straightforward, honest man at heart used intrigues and machinations, which he had always despised until then; he finally succeeded in having a competition announced for the painting and other artists could also enter with their works. After that, he locked himself in his room and with fervor took up his brush. It seemed that he wanted to gather all his strength, all of himself, here. And indeed, this came out as one of his best works. No one doubted that the primacy would not remain with him. The paintings were presented, and all the others seemed like night before day compared to it. When suddenly one of the members present, if I’m not mistaken, a clergyman, made a remark that struck everyone. “There is, indeed, a lot of talent in the artist’s painting,” he said, “but there is no holiness in the faces; there is even, on the contrary, something demonic in the eyes, as if an unclean feeling guided the artist’s hand.” Everyone looked and could not help but be convinced of the truth of these words. My father rushed forward to his painting, as if to check such an offensive remark himself, and with horror saw that he had given almost all the figures the eyes of the usurer. They looked so demonically crushing that he himself involuntarily shuddered. The painting was rejected, and he had to, to his indescribable vexation, hear that the primacy remained with his student. It was impossible to describe the frenzy with which he returned home. He almost beat my mother, drove the children away, broke his brushes and easel, grabbed the portrait of the usurer from the wall, demanded a knife, and ordered a fire to be lit in the fireplace, intending to cut it into pieces and burn it. It was in this movement that a friend, a painter, like him, a cheerful person, always content with himself, who did not get carried away by any distant desires, who happily worked on everything that came his way, and even more happily took to dinner and a feast, found him.
“What are you doing, what are you going to burn?” he said and approached the portrait. “I beg you, this is one of your best works. It’s the usurer who died recently; yes, this is an absolutely perfect thing. You didn’t just hit the nail on the head, you got right into his eyes. Eyes have never looked in life the way they look in your painting.”
“I’ll see how they look in the fire,” said my father, making a movement to throw it into the fireplace.
“Stop, for God’s sake!” said his friend, holding him back, “you’d better give it to me, if it bothers you so much.”
My father first resisted, then agreed, and the cheerful fellow, extremely pleased with his acquisition, took the portrait with him.
After his departure, my father suddenly felt calmer. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his soul along with the portrait. He himself was amazed at his malicious feeling, his envy, and the obvious change in his character. Having examined his action, he was saddened in his soul and not without internal sorrow said:
“No, God has punished me; my painting deserved to be disgraced. It was conceived in order to ruin a brother. A demonic feeling of envy guided my brush, and a demonic feeling must have been reflected in it.”
He immediately went to look for his former student, hugged him tightly, asked for his forgiveness, and tried as much as he could to atone for his guilt before him. His work again flowed calmly as before; but pensiveness began to appear more often on his face. He prayed more, was more often silent, and did not speak so harshly about people; the very coarse appearance of his character somehow softened. Soon another circumstance shook him even more. He had not seen his comrade who had begged the portrait from him for a long time. He was already about to go and visit him when he himself unexpectedly entered his room. After a few words and questions from both sides, he said:
“Well, brother, it was not for nothing that you wanted to burn the portrait. To hell with it, there is something strange about it… I don’t believe in witches, but, as you like: an unclean force sits in it…”
“How?” said my father.
“That’s how it is, that since I hung it in my room, I’ve felt such a longing… as if I wanted to kill someone. In my life, I never knew what insomnia was, and now I have experienced not only insomnia, but such dreams… I myself can’t say if they are dreams or something else: it’s as if a brownie is suffocating you, and the cursed old man is always haunting me. In a word, I can’t tell you my state. Nothing like this has ever happened to me. I wandered like a madman all these days: I felt some kind of fear, an unpleasant expectation of something. I feel that I can’t say a cheerful and sincere word to anyone; it’s as if some kind of spy is sitting next to me. And only since I gave the portrait to my nephew, who asked for it, have I felt as if a stone had suddenly been lifted from my shoulders: I suddenly felt cheerful, as you can see. Well, brother, you cooked up a devil!”
During this story, my father listened to him with unflagging attention and finally asked:
“And the portrait is now with your nephew?”
“With my nephew? No, he couldn’t stand it,” said the cheerful fellow, “the usurer’s soul must have moved into it: it jumps out of the frames, walks around the room; and what my nephew says is simply incomprehensible to the mind. I would have taken him for a madman, if I had not partly experienced it myself. He sold it to some art collector, and he also couldn’t stand it and also passed it on to someone.”
This story made a strong impression on my father. He became seriously thoughtful, fell into hypochondria, and finally became completely convinced that his brush had served as a devilish tool, that part of the usurer’s life had indeed somehow passed into the portrait and was now disturbing people, instilling demonic impulses, leading the artist astray, giving rise to the terrible torments of envy, and so on and so on. The three misfortunes that followed — the sudden deaths of his wife, daughter, and young son — he considered a heavenly punishment for himself and decided to definitely leave the world. As soon as I was nine years old, he placed me in the Academy of Arts and, having paid off his debtors, retired to a secluded monastery, where he soon took monastic vows. There, with the severity of his life and the tireless observance of all monastic rules, he amazed all the brethren. The abbot of the monastery, having learned about the art of his brush, asked him to paint the main icon for the church. But the humble brother said flatly that he was unworthy to take up a brush, that it was desecrated, that he must first cleanse his soul through labor and great sacrifices in order to be worthy of undertaking such a work. They did not want to force him. He himself increased the severity of monastic life for himself as much as possible. Finally, even it became insufficient and not severe enough for him. He retired with the abbot’s blessing to a hermitage to be completely alone. There he built himself a cell from tree branches, fed only on raw roots, dragged stones from place to place, stood from sunrise to sunset in the same place with his hands raised to the sky, reading prayers continuously. In a word, he seemed to be looking for all possible degrees of patience and that incomprehensible self-denial, the examples of which can only be found in the lives of the saints. Thus, for a long time, for several years, he exhausted his body, at the same time strengthening it with the life-giving power of prayer. Finally, one day he came to the monastery and said firmly to the abbot: “Now I am ready. If it is God’s will, I will complete my work.” The subject he chose was the Nativity of Jesus. He sat over it for a whole year, without leaving his cell, barely feeding himself with coarse food, praying constantly. At the end of the year, the painting was ready. It was, indeed, a miracle of the brush. It must be known that neither the brethren nor the abbot had much knowledge of painting, but all were struck by the extraordinary holiness of the figures. The feeling of divine humility and meekness in the face of the Immaculate Mother, who bent over the Child, the deep wisdom in the eyes of the Divine Child, as if already foreseeing something in the distance, the solemn silence of the kings struck by the divine miracle, who prostrated themselves at His feet, and, finally, the holy, inexpressible silence that embraced the entire painting — all this appeared in such a harmonious power and might of beauty that the impression was magical. All the brethren knelt before the new icon, and the moved abbot said: “No, a person cannot produce such a painting with the help of human art alone: a holy, higher power guided your brush, and the blessing of heaven rested on your work.”
At this time, I finished my studies at the Academy, received a gold medal, and with it the joyful hope of a trip to Italy — the best dream of a twenty-year-old artist. I only had to say goodbye to my father, with whom I had been separated for twelve years. I confess, even his very image had long since disappeared from my memory. I had already heard something about the severe holiness of his life and beforehand imagined meeting the callous appearance of a hermit, alien to everything in the world except his cell and prayer, exhausted, dried up from eternal fasting and vigil. But how amazed I was when a beautiful, almost divine elder stood before me! Not a trace of emaciation was noticeable on his face: it shone with the light of heavenly joy. A white, like snow, beard and thin, almost airy hair of the same silvery color were picturesquely scattered over his chest and over the folds of his black cassock and fell to the very cord with which his poor monastic clothes were girded; but most of all, it was amazing for me to hear from his lips such words and thoughts about art, which, I confess, I will long keep in my soul and sincerely wish that every one of my comrades would do the same.
“I have been waiting for you, my son,” he said when I approached him for his blessing. “A path lies before you, along which your life will flow from now on. Your path is pure, do not deviate from it. You have talent; talent is the most precious gift of God — do not destroy it. Explore, study everything you see, subjugate everything to your brush, but in everything be able to find the inner thought and, most of all, try to comprehend the high mystery of creation. Blessed is the chosen one who possesses it. There is no low subject for him in nature. In the insignificant, the artist-creator is as great as in the great; in the despicable, there is no longer anything despicable for him, for the beautiful soul of the creator shines invisibly through it, and the despicable has already received a high expression, for it has flowed through the purgatory of his soul. A hint of a divine, heavenly paradise is enclosed for man in art, and for that reason alone it is already higher than everything. And in how many times solemn peace is higher than any worldly turmoil; in how many times creation is higher than destruction; in how many times an angel with only the pure innocence of his bright soul is higher than all the countless forces and proud passions of Satan, – in that many times is the high creation of art higher than everything else in the world. Bring everything as a sacrifice to it and love it with all your passion. Not with a passion that breathes with earthly desire, but with a quiet heavenly passion; without it, a person is not able to rise from the earth and cannot give wonderful sounds of tranquility. For it is for the tranquility and reconciliation of all that the high creation of art descends into the world. It cannot sow grumbling in the soul, but with a ringing prayer it strives eternally to God. But there are moments, dark moments…”
He stopped, and I noticed that his bright face suddenly darkened, as if some momentary cloud had run over it.
“There is one event in my life,” he said. “Until now, I cannot understand what that strange image was from which I painted the portrait. It was exactly some kind of devilish phenomenon. I know that the world denies the existence of the devil, and therefore I will not talk about him. But I will only say that I painted it with disgust, I did not feel any love for my work at that time. I tried to force myself and, soullessly, suppressing everything, to be faithful to nature. It was not a creation of art, and therefore the feelings that embrace everyone at the sight of it are already rebellious feelings, disturbing feelings — not the feelings of an artist, for even in turmoil an artist breathes peace. I was told that this portrait is being passed from hand to hand and is spreading tormenting impressions, giving rise to a feeling of envy in the artist, a gloomy hatred for his brother, a malicious thirst to cause persecution and oppression. May the Almighty protect you from these passions! There is nothing more terrible than them. It is better to endure all the bitterness of possible persecution than to inflict even one shadow of persecution on someone. Save the purity of your soul. He who has enclosed talent in himself must be purer in soul than all others. Much will be forgiven to another, but it will not be forgiven to him. A person who has left home in bright festive clothes, it is enough for him to be splashed with one spot of dirt from under a wheel, and the whole people have already surrounded him, and are pointing a finger at him, and are talking about his slovenliness, while the same people do not notice a multitude of spots on others passing by, dressed in everyday clothes. For spots are not noticeable on everyday clothes.”
He blessed me and hugged me. Never in my life had I been so sublimely moved. Reverently, more than with the feeling of a son, I clung to his chest and kissed his scattered silver hair. A tear gleamed in his eyes.
“Fulfill one request of mine, my son,” he said to me at the very farewell. “Maybe you will happen to see that portrait somewhere, the one I told you about. You will recognize it at once by its unusual eyes and their unnatural expression — destroy it at all costs…”
You can judge for yourselves whether I could not have sworn to fulfill such a request. For a whole fifteen years, I had not happened to meet anything that would at least somewhat resemble the description made by my father, when suddenly now, at the auction…
Here the artist, without having finished his speech, turned his eyes to the wall to look at the portrait once more. The same movement was made in an instant by the entire crowd of listeners, searching with their eyes for the unusual portrait. But, to their greatest astonishment, it was no longer on the wall. An indistinct murmur and noise ran through the entire crowd, and immediately after that the words were clearly heard: “Stolen.” Someone had already managed to snatch it, taking advantage of the attention of the listeners, who were carried away by the story. And for a long time, all those present remained in bewilderment, not knowing whether they had actually seen those unusual eyes or whether it was just a dream that had appeared only for a moment to their eyes, tired from a long examination of old paintings.
THE OVERCOAT
In the department… but it’s better not to say which department. There is nothing more touchy than all sorts of departments, regiments, chanceries, and, in short, all sorts of official bodies. Now every private person considers the entire society to be offended in their person. It is said that quite recently a request was made by a police captain, I don’t remember from what city, in which he clearly stated that state regulations were perishing and that his sacred name was being pronounced in vain. And as proof, he attached to the request a huge volume of some romantic work, where a police captain appears every ten pages, sometimes even completely drunk. So, to avoid any unpleasantness, it’s better to call the department in question a certain department. So, in a certain department served a certain official; an official who could not be said to be very remarkable, short, a little pockmarked, a little red-haired, a little even purblind in appearance, with a small bald spot on his forehead, with wrinkles on both sides of his cheeks and a complexion that is called hemorrhoidal… Well, what can you do! the Petersburg climate is to blame. As for his rank (for among us, one must first announce the rank), he was what they call a perpetual titular councilor, over whom, as is well known, various writers have made fun and sharpened their wits at length, having the commendable habit of picking on those who cannot bite back. The official’s surname was Bashmachkin. By the very name, it is clear that it once came from a shoe; but when, at what time, and in what way it came from a shoe, none of this is known. And his father, and grandfather, and even his brother-in-law, and all the Bashmachkins walked in boots, changing the soles only about three times a year. His name was Akaky Akakievich. Perhaps it will seem a little strange and far-fetched to the reader, but it can be assured that it was not far-fetched at all, and that circumstances happened on their own so that it was impossible to give another name, and this happened exactly like this. Akaky Akakievich was born on the night of, if memory serves, March 23rd. The late mother, an official’s wife and a very good woman, decided, as was proper, to baptize the child. The mother was still lying in bed opposite the doors, and on her right hand stood the godfather, an excellent man, Ivan Ivanovich Eroshkin, who served as the head of a department in the Senate, and the godmother, the wife of a quarter officer, a woman of rare virtues, Arina Semyonovna Belobryushkova. The mother was given a choice of any of three, whichever she wanted to choose: Mokkiy, Sossiy, or to name the child in honor of the martyr Khozdazat. “No,” the late woman thought, “the names are all so strange.” To please her, they opened the calendar in another place; three names came out again: Trifiliy, Dula, and Varakhasiy. “This is a punishment,” the old woman muttered, “what names are these; I, truly, have never even heard of such. It would be fine if it were Varadat or Varukh, but Trifiliy and Varakhasiy.” They turned the page again — Pavsikakhy and Vakhtisiy came out. “Well, I see,” the old woman said, “that, apparently, this is his fate. If so, let him be named after his father. The father was Akaky, so let the son be Akaky.” In this way, Akaky Akakievich came to be. The child was baptized, and he cried and made a grimace as if he had a premonition that he would be a titular councilor. So, this is how all this happened. We brought this up so that the reader could see for himself that it happened completely out of necessity and it was impossible to give him another name. When and at what time he entered the department and who assigned him, no one could remember. No matter how many directors and all sorts of bosses changed, he was always seen in the same place, in the same position, in the same office, as the same writing clerk, so that later they became convinced that he, apparently, was born into the world already completely ready, in a frock coat and with a bald spot on his head. In the department, he was not given any respect. The doorkeepers not only did not get up from their places when he passed, but did not even look at him, as if a simple fly had flown through the reception room. The bosses treated him in a somewhat cold and despotic manner. Some assistant head of a department would shove papers right under his nose without even saying “copy this,” or “here is an interesting, nice little case,” or something pleasant, as is used in well-mannered services. And he would take it, looking only at the paper, without looking at who had given it to him or whether they had the right to do so. He would take it and immediately get ready to write it. The young officials would mock and sharpen their wits at him, as far as their clerical wit would allow, and would tell various stories about him right in front of him; they would say that his landlady, a seventy-year-old old woman, beat him, they would ask when their wedding would be, they would sprinkle papers on his head, calling it snow. But Akaky Akakievich did not answer a single word to this, as if no one were in front of him; it did not even have an influence on his work: in the midst of all this trouble, he did not make a single mistake in his writing. Only if the joke was too unbearable, when they pushed his hand, preventing him from doing his work, would he say: “Leave me alone, why are you offending me?” And there was something strange in the words and in the voice with which they were spoken. There was something so piteous in it that one young man, who had recently been appointed and who, following the example of others, had allowed himself to laugh at him, suddenly stopped, as if pierced, and from then on it was as if everything had changed before him and appeared in a different light. Some unnatural force pushed him away from the comrades he had met, having mistaken them for decent, worldly people. And for a long time after that, in the midst of the most cheerful moments, the short official with a bald spot on his forehead would appear to him, with his penetrating words: “Leave me alone, why are you offending me?” — and in these penetrating words, other words rang: “I am your brother.” And the poor young man would cover himself with his hand, and he shuddered many times afterwards in his life, seeing how much inhumanity there is in man, how much savage rudeness is hidden in refined, educated worldliness, and, God! even in the man whom the world recognizes as noble and honest…
It is unlikely that one could find a person who lived so much in his position. It is not enough to say: he served zealously, – no, he served with love. There, in that copying, he saw some kind of his own diverse and pleasant world. Pleasure was expressed on his face; some letters were his favorites, and if he got to them, he was not himself: he would laugh to himself, and wink, and help with his lips, so that on his face, it seemed, one could read every letter that his pen was writing. If he had been given rewards commensurate with his zeal, he, to his astonishment, might have even become a state councilor; but he had only earned, as his witty comrades put it, a buckle for his buttonhole and had developed hemorrhoids in his lower back. However, it cannot be said that he was not given any attention. One director, being a kind person and wanting to reward him for his long service, ordered that he be given something more important than ordinary copying; namely, he was ordered to make some kind of report from an already completed case to another official body; the task was only to change the title and change the verbs from the first person to the third here and there. This gave him so much work that he completely sweated, rubbed his forehead, and finally said: “No, it’s better if you let me copy something.” Since then, they left him to copy forever. Outside of this copying, it seemed that nothing existed for him. He did not think about his clothes at all: his frock coat was not green, but of some reddish-floury color. The collar on it was narrow, low, so that his neck, despite the fact that it was not long, coming out of the collar, seemed unusually long, like those plaster kittens with bobbleheads that Russian foreigners carry on their heads in dozens. And there was always something stuck to his frock coat: either a piece of hay or some kind of thread; in addition, he had a special skill, when walking on the street, to arrive under a window at the very moment when all kinds of rubbish were being thrown out of it, and therefore he always carried away watermelon and melon rinds and similar nonsense on his hat. Not once in his life did he pay attention to what was happening on the street every day, which, as is well known, his brother, a young official, would always look at, extending the insight of his quick gaze to the point of even noticing who on the other side of the sidewalk had a trouser stirrup torn off at the bottom — which always causes a sly smile on his face.
But if Akaky Akakievich looked at anything, he saw on everything his clear lines written in an even handwriting, and only perhaps if, coming from who knows where, a horse’s snout was placed on his shoulder and let out a whole wind into his cheek with its nostrils, only then did he notice that he was not in the middle of a line, but rather in the middle of the street. Arriving home, he would immediately sit down at the table, quickly slurp his cabbage soup and eat a piece of beef with onions, not noticing their taste at all, he ate all this with flies and with everything that God sent at that time. Noticing that his stomach was starting to swell, he would get up from the table, take out a jar of ink, and copy papers that he had brought home. If there were none, he would deliberately, for his own pleasure, make a copy for himself, especially if the paper was remarkable not for the beauty of its style, but for its address to some new or important person.
Even in those hours when the gray St. Petersburg sky completely fades and all the official people have eaten and dined, each as he could, in accordance with the salary he received and his own whim — when everyone has already rested after the departmental creaking of pens, running around, their own and others’ necessary tasks and all that the restless person voluntarily sets for himself, even more than is necessary — when officials rush to devote the remaining time to enjoyment: the more spirited ones rush to the theater; some to the street, spending it on looking at certain hats; some to an evening party to spend it on compliments to some pretty girl, a star of a small official circle; some, and this happens most often, simply go to their brother on the fourth or third floor, into two small rooms with a front room or kitchen and some fashionable pretensions, a lamp or some other trifle that cost many sacrifices, refusals of dinners, walks — in a word, even at that time, when everyone strives to be distracted — Akaky Akakievich did not indulge in any distraction. No one could say that they had ever seen him at any evening party. Having copied to his heart’s content, he would go to sleep, smiling in advance at the thought of the next day: what would God send him to copy tomorrow? Thus flowed the peaceful life of a man who, with a salary of four hundred, was able to be content with his lot, and it would have flowed, perhaps, to a ripe old age, if there had not been various misfortunes scattered on the road of life not only for titular, but even for secret, actual, court, and all kinds of councilors, even for those who give no one advice and do not take it from anyone themselves.
There is a powerful enemy of everyone in St. Petersburg who receives a salary of four hundred rubles a year or thereabouts. This enemy is none other than our northern frost, although, by the way, they say that it is very healthy. At nine o’clock in the morning, precisely at the hour when the streets are covered with those going to the department, it begins to give such strong and prickly slaps indiscriminately to all noses that the poor officials literally do not know what to do with them. At this time, when even those in higher positions have a frozen forehead and tears in their eyes, the poor titular councilors are sometimes defenseless. All salvation consists in running through five or six streets as quickly as possible in a thin overcoat and then stomping their feet thoroughly in the doorkeeper’s room until all the abilities and talents for official duties that have frozen on the way thaw out. Akaky Akakievich had for some time begun to feel that he was being especially strongly baked in the back and shoulder, despite the fact that he tried to run through the lawful distance as quickly as possible. He finally wondered if there were any sins in his overcoat. Examining it thoroughly at home, he discovered that in two or three places, namely on the back and shoulders, it had become a veritable sackcloth; the cloth was so worn that it was transparent, and the lining had fallen apart. It must be known that Akaky Akakievich’s overcoat was also a subject of ridicule for the officials; they even took away the noble name of overcoat from it and called it a dressing gown. In fact, it had a strange structure: its collar decreased more and more every year, for it served to patch other parts of it. The patching did not show the art of a tailor and came out, indeed, baggy and unattractive. Seeing what was wrong, Akaky Akakievich decided that the overcoat would have to be taken to Petrovich, a tailor who lived somewhere on the fourth floor by the back stairs, who, despite his crooked eye and pockmarks all over his face, was quite successful in repairing officials’ and all other trousers and frock coats — of course, when he was in a sober state and was not harboring some other project in his head. We should not talk much about this tailor, of course, but since it is already the custom for the character of every person in a story to be completely marked, then, there’s nothing for it, bring Petrovich to us here as well. At first, he was simply called Grigory and was a serf of some gentleman; he began to be called Petrovich from the time he received his freedom and began to drink quite heavily on all holidays, first on the big ones, and then, indiscriminately, on all church holidays where there was a cross in the calendar. In this respect, he was faithful to his grandfathers’ customs, and, arguing with his wife, he called her a worldly woman and a German. Since we have already touched upon his wife, we will have to say a couple of words about her as well; but, unfortunately, not much was known about her, except that Petrovich has a wife, and she even wears a cap, not a kerchief; but she could not boast of beauty, it seems; at least, when they met her, only the guards’ soldiers looked under her cap, winking with their mustache and letting out some special sound.
Climbing the stairs leading to Petrovich, which, to be fair, was all smeared with water, slops, and permeated throughout with that spirituous smell that stings the eyes and, as is well known, is always present on all the back stairs of St. Petersburg houses — climbing the stairs, Akaky Akakievich was already thinking about how much Petrovich would ask, and mentally decided not to give more than two rubles. The door was open, because the landlady, cooking some kind of fish, had let so much smoke into the kitchen that it was impossible to see even the cockroaches themselves. Akaky Akakievich passed through the kitchen, unnoticed even by the landlady herself, and finally entered the room, where he saw Petrovich, sitting on a wide unpainted wooden table and tucking his legs under himself, like a Turkish pasha. His legs, according to the custom of tailors sitting at work, were bare. And first of all, the big toe caught the eye, very well known to Akaky Akakievich, with some kind of monstrous nail, thick and strong, like a turtle’s shell. On Petrovich’s neck hung a skein of silk and thread, and on his knees was some kind of rag. He had already been threading a needle for about three minutes, was missing, and was therefore very angry at the darkness and even at the thread itself, grumbling under his breath: “It won’t go in, you barbarian; you’ve got me, you rascal!” It was unpleasant for Akaky Akakievich that he had come at the very moment when Petrovich was angry: he liked to order something from Petrovich when the latter was already a little tipsy, or, as his wife put it, “soaked with cheap vodka, the one-eyed devil.” In such a state, Petrovich usually very willingly gave in and agreed, even bowing and thanking every time. Then, it’s true, his wife would come, complaining that her husband was drunk and therefore took too little; but if you added one ten-kopeck piece, the deal was done. Now, however, Petrovich seemed to be in a sober state, and therefore was harsh, intractable, and a lover of charging God knows what prices. Akaky Akakievich figured this out and was about to, as they say, retreat, but the matter had already begun. Petrovich squinted his only eye at him very intently, and Akaky Akakievich involuntarily said:
“Hello, Petrovich!”
“I wish you health, sir,” said Petrovich and cocked his eye at Akaky Akakievich’s hands, wanting to see what kind of prey he was carrying.
“And I’m here to see you, Petrovich, you see…”
One must know that Akaky Akakievich mostly expressed himself with prepositions, adverbs, and, finally, with particles that had absolutely no meaning. If the matter was very difficult, he even had a habit of not finishing a sentence at all, so that very often, having started a speech with the words: “This, truly, is completely that…” — and then there was nothing else, and he himself forgot, thinking that he had already said everything.
“What is it?” said Petrovich and at the same time examined with his single eye his entire frock coat, starting from the collar to the sleeves, back, tails, and buttonholes, which were all very familiar to him, because it was his own work. Such is the custom of tailors: this is the first thing he will do when he meets someone.
“Well, you see, Petrovich… the overcoat, the cloth… you see, everywhere else, it’s quite strong, it’s a little dusty, and it looks old, but it’s new, but in one place it’s a little… on the back, and a little on this one shoulder it’s worn through a little – you see, that’s all. And there’s not much work…”
Petrovich took the dressing gown, first laid it out on the table, examined it for a long time, shook his head, and reached with his hand for a round snuffbox with a portrait of some general on the window. Which one, it was unknown, because the place where the face was located had been poked with a finger and then patched with a square piece of paper. Sniffing some snuff, Petrovich spread the dressing gown on his hands and examined it against the light and again shook his head. Then he turned it lining-up and again shook his head, again took off the lid with the general, patched with paper, and, having snorted some snuff into his nose, closed it, hid the snuffbox and finally said:
“No, it can’t be fixed: a bad wardrobe!”
At these words, Akaky Akakievich’s heart sank.
“Why can’t it be fixed, Petrovich?” he said in an almost pleading voice of a child, “it’s only worn out on the shoulders, you must have some pieces…”
“Well, pieces can be found, pieces will be found,” said Petrovich, “but they can’t be sewn on: the thing is completely rotten, you touch it with a needle – and it just falls apart.”
“Let it fall apart, and you just put a patch on it.”
“But there’s nothing to put a patch on, it has nothing to hold on to, the support is too great. It’s only good for show, but if the wind blows, it will fall apart.”
“Well, just fasten it on. How can it be, truly, that…”
“No,” said Petrovich resolutely, “nothing can be done. The case is completely bad. You’d better, when the cold winter time comes, make footcloths for yourself out of it, because stockings don’t keep you warm. The Germans invented this to get more money for themselves (Petrovich liked to take a jab at the Germans when he had the chance); and you will, apparently, have to make a new overcoat.”
At the word “new,” Akaky Akakievich’s eyes misted over, and everything that was in the room began to get confused before him. He clearly saw only the general with the face patched with paper, who was on the lid of Petrovich’s snuffbox.
“How can I get a new one?” he said, as if still in a dream, “I don’t have the money for that.”
“Yes, a new one,” said Petrovich with barbaric calmness.
“Well, if I had to get a new one, how much would it be…”
“You mean, how much would it cost?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’d have to add a hundred and fifty and a little more,” said Petrovich and significantly pursed his lips. He loved strong effects, he liked to suddenly completely puzzle someone and then look askance at what kind of face the puzzled person would make after such words.
“A hundred and fifty rubles for an overcoat!” cried the poor Akaky Akakievich, cried out, perhaps, for the first time in his life, for he was always distinguished by the quietness of his voice.
“Yes, sir,” said Petrovich, “and what an overcoat it would be. If you put marten on the collar and have a hood with a silk lining, it will come to two hundred.”
“Petrovich, please,” said Akaky Akakievich in a pleading voice, not hearing and not trying to hear the words spoken by Petrovich and all his effects, “please, fix it somehow so that it will last at least a little longer.”
“No, that will be: killing the work and wasting money for nothing,” said Petrovich, and Akaky Akakievich, after such words, left completely crushed.
And Petrovich, after his departure, stood for a long time, significantly pursing his lips and not taking up his work, being content that he had not disgraced himself, and had not given away the art of tailoring either.
Going out onto the street, Akaky Akakievich was as if in a dream. “Such a thing has happened,” he said to himself, “I, truly, did not think that it would turn out that way…” — and then, after a short silence, he added: “So that’s how it is! finally, this is what happened, and I, truly, could not have supposed at all that it would be like this.” This was followed by another long silence, after which he said: “So this is how it is! This is such a, truly, completely unexpected, that… this would never… such a circumstance!” Having said this, instead of going home, he went in the completely opposite direction, without even suspecting it. On the way, a chimney sweep brushed against him with his dirty side and blackened his entire shoulder; a whole hatful of lime spilled on him from the top of a house under construction. He did not notice any of this, and only later, when he stumbled upon a policeman who, having placed his halberd next to him, was shaking snuff from a horn onto his calloused fist, only then did he come to his senses a little, and that was because the policeman said: “Why are you climbing right into my mug, don’t you have a sidewalk?” This made him look around and turn home. Here only did he begin to gather his thoughts, saw his situation in a clear and true light, and began to talk to himself not abruptly, but reasonably and frankly, as with a sensible friend with whom one can talk about the most heartfelt and close matter. “Well, no,” said Akaky Akakievich, “I can’t talk to Petrovich now: he’s now… his wife, apparently, beat him up somehow. But I’d better go to him on a Sunday morning: after the previous Saturday, he’ll be squinting and sleepy, so he’ll need to sober up, and his wife won’t give him money, and at this time I’ll give him a ten-kopeck piece and that, in his hand, and he’ll be more compliant and the overcoat will then be that…” So Akaky Akakievich reasoned with himself, cheered himself up, and waited for the first Sunday, and, seeing from a distance that Petrovich’s wife was going out of the house somewhere, he went straight to him. Petrovich, indeed, after Saturday, was squinting strongly, holding his head down, and was completely sleepy; but for all that, as soon as he found out what the matter was, it was as if the devil had pushed him. “It’s impossible,” he said, “you must order a new one.” It was then that Akaky Akakievich slipped him the ten-kopeck piece. “Thank you, sir, I’ll have a little something to drink for your health,” said Petrovich, “but don’t you worry about the overcoat: it’s no good for anything. I’ll make you a new overcoat famously, we’ll stand by that.”
Akaky Akakievich was still talking about repairing it, but Petrovich did not hear him and said: “I will definitely sew you a new one, you can rely on that, I’ll put in the effort. It will even be possible to do it in the fashionable way: the collar will be fastened with silver clasps under the applique.”
It was then that Akaky Akakievich saw that he could not do without a new overcoat, and he was completely crestfallen. How, indeed, with what money could he get it? Of course, he could partly rely on a future bonus for the holiday, but that money had long been allocated and distributed in advance. He needed to get new trousers, pay the shoemaker an old debt for attaching new fronts to old shafts, and he should order three shirts and a couple of pieces of that underwear that is improper to name in printed prose — in a word, all the money had to be completely spent; and even if the director was so merciful that instead of forty rubles for a bonus, he would give forty-five or fifty, there would still be some trifle left that would be a drop in the ocean in the overcoat capital. Although, of course, he knew that Petrovich had a quirk of suddenly charging God knows what exorbitant price, so that even his wife could not help but exclaim: “What are you going crazy for, you fool! Another time he will work for nothing, and now the devil has gotten into him to ask for a price that he himself is not worth.” Although, of course, he knew that Petrovich would undertake to do it for eighty rubles; yet, where to get those eighty rubles? He could find half: half would be found; maybe even a little more; but where to get the other half?… But first, the reader must find out where the first half came from. Akaky Akakievich had a habit of putting a penny from every ruble he spent into a small box, locked with a key, with a hole cut in the lid for dropping money into it. At the end of every six months, he would audit the accumulated copper amount and replace it with small silver. He had been doing this for a long time, and, thus, over several years, he had accumulated more than forty rubles. So, half was in his hands; but where to get the other half? Where to get the other forty rubles? Akaky Akakievich thought and thought and decided that he would have to reduce his usual expenses, at least for the duration of one year: to give up drinking tea in the evenings, not to light a candle in the evenings, and if he needed to do something, to go to his landlady’s room and work by her candle; when walking on the streets, to tread as lightly and carefully as possible, on stones and slabs, almost on tiptoes, so as not to wear out the soles prematurely; to give his laundry to the laundress as rarely as possible, and so that it would not get worn out, every time he came home, he would take it off and remain in only his demicotton dressing gown, a very old one and spared even by time itself. It must be said truthfully that at first it was a little difficult for him to get used to such restrictions, but then he somehow got used to it and it went well; he even completely got used to starving in the evenings; but in return, he fed himself spiritually, carrying in his thoughts the eternal idea of the future overcoat. From then on, it was as if his very existence had become somehow fuller, as if he had married, as if some other person was present with him, as if he was not alone, but some pleasant companion of life had agreed to walk the road of life with him — and this companion was none other than the same overcoat on thick wadding, on a strong lining that would not wear out. He became somehow livelier, even firmer in character, like a person who has already determined and set a goal for himself. From his face and actions, doubt and indecision disappeared by themselves — in a word, all the wavering and indefinite features. A fire sometimes appeared in his eyes, and even the most audacious and daring thoughts flashed through his head: should he, indeed, put marten on the collar? The thoughts about this almost made him distracted. Once, when copying a paper, he almost even made a mistake, so that he cried out “oof!” almost aloud and crossed himself. During each month, he would visit Petrovich at least once to talk about the overcoat, where it was better to buy the cloth, and what color, and at what price, and although he was a little worried, he always returned home happy, thinking that the time would finally come when all this would be bought and when the overcoat would be made. The matter even went faster than he expected. Against all expectations, the director assigned Akaky Akakievich not forty or forty-five, but a whole sixty rubles; whether he had a premonition that Akaky Akakievich needed an overcoat, or it just happened by itself, but because of this, he had an extra twenty rubles. This circumstance accelerated the course of the matter. Another two or three months of a little starvation — and Akaky Akakievich had accumulated exactly about eighty rubles. His heart, which was generally very calm, began to beat. On the very first day, he went with Petrovich to the shops. They bought very good cloth — and no wonder, because they had been thinking about it for half a year before and rarely did a month go by without them going to the shops to compare prices; and Petrovich himself said that there was no better cloth. For the lining, they chose calico, but of such good quality and dense, which, according to Petrovich, was even better than silk and even looked more handsome and glossier. They did not buy marten, because it was, indeed, expensive; and instead of it, they chose a cat, the best that could be found in the shop, a cat that from a distance could always be mistaken for a marten. Petrovich fussed over the overcoat for only two weeks, because there was a lot of quilting, otherwise it would have been ready earlier. For the work, Petrovich took twelve rubles — it was impossible to take less: everything was definitely sewn on silk, with a double fine seam, and Petrovich then went over every seam with his own teeth, pressing out various figures with them. It was… it is difficult to say on which day exactly, but, probably, on the most solemn day in the life of Akaky Akakievich, when Petrovich finally brought the overcoat. He brought it in the morning, just before it was time to go to the department. Never at any other time would an overcoat have come in so handy, because the frosts were already quite strong and, it seemed, threatened to intensify even more. Petrovich appeared with the overcoat, as befits a good tailor. On his face appeared an expression so significant that Akaky Akakievich had never seen before. It seemed that he felt to the full extent that he had done no small thing and that he had suddenly shown in himself the abyss that separates tailors who only put in linings and fix things from those who sew anew. He took the overcoat out of the handkerchief in which he had brought it; the handkerchief had just come from the laundress, and he then folded it and put it in his pocket for use. Having taken out the overcoat, he looked at it very proudly and, holding it in both hands, very skillfully threw it on Akaky Akakievich’s shoulders; then he pulled and settled it down at the back with his hand; then he draped it on Akaky Akakievich a little ajar. Akaky Akakievich, as a man of his years, wanted to try the sleeves; Petrovich helped him put them on, and it turned out that the sleeves were good too. In a word, it turned out that the overcoat was completely and exactly right. Petrovich did not fail to say on this occasion that he took so little only because he lives without a sign on a small street and, moreover, has known Akaky Akakievich for a long time; and on Nevsky Prospekt, they would have taken seventy-five rubles from him for the work alone. Akaky Akakievich did not want to argue about this with Petrovich, and he was afraid of all the large sums with which Petrovich liked to kick up dust. He paid him, thanked him, and immediately left for the department in his new overcoat. Petrovich left after him and, remaining on the street, looked for a long time at the overcoat from a distance and then deliberately went aside in order to, having gone around a crooked alley, run out onto the street again and look at his overcoat from the other side, that is, directly in the face. Meanwhile, Akaky Akakievich was in the most festive state of all his senses. He felt every moment that he had a new overcoat on his shoulders, and he even smiled several times from internal pleasure. Indeed, there were two advantages: one was that it was warm, and the other was that it was nice. He did not notice the road at all and suddenly found himself in the department; in the doorkeeper’s room, he took off his overcoat, inspected it all around, and entrusted it to the special supervision of the doorkeeper. It is unknown how everyone in the department suddenly found out that Akaky Akakievich had a new overcoat and that the old dressing gown no longer existed. Everyone at the same moment ran out into the doorkeeper’s room to look at Akaky Akakievich’s new overcoat. They began to congratulate him, to greet him, so that at first he only smiled, and then he even became ashamed. When everyone, approaching him, began to say that he should wet the new overcoat and that, at least, he should give them all a party, Akaky Akakievich became completely flustered, did not know what to do, what to answer, and how to get out of it. After a few minutes, all flushed, he began to assure them quite simply that it was not a new overcoat at all, that it was just that it was an old overcoat. Finally, one of the officials, even some kind of assistant head of a department, probably in order to show that he was not at all proud and even socialized with those below him, said: “So be it, I will give the party instead of Akaky Akakievich and ask you to my place for tea tonight: as luck would have it, it’s my name day today.” The officials, naturally, immediately congratulated the assistant head of the department and willingly accepted the offer. Akaky Akakievich began to make excuses, but everyone began to say that it was impolite, that it was simply a shame and a disgrace, and he could no longer refuse. However, it later became pleasant for him when he remembered that he would have the opportunity to walk in the new overcoat even in the evening. This whole day was for Akaky Akakievich exactly the biggest solemn holiday. He returned home in the happiest state of mind, took off his overcoat and hung it carefully on the wall, admiring the cloth and lining once more, and then deliberately took out his old dressing gown, which had completely fallen apart, for comparison. He looked at it, and even laughed himself: such was the great difference! And for a long time afterwards at dinner, he kept smiling every time the situation of the dressing gown came to his mind. He had a cheerful dinner and after dinner he did not write anything, no papers, but just idly sat on the bed for a bit until it got dark. Then, without putting it off, he got dressed, put the overcoat on his shoulders and went out onto the street. We, unfortunately, cannot say exactly where the official who invited him lived: our memory begins to fail us greatly, and everything in St. Petersburg, all the streets and houses, have merged and mixed up in our heads so much that it is very difficult to get anything out of it in a proper form. Be that as it may, it is at least certain that the official lived in the best part of the city — therefore, not very close to Akaky Akakievich. First, Akaky Akakievich had to walk through some deserted streets with meager lighting, but as he approached the official’s apartment, the streets became livelier, more populated, and more brightly lit. Pedestrians began to flash by more often, and beautifully dressed ladies began to appear, men had beaver collars, and less often one would meet cabmen with their wooden latticed sleds, studded with gilded nails — on the contrary, one would only meet dashing cabbies in crimson velvet hats, with lacquered sleds, with bearskin blankets, and carriages with decorated coach boxes would fly through the street, squealing with their wheels on the snow. Akaky Akakievich looked at all this as something new. He had not gone out on the street in the evenings for several years. He stopped with curiosity in front of a lighted shop window to look at a painting where some beautiful woman was depicted taking off her shoe, thus exposing her whole leg, which was not bad at all; and behind her back, from the door of another room, some man with sideburns and a beautiful goatee under his lip stuck his head out. Akaky Akakievich shook his head and smiled and then went on his way. Why he smiled, whether it was because he met something completely unfamiliar, but about which, nevertheless, everyone has some kind of intuition, or did he think, like many other officials, the following: “Well, those Frenchmen! what can you say, if they want to do something, well, it’s certainly that…” Or maybe he didn’t even think that — after all, you can’t get into a person’s soul and find out everything he thinks. Finally, he reached the house where the assistant head of the department lived. The assistant head of the department lived in a grand style: a lantern shone on the stairs, and the apartment was on the second floor. Entering the front room, Akaky Akakievich saw whole rows of galoshes on the floor. Among them, in the middle of the room, stood a samovar, humming and letting out clouds of steam. On the walls hung all kinds of overcoats and cloaks, among which some even had beaver collars or velvet lapels. Behind the wall, a noise and conversation could be heard, which suddenly became clear and ringing when the door opened and a footman came out with a tray laden with empty glasses, a cream pitcher, and a basket of crackers. It was clear that the officials had already gathered for a long time and had drunk their first glass of tea. Akaky Akakievich, having hung up his overcoat himself, entered the room, and at the same time, candles, officials, pipes, card tables flashed before him, and the fleeting conversation rising from all sides and the noise of moving chairs vaguely struck his hearing. He stood very awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking and trying to figure out what to do. But he was already noticed, greeted with a shout, and everyone immediately went into the front room and again inspected his overcoat. Although Akaky Akakievich was partly embarrassed, being a sincere person, he could not help but be glad, seeing how everyone praised the overcoat. Then, of course, everyone left both him and the overcoat and turned, as is customary, to the tables designated for whist. All this: the noise, the conversation, and the crowd of people — all this was somehow strange to Akaky Akakievich. He simply did not know what to do, where to put his hands, feet, and his whole figure; finally, he sat down next to those who were playing, looked at the cards, looked into the faces of one and another, and after a while began to yawn, feeling that it was boring, especially since it had long since been the time when he, as usual, went to bed. He wanted to say goodbye to the host, but they did not let him go, saying that he absolutely had to drink a glass of champagne in honor of the new purchase. An hour later, dinner was served, consisting of vinaigrette, cold veal, pate, pastries, and champagne. Akaky Akakievich was made to drink two glasses, after which he felt that it had become more cheerful in the room, but he could not forget that it was already twelve o’clock and that it was high time to go home. So that the host would not think of holding him back in any way, he quietly left the room, found his overcoat in the front room, which he saw lying on the floor not without regret, shook it out, removed every speck of fluff from it, put it on his shoulders, and went down the stairs to the street. It was still light on the street. Some small shops, these permanent clubs for servants and all kinds of people, were open, while others, which were closed, still showed a long stream of light through the entire crack in the door, which meant that they were not yet devoid of society and, probably, the maidservants or servants were still finishing their talks and conversations, leaving their masters in complete bewilderment about their whereabouts. Akaky Akakievich walked in a cheerful state of mind, he even suddenly ran after some lady, for no known reason, who, like lightning, passed by and every part of whose body was filled with unusual movement. But, nevertheless, he immediately stopped and again walked as before very slowly, even wondering himself about the trot that had come from who knows where. Soon the deserted streets, which are not so cheerful even during the day, and even more so in the evening, began to stretch out before him. Now they became even more muffled and secluded: the lanterns began to flash less often — there was, apparently, less oil being given out; wooden houses and fences began; not a soul anywhere; only the snow shone on the streets, and the low hovels, with closed shutters, sadly blackened. He approached the place where the street was intersected by an endless square with houses barely visible on the other side of it, which looked like a terrible desert.
Far away, God knows where, a light was flickering in some sentry box, which seemed to be standing at the edge of the world. Akaky Akakievich’s cheerfulness somehow significantly diminished here. He entered the square not without some involuntary fear, as if his heart was foreboding something bad. He looked back and to the sides: a veritable sea around him. “No, it’s better not to look,” he thought, and walked with his eyes closed, and when he opened them to see if the end of the square was near, he suddenly saw some men with moustaches standing almost right in front of his nose; he couldn’t even distinguish who exactly they were. His eyes misted over and his chest pounded. “So that’s my overcoat!” one of them said in a thundering voice, grabbing him by the collar. Akaky Akakievich was about to shout “Help!” when another one put a fist the size of an official’s head right up to his mouth, adding: “And just you dare to shout!” Akaky Akakievich only felt them take off his overcoat, give him a kick with a knee, and he fell face-up into the snow and felt nothing more. A few minutes later, he came to his senses and got to his feet, but there was no one there. He felt cold in the field and his overcoat was gone; he started to shout, but his voice, it seemed, didn’t even think of reaching the ends of the square. Desperate, shouting without stopping, he started to run across the square straight to the sentry box, near which a policeman was standing and, leaning on his halberd, seemed to be looking with curiosity, wanting to know what the devil a man was running and shouting at him from a distance. Akaky Akakievich, running up to him, began to shout in a breathless voice that he was sleeping and not looking at anything, not seeing how a man was being robbed. The policeman replied that he had seen nothing, that he had seen some two men stop him in the middle of the square, but he thought they were his friends; and that instead of cursing in vain, he should go to the police inspector tomorrow, and the inspector would find out who took the overcoat. Akaky Akakievich ran home in a complete mess: the hair, of which he still had a small amount on his temples and the back of his head, was completely disheveled; his side and chest and all his trousers were covered in snow. The old woman, his landlady, hearing a terrible knock at the door, hastily jumped out of bed and, with a shoe on only one foot, ran to open the door, holding her shirt to her chest with her hand out of modesty; but, opening it, she stepped back, seeing Akaky Akakievich in such a state. When he told her what had happened, she threw up her hands and said that he needed to go straight to the private bailiff, that the police quartermaster would deceive him, make promises and then lead him on; and that it was best of all to go straight to the private bailiff, that she even knew him, because Anna, a Finn who had previously served as her cook, was now a nursemaid for the private bailiff, that she often saw him himself as he drove past their house, and that he also went to church every Sunday, prayed, and at the same time looked cheerfully at everyone, and that, therefore, it was clear from everything that he must be a good man. Having heard such a decision, Akaky Akakievich sadly shuffled to his room, and how he spent the night there is left to the judgment of anyone who can in any way imagine the situation of another. Early in the morning he went to the private bailiff; but they said he was sleeping; he came at ten — they said again: he was sleeping; he came at eleven o’clock — they said: but the private bailiff is not at home; he came at lunchtime — but the clerks in the hallway absolutely did not want to let him in and insisted on knowing what matter and what need had brought him and what had happened. So that finally, Akaky Akakievich, for once in his life, wanted to show character and said bluntly that he needed to see the private bailiff himself in person, that they did not dare not to let him in, that he had come from the department on a government matter, and that if he complained about them, then they would see. Against this, the clerks did not dare to say anything, and one of them went to summon the private bailiff. The private bailiff received the story of the overcoat robbery in an extraordinarily strange way. Instead of paying attention to the main point of the matter, he began to question Akaky Akakievich: why was he returning so late, and had he not been to some disreputable house, so that Akaky Akakievich was completely embarrassed and left him, not knowing whether the overcoat case would take the proper course or not. He was not in attendance all that day (the only time in his life). The next day he appeared all pale and in his old dressing gown, which had become even more pitiful. The story of the overcoat robbery, despite the fact that there were such officials who did not miss even this opportunity to laugh at Akaky Akakievich, nevertheless touched many. It was decided right there and then to make a collection for him, but they collected a mere trifle, because the officials had already spent a lot anyway, having subscribed to the director’s portrait and some book, at the suggestion of the head of the department, who was a friend of the author — so, the amount turned out to be a mere trifle. One person, moved by compassion, decided, at least, to help Akaky Akakievich with good advice, saying that he should not go to the quartermaster, because although it might happen that the quartermaster, wanting to earn the approval of his superiors, would find the overcoat in some way, the overcoat would still remain with the police if he did not provide legal proof that it belonged to him; and that it was best of all that he turn to a certain significant person, that the significant person, having written and communicated with whomever was necessary, could make the matter proceed more successfully. There was nothing to do, Akaky Akakievich decided to go to the significant person. What exactly and in what his position consisted remains unknown to this day. One must know that a certain significant person had only recently become a significant person, and before that time he had been an insignificant person. However, his position was not considered significant even now in comparison with others, even more significant ones. But there will always be a circle of people for whom something insignificant in the eyes of others is already significant. However, he tried to enhance his significance by many other means, namely: he arranged for his junior officials to meet him on the stairs when he came to his post; that no one should dare to appear directly before him, but that everything should proceed in the strictest order: a collegiate registrar would report to the provincial secretary, the provincial secretary to the titular or whatever other person was appropriate, and that the matter would thus reach him. That’s how everything in holy Russia is infected with imitation; everyone teases and mimics his superior. They even say that a certain titular councilor, when they made him the head of some separate small chancellery, immediately partitioned off a special room for himself, calling it the “presence room,” and placed some doormen with red collars in galons at the doors, who would grab the doorknob and open it for everyone who came, although an ordinary writing desk could barely fit in the “presence room.” The manners and customs of the significant person were solid and majestic, but not very complex. The main foundation of his system was strictness. “Strictness, strictness, and — strictness,” he would usually say, and with the last word, he would usually look very significantly into the face of the person to whom he was speaking. Although, however, there was no reason for this, because the dozen officials who made up the entire government mechanism of the chancellery were already in due fear; seeing him from a distance, they would already leave their work and stand at attention, waiting for their boss to pass through the room. His ordinary conversation with his juniors was marked by strictness and consisted almost of three phrases: “How dare you? Do you know who you are talking to? Do you understand who is standing before you?” However, in his soul he was a kind person, good with his comrades, helpful, but the rank of general had completely confused him. Having received the rank of general, he somehow got confused, lost his way, and had no idea what to do. If he happened to be with his equals, he was still a proper person, a very decent person, in many respects even not a stupid person; but as soon as he happened to be in a society where there were people at least one rank below him, he was simply hopeless: he would remain silent, and his position aroused pity, especially since he himself even felt that he could have spent the time incomparably better. Sometimes a strong desire to join some interesting conversation and circle was visible in his eyes, but the thought stopped him: would this not be too much on his part, would it not be too familiar, and would he not thereby diminish his significance? And as a result of such reasoning, he remained forever in the same silent state, pronouncing only some monosyllabic sounds from time to time, and thus acquired the title of the most boring person. It was to such a significant person that our Akaky Akakievich appeared, and he appeared at the most unfavorable time, very inopportunely for himself, although, however, opportunely for the significant person. The significant person was in his office and was having a very, very cheerful conversation with an old acquaintance and childhood friend who had recently arrived and whom he had not seen for several years. At that moment, they reported to him that some Bashmachkin had come. He asked abruptly: “Who is that?” They replied: “Some official.” — “Ah! he can wait, now is not the time,” said the significant person. Here it must be said that the significant person was completely lying: he had the time, he and his friend had long since talked about everything and had long since been filling the conversation with very long silences, only lightly patting each other on the thigh and saying: “That’s how it is, Ivan Abramovich!” — “That’s how it is, Stepan Varlamovich!” But for all that, however, he ordered the official to wait, in order to show his friend, a man who had not served for a long time and had stayed at home in the countryside, how long officials waited in his front room. Finally, having talked enough, and even more so having been silent enough and having smoked a cigar in a very comfortable armchair with a reclining back, he finally, as if he suddenly remembered, said to the secretary, who had stopped at the door with papers for a report: “Yes, there is, it seems, an official standing there; tell him he can come in.” Seeing the humble appearance of Akaky Akakievich and his old frock coat, he suddenly turned to him and said: “What do you want?” — in an abrupt and firm voice that he had deliberately practiced beforehand in his room, in solitude and in front of a mirror, a week before he received his current position and rank of general. Akaky Akakievich had already felt the proper timidity beforehand, was a little confused and, as he could, as much as the freedom of his tongue would allow him, explained, with the addition of the particle “that” even more often than at other times, that his overcoat was completely new, and now it had been robbed in an inhuman way, and that he was turning to him so that by his intercession he would somehow, you know, communicate with the police chief or someone else and find the overcoat. To the general, for some reason, such a manner of address seemed familiar.
“What do you mean, my good sir,” he continued abruptly, “don’t you know the order? Where have you come? Don’t you know how things are done? You should have first submitted a petition to the chancellery about this; it would have gone to the head of the department, to the head of the section, then it would have been passed on to the secretary, and the secretary would have already delivered it to me…”
“But, your excellency,” said Akaky Akakievich, trying to gather all the small handful of presence of mind that he had, and at the same time feeling that he was sweating terribly, “I dared to trouble your excellency because the secretaries, you know… are an unreliable people…”
“What, what, what?” said the significant person. “Where did you get such courage? Where did you get such ideas? What kind of insubordination is this that has spread among young people against their superiors and higher-ups!”
The significant person, it seems, did not notice that Akaky Akakievich was already over fifty years old. So, if he could even be called a young man, it was only in a relative sense, that is, in relation to someone who was already seventy years old.
“Do you know to whom you are speaking? Do you understand who is standing before you? Do you understand this, do you understand this? I ask you.”
Here he stamped his foot, raising his voice to such a strong note that even a person other than Akaky Akakievich would have been frightened. Akaky Akakievich simply froze, staggered, trembled all over his body, and could not stand: if the watchmen had not run up to support him, he would have plopped down on the floor; he was carried out almost without movement. And the significant person, pleased that the effect had even exceeded expectations, and completely intoxicated with the thought that his word could even deprive a person of his senses, glanced askance at his friend to find out what he thought of it, and not without pleasure saw that his friend was in the most uncertain state and was even beginning to feel fear himself.
How he went down the stairs, how he went out into the street, Akaky Akakievich no longer remembered any of this. He felt neither his hands nor his feet. Never in his life had he been so severely reprimanded by a general, and a stranger at that. He walked through the blizzard that whistled in the streets, with his mouth open, stumbling off the sidewalks; the wind, according to the custom of St. Petersburg, blew at him from all four sides, from all the alleys. In an instant, it gave him a sore throat, and he got home, unable to say a single word; he was all swollen and took to his bed. So strong can a proper reprimand sometimes be! The very next day he developed a high fever. Thanks to the generous assistance of the St. Petersburg climate, the illness progressed faster than could have been expected, and when the doctor appeared, having felt his pulse, he could not find anything to do but prescribe a poultice, solely so that the patient would not be left without the beneficial help of medicine; but, by the way, he also announced to him that in a day and a half there would be an inevitable kaput. After which he turned to the landlady and said: “And you, my dear, do not waste any time, order him a pine coffin now, because an oak one will be expensive for him.” Whether Akaky Akakievich heard these fateful words spoken to him, and if he did hear them, did they have a shocking effect on him, did he regret his miserable life — none of this is known, because he was in a delirium and a fever the whole time. Phenomena, one stranger than the other, appeared to him constantly: now he saw Petrovich and ordered him to make an overcoat with some kind of snares for the thieves, who seemed to him to be constantly under the bed, and he constantly called on the landlady to pull one of the thieves out from under the blanket even; now he would ask why his old dressing gown was hanging in front of him, that he had a new overcoat; now it seemed to him that he was standing in front of the general, listening to a proper reprimand, and saying: “I am guilty, your excellency!” — now, finally, he even used foul language, uttering the most terrible words, so that the old landlady even crossed herself, having never heard anything like it from him in her life, especially since these words followed immediately after the word “your excellency.” Further on, he spoke complete nonsense, so that nothing could be understood; one could only see that the disorderly words and thoughts revolved around one and the same overcoat. Finally, poor Akaky Akakievich gave up the ghost. Neither his room nor his things were sealed, because, first, there were no heirs, and second, there was very little inheritance left, namely: a bundle of goose quills, a ream of white government paper, three pairs of socks, two or three buttons that had come off his trousers, and the dressing gown already known to the reader. To whom all this went, God knows: about this, I confess, the storyteller of this tale was not even interested. Akaky Akakievich was taken away and buried. And St. Petersburg was left without Akaky Akakievich, as if he had never been in it. A being disappeared and vanished, protected by no one, dear to no one, interesting to no one, not even attracting the attention of a naturalist who does not fail to pin an ordinary fly and examine it under a microscope; a being who meekly endured office taunts and went to his grave without any extraordinary deed, but for whom, nevertheless, a bright guest in the form of an overcoat flashed just before the end of his life, reviving his poor life for a moment, and on whom misfortune then fell just as intolerably as it fell on tsars and rulers of the world… A few days after his death, a watchman was sent to his apartment from the department, with an order to appear immediately: the boss, they said, demanded it; but the watchman had to return with nothing, giving a report that he could no longer come, and to the question “why?” he expressed himself with the words: “Well, you know, he died, he was buried four days ago.” Thus they learned in the department about the death of Akaky Akakievich, and the next day a new official was already sitting in his place, much taller and writing letters not in such a straight handwriting, but much more slanted and crooked.
But who could have imagined that this was not all about Akaky Akakievich, that he was destined to live loudly for a few days after his death, as if in reward for a life noticed by no one. But so it happened, and our poor story unexpectedly takes a fantastic ending.
Rumors suddenly spread throughout St. Petersburg that a dead man in the form of an official had begun to appear at night near the Kalinkin Bridge and far beyond, looking for some stolen overcoat and, under the guise of a stolen overcoat, tearing off any overcoats from everyone’s shoulders, regardless of rank or title: on cats, on beavers, on wadding, raccoon, fox, bearskin coats — in a word, all kinds of furs and skins that people had come up with to cover themselves. One of the departmental officials saw the dead man with his own eyes and immediately recognized Akaky Akakievich in him; but this, however, inspired him with such fear that he ran off at full speed and therefore could not get a good look, and only saw how he threatened him with his finger from a distance. Complaints were constantly coming in from all sides that the backs and shoulders, not only of titular councilors, but even of the privy councilors themselves, were subjected to a complete cold due to the nightly tearing off of overcoats. The police made an order to catch the dead man at all costs, dead or alive, and to punish him in the harshest way as an example to others, and they almost even succeeded in this. To be precise, a policeman of some quarter in Kiryushkin Alley had already completely grabbed the dead man by the collar at the very scene of the crime, when he was attempting to tear a frieze overcoat from some retired musician who had at one time whistled on the flute. Having grabbed him by the collar, he called with his shout to two other comrades, whom he entrusted to hold him, while he himself reached into his boot for just a minute to pull out a snuffbox from there to refresh his nose, which had been frozen six times in his life; but the snuff, for sure, was of such a kind that even a dead man could not stand it. The policeman had no sooner closed his right nostril with his finger and pulled half a handful in with his left, than the dead man sneezed so hard that he completely spattered all three of their eyes. By the time they raised their fists to rub them, the dead man’s trace was gone, so they did not even know if he had really been in their hands. Since then, the policemen have become so afraid of dead men that they were even afraid to grab living ones, and only shouted from a distance: “Hey, you, go on your way!” — and the dead official began to appear even beyond the Kalinkin Bridge, instilling no small fear in all timid people. But we, however, have completely left a certain significant person, who, in fact, was almost the cause of the fantastic direction of this, however, completely true story. First of all, the duty of justice requires us to say that a certain significant person, soon after the departure of the poor, thoroughly scolded Akaky Akakievich, felt something like regret. Compassion was not alien to him; his heart was open to many good impulses, despite the fact that his rank very often prevented them from being revealed. As soon as his visiting friend left his office, he even thought about the poor Akaky Akakievich. And from then on, almost every day, the pale Akaky Akakievich, who could not withstand the proper reprimand, appeared to him. The thought of him troubled him to such an extent that a week later he even decided to send an official to him to find out what he was up to and how he was doing, and if he could really help him with anything; and when they reported to him that Akaky Akakievich had died suddenly of a fever, he was even shocked, heard the reproaches of his conscience, and was in a bad mood all day. Wishing to distract himself and forget the unpleasant impression, he went to a party at one of his friends’, where he found a decent society, and best of all — everyone there was almost of the same rank, so that he could be completely unrestrained. This had an amazing effect on his state of mind. He relaxed, became pleasant in conversation, amiable — in a word, he spent the evening very pleasantly. At dinner, he drank two glasses of champagne — a remedy, as is known, that has a not bad effect on one’s cheerfulness. The champagne gave him a disposition for various extravagances, namely: he decided not to go home yet, but to stop by the house of a certain female acquaintance, Karolina Ivanovna, a lady, it seems, of German origin, toward whom he felt a completely friendly relationship. It must be said that the significant person was no longer a young man, a good husband, a respectable father of a family. Two sons, one of whom was already serving in the chancellery, and a pretty sixteen-year-old daughter with a slightly curved, but pretty nose, came every day to kiss his hand, saying: “bonjour, papa.” His wife, still a fresh woman and not bad at all, first let him kiss her hand and then, turning it over to the other side, kissed his hand. But the significant person, who was, however, completely content with his domestic family affections, found it appropriate to have a female friend for friendly relations in another part of the city. This female friend was not at all better or younger than his wife; but such are the things in the world, and it is not our business to judge them. So, the significant person went down the stairs, got into the sleigh and said to the coachman: “To Karolina Ivanovna,” — and he himself, wrapped up very luxuriously in a warm overcoat, remained in that pleasant position, which is impossible to invent anything better for a Russian person, that is, when you don’t think about anything yourself, and in the meantime, thoughts themselves climb into your head, one more pleasant than the other, not even making you take the trouble to chase after them and look for them. Full of pleasure, he lightly recalled all the cheerful moments of the evening he had spent, all the words that had made the small circle laugh; he even repeated many of them in a low voice and found that they were still as funny as before, and therefore it was no wonder that he himself was smiling from the heart. Occasionally, however, he was bothered by a gusty wind, which, having suddenly come out of God knows where and from some unknown reason, would just cut into his face, throwing scraps of snow into it, flapping his overcoat collar like a sail, or suddenly throwing it on his head with an unnatural force and thus providing him with eternal troubles to get out of it. Suddenly, the significant person felt that someone had grabbed him very tightly by the collar. Turning around, he noticed a man of small stature, in an old worn-out frock coat, and not without horror recognized Akaky Akakievich in him. The official’s face was pale as snow, and he looked like a complete dead man. But the horror of the significant person exceeded all bounds when he saw that the dead man’s mouth was twisted and, reeking terribly of the grave, uttered such words: “Ah! So here you are at last! At last I have, you know, caught you by the collar! It is your overcoat that I need! You didn’t bother about mine, and you even reprimanded me, — now give me yours!” The poor significant person almost died. No matter how much character he had in the chancellery and in general before his juniors, and although, looking at his courageous appearance and figure alone, everyone said: “Oh, what a character!” — but here, like very many who have a heroic appearance, he felt such a fear that not without reason he even began to worry about some kind of illness. He even quickly took off his overcoat from his shoulders himself and shouted to the coachman in a voice not his own: “Go home at full speed!” The coachman, hearing the voice, which is usually pronounced in decisive moments and is even accompanied by something much more effective, hid his head in his shoulders just in case, swung his whip and rushed off like an arrow. In a little over six minutes, the significant person was already in front of the entrance to his house. Pale, frightened, and without his overcoat, instead of going to Karolina Ivanovna’s, he came to his own house, somehow stumbled to his room, and spent the night in a very great mess, so that the next morning at tea his daughter said to him directly: “You are completely pale today, papa.” But papa was silent and did not say a word to anyone about what had happened to him, and where he had been, and where he had wanted to go. This incident made a strong impression on him. He even began to say to his subordinates much less often: “How dare you, do you understand who is before you?”; and if he did say it, it was not until he had first listened to what the matter was. But even more remarkable is the fact that since then the appearance of the dead official has completely ceased: apparently, the general’s overcoat fit his shoulders perfectly; at least, there were no more such cases heard anywhere of anyone’s overcoats being torn off. However, many active and caring people did not want to calm down at all and said that in the distant parts of the city the dead official was still appearing. And indeed, a certain policeman from Kolomna saw with his own eyes how a ghost appeared from behind a house; but, being by nature somewhat powerless, so that one time an ordinary adult pig, having rushed out of some private house, knocked him off his feet, to the great laughter of the cabmen standing around, from whom he demanded a penny for snuff for such a mockery — so, being powerless, he did not dare to stop him, but just followed him in the dark until finally the ghost suddenly looked back and, stopping, asked: “What do you want?” — and showed such a fist as you would not find even on the living. The policeman said: “Nothing,” — and immediately turned back. The ghost, however, was already much taller, wore a huge mustache, and, having set its steps, it seemed, towards the Obukhov Bridge, completely disappeared into the night darkness.
THE CARRIAGE
The town of B. became much livelier when a cavalry regiment was stationed there. Before that, it was terribly boring. When you drove through it and looked at the low-slung, whitewashed houses, which looked out onto the street with an incredible sourness, it’s impossible to describe what happened in your heart: a melancholy as if you had lost at gambling or said something stupid at the wrong time — in a word: it was not good. The clay on them had peeled off from the rain, and the walls, instead of being white, had become speckled; the roofs were mostly covered with reeds, as is common in our southern towns; the mayor had long ago ordered the gardens to be cut down for a better view. You wouldn’t meet a soul on the streets, unless a rooster crossed the pavement, which was as soft as a pillow from a quarter-inch layer of dust that turned into mud at the slightest rain, and then the streets of the town of B. were filled with those portly animals that the local mayor called “Frenchmen.” Sticking their serious snouts out of their baths, they raised such a squeal that a passerby could only hurry his horses along. However, a passerby was hard to find in the town of B. Rarely, very rarely, some landowner with eleven serfs, in a nankeen frock coat, would clatter down the pavement in some kind of half-britchka, half-cart, peering out from piled-up sacks of flour and urging on a bay mare, followed by a colt. The marketplace itself had a somewhat sad appearance: the tailor’s house stuck out stupidly not with its whole facade, but with a corner; opposite it, some stone building with two windows had been under construction for about fifteen years; farther on stood a fashionable plank fence by itself, painted gray the color of mud, which the mayor had erected as a model for other buildings during his youth, when he was not yet in the habit of sleeping immediately after dinner and drinking some kind of decoction, seasoned with dry gooseberries. In other places, it was all almost wicker fencing; in the middle of the square were the smallest shops; in them you could always see a bunch of bagels, a woman in a red scarf, a pound of soap, a few pounds of bitter almonds, shot for shooting, dimity, and two merchant clerks, who were always playing “svaika” near the door.
But when a cavalry regiment was stationed in the county town of B., everything changed. The streets became variegated, livelier — in a word, they took on a completely different look. The low-slung houses often saw a passing, clever, stately officer with a plume on his head, going to a comrade to talk about promotions, about excellent tobacco, and sometimes to bet on a card game for the light carriage, which could be called the regimental one, because without leaving the regiment, it managed to visit everyone: today the major rode in it, tomorrow it appeared in the lieutenant’s stable, and a week later, look, the major’s orderly was greasing it with lard again. The wooden wicker fence between the houses was all dotted with soldiers’ caps hanging in the sun; a gray greatcoat was sure to stick out somewhere on the gate; in the alleys, you would come across soldiers with moustaches as stiff as shoe brushes. These moustaches were visible everywhere. If the townsfolk women gathered at the market with their dippers, the moustaches were sure to peek out from behind their shoulders. In the square, a soldier with moustaches was certainly lathering the beard of some village bumpkin, who was only groaning and bulging his eyes upward. The officers enlivened society, which until then had consisted only of the judge, who lived in the same house as some deacon’s wife, and the mayor, a reasonable man, but who slept soundly all day long: from dinner until evening and from evening until dinner.
Society became even more populous and interesting when the brigade general’s quarters were moved here. The surrounding landowners, whose existence no one would have guessed until then, began to come more often to the county town to see the gentlemen officers, and sometimes to play “banchik,” which was already an extremely faint dream in their heads, preoccupied with sowing, their wives’ errands, and hares. It’s a great pity that I can’t remember on what occasion the brigade general happened to give a big dinner; the preparations for it were enormous: the sound of cooking knives in the general’s kitchen could be heard even near the city gate. The entire market was completely taken over for the dinner, so that the judge and his deacon’s wife had to eat only buckwheat flour flatbreads and starch jelly. The small courtyard of the general’s quarters was all lined with light carriages and carriages. The company consisted of men: officers and some of the surrounding landowners. Of the landowners, the most remarkable was Pythgor Pythgorovich Chertokutsky, one of the main aristocrats of B… county, who made the most noise at elections and came there in a dandy carriage. He had previously served in one of the cavalry regiments and was one of the significant and prominent officers. At least, he was seen at many balls and gatherings wherever their regiment was on the move; however, you can ask the young ladies of the Tambov and Simbirsk provinces about this. It is quite possible that he would have spread a favorable reputation for himself in other provinces as well, if he had not retired due to an incident that is usually called an unpleasant story: either he slapped someone in the old days or they slapped him, I don’t remember for sure, the only thing is that he was asked to retire. However, he did not lose his weight at all because of this: he wore a frock coat with a high waist in the manner of a military uniform, spurs on his boots, and a mustache under his nose, because without it the nobles might have thought he served in the infantry, which he contemptuously sometimes called “pehtura” and sometimes “pekhontariya.” He visited all the populous fairs, where the interior of Russia, consisting of nannies, daughters, and fat landowners, came to have fun in britchkas, tarataykas, tarantasses, and such carriages as no one had ever dreamed of. He would sniff out where a cavalry regiment was stationed and always came to see the gentlemen officers. He would very deftly jump out of his light carriage or a light one in front of them and get acquainted very quickly. During the last elections, he gave the nobility a wonderful dinner, at which he announced that if they only elected him as marshal of the nobility, he would put the nobles on the best footing. In general, he behaved like a lord, as they say in the counties and provinces, married a rather pretty woman, and received a dowry of two hundred serfs and several thousand in capital. The capital was immediately used for a team of six truly excellent horses, gilded door locks, a pet monkey for the house, and a French butler. The two hundred serfs, along with his own two hundred, were mortgaged to a pawnshop for some commercial transactions. In a word, he was a proper landowner… A decent landowner.
Besides him, there were several other landowners at the general’s dinner, but there is nothing to say about them. The rest were all military men of the same regiment and two staff officers: a colonel and a rather fat major. The general himself was hefty and corpulent, but a good boss, as the officers said of him. He spoke in a rather deep, significant bass. The dinner was extraordinary: sturgeon, beluga, sterlet, bustards, asparagus, quail, partridges, mushrooms proved that the cook had not had a hot meal in his mouth since yesterday, and four soldiers with knives in their hands had worked all night to help him with fricassee and jelly. An abyss of bottles, long ones with Lafite, short-necked ones with Madeira, a beautiful summer day, windows wide open, plates with ice on the table, the last button unbuttoned on the gentlemen officers, a disheveled shirt front on the owners of the well-cut frock coat, a cross-conversation, covered by the general’s voice and drowned out by champagne — everything corresponded with everything else. After dinner, everyone got up with a pleasant heaviness in their stomachs and, lighting pipes with long and short stems, went out onto the porch with cups of coffee in their hands.
The general, the colonel, and even the major had their uniforms completely unbuttoned, so that the noble silk suspenders were slightly visible, but the gentlemen officers, maintaining due respect, remained buttoned up, with the exception of the last three buttons.
“Now you can look at her,” said the general. “Please, my dear fellow,” he added, turning to his adjutant, a rather clever young man of pleasant appearance, “order the bay mare to be brought here! You will see for yourselves.” Here the general took a puff from his pipe and exhaled smoke. “She’s not in too good a condition yet: this damned little town, there’s no decent stable. A horse, poof, poof, a very decent one!”
“And how long, your excellency, poof, poof, have you had her?” said Chertokutsky.
“Poof, poof, poof, po… poof, not so long. It’s only been two years since she was taken from the stud farm by me!”
“And did you receive her broken in, or did you break her in here?”
“Poof, poof, po, po, po… u… u…f, here,” having said this, the general completely disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Meanwhile, a soldier jumped out of the stable, the sound of hooves was heard, and finally another appeared, in a white smock, with huge black moustaches, leading the trembling and frightened horse by the bridle, which, suddenly raising its head, almost lifted the soldier squatting on the ground along with his moustaches. “Now, now! Agrafena Ivanovna!” he said, leading her to the porch.
The mare was called Agrafena Ivanovna; strong and wild as a southern beauty, she struck the wooden porch with her hooves and suddenly stopped.
The general, lowering his pipe, began to look at Agrafena Ivanovna with a contented look. The colonel himself, having gone down from the porch, took Agrafena Ivanovna by the face. The major himself patted Agrafena Ivanovna on the leg, the others clucked their tongues.
Chertokutsky went down from the porch and went behind her. The soldier, standing at attention and holding the bridle, looked directly into the visitors’ eyes, as if he wanted to jump into them.
“Very, very good!” said Chertokutsky, “a shapely horse! And allow me, your excellency, to ask how she moves?”
“Her gait is good; only… the devil knows… that fool feldsher gave her some pills, and for two days now she’s been sneezing.”
“Very, very good. And do you have a corresponding carriage, your excellency?”
“A carriage?… But this is a riding horse.”
“I know that; but I asked your excellency in order to find out if you have a corresponding carriage for your other horses.”
“Well, I don’t have enough carriages. I must confess, I’ve wanted to have a modern carriage for a long time. I wrote to my brother about it, who is now in St. Petersburg, but I don’t know if he will send it or not.”
“It seems to me, your excellency,” the colonel remarked, “there is no better carriage than a Viennese one.”
“You think rightly, poof, poof, poof.”
“I have, your excellency, an extraordinary carriage of genuine Viennese work.”
“Which one? The one you came in?”
“Oh no. That’s just a runabout, specifically for my trips, but that one… it’s amazing, as light as a feather; and when you sit in it, it’s just as if, with your excellency’s permission, a nanny were rocking you in a cradle!”
“So it’s comfortable?”
“Very, very comfortable; the cushions, the springs — it’s all as if it were drawn in a picture.”
“That’s good.”
“And how roomy it is! That is, I, your excellency, have never seen one like it. When I was serving, my boxes held ten bottles of rum and twenty pounds of tobacco; besides that, I also had about six uniforms, underwear, and two pipe stems, your excellency, as long as, with your permission, a tapeworm, and you could fit a whole bull in the pockets.”
“That’s good.”
“I, your excellency, paid four thousand for it.”
“Judging by the price, it must be good; and did you buy it yourself?”
“No, your excellency; I got it by chance. My friend bought it, a rare person, a comrade from my childhood, with whom you would get along perfectly; with him and me — what’s yours is mine, it’s all the same. I won it from him at cards. Would you be so kind, your excellency, as to do me the honor of coming to my place for dinner tomorrow, and you can look at the carriage together.”
“I don’t know what to say to that. It’s somehow strange for me to go alone… Unless you allow me to go with the gentlemen officers?”
“I humbly ask the gentlemen officers too. Gentlemen, I will consider it a great honor to have the pleasure of seeing you in my house!”
The colonel, major, and other officers thanked him with a polite bow.
“I, your excellency, am of the opinion that if you buy a thing, it must be a good one, and if it’s a bad one, there’s no point in having it. Here, when you do me the honor of coming tomorrow, I will show you some items that I have acquired for my household.”
The general looked and exhaled smoke from his mouth.
Chertokutsky was extremely pleased that he had invited the gentlemen officers to his place; he was already ordering pâtés and sauces in his head, looked very cheerfully at the gentlemen officers, who, for their part, somehow redoubled their affection for him, which was noticeable from their eyes and small body movements like half-bows, Chertokutsky stepped forward somehow more casually, and his voice took on a relaxation: the expression of a voice burdened with pleasure.
“There, your excellency, you will get acquainted with the lady of the house.”
“It will be very pleasant for me,” said the general, stroking his moustache.
After this, Chertokutsky wanted to go home immediately to prepare everything in advance for receiving the guests for tomorrow’s dinner; he had already taken his hat in his hands, but it happened so strangely that he stayed for some more time. Meanwhile, card tables had already been set up in the room. Soon the whole company was divided into fours for whist and sat down in different corners of the general’s rooms.
Candles were brought. Chertokutsky didn’t know for a long time whether he should sit down for whist or not. But since the gentlemen officers began to invite him, it seemed very inconsistent with the rules of society to refuse. He sat down. A glass of punch imperceptibly appeared in front of him, which he, having forgotten himself, drank in the same minute. Having played two rubbers, Chertokutsky again found a glass of punch under his hand, which he also drank, having forgotten himself, saying beforehand: “It’s time, gentlemen, for me to go home, really, it’s time.” But he sat down again for the second game. Meanwhile, the conversation in different corners of the room took on a completely private direction. The whist players were quite silent; but the non-players, sitting on sofas to the side, were having their own conversation. In one corner, a staff captain, having put a pillow under his side, with a pipe in his teeth, was telling his love adventures quite freely and smoothly and had completely captivated the attention of the circle gathered around him. One extremely fat landowner with short arms, somewhat similar to two grown potatoes, listened with an unusually sweet expression and only from time to time tried to reach his short arm behind his wide back to pull out his snuffbox from there. In another corner, a rather heated argument about squadron drills broke out, and Chertokutsky, who at that time had already discarded a jack instead of a queen twice, would suddenly intervene in someone else’s conversation and shout from his corner: “In what year?” or “Of which regiment?” — not noticing that sometimes the question was completely irrelevant. Finally, a few minutes before supper, whist stopped, but it continued in words, and it seemed that everyone’s heads were full of whist. Chertokutsky remembered very well that he had won a lot, but he hadn’t taken anything with his hands and, having got up from the table, stood for a long time in the position of a man who doesn’t have a handkerchief in his pocket. Meanwhile, supper was served. It goes without saying that there was no shortage of wines and that Chertokutsky had to pour into his glass almost involuntarily sometimes because there were bottles standing to his right and left.
The conversation at the table was a very long one, but, however, it was conducted in a strange way. One landowner, who had served in the campaign of 1812, told such a battle as had never been, and then, for completely unknown reasons, took a cork from a carafe and stuck it in a cake. In a word, when they began to leave, it was already three o’clock, and the coachmen had to take several people in their arms, as if they were bundles of purchases, and Chertokutsky, despite all his aristocratism, sitting in the carriage, bowed so low and with such a swing of his head that, upon arriving home, he brought back two burrs in his moustache.
Everyone in the house was completely asleep; the coachman could barely find the valet, who escorted the master through the living room, handed him over to the maid, with whom Chertokutsky somehow made his way to the bedroom and lay down next to his young and pretty wife, who was lying in the most charming way, in a nightgown as white as snow. The movement caused by her husband’s fall onto the bed woke her up. Stretching, raising her eyelashes, and quickly blinking her eyes three times, she opened them with a half-angry smile; but, seeing that he was absolutely unwilling to show any affection this time, she turned over to the other side out of annoyance and, resting her fresh cheek on her hand, soon fell asleep after him.
It was already a time that is not called “early” in the villages when the young hostess woke up next to her snoring husband. Remembering that he had returned home at four in the morning yesterday, she felt sorry to wake him and, putting on the bedroom slippers that her husband had ordered from St. Petersburg, in a white jacket that draped on her like flowing water, she went into her dressing room, washed herself with water as fresh as herself, and went to her vanity. Looking at herself once or twice, she saw that she was very pretty today. This seemingly insignificant circumstance made her sit in front of the mirror for exactly two extra hours. Finally, she got dressed very nicely and went out to refresh herself in the garden. As if on purpose, the weather was beautiful then, as only a summer southern day can boast. The sun, having entered midday, was baking with all the power of its rays, but it was cool to walk under the dark, thick alleys, and the flowers, warmed by the sun, tripled their scent. The pretty hostess had completely forgotten that it was already twelve o’clock and her husband was sleeping. The after-dinner snoring of two coachmen and one postilion, who were sleeping in the stable located behind the garden, was already reaching her ears. But she still sat in a thick alley, from which there was a view of the main road, and looked distractedly at its deserted emptiness, when suddenly the dust that appeared in the distance attracted her attention. Looking closely, she soon saw several carriages. In front was an open two-seater light carriage; in it sat the general with thick epaulets glistening in the sun, and next to him the colonel. It was followed by another, a four-seater one; in it sat the major with the general’s adjutant and two other officers sitting opposite; behind the carriage followed the well-known regimental light carriage, which was owned by the corpulent major this time; behind the light carriage was a four-seater “bon voyage,” in which sat four officers and a fifth on their arms… behind the “bon voyage” were three officers on beautiful bay horses in dark dapples.
“Is it really for us?” the lady of the house thought. “Oh, my God! They really turned onto the bridge!” She screamed, clapped her hands, and ran through the flower beds and flowers straight to her husband’s bedroom. He was sleeping like a log.
“Get up, get up! Get up quickly!” she shouted, pulling him by the arm.
“Huh?” Chertokutsky muttered, stretching without opening his eyes.
“Get up, my pulpulchik! Do you hear me? Guests!”
“Guests, what guests?” having said this, he let out a small moo, such as a calf makes when it looks for its mother’s teats with its face. “Mm…” he grumbled, “stretch out, my munya, your neck! I’ll kiss you.”
“Darling, get up, for God’s sake, quickly. The general with the officers! Oh, my God, you have a burr in your moustache.”
“The general? Ah, so he’s already on his way? What the devil, why didn’t anyone wake me up? And the dinner, what about the dinner, is everything ready as it should be?”
“What dinner?”
“Didn’t I order it?”
“You? You came home at four in the morning, and no matter how much I asked you, you didn’t say anything to me. I didn’t wake you, my pulpulchik, because I felt sorry for you: you didn’t sleep at all…” The last words she said in an extremely languid and pleading voice.
Chertokutsky, with his eyes wide open, lay on the bed for a minute as if struck by lightning. Finally, he jumped out of bed in just his shirt, having forgotten that this was completely indecent.
“Oh, what a horse I am!” he said, hitting his forehead. “I invited them to dinner. What to do? Are they far?”
“I don’t know… they should be here any minute now.”
“Darling… hide yourself! Hey, who’s there! You, girl! Go, what are you afraid of, you fool? The officers will be here any minute. You tell them that the master is not at home, tell them that he won’t be back at all, that he left in the morning, do you hear? And tell all the servants, go quickly!”
Having said this, he hastily grabbed his dressing gown and ran to hide in the carriage shed, believing his position there to be completely safe. But, standing in the corner of the shed, he saw that he could be seen there somehow. “This will be better,” a thought flashed in his head, and in one minute he threw aside the steps of a nearby carriage, jumped into it, closed the doors behind him, covered himself with the apron and leather for greater safety, and fell completely silent, hunched over in his dressing gown.
Meanwhile, the carriages pulled up to the porch.
The general came out and shook himself, followed by the colonel, adjusting the plume on his hat with his hands. Then the fat major jumped out of the light carriage, holding a saber under his arm. Then the thin second lieutenants jumped out of the “bon voyage” with an ensign sitting in their arms, and finally the officers on the horses dismounted.
“The master is not at home,” said the footman, coming out onto the porch.
“How not? So, he will be back for dinner, won’t he?”
“No, sir. He left for the whole day. Maybe he’ll be back around this time tomorrow.”
“Well, I’ll be!” said the general. “How is this possible?…”
“I admit, this is a trick,” said the colonel, laughing.
“No, how can one do this?” the general continued with displeasure. “Fie… The devil… Well, if you can’t receive us — at least let us know, or don’t invite us.”
“I, your excellency, don’t understand how one can act this way,” said one young officer.
“What?” said the general, who had the habit of always pronouncing this interrogative particle when he spoke with a junior officer.
“I said, your excellency: how can one act in such a way?”
“Naturally… Well, if something happened — at least let us know, or don’t ask us.”
“Well, your excellency, there’s nothing to be done, let’s go back!” said the colonel.
“Of course, there’s no other way. However, we can look at the carriage without him. He certainly didn’t take it with him. Hey, who’s there, come here, my man!”
“What do you want?”
“Are you a groom?”
“A groom, your excellency.”
“Show us the new carriage that the master got recently.”
“Please, come to the shed!”
The general went to the shed with the officers.
“Here you are, I’ll roll it out a bit, it’s a little dark in here.”
“Enough, enough, it’s fine!”
The general and the officers walked around the carriage and carefully inspected the wheels and springs.
“Well, there’s nothing special,” said the general, “it’s a very ordinary carriage.”
“A most unseemly one,” said the colonel, “there’s nothing good about it at all.”
“It seems to me, your excellency, that it’s not worth four thousand at all,” said one of the young officers.
“What?”
“I’m saying, your excellency, that it seems to me that it’s not worth four thousand.”
“What four thousand! It’s not worth two either. It’s just nothing. Maybe there’s something special inside… Please, my dear, unhook the leather…”
And Chertokutsky, sitting in a dressing gown and hunched over in an unusual way, appeared before the eyes of the officers.
“Ah, you’re here!…” said the astonished general.
Having said this, the general immediately slammed the doors shut, covered Chertokutsky with the apron again, and left with the gentlemen officers.
DIARY OF A MADMAN
October 3rd.
A most unusual thing happened today. I got up quite late in the morning, and when Mavra brought me my polished boots, I asked what time it was. When I heard that it was long past ten, I hurried to get dressed. I must admit, I wouldn’t have gone to the department at all, knowing in advance the sour face our section chief would make. He has been telling me for a long time, “What’s this mess in your head all the time, my dear fellow? Sometimes you rush around like a madman, you get the work so tangled up that even Satan himself couldn’t sort it out. You use a lowercase letter in the title, you don’t put a date or a number.” The accursed heron! He’s probably jealous that I sit in the director’s office and sharpen pens for his excellency. In short, I wouldn’t have gone to the department if it weren’t for the hope of seeing the treasurer and maybe begging this miser for at least a little bit of my salary in advance. What a creature he is! For him to ever give a month’s salary in advance — good heavens, the Last Judgment would come sooner. You can beg all you want, you can break your neck, you can be in a complete state of disarray — he won’t give it, the gray-haired devil. And at home, his own cook slaps him across the face. Everyone knows that. I don’t understand the benefits of serving in a department. No resources at all. In the provincial government, civil and treasury offices, it’s a completely different matter: there, you see, some fellow has squeezed himself into a corner and is scribbling away. His frock coat is disgusting, his face is one you’d want to spit on, but just look at the country house he rents! You don’t bring him a gilded porcelain cup: “That’s a doctor’s gift,” he says; he wants a pair of trotters, or a light carriage, or a beaver coat worth three hundred rubles. He looks so quiet, speaks so delicately: “Lend me a knife to sharpen a little pen,” — and then he’ll clean you out so thoroughly that he’ll leave you with nothing but your shirt. It’s true that our service, on the other hand, is noble; there is such cleanliness in everything, which the provincial government will never see: mahogany tables, and all the chiefs are addressed with a formal “you.” Yes, I must admit, if it weren’t for the nobility of the service, I would have left the department long ago.
I put on my old overcoat and took an umbrella because it was pouring rain. There was no one on the streets; only some peasant women, covered by the hems of their dresses, and Russian merchants under umbrellas, and couriers came into my sight. Of the gentry, only our brother, the official, came across my path. I saw him at a crossroads. As soon as I saw him, I immediately said to myself, “Aha! No, my dear fellow, you are not going to the department; you are rushing after that one who is running ahead, and you are looking at her little feet.” What a scoundrel our brother, the official, is! My God, he’s no different from any officer: if some woman in a hat passes by, he’ll certainly latch onto her. While I was thinking this, I saw a carriage pull up to a shop I was passing. I immediately recognized it: it was our director’s carriage. “But he has no reason to be at a shop,” I thought, “it must be his daughter.” I pressed myself against the wall. The footman opened the door, and she fluttered out of the carriage like a little bird. The way she looked to the right and left, the way she flashed her eyebrows and eyes… Oh, my God! I am lost, completely lost. And why would she go out in such rainy weather? Now try to argue that women don’t have a great passion for all these rags. She didn’t recognize me, and I myself deliberately tried to wrap myself up as much as possible, because my overcoat was very dirty and of an old style. Now they wear cloaks with long collars, but mine had short ones, one on top of the other; and the cloth was not degazé at all. Her little dog, not having time to jump into the shop door, remained in the street. I know that little dog. Its name is Medji. I had not been there a minute when I suddenly heard a thin voice: “Hello, Medji!” What’s this! Who is speaking? I looked around and saw two ladies walking under an umbrella: one old, the other young; but they had already passed, and next to me I again heard: “You’re bad, Medji!” What the devil! I saw that Medji was sniffing a little dog that was walking behind the ladies. “Aha!” I said to myself, “Am I not drunk? Although, it seems to me, that rarely happens.” “No, Fidel, you’re wrong to think so,” I saw that Medji said, “I was, arf! arf! I was, arf, arf, arf! very sick.” Oh, you little dog! I must admit, I was very surprised to hear her speaking in a human voice. But later, when I thought about it all carefully, I stopped being surprised at all. Indeed, many such examples have already happened in the world. They say a fish surfaced in England and said two words in such a strange language that scientists have been trying to figure it out for three years and still haven’t discovered anything. I also read in the newspapers about two cows that came into a shop and asked for a pound of tea. But, I must confess, I was much more surprised when Medji said: “I wrote to you, Fidel; surely Polkan didn’t bring my letter!” I’ll never get my salary! I’ve never in my life heard of a dog being able to write. Only a nobleman can write properly. Of course, some merchants’ clerks and even serfs sometimes scribble; but their writing is for the most part mechanical: no commas, no periods, no style.
This surprised me. I admit, for some time now I have sometimes started to hear and see things that no one has ever seen or heard before. “I’ll go,” I said to myself, “after this little dog and find out what she is and what she thinks.”
I opened my umbrella and followed the two ladies. They crossed into Gorokhovaya Street, turned into Meshchanskaya Street, from there into Stolyarnaya Street, and finally to Kokushkin Bridge and stopped in front of a big house. “I know this house,” I said to myself. “It’s Zverkov’s house.” What a machine! What kind of people don’t live in it: how many cooks, how many visitors! And our brothers, the officials — like dogs, one on top of the other. I also have a friend there who plays the trumpet well. The ladies went up to the fifth floor. “Good,” I thought, “I won’t go now, but I’ll make a note of the place and at the first opportunity I won’t fail to take advantage of it.”
October 4th.
Today is Wednesday, and so I was in our chief’s office. I purposely came early and, sitting down, sharpened all the pens. Our director must be a very intelligent man. His whole office is lined with cupboards full of books. I read the titles of some: all scholarship, such scholarship that our brother can’t even approach it: all in either French or German. And just look at his face: ugh, what importance shines in his eyes! I have never once heard him say an unnecessary word. Only, perhaps, when you hand him papers, he asks, “How is it outside?” “Damp, your excellency!” Yes, not like our brother! A man of state. I notice, however, that he is especially fond of me. If his daughter were too… ah, damn it!… No, no, silence! I read “The Little Bee.” What stupid people the French are! Well, what do they want? I swear to God, I’d take them all and whip them with birch rods! In the same place, I read a very pleasant description of a ball, written by a Kursk landowner. Kursk landowners write well. After that, I noticed that it was already half past twelve, and our chief had not come out of his bedroom. But around half past one, something happened that no pen can describe. The door opened, I thought it was the director, and I jumped up from my chair with papers; but it was she, she herself! Saints alive, how she was dressed! Her dress was white as a swan: ugh, how magnificent! And the way she looked at me: the sun, by God, the sun! She bowed and said, “Was papa not here?” Ay, ay, ay! What a voice! A canary, truly, a canary! “Your excellency,” I wanted to say, “do not order me to be executed, but if you must, then execute me with your general’s little hand.” But, damn it, my tongue somehow wouldn’t turn, and I only said: “No, ma’am.” She looked at me, at the books, and dropped her handkerchief. I rushed headlong, slipped on the accursed parquet floor and almost smashed my nose, but I managed to keep my balance and get the handkerchief. Saints, what a handkerchief! The finest, batiste — amber, pure amber! It simply breathed generalship. She thanked me and smiled just a little, so that her sugary lips barely moved, and after that, she left. I sat there for another hour, when suddenly the footman came in and said: “Go home, Aksentiy Ivanovich, the master has already left the house.” I can’t stand the footman class: they’re always sprawled out in the hall, and they can’t even bother to nod their heads. That’s not all: one of these scoundrels once decided to offer me snuff without even getting up. Do you know, you stupid serf, that I am an official, I am of noble birth. However, I took my hat and put on my overcoat myself, because these gentlemen never hand it to you, and went out. At home, I mostly lay on my bed. Then I copied some very good verses: “Not seeing my darling for an hour, I thought I hadn’t seen her for a year; Hating my life, I asked if I could live.” It must be Pushkin’s composition. In the evening, wrapped in my overcoat, I went to the entrance of her excellency’s house and waited for a long time, to see if she would come out to get into the carriage, just to get another look — but no, she did not come out.
November 6th.
The section chief drove me mad. When I arrived at the department, he called me over and started talking to me like this: “Well, tell me, please, what are you doing?” “What do you mean? I’m not doing anything,” I replied. “Well, think carefully! You’re already over forty — it’s time you gained some sense. What do you imagine? You think I don’t know all your little pranks? You’re chasing after the director’s daughter! Well, look at yourself, just think, what are you? You’re a zero, nothing more. You don’t have a penny to your name. Just look in the mirror at your face, how can you even think about that!” Damn it, just because his face looks a bit like an apothecary’s bottle, and he has a tuft of hair on his head, curled into a forelock, and he holds it up, and greases it with some pomade, he thinks he’s the only one who can do anything. I understand, I understand why he’s angry at me. He’s jealous; he probably saw the signs of favor shown to me. Well, I spit on him! A court councilor, big deal! He’s got a gold chain hanging from his watch, orders boots for thirty rubles — the devil take him! Am I from some kind of commoners, from tailors or the children of non-commissioned officers? I am a nobleman. So what, I can also get promoted. I’m only forty-two — it’s a time when, properly speaking, one’s service is just beginning. Wait and see, my friend! We’ll be a colonel too, and maybe, if God wills it, something even bigger. We’ll make a reputation for ourselves that’s even better than yours. What’s gotten into your head that, besides you, there are no other decent people at all? Just give me a Ruchensky frock coat, tailored in the latest fashion, and let me tie a tie just like yours, — then you won’t even be able to hold a candle to me. Lack of means — that’s the trouble.
November 8th.
I went to the theater. They were performing a play about a Russian fool named Filatka. I laughed a lot. There was also some kind of vaudeville with funny verses about lawyers, especially one collegiate registrar, written so freely that I was amazed the censors let it through. It said directly that merchants cheat people and their sons are hooligans who try to pass for nobility. There was a very amusing couplet about journalists, too: that they like to criticize everything and the author asks the public for protection. The writers nowadays are writing very amusing plays. I love going to the theater. As soon as I get a coin in my pocket, I can’t resist going. But some of our fellow officials are such pigs: they absolutely won’t go to the theater, the louts; unless you give them a ticket for free. One actress sang very well. She reminded me of her… oh, damn it!… no, no… silence.
November 9th.
At eight o’clock, I went to the department. The section chief looked as if he hadn’t noticed my arrival. I, for my part, acted as if nothing had happened between us. I was reviewing and checking papers. I left at four o’clock. I walked past the director’s apartment, but no one was visible. After dinner, I mostly lay on my bed.
November 11th.
Today I sat in our director’s office. I sharpened twenty-three pens for him and for her, ah! ah!… four pens for her excellency. He likes to have a lot of pens ready. Ugh, he must be a genius! He’s always silent, but I think he’s always mulling things over in his head. I wish I knew what he thinks about most; what he’s cooking up in that head of his. I would love to get a closer look at the lives of these gentlemen, all their equivocations and courtly tricks — what they do and how they do it in their circle — that’s what I’d like to know! I thought several times about starting a conversation with his excellency, but, damn it, my tongue just won’t obey: you’ll only manage to say whether it’s cold or warm outside, and you absolutely can’t say anything more. I would love to peek into the drawing-room, where you only see an open door sometimes, and beyond the drawing-room into another room. Oh, what rich furnishings! What mirrors and porcelain! I would love to peek in there, into that half of the house, where her excellency is — that’s where I would love to go! Into the boudoir: how all those little jars and bottles are arranged, flowers so delicate you’re afraid to breathe on them; how her dress is scattered there, looking more like air than a dress. I would love to peek into the bedroom… that’s where I think the wonders are, that’s where I think paradise is, a paradise not even in heaven. To see that little footstool on which he places his foot when he gets out of bed, how a stocking, as white as snow, is put on that foot… ah! ah! ah! no, no… silence.
Today, however, I was as if enlightened by a light: I remembered the conversation of the two little dogs that I heard on Nevsky Prospect. “Good,” I thought to myself, “now I will find out everything. I need to get a hold of the correspondence that those shabby little dogs were having with each other. There, I will surely find out something.” I confess, I even called Medji to me once and said: “Listen, Medji, now we are alone; I can lock the door if you want, so no one will see — tell me everything you know about the young lady, what is she like and how? I swear to you that I won’t tell anyone.” But the cunning little dog tucked her tail between her legs, huddled up twice as small, and quietly went out the door as if she hadn’t heard a thing. I have long suspected that a dog is much smarter than a human; I was even sure that it can talk, but that it just has some kind of stubbornness. She’s an extraordinary politician: she notices everything, every human move. No, no matter what, tomorrow I’m going to Zverkov’s house, I’ll interrogate Fidel, and, if I’m lucky, I’ll intercept all the letters that Medji wrote to her.
November 12th.
At two in the afternoon, I went out, determined to see Fidel and interrogate her. I can’t stand cabbage, the smell of which wafts out of all the little shops on Meshchanskaya Street; on top of that, such a hellish stench wafts from under the gates of every house that I ran as fast as I could, holding my nose. And the base tradesmen let off so much soot and smoke from their workshops that it’s absolutely impossible for a noble person to stroll here. When I made my way to the sixth floor and rang the bell, a girl came out, not bad-looking, with small freckles. I recognized her. It was the same one who had been walking with the old woman. She blushed a little, and I immediately understood: you, my dear, want a groom. “What do you want?” she said. “I need to talk to your little dog.” The girl was stupid! I immediately knew she was stupid! At that moment, the little dog came running and barking; I tried to grab her, but the vile creature almost bit my nose. I did, however, see her basket in the corner. Aha, this is what I need! I went up to it, rummaged through the straw in the wooden box, and, to my extraordinary delight, pulled out a small bundle of little papers. The wicked little dog, seeing this, first bit me on the calf, and then, when she sniffed that I had taken the papers, she began to whine and fawn, but I said: “No, my dear, goodbye!” — and rushed to run away. I think the girl took me for a madman, because she was extremely frightened. When I got home, I wanted to get to work immediately and sort through these letters, because I see a little poorly by candlelight. But Mavra decided to wash the floor. These stupid Finnish women are always clean at the wrong time. And so I went out for a walk and thought about this incident. Now, finally, I will find out everything: all their affairs, thoughts, all these springs, and I will finally get to the bottom of everything. These letters will reveal everything to me. Dogs are smart creatures, they know all the political relations, and therefore, everything will surely be there: a portrait and all the affairs of this husband. There will also be something about the one who… no, silence! In the evening, I came home. I mostly lay on my bed.
November 13th.
Well, let’s see: the letter is quite clear. However, the handwriting still has a certain dog-like quality. Let’s read:
“My dear Fidel! I still can’t get used to your common name. Couldn’t they have given you a better one? Fidel, Rosa — what a vulgar style! But let’s put all that aside. I am very glad we decided to write to each other.
The letter is written very correctly. Punctuation and even the letter ѣ are in their proper places everywhere. Our section chief couldn’t even write this well, even though he claims he studied somewhere at the university. Let’s see further:
“It seems to me that sharing thoughts, feelings, and impressions with another is one of the greatest blessings in the world.”
Hmm! The thought is taken from a work translated from German. I don’t remember the name.
“I say this from experience, although I have never run around the world farther than the gates of our house. Does my life not pass in pleasure? My young lady, whom Papa calls Sophie, loves me madly.”
Ay, ay!… nothing, nothing. Silence!
“Papa also caresses me very often. I drink tea and coffee with cream. Ah, ma chère, I must tell you that I see no pleasure at all in the big gnawed bones that our Polkan devours in the kitchen. Bones are only good from game, and then only when no one has yet sucked the marrow out of them. It’s very nice to mix several sauces together, but only without capers and without herbs; but I know nothing worse than the custom of giving dogs little balls rolled up from bread. Some gentleman sitting at the table, who has been holding all sorts of garbage in his hands, will start kneading bread with those hands, call you over, and shove a little ball into your teeth. It’s somehow impolite to refuse, so you eat it; with disgust, but you eat it…”
What the devil is this! What nonsense! As if there wasn’t a better subject to write about. Let’s look at the other page. Maybe there will be something more substantial.
“I am very willing to keep you informed of all the events that happen at our place. I have already told you a little about the main gentleman, whom Sophie calls papa. He is a very strange man.”
Aha! Here we are at last! Yes, I knew it: they have a political view of all things. Let’s see what Papa is like:
“…a very strange man. He is mostly silent. He speaks very rarely; but a week ago he was constantly talking to himself: ‘Will I get it or won’t I?’ He takes a piece of paper in one hand, leaves the other hand empty, and says: ‘Will I get it or won’t I?’ One time he even turned to me with the question: ‘What do you think, Medji? Will I get it or won’t I?’ I couldn’t understand a thing, I sniffed his boot and walked away. Then, ma chère, a week later, papa came home in great joy. All morning gentlemen in uniforms came to him and congratulated him on something. At the table he was as cheerful as I have ever seen, telling anecdotes, and after dinner he lifted me up to his neck and said: ‘And look, Medji, what is this?’ I saw some kind of ribbon. I sniffed it, but I absolutely did not find any scent; finally I licked it a little: it was a little salty.”
Hmm! This little dog, it seems to me, is going too far… She should be whipped! Ah! So he is an ambitious man! This needs to be taken into account.
“Goodbye, ma chère, I must run, and so on… and so on… I will finish the letter tomorrow. Well, hello again! I’m back with you now. Today my young lady Sophie…”
Oh? Well, let’s see about Sophie. Oh, damn it!… Nothing, nothing… we’ll continue.
“…my young lady Sophie was in a great commotion. She was getting ready for a ball, and I was happy that in her absence I could write to you. My Sophie is always extremely happy to go to a ball, although she is almost always angry while getting dressed. I can’t understand, ma chère, the pleasure of going to a ball. Sophie comes home from the ball at six in the morning, and I can almost always tell from her pale and haggard appearance that the poor thing wasn’t given anything to eat there. I, I must admit, could never live like that. If they didn’t give me sauce with a hazel grouse or some roasted chicken wings, then… I don’t know what would happen to me. Sauce with porridge is also good. But carrots, or turnips, or artichokes will never be good…”
An extremely uneven style. It’s immediately clear that a human didn’t write it. It starts as it should, and ends with dog-like foolishness. Let’s look at one more little letter. It’s a bit long. Hmm! And no date is given.
“Oh, my dear! how palpable the approach of spring is. My heart beats as if it is expecting something. There is a constant noise in my ears, so I often, lifting my paw, stand for a few minutes, listening to the doors. I will tell you that I have many courtiers. I often sit at the window and watch them. Ah, if you only knew what freaks there are among them. One is a complete klutz, a mongrel, terribly stupid, stupidity written on his face, he walks down the street so importantly and imagines that he is a very noble person, he thinks that everyone is looking at him. Not at all. I didn’t even pay attention, it was as if I hadn’t seen him. And what a terrible dog stops in front of my window! If he were to stand on his hind legs, which, the boor, he probably can’t do, then he would be a whole head taller than my Sophie’s papa, who is also quite tall and stout. This fool must be a terrible brazen fellow. I growled a little, but he didn’t care in the slightest. He didn’t even frown! He stuck out his tongue, hung down his huge ears, and stared at the window — such a peasant! But do you really think, ma chère, that my heart is indifferent to all these attentions, — oh, no… If you could only see one gentleman who climbs over the fence of the neighboring house, named Tresor. Oh, ma chère, what a face he has!”
Tfu, to hell with it!… What trash!… And how can one fill letters with such nonsense. Give me a person! I want to see a person; I demand food — the kind that would nourish and delight my soul; and instead, such trifles… Let’s turn the page, maybe it will be better:
“…Sophie was sitting at a small table and sewing something. I was looking out the window because I love to watch passers-by. Suddenly a footman came in and said: ‘Teplov!’ ‘Show him in!’ Sophie cried out and rushed to hug me. ‘Oh, Medji, Medji! If you only knew who it is: a brunette, a chamberlain, and what eyes! Black and bright, like fire.’ — And Sophie ran off to her room. A minute later, a young chamberlain with black sideburns entered; he went to the mirror, fixed his hair, and looked around the room. I growled and sat down in my place. Sophie soon came out and bowed cheerfully to his scrape of the foot; and I, as if not noticing anything, continued to look out the window; however, I tilted my head a little to the side and tried to hear what they were talking about. Ah, ma chère! what nonsense they were talking about! They were talking about how one lady in a dance did one figure instead of another; also, that some Bobov looked very much like a stork in his jabot and almost fell down; that some Lidina imagines that she has blue eyes, while they are green, and so on. ‘Where,’ I thought to myself, ‘if you compare the chamberlain with Tresor!’ Heavens! What a difference! Firstly, the chamberlain has a completely smooth, wide face and sideburns all around, as if he had wrapped it with a black handkerchief; and Tresor has a thin face and a white patch on his forehead. You can’t even compare Tresor’s waist with the chamberlain’s. And the eyes, the manners, the habits are completely different. Oh, what a difference! I don’t know, ma chère, what she found in her Teplov. Why does she admire him so much?..”
It seems to me that something is wrong here. It cannot be that a chamberlain could so bewitch her. Let’s see further:
“It seems to me that if she likes this chamberlain, then she will soon like that official who sits in papa’s office. Oh, ma chère, if you only knew what a freak he is. A complete turtle in a sack…”
What official could that be?
“His last name is very strange. He is always sitting and sharpening pens. The hair on his head looks very much like hay. Papa always sends him instead of a servant…”
It seems to me that this disgusting little dog is aiming at me. Where do I have hair like hay?
“Sophie can’t help but laugh when she looks at him.”
You’re lying, you cursed little dog! What a vile tongue! As if I didn’t know that this is a matter of jealousy. As if I didn’t know whose tricks these are. These are the tricks of the section chief. The man swore an implacable hatred — and now he harms and harms, harms at every step. Let’s look at one more letter, however. Maybe the matter will reveal itself.
“Ma chère Fidel, please forgive me for not writing for so long. I was in a state of complete intoxication. It is truly a fact that some writer said that love is a second life. Besides, we now have big changes in the house. The chamberlain is now at our place every day. Sophie is madly in love with him. Papa is very cheerful. I even heard from our Grigory, who sweeps the floor and almost always talks to himself, that there will be a wedding soon; because papa wants to see Sophie married to either a general, or a chamberlain, or a military colonel…”
Damn it! I can’t read any more… It’s always either a chamberlain or a general. Everything that is best in the world, everything goes to either chamberlains or generals. You find yourself a small treasure, you think you can reach out and grab it — a chamberlain or a general snatches it away from you. Damn it! I wish I could become a general myself: not to get her hand and so on, no, I would like to be a general just to see how they would fawn over me and do all these different courtly tricks and equivocations, and then tell them that I spit on both of you. Damn it. How vexing! I tore the stupid little dog’s letters to shreds.
December 3rd.
It cannot be. Lies! There will be no wedding! What does it matter that he is a chamberlain? It’s nothing more than a title; not some visible thing you can hold in your hands. Just because he’s a chamberlain, a third eye won’t grow on his forehead. His nose isn’t made of gold, it’s the same as mine, as everyone’s; he smells with it, he doesn’t eat, he sneezes, he doesn’t cough. I have tried several times to figure out where all these differences come from. Why am I a titular councilor and why, for heaven’s sake, am I a titular councilor? Maybe I’m some kind of count or general, and I just seem like a titular councilor? Maybe I myself don’t know who I really am. After all, there are so many examples in history: some simple person, not even a nobleman, but just some commoner or even a peasant, and suddenly it’s discovered that he’s some kind of dignitary, and sometimes even a sovereign. If such things can come from a peasant, what might come from a nobleman? Suddenly, for example, I walk in in a general’s uniform: I have an epaulet on my right shoulder, and an epaulet on my left shoulder, and a blue ribbon across my shoulder — what? What will my beauty sing then? What will Papa himself, our director, say? Oh, he’s a great careerist! He’s a Mason, definitely a Mason, even though he pretends to be this and that, but I immediately noticed that he’s a Mason: if he shakes hands with someone, he only sticks out two fingers. Can’t I be appointed governor-general, or intendant, or something else right now? I would like to know why I am a titular councilor? Why exactly a titular councilor?
December 5th.
I spent the whole morning today reading the newspapers. Strange things are happening in Spain. I couldn’t quite make them out. They write that the throne has been abolished and that the officials are in a difficult position about choosing an heir, and that’s why there are uprisings. This seems extremely strange to me. How can a throne be abolished? They say some donna is supposed to ascend the throne. A donna cannot ascend the throne. It’s impossible. There must be a king on the throne. Yes, they say there is no king. — It can’t be that there is no king. A state cannot exist without a king. There is a king, but he is just in an unknown location somewhere. It may be that he is there, but some kind of family reasons, or fears from neighboring powers, such as France and other lands, force him to hide, or there are some other reasons.
December 8th.
I was all ready to go to the department, but various reasons and thoughts held me back. The Spanish affairs just couldn’t get out of my head. How can it be that a donna could become queen? They won’t allow it. And, first of all, England won’t allow it. And besides, there are the political affairs of all of Europe: the Austrian emperor, our sovereign… I confess, these events have so disheartened and shaken me that I could not get anything done all day. Mavra noticed that I was extremely distracted at the table. And indeed, I think I absentmindedly threw two plates on the floor, where they immediately smashed. After dinner, I went for a walk on the hills. I couldn’t find anything edifying. I mostly lay on the bed and pondered the affairs of Spain.
Year 2000, April 43rd.
Today is a day of the greatest celebration! There is a king in Spain. He has been found. That king is me. I only just learned this today. I confess, it was as if a bolt of lightning suddenly illuminated me. I don’t understand how I could have thought and imagined myself a titular councilor. How could such an absurd thought have entered my head? It’s a good thing no one thought to put me in a madhouse back then. Now everything is clear to me. Now I see everything as if on the palm of my hand. But before, I don’t understand, before everything was in some kind of fog for me. And this all happens, I think, because people imagine that the human brain is in the head; not at all: it is brought by the wind from the Caspian Sea. First, I announced to Mavra who I am. When she heard that the King of Spain was before her, she clasped her hands and almost died of fright. She, the fool, had never seen the King of Spain before. I, however, tried to calm her and in gracious words tried to assure her of my favor, and that I was not at all angry that she sometimes badly polished my boots. After all, they are common people. You cannot talk to them about high matters. She was frightened because she is convinced that all the kings in Spain look like Philip II. But I explained to her that there is no resemblance between me and Philip and that I don’t have a single Capuchin… I did not go to the department… To hell with it! No, my friends, you won’t lure me now; I will not copy your vile papers!
Marchtember 86th. Between day and night
Today our bailiff came to tell me that I should go to the department, as I haven’t been to work for more than three weeks. I went to the department as a joke. The section chief thought I would bow to him and apologize, but I looked at him indifferently, not too angrily and not too graciously, and sat down in my place as if I didn’t notice anyone. I looked at all the office riffraff and thought: “What if you knew who was sitting among you… My God! what a commotion you would raise, and the section chief himself would begin to bow down to me just as he now bows before the director.” They put some papers in front of me for me to make an extract from them. But I didn’t touch them with a finger. After a few minutes, everyone started bustling. They said the director was coming. Many officials ran to outdo each other, to show themselves to him. But I didn’t move from my seat. When he passed through our section, everyone buttoned up their frock coats; but I did absolutely nothing! What a director! For me to stand up for him — never! What kind of director is he? He’s a cork, not a director. An ordinary cork, a simple cork, nothing more. The kind that they use to cork bottles. The most amusing thing for me was when they handed me a paper to sign. They thought I would write on the very tip of the sheet: Desk-chief so-and-so. Not likely! Instead, on the most important place, where the director of the department signs, I scribbled: “Ferdinand VIII.” You should have seen the reverent silence that reigned; but I only waved my hand, saying: “No signs of subservience are needed!” — and left. From there I went straight to the director’s apartment. He was not at home. The footman tried not to let me in, but I told him such things that he dropped his arms. I made my way directly to the dressing room. She was sitting in front of the mirror, jumped up and backed away from me. I did not, however, tell her that I was the King of Spain. I only said that a happiness awaits her such as she cannot even imagine, and that, despite the intrigues of enemies, we would be together. I didn’t want to say anything more and left. Oh, what a treacherous creature is woman! Only now have I understood what a woman is. Until now, no one has yet figured out who she is in love with: I was the first to discover it. A woman is in love with the devil. Yes, seriously. Physicists write nonsense that she is this and that — she loves only the devil. Look, she’s pointing a lorgnette from a box on the first tier. Do you think she is looking at that fat man with a star? Not at all, she is looking at the devil who is standing behind his back. Look, he has hidden himself in his frock coat. Look, he is waving his finger at her from there! And she will marry him. She will marry him. And all these official fathers, all these who fawn in every direction and curry favor at court and say that they are patriots and this and that: leases, these patriots want leases! They will sell their mother, father, God for money, careerists, traitors of Christ! It’s all ambition, and ambition is because there is a small bubble under the tongue and in it is a small worm the size of a pinhead, and all this is done by some barber who lives in Gorokhovaya Street. I don’t remember what his name is; but it is reliably known that he, together with a certain midwife, wants to spread Mohammedanism throughout the world and that is why, they say, in France the majority of the people have already adopted the faith of Mohammed.
No specific date. The day had no number
I walked incognito on Nevsky Prospect. The sovereign emperor was passing by. The whole city took off their hats, and so did I; however, I gave no indication that I was the King of Spain. I considered it improper to reveal myself there in front of everyone; because first of all, I must be presented at court. The only thing that stopped me was that I still don’t have a royal costume. I wish I could get a mantle of some kind. I wanted to order one from a tailor, but they are complete donkeys, and besides, they are completely careless with their work, they have gotten into some kind of scheme and mostly lay cobblestones on the street. I decided to make a mantle out of a new uniform coat that I had only worn twice. But, so that these scoundrels wouldn’t be able to ruin it, I decided to sew it myself, locking the door so that no one would see. I cut it all up with scissors, because the cut has to be completely different.
I don’t remember the date. There was no month either. It was who knows what
The mantle is completely ready and sewn. Mavra shrieked when I put it on. However, I still don’t dare to present myself at court. There is still no deputation from Spain. It is improper without deputies. My dignity will have no weight. I am expecting them at any moment.
The 1st.
The slowness of the deputies surprises me extraordinarily. What reasons could have stopped them? Is it really France? Yes, that is the most unfavorable power. I went to the post office to check if the Spanish deputies had arrived. But the postmaster is extremely stupid, he doesn’t know anything: no, he says, there are no Spanish deputies here, but if you want to write letters, we will accept them at the established rate. The devil take it! What is a letter? A letter is nonsense. Letters are written by apothecaries…
Madrid. February thirtieth
And so, I am in Spain, and it happened so quickly that I could barely come to my senses. This morning, Spanish deputies came to me, and I got into a carriage with them. The extraordinary speed seemed strange to me. We drove so fast that we reached the Spanish borders in half an hour. But then again, there are now iron roads and steamers everywhere in Europe that travel extremely fast. Spain is a strange country: when we entered the first room, I saw a lot of people with shaved heads, and yet I guessed that they must be either grandees or soldiers, because they shave their heads. The behavior of the State Chancellor, who led me by the hand, seemed extremely strange to me; he shoved me into a small room and said: “Sit here, and if you keep calling yourself King Ferdinand, I will knock that notion out of you.” But I, knowing that this was nothing more than a temptation, answered in the negative, for which the Chancellor hit me twice on the back with a stick, so painfully that I almost cried out, but I held back, remembering that this is a knight’s custom upon entering a high rank, because in Spain, knightly customs are still observed to this day. Left alone, I decided to take up matters of state. I discovered that China and Spain are exactly the same country and are only considered different states out of ignorance. I advise everyone to deliberately write down Spain on a piece of paper, and China will appear. But I was, however, extremely distressed by an event that is to happen tomorrow. Tomorrow at seven o’clock a strange phenomenon will occur: the earth will sit on the moon. The famous English chemist Wellington also writes about this. I confess, I felt a heartfelt anxiety when I imagined the extraordinary tenderness and fragility of the moon. The moon, after all, is usually made in Hamburg; and it is made very poorly. I am surprised that England doesn’t pay attention to this. A lame cooper makes it, and it’s clear that the fool has no concept of the moon whatsoever. He put in a tar rope and a part of some wood oil; and because of that there is a terrible stench all over the earth, so that you have to hold your nose. And that is why the moon itself is such a tender ball that people absolutely cannot live on it, and now only noses live there. And for that very reason, we cannot see our noses, for they are all in the moon. And when I imagined that the earth is a heavy substance and could, by sitting on it, grind our noses into flour, such anxiety overcame me that I, putting on my stockings and shoes, hurried to the State Council chamber, in order to give an order to the police not to allow the earth to sit on the moon. The shaved grandees, a great many of whom I found in the State Council chamber, were very intelligent people, and when I said: “Gentlemen, let’s save the moon, because the earth wants to sit on it,” everyone immediately rushed to fulfill my monarchical wish, and many climbed the wall to get the moon; but at that moment the great chancellor entered. Seeing him, everyone scattered. I, as the king, remained alone. But the chancellor, to my surprise, hit me with a stick and chased me into my room. Such is the power of folk customs in Spain!
January of the same year, which happened after February
I still cannot understand what kind of country Spain is. The folk customs and court etiquette are completely extraordinary. I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I absolutely don’t understand anything. Today they shaved my head, despite the fact that I shouted with all my might that I did not want to be a monk. But I can no longer even remember what happened to me when they started dripping cold water on my head. I have never felt such hell before. I was ready to fall into a frenzy, so they could barely hold me back. I don’t understand the meaning of this strange custom at all. A stupid, senseless custom! The recklessness of kings who have not yet abolished it is incomprehensible to me. Judging by all the probabilities, I guess: have I not fallen into the hands of the Inquisition, and is the one whom I took for the chancellor not the great inquisitor himself? Only I still cannot understand how a king could be subjected to the Inquisition. It’s true, it could have been from the side of France, and especially Polignac. Oh, that beast Polignac! He swore to harm me until death. And he persecutes me and persecutes me; but I know, my friend, that you are being led by an Englishman. The Englishman is a great politician. He fawns everywhere. It is already known to the whole world that when England takes snuff, France sneezes.
The 25th.
Today the great inquisitor came into my room, but I, hearing his steps from a distance, hid under the chair. When he saw that I was not there, he began to call. First he shouted: “Poprishchin!” — I didn’t say a word. Then: “Aksentiy Ivanov! Titular councilor! Nobleman!” I was still silent. “Ferdinand VIII, King of Spain!” I was about to stick my head out, but then I thought: “No, my friend, you won’t fool me! I know you: you’ll start pouring cold water on my head again.” However, he saw me and drove me out from under the chair with a stick. That cursed stick hits extraordinarily painfully. However, I was compensated for all this by a discovery I made today: I learned that every rooster has a Spain, that it is located under its feathers. The great inquisitor, however, left me angered and threatening me with some kind of punishment. But I completely disregarded his impotent malice, knowing that he acts like a machine, like an instrument of the Englishman.
No. 34, Month of Gdao, February 349
No, I no longer have the strength to endure. God! What are they doing to me! They are pouring cold water on my head! They do not heed, they do not see, they do not listen to me. What have I done to them? Why do they torment me? What do they want from me, a poor man? What can I give them? I have nothing. I have no strength, I cannot bear all their torments, my head is burning, and everything is spinning before me. Save me! Take me away! Give me a troika of horses, swift as a whirlwind! Sit down, my coachman, ring, my little bell, soar, horses, and carry me away from this world! Farther, farther, so that nothing, nothing is visible. Look, the sky is swirling before me; a little star sparkles in the distance; the forest rushes by with dark trees and the moon; a bluish mist spreads under my feet; a string rings out in the mist; on one side is the sea, on the other Italy; look, and Russian huts are visible. Is that my house turning blue in the distance? Is my mother sitting in front of the window? Mother, save your poor son! Drop a tear on his sick little head! Look how they torment him! Press the poor orphan to your breast! He has no place in the world! They are chasing him away! Mother! Pity your sick little child!… And do you know that the Dey of Algiers has a bump right under his nose?
ROME
Fragment
Try to look at lightning when, having torn open the coal-black clouds, it trembles with an unbearable torrent of brilliance. Such are the eyes of the Albanian woman Annunziata. Everything about her recalls those ancient times when marble came to life and sculptors’ chisels glistened. Her thick, tar-black hair is gathered in a heavy braid, forming two rings above her head, and four long curls cascade down her neck. No matter how she turns the radiant snow of her face — her image is completely imprinted on my heart. If she stands in profile — her profile breathes with wondrous nobility, and the beauty of her lines, which no brush has created, is thrown into sharp relief. If she turns her back, with her wonderful hair gathered up, showing the shining neck behind and the beauty of shoulders never seen on earth — there, too, she is a miracle! But most wondrous of all is when she looks straight into your eyes, planting coldness and a flutter in your heart. Her full voice rings like copper. No supple panther can compare with her in speed, strength, and proud movements. Everything about her is the crown of creation, from her shoulders to her antique, breathing foot and the very last toe on her foot. Wherever she goes, she carries a painting with her: if she hurries in the evening to the fountain with a chased copper vase on her head, the surrounding area embracing her is permeated with a wonderful harmony: the wondrous lines of the Albanian mountains recede more lightly into the distance, the depth of the Roman sky becomes bluer, the cypress tree flies straighter upwards, and the beauty of the southern trees, the Roman pine, is more finely and clearly drawn against the sky with its umbrella-like, almost floating treetop. And everything: the fountain itself, where the Albanian townsfolk have already gathered in a crowd on the marble steps, one higher than the other, chattering in strong, silvery voices, while the water, in turn, beats with a ringing diamond arc into the copper basins held out to it, and the fountain itself, and the crowd itself — everything, it seems, is for her, to show off her triumphant beauty more brightly, so that it can be seen how she leads everything, just as a queen leads her courtly ranks behind her. On a holiday, when the dark tree-lined gallery leading from Albano to Castel Gandolfo is all full of festively dressed people, when under its somber arches flash the dandies (minenti) in velvet attire, with bright sashes and a golden flower on a downy hat, donkeys with half-closed eyes trudge or gallop, picturesquely carrying on themselves the graceful and strong Albanian and Frascatian women, gleaming from afar with their white head coverings, or pulling along, not picturesquely at all, with difficulty and stumbling, a long motionless Englishman in a pea-green impenetrable macintosh, who has hunched his legs into a sharp corner so as not to touch the ground with them, or carrying an artist in a smock, with a wooden box on a strap and a clever Van Dyck-style beard, and shadow and sun alternately run over the whole group — even then, and on that holiday, it is far better with her than without her. The depth of the gallery sets her off from its somber darkness, all sparkling, all in brilliance. The crimson cloth of her Albanian outfit flares up like an ember touched by the sun. A wondrous celebration flies from her face to meet everyone. And, upon meeting her, they stop as if rooted to the spot, both the dandy minente with a flower behind his hat, having let out an involuntary exclamation; and the Englishman in the pea-green macintosh, having shown a question mark on his motionless face; and the artist with the Van Dyck-style beard, who has stopped in one place longer than anyone else, pondering: “She would be such a wonderful model for Diana, for a proud Juno, for the seductive Graces and all the women who have ever been transferred to canvas!” — and at the same time audaciously thinking: “What a paradise it would be if such a marvel forever decorated his humble workshop!”
But who is the one whose gaze is most irresistibly fixed in her wake? Who watches her words, movements, and the movements of her thoughts on her face? A twenty-five-year-old youth, a Roman prince, a descendant of a family that was once the honor, pride, and ignominy of the Middle Ages, now quietly dying out in a magnificent palace covered with frescoes by Guercino and the Carraccis, with a faded art gallery, with discolored damasks, azure tables, and a maestro di casa as gray as a moon. It was he whom the Roman streets recently saw, carrying his black eyes, throwing fire from behind the cloak thrown over his shoulder, a nose outlined with an antique line, the ivory whiteness of his forehead and a fleeting silken curl thrown upon it. He appeared in Rome after fifteen years of absence, appearing as a proud youth instead of the child he had been so recently.
But the reader must know for certain how all this came to pass, and so we will quickly run through the history of his life, which is still young, but already abundant with many strong impressions. His early childhood passed in Rome; he was brought up in the custom of Roman grandees who were living out their days. He had an abbot as a teacher, a governor, a tutor, and everything else you could want, a strict classicist, an admirer of the letters of Pietro Bembo, the works of Giovanni della Casa, and five or six cantos of Dante, which he read with no less than strong exclamations: “Dio, che cosa divina!” — and then two lines later: “Diavolo, che divina cosa!” — in which consisted almost all his artistic appreciation and criticism, while he turned the rest of the conversation to broccoli and artichokes, his favorite subject, knowing very well at what time veal was best, from which month one should start eating kid goat, loving to chat about all this on the street when he met a friend, another abbot, who pulled his full calves very neatly into black silk stockings, after stuffing wool ones under them, cleaned himself regularly once a month with a medicine of olio di ricino in a cup of coffee, and grew fatter with every day and hour, as all abbots do. Naturally, the young prince did not learn much under such a beginning. He only learned that the Latin language is the father of Italian, that monsignors are of three kinds — some in black stockings, others in lilac, and a third kind who are almost the same as cardinals; he learned a few letters of Pietro Bembo to the cardinals of the time, mostly congratulatory ones; he knew Corso Street well, which he walked along with the abbot, and Villa Borghese, and two or three shops where the abbot stopped to buy paper, pens, and snuff, and the pharmacy where he took his olio di ricino. This was the entire horizon of the pupil’s knowledge. The abbot hinted at other lands and states in some vague and unsteady outlines: that there is a country, France, a rich country, that the English are good merchants and like to travel, that the Germans are drunkards, and that there is a barbaric land of Muscovy in the north, where there are such severe frosts that a person’s brain can burst. Beyond this information, the pupil would probably not have learned anything, reaching his twenty-fifth year, if the old prince had not suddenly had the idea of changing the old method of education and giving his son a European education, which could be partly attributed to the influence of some French lady, at whom he had recently begun to constantly point his lorgnette at all the theaters and promenades, constantly stuffing his chin into a huge white jabot and adjusting the black curl on his wig. The young prince was sent to Lucca, to the university. There, during his six-year stay, his lively Italian nature, which had been dormant under the boring supervision of the abbot, unfolded. The youth showed a soul avid for refined pleasures and an observant mind. The Italian university, where science was dragged along, hidden in stale scholastic forms, did not satisfy the new youth, who had already heard living hints about it, flying over the Alps in snippets. The French influence was becoming noticeable in Upper Italy: it was brought there along with fashions, vignettes, vaudevilles, and the intense works of the unrestrained French Muse, monstrous, hot, but in places not without signs of talent. The strong political movement in the newspapers since the July Revolution echoed here too. They dreamed of the return of lost Italian glory, looked with indignation at the hateful white uniform of the Austrian soldier. But the Italian nature, a lover of quiet pleasures, did not flare up in a rebellion that a Frenchman would not have hesitated over; everything ended only in an irresistible desire to visit the trans-Alpine, the real Europe. Its eternal movement and brilliance flashed temptingly in the distance. There was novelty, the opposite of Italian antiquity; the 19th century was beginning there, European life. The young prince’s soul was strongly drawn there, hoping for adventures and enlightenment, and every time a heavy feeling of sadness came over him when he saw the complete impossibility of it: he knew the unyielding despotism of the old prince, with whom it was impossible to get along — when suddenly he received a letter from him, in which he was instructed to go to Paris, to finish his studies at the university there and to wait in Lucca only for the arrival of his uncle, so that he could go with him. The young prince jumped for joy, kissed all his friends, treated everyone at a country osteria, and two weeks later was already on the road, with a heart ready to meet every object with a joyful beat. When they crossed the Simplon, a pleasant thought ran through his head: he was on the other side, he was in Europe! The wild ugliness of the Swiss mountains, piled up without perspective, without light distances, somewhat terrified his gaze, which was accustomed to the high and calm, caressing beauty of Italian nature. But he suddenly brightened up at the sight of European cities, magnificent bright hotels, conveniences arranged for every traveler who settles in as if at home. The dandyish cleanliness, the brilliance — everything was new to him. In German cities, he was somewhat struck by the strange physique of the Germans, lacking the harmonious agreement of beauty, the feeling of which is already born in the chest of an Italian; the German language also unpleasantly struck his musical ear. But the French border was already before him, his heart trembled. The fluttering sounds of the fashionable European language, caressing, kissed his ears. He caught with secret pleasure their gliding rustle, which already in Italy seemed to him something sublime, cleansed of all the convulsive movements that accompany the strong languages of the southern peoples who do not know how to keep themselves within bounds. An even greater impression was made on him by a special kind of woman — light, fluttering. He was struck by this ephemeral creature with barely defined light forms, with a small foot, with a thin, airy figure, with a responsive fire in her eyes and light, almost inexpressible speeches. He waited for Paris with impatience, populated it with towers, palaces, created an image of it for himself, and with a heartfelt tremor finally saw the close signs of the capital: the pasted posters, the gigantic letters, the multiplying stagecoaches, omnibuses… finally the houses of the suburbs rushed by. And here he is in Paris, incoherently embraced by its monstrous appearance, struck by the movement, the brilliance of the streets, the disorder of the roofs, the thickness of the chimneys, the unarchitectural, huddled masses of houses plastered with the tight patchwork of shops, the ugliness of the naked, unsupported side walls, the countless mixed crowd of golden letters that climbed onto the walls, onto the windows, onto the roofs and even onto the chimneys, the bright transparency of the lower floors, which consisted only of mirror glass. “Ma quest’è una cosa divina!” — the lively Italian repeated.
And his life flowed briskly, as the lives of many Parisians and the crowd of young foreigners who flock to Paris flow. At nine in the morning, having jumped out of bed, he was already in a magnificent cafe with fashionable frescoes behind glass, with a ceiling covered in gold, with sheets of long magazines and newspapers, with a noble attendant walking past the visitors, holding a magnificent silver coffeepot in his hand. There he sipped his rich coffee with sybaritic pleasure from a huge cup, lounging on an elastic, springy sofa and remembering the low, dark Italian cafes with an untidy bottega carrying unwashed glass glasses. Then he set about reading the colossal sheets of the magazines and remembered the consumptive little journalists of Italy, some kind of “Diario di Roma,” “il Pirato” and the like, where innocent political news and anecdotes about Thermopylae and the Persian king Darius were placed. Here, on the contrary, one could see the boiling pen everywhere. Questions upon questions, objections upon objections — it seemed that everyone was bristling with all their might: one threatened an imminent change of things and foretold the destruction of the state. Every barely noticeable movement and action of the chambers and the ministry grew into a movement of huge scope between stubborn parties and was heard in the magazines with an almost desperate cry. The Italian even felt fear reading them, thinking that a revolution would break out tomorrow, as if in a daze he left the literary cabinet, and only Paris with its streets could clear all this burden from his head in a minute. Its fluttering brilliance and colorful movement, after this heavy reading, seemed like something similar to light flowers that had climbed up the ravine of an abyss. In an instant, he moved entirely to the street and became, like everyone else, a rubbernecker in all respects. He rubbernecked in front of the bright, light saleswomen, who had just entered their spring, with whom all Parisian shops were filled, as if the stern appearance of a man was indecent and would flash like a dark spot from behind the solid glass. He watched how temptingly elegant, slender hands, washed with all kinds of soaps, gleaming, wrapped up candy papers, while eyes looked brightly and intently at passers-by, how in another place a blonde head was drawn in a picturesque slope, lowering her long eyelashes into the pages of a fashionable novel, not seeing that a crowd of young people had already gathered around her, examining both her light snow-white neck and every hair on her head, listening to the very oscillation of her chest produced by reading. He also rubbernecked in front of a bookstore, where, like spiders, black vignettes darkened on ivory paper, sketched with a flourish, in a hurry, so that sometimes you couldn’t even make out what they were, and strange letters looked like hieroglyphs. He rubbernecked in front of a machine that alone occupied the entire shop and moved behind the mirror glass, rolling a huge shaft that ground chocolate. He rubbernecked in front of the shops where Parisian crocodiles stop for whole hours, with their hands in their pockets and their mouths open, where a huge lobster reddened in the greenery, a turkey stuffed with truffles rose with the laconic inscription: “300 fr.” and yellow and red fish with golden fins and tails flickered in glass vases. He also rubbernecked on the wide boulevards, which majestically passed across the whole cramped Paris, where in the middle of the city there were trees the height of six-story houses, where a crowd of riders and a bunch of homegrown Parisian lions and tigers, not always accurately depicted in stories, descended onto the asphalt sidewalks. And, having rubbernecked enough and to his heart’s content, he climbed up to a restaurant, where the mirror walls had long been shining with gas, reflecting the countless crowds of ladies and gentlemen who were making noise with speeches at small tables scattered around the hall. After dinner, he hurried to the theater, only wondering which one to choose: each one had its own celebrity, each one its own author, its own actor. There was novelty everywhere. There a vaudeville sparkled, lively, flighty, like the Frenchman himself, new every day, created entirely in three minutes of leisure, making everyone laugh from beginning to end thanks to the inexhaustible whims of the actor’s cheerfulness; there was a hot drama. And he involuntarily compared the dry, thin dramatic scene of Italy, where the same old Goldoni, known by heart by everyone, was repeated, or new comedies, so innocent and naive that a child would be bored by them; he compared their thin group with this lively, hasty dramatic flood, where everything was forged while it was hot, where everyone was only afraid that his novelty would not grow cold. Having laughed his fill, having been agitated, having watched, tired, overwhelmed by impressions, he returned home and threw himself into bed, which, as is known, is the only thing a Frenchman needs in his room; he uses public places for his study, dinner, and evening lighting. But the prince, however, did not forget to combine intellectual pursuits with this varied rubbernecking, which his soul impatiently demanded. He began to listen to all the famous professors. The lively speech, often enthusiastic, the new points and sides noted by the eloquent professor, were unexpected for the young Italian. He felt how the veil began to fall from his eyes, how previously unnoticed objects rose before him in a different, bright form, and even the clutter of knowledge that he had acquired, which usually perishes in most people without any application, was awakened and, looked at with a different eye, was fixed forever in his memory. He also did not miss hearing a single famous preacher, publicist, chamber orator, and everything with which Paris noisily thunders in Europe. Despite the fact that he did not always have enough means, that the old prince sent him an allowance as a student, not as a prince, he managed, however, to find an opportunity to visit everywhere, to gain access to all the celebrities about whom the European sheets trumpet, repeating each other, he even saw in person those fashionable writers whose strange creations, along with others, struck his ardent young soul and in whom everyone imagined they heard strings that had never been plucked before, bends of passions that had been elusive until now. In a word, the Italian’s life took on a broad, multifaceted form, embracing all the enormous brilliance of European activity. At once, on the same day, careless rubbernecking and anxious awakening, easy work of the eyes and intense work of the mind, a vaudeville at the theater, a preacher in church, the political whirlwind of magazines and chambers, applause in auditoriums, the stunning thunder of a conservatory orchestra, the airy brilliance of a dancing scene, the rumbling of street life — what a gigantic life for a twenty-five-year-old youth! There is no better place than Paris; he would not have exchanged such a life for anything. How fun and pleasant it is to live in the very heart of Europe, where, as you walk, you rise higher, you feel that you are a member of a great worldwide society! The thought even ran through his head to give up Italy altogether and settle in Paris forever. Italy now seemed to him some kind of dark, moldy corner of Europe, where life and all movement had withered.
Diary of a Madman
Rome
Fragment
Four years of his life, four years too significant for a youth, flew by in this fiery way, and by the end of them, many things no longer appeared as they had before. He was disappointed in many things. The same Paris, eternally attracting foreigners, the eternal passion of the Parisians, already seemed to him much, much different from what it had been before. He saw how all this multifacetedness and activity of his life disappeared without conclusions and fruitful spiritual residues. In the movement of its eternal boiling and activity, he now saw a strange inactivity, a terrible kingdom of words instead of deeds. He saw how every Frenchman, it seemed, only worked in one heated head; how this journalistic reading of huge sheets swallowed up the whole day and left no hour for practical life; how every Frenchman was brought up by this strange whirlwind of bookish, typographically moving politics and, still alien to the class to which he belonged, still not having learned in practice all his rights and relations, already attached himself to one party or another, hotly and ardently taking all interests to heart, becoming fierce against his opponents, still not knowing in the face either his interests or his opponents… and the word politics finally became strongly repulsive to the Italian.
In the movement of trade, of the mind, everywhere, in everything, he saw only a strained effort and a striving for novelty. One strove to get the upper hand over another at any cost, even for a single minute. The merchant used his entire capital just on the decoration of his shop, so that with its brilliance and magnificence he could lure the crowd to himself. Bookish literature resorted to pictures and typographical luxury to attract cooling attention. With the strangeness of unheard-of passions, with the ugliness of exceptions from human nature, stories and novels tried to take possession of the reader. Everything, it seemed, was impudently imposing itself and asking for it itself, without being called, like a disreputable woman who catches a man on the street at night; everything, one in front of the other, raised its hand higher, like a crowd of annoying beggars surrounding them. In science itself, in its animated lectures, the dignity of which he could not help but acknowledge, he now noticed everywhere the desire to show off, to brag, to put oneself on display; everywhere there were brilliant episodes, and there was no solemn, majestic flow of the whole. Everywhere there were efforts to lift up facts that had not been noticed until now and give them enormous influence, sometimes at the expense of the harmony of the whole, only in order to leave the honor of the discovery to oneself; finally, almost everywhere there was a daring self-confidence and nowhere was there a humble recognition of one’s own ignorance, — and he brought to mind the verse with which the Italian Alfieri, in a caustic disposition of his spirit, reproached the French:
“Tutto fanno, nulla sanno,
Tutto sanno, nulla fanno;
Gira volta son Francesi,
Piu gli pesi, men ti danno.”
A melancholy mood took hold of him. In vain did he try to distract himself, he tried to get together with people whom he respected, but the Italian nature did not get along with the French element. Friendship was quickly tied, but already in one day the Frenchman showed all of himself to the last line: on the next day there was nothing more to learn about him, it was no longer possible to immerse a question further than a certain depth in his soul, the point of thought did not penetrate further; and the Italian’s feelings were too strong to find a full response in the light nature. And he found some strange emptiness even in the hearts of those whom he could not refuse to respect. And he finally saw that, with all its brilliant features, with its noble impulses, with its chivalrous outbursts, the whole nation was something pale, imperfect, a light vaudeville, begotten by itself. A majestically dignified idea did not rest upon it. Everywhere there were hints of thoughts, and there were no thoughts themselves; everywhere there were half-passions, and there were no passions, everything was unfinished, everything was dashed off, thrown down with a quick hand; the whole nation was a brilliant vignette, not a painting by a great master.
Whether the sudden melancholy that came over him gave him the opportunity to see everything in such a way, or whether the inner, true, and fresh feeling of an Italian was the reason for this — one way or another, Paris with all its brilliance and noise soon became a burdensome desert for him, and he involuntarily chose its deaf, distant ends. He only still went to the Italian opera, only there did his soul seem to rest, and the sounds of his native language now grew before him in all their power and fullness. And the Italy he had forgotten began to appear to him more often, in the distance, in some alluring light; with each day its calls became more audible, and he finally decided to write to his father to allow him to return to Rome, that he no longer saw the need for himself to remain in Paris. For two months he received no answer, not even the usual bills of exchange that he should have received long ago. At first he waited patiently, knowing his father’s capricious character, but finally anxiety began to take hold of him. Several times a week he visited his banker and always received the same answer, that there was no news from Rome. Despair was ready to flare up in his soul. His means of support had long since ceased, he had long ago taken out a loan from the banker, but that money had also long since run out, he had long been having lunch, breakfast, and living on credit somehow; they began to look at him askance and unpleasantly — and there was not a single piece of news from any of his friends. It was then that he strongly felt his loneliness. In restless anticipation, he wandered around this city that had bored him to death. In the summer it was even more unbearable for him: all the crowds of visitors had scattered to mineral waters, to European hotels and roads. The specter of emptiness was seen in everything. The houses and streets of Paris were unbearable, its gardens languished crushingly between houses scorched by the sun. As if killed, he stopped over the Seine, on the clumsy, heavy bridge, on its stuffy embankment, in vain trying to forget himself with something, to look at something; an immense longing devoured him, and a nameless worm gnawed at his heart. Finally, fate took pity on him — and one day the banker handed him a letter. It was from his uncle, who informed him that the old prince no longer existed, that he could come to dispose of the inheritance, which required his personal presence because it was badly mismanaged. The letter contained a thin bill, barely enough for the road and to pay off a quarter of his debts. The young prince did not want to delay a minute, somehow persuaded the banker to postpone the debt, and took a seat in a courier’s carriage. It seemed that a terrible burden had fallen from his soul when Paris disappeared from view and the fresh air of the fields breathed on him. In two days he was already in Marseille, he did not want to rest for an hour and that same evening he transferred to a steamer. The Mediterranean Sea seemed native to him: it washed the shores of his homeland, and he felt refreshed just by looking at its endless waves. It was difficult to explain the feeling that embraced him at the sight of the first Italian city — it was magnificent Genoa. In double beauty, its motley bell towers, striped churches of white and black marble, and its entire many-towered amphitheater, which suddenly surrounded him from all sides when the steamer arrived at the pier, rose above him. He had never seen Genoa. This playful motleyness of houses, churches, and palaces in the thin celestial air, which shone with an incomprehensible blueness, was unique. Having come ashore, he suddenly found himself in those dark, wonderful, narrow, flagstoned streets, with a single narrow strip of blue sky above. He was struck by this narrowness between the houses, which were tall and huge, the absence of carriage noise, the small triangular squares, and between them, like narrow corridors, the winding lines of the streets filled with the shops of Genoese silversmiths and gold masters. The picturesque lace veils of the women, barely stirred by the warm scirocco; their firm gait, the ringing chatter in the streets; the open doors of the churches, the smell of incense wafting from there — all this breathed upon him with something distant, bygone. He remembered that he had not been to church for many years, which had lost its pure, high meaning in those clever lands of Europe where he had been. He quietly entered and silently knelt by the magnificent marble columns and prayed for a long time, not knowing what for: he prayed that Italy had accepted him, that the desire to pray had come upon him, that his soul was festive, and this prayer was, surely, the best. In a word, he took Genoa away with him as a beautiful stop: in it he received the first kiss of Italy. He saw Livorno, the deserted Pisa, Florence, which he knew little about before, with the same clear feeling. Its heavy faceted cathedral dome looked at him majestically, the dark palaces of royal architecture and the strict grandeur of a small town. Then he raced through the Apennines, accompanied by the same bright mood, and when finally after a six-day journey in the clear distance, in the pure sky, the wonderfully rounded dome appeared — oh!… how many feelings then crowded into his chest at once! He did not know and could not convey them; he looked at every hillock and slope. And here at last is the Ponte Molle, the city gates, and here the beautiful Piazza del Popolo embraced him, Monte Pincio with its terraces, stairs, statues, and people walking on the tops looked at him. God! how his heart beat! The veturino rushed along Corso Street, where he once walked with the abbot, innocent, simple-hearted, knowing only that the Latin language is the father of Italian. Here again all the houses that he knew by heart appeared before him: Palazzo Ruspoli with its huge cafe, Piazza Colonna, Palazzo Sciarra, Palazzo Doria; finally he turned into the alleys, so reviled by foreigners, not bustling alleys, where only occasionally a barber’s shop with painted lilies above the doors was found, or a hatter’s shop, which had stuck a long cardinal’s hat out of its doors, or a small shop with wicker chairs, which were being made right there on the street. Finally, the carriage stopped in front of a majestic palace in the Bramante style. There was no one in the bare, unadorned vestibule. On the stairs, he was met by the decrepit maestro di casa, because the doorman with his club had, as usual, gone to the cafe, where he spent all his time. The old man ran to open the shutters and gradually light up the ancient majestic halls. A sad feeling took hold of him — a feeling understandable to anyone who returns home after several years of absence, when everything seems even older, even emptier, and when every object known in childhood speaks to you with a heavy heart — and the happier the events associated with it were, the more devastating the sadness it sends to the heart. He walked through a long series of halls, looked at the study and bedroom, where not so long ago the old owner of the palace fell asleep in a bed under a canopy with tassels and a coat of arms and then went out in a dressing gown and slippers to the study to drink a glass of donkey milk, with the intention of gaining weight; the dressing room, where he dressed himself with the refined diligence of an old coquette and from where he then went in a carriage with his footmen for a walk in the Villa Borghese, constantly using a lorgnette to look at some Englishwoman who also came there to walk. On the tables and in the drawers, the remains of blush, powder, and all sorts of lotions with which the old man rejuvenated himself were still visible. The maestro di casa announced that two weeks before his death, he had made a firm intention to marry and had a consultation with foreign doctors on how to sustain con onore i doveri di marito; but that one day, having made two or three visits to cardinals and some prior, he returned home tired, sat down in an armchair and died the death of a righteous man, although his death would have been even more blessed if, according to the maestro di casa, he had thought to send for his confessor, il padre Benvenuto, two minutes earlier. The young prince listened to all this, distracted, not belonging in his thoughts to anything. Having rested from the road and from the strange impressions, he set about his affairs. He was struck by their terrible disorder. Everything, from small to large, was in a confused, tangled state. Four endless lawsuits for dilapidated palaces and lands in Ferrara and Naples, completely devastated incomes for three years in advance, debts and a beggarly lack amid magnificence — this is what appeared before his eyes. The old prince was an incomprehensible combination of stinginess and splendor. He kept a huge staff of servants, who received no pay, nothing but a livery, and were content with handouts from foreigners who came to see the gallery. The prince had huntsmen, waiters, footmen who rode behind his carriage, footmen who did not ride anywhere and sat for whole days in the nearest cafe or osteria, chattering all sorts of nonsense. He dismissed all this rabble at the same hour, all the huntsmen and hunters, and left only the old maestro di casa; he almost completely eliminated the stable, selling the horses that were never used; he summoned lawyers and dealt with his lawsuits, at least in such a way that he combined four into two, abandoning the rest as completely useless; he decided to limit himself in everything and lead a life with all the rigor of economy. It was not difficult for him to do this, because he had already become accustomed to limiting himself in advance. It was also not difficult for him to give up all contact with his class — which, by the way, consisted of only two or three families that were living out their lives — a society educated in some way by the echoes of French education, and a rich banker who gathered a circle of foreigners around him, and the inaccessible cardinals, unsociable, callous people who spent their time alone playing a card game called tresette (a kind of fool) with their valet or barber. In a word, he completely secluded himself, began to examine Rome and became in this respect similar to a foreigner who is at first struck by its petty, unbrilliant appearance, its stained, dark houses, and who asks with bewilderment, wandering from alley to alley: where is the great ancient Rome? — and then he learns it, when ancient Rome little by little begins to emerge from the narrow alleys, with a dark arch here, a marble cornice built into a wall there, a darkened porphyry column there, a pediment in the middle of a stinking fish market there, a whole portico in front of a not-so-old church there, and, finally, far away, where the living city ends completely, it rises up mightily amid thousand-year-old ivy, aloes, and open plains with the immense Colosseum, triumphal arches, the remains of innumerable Caesarian palaces, imperial baths, temples, tombs, scattered across the fields; and the foreigner no longer sees its current narrow streets and alleys, completely embraced by the ancient world: colossal images of Caesars rise in his memory; his ear is struck by the shouts and applause of the ancient crowd…
It seems the provided text is a continuation of the previous entry, a fragment from a diary or a novel. I’ll continue the translation, maintaining the style and tone of the original.
But not like a foreigner, devoted to Livy and Tacitus alone, rushing past everything to antiquity alone, who would wish in a fit of noble pedantry to level the entire new city — no, he found everything equally beautiful: the ancient world, stirring from under the dark architrave, the powerful Middle Ages, which left traces everywhere of giant artists and the magnificent generosity of popes, and, finally, the new age clinging to them with its crowding new population. He liked this wonderful fusion of them into one, these signs of a crowded capital and a desert at the same time: a palace, columns, grass, wild bushes running up the walls, a trembling market in the midst of dark, silent masses, shrouded from below, the lively cry of a fish seller at the portico, a lemonade vendor with an airy, green-decorated little shop in front of the Pantheon. He liked the very drabness of the streets — dark, untidy, the absence of yellow and light colors on the houses, the idyll in the middle of the city: a resting herd of goats on the street pavement, the cries of children and some kind of invisible presence of a clear, solemn silence embracing a person over everything. He liked these continuous suddennesses, unexpectedness, that strike one in Rome. Like a hunter going out in the morning to hunt, like an old knight, a seeker of adventures, he set out every day to find new and new wonders and stopped involuntarily when suddenly, in the middle of a insignificant alley, a palace rose before him, breathing with a strict, somber majesty. Its heavy, indestructible walls were built of dark travertine, the top was crowned with a magnificently assembled colossal cornice, the large door was faced with marble beams, and the windows looked majestic, burdened with luxurious architectural decorations; or how suddenly, unexpectedly, along with a small square, a picturesque fountain appeared, splashing itself and its granite steps disfigured with moss; how a dark, dirty street ended unexpectedly with Bernini’s playing architectural decoration, or a soaring obelisk, or a church and a monastery wall, flashing with the brilliance of the sun in the dark blue sky, with black, coal-like cypresses. And the further the streets went inward, the more often palaces and architectural creations of Bramante, Borromini, Sangallo, Dellaporta, Vignola, Buonarotti grew — and he finally understood clearly that only here, only in Italy, can one hear the presence of architecture and its strict majesty as an art. His spiritual delight was even higher when he was transported to the interior of churches and palaces, where arches, flat pillars, and round columns of all possible kinds of marble, mixed with basalt, azure cornices, porphyry, gold, and antique stones, were combined in harmony, subdued by a well-thought-out idea, and above all of them rose the immortal creation of the brush. They were highly beautiful, these well-thought-out decorations of halls, full of royal majesty and architectural luxury, everywhere able to respectfully bow before painting in this fruitful age, when the artist was also an architect, a painter, and even a sculptor at the same time. The mighty creations of the brush, which are no longer repeated today, rose somberly before him on the darkened walls, still incomprehensible and inaccessible to imitation. Entering and immersing himself more and more in the contemplation of them, he felt his taste visibly developing, the pledge of which was already stored in his soul. And how lowly the luxury of the 19th century now seemed to him before this majestic, beautiful luxury, a petty, insignificant luxury, suitable only for decorating shops, which brought gilders, furniture makers, upholsterers, carpenters, and a bunch of artisans to the field of activity and deprived the world of Raphaels, Titians, and Michelangelo, reducing art to a craft. How lowly this luxury seemed to him, which strikes only the first glance and is then looked at with indifference, compared to this majestic thought of decorating walls with the eternal creation of the brush, compared to this beautiful thought of the owner of the palace to provide himself with an eternal object of enjoyment in hours of rest from affairs and from the noisy fuss of life, having secluded himself there, in a corner, on an old sofa, far from everyone, silently fixing his gaze and at the same time entering deeper with his soul into the secrets of the brush, invisibly maturing in the beauty of his soulful thoughts. For art highly elevates a person, giving nobility and wondrous beauty to the movements of the soul. How lowly the current petty decorations seemed to him before this unshakable fruitful luxury, which surrounded a person with objects that move and educate the soul, decorations that are broken and thrown away annually by restless fashion, a strange, incomprehensible offspring of the 19th century, before which the wise men silently bowed, a destroyer and devastator of everything that is colossal, majestic, holy. In such reflections, the thought involuntarily came to him: is it not because of this the indifferent coldness that embraces the current century, the commercial, low calculation, the early bluntness of feelings that have not yet had time to develop and arise? The icons were taken out of the temple — and the temple is no longer a temple; bats and evil spirits live in it.
The more he looked, the more he was struck by this extraordinary fruitfulness of the age, and he involuntarily exclaimed: “When and how did they manage to do this!” This magnificent side of Rome seemed to grow before him every day. Galleries and galleries, and there is no end to them… And there, and in that church, some miracle of the brush is stored. And there, on a crumbling wall, a fresco ready to disappear still amazes. And there, on the exalted marbles and pillars, assembled from ancient pagan temples, a ceiling shines with an unfading brush. All this was like hidden gold mines, covered with ordinary earth, known only to a miner. How full his soul was every time he returned home; how different this feeling, embraced by the calm solemnity of silence, was from those anxious impressions with which his soul was senselessly filled in Paris, when he returned home tired, exhausted, rarely being able to believe the outcome of them.
Now its unsightly, darkened, soiled appearance, so reviled by foreigners, seemed to him even more in harmony with these internal treasures of Rome. It would have been unpleasant for him to go out after all this into a fashionable street with shining shops, the dandyism of people and carriages: it would have been something distracting, sacrilegious. He liked better this modest silence of the streets, this special expression of the Roman population, this phantom of the eighteenth century, still flashing on the street, either in the form of a black abbot with a triangular hat, black stockings, and shoes, or in the form of an old crimson cardinal’s carriage with gilded axles, wheels, cornices, and coats of arms — everything somehow harmonized with the importance of Rome: this lively, unhurried people, picturesquely and calmly walking along the streets, having thrown a half-cloak or a jacket over their shoulders, without the heavy expression on their faces that so struck him on the blue blouses and on the entire population of Paris. Here, poverty itself appeared in some kind of bright form, carefree, unfamiliar with torment and tears, carelessly and picturesquely holding out a hand; the picturesque ranks of monks crossing the streets in long white or black clothes; the unclean red Capuchin, who suddenly flared up in the sun with a light camel color; finally, this population of artists, gathered from all sides of the world, who left here the narrow scraps of European clothes and appeared in free, picturesque outfits; their majestic, stately beards, taken from the portraits of Leonardo da Vinci and Titian, so unlike those ugly, narrow beards that a Frenchman remakes and trims for himself five times a month. Here the artist felt the beauty of long, undulating hair and allowed it to scatter in curls. Here even the German, with the crookedness of his legs and the lack of a waist, acquired a significant expression, having spread his golden curls over his shoulders, draped in the light folds of a Greek blouse or a velvet outfit known as cinquecento, which only artists in Rome have adopted. Traces of strict calm and quiet work were reflected on their faces. The very conversations and opinions heard in the streets, in cafes, in osterias, were completely opposite or unlike those he heard in the cities of Europe. Here there were no talks about reduced funds, about chamber debates, about Spanish affairs: here speeches were heard about a recently discovered ancient statue, about the dignity of the brushes of great masters, disputes and disagreements about a new artist’s exhibited work were heard, talks about folk holidays and, finally, private conversations, in which a person was revealed, conversations that were squeezed out of Europe by boring public talks and political opinions that had expelled heartfelt expression from faces.
He often left the city to look at its surroundings, and then other wonders struck him. These mute, deserted Roman fields, strewn with the remains of ancient temples, were beautiful, spreading out with an inexpressible calmness all around, where they blazed with a solid gold from merged yellow flowers, where they shone with the heat of a fanned coal from the crimson leaves of wild poppies. They presented four wondrous views in four directions. On one side — they connected directly with the horizon with one sharp, even line, the arches of the aqueducts seemed to be standing in the air and as if pasted on the glittering silver sky. On the other — mountains shone above the fields; not breaking out impulsively and ugly, as in Tyrol or Switzerland, but curving and sloping with harmonious, floating lines, illuminated by the wondrous clarity of the air, they were ready to fly into the sky; at their foot a long arcade of aqueducts rushed, like a long foundation, and the top of the mountains seemed to be an airy continuation of the wondrous building, and the sky above them was no longer silver, but of the inexpressible color of a spring lilac. On the third side — these fields were also crowned with mountains, which rose closer and higher, with the front rows protruding more strongly and the light ledges going into the distance. The thin blue air clothed them in a wondrous gradation of colors; and through this airy-blue veil of theirs, barely noticeable houses and villas of Frascati shone, where they were thinly and lightly touched by the sun, where they went into the bright haze of the barely noticeable groves dusting in the distance. When he suddenly turned back, the fourth side of the view appeared to him: the fields ended with Rome itself. The corners and lines of the houses, the roundness of the domes, the statues of St. John Lateran and the majestic dome of St. Peter, which grew higher and higher as he moved away from it and finally remained commandingly alone on the entire half-horizon, when the whole city had completely disappeared, shone sharply and clearly. He loved even better to look at these fields from the terrace of one of the villas of Frascati or Albano in the hours of sunset. Then they seemed like a vast sea, shining and rising from the dark railings of the terrace; the slopes and lines disappeared in the light that embraced them. At first they still seemed greenish, and here and there scattered tombs and arches were still visible on them, then they already showed through with a light yellow color in rainbow shades of light, barely revealing the ancient remains, and finally, they became more and more crimson, absorbing in themselves the immense dome itself and merging into one thick crimson color, and only the golden strip of the sea sparkling in the distance separated them from the crimson horizon, which was also like them. Nowhere, never had he happened to see a field turn into a flame, like the sky. For a long time, full of inexpressible delight, he stood before such a view, and then he just stood like that, simply, not admiring, having forgotten everything, when the sun had already hidden itself, the horizon quickly faded and the fields that had suddenly faded instantly faded even faster, evening established its dark image everywhere, over the ruins luminous flies rose in fiery fountains, and the clumsy winged insect, rushing upright, like a person, known as a devil, hit his eyes nonsensically. Only then did he feel that the coming cold of the southern night had already chilled him all over, and he hurried to the city streets so as not to catch a southern fever.
Thus his life flowed in contemplations of nature, arts, and antiquities. Amid this life, he felt, more than ever, the desire to penetrate more deeply into the history of Italy, which until now had been known to him in episodes, in fragments; without it, the present seemed incomplete to him, and he eagerly set about archives, chronicles, and notes. He could now read them not like a stay-at-home Italian, who enters with both body and soul into the events being read and does not see the whole mass of the whole because of the people and events surrounding him. He could now look at everything calmly, as from a Vatican window. His stay outside of Italy, in view of the noise and movement of acting peoples and states, served as a strict test of all his conclusions, gave a multifaceted and all-encompassing quality to his eye. Reading now, he was even more and at the same time more impartially struck by the grandeur and brilliance of Italy’s past era. He was amazed at such a rapid, diverse development of man in such a cramped corner of the earth, with such a strong movement of all forces. He saw how man boiled here, how each city spoke its own language, how each city had entire volumes of history, how all the images and types of civil government arose here at once: the agitated republics of strong, rebellious characters and the absolute despots among them; a whole city of royal merchants, entangled with secret governmental threads under the guise of the sole power of the doge; foreigners summoned among the natives; strong pressures and repulsions in the bosom of an insignificant town; the almost fabulous brilliance of dukes and monarchs of tiny lands; patrons, protectors, and persecutors; a whole series of great people who clashed at the same time; the lyre, the compass, the sword, and the palette; temples rising in the midst of battles and unrest; enmity, blood feud, magnanimous traits, and heaps of romantic events of private life in the midst of a political public whirlwind and the wonderful connection between them: such an amazing disclosure of all sides of political and private life, such an awakening in such a cramped volume of all the elements of man, which in other places occurred only in parts and over large spaces! And all this disappeared and passed away at once, everything froze, like extinguished lava, and was even thrown out of Europe’s memory, like old, useless junk. Nowhere, not even in the magazines, does poor Italy show its uncrowned brow, deprived of political significance, and with it, of influence on the world.
“And will its glory never be resurrected?” he thought. “Are there no means to restore its former splendor?” And he remembered the time, when he was still at the university in Lucca, when he raved about the renewal of its former glory, how it was a favorite thought of the youth, how they dreamed of it good-naturedly and simply over glasses; and he now saw how short-sighted the youth were and how short-sighted the politicians who reproached the people for carelessness and laziness were. He now felt, with confusion, the Great Hand, before which a silent man prostrates himself in the dust — the Great Hand that draws worldwide events from above. It called from its midst its own persecuted citizen, a poor Genoese, who alone killed his homeland, showing the world an unknown land and other wide paths. The worldwide horizon expanded, the movements of Europe seethed with a huge sweep, ships rushed around the world, moving the mighty northern forces. The Mediterranean Sea remained empty; like a shallow riverbed, the bypassed Italy became shallow. Venice stands, reflecting its extinguished palaces in the Adriatic waves, and a tearing pity penetrates the heart of a foreigner when a bowed gondolier pulls him under the deserted walls and ruined railings of silent marble balconies. Ferrara is silent, frightening with the wild gloom of its ducal palace. Its leaning towers and architectural wonders, finding themselves among a generation indifferent to them, look deserted throughout the whole of Italy. A ringing echo resounds in the streets that once bustled, and a poor veturino drives up to a dirty osteria that has settled in a magnificent palace. Italy found itself in a beggar’s sackcloth, and pieces of its faded royal clothes hang on it like dusty rags.
In a fit of spiritual pity, he was even ready to shed tears. But a comforting, majestic thought came to his soul by itself, and he felt with another, higher feeling that Italy was not dead, that its irresistible eternal dominion over the whole world could be heard, that its great genius was eternally hovering over it, having at the very beginning tied the fate of Europe in its chest, having brought the cross to the dark European forests, having seized a wild man at their far edge with a civil grappling hook, having here for the first time boiled with worldwide trade, cunning politics, and the complexity of civil springs, having then soared with all the brilliance of the mind, having crowned its brow with the holy crown of poetry and, when the political influence of Italy had already begun to disappear, having unfolded over the world with solemn wonders — the arts, which gave man unknown pleasures and divine feelings that had not risen from the bosom of his soul until then. When the age of art also disappeared and people immersed in calculations grew cold to it, it hovers and spreads over the world in the howling cries of music, and on the banks of the Seine, the Neva, the Thames, Moscow, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, within the walls of Algiers and on distant, until recently wild, islands, the enthusiastic applause of ringing singers thunders. Finally, with its very antiquity and destruction, it now rules menacingly in the world: these majestic architectural wonders remained as ghosts to reproach Europe for its Chinese petty luxury, for the toy fragmentation of thought. And this very wonderful collection of worlds that have lived out their lives, and the charm of their combination with eternally blooming nature — all this exists in order to awaken the world, so that a resident of the north, as if through a dream, can sometimes imagine this south, so that a dream of it would tear him out of a cold life devoted to occupations that harden the soul — would tear him out of there, flashing at him unexpectedly with a perspective that carries him into the distance, with a Colosseum night under the moon, with a beautifully dying Venice, with an invisible heavenly brilliance and the warm kisses of the wondrous air — so that at least once in his life he would be a beautiful person…
In such a solemn moment, he was reconciled with the destruction of his homeland, and he then saw in everything the germs of eternal life, of an eternally better future, which its eternal Creator eternally prepares for the world. In such moments, he even very often thought about the current meaning of the Roman people. He saw in them a material that was still untouched. Not once did they play a role in the brilliant era of Italy. The popes and aristocratic houses marked their names on the pages of history, but the people remained unnoticed. The course of the interests that moved within and without them did not touch them. Education did not touch them and did not stir up the forces hidden in them with a whirlwind. There was something childishly noble in their nature. This pride in the Roman name, as a result of which a part of the city, considering themselves descendants of the ancient Quirites, never entered into marriage unions with others. These features of a character mixed with good nature and passions, which show his bright nature: a Roman never forgot either evil or good, he is either good or evil, either a spendthrift or a miser, in him virtues and vices are in their native layers and have not mixed, as in an educated person, into indefinite images, in whom there are a little of all sorts of petty passions under the supreme command of egoism. This intemperance and the impulse to spend all his money, a habit of strong nations — all this had meaning for him. This bright, unpretentious cheerfulness, which other peoples now lack: everywhere he went, it seemed to him that they were trying to entertain the people; here, on the contrary, the people entertain themselves. They want to be participants themselves, you can hardly hold them back at the carnival; everything they have accumulated during the year, they are ready to squander in these one and a half weeks; they will put everything on one outfit: they will dress up as a clown, a woman, a poet, a doctor, a count, they will lie nonsense and lecture to those who listen and those who don’t — and this cheerfulness embraces everyone like a whirlwind — from a forty-year-old to a child: the last beggar, who has nothing to wear, turns his jacket inside out, smears his face with coal and runs there, into the motley crowd. And this cheerfulness comes directly from his nature; it is not the result of intoxication — the same people will boo a drunk if they meet him on the street. Then there are the features of a natural artistic instinct and feeling: he saw how a simple woman pointed out a mistake in an artist’s painting; he saw how this feeling was involuntarily expressed in picturesque clothes, in church decorations, how in Genzano the people decorated the streets with flower carpets, how multicolored leaves of flowers turned into paints and shadows, how patterns, cardinal’s coats of arms, a portrait of the pope, monograms, birds, animals, and arabesques appeared on the pavement. How on the eve of Holy Sunday the food sellers, pizzicaroli, decorated their little shops: pork legs, sausages, white bladders, lemons, and leaves turned into a mosaic and made up a ceiling; circles of Parmesan and other cheeses, lying one on top of the other, became columns; from tallow candles, a fringe of a mosaic curtain was made, which draped the inner walls; from tallow, white as snow, entire statues were cast, historical groups of Christian and biblical content, which the astonished viewer took for alabaster — the entire little shop turned into a bright temple, shining with gilded stars, skillfully lit by hung bottles and reflecting infinite heaps of eggs with mirrors. All this required the presence of taste, and the pizzicarolo did it not for any income, but so that others could admire and he could admire it himself. Finally, a people in whom a sense of self-dignity lives: here he is il popolo, not rabble, and carries in his nature the direct beginnings of the times of the initial Quirites; he could not even be led astray by the influx of foreigners, the corruptors of inactive nations, who breed the most contemptible class of people in taverns and on the roads, by whom a traveler often makes a judgment about the whole people. The very absurdity of the governmental decrees, this incoherent heap of all kinds of laws that arose at all times and relations and have not been abolished to this day, among which there are even edicts from the time of the ancient Roman republic — all this has not eradicated the high sense of justice in the people. They criticize an unrighteous pretender, boo a dead man’s coffin, and generously harness themselves to a chariot carrying a body dear to the people. The actions of the clergy themselves, often scandalous, which would have led to debauchery in other places, have almost no effect on them: they know how to separate religion from its hypocritical performers and have not been infected with the cold thought of disbelief. Finally, the very need and poverty, the inevitable fate of a stagnant state, do not lead them to dark villainy: they are cheerful and endure everything, and only in novels and stories do they cut throats on the streets. All this showed him the elements of a strong, untouched people, for whom some kind of arena seemed to be prepared in the future. European enlightenment, as if intentionally, did not touch them and did not plant its cold perfection in their chests. The spiritual government itself, this strange surviving phantom of past times, remained as if to protect the people from outside influence, so that none of the ambitious neighbors would encroach on their personality, so that their proud nationality would be hidden for a time. In addition, here, in Rome, something dead was not heard; in the very ruins and magnificent poverty of Rome there was not that languid, penetrating feeling with which a person is involuntarily embraced when contemplating the monuments of a nation dying while still alive. Here there is a opposite feeling; here there is a clear, solemn calm. And every time, considering all this, the prince involuntarily gave himself up to reflection and began to suspect some mysterious meaning in the word “eternal Rome.”
The outcome of all this was that he tried to learn more and more about his people. He followed them on the streets, in cafes, where each had its own visitors: in one, antiquarians, in another, shooters and hunters, in a third, cardinal’s servants, in a fourth, artists, in a fifth, all the Roman youth and Roman dandyism; he followed them in osterias, purely Roman osterias, where no foreigner goes, where a Roman nobile sometimes sits next to a minente and the company takes off their jackets and ties on hot days; he followed him in country picturesque-drab little taverns with airy windows without glass, where Romans came in families and companies to have dinner, or, in their expression, to far allegria. He sat down and ate with them, willingly joined in the conversation, very often marveling at the simple common sense and lively originality of the stories of simple, illiterate townsfolk. But most of all, he had the opportunity to learn about him during ceremonies and festivities, when the entire population of Rome comes to the surface and suddenly an innumerable multitude of until then unsuspected beauties appears — beauties whose images only flash in bas-reliefs and in ancient anthological poems. These full gazes, alabaster shoulders, tar-black hair, raised on their heads in a thousand different ways or thrown back, picturesquely pierced through with a golden arrow, their hands, their proud gait, everywhere features and hints of a serious classical beauty, and not the light charm of graceful women. Here women seemed similar to buildings in Italy: they are either palaces or huts, either beauties or ugly; there is no middle ground between them: there are no pretty ones. He enjoyed them as he enjoyed the verses in a beautiful poem that stood out from the others and sent a refreshing shiver through his soul.
But soon a feeling was added to such pleasures, one that declared a strong struggle against all the others — a feeling that called forth strong human passions from the depths of his soul, raising a democratic rebellion against the high autocracy of the soul: he saw Annunziata. And in this way we have finally reached the bright image that illuminated the beginning of our story.
It was during the carnival.
“I’m not going to the Corso today,” the principe said to his maestro di casa, leaving the house, “I’m tired of the carnival, I prefer the summer holidays and ceremonies…”
“But is this a carnival?” the old man said. “This is a carnival for children. I remember the carnival: when there was not a single carriage on the whole Corso and music thundered through the streets all night; when painters, architects, and sculptors invented entire groups, stories; when the people — the prince understands: all the people, everyone — all the gilders, frame-makers, mosaicists, beautiful women, all the signoria, all the nobili, everyone, everyone, everyone… o quanta allegria! That’s when it was a carnival, but what kind of carnival is this now? Eh!” the old man said and shrugged his shoulders, then said again: “Eh!” and shrugged his shoulders; and then he said: “E una porcheria.”
Then the maestro di casa, in a soulful impulse, made an unusually strong gesture with his hand, but calmed down when he saw that the prince had been gone for a long time. He was already on the street. Not wanting to participate in the carnival, he had not taken a mask or an iron mesh for his face with him and, having thrown a cloak over himself, only wanted to get through the Corso to the other half of the city. But the crowd of people was too dense. As soon as he squeezed between two people, they already treated him to flour from above; a motley harlequin hit him on the shoulder with a rattle, flying past with his Columbine; confetti and bunches of flowers flew into his eyes; from two sides they began to buzz in his ears: from one side a count, from the other a medic, who was reading him a long lecture about what was in his stomach. He had no strength to break through them, because the crowd of people had grown; the chain of carriages, no longer being able to move, stopped. The attention of the crowd was occupied by some daredevil who was walking on stilts on a level with the houses, risking being knocked down at any minute and crashing to his death on the pavement. But he, it seems, did not care about that. He was dragging a giant’s effigy on his shoulders, holding it with one hand, carrying a sonnet written on paper in the other with a paper tail attached to it, such as a paper kite has, and shouting at the top of his voice: “Ecco il gran poeta morto. Ecco il suo sonetto colla coda!” (“Here is the dead great poet! here is his sonnet with a tail!”) This daredevil had packed the crowd behind him to such an extent that the prince could hardly catch his breath. Finally, the whole crowd moved forward after the dead poet; the chain of carriages moved, which he was very happy about, although the movement of the people knocked off his hat, which he now rushed to pick up. Having picked up his hat, he also raised his eyes and was stunned: an unheard-of beauty stood before him. She was in a shining Albanian outfit, in a row of two other, also beautiful women, who were before her like night before day. It was a miracle in the highest degree. Everything should have faded before this brilliance. Looking at her, it became clear why Italian poets also compare beauties to the sun. This was exactly the sun, complete beauty. Everything that is scattered and shines individually in the beauties of the world, all this was gathered here together. Looking at her chest and bust, it already became obvious what was lacking in the chests and busts of other beauties. Before her thick, shining hair, all other hair would have seemed thin and dull. Her hands were for the purpose of turning everyone into an artist — as an artist, he would have looked at them forever, not daring to breathe. Before her legs, the legs of Englishwomen, German women, Frenchwomen, and women of all other nations would have seemed like splinters; only the ancient sculptors kept the high idea of their beauty in their statues. It was a beauty so complete, created to blind everyone equally! Here it was not necessary to have any special taste: all tastes had to converge here, everyone had to prostrate themselves: both the believer and the unbeliever would have fallen before her, as before the sudden appearance of a deity. He saw how all the people, as many of them as there were, stared at her, how women expressed involuntary amazement on their faces, mixed with pleasure, and repeated: “O bella!” — how everything that was there, it seemed, had turned into an artist and was staring intently at her alone. But on the face of the beauty, only one attention to the carnival was written: she looked only at the crowd and at the masks, not noticing the eyes turned on her, barely listening to the men standing behind her in velvet jackets, probably relatives, who had come with them. The prince began to ask those who were standing near him who such a wonderful beauty was and where she was from. But everywhere he received only a shrug of the shoulders in response, accompanied by a gesture, and the words: “I don’t know, she must be a foreigner.” Motionless, holding his breath, he devoured her with his eyes. The beauty finally turned her full eyes on him, but immediately became embarrassed and looked away. He was awakened by a cry: a huge cart stopped in front of him. A crowd of masks in pink blouses in it, calling him by name, began to throw flour at him, accompanying it with one long exclamation: “U, u, u!..” And in one minute he was covered with white dust from head to toe, with the loud laughter of all his neighbors who surrounded him. All white, like snow, even with white eyelashes, the prince ran home to change.
While he was running home, while he had time to change, only an hour and a half remained until Ave Maria. Empty carriages were returning from the Corso: those who had been sitting in them moved to the balconies — to watch the crowd that did not stop moving from there, waiting for the horse race. At the turn to the Corso, he met a cart full of men in jackets and shining women with flower wreaths on their heads, with tambourines and timpani in their hands. The cart, it seemed, was cheerfully returning home, its sides were decorated with garlands, the spokes and rims of the wheels were entwined with green branches. His heart sank when he saw that the beauty who had struck him was sitting among the women in it. Her face was illuminated with a sparkling laugh. The cart quickly rushed past with shouts and songs. His first impulse was to run after it, but a huge procession of musicians blocked his way: on six wheels they were carrying a violin of a monstrous size. One man was sitting astride a stand, another, walking next to it, was drawing a huge bow over the four ropes stretched on it instead of strings. The violin, probably, cost a lot of effort, expense, and time. In front walked a gigantic drum. A crowd of people and boys densely flocked after the musical procession, and the procession was closed by a pizzicarolo known in Rome for his thickness, carrying an enema tube as high as a bell tower. When the street was cleared of the procession, the prince saw that it was foolish and late to run after the cart, and besides, it was unknown which roads it had taken. He could not, however, give up the thought of looking for her. In his imagination, this shining laugh and open mouth with wonderful rows of teeth hovered. “She is a flash of lightning, not a woman,” he repeated to himself and at the same time proudly added: “She is a Roman. Such a woman could only be born in Rome. I must see her. I want to see her not in order to love her, no — I would only want to look at her, to look at her all over, to look at her eyes, to look at her hands, at her fingers, at her shining hair. Not to kiss her, I would only want to look at her. And what then? After all, that’s how it should be, it’s in the law of nature; she has no right to hide and take her beauty away. Complete beauty is given to the world so that everyone can see it, so that everyone can keep an idea of it forever in their heart. If she were simply beautiful, and not such a supreme perfection, she would have the right to belong to one, he could take her to a desert, hide her from the world. But complete beauty must be visible to everyone. Does an architect build a magnificent temple in a narrow alley? No, he puts it in an open square, so that a person can look at it from all sides and admire it. Is a lamp lit for the purpose of hiding it and putting it under a table, said the Divine Teacher? No, a lamp is lit so that it stands on a table, so that everyone can see it, so that everyone can move by its light. No, I must see her for sure.” This is how the prince reasoned and then for a long time thought over and sorted through all the means of how to achieve this — finally, it seemed, he settled on one and set off right there, without delay, to one of those distant streets, of which there are many in Rome, where there is not even a cardinal’s palace with painted coats of arms displayed on wooden oval shields, where a number is visible above each window and door of a cramped little house, where the pavement is humped, where a sly German artist with a folding chair and paints or a goat that has fallen behind a passing herd and stopped to look with amazement at what kind of street it is that he has never seen before looks in from among the foreigners. Here the chatter of Roman women resounds loudly: from all sides, from all windows, speeches and conversations rush. Here everything is frank, and a passerby can know all the domestic secrets completely; even a mother and daughter talk to each other only by sticking both their heads out into the street; here men are not noticeable at all. As soon as morning flashes, siora Susanna already opens the window and sticks her head out, then from another window siora Grazia appears, putting on a skirt. Then siora Nanna opens the window. Then siora Lucia climbs out, combing her braid; finally, siora Cecilia sticks her hand out of the window to get the laundry on the stretched rope, which is then punished for not letting itself be reached for a long time, punished with crumpling, throwing on the floor and the words: “Che bestia!” Here everything is lively, everything is boiling: a shoe flies from a foot out of a window at a mischievous son or at a goat that has come up to a basket where a one-year-old child is placed, started sniffing him, and, tilting its head, was about to explain to him what horns mean. Nothing was unknown here: everything was known. The sioras knew everything there was: what handkerchief siora Giudita had bought, who would have fish for dinner, who was Barbaruccia’s lover, which Capuchin was better at confessing. Only occasionally did a husband, usually standing on the street, leaning against a wall, with a short pipe in his teeth, insert his word, considering it necessary, having heard about the Capuchin, to add a short phrase: “All of them are crooks,” — after which he continued to blow smoke under his nose. No carriage drove here, except perhaps only one two-wheeled rattletrap, harnessed to a mule, which brought flour to the baker, and a sleepy donkey, which could barely drag a crossover basket with broccoli, despite all the urging of the boys, who were treating his un-squeamish sides with stones. There are no shops here, except for a little shop where bread and ropes were sold, with glass bottles, and a dark, narrow cafe, located in the very corner of the street, from which a constantly leaving bottega was visible, who was distributing coffee or chocolate with goat’s milk to the sioras in small tin coffee pots, known as the Aurora. The houses here belonged to two, three, and sometimes four owners, of whom one has only a life estate, another owns one floor and has the right to use the income from it for only two years, after which, according to the will, the floor was to pass from him to padre Vincenzo for ten years, from whom, however, some relative of the former family, who lives in Frascati and has already started a lawsuit in advance, wants to take it away. There were also such owners who owned one window in one house, and two others in another house, and used the income from the window in half with their brother, for which, however, the negligent tenant did not pay at all — in a word, a subject of inexhaustible lawsuits and sustenance for the lawyers and curials who fill Rome. The ladies, who were just mentioned — all, both the first-class ones, honored with full names, and the secondary ones, called by diminutive names, all the Tetty, Tutty, Nainy — for the most part did nothing; they were the wives: of a lawyer, a petty official, a petty merchant, a porter, a facchino, and most often of an unemployed citizen who only knew how to beautifully drape himself in a not very reliable cloak.
Many of the sioras served as models for painters. There were all kinds of models here. When they had money, they had a good time in the osteria with their husbands and the whole company; when there was no money, they were not sad and looked out the window. Now the street was quieter than usual, because some had gone to the crowd on the Corso. The prince went up to the old door of a little house, which was all drilled with holes, so that the owner himself had to poke the key into them for a long time until he hit the right one. He was already ready to grab the ring when he suddenly heard the words:
“The sior principe wants to see Peppe?”
He raised his head up: from the third floor, siora Tutta was looking, leaning out.
“What a loudmouth,” siora Susanna said from the opposite window. “The principe may have come here for a reason other than to see Peppe.”
“Of course, it’s to see Peppe, isn’t it, prince? To see Peppe, isn’t it, prince? To see Peppe?”
“What Peppe, what Peppe!” siora Susanna continued with a gesture with both hands. “The prince would be thinking about Peppe now! Now is the time of carnival, the prince will go with his cugina, the marchese Montelli, he will go with his friends in a carriage to throw flowers, he will go out of town to far allegria. What Peppe! What Peppe!”
The prince was amazed at such details about how he spent his time; but he had no reason to be amazed, because siora Susanna knew everything.
“No, my dear sioras,” the prince said, “I, indeed, need to see Peppe.”
To this, siora Grazia, who had long since leaned out of the window of the second floor and was listening, gave an answer to the prince. She answered, lightly clicking her tongue and twisting her finger, a common negative sign among Roman women, and then added:
“He’s not home.”
“But maybe you know where he is, where he went?”
“Eh! Where he went!” siora Grazia repeated, inclining her head to her shoulder. “He might be in an osteria, in the square, at the fountain; surely someone called him, he went somewhere, chi lo sa (who knows)!”
“If the principe wants to tell him something,” Barbaruccia, putting an earring in her ear at the same time, interrupted from the opposite window, “let him tell me, I’ll pass it on to him.”
“No, I don’t think so,” the prince thought and thanked her for her readiness.
At this time, a huge, dirty nose looked out from a cross alley and, like a large axe, hung over the lips and the whole face that appeared after it. It was Peppe himself.
“There’s Peppe!” exclaimed siora Susanna.
“Here comes Peppe, sior principe!” siora Grazia shouted lively from her window.
“Peppe’s coming, he’s coming!” siora Cecilia chimed in from the very corner of the street.
“Principe, principe! There’s Peppe, there’s Peppe (ecco Peppe, ecco Peppe)!,” the kids on the street shouted.
“I see, I see,” the prince said, deafened by such a lively cry.
“Here I am, eccellenza, here!” said Peppe, taking off his hat.
He, it seems, had already had a taste of the carnival. He had been hit hard with flour from somewhere on the side. His whole side and back were completely whitened, his hat was broken, and his whole face was covered with white nails. Peppe was already remarkable because all his life he remained with his diminutive name Peppe. He never got to Giuseppe, although he had already grayed. He even came from a good family, from a rich merchant’s house, but his last little house was taken from him by a lawsuit. His father, a man also like Peppe himself, although he was called sior Giovanni, had eaten away the last of his property, and he now eked out his life, like many others — that is, as it happened: sometimes he would suddenly be hired as a servant by some foreigner, sometimes he would be on errands for a lawyer, sometimes he would appear as a studio cleaner for some artist, sometimes as a watchman for a vineyard or a villa; and his costume changed constantly accordingly. Sometimes Peppe was found on the street in a round hat and a wide jacket, sometimes in a narrow caftan, which had burst in two or three places, with such narrow sleeves that his long arms looked out from there like brooms; sometimes a priest’s stocking and shoe appeared on his leg, sometimes he appeared in such a costume that it was difficult to even make out, especially since all this was not worn at all as it should be: sometimes one could simply think that he had put a jacket on his legs instead of pants, having gathered and tied it somehow in the back. He was the most cordial performer of all possible errands, often completely uninteresting: he would drag to sell any old rags that the ladies of his street entrusted to him, parchment books of a ruined abbot or antiquarian, a painter’s painting; he would go to the abbots in the mornings to take their pants and shoes to his house for cleaning, which he would then forget to take back at the right time from an excessive desire to do a favor for some third person he came across, and the abbots would remain under arrest, without shoes and pants, for the whole day. Often he would get a decent amount of money, but he disposed of the money in a Roman way: that is, he almost never had any for the next day; not because he spent it on himself or ate it up, but because everything went to the lottery, of which he was a terrible fan. It is unlikely that such a number existed that he had not tried. Every insignificant daily event had an important meaning for him. If he happened to find some junk on the street, he would immediately look it up in the divinatory book to see what number it was there, so that he could immediately take it in the lottery. Once he had a dream that Satan, who in any case dreamed of him for some unknown reason at the beginning of every spring, that Satan dragged him by the nose over all the roofs of all the houses, starting from the church of St. Ignatius, then along the whole Corso, then along the alley tre Ladroni, then along the via della stamperia and finally stopped at the very Trinità on the stairs, saying: “Here, Peppe, for you, for praying to St. Pancratius: your ticket will not win.” This dream caused a lot of talk between siora Cecilia, siora Susanna, and almost the entire street; but Peppe resolved it in his own way: he ran to the divinatory book at the same hour, found out that the devil means number 13, nose 24, St. Pancratius 30, and took all three numbers that same morning. Then he added all three numbers together, it came out to 67, he also took 67. All four numbers, as usual, were duds. Another time, he happened to get into a squabble with a winegrower, a fat Roman, sior Raffaele Tomacelli. God knows what they quarreled about, but they shouted loudly, making strong gestures with their hands, and, finally, both of them turned pale — a terrible sign, at which all the women usually lean out of the windows with fear and a passing pedestrian steps away, a sign that the matter is finally coming to knives. And indeed, the fat Tomacelli had already put his hand behind the leather leggings that tightened his thick calf to pull a knife out from there, and said: “You just wait, I’ll get you, calf’s head!” — when suddenly Peppe hit himself on the forehead with his hand and ran away from the scene of the battle. He remembered that he had never taken a ticket for a calf’s head; he found the number of the calf’s head and ran to the lottery office, so that everyone who was preparing to watch a bloody scene was amazed at such an unexpected act, and Raffaele Tomacelli himself, having put the knife back into his leggings, did not know what to do for a long time, and finally said: “Che uomo curioso!” (What a strange man!) That the tickets were duds and disappeared, this did not bother Peppe. He was firmly sure that he would be a rich man, and therefore, passing by shops, he almost always asked what everything cost. Once, having found out that a large house was for sale, he went in on purpose to talk about it with the seller, and when those who knew him began to laugh at him, he answered very simply: “But why laugh, why laugh? I didn’t want to buy it now, but later, in time, when I have the money. There’s nothing like that here… everyone should acquire a fortune to then leave to the children, to the church, to the poor, for other different things… chi lo sa!” He had been known to the prince for a long time, he was even once taken into his father’s house as a waiter and was then kicked out — for wearing out his livery in a month and throwing all of the old prince’s toiletries out the window, accidentally pushing them with his elbow.
“Listen, Peppe!” the prince said.
“What does the eccellenza want to order?” Peppe said, standing with his head uncovered. “The prince only has to say: ‘Peppe!’ — and I will say: ‘Here I am.’ Then let the prince just say: ‘Listen, Peppe,’ — and I will say: ‘Ecco me, eccellenza!'”
“Peppe, you must do me a favor now…” At these words, the prince looked around and saw that all the sioras Grazia, sioras Susanna, Barbaruccia, Tetta, Tutta — all of them, as many as there were — were curiously sticking out of the window, and poor siora Cecilia almost fell out onto the street.
“Well, this is bad!” the prince thought.
“Let’s go, Peppe, follow me.”
Having said this, he went ahead, and Peppe followed him, lowering his head and talking to himself: “Eh! women are curious because they are women, because they are curious.”
They walked from street to street for a long time, each immersed in his own thoughts. Peppe was thinking about this: “The prince will, surely, give me some errand, maybe an important one, because he doesn’t want to say it in front of everyone; so, he will give a good gift or money. If the prince gives money, what should I do with it? Should I give it to sior Servilio, the cafe owner, to whom he has long owed? Because sior Servilio will certainly demand money from him in the first week of Lent, because sior Servilio has put all his money into a monstrous violin, which he made with his own hands for three months for the carnival, to drive around with it on all the streets, — now, probably, sior Servilio will eat only broccoli boiled in water instead of roasted kid on a spit for a long time until he collects money for coffee again. Or should I not pay sior Servilio and instead invite him to dinner at the osteria? Because sior Servilio is il vero Romano and will be ready to suffer the debt for the honor offered to him, — and the lottery will certainly begin in the second week of Lent. Only how to save the money until then, how to keep it so that neither Giacomo nor master Petruccio, the grinder, who will certainly ask him to borrow, because Giacomo has pawned all his clothes to the Jews in the Ghetto, and master Petruccio has also pawned his clothes to the Jews in the Ghetto and tore his wife’s skirt and last handkerchief on himself, having dressed up as a woman… how to do it so as not to lend it to them?” That’s what Peppe was thinking about.
The prince was thinking about this: “Peppe can find out and find out the name, where she lives, and where she’s from, and who the beautiful woman is. First, he knows everyone and therefore, more than anyone else, can meet friends in the crowd, can find out through them, can look into all the cafes and osterias, can even start a conversation, without arousing suspicion in anyone with his figure. And although he is sometimes a blabbermouth and a scatterbrain, but if you bind him with the word of a real Roman, he will keep everything a secret.”
Thus the prince thought, walking from street to street, and finally stopped, having seen that he had long since crossed the bridge, had long been on the Trastevere side of Rome, had long been climbing the mountain and not far from him was the church of S. Pietro in Montorio. In order not to stand on the road, he went up to the platform, from which all of Rome opened up, and said, turning to Peppe:
“Listen, Peppe, I need a favor from you.”
“What does the eccellenza want?” Peppe said again.
But here the prince looked at Rome and stopped: the eternal city appeared before him in a wonderful, shining panorama. The whole bright heap of houses, churches, domes, and spires was strongly illuminated by the brilliance of the lowered sun. In groups and one by one, houses, roofs, statues, airy terraces, and galleries came out from behind each other; there a mass played and became motley with the thin tops of bell towers and domes with the patterned capriciousness of lanterns; there a dark palace came out whole; there the flat dome of the Pantheon; there the decorated top of the Antonine Column with its capital and a statue of the Apostle Paul; even further to the right, the Capitoline buildings with their horses and statues raised their tops; even further to the right, over the sparkling crowd of houses and roofs, the dark width of the Colosseum’s mass rose majestically and strictly; there again a playing crowd of walls, terraces, and domes, covered with the dazzling brilliance of the sun. And over this whole sparkling mass, the tops of the stone oaks from the villas Ludovisi and Medici darkened in the distance with their black greenery, and the dome-shaped tops of the Roman pines, raised by thin trunks, stood over them in the air like a whole herd. And then along the entire length of the whole picture, the transparent mountains rose and turned blue, light as air, embraced by some kind of phosphoric light. Neither with a word nor with a brush could one convey the wonderful harmony and combination of all the plans of this picture. The air was so clean and transparent that the slightest line of distant buildings was clear, and everything seemed so close as if you could grab it with your hand. The last small architectural ornament, the patterned decoration of the cornice — everything was distinguished with an incomprehensible purity. At this time, a cannon shot and a distant, merged cry of the crowd of people sounded — a sign that the riderless horses, which concluded the day of the carnival, had already run. The sun was sinking lower to the ground; its brilliance on the whole architectural mass became redder and hotter; the city became even livelier and closer; the pines became even darker; the mountains became even bluer and more phosphoric; the heavenly air, ready to fade, became even more solemn and better… My God, what a view! The prince, embraced by it, forgot both himself, and the beauty of Annunziata, and the mysterious fate of his people, and everything that exists in the world.