THE
OVERCOAT
BY
NIKOLAY V. GOGOL
In the department of——, but it is
better not to mention the department. The touchiest things in the world are
departments, regiments, courts of justice, in a word, all branches of public service.
Each individual nowadays thinks all society insulted in his person. Quite
recently, a complaint was received from a district chief of police in which he
plainly demonstrated that all the imperial institutions were going to the dogs,
and that the Czar's sacred name was being taken in vain; and in proof he
appended to the complaint a romance, in which the district chief of police is
made to appear about once in every ten pages, and sometimes in a downright
drunken condition. Therefore, in order to avoid all unpleasantness, it will be
better to designate the department in question, as a certain department.
So, in a certain department there
was a certain official—not a very notable one, it must be allowed—short of
stature, somewhat pock-marked, red-haired, and mole-eyed, with a bald forehead,
wrinkled cheeks, and a complexion of the kind known as sanguine. The St.
Petersburg climate was responsible for this. As for his official rank—with us
Russians the rank comes first—he was what is called a perpetual titular councillor, over which, as is well known, some writers make
merry and crack their jokes, obeying the praiseworthy custom of attacking those
who cannot bite back.
His family name was Bashmachkin. This name is evidently derived from bashmak (shoe); but, when, at what time, and in what
manner, is not known. His father and grandfather, and all the Bashmachkins, always wore boots, which were resoled two or
three times a year. His name was Akaky Akakiyevich. It may strike the reader as rather singular
and far-fetched; but he may rest assured that it was by no means far-fetched,
and that the circumstances were such that it would have been impossible to give
him any other.
This was how it came about.
Akaky Akakiyevich was born, if my
memory fails me not, in the evening on the 23rd of March. His mother, the wife
of a Government official, and a very fine woman, made all due arrangements for
having the child baptised. She was lying on the bed
opposite the door; on her right stood the godfather, Ivan Ivanovich
Eroshkin, a most estimable man, who served as the
head clerk of the senate; and the godmother, Arina Semyonovna Bielobrinshkova, the
wife of an officer of the quarter, and a woman of rare virtues. They offered
the mother her choice of three names, Mokiya, Sossiya, or that the child should be called after the
martyr Khozdazat. "No," said the good
woman, "all those names are poor." In order to please her, they
opened the calendar at another place; three more names appeared, Triphily, Dula, and Varakhasy. "This is awful," said the old woman.
"What names! I truly never heard the like. I might have put up with Varadat or Varukh, but not Triphily and Varakhasy!"
They turned to another page and found Pavsikakhy and Vakhtisy. "Now I see," said the old woman,
"that it is plainly fate. And since such is the case, it will be better to
name him after his father. His father's name was Akaky,
so let his son's name be Akaky too." In this
manner he became Akaky Akakiyevich.
They christened the child, whereat he wept, and made a grimace, as though he
foresaw that he was to be a titular councillor.
In this manner did it all come about. We have mentioned it in order that the reader might
see for himself that it was a case of necessity, and that it was utterly
impossible to give him any other name.
When and how he entered the
department, and who appointed him, no one could remember. However much the
directors and chiefs of all kinds were changed, he was always to be seen in the
same place, the same attitude, the same occupation—always the letter-copying
clerk—so that it was afterwards affirmed that he had been born in uniform with
a bald head. No respect was shown him in the department. The porter not only
did not rise from his seat when he passed, but never even glanced at him, any more
than if a fly had flown through the reception-room. His superiors treated him
in coolly despotic fashion. Some insignificant assistant to the head clerk
would thrust a paper under his nose without so much as saying,
"Copy," or, "Here's an interesting little case," or
anything else agreeable, as is customary amongst well-bred officials. And he
took it, looking only at the paper, and not observing who handed it to him, or
whether he had the right to do so; simply took it, and set about copying it.
The young officials laughed at and
made fun of him, so far as their official wit permitted; told in his presence
various stories concocted about him, and about his landlady, an old woman of
seventy; declared that she beat him; asked when the wedding was to be; and
strewed bits of paper over his head, calling them snow. But Akaky
Akakiyevich answered not a word, any more than if
there had been no one there besides himself. It even
had no effect upon his work. Amid all these annoyances he never made a single
mistake in a letter. But if the joking became wholly unbearable, as when they
jogged his head, and prevented his attending to his work, he would exclaim:
"Leave me alone! Why do you
insult me?"
And there was something strange in
the words and the voice in which they were uttered. There was in it something
which moved to pity; so much so that one young man, a newcomer, who, taking
pattern by the others, had permitted himself to make sport of Akaky, suddenly stopped short, as though all about him had
undergone a transformation, and presented itself in a different aspect. Some
unseen force repelled him from the comrades whose acquaintance he had made, on
the supposition that they were decent, well-bred men. Long afterwards, in his
gayest moments, there recurred to his mind the little official with the bald
forehead, with his heart-rending words, "Leave me alone! Why do you insult
me?" In these moving words, other words resounded—"I am thy
brother." And the young man covered his face with his hand; and many a
time afterwards, in the course of his life, shuddered at seeing how much
inhumanity there is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed beneath
refined, cultured, worldly refinement, and even, O God! in
that man whom the world acknowledges as honourable
and upright.
It would be difficult to find
another man who lived so entirely for his duties. It is not enough to say that Akaky laboured with zeal; no, he laboured with love. In his copying, he found a varied and
agreeable employment. Enjoyment was written on his face; some letters were even
favourites with him; and when he encountered these,
he smiled, winked, and worked with his lips, till it seemed as though each
letter might be read in his face, as his pen traced it. If his pay had been in
proportion to his zeal, he would, perhaps, to his great surprise, have been
made even a councillor of state. But he worked, as
his companions, the wits, put it, like a horse in a mill.
However, it would be untrue to say
that no attention was paid to him. One director being a
kindly man, and desirous of rewarding him for his long service, ordered him to
be given something more important than mere copying. So he was ordered
to make a report of an already concluded affair, to another department; the
duty consisting simply in changing the heading and altering a few words from
the first to the third person. This caused him so much toil, that he broke into
a perspiration, rubbed his forehead, and finally said,
"No, give me rather something to copy." After that they let him copy
on forever.
Outside this copying, it appeared
that nothing existed for him. He gave no thought to his clothes. His uniform
was not green, but a sort of rusty-meal colour. The
collar was low, so that his neck, in spite of the fact that it was not long,
seemed inordinately so as it emerged from it, like the necks of the plaster
cats which pedlars carry about on their heads. And
something was always sticking to his uniform, either a bit of hay or some
trifle. Moreover, he had a peculiar knack, as he walked along the street, of
arriving beneath a window just as all sorts of rubbish was being flung out of
it; hence he always bore about on his hat scraps of melon rinds, and other such
articles. Never once in his life did he give heed to what was going on every
day to the street; while it is well known that his young brother officials
trained the range of their glances till they could see when any one's
trouser-straps came undone upon the opposite sidewalk, which always brought a
malicious smile to their faces. But Akaky Akakiyevich saw in all things the clean, even strokes of
his written lines; and only when a horse thrust his nose, from some unknown
quarter, over his shoulder, and sent a whole gust of wind down his neck from
his nostrils, did he observe that he was not in the middle of a line, but in
the middle of the street.
On reaching home, he sat down at
once at the table, sipped his cabbage-soup up quickly, and swallowed a bit of
beef with onions, never noticing their taste, and gulping down everything with
flies and anything else which the Lord happened to send at the moment. When he
saw that his stomach was beginning to swell, he rose from the table, and copied
papers which he had brought home. If there happened to be none, he took copies
for himself, for his own gratification, especially if the document was
noteworthy, not on account of its style, but of its being addressed to some
distinguished person.
Even at the hour when the grey St.
Petersburg sky had quite disappeared, and all the official world had eaten or
dined, each as he could, in accordance with the salary he received and his own
fancy; when, all were resting from the department jar of pens, running to and
fro, for their own and other people's indispensable occupations', and from all
the work that an uneasy man makes willingly for himself, rather than what is
necessary; when, officials hasten to dedicate to pleasure the time which is
left to them, one bolder than the rest, going to the theatre; another; into the
street looking under the bonnets; another, wasting his evening in compliments
to some pretty girl, the star of a small official circle; another—and this is
the common case of all—visiting his comrades on the third or fourth floor, in
two small rooms with an ante-room or kitchen, and some pretensions to fashion,
such as a lamp or some other trifle which has cost many a sacrifice of dinner
or pleasure trip; in a word, at the hour when all officials disperse among the
contracted quarters of their friends, to play whist, as they sip their tea from
glasses with a kopek's worth of sugar, smoke long pipes, relate at time some
bits of gossip which a Russian man can never, under any circumstances, refrain
from, and when there is nothing else to talk of, repeat eternal anecdotes about
the commandant to whom they had sent word that the tails of the horses on the
Falconet Monument had been cut off; when all strive to divert themselves, Akaky Akakiyevich indulged in no
kind of diversion. No one could even say that he had seen him at any kind of
evening party. Having written to his heart's content, he lay down to sleep,
smiling at the thought of the coming day—of what God might send him to copy on
the morrow.
Thus flowed on the peaceful life of
the man, who, with a salary of four hundred rubles, understood how to be
content with his lot; and thus it would have continued to flow on, perhaps, to
extreme old age, were it not that there are various ills strewn along the path
of life for titular councillors as well as for
private, actual, court, and every other species of councillor,
even to those who never give any advice or take any themselves.
There exists in St. Petersburg a
powerful foe of all who receive a salary of four hundred rubles a year, or
there-abouts. This foe is no other than the Northern
cold, although it is said to be very healthy. At nine o'clock in the morning,
at the very hour when the streets are filled with men bound for the various
official departments, it begins to bestow such powerful and piercing nips on
all noses impartially, that the poor officials really do not know what to do
with them. At an hour, when the foreheads of even those who occupy exalted
positions ache with the cold, and tears start to their eyes, the poor titular councillors are sometimes quite unprotected. Their only
salvation lies in traversing as quickly as possible, in their thin little
cloaks, five or six streets, and then warming their feet in the porter's room,
and so thawing all their talents and qualifications for official service, which
had become frozen on the way.
Akaky Akakiyevich had felt for some
time that his back and shoulders were paining with peculiar poignancy, in spite
of the fact that he tried to traverse the distance with all possible speed. He
began finally to wonder whether the fault did not lie in his cloak. He examined
it thoroughly at home, and discovered that in two places, namely, on the back
and shoulders, it had become thin as gauze. The cloth was worn to such a degree
that he could see through it, and the lining had fallen into pieces. You must
know that Akaky Akakiyevich's
cloak served as an object of ridicule to the officials. They even refused it
the noble name of cloak, and called it a cape. In fact, it was of singular
make, its collar diminishing year by year to serve to patch its other parts.
The patching did not exhibit great skill on the part of the tailor, and was, in
fact, baggy and ugly. Seeing how the matter stood, Akaky
Akakiyevich decided that it would be necessary to
take the cloak to Petrovich, the tailor, who lived
somewhere on the fourth floor up a dark staircase, and who, in spite of his
having but one eye and pock-marks all over his face, busied himself with
considerable success in repairing the trousers and coats of officials and
others; that is to say, when he was sober and not nursing some other scheme in
his head.
It is not necessary to say much
about this tailor, but as it is the custom to have the character of each
personage in a novel clearly defined there is no help for it, so here is Petrovich the tailor. At first he was called only Grigory, and was some gentleman's serf. He commenced
calling himself Petrovich from the time when he
received his free papers, and further began to drink heavily on all holidays,
at first on the great ones, and then on all church festivals without discrimination,
wherever a cross stood in the calendar. On this point he was faithful to
ancestral custom; and when quarrelling with his wife, he called her a low
female and a German. As we have mentioned his wife, it will be necessary to say
a word or two about her. Unfortunately, little is known of her beyond the fact
that Petrovich had a wife, who wore a cap and a
dress, but could not lay claim to beauty, at least, no one but the soldiers of
the guard even looked under her cap when they met her.
Ascending the staircase which led to
Petrovich's room—which staircase was all soaked with
dish-water and reeked with the smell of spirits which affects the eyes, and is
an inevitable adjunct to all dark stairways in St. Petersburg houses—ascending
the stairs, Akaky Akakiyevich
pondered how much Petrovich would ask, and mentally
resolved not to give more than two rubles. The door was open, for the mistress,
in cooking some fish, had raised such a smoke in the kitchen that not even the
beetles were visible. Akaky Akakiyevich
passed through the kitchen unperceived, even by the housewife, and at length
reached a room where he beheld Petrovich seated on a
large unpainted table, with his legs tucked under him like a Turkish pasha. His
feet were bare, after the fashion of tailors as they sit at work; and the first
thing which caught the eye was his thumb, with a deformed nail thick and strong
as a turtle's shell. About Petrovich's neck hung a
skein of silk and thread, and upon his knees lay some old garment. He had been
trying unsuccessfully for three minutes to thread his needle, and was enraged
at the darkness and even at the thread, growling in a low voice, "It won't
go through, the barbarian! you pricked me, you
rascal!"
Akaky Akakiyevich was vexed at arriving
at the precise moment when Petrovich was angry. He
liked to order something of Petrovich when he was a
little downhearted, or, as his wife expressed it, "when he had settled
himself with brandy, the one-eyed devil!" Under such circumstances Petrovich generally came down in his price very readily,
and even bowed and returned thanks. Afterwards, to be sure, his wife would
come, complaining that her husband had been drunk, and so had fixed the price
too low; but, if only a ten-kopek piece were added then the matter would be
settled. But now it appeared that Petrovich was in a
sober condition, and therefore rough, taciturn, and inclined to demand, Satan
only knows what price. Akaky Akakiyevich
felt this, and would gladly have beat a retreat, but
he was in for it. Petrovich screwed up his one eye
very intently at him, and Akaky Akakiyevich
involuntarily said, "How do you do, Petrovich?"
"I wish you a good morning,
sir," said Petrovich squinting at Akaky
Akakiyevich's hands, to see what sort of booty he had
brought.
"Ah! I—to you, Petrovich, this—" It must be known that Akaky Akakiyevich expressed
himself chiefly by prepositions, adverbs, and scraps of phrases which had no
meaning whatever. If the matter was a very difficult one, he had a habit of
never completing his sentences, so that frequently, having begun a phrase with
the words, "This, in fact, is quite—" he forgot to go on, thinking he
had already finished it.
"What is it?" asked Petrovich, and with his one eye scanned Akaky
Akakiyevich's whole uniform from the collar down to
the cuffs, the back, the tails and the button-holes, all of which were well
known to him, since they were his own handiwork. Such is the habit of tailors;
it is the first thing they do on meeting one.
"But I, here, this—Petrovich—a cloak, cloth—here you see, everywhere, in
different places, it is quite strong—it is a little dusty and looks old, but it
is new, only here in one place it is a little—on the back, and here on one of
the shoulders, it is a little worn, yes, here on this shoulder it is a little—do
you see? That is all. And a little work—"
Petrovich took the cloak, spread it out, to begin with, on the table,
looked at it hard, shook his head, reached out his hand to the window-sill for
his snuff-box, adorned with the portrait of some general, though what general
is unknown, for the place where the face should have been had been rubbed
through by the finger and a square bit of paper had been pasted over it. Having
taken a pinch of snuff, Petrovich held up the cloak,
and inspected it against the light, and again shook his head. Then he turned
it, lining upwards, and shook his head once more. After which he again lifted
the general-adorned lid with its bit of pasted paper, and having stuffed his
nose with snuff, dosed and put away the snuff-box, and said finally, "No,
it is impossible to mend it. It is a wretched garment!"
Akaky Akakiyevich's heart sank at these
words.
"Why is it impossible, Petrovich?" he said, almost in the pleading voice of a
child. "All that ails it is, that it is worn on
the shoulders. You must have some pieces—"
"Yes, patches could be found,
patches are easily found," said Petrovich,
"but there's nothing to sew them to. The thing is completely rotten. If
you put a needle to it—see, it will give way."
"Let it give way, and you can
put on another patch at once."
"But there is nothing to put
the patches on to. There's no use in strengthening it. It is too far gone. It's
lucky that it's cloth, for, if the wind were to blow, it would fly away."
"Well, strengthen it again. How
this, in fact—"
"No," said Petrovich decisively, "there is nothing to be done
with it. It's a thoroughly bad job. You'd better, when the cold winter weather
comes on, make yourself some gaiters out of it, because stockings are not warm.
The Germans invented them in order to make more money." Petrovich loved on all occasions to have a fling at the
Germans. "But it is plain you must have a new cloak."
At the word "new" all grew
dark before Akaky Akakiyevich's
eyes, and everything in the room began to whirl round. The only thing he saw
clearly was the general with the paper face on the lid of Petrovich's
snuff-box. "A new one?" said he, as if still in a dream. "Why, I
have no money for that."
"Yes, a new one," said Petrovich, with barbarous composure.
"Well, if it came to a new one,
how—it—"
"You mean how much would it
cost?"
"Yes."
"Well, you would have to lay
out a hundred and fifty or more," said Petrovich,
and pursed up his lips significantly. He liked to produce powerful effects,
liked to stun utterly and suddenly, and then to glance sideways to see what
face the stunned person would put on the matter.
"A hundred and fifty rubles for
a cloak!" shrieked poor Akaky Akakiyevich, perhaps for the first time in his life, for
his voice had always been distinguished for softness.
"Yes, sir," said Petrovich, "for any kind of cloak. If you have a
marten fur on the collar, or a silk-lined hood, it will mount up to two
hundred."
"Petrovich,
please," said Akaky Akakiyevich
in a beseeching tone, not hearing, and not trying to hear, Petrovich's
words, and disregarding all his "effects," "some repairs, in
order that it may wear yet a little longer."
"No, it would only be a waste
of time and money," said Petrovich. And Akaky Akakiyevich went away after
these words, utterly discouraged. But Petrovich stood
for some time after his departure, with significantly compressed lips, and
without betaking himself to his work, satisfied that he would not be dropped,
and an artistic tailor employed.
Akaky Akakiyevich went out into the
street as if in a dream. "Such an affair!" he said to himself.
"I did not think it had come to—" and then after a pause, he added,
"Well, so it is! see what it has come to at last!
and I never imagined that it was so!" Then
followed a long silence, after which he exclaimed, "Well, so it is! see what already—nothing unexpected that—it would be
nothing—what a strange circumstance!" So saying, instead of going home, he
went in exactly the opposite direction without suspecting it. On the way, a
chimney-sweep bumped up against him, and blackened his shoulder, and a whole
hatful of rubbish landed on him from the top of a house which was building. He
did not notice it, and only when he ran against a watchman, who, having planted
his halberd beside him, was shaking some snuff from his box into his horny
hand, did he recover himself a little, and that because the watchman said,
"Why are you poking yourself into a man's very face? Haven't you the
pavement?" This caused him to look about him, and turn towards home.
There only, he finally began to
collect his thoughts, and to survey his position in its clear and actual light,
and to argue with himself, sensibly and frankly, as with a reasonable friend,
with whom one can discuss private and personal matters. "No," said Akaky Akakiyevich, "it is
impossible to reason with Petrovich now. He is
that—evidently, his wife has been beating him. I'd better go to him on Sunday
morning. After Saturday night he will be a little cross-eyed and sleepy, for he
will want to get drunk, and his wife won't give him any money, and at such a
time, a ten-kopek piece in his hand will—he will become more fit to reason
with, and then the cloak and that—" Thus argued Akaky
Akakiyevich with himself regained his courage, and
waited until the first Sunday, when, seeing from afar that Petrovich's
wife had left the house, he went straight to him.
Petrovich's eye was indeed very much askew after Saturday. His head
drooped, and he was very sleepy; but for all that, as soon as he knew what it
was a question of, it seemed as though Satan jogged his memory.
"Impossible," said he. "Please to order a new one."
Thereupon Akaky Akakiyevich
handed over the ten-kopek piece. "Thank you, sir. I will drink your good health,"
said Petrovich. "But as for the cloak, don't
trouble yourself about it; it is good for nothing. I will make you a capital
new one, so let us settle about it now."
Akaky Akakiyevich was still for mending
it, but Petrovich would not hear of it, and said,
"I shall certainly have to make you a new one, and you may depend upon it
that I shall do my best. It may even be, as the fashion goes, that the collar
can be fastened by silver hooks under a flap."
Then Akaky
Akakiyevich saw that it was impossible to get along
without a new cloak, and his spirit sank utterly. How, in fact, was it to be
done? Where was the money to come from? He must have some new trousers, and pay
a debt of long standing to the shoemaker for putting new tops to his old boots,
and he must order three shirts from the seamstress, and a couple of pieces of
linen. In short, all his money must be spent. And even if the director should
be so kind as to order him to receive forty-five or even fifty rubles instead
of forty, it would be a mere nothing, a mere drop in the ocean towards the
funds necessary for a cloak, although he knew that Petrovich
was often wrong-headed enough to blurt out some outrageous price, so that even
his own wife could not refrain from exclaiming, "Have you lost your senses,
you fool?" At one time he would not work at any price, and now it was
quite likely that he had named a higher sum than the cloak would cost.
But although he knew that Petrovich would undertake to make a cloak for eighty
rubles, still, where was he to get the eighty rubles from? He might possibly
manage half. Yes, half might be procured, but where was the other half to come
from? But the reader must first be told where the first half came from.
Akaky Akakiyevich had a habit of
putting, for every ruble he spent, a groschen into a
small box, fastened with lock and key, and with a slit in the top for the
reception of money. At the end of every half-year he counted over the heap of
coppers, and changed it for silver. This he had done for a long time, and in the
course of years, the sum had mounted up to over forty rubles. Thus he had one
half on hand. But where was he to find the other half? Where was he to get
another forty rubles from? Akaky Akakiyevich
thought and thought, and decided that it would be necessary to curtail his
ordinary expenses, for the space of one year at least, to dispense with tea in
the evening, to burn no candles, and, if there was anything which he must do,
to go into his landlady's room, and work by her light. When he went into the street,
he must walk as lightly as he could, and as cautiously, upon the stones, almost
upon tiptoe, in order not to wear his heels down in too short a time. He must
give the laundress as little to wash as possible; and, in order not to wear out
his clothes, he must take them off as soon as he got home, and wear only his
cotton dressing-gown, which had been long and carefully saved.
To tell the truth, it was a little
hard for him at first to accustom himself to these
deprivations. But he got used to them at length, after a fashion, and all went
smoothly. He even got used to being hungry in the evening, but he made up for
it by treating himself, so to say, in spirit, by bearing ever in mind the idea
of his future cloak. From that time forth, his existence seemed to become, in
some; way, fuller, as if he were married, or as if some other man lived in him,
as if, in fact, he were not alone, and some pleasant friend had consented to
travel along life's path with him, the friend being no other than the cloak,
with thick wadding and a strong lining incapable of wearing out. He became more
lively, and even his character grew firmer, like that of a man who has made up
his mind, and set himself a goal. From his face and gait, doubt and indecision,
all hesitating and wavering disappeared of themselves. Fire gleamed in his
eyes, and occasionally the boldest and most daring ideas flitted through his
mind. Why not, for instance, have marten fur on the
collar? The thought of this almost made him absent-minded. Once, in copying a
letter, he nearly made a mistake, so that he exclaimed almost aloud,
"Ugh!" and crossed himself. Once, in the course of every month, he
had a conference with Petrovich on the subject of the
cloak, where it would be better to buy the cloth, and the colour,
and the price. He always returned home satisfied, though troubled, reflecting
that the time would come at last when it could all be bought, and then the
cloak made.
The affair progressed more briskly
than he had expected. For beyond all his hopes, the director awarded neither
forty nor forty-five rubles for Akaky Akakiyevich's share, but sixty. Whether he suspected that Akaky Akakiyevich needed a cloak,
or whether it was merely chance, at all events, twenty extra rubles were by
this means provided. This circumstance hastened matters. Two or three months
more of hunger and Akaky Akakiyevich
had accumulated about eighty rubles. His heart, generally so quiet, began to
throb. On the first possible day, he went shopping in company with Petrovich. They bought some very good cloth, and at a
reasonable rate too, for they had been considering the matter for six months,
and rarely let a month pass without their visiting the shops to enquire prices.
Petrovich himself said that no better cloth could be
had. For lining, they selected a cotton stuff, but so
firm and thick, that Petrovich declared it to be
better than silk, and even prettier and more glossy. They did not buy the
marten fur, because it was, in fact, dear, but in its stead, they picked out
the very best of cat-skin which could be found in the shop, and which might,
indeed, be taken for marten at a distance.
Petrovich worked at the cloak two whole weeks, for there was a great
deal of quilting; otherwise it would have been finished sooner. He charged
twelve rubles for the job, it could not possibly have
been done for less. It was all sewed with silk, in small, double seams, and Petrovich went over each seam afterwards with his own
teeth, stamping in various patterns.
It was—it is difficult to say
precisely on what day, but probably the most glorious one in Akaky Akakiyevich's life, when Petrovich at length brought home the cloak. He brought it
in the morning, before the hour when it was necessary to start for the
department. Never did a cloak arrive so exactly in the nick of time, for the
severe cold had set in, and it seemed to threaten to increase. Petrovich brought the cloak himself as befits a good
tailor. On his countenance was a significant expression, such as Akaky; Akakiyevich had never beheld there. He seemed fully sensible that he had done no
small deed, and crossed a gulf separating tailors who put in linings, and
execute repairs, from those who make new things. He took the cloak out of the
pocket-handkerchief in which he had brought it. The handkerchief was fresh from
the laundress, and he put it in his pocket for use. Taking out the cloak, he
gazed proudly at it, held it up with both hands, and flung it skilfully over the shoulders of Akaky
Akakiyevich. Then he pulled it and fitted it down
behind with his hand, and he draped it around Akaky Akakiyevich without buttoning it. Akaky
Akakiyevich, like an experienced man, wished to try
the sleeves. Petrovich helped him on with them, and
it turned out that the sleeves were satisfactory also. In short, the cloak
appeared to be perfect, and most seasonable. Petrovich
did not neglect to observe that it was only because he lived in a narrow
street, and had no signboard, and had known Akaky Akakiyevich so long, that he had made it so cheaply; but
that if he had been in business on the Nevsky
Prospect, he would have charged seventy-five rubles for the making alone. Akaky Akakiyevich did not care to
argue this point with Petrovich. He paid him, thanked
him, and set out at once in his new cloak for the department. Petrovich followed him, and pausing in the street, gazed
long at the cloak in the distance, after which he went to one side expressly to
run through a crooked alley, and emerge again into the street beyond to gaze
once more upon the cloak from another point, namely, directly in front.
Meantime Akaky
Akakiyevich went on in holiday mood. He was conscious
every second of the time that he had a new cloak on his shoulders, and several
times he laughed with internal satisfaction. In fact, there were two advantages, one was its warmth, the other its beauty. He saw
nothing of the road, but suddenly found himself at the
department. He took off his cloak in the ante-room, looked it over carefully,
and confided it to the special care of the attendant. It is impossible to say
precisely how it was that every one in the department
knew at once that Akaky Akakiyevich
had a new cloak, and that the "cape" no longer existed. All rushed at
the same moment into the ante-room to inspect it. They congratulated him, and
said pleasant things to him, so that he began at first to smile, and then to
grow ashamed. When all surrounded him, and said that the new cloak must be
"christened," and that he must at least give them all a party, Akaky Akakiyevich lost his head
completely, and did not know where he stood, what to answer, or how to get out
of it. He stood blushing all over for several minutes, trying to assure them
with great simplicity that it was not a new cloak, that it was in fact the old
"cape."
At length one of the officials,
assistant to the head clerk, in order to show that he was not at all proud, and
on good terms with his inferiors, said:
"So be it, only I will give the
party instead of Akaky Akakiyevich;
I invite you all to tea with me to-night. It just happens to be my name-day
too."
The officials naturally at once
offered the assistant clerk their congratulations, and accepted the invitation
with pleasure. Akaky Akakiyevich
would have declined; but all declared that it was discourteous,
that it was simply a sin and a shame, and that he could not possibly refuse.
Besides, the notion became pleasant to him when he recollected that he should
thereby have a chance of wearing his new cloak in the evening also.
That whole day was truly a most triumphant
festival for Akaky Akakiyevich.
He returned home in the most happy frame of mind, took
off his cloak, and hung it carefully on the wall, admiring afresh the cloth and
the lining. Then he brought out his old, worn-out cloak, for comparison. He
looked at it, and laughed, so vast was the difference. And long after dinner he
laughed again when the condition of the "cape" recurred to his mind.
He dined cheerfully, and after dinner wrote nothing, but took his ease for a
while on the bed, until it got dark. Then he dressed himself leisurely, put on
his cloak, and stepped out into the street.
Where the host lived, unfortunately
we cannot say. Our memory begins to fail us badly. The houses and streets in
St. Petersburg have become so mixed up in our head that it is very difficult to
get anything out of it again in proper form. This much is certain, that the
official lived in the best part of the city; and therefore it must have been
anything but near to Akaky Akakiyevich's
residence. Akaky Akakiyevich
was first obliged to traverse a kind of wilderness of deserted, dimly-lighted
streets. But in proportion as he approached the official's quarter of the city,
the streets became more lively, more populous, and
more brilliantly illuminated. Pedestrians began to appear; handsomely dressed
ladies were more frequently encountered; the men had otter skin collars to
their coats; shabby sleigh-men with their wooden, railed sledges stuck over
with brass-headed nails, became rarer; whilst on the other hand, more and more
drivers in red velvet caps, lacquered sledges and bear-skin coats began to
appear, and carriages with rich hammer-cloths flew swiftly through the streets,
their wheels scrunching the snow.
Akaky Akakiyevich gazed upon all this
as upon a novel sight. He had not been in the streets during the evening for
years. He halted out of curiosity before a shop-window, to look at a picture
representing a handsome woman, who had thrown off her shoe, thereby baring her
whole foot in a very pretty way; whilst behind her the head of a man with
whiskers and a handsome moustache peeped through the doorway of another room. Akaky Akakiyevich shook his head,
and laughed, and then went on his way. Why did he laugh? Either because he had
met with a thing utterly unknown, but for which every one cherishes,
nevertheless, some sort of feeling, or else he thought, like many officials,
"Well, those French! What is to be said? If they do go in for anything of
that sort, why—" But possibly he did not think at all.
Akaky Akakiyevich at length reached the
house in which the head clerk's assistant lodged. He lived in fine style. The
staircase was lit by a lamp, his apartment being on the second floor. On
entering the vestibule, Akaky Akakiyevich
beheld a whole row of goloshes on the floor. Among them, in the centre of the room, stood a samovar, humming and
emitting clouds of steam. On the walls hung all sorts of coats and
cloaks, among which there were even some with beaver collars, or velvet
facings. Beyond, the buzz of conversation was audible, and became clear and
loud, when the servant came out with a trayful of
empty glasses, cream-jugs and sugar-bowls. It was evident that the officials
had arrived long before, and had already finished their first glass of tea.
Akaky Akakiyevich, having hung up his
own cloak, entered the inner room. Before him all at once appeared lights,
officials, pipes, and card-tables, and he was bewildered by a sound of rapid
conversation rising from all the tables, and the noise of moving chairs. He
halted very awkwardly in the middle of the room, wondering what he ought to do.
But they had seen him. They received him with a shout, and all thronged at once
into the ante-room, and there took another look at his cloak. Akaky Akakiyevich, although
somewhat confused, was frank-hearted, and could not refrain from rejoicing when
he saw how they praised his cloak. Then, of course, they all dropped him and
his cloak, and returned, as was proper, to the tables set out for whist.
All this, the noise, the talk, and
the throng of people, was rather overwhelming to Akaky
Akakiyevich. He simply did not know where he stood,
or where to put his hands, his feet, and his whole body. Finally he sat down by
the players, looked at the cards, gazed at the face of one and another, and
after a while began to gape, and to feel that it was wearisome, the more so, as
the hour was already long past when he usually went to bed. He wanted to take
leave of the host, but they would not let him go, saying that he must not fail
to drink a glass of champagne, in honour of his new
garment. In the course of an hour, supper, consisting of vegetable salad, cold
veal, pastry, confectioner's pies, and champagne, was served. They made Akaky Akakiyevich drink two
glasses of champagne, after which he felt things grow livelier.
Still, he could not forget that it
was twelve o'clock, and that he should have been at home long ago. In order
that the host might not think of some excuse for detaining him, he stole out of
the room quickly, sought out, in the ante-room, his cloak, which, to his
sorrow, he found lying on the floor, brushed it, picked off every speck upon
it, put it on his shoulders, and descended the stairs to the street.
In the street all was still bright.
Some petty shops, those permanent clubs of servants and all sorts of folks,
were open. Others were shut, but, nevertheless, showed a streak of light the
whole length of the door-crack, indicating that they were not yet free of
company, and that probably some domestics, male and female, were finishing
their stories and conversations, whilst leaving their masters in complete
ignorance as to their whereabouts. Akaky Akakiyevich went on in a happy frame of mind. He even
started to run, without knowing why, after some lady, who flew past like a
flash of lightning. But he stopped short, and went on very quietly as before,
wondering why he had quickened his pace. Soon there spread before him these
deserted streets which are not cheerful in the daytime, to say no thing of the evening. Now they were even mere dim and
lonely. The lanterns began to grow rarer, oil, evidently, had been less
liberally supplied. Then came wooden houses and
fences. Not a soul anywhere; only the snow sparkled in the streets, and
mournfully veiled the low-roofed cabins with their dosed shutters. He
approached the spot where the street crossed a vast square with houses barely
visible on its farther side, a square which seemed a fearful desert.
Afar, a tiny spark glimmered from
some watchman's-box, which seemed to stand en the
edge of the world. Ahaky Akakiyevich's
cheerfulness diminished at this point in a marked degree. He entered the
square, not without an involuntary sensation of fear, as though his heart
warned him of some evil. He glanced back, and on both sides it was like a sea
about him. "No, it is better not to look," he thought, and went on,
closing his eyes. When he opened them, to see whether he was near the end of
the square, he suddenly beheld, standing just before his very nose, some
bearded individuals of precisely what sort, he could not make out. All grew
dark before his eyes, and his heart throbbed.
"Of course, the cloak is
mine!" said one of them in a loud voice, seizing hold of his collar. Akaky Akakiyevich was about to
shout "Help!" when the second man thrust a fist, about the size of an
official's head, at his very mouth, muttering, "Just you dare to
scream!"
Akaky Akakiyevich felt them strip off
his cloak, and give him a kick.
He fell headlong upon the snow, and felt no more.
In a few minutes he recovered
consciousness, and rose to his feet, but no one was there. He felt that it was
cold in the square, and that his cloak was gone. He began to shout, but his
voice did not appear to reach the outskirts of the square. In despair, but
without ceasing to shout, he started at a run across the square, straight
towards the watch-box, beside which stood the watchman, leaning on his halberd,
and apparently curious to know what kind of a customer was running towards him
shouting. Akaky Akakiyevich
ran up to him, and began in a sobbing voice to shout that he was asleep, and
attended to nothing, and did not see when a man was robbed. The watchman
replied that he had seen two men stop him in the middle of the square, but
supposed that they were friends of his, and that, instead of scolding vainly, he had better go to the police on the morrow, so
that they might make a search for whoever had stolen the cloak.
Akaky Akakiyevich ran home and arrived
in a state of complete disorder, his hair which grew very thinly upon his
temples and the back of his head all tousled, his body, arms and legs, covered
with snow. The old woman, who was mistress of his lodgings, on hearing a
terrible knocking, sprang hastily from her bed, and, with only one shoe on, ran
to open the door, pressing the sleeve of her chemise to her bosom out of
modesty. But when she had opened it, she fell back on beholding Akaky Akakiyevich in such a
condition. When he told her about the affair, she clasped her hands, and said
that he must go straight to the district chief of police, for his subordinate
would turn up his nose, promise well, and drop the matter there. The very best
thing to do, therefore, would be to go to the district chief, whom she knew,
because Finnish Anna, her former cook, was now nurse at his house. She often
saw him passing the house, and he was at church every Sunday, praying, but at
the same time gazing cheerfully at everybody; so that he must be a good man,
judging from all appearances. Having listened to this opinion, Akaky Akakiyevich betook himself
sadly to his room. And how he spent the night there, any one
who can put himself in another's place may readily
imagine.
Early in the morning, he presented
himself at the district chief's, but was told the official was asleep. He went
again at ten and was again informed that he was asleep. At eleven, and they
said, "The superintendent is not at home." At dinner time, and the clerks in the ante-room would not admit him on
any terms, and insisted upon knowing his business. So that at last, for once in
his life, Akaky Akakiyevich
felt an inclination to show some spirit, and said curtly that he must see the
chief in person, that they ought not to presume to refuse him entrance, that he
came from the department of justice, and that when he complained of them, they
would see.
The clerks dared make no reply to
this, and one of them went to call the chief, who listened to the strange story
of the theft of the coat. Instead of directing his attention to the principal
points of the matter, he began to question Akaky Akakiyevich. Why was he going home so late? Was he in the
habit of doing so, or had he been to some disorderly house? So
that Akaky Akakiyevich got
thoroughly confused, and left him, without knowing whether the affair of his
cloak was in proper train or not.
All that day, for the first time in
his life, he never went near the department. The next day he made his
appearance, very pale, and in his old cape, which had become even more shabby. The news of the robbery of the cloak touched
many, although there were some officials present who never lost an opportunity,
even such a one as the present, of ridiculing Akaky Akakiyevich. They decided to make a collection for him on
the spot, but the officials had already spent a great deal in subscribing for
the director's portrait, and for some book, at the suggestion of the head of
that division, who was a friend of the author; and so the sum was trifling.
One of them, moved by pity, resolved
to help Akaky Akakiyevich
with some good advice, at least, and told him that he ought not to go to the
police, for although it might happen that a police-officer, wishing to win the
approval of his superiors, might hunt up the cloak by some means, still, his
cloak would remain in the possession of the police if he did not offer legal
proof that it belonged to him. The best thing for him, therefore, would be to
apply to a certain prominent personage; since this prominent personage, by
entering into relation with the proper persons, could greatly expedite the
matter.
As there was nothing else to be done,
Akaky Akakiyevich decided
to go to the prominent personage. What was the exact official position of the
prominent personage, remains unknown to this day. The
reader must know that the prominent personage had but recently become a
prominent personage, having up to that time been only an insignificant person.
Moreover, his present position was not considered prominent in comparison with
others still more so. But there is always a circle of people to whom what is
insignificant in the eyes of others, is important
enough. Moreover, he strove to increase his importance by sundry devices. For
instance, he managed to have the inferior officials meet him on the staircase
when he entered upon his service; no one was to presume to come directly to
him, but the strictest etiquette must be observed; the collegiate recorder must
make a report to the government secretary, the government secretary to the
titular councillor, or whatever other man was proper,
and all business must come before him in this manner. In Holy Russia, all is
thus contaminated with the love of imitation; every man imitates and copies his
superior. They even say that a certain titular councillor,
when promoted to the head of some small separate office, immediately
partitioned off a private room for himself, called it the audience chamber, and
posted at the door a lackey with red collar and braid, who grasped the handle
of the door, and opened to all comers, though the audience chamber would hardly
hold an ordinary writing table.
The manners and customs of the
prominent personage were grand and imposing, but rather exaggerated. The main
foundation of his system was strictness. "Strictness, strictness, and
always strictness!" he generally said; and at the last word he looked
significantly into the face of the person to whom he spoke. But there was no
necessity for this, for the halfscore of
subordinates, who formed the entire force of the office, were properly afraid.
On catching sight of him afar off, they left their work, and waited, drawn up
in line, until he had passed through the room. His ordinary converse with his
inferiors smacked of sternness, and consisted chiefly of three phrases:
"How dare you?" "Do you know whom you are speaking to?"
"Do you realise who is standing before
you?"
Otherwise he was a very kind-hearted
man, good to his comrades, and ready to oblige. But the rank of general threw
him completely off his balance. On receiving any one of that rank, he became
confused, lost his way, as it were, and never knew what to do. If he chanced to
be amongst his equals, he was still a very nice kind of man, a very good fellow
in many respects, and not stupid, but the very moment that he found himself in
the society of people but one rank lower than himself, he became silent. And
his situation aroused sympathy, the more so, as he felt himself that he might
have been making an incomparably better use of his time. In his eyes, there was
sometimes visible a desire to join some interesting conversation or group, but
he was kept back by the thought, "Would it not be a very great
condescension on his part? Would it not be familiar? And would he not thereby
lose his importance?" And in consequence of such reflections, he always
remained in the same dumb state, uttering from time to time a few monosyllabic
sounds, and thereby earning the name of the most wearisome of men.
To this prominent personage Akaky Akakiyevich presented
himself, and this at the most unfavourable time for
himself, though opportune for the prominent personage. The prominent personage
was in his cabinet, conversing very gaily with an old acquaintance and
companion of his childhood, whom he had not seen for several years, and who had
just arrived, when it was announced to him that a person named Bashmachkin had come. He asked abruptly, "Who is
he?"—"Some official," he was informed. "Ah, he can wait!
This is no time for him to call," said the important man.
It must be remarked here that the
important man lied outrageously. He had said all he had to say to his friend
long before, and the conversation had been interspersed for some time with very
long pauses, during which they merely slapped each other on the leg, and said,
"You think so, Ivan Abramovich!" "Just so, Stepan Varlamovich!"
Nevertheless, he ordered that the official should be kept waiting, in order to
show his friend, a man who had not been in the service for a long time, but had
lived at home in the country, how long officials had to wait in his ante-room.
At length, having talked himself
completely out, and more than that, having had his fill of pauses, and smoked a
cigar in a very comfortable arm-chair with reclining back, he suddenly seemed
to recollect, and said to the secretary, who stood by the door with papers of
reports, "So it seems that there is an official waiting to see me. Tell
him that he may come in." On perceiving Akaky Akakiyevich's modest mien and his worn uniform, he turned
abruptly to him, and said, "What do you want?" in a curt hard voice,
which he had practised in his room in private, and
before the looking-glass, for a whole week before being raised to his present
rank.
Akaky Akakiyevich, who was already
imbued with a due amount of fear, became somewhat confused, and as well as his
tongue would permit, explained, with a rather more frequent addition than usual
of the word "that" that his cloak was quite new, and had been stolen
in the most inhuman manner; that he had applied to him, in order that he might,
in some way, by his intermediation—that he might enter into correspondence with
the chief of police, and find the cloak.
For some inexplicable reason, this
conduct seemed familiar to the prominent personage.
"What, my dear sir!" he
said abruptly, "are you not acquainted with etiquette? To whom have you
come? Don't you know how such matters are managed? You should first have
presented a petition to the office. It would have gone to the head of the
department, then to the chief of the division, then it would have been handed
over to the secretary, and the secretary would have given it to me."
"But, your excellency,"
said Akaky Akakiyevich,
trying to collect his small handful of wits, and conscious at the same time
that he was perspiring terribly, "I, your excellency, presumed to trouble you because
secretaries—are an untrustworthy race."
"What, what, what!" said
the important personage. "Where did you get such courage? Where did you
get such ideas? What impudence towards their chiefs and superiors has spread
among the young generation!" The prominent
personage apparently had not observed that Akaky Akakiyevich was already in the neighbourhood
of fifty. If he could be called a young man, it must have been in comparison
with some one who was seventy. "Do you know to
whom you are speaking? Do you realise who is standing
before you? Do you realise it? Do you realise it, I ask you!" Then he stamped his foot, and
raised his voice to such a pitch that it would have frightened even a different
man from Akaky Akakiyevich.
Akaky Akakiyevich's senses failed him.
He staggered, trembled in every limb, and, if the porters had not run in to
support him, would have fallen to the floor. They carried him out insensible.
But the prominent personage, gratified that the effect should have surpassed
his expectations, and quite intoxicated with the thought that his word could
even deprive a man of his senses, glanced sideways at his friend in order to
see how he looked upon this, and perceived, not without satisfaction, that his
friend was in a most uneasy frame of mind, and even beginning on his part, to
feel a trifle frightened.
Akaky Akakiyevich could not remember
how he descended the stairs, and got into the street. He felt neither his hands
nor feet. Never in his life had he been so rated by any high official, let
alone a strange one. He went staggering on through the snow-storm, which was
blowing in the streets, with his mouth wide open. The wind, in St. Petersburg
fashion, darted upon him from all quarters, and down every cross-street. In a
twinkling it had blown a quinsy into his throat, and
he reached home unable to utter a word. His throat was swollen, and he lay down
on his bed. So powerful is sometimes a good scolding!
The next day a violent fever
developed. Thanks to the generous assistance of the St. Petersburg climate, the
malady progressed more rapidly than could have been expected, and when the
doctor arrived, he found, on feeling the sick man's pulse, that there was
nothing to be done, except to prescribe a poultice, so that the patient might
not be left entirely without the beneficent aid of medicine. But at the same
time, he predicted his end in thirty-six hours. After this he turned to the
landlady, and said, "And as for you, don't waste your time on him. Order
his pine coffin now, for an oak one will be too expensive for him."
Did Akaky Akakiyevich hear these fatal words? And if he heard them,
did they produce any overwhelming effect upon him? Did he lament the bitterness
of his life?—We know not, for he continued in a
delirious condition. Visions incessantly appeared to him, each stranger than
the other. Now he saw Petrovich, and ordered him to
make a cloak, with some traps for robbers, who seemed to him to be always under
the bed; and he cried every moment to the landlady to pull one of them from
under his coverlet. Then he inquired why his old mantle hung before him when he
had a new cloak. Next he fancied that he was standing before the prominent
person, listening to a thorough setting-down and saying, "Forgive me, your
excellency!" but at last he began to curse,
uttering the most horrible words, so that his aged landlady crossed herself,
never in her life having heard anything of the kind from him, and more so as
these words followed directly after the words "your excellency."
Later on he talked utter nonsense, of which nothing could be made, all that was
evident being that these incoherent words and thoughts hovered ever about one
thing, his cloak.
At length poor Akaky
Akakiyevich breathed his last. They sealed up neither
his room nor his effects, because, in the first place, there were no heirs,
and, in the second, there was very little to inherit beyond a bundle of
goose-quills, a quire of white official paper, three pairs of socks, two or
three buttons which had burst off his trousers, and the mantle already known to
the reader. To whom all this fell, God knows. I
confess that the person who told me this tale took no interest in the matter.
They carried Akaky Akakiyevich
out, and buried him.
And St. Petersburg was left without Akaky Akakiyevich, as though he
had never lived there. A being disappeared, who was protected by none, dear to
none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to himself the
attention of those students of human nature who omit no opportunity of
thrusting a pin through a common fly and examining it under the microscope. A being
who bore meekly the jibes of the department, and went to his grave without
having done one unusual deed, but to whom, nevertheless, at the close of his
life, appeared a bright visitant in the form of a cloak, which momentarily
cheered his poor life, and upon him, thereafter, an intolerable misfortune
descended, just as it descends upon the heads of the mighty of this world!
Several days after his death, the
porter was sent from the department to his lodgings, with an order for him to
present himself there immediately, the chief commanding it. But the porter had
to return unsuccessful, with the answer that he could not come; and to the
question, "Why?" replied, "Well, because he is dead! he was buried four days ago." In this manner did they
hear of Akaky Akakiyevich's
death at the department. And the next day a new
official sat in his place, with a handwriting by no
means so upright, but more inclined and slanting.
But who could have imagined that
this was not really the end of Akaky Akakiyevich, that he was destined to raise a commotion
after death, as if in compensation for his utterly insignificant life? But so
it happened, and our poor story unexpectedly gains a fantastic ending.
A rumour
suddenly spread through St. Petersburg, that a dead man had taken to appearing
on the Kalinkin Bridge, and its vicinity, at night in
the form of an official seeking a stolen cloak, and that, under the pretext of
its being the stolen cloak, he dragged, without regard to rank or calling,
every one's cloak from his shoulders, be it cat-skin, beaver, fox, bear, sable,
in a word, every sort of fur and skin which men adopted for their covering. One
of the department officials saw the dead man with his own eyes, and immediately
recognised in him Akaky Akakiyevich. This, however, inspired him with such terror,
that he ran off with all his might, and therefore did not scan the dead man
closely, but only saw how the latter threatened him from afar with his finger.
Constant complaints poured in from all quarters, that the backs and shoulders,
not only of titular but even of court councillors,
were exposed to the danger of a cold, on account of the frequent dragging off
of their cloaks.
Arrangements were made by the police
to catch the corpse, alive or dead, at any cost, and punish him as an example
to others, in the most severe manner. In this they nearly succeeded, for a
watchman, on guard in Kirinshkin Lane, caught the
corpse by the collar on the very scene of his evil deeds, when attempting to
pull off the frieze cloak of a retired musician. Having seized him by the
collar, he summoned, with a shout, two of his comrades, whom he enjoined to
hold him fast, while he himself felt for a moment in his boot, in order to draw
out his snuff-box, and refresh his frozen nose. But the snuff was of a sort
which even a corpse could not endure. The watchman having closed his right
nostril with his finger, had no sooner succeeded in holding half a handful up
to the left, than the corpse sneezed so violently that he completely filled the
eyes of all three. While they raised their hands to wipe them, the dead man
vanished completely, so that they positively did not know whether they had
actually had him in their grip at all. Thereafter the watchmen conceived such a
terror of dead men that they were afraid even to seize the living, and only
screamed from a distance. "Hey, there! go your way!" So the dead official began to appear even
beyond the Kalinkin Bridge, causing no little terror
to all timid people.
But we have totally neglected that
certain prominent personage who may really be considered as the cause of the
fantastic turn taken by this true history. First of all, justice compels us to
say, that after the departure of poor, annihilated Akaky
Akakiyevich, he felt something like remorse.
Suffering was unpleasant to him, for his heart was accessible to many good
impulses, in spite of the fact that his rank often prevented his showing his
true self. As soon as his friend had left his cabinet, he began to think about
poor Akaky Akakiyevich. And
from that day forth, poor Akaky Akakiyevich,
who could not bear up under an official reprimand, recurred to his mind almost
every day. The thought troubled him to such an extent, that a week later he
even resolved to send an official to him, to learn whether he really could
assist him. And when it was reported to him that Akaky
Akakiyevich had died suddenly of fever, he was
startled, hearkened to the reproaches of his conscience, and was out of sorts
for the whole day.
Wishing to divert his mind in some
way and drive away the disagreeable impression, he set out that evening for one
of his friends' houses, where he found quite a large party assembled. What was
better, nearly every one was of the same rank as
himself, so that he need not feel in the least constrained. This had a marvellous effect upon his mental state. He grew expansive,
made himself agreeable in conversation, in short, he
passed a delightful evening After supper he drank a couple of glasses of
champagne—not a bad recipe for cheerfulness, as every one
knows. The champagne inclined him to various adventures, and he determined not
to return home, but to go and see a certain well-known lady, of German
extraction, Karolina Ivanovna, a lady, it appears,
with whom he was on a very friendly footing.
It must be mentioned that the
prominent personage was no longer a young man, but a good husband and respected
father of a family. Two sons, one of whom was already in the service, and a
good-looking, sixteen-year-old daughter, with a slightly arched but pretty little
nose, came every morning to kiss his hand and say, "Bon jour,
papa." His wife, a still fresh and good-looking woman, first gave him her
hand to kiss, and then, reversing the procedure, kissed his. But the prominent
personage, though perfectly satisfied in his domestic relations, considered it
stylish to have a friend in another quarter of the city. This friend was
scarcely prettier or younger than his wife; but there are such puzzles in the
world, and it is not our place to judge them. So the important personage
descended the stairs, stepped into his sledge, said to the coachman, "To
Karolina Ivanovna's," and, wrapping himself
luxuriously in his warm cloak, found himself in that delightful frame of mind
than which a Russian can conceive nothing better, namely, when you think of
nothing yourself, yet when the thoughts creep into your mind of their own
accord, each more agreeable than the other, giving you no trouble either to
drive them away, or seek them. Fully satisfied, he recalled all the gay
features of the evening just passed and all the mots
which had made the little circle laugh. Many of them he repeated in a low
voice, and found them quite as funny as before; so it is not surprising that he
should laugh heartily at them. Occasionally, however, he was interrupted by
gusts of wind, which, coming suddenly, God knows whence or why, cut his face,
drove masses of snow into it, filled out his cloak-collar like a sail, or
suddenly blew it over his head with supernatural force, and thus caused him
constant trouble to disentangle himself.
Suddenly the important personage
felt some one clutch him firmly by the collar. Turning round, he perceived a
man of short stature, in an old, worn uniform, and recognised,
not without terror, Akaky Akakiyevich.
The official's face was white as snow, and looked just like a corpse's. But the
horror of the important personage transcended all bounds when he saw the dead
man's mouth open, and heard it utter the following remarks, while it breathed
upon him the terrible odour of the grave: "Ah,
here you are at last! I have you, that—by the collar! I need your cloak. You
took no trouble about mine, but reprimanded me. So now give up your own."
The pallid prominent personage
almost died of fright. Brave as he was in the office and in the presence of
inferiors generally, and although, at the sight of his manly form and
appearance, every one said, "Ugh! how much
character he has!" at this crisis, he, like many possessed of an heroic
exterior, experienced such terror, that, not without cause, he began to fear an
attack of illness. He flung his cloak hastily from his shoulders and shouted to
his coachman in an unnatural voice, "Home at full speed!" The
coachman, hearing the tone which is generally employed at critical moments, and
even accompanied by something much more tangible, drew his head down between
his shoulders in case of an emergency, flourished his whip, and flew on like an
arrow. In a little more than six minutes the prominent personage was at the
entrance of his own house. Pale, thoroughly scared, and cloakless,
he went home instead of to Karolina Ivanovna's,
reached his room somehow or other, and passed the night in the direst distress;
so that the next morning over their tea, his daughter said, "You are very
pale to-day, papa." But papa remained silent, and said not a word to any
one of what had happened to him, where he had been, or where he had intended to
go.
This occurrence made a deep
impression upon him. He even began to say, "How dare you? Do you realise who is standing before you?" less frequently
to the under-officials, and, if he did utter the words, it was only after first
having learned the bearings of the matter. But the most noteworthy point was, that from that day forward the apparition of the dead
official ceased to be seen. Evidently the prominent personage's cloak just
fitted his shoulders. At all events, no more instances of his dragging cloaks
from people's shoulders were heard of. But many active and solicitous persons
could by no means reassure themselves, and asserted that the dead official
still showed himself in distant parts of the city.
In fact, one watchman in Kolomen saw with his own eyes the apparition come from
behind a house. But the watchman was not a strong man, so he was afraid to
arrest him, and followed him in the dark, until, at length, the apparition
looked round, paused, and inquired, "What do you want?" at the same
time showing such a fist as is never seen on living men. The watchman said,
"Nothing," and turned back instantly. But the apparition was much too
tall, wore huge moustaches, and, directing its steps apparently towards the Obukhov Bridge, disappeared in the darkness of the night.