Chapter III: Part 3

On the way he collided with a chimney sweep, who blackened his shoulder; a whole hatful of lime fell upon him from the top of an unfinished house. He did not notice the things that happened to him, and only when he ran against a watchman, who, having placed his halberd beside him, was shaking snuff out of a case upon his horny hand, did he become slightly conscious of where he was, and that only because the watchman said: “Why do you push yourself into a man’s very face? What’s a sidewalk for?” This caused him to look around and to turn homeward.

It was only at home that he began to collect his thoughts, and to view the situation in its true and clear aspect. He began to argue with himself no longer in an incoherent manner, but reasonably and frankly, as with a sensible companion, with whom one might discuss any intimate and personal matter.

“Well, no,” said Akaki Akakievich. “Just now Petrovich is not in the right mood to talk with; he now that--his wife, it seems, must have given him a beating. I had better go to him on Sunday morning; after Saturday night he will be cross-eyed and sleepy; he will want to get drunk, and his wife won’t give him the money, and at such a time a ten-copeck piece in his hand--and he will be more sociable, and the cloak then and there----”

So argued Akaki Akakievich with himself. He now felt more cheerful, and waited until the first Sunday, when, seeing from afar Petrovich’s wife leave the house, he made haste to carry out his plan. Petrovich was, in fact, squint-eyed after Saturday; his head drooped, and he was quite sleepy; notwithstanding all this, the moment he knew what the business was about he at once grew alert, as if the very Satan prompted him.

“Impossible,” he said. “You must order a new one.”

At this, Akaki Akakievich slipped a ten-copeck piece into his hand.

“Thank you, sir; I will drink a bit to your health,” said Petrovich. “As for the cloak, you need not worry about it; it is nothing but a rag. I will make you a handsome new cloak; let us settle that.”

Akaki Akakievich still insisted on his mending it, but Petrovich would not listen, and said:

“There’s no way out of it; I shall have to make you a new one; and you may depend upon it, I will do my best. It is even possible that I shall make it according to the new fashion: the collar will fasten with silver hooks underneath.”

When Akaki Akakievich began to comprehend that a new cloak was an absolute necessity, his spirits sank utterly. How indeed was it to be done? Where was the money to come from? He could of course depend for a great part of it upon his customary holiday gift. But there was a new pair of trousers to order; there was the old debt to pay the cobbler for putting on new tops to old boots; he also needed three shirts and at least two undergarments which it is impolite to mention in print; in a word, there would not be a copeck left, and even if the director should prove so generous as to allot as his share forty-five or fifty rubles instead of forty, there would be the merest trifle left, which, considered in connection with the cloak money, would seem as a drop in the sea; though of course he knew that Petrovich would sometimes get a sudden notion to charge the devil knows what an exorbitant price, so that even his wife could not restrain herself from exclaiming: “Are you out of your wits, you fool! At one time he will take almost nothing for his work, but at another time he is mad enough to ask more than the thing is worth!” Although Akaki Akakievich knew quite well that Petrovich would undertake to make the cloak for eighty rubles, where were even the eighty rubles to come from? He could manage to provide half of it, perhaps even a trifle more; but where was he to find the other half?

First of all, the reader should be informed where the first half was to come from. Akaki Akakievich had the habit of putting away, for every ruble he spent, a two-copeck piece into a small box, kept under lock, and with a small hole in the top for the dropping in of the money. At the expiration of every six months he would exchange the collected coppers for silver. He had been doing this for a long time, and in the course of several years had managed in this manner to save more than forty rubles.

With the first half in hand, the question now was: how to procure the other half? After much deliberation, Akaki Akakievich decided that it would be necessary to curtail the ordinary expenses for at least a period of one year, to deprive himself of his evening tea, to light no candles; and if there was anything that had to be done, to do it in the landlady’s room by her candle. He also could, when in the street, step more lightly and cautiously upon the stones, almost on tiptoe, and save thereby his heels from wearing out too quickly. He could give his laundress as little wash as possible; and, in order not to wear his clothes out, could throw them off upon arriving home and remain solely in his cotton dressing-gown, an ancient garment spared mercifully by time.

To tell the truth, these deprivations came hard in the beginning, but gradually he became used to them; he even learned to go hungry in the evening; but in compensation he nourished himself spiritually, eternally bearing in his thoughts the idea of the new cloak. From this time on, it seemed as if his existence had become fuller, as if he had married, as if some other person was living with him, as if he were not alone, but some pleasant companion had consented to share his lot in life with him--and this companion was none other than the cloak, thickly wadded and so strongly lined as never to wear out. He became as it were livelier, even more characterful, as befits a man who has a clear and a firm aim in life. Doubt and indecision seemed to have vanished from his face and manner, and indeed all his wavering and more undefined characteristics became less noticeable. At times even a sparkle showed in his eyes, and his mind indulged in the most daring thoughts. Why not, for instance, marten on the collar? Such a thought made him absent-minded; and upon one occasion, in copying a paper, he almost made an error, which caused him to cry almost aloud, “Oh!” and to make a sign of the cross.

At least once a month he visited Petrovich, to talk over the cloak with him--where best to buy the cloth, the question of its color, and its price--and, though somewhat agitated, he always returned feeling happier in the thought that the time was at last approaching when everything would be bought and the cloak made.

The matter went even faster than he anticipated. Surpassing all his hopes, the director allotted him not forty or forty-five rubles, but sixty! Perhaps he felt that Akaki Akakievich needed a cloak, or else it was an accident, but the fact was, Akaki Akakievich found himself with twenty unexpected rubles. This circumstance hastened matters. Another two or three months of hunger, and Akaki Akakievich found himself with eighty rubles. His heart, usually tranquil, began to throb.

On the first free day he went shopping with Petrovich. They purchased a very good cloth, and at a reasonable price, because they had considered the matter for a full six months before, and hardly a month passed but that they visited the shops to inquire prices; besides, Petrovich himself said that better cloth couldn’t be found. For lining, they selected a cotton cloth, but so strong and thick that, to use the words of Petrovich, it was better than silk, and in appearance even showy and shiny. Marten fur proved too expensive, and so in its place they purchased the very best obtainable cat-skin, which in the distance could be mistaken for marten. Petrovich worked on the cloak two weeks; there was much quilting, otherwise it would have been finished sooner. For his labor Petrovich charged twelve rubles--he couldn’t possibly take less; it was all done with silk, in small double stitches, which afterwards Petrovich went over with his own teeth, creating various patterns in the process.

It was--it is difficult to say precisely on what day; but probably the most triumphant day in Akaki Akakievich’s life was when Petrovich at last brought the cloak. He brought it in the morning, just before the time necessary to start for the department. It could not have arrived at a more opportune moment, because a severe cold had set in, and it seemed to threaten to become even colder. Petrovich himself brought the cloak, as befits a good tailor. His face expressed such an extraordinary significance as Akaki Akakievich never had beheld there before. It was evident that he felt he had done no small thing, and that he had suddenly revealed in himself the abyss which separates these tailors who sew on mere linings and do mending, from those who make an entire new garment. He drew out the cloak from a handkerchief in which he brought it. The handkerchief had just come from the laundress; so, folding it, he put it in his pocket for use. Holding up the cloak proudly in both hands, he very deftly threw it on Akaki Akakievich’s shoulders, after which he pulled it down with his hand from behind, and let it hang unbuttoned. Akaki Akakievich, like a man wise in years, wished to try the sleeves. Petrovich helped him into them. The sleeves too fitted well. In short, the cloak was all that was wanted of it. Petrovich did not let the opportunity pass to remark that only because he conducted his establishment without a signboard and in a small street, and had known Akaki Akakievich for so long, had he charged him so cheaply, and that on Nevski Prospect they would have charged him seventy-five rubles for the work alone. Akaki Akakievich did not wish to argue the matter with Petrovich, and feared all large amounts, of which the tailor loved to speak soundingly. Akaki Akakievich paid and thanked Petrovich, and set forth in his new cloak to the department. Petrovich followed him, and for a long time his gaze lingered on the cloak from a distance; then, making a short cut through a side street, he reappeared to view the cloak from another point--namely, directly in front.

As for Akaki Akakievich, he walked on, experiencing exultation in every part of his body. At every step he felt conscious of the new cloak upon his shoulders, and several times he even smiled from internal gratification. Indeed, the cloak had two advantages: it was warm and it was handsome. He did not notice the road at all, and suddenly found himself in the department. He threw off the cloak in the porter’s room, and, after surveying it, he confided it to the special care of the attendant. It is impossible to tell how every one in the department suddenly knew that Akaki Akakievich had a new cloak, and that the cape no longer existed. All at once ran into the porter’s room to inspect the garment. They began to congratulate him, so that at the beginning he smiled and afterwards even felt ashamed. When, however, every one surrounding him said that the new cloak should be christened, and that at least he should give them all a party some evening, Akaki Akakievich lost his head completely, and did not know what to do, what to say, and how to get out of it. For several minutes, blushing, he tried to assure them, in a sufficiently naïve manner, that the cloak was not at all a new one, that it was, in fact, an old cloak. In the end, one of the officials, who served as assistant to the head clerk, evidently wishing to show that he was not at all proud and did not condescend towards his inferiors, said: “So be it. I, instead of Akaki Akakievich, will give the party, and I invite you all to my house tonight. As it happens, it is my birthday.” Naturally, the officials then congratulated the head clerk’s assistant, and accepted the invitation eagerly. Akaki Akakievich at first wished to decline, but every one started to impress upon him how discourteous it was, and that it was a shame and a disgrace, so that he could not refuse. Besides, he afterwards began to feel pleasure in the thought that he would have an opportunity to spend an evening in his new cloak.

That entire day was like a triumphant holiday for Akaki Akakievich. He returned home in the happiest possible frame of mind, threw off his cloak, and hung it carefully on the wall, his eye revelling once more in the cloth and the lining; he afterwards held up beside it for comparison the old cape, now all fallen to pieces. He laughed, so great was the difference. And even a long time after dinner he smiled each time the condition of his old cape occurred to him. He dined cheerfully, and did not copy any papers afterwards, but rested upon his bed until it grew dark. Afterwards, wasting no time, he dressed himself, placed the cloak across his shoulders, and went into the street.

Just where the inviting official lived, we unfortunately cannot say; our memory is beginning to fail us, and the St. Petersburg streets and houses have so badly massed and mixed themselves in our head that it is most difficult to establish any kind of order out of all the chaos. However that may be, at least it is certain that the official lived in the better part of the city, from which may be guessed that it was anywhere but near Akaki Akakievich’s neighborhood. At first he had to pass through several dimly lighted, deserted streets, but in proportion as he approached the official’s residence the streets grew more lively, more populous, and more brightly illuminated; pedestrians grew in greater numbers; women too, handsomely dressed, began to appear; some of the men even wore beaver collars; peasants with their wooden fence-rail sledges, hammered over with yellow-headed nails, were more rarely met with; on the other hand, drivers with red velvet caps, in lacquered sledges, with bearskin coverings, were becoming more frequent; and beautifully ornamented carriages flew swiftly through the street.

Akaki Akakievich gazed upon all this as upon a novelty; it was now several years since he had passed an evening in the streets. He paused with curiosity before a lighted shop-window, to look at a picture in which was represented a handsome woman taking off her shoe and baring her entire foot very prettily, while behind her a man with whiskers and a handsome mustache peeped through the door of another room. Akaki Akakievich shook his head and laughed, and then continued his journey. Why did he laugh? Was it because he had met a thing altogether unfamiliar to him, but for which, however, every one cherishes some sort of feeling, or was it because he thought about it as many other officials would? “Ah, those French! What is there to say? When they want to do anything like that, they do it rather well!” And it is possible that he did not think such a thing at all. After all, it is impossible to steal into a man’s soul and to discover all that he thinks.

At last he reached the house in which lived the head clerk’s assistant. This man resided in grand style; the staircase was lighted by a lamp; his quarters were on the second floor. Entering the vestibule, Akaki Akakievich observed several rows of galoshes on the floor. Among them, in the middle of the room, stood the samovar; it was humming and emitting clouds of steam. The walls were covered with cloaks and mantles, among which were even a few with beaver collars or with velvet lapels. Behind the wall were audible the noise and conversation, which suddenly grew clear and loud when the door opened and the servant came out with a trayful of empty glasses, a cream-jug, and a sugar-bowl. It was evident that the officials had arrived some time ago and had had their first glass of tea.

Akaki Akakievich, having hung up his cloak himself, entered the room, and his astonished gaze took in at once the lights, the officials, the pipes, and the card-tables, and he was confused by the sound of conversation rising from all sides and the noise of moving chairs. He paused very awkwardly in the middle of the room, pondering what he should do. But he had already been noticed, and he was received with shouts; every one running towards the vestibule to survey his cloak anew. Although Akaki Akakievich was somewhat astonished, still, being a simple-hearted man, he could not help but feel flattered, seeing how well his cloak was liked. Afterwards, it goes without saying, they forgot him and his cloak, and returned quite properly to the tables appointed for whist. All this--the noise, the conversation, and the size of the gathering--all this was strange to Akaki Akakievich. He simply did not know what to do with himself, where to put his hands, his feet, and his entire body; finally he seated himself near the players, looked at the cards, or into the face of now one, now another, and after a time began to grow drowsy, and to feel a certain feeling of weariness, all the more because his accustomed hour for going to bed had long passed. He wished to bid his host good-night, but he was not permitted to depart; they insisted that he drink a glass of champagne in honor of his new garment. In another hour supper was served; it consisted of a relish, cold veal, pastry, sweets, and champagne. Akaki Akakievich was made to drink two glasses of champagne, after which the room assumed to him a livelier aspect; nevertheless, he could not forget that it was twelve o’clock, and that he should have been home long ago. In order that the host might not detain him, he stole silently out of the room, sought out in the anteroom his cloak, which, to his sorrow, he found lying on the floor. He brushed it, removed every speck of dust from it, put it on his shoulders, and descended the stairs into the street.

The street was as yet all alight. Some of the petty shops, those permanent clubs of servants and all sorts of people, were open; others, however, which were closed, showed a long streak of light through the entire length of the door-crack, suggesting that they did not lack company, probably servants of both sexes, who were concluding their gossip and conversation, and keeping their masters in complete ignorance of their whereabouts. Akaki Akakievich walked on in a happy frame of mind, started even to run, for an unknown reason, after a woman who flashed by him like lightning. After this, however, he paused and resumed his former leisurely pace, wondering at his own sudden spurt. Very soon there stretched before him the deserted streets, not particularly cheerful even by day, and much less so by night. Now they seemed even more than usually dark and lonely; the lights were growing further apart; then came wooden houses and fences; not a soul anywhere; only the snow sparkled in the streets; and the slumbering, low-roofed cabins with closed shutters looked melancholy against the snow. He was approaching the spot where the street cut through a vast square, with houses on the other side barely visible across the desert space.

In the distance, God knows how far, a tiny flame glimmered in a watchman’s box, which seemed to verge on the edge of the world. Akaki Akakievich’s cheerfulness diminished here perceptibly. He entered the square not without a certain involuntary fear; not without some foreboding of evil. He glanced behind him and on both sides--a sea appeared to surround him. “No, it is better not to look,” he thought, and walked on with closed eyes; and when he opened them to see whether or not he had reached the end of the square, he suddenly beheld before him, almost under his very nose, some bearded individuals, precisely what sort he could not distinguish. Everything grew dark before his eyes, and his heart began to throb.

“But, I say, the cloak is mine,” said one of the men in a loud voice, seizing him by the collar.

Akaki Akakievich wished to cry out, “Help!” when the other man put his fist, the size of an official’s head, to his very mouth, and said, “Just try to make a noise!”

Akaki Akakievich only felt conscious of how they removed the cloak from his shoulders, then gave him a parting kick, which sent him headlong into the snow; after that he felt no more.

In a few minutes he recovered consciousness and rose to his feet, but no one was to be seen. He felt cold, and the absence of his cloak; he began to shout, but his voice did not seem to reach the bounds of the square. Desperate, not ceasing to shout, he started to run across the square straight towards the watchman’s box, beside which stood the watchman, leaning upon his halberd, and looking, as it were, with eager expectancy for an explanation as to this strange fellow’s running and shouting. Akaki Akakievich, having reached him, began to shout in a gasping voice that he was asleep and did not attend to his business, and let people rob a man. The watchman replied that he saw nothing except two men stop and talk to him in the middle of the square, and that he thought they were his friends; he also suggested that rather than waste time on talk he should report the matter to the police captain, and that he would find the man who had taken the cloak.

Akaki Akakievich arrived home in complete disorder. His hair, which thrived in no large numbers upon his temples and the back of his head, was in a dishevelled state; while his entire body was covered with snow. His old landlady, on hearing a loud knocking on the door, sprang quickly out of bed, and with only one shoe on ran to open the door, holding her night-gown, out of modesty, to her breast. Having opened the door, she drew back upon seeing the condition of her lodger. When he explained what had happened she wrung her hands and advised him to inform the district chief of police at once; that a lesser official would only promise without doing anything; besides, she had some acquaintance with the chief, because Anna, her former cook, had just become a nurse at his house. She saw him very often pass her house, and, moreover, she knew that he went to church every Sunday, and that as he prayed he looked cheerily at the same time upon all, and therefore was, to all appearances, a good man. Having listened to this suggestion, Akaki Akakievich very sadly betook himself to his room, and how he spent the night there may be imagined by those who have the faculty of putting themselves in the place of others.

Early next morning he visited the district chief and was told that he was asleep; he went again at ten, with the same result; at eleven they told him the chief was not at home; when he went at dinner-time, the clerks in the anteroom would not admit him, but demanded to know the business that brought him; so that finally Akaki Akakievich for once in his life showed a spark of courage and said firmly that he must see the district chief personally, that they dared not refuse him, as he came from the department upon official business, and that if they persisted he would present a complaint against them, which would make them sorry. The clerks dared not reply to this, and one of them went in to call the chief.

Instead of directing his attention to the important point of the case, he began to cross-examine Akaki Akakievich. Why was he returning home so late? Did he stop on the way in any disorderly house? In the end Akaki Akakievich was so completely confused that he went out not knowing whether anything would be done about the cloak or not.

The entire day he did not appear in the department--the first time in his life. The next day he arrived at his place looking very pale and in his old cape, which had grown even sadder-looking. The news of the robbery of the cloak--notwithstanding the fact that some of the officials did not permit even this opportunity to pass without laughing at Akaki Akakievich--nevertheless touched many. They decided to take up a collection for him, but succeeded in obtaining a mere trifle; as the officials had already spent considerable money in subscribing for the director’s portrait, and for a book, at the suggestion of the chief of the bureau, who was a friend of the author; hence the insignificance of the sum.

Some one, out of pity, wished at least to help Akaki Akakievich with good advice; and so he told him not to go to the captain, for though the captain might really wish to earn the approbation of the chiefs and find the cloak in some way or other, the cloak itself would nevertheless remain with the police, unless he could show legal proof that it was his; he ought therefore to apply to a certain _important personage_; and this _important personage_, by dealing with the proper persons, could hasten and expedite matters. There was nothing else to do but to turn to the _important personage_.

What was the precise function of the _important personage_ remains unknown to this day. One point should be made clear: that this particular _important personage_ only recently had become an important personage, and that until quite lately he had been an unimportant personage. And aside from that, his position was not even now considered important when compared with that of other more important personages. There will always be, however, a circle of people to whom what is unimportant to other people is sufficiently important. Then, again, he bent all his efforts to increase his importance through numerous other means, as, for instance, he instituted the custom of having his inferiors lined up on the stairway to greet his arrival at the department; he also insisted that no one should venture to appear before him directly, but that everything should follow in most unrelenting order: the collegiate registrar should report to the government secretary, the government secretary to the titular councillor, or to whoever was the proper official, and that in this manner the business should finally come to him.

This habit of imitation has infected all of Holy Russia: every one imitates and mimics his superiors. It is even said that a certain titular councillor, when promoted to the head of some small separate office, immediately partitioned off a private room, calling it the “audience chamber;” he placed at the door two attendants in red collars and braid, whose sole duty consisted in taking the door by the handle and opening it to every comer, although the “audience chamber” had barely room enough to contain an ordinary writing-table.

The ways and manners of the _important personage_ were impressive and imposing, but somewhat overdone. The main principle of his system was strictness. “Strictness, strictness--and strictness,” he used to say generally: and always when pronouncing the last word looked significantly at the person whom he was addressing; although this was altogether unnecessary, because the ten officials, constituting the entire mechanism of his office, were afraid of him; and, seeing him even from afar, they would stop all work and assume a respectful attitude until their chief had passed through the room. His usual conversation with his inferiors consisted almost entirely of three phrases: “How dare you? Do you know to whom you are speaking? Do you realize who stands before you?” Otherwise, he was a good-natured man and solicitous towards his comrades; but the rank of general unhinged his mind completely. Upon receiving this rank, he lost his head, and did not know what to do with himself. When he happened to be in the company of his equals he still managed to do the proper thing, to be a gentleman, and in many respects quite a clever fellow; but once in the company of folk even a single rank below him, he simply became helpless; he was silent, and his condition aroused sympathy, the more so as he himself felt that he could have passed the time incomparably happier. At times the desire to join in some conversation or circle was strongly evident in his eyes; but the following thought always arrested him: would it not be regarded as a familiarity, and would it not detract from his importance? In consequence of such reasoning, he remained in the same eternal mood of silence, uttering only rarely some monosyllabic sounds; and thereby earning the name of a most wearisome person.

Before an _important personage_ of this type appeared our Akaki Akakievich, and at a most inopportune moment--that is to say, for himself, but opportune for the _important personage_. The _important personage_ was in his cabinet, conversing very cheerfully with an old acquaintance and friend of his youth, whom he had not seen for many years. It was at such a time that they told him of a certain Bashmachkin who wished to see him. He asked abruptly, “Who is he?” They answered him, “Some sort of official.” “Ah, let him wait, now is not the time,” said the _important personage_. It is necessary to mention here that the _important personage_ simply lied: he had the time to spare; he had already talked over everything with his friend, and the conversation had begun some time ago to lag with long silences; and they merely continued to tap each other on the leg, and exclaim, “That’s how it is, Ivan Abramovich!” “That’s so, Stephen Varlamovich!” Nevertheless, he caused the official to wait, in order to show his friend, a man some time out of the service and living in a village, how long he compelled officials to wait for him in the anteroom.

Finally, having conversed to his heart’s content, and having had also his fill of silence and smoked a cigar in a very comfortable chair with an easy back, he bethought himself all of a sudden, as it were, and said to the secretary who stood at the door with papers needing his signature, “Oh, yes, I believe an official is waiting to see me; tell him to come in.” On seeing Akaki Akakievich’s humble aspect and his shabby uniform, he suddenly turned to him and said, “What is it you wish?” He put this question abruptly and in a hard voice, which he had practised in his own room, when alone, and before the mirror, a full week before receiving his present position and rank.

Akaki Akakievich, who already felt a certain timorousness, became somewhat confused, and, so far as his power of speech would permit, explained, with an even more frequent employment than usual of the word “that,” that his cloak was quite new, and had been stolen in a most inhuman manner, and that he was now applying to him to use his influence with the chief of police or some one else to find his cloak.

The general, for some reason or other, regarded such conduct as familiar. “What, dear sir,” said he in his abrupt manner, “are you ignorant of the rules? Why do you come to me? Do you not know how such matters are managed? You should have first presented a petition to the office; it would have then gone to the chief clerk, then to the clerk of the division, then to the secretary, and the secretary would have reported it to me----”

“But, Your Excellency,” said Akaki Akakievich, gathering together his final remnant of courage, and breaking out into a terrible perspiration, “I, Your Excellency, have presumed to trouble you because, you see, the secretaries are that--an untrustworthy race----”

“What! what! what!” ejaculated the _important personage_. “Where do you get the courage? Where did you get such ideas? What a spirit of impertinence has spread among the young generation against their chiefs and superiors!”

The _important personage_, apparently, had not noticed that Akaki Akakievich was already a man of about fifty, and that if he could be called a young person, it was only in comparison with one who was seventy.

“Do you know to whom you are speaking? Do you realize who stands before you? Do you realize it? Do you realize it? Answer me!”

At this point he stamped his foot, and raised his voice to such a high pitch that even a man different from Akakievich would have been frightened. Akaki Akakievich grew faint; he reeled; trembled from head to foot; then his legs gave way under him; if several attendants had not run in to support him, he would have fallen to the floor. They carried him out more dead than alive. The _important personage_, much gratified that the effect he produced far exceeded all expectation, and thoroughly intoxicated with the thought that even a word from him could deprive a man of his senses, looked askance at his friend, to see how that individual regarded the matter, and observed, not without satisfaction, that his friend was in a most uncomfortable state, and was beginning to show on his part certain signs of fear.

How he managed to descend the stairway and into the street--of this Akaki Akakievich remembered nothing. He was unconscious of either hands or feet. Never before in his life had he been so reprimanded by a superior, let alone an unfamiliar one. He walked in the snow-storm which whistled through the streets; his mouth open, he staggered along the sidewalks; the wind blew upon him in St. Petersburg fashion from all four sides and every crossing. In an instant it had blown a quinsy down his throat, and he arrived at home all swollen and too weak to utter a word. He lay down on his bed.

The next day a high fever developed. Thanks to the generous assistance of the St. Petersburg climate, the illness advanced more rapidly than could be expected; and when the doctor appeared and felt his pulse, there was nothing for him to do except to prescribe a poultice, for no other reason but that the patient be not deprived of the beneficent aid of medicine; at the same time he predicted his inevitable end in thirty-six hours, after which he turned to the landlady and said: “And you, my woman, had better not lose any time about it, and order a pine coffin for him, as an oak one will be too expensive.”

Did Akaki Akakievich hear these fatal words? And if he heard them, did they agitate him? Did he bewail the bitterness of his life? It is uncertain, because he spent his last hours in fever and delirium. Visions, one stranger than the other, continued to appear before him. Now he saw Petrovich and ordered him to make a cloak with traps for thieves who he imagined were constantly under his bed; and he more than once called for his landlady to drag a thief from under his bed-cover. Then he inquired why the old cloak hung in front of him when he had a new one. Several times he fancied himself as standing before the general, addressing him as “Your Excellency,” and pleading with him after the reprimand; and finally he began to utter imprecations, employing the most terrible words, so that the aged housekeeper, never before having heard the like, made a sign of the cross, all the more since these curses usually followed after the words “Your Excellency.” Later he began to utter sheer nonsense; one thing, however, was evident: all his incoherent words and thoughts hovered around the one and the same cloak.

At last poor Akaki Akakievich gave up his spirit. The usual legal procedure with regard to his room and his effects was not followed, because in the first place there were no heirs, and in the second, because he left so little property, namely, a bundle of goose-quills, a quire of white official paper, three pairs of socks, two or three buttons that had come off his trousers, and the cape already familiar to the reader. To whom all this fell, God knows; this, I must confess, did not interest even him who relates this story.

They bore Akaki Akakievich away and buried him. And so St. Petersburg was left without Akaki Akakievich, as though he had never been there. A being disappeared, who was protected by none, dear to none, interesting to none, and who did not even attract to himself the attention of the student who does not let an opportunity slip by to put a pin through a common fly and to examine it under the microscope--a being who endured humbly the ridicule of his brother officials and went to his grave without having experienced a single notable event, but for whom nevertheless, at the very close of his life, came a radiating guest in the shape of a cloak, which cheered for an instant his sorry existence; and upon whom there afterwards descended an intolerable misfortune, such as descends even on the heads of the mighty of this world!

A few days after his death, an attendant was sent to his house to request him to report immediately at the department; but the attendant returned to his chief with the rather unsatisfactory answer that he could not come, and to the question, “Why?” replied, “Well, you see, he’s dead. He was buried four days ago.” In this manner did they hear of Akaki Akakievich’s death in the department, and the next day, in his place sat a new official, much taller in stature, and forming his letters not quite so upright, but very much inclined and aslant.

But who could have imagined that this was not the end of Akaki Akakievich, and that he was destined to live through several stirring days after his death, in compensation, as it were, for his unnoticed life? But it so happened, and our poor history takes an unexpectedly fantastic conclusion.

St. Petersburg was suddenly startled by rumors that on the Kalinkin Bridge and in its vicinity there had begun to appear nightly a corpse, in the shape of an official, seeking a stolen cloak, and that, under the pretense that it was the stolen cloak, he dragged off, regardless of rank or calling, every one’s cloak from his shoulders, whether it was cat-skin, beaver, raccoon, fox, or bear--in short, every variety of fur and skin which man had thought of for his covering. One of the department officials saw the dead with his own eyes, and immediately recognized in him Akaki Akakievich; this, however, so frightened him that he began to run with all his might, and was therefore unable to observe him closely, but only saw him raise a threatening finger from afar.

Complaints began to come in from all quarters that the backs and shoulders, not alone of titular, but even of court, councillors were being exposed to the danger of a cold, because of this frequent deprivation of their cloaks. The police made arrangements to catch the corpse, at all costs, either alive or dead, and to deal with him most severely, as an example to others. In this they almost succeeded. A watchman in Kirishkin Lane seized the corpse by the collar on the very spot of his misdeeds; for he was in the act of dragging off the frieze cloak of a retired musician, who in his day had blown the flute. The watchman’s shout for help fetched two comrades to his side, and into their hands he committed the marauder, while he himself thrust his hand for a moment into his boot for his snuff-box, in order to refresh temporarily his frozen nose. The snuff, however, must have been of such poor quality that even the corpse could not stand it. Ere the watchman, who had closed his right nostril with his thumb, had time to apply a half-handful of the snuff to his left nostril, the corpse sneezed so violently that the three of them were soon wiping their eyes; and while they were doing this he vanished so completely that they were not even sure whether he had been actually in their hands. Henceforth the watchmen were so apprehensive of dead men that they even refrained from laying their hands on the living, and only dared to exclaim at a distance, “Hey, there, go your way!” As for the dead official, he began to appear even beyond the Kalinkin Bridge, creating no slight terror among all timid people.

We have, however, wholly neglected a _certain important personage_, who had been the actual cause of the fantastic turn taken by this true history. First of all, in justice to the _certain important personage_, it is necessary to say that immediately after the departure of the poor, totally crushed Akaki Akakievich he experienced an emotion akin to pity. It was not new to him--this feeling of sympathy; his heart was really accessible to many good impulses, notwithstanding the fact that his rank often interfered with their outward manifestation. No sooner had his friend gone than he began to think about the poor Akaki Akakievich. And nearly every day thereafter there appeared before him the pale Akaki Akakievich, who was unable to bear up under an official reprimand. The thought agitated him to such an extent that after a week had passed he resolved even to send an official to learn his condition, and to see whether he could really assist him. When it was reported to him that Akaki Akakievich had died suddenly of fever, he was dumbfounded, suffered the reproaches of conscience, and was in poor spirits all day long.

Desiring some diversion and to drive away the disagreeable impression, he went in the evening to the house of one of his friends, where he found a likely crowd, all the more pleasant because nearly every one was of the one and the same rank, so that he was not in any way embarrassed. This fact had a most astounding effect on his spirits. He opened his heart, made himself very agreeable in conversation; in short, he passed a charming evening. After supper he drank two glasses of champagne, an excellent method, as every one knows, of arousing cheerfulness.

The champagne communicated in him an inclination towards various enterprises, and he decided not to go directly home, but to visit a certain well-known lady named Karolina Ivanovna--probably of German extraction--with whom he was on quite friendly terms. It should be mentioned that the _important personage_ was no longer a young man, but a good husband and the respectable father of a family. His two sons, one of whom was already in the government service, and a good-looking, sixteen-year-old daughter, with a trifle arched but rather pretty little nose, came in every morning to kiss his hand, and say, “_Bon jour, Papa_.” His wife, a woman still fresh and not at all bad-looking, first gave him her hand to kiss and then kissed his. The _important personage_, however, though content with his domestic caresses, thought it elegant to maintain friendly relations in another part of the city. This friend was hardly prettier or younger than his wife; but many such mysteries exist on earth, and to solve them is none of our affair.

The _important personage_, therefore, descended the staircase, entered his sledge, and said to the driver, “To Karolina Ivanovna!” Then, wrapping himself luxuriously in his warm cloak, he settled into that happy mood, better than which cannot be even imagined by the Russian. It is that state when you are not thinking of anything in particular, but the thoughts crowd in upon you of themselves, one pleasanter than the other, and calling for no exertion on your part to pursue them or seek them. Gratified beyond measure, he recalled all the gay features of the evening, all the remarks and all the stories that made the little circle laugh. Many of these he repeated in a low voice, and found them just as funny as before.

Occasionally, however, he was hindered by an impetuous wind, which, arising suddenly, God only knows whence and why, cut his face, and beat snow into it, or caused the collar of his cloak to burst out like a sail, and then blew it back over his head, with a supernatural force, as it were, and this gave him no end of trouble to disentangle his head out of its folds.

Suddenly the _important personage_ felt some one grip him by the collar. Turning around, he noticed a man of small stature, dressed in a shabby old uniform, and, not without terror, recognized in him Akaki Akakievich. The face of the man was pale as snow, like that of a dead man. But the horror of the _important personage_ exceeded all bounds when he saw the mouth of the corpse open, and, while it breathed upon him the terrible odor of the grave, he heard it utter the following remarks: “Ah, so here you are at last! At last I have you that--caught you by the collar! I need your cloak! You didn’t give a thought to mine, and even reprimanded me. Well, now give me yours!”

The poor _important personage_ almost died of fright--despite his manifestation of character in his office and before his inferiors generally, and although every one, on noting his manly figure and aspect, could not help but remark, “What a strong character!” Here, however, he, like many others possessed of an heroic exterior, was so terrified that, not without cause, he felt as though he would die on the spot. With his own hands he flung the cloak off his shoulders, and shouted to the driver in an unnatural voice, “Home, at full speed!” The driver, hearing the tone, generally employed in critical moments, and accompanied in this case by something much more emphatic, assumed the physical attitude of an emergency, flourished his whip, and darted off like an arrow.

In six minutes or so, the _important personage_ was before his own house. Pale, frightened, and without his cloak, instead of being at Karolina Ivanovna’s, he was in his own house; and he managed somehow to reach his own room, where he passed the night in great agitation, so that the next morning at tea his daughter said, “You are very pale today, Papa.” But Papa was silent, and said not a word to any one about what had happened, where he had been, and whither he was bound. This event made a powerful impression on him. He even much more rarely said to his subordinates, “How dare you? Do you realize who stands before you?” and if he did utter these words, it was not until he had heard out all the facts of the case.

Still more remarkable was it that from that day on the corpse of the official ceased to appear. Evidently the general’s cloak fitted his shoulders perfectly; at least, no more stories were heard about the dragging-off of cloaks. Many active and anxious people, however, were very apprehensive, and insisted that the corpse was still at large in certain remote sections of the city. In fact, one watchman in the Kolomen district saw with his own eyes the apparition stalk forth from behind a house; but, being rather weak physically, he dared not arrest him, but simply followed him in the darkness, until at last the apparition suddenly turned upon him and said, “What do you want?” and displayed such a fist as is never seen on a living man. The watchman replied, “Nothing,” and started back. The apparition, however, looking very tall and wearing enormous mustaches, directed his footsteps seemingly towards the Obukhov Bridge and vanished in the nocturnal darkness.

TURGENEV THE EMANCIPATOR

Turgenev was the most cosmopolitan of the Russian fiction-writers, yet with all his long residence in Berlin, Baden, and Paris, with all his broad culture and varied linguistic attainments, he never ceased to choose Russian themes and yield a passionate devotion to his fatherland.

Ivan Sergieevich Turgenev was born on the 28th of October, 1818, in the government of Orel. His father, a dissipated Russian military officer, died while Ivan was still young, leaving the lad in charge of his mother, who was about six years the senior of her husband. The woman was even less fitted by temperament to be a careful mother than was Lady Byron, and the youth of the future novelist was stained with bitter tears. Her vindictive spirit she retained to the last, and, dying in old age, she constantly refused to receive the visits of her son.

Doubtless these disillusioning home experiences affected young Turgenev, for he early declared that he would never marry--and maintained his resolution. Likewise, his ideals of motherhood seem to have suffered, for the maternal qualities of his women characters never rise to the highest.

German, French, and English he early learned from instructors at home--Russian he picked up from the servants of the ancestral estate on which he was born. First, he went to Moscow to study, later the University at St. Petersburg held him for three years as a student, and Berlin completed his academic training--particularly in philosophy, for the subject was at that time interdicted in the Russian schools for fear of its levelling effects.

That was a vitally formative thought-period for Europe, the years between 1835 and 1842, and during such of them as Turgenev spent in the German capital he became impregnated with free thought in all its phases, and never thereafter could he breathe without oppression the air of his restricted Russia. Thus the propaganda of emancipation which the great novelist subtly spread by means of his fiction, without ever becoming a physically present leader, was first of all inspired by his life at home and fanned to enthusiasm by contact with intrepid thinkers in Germany.

There must have been something sweetly noble in this fine, robust young giant for him to have emerged from his sad and jarring home-life, and the autocracy of his natal “Nest of Nobles,” with so deeply rooted a hatred of serfdom and all cruel inequalities. Like the young Lincoln, he swore to strike a blow against slavery; like Lincoln, he lived to witness its overthrow, though upon a more equitable and permanently satisfactory basis than did his American contemporary.

Turgenev, however, was not a militant emancipator. He was too calm, too forbearing, too much the typical man of culture, for this. Indeed, the Russian literary system of dealing with abuses may be said to be typified by Turgenev’s method--he merely described. But his pictures were so vital that he must have mixed his reds with the bloody sweat of knouted serfs, and gotten his blacks from the smoky gloom of pestilent cabins which lined the noisome roadways on ten thousand manors. All Russia saw and gasped--and reformed. Thus did his first work of distinction, the twenty-five “Sportsman’s Sketches”--published from 1847 to 1851, and in book-form in 1852--do their mighty work for mankind.

In earlier days Turgenev was, with all enlightened Russia, an admirer of the poet-fictionist Gogol. A letter in eulogy of this author on his death in 1852 was severely rebuked by the Czar’s banishing its writer to his estates, where he remained, busily engaged in writing, until 1855. Then he saw that Russia could best be served at a distance. He was out of sympathy with the extreme Slavophile party, yet he loved Russia. What better course opened before him than to live in an atmosphere where freedom could breathe, and where his powerful pen might not only do service for Russia among Russians, but in all of Europe as well.

And this ambition he abundantly realized. His residence in Baden as the friend of Madame Viardot, and, be it said, of her husband, and his later life in Paris, whither he repaired shortly after the close of the Franco-Prussian War--for he never lived again in Russia--brought him brilliantly before a constantly increasing company of notables, of whom he was at the last easily chief. His gigantesque figure, crowned with that silvery hair and beard, was a loved and familiar sight until he succumbed to a malignant cancer which attacked the spinal cord, and Turgenev passed over, on the 3rd of September, 1883, at the age of sixty-five.