Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (Penguin Classics)

by Chandler, Robert

  Far away, God knows where, there was a glimmer of light from a policeman’s booth that seemed to be standing at the very edge of the world. Here, somehow, Akaky Akakiyevich’s merry good cheer diminished significantly. He stepped out into the square, not without a certain involuntary fear, as if his heart had a foreboding of something bad. He looked to either side: it was as if there were a sea all round him. ‘No, better not look,’ he thought, and walked on with his eyes shut – and when he opened them to see if it was far to the end of the square, what he saw, right there before him, almost in front of his nose, was some men with moustaches, but what kind of men they were was something he could not even discern. His eyes clouded and there was a pounding in his chest. ‘Hey, that greatcoat’s mine!’ said one of them in a voice like thunder, seizing him by the collar. Akaky Akakiyevich was on the point of screaming ‘Help!’ when another man put a fist the size of a clerk’s head right up against his mouth and said, ‘Just you try shouting!’ Akaky Akakiyevich felt only that someone removed his greatcoat and jabbed him with their knee, whereupon he fell on his back in the snow and no longer felt anything at all. A few minutes later he came to his senses and got back onto his feet, but there was nobody to be seen. It felt cold out in the open with no greatcoat and he tried to shout, but his voice, it seemed, had not the least intention of carrying to the end of the square. In despair, shouting continuously, he started running across the square straight towards the booth, beside which stood a policeman, leaning on his halberd and watching with apparent curiosity, as if wondering why the devil a faraway man was running towards him and shouting. Akaky Akakiyevich ran up to him and, gasping for breath, went on shouting. Why had the policeman been sleeping when he should have been on watch? Why hadn’t he seen that a man was being robbed? The policeman replied that he had seen nothing, that he had seen two men go up to Akaky Akakiyevich in the middle of the square but had thought they were people he knew, and he told Akaky Akakiyevich that, instead of abusing him for nothing, he should go the next day to see the sergeant, and the sergeant would find out who it was had taken his greatcoat. Akaky Akakiyevich ran home in a terrible state: his hair, of which he still had a small amount on his temples and the back of his head, was completely dishevelled; his side, his chest and his trousers were covered in snow. Hearing a dreadful knocking at the door, his elderly landlady leaped out of bed and, wearing only one slipper, ran down to open it, modestly clasping her shift to her bosom with one hand; but on opening the door and seeing what a state Akaky Akakiyevich was in, she stepped back. When he told her what had happened, she threw up her hands and said he must go straight to the district superintendent; the local sergeant would deceive him, tell lies and generally lead him around by the nose, and so it really would be best to go straight to the district superintendent; she even knew him herself, because Anna, the Finnish woman who had once worked for her as a cook, had been taken on by him as a nursemaid and she often saw him driving past their house and he also went to church every Sunday, where he prayed and at the same time looked round merrily at everyone, and this all went to show, therefore, that he must be a good man. After hearing this judgement, Akaky Akakiyevich sadly dragged himself to his room, and how he spent the night there must be left to the imagination of those who can enter to some degree into the feelings of others. Early next morning he set off to see the superintendent but was told he was asleep; he went round at ten – and was again told he was asleep; he went round at eleven – and was told the superintendent was out; he went round at lunchtime – but the clerks in the waiting-room would not let him in on any account and insisted on knowing what he had come about and what business had brought him there and what it was that had happened. And so at last, for once in his life, Akaky Akakiyevich took it into his head to show just what he was made of: he said quite bluntly that he needed to see the superintendent himself, in person, that they dare not refuse him admission, that he had come from his department on official business and that if he lodged a complaint against them, they would find themselves in trouble. The clerks dared say nothing to this, and one of them went to call the superintendent. The superintendent somehow responded very strangely to the account of the theft of the greatcoat. Instead of paying attention to what was important, he began to question Akaky Akakiyevich – why had he been going back home so late? Had he not, perhaps, called in at some house of ill repute? – with the result that Akaky Akakiyevich felt completely confused and left with no idea whether the case of his greatcoat would progress in an appropriate manner or not. All that day he was absent from the office (for the only time in his life). He appeared the following day, all pale and wearing his old dressing gown, which now looked more pitiful than ever. Though there were some clerks who did not let slip even this chance to jeer at Akaky Akakiyevich, many of his colleagues were moved by the story of the theft of the greatcoat. They resolved then and there to make a collection for him, but they collected only the merest trifle, because the clerks had already exhausted their funds contributing not only towards a portrait of the director, but also, at the suggestion of the Head of the section, who was acquainted with the author, towards some book or other – and so the sum collected was trifling in the extreme. One of them, moved by compassion, resolved at least to assist Akaky Akakiyevich with good advice, telling him not to go to the local sergeant because, although it was possible that the latter, eager to win the approval of his superiors, might somehow find the greatcoat, the greatcoat would nevertheless remain in the police station unless Akaky Akakiyevich were able to present legal proofs of its ownership; the best thing would be to appeal to a certain significant person, since this significant person, by communicating and consulting with the necessary people, could push the case through more successfully. There was nothing for it; Akaky Akakiyevich resolved to go to the significant person. Exactly what was the office held by this significant person and what it entailed remains unknown to this day. It should be noted that this certain significant person had only recently become a significant person, having previously been an insignificant person. Even after this advancement, however, his position was not considered significant in comparison with others of yet greater significance. Still, one can always find a circle of people for whom what is insignificant in the eyes of others is significant. Moreover, he tried to increase his significance through adopting a variety of measures: his subordinates were required to meet him on the stairs when he came in to work; none of them should venture to appear directly before him, everything instead being carried out in accord with the strictest of protocols: a collegiate registrar should report to a provincial secretary, a provincial secretary to a titular councillor or whoever else might be appropriate, and in no other way should anything be brought to his attention. Thus the whole of Holy Russia is polluted by imitation – everyone copies and apes his superior. It is even said that a certain titular councillor, on being put in charge of a small, separate chancellery, immediately partitioned off a special room for himself, which he called the ‘Audience Chamber’, and stationed gold-braided and red-collared ushers outside this room, with instructions to hold the handle of the door and open it for every visitor – even though there was barely enough space in the ‘Audience Chamber’ for an ordinary writing desk. The manners and habits of the significant person were dignified and majestic, but of no especial complexity. The cornerstone of his system was strictness. ‘Strictness, strictness, and – strictness,’ he often used to say, and at the last word he would look very significantly into the face of the man he was addressing. Not, however, that there was any reason for him to do this; the ten officials who made up the entire administrative mechanism of his office were in an appropriate state of fear and trembling anyway. Seeing him in the distance, they would immediately stop what they were doing and stand to attention until their superior had passed through the room. His usual conversation with his subordinates was strict as strict could be and consisted almost entirely of three phrases: ‘How dare you? Do you realize to whom you are t
alking? Are you aware who is standing before you?’ He was, however, a good man at heart, loyal to his friends and ready to oblige, but the rank of general had completely turned his head. His promotion had somehow bewildered him and thrown him off balance, and he really had no idea how he should behave. When he was with his equals, he was quite a decent man, very gentlemanly in fact, and in many respects even intelligent; but as soon as he chanced to be in the company of men even only one rank beneath him, he was simply a lost soul: he could not say a word, and people felt pity for him, all the more so since even he sensed that he could have been spending his time incomparably better. Sometimes his eyes betrayed a strong wish to join some interesting group or conversation, but he was always stopped by the thought that this might be going too far, that such over-friendliness on his part might detract from his significance. And so, as a result of these considerations, he remained forever in the same condition of silence, pronouncing only the occasional monosyllable and so acquiring the reputation of being exceptionally boring. This was the significant person to whom our Akaky Akakiyevich appealed, and he appealed at a very unfortunate moment, a moment that was most inopportune for him, although, on the other hand, opportune for the significant person. The significant person was in his office, having the jolliest of conversations with an old acquaintance, a childhood friend who had only recently arrived in the capital and whom he had not seen for several years. Just then he was informed that a certain Bashmachkin was asking to see him. ‘Who’s he?’ he asked curtly. ‘Some clerk or other,’ came the reply. ‘Oh, he can wait. This isn’t the right moment,’ said the significant person. Here I must observe that the significant person was telling a barefaced lie: it was precisely the right moment. He and his friend had long since said everything they had to say to one another and had begun to punctuate their conversation with extremely long silences, during which they merely slapped one another gently on the thigh and repeated, ‘Well, well, Ivan Abramovich!’ and ‘So there we are, Stepan Varlamovich!’ Nevertheless, he kept the clerk waiting, so he could make it clear to his friend, who had some time ago left the civil service to settle down on his country estate, how long clerks had to wait in his ante-room. In the end, after talking – and, still more, remaining silent – to his heart’s content, and after smoking a cigar in an extremely comfortable armchair with a sloping back, he seemed suddenly to remember, and he said to a secretary who was standing by the door with some papers, waiting to report: ‘Ah, yes, I think there’s a clerk wanting to see me. Tell him he may come in.’ Seeing Akaky Akakiyevich’s humble appearance and elderly uniform, he suddenly turned to him and said, ‘What can I do for you?’ in a voice that sounded abrupt and firm and which he had specially practised alone in his room, in front of a mirror, for an entire week before being promoted to the rank of general and taking up his present position. Akaky Akakiyevich, who had been feeling suitably timid for some time, became somewhat flustered and began as best he could, as much as his tongue-tied state allowed and, with even more frequent than usual employment of the particle ‘er’, to explain that his greatcoat had been entirely new and that he had been robbed in the most inhuman fashion, and that he was now appealing to him to, er, intercede on his behalf and write to his honour the police superintendent, or else to somebody else, and so discover the whereabouts of the greatcoat.

  The General, for some unknown reason, thought he was being addressed in too familiar a manner. ‘What is this, my dear sir?’ he said abruptly. ‘Do you not know the proper procedure? Why have you come here to me? Do you not know the right way to go about things? You should first have submitted a petition to the office; the petition would have gone to the chief clerk, then to the section chief, then it would have been conveyed to a secretary, and the secretary would have presented it to me.’

  ‘But Your Excellency,’ said Akaky Akakiyevich, trying to summon all of the modest portion of presence of mind he possessed and sensing at the same time that he had broken out in a terrible sweat, ‘I ventured to trouble your Highest Excellency because, er, secretaries are an unreliable lot…’

  ‘What, what, what?’ said the significant person. ‘Who’s taught you such insolence? Where have you got such ideas from? What is this spirit of sedition infecting young people against their chiefs and seniors?’ The significant person appeared not to have noticed that Akaky Akakiyevich was already over fifty. Were it possible, therefore, to refer to him as a young man, this would be only relatively speaking, that is, in relation to someone who was already at least seventy. ‘Do you know who you are speaking to? Do you understand who is standing before you? Do you realize this, I ask you, do you realize this?’ At this point he stamped his foot, raising his voice so powerfully that even better men than Akaky Akakiyevich would have been terrified. Akaky Akakiyevich was petrified; he staggered, his whole body began to shake, and he was unable to stay upright; if the doormen had not run up to support him, he would have flopped down on the floor; he was carried out almost motionless. And the significant person, pleased that he had produced an effect still greater than he had anticipated, and quite entranced by the thought that words of his could deprive a man even of his senses, gave his friend a sidelong glance to see what he was making of all this; he noticed not without satisfaction that his acquaintance was in a most uncertain state and was even beginning to feel frightened himself.