Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (Penguin Classics)

by Chandler, Robert

  How he got down the stairs, how he got out on to the street, Akaky Akakiyevich was quite unable to remember. He had no feeling in either his arms or his legs. Never in his life had he been given such a dressing down by a general, let alone one from another department. Repeatedly stumbling off the edge of the pavement, his mouth agape, he walked through the blizzard that was whistling up and down the streets; the wind, as is its wont in Petersburg, was blowing at him from all four points of the compass, out of every side street. In only a moment this wind had blown a quinsy into his throat and, by the time he got home, he was unable to say a single word; all swollen up, he took to his bed. So powerful, at times, is the effect of a good and proper dressing down! The following day he was found to have a high fever. Thanks to the gracious assistance of the Petersburg climate, his illness progressed more rapidly than could have been expected and, when the doctor came and took his pulse, all he felt able to do was to prescribe a poultice, just so that the sick man would not be left entirely without the benefit of medical help; at the same time, however, he declared that it would definitely be all up with Akaky Akakiyevich within a day and a half. After which he turned to the landlady and said, ‘And you, dear lady, had better not waste time. You should order him a pine coffin straightaway, since an oak one will be too expensive for him.’ Whether or not Akaky Akakiyevich heard this fateful pronouncement, whether or not, if he did hear it, it had a shattering effect on him, whether or not he regretted his wretched life – none of this is known, since he was in a state of delirium and fever. Apparitions, each stranger than the one before, were continuously presenting themselves to him: one moment he could see Petrovich and was ordering him to make a greatcoat with some kind of traps to snare the thieves whom he kept imagining were under the bed, and he was endlessly begging his landlady to drag away a thief who had even got under the quilt; next he was asking why the old dressing gown was still hanging there now that he had a new greatcoat; next he fancied he was standing before the General, being dressed down good and proper and repeating, ‘I’m sorry, Your Excellency!’ and then, in the end, even blasphematizing and uttering the most terrible of words, so that his old landlady, never having heard anything of the kind from him in all her life, even had to keep crossing herself – all the more so because these most terrible words always came immediately after the words ‘Your Excellency!’. After that, he spoke utter gibberish and it was impossible to understand anything at all; it was clear only that his incoherent words and thoughts all centred upon one and the same greatcoat. Finally, poor Akaky Akakiyevich gave up the ghost. Neither his room nor his belongings were put under seal because, in the first place, he had no heirs and, in the second place, he had left very little behind: namely, a bundle of goose quills, a quire of official white paper, three pairs of socks, two or three buttons that had come off his trousers, and the dressing gown with which the reader is already familiar. To whom all this went, God knows; I have to confess that not even the teller of this tale troubled to inquire. Akaky Akakiyevich was taken away and buried. And Petersburg was left without Akaky Akakiyevich, just as if he had never been there at all. Dead and gone was a being whom no one had defended, whom no one had held dear, and in whom no one, not even a naturalist always ready to mount even an ordinary fly on a pin and examine it under a microscope, had ever shown any interest; a being who had patiently endured the mockery of his office colleagues and who had gone to his grave without excessive fuss, but before whom, nevertheless, if only at the end of his life, momentarily enlivening his poor life, had appeared a bright guest in the form of a greatcoat – and on whom calamity had then crashed down, as harshly as it has crashed down on the sovereigns and tsars of the world. A few days after his death, a porter came to his lodgings with orders that Akaky Akakiyevich should go at once to the department: his boss was asking for him. But the porter was obliged to return alone and report that the clerk was unable to come to work any more. To the question ‘Why?’ he responded: ‘Well, you see, he’s dead. He’s been buried three days now.’ Thus the news of his death reached the department; and the following day his place was taken by a new clerk, who was much taller and whose handwriting was not so upright but considerably more slanting and oblique.

  But who could have imagined that this was not the end for Akaky Akakiyevich, that he was destined to make a noise in the world for some time after his death, as if to compensate for a life no one had noticed? But so it happened, and our poor story unexpectedly acquires a fantastic ending. Rumours suddenly spread through St Petersburg that around the Kalinkin Bridge, and far beyond it, a stiff had taken to appearing at night in the form of a civil servant searching for a stolen greatcoat and that, under the pretext of trying to recover the greatcoat, this stiff was stripping from everyone’s shoulders, regardless of rank or calling, greatcoats of every kind: coats lined with cat fur and beaver fur, coats quilted with cotton, coats lined with racoon, fox and bear – coats, in short, made from every kind of fur and pelt that people have devised to cover their own. One clerk from the department saw the stiff with his own eyes and immediately recognized it as Akaky Akakiyevich; this, however, instilled such terror in him that he rushed off as fast as his legs would carry him and so failed to examine the stiff properly, just seeing it wag a threatening finger far off in the distance. Complaints came in from all sides that the backs and shoulders not only of titular councillors but even of the priviest of councillors were being exposed to the most severe chills as a result of this nocturnal stripping of greatcoats. Orders were issued to the police to capture the stiff dead or alive, regardless of cost, and to subject it, as an example to others, to the harshest of punishments – and in this they very nearly even succeeded. That is, a policeman somewhere on Kiryushkin Lane actually seized the stiff by the collar at the very scene of the crime, as it attempted to snatch a frieze greatcoat off the back of a certain retired musician who in his day had whistled on the flute. After seizing hold of its collar, the policeman called out to two of his colleagues, whom he then instructed to hold the stiff for a moment while he quickly reached down into his boot for his snuffbox, since his nose had already suffered frostbite six times and he needed to revive it a little; but his snuff was evidently so strong that not even a stiff could bear it. No sooner had the policeman closed his right nostril with one finger and drawn a half-handful of snuff up into his left nostril than the stiff sneezed so violently as completely to bespatter the eyes of all three of them. While they raised their fists to wipe their eyes clean, the stiff vanished into thin air, so that they were no longer even quite certain if it had ever really been in their hands at all. After that the policemen developed such a fear of stiffs that they felt wary even of arresting the living, and instead they just shouted out from a distance, ‘Hey you there, move along now!’ And the clerk who was a stiff began to appear even on the wrong side of the Kalinkin Bridge, striking no little fear into the hearts of all timid people. But we have, however, completely forgotten the certain significant person who was himself, as a matter of fact, all but responsible for the fantastic direction that this, incidentally, entirely truthful story has now taken. First, justice requires me to record that, soon after the departure of poor, well and truly dressed-down Akaky Akakiyevich, the certain significant person began to feel something in the way of remorse. Compassion was not alien to him; his heart was open to many kind impulses, in spite of the fact that his rank all too often prevented them from being expressed. As soon as his acquaintance from the country had left his office, he even began to give some thought to Akaky Akakiyevich. And from then on he saw images almost every day of the pale clerk who had been unable to withstand an official dressing down. The thought of Akaky Akakiyevich so troubled him that after a week he went so far as to send a clerk round to find out how he was doing and whether there was, in fact, any way he could help him. And when it was reported to him that Akaky Akakiyevich had died of a sudden fever, he even felt shocked; he could hear his conscience murmuring at him and he felt out of sor
ts all day. Wanting to amuse himself a little and to put this unpleasantness out of his mind, he went round that evening to one of his acquaintances, where the company was respectable and – best of all – he felt quite free of constraint, since everyone else was of more or less the same rank as he was. This had an astonishing effect on his state of mind. He loosened up, became affable and made pleasant conversation – in short, he greatly enjoyed the evening. He had a glass or two of champagne with his supper – something we all know to be an effective means of inducing merriment. The champagne put him in the mood for particular measures: that is, he decided not to go home yet, but to call on a certain lady he knew, Karolina Ivanovna, who was apparently of German extraction and with whom he was on the friendliest of terms. It has to be mentioned that the significant person, no longer young, was a good husband and a respectable family man. Two sons, one of whom was already in the civil service, and a goodlooking sixteen-year-old daughter, whose nose was rather snub though quite pretty all the same, used to come and kiss his hand every day, saying, ‘Bonjour, Papa.’ His spouse, who was still blooming and even far from unattractive, would first give him her own hand to kiss and then kiss his, turning it the other way up. But the significant person, although he was, by the way, entirely satisfied with the domestic tendernesses of his family, considered it proper to conduct a special friendship with a lady in another part of the city. This lady companion was not in any way either prettier or younger than his wife; but there are many such riddles in the world and it is not our business to resolve them. And so the significant person went downstairs, got into his sleigh, said to the driver ‘To Karolina Ivanovna’s!’ and, wrapped up most luxuriously in a warm greatcoat, lapsed into that pleasant state, better than which nothing is imaginable to a Russian, where you yourself do not think of anything at all and yet thoughts – each more pleasant than the one before – slip into your head of their own accord, without putting you to the trouble of chasing after them and searching for them. Full of contentment, he effortlessly recalled all the merriest moments of the evening, all the words that had raised peals of laughter in his small circle. He even repeated many of them under his breath and found them as amusing as before; not surprisingly, this led him to chuckle to himself in delight. Now and again, however, he was disturbed by sudden gusts of a wind that sprang up from God knows where and for no apparent reason, cutting him in the face, flinging bits of snow in his eyes, making his coat collar billow out like a sail or suddenly throwing it over his head with supernatural force, causing him no end of bother in his attempts to extricate himself. Suddenly the significant person felt someone seize him extremely firmly by the collar. Turning round, he saw a short man in a shabby old uniform and, not without horror, recognized him as Akaky Akakiyevich. The clerk’s face was as pale as snow and looked just like that of a stiff. But the horror of the significant person exceeded all measure when he saw the dead man’s mouth start to twist and, letting out a terrible stench of the grave, utter the following words: ‘Ah! So there you are at last. Now at last, er, I’ve collared you. It’s your greatcoat I’m after. You couldn’t be bothered to help me find mine, and you even gave me quite a dressing down into the bargain – so now give me yours!’ The poor significant person almost died. For all the strength of character he displayed in the office and before those of inferior rank more generally, and even though one look at his manly figure and bearing was enough to make people say ‘Goodness, what character!’ – nevertheless, at this moment, like many a man with the air of a heroic warrior, he felt such terror that he even began to fear, and not without reason, that he was about to suffer some kind of nervous fit. He even threw off his greatcoat himself as quick as he could, and shouted out to the driver in a voice that didn’t belong to him ‘Home! As fast as you can!’ The driver, hearing a tone of voice associated with moments of crisis and which was usually, even, accompanied by something decidedly more forceful, drew his head down between his shoulders to be on the safe side, cracked his whip and sped off like an arrow. In a little over six minutes the significant person was outside the entrance to his house. Pale, badly frightened and with no greatcoat, instead of calling on Karolina Ivanovna, he had returned home; he staggered somehow or other to his room and spent the night there in a state of great agitation, with the result that over breakfast his daughter said to him straight out, ‘You look very pale today, Papa.’ But Papa held his tongue; not a word did he say to anyone about what had happened, where he had gone or where he had intended to go. The incident made a powerful impression on him. Far less often, indeed, did he say to his subordinates ‘How dare you? Do you realize who is standing before you?’ – and if he did come out with these words, it was only after first hearing what the subordinate had to say. But still more remarkable is the fact that, from then on, the apparitions of the clerk who was a stiff entirely ceased. The General’s greatcoat was evidently a perfect fit; nothing more, in any case, was heard of snatchings of greatcoats. Nevertheless, many active and concerned people simply refused to be reassured and went on saying that the clerk who was a stiff was still appearing in outlying parts of the city. And one Kolomna11 policeman truly, with his own eyes, saw a ghost appear from behind a building; but being somewhat lacking in strength – to such a degree that an ordinary fully grown young pig, hurtling out of some private house, had once knocked him to the ground, to the great amusement of the cabbies standing around, whom he had then fined half a kopek each so he could buy some snuff – being, as I said, somewhat lacking in strength, he did not dare to stop it, but merely followed it in the dark until, at last, the ghost suddenly looked round, stopped, asked ‘What are you after?’ and displayed a fist such as you won’t find even among the living. The policeman said ‘Nothing’ and turned back at once. This ghost, however, was a great deal taller, it had a simply enormous moustache and, apparently making for the Obukhov Bridge, it disappeared completely into the darkness of night.

  First published in 1842

  Translated by Robert Chandler

  IVAN SERGEYEVICH TURGENEV (1818–83)

  Turgenev was born in Oryol and raised by a tyrannical mother on her family estate. After attending both Moscow and St Petersburg Universities, Turgenev studied in Berlin from 1838 to 1841. He inherited his mother’s estate in 1850, but never stayed there for long. He spent much of his life abroad, mainly in France and Germany. More cosmopolitan than any other Russian writer of his time, he was a friend of Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, George Sand and other European literary figures. The most important relationship of his adult life was with the singer Pauline Viardot; he was close both to her and to her husband.

  Turgenev’s first important work was the story-cycle A Hunter’s Notebook (1852). It has been said that these evocations of a nobleman’s experiences during hunting trips helped to bring about the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Turgenev seldom, however, attacks the evils of serfdom directly. What shocked or delighted his contemporaries was that he portrays the peasants as human beings with their own thoughts and feelings. This implicitly undermined the legitimacy of a social order in which peasants were seen as their master’s possessions.

  During the decade after the publication of A Hunter’s Notebook, Turgenev wrote many of his finest works: the short story ‘Mumu’, a more direct attack on serfdom; the short novels Asya and First Love; and four of his six novels – including the most famous, Fathers and Sons. Like his other long novels, this is a novel of ideas that covers a broad social canvas. Its central theme is the conflict between Turgenev’s own generation of liberals and the younger generation whose iconoclastic attitudes led him to refer to them as nihilists.

  ‘The Knocking’ is one of several stories added to A Hunter’s Notebook more than twenty years after its first publication; it is at once comic, lyrical and realistic – and free of the sentimentality that mars much of Turgenev’s work.

  THE KNOCKING

  ‘What I’ve got to tell you,’ said Yermolay, coming into the hut to see me – and I
’d just finished my lunch and lain down on the camp bed to have a bit of a rest after a reasonably successful, if exhausting, shoot of black grouse (it was around the middle of July and frightfully hot) – ‘what I’ve got to tell you, is that there’s no more shot left.’

  I jumped up from the bed.

  ‘What d’you mean, there’s no shot left? You know very well we had around thirty pounds when we left the village! There was a whole bagful!’

  ‘You’re right, sir, and it was a big bag; it should’ve been enough for a whole fortnight. I dunno. Maybe it got torn somehow. Anyway, makes no difference how it happened, there’s no shot… well, maybe enough for another ten rounds or so.’

  ‘What are we going to do now, then? We haven’t even got to the best places yet, and they promised there’d be six new broods…’

  ‘Send me off to Tula – it’s not all that far, only about thirty miles. I can get some shot for you - three stone of it, if you like. I’ll be there and back in no time.’

  ‘But when can you set off?’

  ‘Right away this minute. No point putting it off. The only thing is, we’ll have to borrow some horses.’

  ‘Borrow some horses? But we’ve got our own!’

  ‘Ours are no good. The shaft-horse has gone lame, it’s terrible.’

  ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘Just the other day, sir. The coachman took it to be shod – but the blacksmith clearly didn’t know what he was doing. Now it can’t even put its hoof down. It’s the front leg. It’s lifting it up, like a dog.’