The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (39 page)

“I’m not guilty of any evil designs,” said Ivan Ivanovich, not turning his eyes to Ivan Nikiforovich.
“I swear before God and before all of you honorable gentlemen, I did nothing to my enemy.
Why, then, does he abuse me and do damage to my rank and name?”

“In what way have I done you damage, Ivan Ivanovich?” said Ivan Nikiforovich.

Another minute of talk and the long enmity would have been on the point of dying out.
Ivan Nikiforovich was already going to his pocket to produce his snuff bottle and say, “Help yourself.”

“Isn’t it damage,” Ivan Ivanovich replied, without raising his eyes, “if you, my dear sir, insult my rank and family name with a word that it is even indecent to utter here?”

“Allow me to tell you as a friend, Ivan Ivanovich” (with that, Ivan Nikiforovich touched Ivan Ivanovich’s button with his finger, signifying his entire good will), “that you got offended over devil knows what—over my calling you a
goose
 …”

Ivan Nikiforovich caught himself committing the carelessness of uttering this word; but it was already too late: the word had been uttered.

Everything went to the devil!

If the uttering of this word without any witnesses had put Ivan Ivanovich beside himself and in such a rage as God keep us from ever seeing in any man—what now, only consider, gentle readers, what now, when this deadly word was uttered in a gathering that included many ladies, before whom Ivan Ivanovich liked to be especially proper?
If Ivan Nikiforovich had acted differently, if he had said
bird
instead of
goose
, things still might have been put right.

But—it was all over!

He cast a glance at Ivan Nikiforovich—and what a glance!
If this glance had been endowed with executive power, it would have turned Ivan Nikiforovich to dust.
The guests understood this glance and hastened to separate them.
And this man, the epitome of mildness, who never passed over a beggar woman without questioning her, rushed out in a terrible fury.
Such violent storms the passions can produce!

For a whole month nothing was heard of Ivan Ivanovich.
He locked himself up in his house.
The secret trunk was unlocked, and from the trunk were taken—what?
silver roubles!
old ones, his ancestral silver roubles!
And these roubles passed into the soiled hands of ink-slingers.
The case was transferred to the state court.
And when Ivan Ivanovich received the joyful news that it was to
be decided the next day, only then did he look outside and venture to leave his house.
Alas!
since then, the court has informed him daily for the past ten years that the case would be concluded the next day!

S
OME FIVE YEARS
ago I passed through the town of Mirgorod.
I was traveling in bad weather.
It was autumn, with its damp, melancholy days, its mud and mists.
Some sort of unnatural green—the creation of dull, ceaseless rains—covered the fields and meadows with a thin net, which was as becoming as pranks to an old man or roses to an old woman.
Weather affected me strongly then—I was dull when it was dull.
But, despite that, as I approached Mirgorod, I felt my heart beating fast.
God, so many memories!
I hadn’t seen Mirgorod for twelve years.
Here, in touching friendship, there had then lived two singular men, two singular friends.
And how many notable people had died!
The judge Demyan Demyanovich was dead by then; Ivan Ivanovich, the one with the blind eye, had also bid the world farewell.
I drove into the main street; poles with bunches of straw tied to their tops stood everywhere: some new project was under way!
Several cottages had been demolished.
The remnants of palings and wattle fences stuck up dejectedly.

It was then a feast day.
I ordered my bast-covered kibitka to stop in front of the church and went in so quietly that no one turned around.
True, there was no one to do so.
The church was empty.
Almost no people.
One could see that even the most pious were afraid of the mud.
The candles in that bleak, or, better to say, sickly daylight, were somehow strangely unpleasant; the dark vestibule was melancholy; the oblong windows with round glass poured down rainy tears.
I stepped into the vestibule and turned to one respectable, gray-haired old man:

“If I may ask, is Ivan Nikiforovich still living?”

Just then the lamp flashed more brightly before the icon, and the light fell directly on the face of my neighbor.
How surprised I was when, peering at him, I saw familiar features!
It was Ivan Nikiforovich himself!
But how changed he was!

“Are you well, Ivan Nikiforovich?
You’ve aged so!”

“Yes, I’ve aged.
I came from Poltava today,” replied Ivan Nikiforovich.

“You don’t say!
You went to Poltava in such bad weather?”

“No help for it!
The lawsuit …”

At that, I, too, sighed involuntarily.
Ivan Nikiforovich noticed this sigh and said:

“Don’t worry, I have definite information that the case will be decided in my favor next week.”

I shrugged and went to find out something about Ivan Ivanovich.

“Ivan Ivanovich is here,” someone told me, “he’s in the choir.”

Then I saw a skinny figure.
Was this Ivan Ivanovich?
His face was covered with wrinkles; his hair was completely white; but the bekesha was the same.
After the preliminary greetings, Ivan Ivanovich turned to me with that joyful smile which was always so becoming to his funnel-like face, and said:

“Shall I inform you of some pleasant news?”

“What news?” I said.

“My case will be decided tomorrow without fail.
The court says it’s certain.”

I sighed still more deeply and hastened to take my leave, because I was traveling on important business, and got into my kibitka.
The skinny horses, known in Mirgorod as the posthaste kind, drew away, producing with their hooves, as they sank into the gray mass of mud, a sound unpleasant to the ear.
Rain poured down in streams on the Jew who sat on the box covering himself with a bast mat.
Dampness penetrated me thoroughly.
The melancholy town gate, with a sentry box in which an invalid sat mending his gray armor, slowly passed by.
Again the same fields, in places turned up and black, in others showing green, the wet jackdaws and crows, the monotonous rain, the sky tearful and without a bright spot.—It’s dull in this world, gentlemen!

PETERSBURG TALES

NEVSKY PROSPECT

T
HERE IS NOTHING
better than Nevsky Prospect, at least not in Petersburg; for there it is everything.
What does this street—the beauty of our capital—not shine with!
I know that not one of its pale and clerical inhabitants would trade Nevsky Prospect for anything in the world.
Not only the one who is twenty-five years old, has an excellent mustache and a frock coat of an amazing cut, but even the one who has white hair sprouting on his chin and a head as smooth as a silver dish, he, too, is enchanted with Nevsky Prospect.
And the ladies!
Oh, the ladies find Nevsky Prospect still more pleasing.
And who does not find it pleasing?
The moment you enter Nevsky Prospect, it already smells of nothing but festivity.
Though you may have some sort of necessary, indispensable business, once you enter it you are sure to forget all business.
Here is the only place where people do not go out of necessity, where they are not driven by the need and mercantile interest that envelop the whole of Petersburg.
A man met on Nevsky Prospect seems less of an egoist than on Morskaya, Gorokhovaya, Liteiny, Meshchanskaya, and other streets, where greed, self-interest, and necessity show on those walking or flying by in carriages and droshkies.
Nevsky Prospect is the universal communication of Petersburg.
Here the inhabitant of the Petersburg or Vyborg side who has not visited his
friend in Peski or the Moscow Gate
¹
for several years can be absolutely certain of meeting him.
No directory or inquiry office will provide such reliable information as Nevsky Prospect.
All-powerful Nevsky Prospect!
The only entertainment for a poor man at the Petersburg feast!
How clean-swept are its sidewalks, and, God, how many feet have left their traces on it!
The clumsy, dirty boot of the retired soldier, under the weight of which the very granite seems to crack, and the miniature shoe, light as smoke, of a young lady, who turns her head to the glittering shop windows as a sunflower turns toward the sun, and the clanking sword of a hope-filled sub-lieutenant that leaves a sharp scratch on it—everything wreaks upon it the power of strength or the power of weakness.
What a quick phantasmagoria is performed on it in the course of a single day!
How many changes it undergoes in the course of a single day and night!

Let us begin from earliest morning, when the whole of Petersburg smells of hot, freshly baked bread and is filled with old women in tattered dresses and coats carrying out their raids on churches and compassionate passers-by.
At that time Nevsky Prospect is empty: the stout shop owners and their salesclerks are still asleep in their Holland nightshirts or are soaping their noble cheeks and drinking coffee; beggars gather near the pastry shops, where a sleepy Ganymede,
²
who yesterday was flying about with chocolate like a fly, crawls out, tieless, broom in hand, and tosses them stale cakes and leftovers.
Down the streets trudge useful folk: Russian muzhiks pass by occasionally, hurrying to work, their boots crusted with lime that even the Ekaterininsky Canal, famous for its cleanness, would be unable to wash off.
At that time it is usually unfitting for ladies to go about, because the Russian people like to express themselves in such sharp terms as they would probably not hear even in the theater.
An occasional sleepy clerk will plod by, briefcase under his arm, if he has to pass Nevsky Prospect on his way to the office.
One may say decidedly that at that time, that is, until twelve o’clock, Nevsky Prospect does not constitute anyone’s goal, it serves only as a means: it gradually fills with people who have their own occupations, their own cares, their own
vexations, and do not think about it at all.
The Russian muzhik talks about his ten coppers or seven groats, the old men and women wave their arms and talk to themselves, sometimes with quite expressive gestures, but no one listens to them or laughs at them, except perhaps some urchins in hempen blouses, with empty bottles or repaired shoes in their hands, racing along Nevsky Prospect like lightning.
At that time, however you may be dressed, even if you have a peaked cap on your head instead of a hat, even if your collar sticks out too far over your tie—no one will notice it.

At twelve o’clock Nevsky Prospect is invaded by tutors of all nations with their charges in cambric collars.
English Joneses and French Coques walk hand in hand with the charges entrusted to their parental care and, with proper gravity, explain to them that the signs over the shops are made so that by means of them one may learn what is to be found inside the shop.
Governesses, pale misses and rosy Slavs, walk majestically behind their light, fidgety girls, telling them to raise their shoulders a bit higher and straighten their backs; in short, at this time Nevsky Prospect is a pedagogical Nevsky Prospect.
But the closer it comes to two o’clock, the fewer in number are the tutors, pedagogues, and children: they are finally supplanted by their loving progenitors, who hold on their arms their bright, multicolored, weak-nerved companions.
Gradually their company is joined by all those who have finished their rather important domestic business, to wit: discussing the weather with their doctor, as well as a little pimple that has popped out on the nose, informing themselves about the health of their horses and children, who incidentally show great promise, reading an advertisement in the newspaper and an important article on arrivals and departures, and, finally, drinking a cup of coffee or tea; and these are joined by those on whom an enviable fate has bestowed the blessed title of official for special missions.
And these are joined by those who serve in the foreign office and are distinguished by the nobility of their occupations and habits.
God, how beautiful some posts and jobs are!
how they elevate and delight the soul!
but, alas!
I am not in the civil service and am denied the pleasure of beholding
my superiors’ refined treatment of me.
Whatever you meet on Nevsky Prospect is all filled with decency: men in long frock coats, their hands in their pockets, ladies in pink, white, and pale blue satin redingotes and hats.
Here you will meet singular side-whiskers, tucked with extraordinary and amazing art under the necktie, velvety whiskers, satiny whiskers, black as sable or coal, but, alas, belonging only to the foreign office.
Providence has denied black side-whiskers to those serving in other departments; they, however great the unpleasantness, must wear red ones.
Here you will meet wondrous mustaches, which no pen or brush is able to portray; mustaches to which the better part of a lifetime is devoted—object of long vigils by day and by night; mustaches on which exquisite perfumes and scents have been poured, and which have been anointed with all the most rare and precious sorts of pomades, mustaches which are wrapped overnight in fine vellum, mustaches which are subject to the most touching affection of their possessors and are the envy of passers-by.
A thousand kinds of hats, dresses, shawls—gay-colored, ethereal, for which their owners’ affection sometimes lasts a whole two days—will bedazzle anyone on Nevsky Prospect.
It seems as if a whole sea of butterflies has suddenly arisen from the stems, their brilliant cloud undulating over the black beetles of the male sex.
Here you will meet such waists as you have never seen in dreams: slender, narrow waists, no whit thicker than a bottle’s neck, on meeting which you deferentially step aside, lest you somehow imprudently nudge them with your discourteous elbow; timidity and fear will come over your heart, lest somehow from your imprudent breath the loveliest work of nature and art should be broken.
And what ladies’ sleeves you meet on Nevsky Prospect!
Ah, how lovely!
They somewhat resemble two airborne balloons, so that the lady would suddenly rise into the air if the man were not holding her; for raising a lady into the air is as easy and pleasant as bringing a champagne-filled glass to your lips.
Nowhere do people exchange bows when they meet with such nobility and nonchalance as on Nevsky Prospect.
Here you will meet that singular smile, the height of art, which may cause you sometimes to melt with pleasure,
sometimes suddenly to see yourself lower than grass, and you hang your head, sometimes to feel yourself higher than the Admiralty spire,
³
and you raise it.
Here you will meet people discussing a concert or the weather with an extraordinary nobility and sense of their own dignity.
You will meet thousands of inconceivable characters and phenomena.
O Creator!
what strange characters one meets on Nevsky Prospect!
There is a host of such people as, when they meet you, unfailingly look at your shoes, and, when you pass by, turn to look at your coattails.
To this day I fail to understand why this happens.
At first I thought they were shoemakers, but no, that is not the case: for the most part they serve in various departments, many are perfectly well able to write an official letter from one institution to another; or else they are people occupied with strolling, reading newspapers in pastry shops—in short, they are nearly all decent people.
At this blessed time, from two to three in the afternoon, when Nevsky Prospect may be called a capital in motion, there takes place a major exhibition of the best products of humanity.
One displays a foppish frock coat with the best of beavers, another a wonderful Greek nose, the third is the bearer of superb side-whiskers, the fourth of a pair of pretty eyes and an astonishing little hat, the fifth of a signet ring with a talisman on his smart pinkie, the sixth of a little foot in a charming bootie, the seventh of an astonishment-arousing necktie, the eighth of an amazement-inspiring mustache.
But it strikes three and the exhibition is over, the crowd thins out … At three, a new change.
Suddenly spring comes to Nevsky Prospect: it gets all covered with clerks in green uniforms.
Hungry titular, court, and other councillors try with all their might to put on speed.
Young collegiate registrars, provincial and collegiate secretaries hasten to make use of their time and take a stroll on Nevsky Prospect with a bearing which suggests that they have not spent six hours sitting in an office.
But the old collegiate secretaries, titular and court councillors walk briskly, their heads bowed: they cannot be bothered with gazing at passers-by; they are not yet completely torn away from their cares; there is a jumble in their heads and a whole archive of started and unfinished cases; for a long time, instead of
a signboard, they see a carton of papers or the plump face of the office chief.