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| "The Overcoat" (sometimes translated as "The Cloak", Russian: Шинель), Cover by Igor Grabar, 1890s |
"We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat"
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский
The Cloack
Original Russian (Cyrillic text)
In the department of--but it is better not to mention the department.
There is nothing more irritable than departments, regiments, courts of
justice, and, in a word, every branch of public service. Each individual
attached to them nowadays thinks all society insulted in his person.
Quite recently a complaint was received from a justice of the peace, in
which he plainly demonstrated that all the imperial institutions were
going to the dogs, and that the Czar's sacred name was being taken in
vain; and in proof he appended to the complaint a romance in which the
justice of the peace is made to appear about once every ten lines,
and sometimes in a drunken condition. Therefore, in order to avoid all
unpleasantness, it will be better to describe the department in question
only as a certain department.
So, in a certain department there was a certain official--not a very
high one, it must be allowed--short of stature, somewhat pock-marked,
red-haired, and short-sighted, with a bald forehead, wrinkled cheeks,
and a complexion of the kind known as sanguine. The St. Petersburg
climate was responsible for this. As for his official status, he was
what is called a perpetual titular councillor, over which, as is well
known, some writers make merry, and crack their jokes, obeying the
praiseworthy custom of attacking those who cannot bite back.
His family name was Bashmatchkin. This name is evidently derived from
"bashmak" (shoe); but when, at what time, and in what manner, is not
known. His father and grandfather, and all the Bashmatchkins, always
wore boots, which only had new heels two or three times a year. His name
was Akakiy Akakievitch. It may strike the reader as rather singular
and far-fetched, but he may rest assured that it was by no means
far-fetched, and that the circumstances were such that it would have
been impossible to give him any other.
This is how it came about.
Akakiy Akakievitch was born, if my memory fails me not, in the evening
of the 23rd of March. His mother, the wife of a Government official
and a very fine woman, made all due arrangements for having the child
baptised. She was lying on the bed opposite the door; on her right
stood the godfather, Ivan Ivanovitch Eroshkin, a most estimable man,
who served as presiding officer of the senate, while the godmother, Anna
Semenovna Byelobrushkova, the wife of an officer of the quarter, and
a woman of rare virtues. They offered the mother her choice of three
names, Mokiya, Sossiya, or that the child should be called after the
martyr Khozdazat. "No," said the good woman, "all those names are poor."
In order to please her they opened the calendar to another place;
three more names appeared, Triphiliy, Dula, and Varakhasiy. "This is
a judgment," said the old woman. "What names! I truly never heard the
like. Varada or Varukh might have been borne, but not Triphiliy and
Varakhasiy!" They turned to another page and found Pavsikakhiy and
Vakhtisiy. "Now I see," said the old woman, "that it is plainly fate.
And since such is the case, it will be better to name him after his
father. His father's name was Akakiy, so let his son's be Akakiy too."
In this manner he became Akakiy Akakievitch. They christened the child,
whereat he wept and made a grimace, as though he foresaw that he was to
be a titular councillor.
In this manner did it all come about. We have mentioned it in order that
the reader might see for himself that it was a case of necessity, and
that it was utterly impossible to give him any other name. When and how
he entered the department, and who appointed him, no one could remember.
However much the directors and chiefs of all kinds were changed, he
was always to be seen in the same place, the same attitude, the same
occupation; so that it was afterwards affirmed that he had been born
in undress uniform with a bald head. No respect was shown him in the
department. The porter not only did not rise from his seat when he
passed, but never even glanced at him, any more than if a fly had flown
through the reception-room. His superiors treated him in coolly despotic
fashion. Some sub-chief would thrust a paper under his nose without
so much as saying, "Copy," or "Here's a nice interesting affair," or
anything else agreeable, as is customary amongst well-bred officials.
And he took it, looking only at the paper and not observing who handed
it to him, or whether he had the right to do so; simply took it, and set
about copying it.
The young officials laughed at and made fun of him, so far as their
official wit permitted; told in his presence various stories concocted
about him, and about his landlady, an old woman of seventy; declared
that she beat him; asked when the wedding was to be; and strewed bits of
paper over his head, calling them snow. But Akakiy Akakievitch answered
not a word, any more than if there had been no one there besides
himself. It even had no effect upon his work: amid all these annoyances
he never made a single mistake in a letter. But if the joking became
wholly unbearable, as when they jogged his hand and prevented his
attending to his work, he would exclaim, "Leave me alone! Why do you
insult me?" And there was something strange in the words and the voice
in which they were uttered. There was in it something which moved to
pity; so much that one young man, a new-comer, who, taking pattern by
the others, had permitted himself to make sport of Akakiy, suddenly
stopped short, as though all about him had undergone a transformation,
and presented itself in a different aspect. Some unseen force repelled
him from the comrades whose acquaintance he had made, on the supposition
that they were well-bred and polite men. Long afterwards, in his gayest
moments, there recurred to his mind the little official with the bald
forehead, with his heart-rending words, "Leave me alone! Why do you
insult me?" In these moving words, other words resounded--"I am thy
brother." And the young man covered his face with his hand; and many a
time afterwards, in the course of his life, shuddered at seeing how
much inhumanity there is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed
beneath delicate, refined worldliness, and even, O God! in that man whom
the world acknowledges as honourable and noble.
It would be difficult to find another man who lived so entirely for his
duties. It is not enough to say that Akakiy laboured with zeal: no,
he laboured with love. In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable
employment. Enjoyment was written on his face: some letters were even
favourites with him; and when he encountered these, he smiled, winked,
and worked with his lips, till it seemed as though each letter might
be read in his face, as his pen traced it. If his pay had been in
proportion to his zeal, he would, perhaps, to his great surprise, have
been made even a councillor of state. But he worked, as his companions,
the wits, put it, like a horse in a mill.
Moreover, it is impossible to say that no attention was paid to him. One
director being a kindly man, and desirous of rewarding him for his long
service, ordered him to be given something more important than mere
copying. So he was ordered to make a report of an already concluded
affair to another department: the duty consisting simply in changing
the heading and altering a few words from the first to the third person.
This caused him so much toil that he broke into a perspiration, rubbed
his forehead, and finally said, "No, give me rather something to copy."
After that they let him copy on forever.
Outside this copying, it appeared that nothing existed for him. He gave
no thought to his clothes: his undress uniform was not green, but a sort
of rusty-meal colour. The collar was low, so that his neck, in spite of
the fact that it was not long, seemed inordinately so as it emerged from
it, like the necks of those plaster cats which wag their heads, and are
carried about upon the heads of scores of image sellers. And something
was always sticking to his uniform, either a bit of hay or some trifle.
Moreover, he had a peculiar knack, as he walked along the street, of
arriving beneath a window just as all sorts of rubbish were being flung
out of it: hence he always bore about on his hat scraps of melon rinds
and other such articles. Never once in his life did he give heed to what
was going on every day in the street; while it is well known that his
young brother officials train the range of their glances till they
can see when any one's trouser straps come undone upon the opposite
sidewalk, which always brings a malicious smile to their faces. But
Akakiy Akakievitch saw in all things the clean, even strokes of his
written lines; and only when a horse thrust his nose, from some unknown
quarter, over his shoulder, and sent a whole gust of wind down his neck
from his nostrils, did he observe that he was not in the middle of a
page, but in the middle of the street.
On reaching home, he sat down at once at the table, supped his cabbage
soup up quickly, and swallowed a bit of beef with onions, never noticing
their taste, and gulping down everything with flies and anything else
which the Lord happened to send at the moment. His stomach filled, he
rose from the table, and copied papers which he had brought home. If
there happened to be none, he took copies for himself, for his own
gratification, especially if the document was noteworthy, not on account
of its style, but of its being addressed to some distinguished person.
Even at the hour when the grey St. Petersburg sky had quite dispersed,
and all the official world had eaten or dined, each as he could, in
accordance with the salary he received and his own fancy; when all were
resting from the departmental jar of pens, running to and fro from their
own and other people's indispensable occupations, and from all the work
that an uneasy man makes willingly for himself, rather than what is
necessary; when officials hasten to dedicate to pleasure the time which
is left to them, one bolder than the rest going to the theatre; another,
into the street looking under all the bonnets; another wasting his
evening in compliments to some pretty girl, the star of a small official
circle; another--and this is the common case of all--visiting his
comrades on the fourth or third floor, in two small rooms with an
ante-room or kitchen, and some pretensions to fashion, such as a lamp or
some other trifle which has cost many a sacrifice of dinner or pleasure
trip; in a word, at the hour when all officials disperse among the
contracted quarters of their friends, to play whist, as they sip their
tea from glasses with a kopek's worth of sugar, smoke long pipes, relate
at times some bits of gossip which a Russian man can never, under any
circumstances, refrain from, and, when there is nothing else to talk of,
repeat eternal anecdotes about the commandant to whom they had sent word
that the tails of the horses on the Falconet Monument had been cut off,
when all strive to divert themselves, Akakiy Akakievitch indulged in
no kind of diversion. No one could ever say that he had seen him at any
kind of evening party. Having written to his heart's content, he lay
down to sleep, smiling at the thought of the coming day--of what God
might send him to copy on the morrow.
Thus flowed on the peaceful life of the man, who, with a salary of four
hundred rubles, understood how to be content with his lot; and thus it
would have continued to flow on, perhaps, to extreme old age, were
it not that there are various ills strewn along the path of life for
titular councillors as well as for private, actual, court, and every
other species of councillor, even for those who never give any advice or
take any themselves.
There exists in St. Petersburg a powerful foe of all who receive a
salary of four hundred rubles a year, or thereabouts. This foe is no
other than the Northern cold, although it is said to be very healthy.
At nine o'clock in the morning, at the very hour when the streets are
filled with men bound for the various official departments, it begins to
bestow such powerful and piercing nips on all noses impartially that the
poor officials really do not know what to do with them. At an hour when
the foreheads of even those who occupy exalted positions ache with the
cold, and tears start to their eyes, the poor titular councillors are
sometimes quite unprotected. Their only salvation lies in traversing as
quickly as possible, in their thin little cloaks, five or six streets,
and then warming their feet in the porter's room, and so thawing all
their talents and qualifications for official service, which had become
frozen on the way.
Akakiy Akakievitch had felt for some time that his back and shoulders
suffered with peculiar poignancy, in spite of the fact that he tried
to traverse the distance with all possible speed. He began finally
to wonder whether the fault did not lie in his cloak. He examined it
thoroughly at home, and discovered that in two places, namely, on the
back and shoulders, it had become thin as gauze: the cloth was worn to
such a degree that he could see through it, and the lining had fallen
into pieces. You must know that Akakiy Akakievitch's cloak served as an
object of ridicule to the officials: they even refused it the noble name
of cloak, and called it a cape. In fact, it was of singular make: its
collar diminishing year by year, but serving to patch its other parts.
The patching did not exhibit great skill on the part of the tailor,
and was, in fact, baggy and ugly. Seeing how the matter stood, Akakiy
Akakievitch decided that it would be necessary to take the cloak to
Petrovitch, the tailor, who lived somewhere on the fourth floor up
a dark stair-case, and who, in spite of his having but one eye, and
pock-marks all over his face, busied himself with considerable success
in repairing the trousers and coats of officials and others; that is to
say, when he was sober and not nursing some other scheme in his head.
It is not necessary to say much about this tailor; but, as it is the
custom to have the character of each personage in a novel clearly
defined, there is no help for it, so here is Petrovitch the tailor. At
first he was called only Grigoriy, and was some gentleman's serf; he
commenced calling himself Petrovitch from the time when he received
his free papers, and further began to drink heavily on all holidays,
at first on the great ones, and then on all church festivities without
discrimination, wherever a cross stood in the calendar. On this point he
was faithful to ancestral custom; and when quarrelling with his wife, he
called her a low female and a German. As we have mentioned his wife, it
will be necessary to say a word or two about her. Unfortunately, little
is known of her beyond the fact that Petrovitch has a wife, who wears
a cap and a dress; but cannot lay claim to beauty, at least, no one but
the soldiers of the guard even looked under her cap when they met her.
Ascending the staircase which led to Petrovitch's room--which staircase
was all soaked with dish-water, and reeked with the smell of spirits
which affects the eyes, and is an inevitable adjunct to all dark
stairways in St. Petersburg houses--ascending the stairs, Akakiy
Akakievitch pondered how much Petrovitch would ask, and mentally
resolved not to give more than two rubles. The door was open; for the
mistress, in cooking some fish, had raised such a smoke in the kitchen
that not even the beetles were visible. Akakiy Akakievitch passed
through the kitchen unperceived, even by the housewife, and at length
reached a room where he beheld Petrovitch seated on a large unpainted
table, with his legs tucked under him like a Turkish pasha. His feet
were bare, after the fashion of tailors who sit at work; and the first
thing which caught the eye was his thumb, with a deformed nail thick and
strong as a turtle's shell. About Petrovitch's neck hung a skein of silk
and thread, and upon his knees lay some old garment. He had been trying
unsuccessfully for three minutes to thread his needle, and was enraged
at the darkness and even at the thread, growling in a low voice, "It
won't go through, the barbarian! you pricked me, you rascal!"
Akakiy Akakievitch was vexed at arriving at the precise moment when
Petrovitch was angry; he liked to order something of Petrovitch when the
latter was a little downhearted, or, as his wife expressed it, "when
he had settled himself with brandy, the one-eyed devil!" Under such
circumstances, Petrovitch generally came down in his price very readily,
and even bowed and returned thanks. Afterwards, to be sure, his wife
would come, complaining that her husband was drunk, and so had fixed
the price too low; but, if only a ten-kopek piece were added, then the
matter was settled. But now it appeared that Petrovitch was in a sober
condition, and therefore rough, taciturn, and inclined to demand, Satan
only knows what price. Akakiy Akakievitch felt this, and would gladly
have beat a retreat; but he was in for it. Petrovitch screwed up his
one eye very intently at him, and Akakiy Akakievitch involuntarily said:
"How do you do, Petrovitch?"
"I wish you a good morning, sir," said Petrovitch, squinting at Akakiy
Akakievitch's hands, to see what sort of booty he had brought.
"Ah! I--to you, Petrovitch, this--" It must be known that Akakiy
Akakievitch expressed himself chiefly by prepositions, adverbs, and
scraps of phrases which had no meaning whatever. If the matter was a
very difficult one, he had a habit of never completing his sentences; so
that frequently, having begun a phrase with the words, "This, in fact,
is quite--" he forgot to go on, thinking that he had already finished
it.
"What is it?" asked Petrovitch, and with his one eye scanned
Akakievitch's whole uniform from the collar down to the cuffs, the back,
the tails and the button-holes, all of which were well known to him,
since they were his own handiwork. Such is the habit of tailors; it is
the first thing they do on meeting one.
"But I, here, this--Petrovitch--a cloak, cloth--here you see,
everywhere, in different places, it is quite strong--it is a little
dusty, and looks old, but it is new, only here in one place it is a
little--on the back, and here on one of the shoulders, it is a little
worn, yes, here on this shoulder it is a little--do you see? that is
all. And a little work--"
