Short Fiction quotes

Thoma Grigorovitch had one very strange eccentricity: to the day of his death he never liked to tell the same thing twice.

There were times when, if you asked him to relate a thing afresh, he would interpolate new matter, or alter it so that it was impossible to recognise it.

don’t beat Peter!” What was to be done?

A father’s heart is not made of stone.

Hanging the whip again on the wall, he led Peter quietly from the house. “If you ever show yourself in my cottage again, or even under the windows, look out, Peter, for, by heaven, your black moustache will disappear;

They struck hands upon it, and Basavriuk said, “You are just in time, Peter: tomorrow is St. John the Baptist’s day. Only on this one night in the year does the fern blossom. I will await you at midnight in the Bear’s ravine.”

I do not believe that chickens await the hour when the housewife brings their corn with as much anxiety as Peter awaited the evening.

He kept looking to see whether the shadows of the trees were not lengthening, whether the sun was not turning red towards setting; and, the longer he watched, the more impatient he grew. How long it was! Evidently, God’s day had lost its end somewhere.

“Whence, except from the tempter of orthodox people, came this wealth? Where else could he have got such a lot of gold from? Why, on the very day that he got rich, did Basavriuk vanish as if into thin air?”

Say, if you can, that people only imagine things!

A month had not passed, and no one would have recognised Peter. He sat in one spot, saying no word to anyone; but continually thinking and seemingly trying to recall something.

cried Hanna, tearing herself from the youths who had gathered round. “Are they never tired of the eternal kissing? I shall soon not be able to show myself on the street!” So saying, she closed the door and bolted it.

Do you know a Ukraine night? No, you do not know a night in the Ukraine.

Gaze your full on it. The moon shines in the midst of the sky; the immeasurable vault of heaven seems to have expanded to infinity; the earth is bathed in silver light; the air is warm, voluptuous, and redolent of innumerable sweet scents. Divine night!

The witch, finding herself suddenly in darkness, shrieked aloud. The devil coming near her, took her hand, and began to whisper to her those same things which are usually whispered to all womankind.

How oddly things go on in this world of ours! Every one who lives in it endeavours to copy and ape his neighbour.

Of yore there was nobody at Mirgorod but the judge and the mayor, who in winter wore fur cloaks covered with cloth; all their subordinates went in plain uncovered tooloops;

exclaimed the blacksmith recovering his presence of mind, and drawing her towards him, endeavoured to snatch a kiss; her cheek was already at an imperceptible distance from the blacksmith’s lips, when Oxana sprang aside and pushed him back. “What wilt thou want next?

When one has got honey, he wants a spoon too.

Away with thee! thy hands are harder than iron, and thou smellest of smoke thyself; I really think thou hast besmeared me with thy soot.” She then took the mirror and once more began to adorn herself.

the elder twirled his mustachios, twisted his crown-lock of hair round his ear, and said to his neighbour, “A splendid woman! a devilish fine woman!”

Solokha nodded to everyone, and everyone thought that Solokha nodded to him alone.

But those who liked to pry into other people’s business, noticed that Solokha exerted the utmost of her civility towards the Cossack Choop.

“

He who has got the devil on his back has no great way to go to him,

” said Patzuck quietly, without changing his position.

a long-legged goose drinking water, with her young goslings, soft as down; the picket-fence hung with bunches of dried pears and apples, and rugs put out to air; a cart full of melons standing near the storehouse; the oxen unyoked, and lying lazily beside it.

All this has for me an indescribable charm, perhaps because I no longer see it, and because anything from which we are separated is pleasing to us.

However that may be, from the moment that my brichka drove up to the porch of this little house, my soul entered into a wonderfully pleasant and peaceful state: the horses trotted merrily up to the porch;

It seemed as though you might read their whole life in them, the pure, peaceful corners, in the chests, and between the chests.

Pulcheria Ivanovna was a famous housewife, and saved up everything; though she sometimes did not know herself what use she could ever make of it.

But the most noticeable thing about the house was the singing doors. Just as soon as day arrived, the songs of the doors resounded throughout the house. I cannot say why they sang.

Good old people! … But my story approaches a very sad event, which changed forever the life in that peaceful nook. This event appears all the more striking because it resulted from the most insignificant cause.

But, in accordance with the primitive arrangement of things, the most trifling causes produce the greatest events, and the grandest undertakings end in the most insignificant results.

Some warrior collects all the forces of his empire, fights for several years, his colonels distinguish themselves, and at last it all ends in the acquisition of a bit of land on which no one would even plant potatoes;

But we will drop these reflections; they lead nowhere: and besides,

I am not fond of reflections when they remain mere reflections.

Pulcheria Ivanovna had a little gray cat, which almost always lay coiled up in a ball at her feet. Pulcheria Ivanovna stroked her occasionally, and with her finger tickled her neck, which the petted cat stretched out as long as possible.

I will beg God myself to give you an unhappy ending. And you will be unhappy yourself, and your children will be unhappy; and none of your race will ever have God’s blessing.”

Poor old woman! she thought not of the great moment which awaited her, nor of her soul, nor of the future life: she thought only of her poor companion, with whom she had passed her life, and whom she was leaving an orphan and unprotected.

After this fashion, she arranged everything with great skill: so that, after her death, Afanasii Ivanovich might not perceive her absence.

Five years passed.

What grief will time not efface! What passion is not cured in unequal battle with it!

I knew a man in the bloom of his youthful strength, full of true nobility and worth; I knew that he loved, tenderly, passionately, wildly, boldly, modestly;

in a word, I experienced that strange sensation which takes possession of us when we enter, for the first time, the dwelling of a widower whom we had heretofore known as inseparable from the companion who has been with him all his life.

This sensation resembles the one we feel when we see before us a man whom we had always known as healthy, without his legs.

In everything was visible the absence of painstaking Pulcheria Ivanovna. At table they gave us a knife without a handle: the dishes were not prepared with so much art. I did not care to inquire about the management of the estate:

… old man, who, in all his life, apparently, was never agitated by any strong spiritual emotion, whose whole life seemed to consist in sitting on a high chair, in eating dried fish and pears, in telling good-natured stories—and yet so long and fervent a grief!

Which wields the most powerful sway over us, passion or habit?

Or are all our strong impulses, all the whirlwinds of our desire and boiling passions, but the consequence of our fierce young growth, and only for that reason seem deep and annihilating?”

No: these were not the tears of which old people are generally so lavish, when representing to us their wretched condition and unhappiness. Neither were these the tears which they drop over a glass of punch.

No: these were tears which flowed without asking a reason, distilled from the bitter pain of a heart already growing cold.

He did not live long after this. I heard of his death recently. It was strange, though, that the circumstances attending his death somewhat resembled those of Pulcheria Ivanovna’s. One day Afanasii Ivanovich decided to take a short stroll in the garden.

“

Because, although you are my father, if you laugh, by heavens, I will strike you!

”

“What an idea!” said the mother, who had managed in the meantime to embrace her youngest. “Who ever heard of children fighting their own father? That’s enough for the present; the child is young, he has had a long journey, he is tired.”

The child was over twenty, and about six feet high.

“He ought to rest, and eat something; and you set him to fighting!”

“You are a gabbler!” said Bulba. “Don’t listen to your mother, my lad; she is a woman, and knows nothing. What sort of petting do you need?

A clear field and a good horse, that’s the kind of petting for you!

And do you see this sword? that’s your mother! All the rest people stuff your heads with is rubbish; the academy, books, primers, philosophy, and all that, I spit upon it all!” Here Bulba added a word which is not used in print.

“Enough, you’ve howled quite enough, old woman! A Cossack is not born to run around after women.

You would like to hide them both under your petticoat, and sit upon them as a hen sits on eggs.

Go, go, and let us have everything there is on the table in a trice. We don’t want any dumplings, honey-cakes, poppy-cakes, or any other such messes:

and that when the Poles undertake any expedition against our faith, you may beat the Poles. Come, clink your glasses. How now? Is the brandy good? What’s corn-brandy in Latin?

The Latins were stupid: they did not know there was such a thing in the world as corn-brandy.

What was the name of the man who wrote Latin verses? I don’t know much about reading and writing, so I don’t quite know. Wasn’t it Horace?”

Their bold comrades had a right to reply to the Sultan when he asked how many they were, “Who knows?

We are scattered all over the steppes; wherever there is a hillock, there is a Cossack.

”

she was a misplaced object in that community of unmarried warriors, upon which wandering Zaporozhe cast a colouring of its own. Her pleasureless youth flitted by; her ripe cheeks and bosom withered away unkissed and became covered with premature wrinkles.

Love, feeling, everything that is tender and passionate in a woman, was converted in her into maternal love.

She hovered around her children with anxiety, passion, tears, like the gull of the steppes. They were taking her sons, her darling sons, from her—taking them from her, so that she should never see them again! Who knew?

There is the pole above the well, with the wagon wheel fastened to its top, rising solitary against the sky; already the level which they have traversed appears a hill in the distance, and now all has disappeared.

Farewell, childhood, games, all, all, farewell!

All three horsemen rode in silence. Old Taras’s thoughts were far away: before him passed his youth, his years—the swift-flying years, over which the Cossack always weeps, wishing that his life might be all youth.

The hungry student running about the streets of Kiev forced everyone to be on his guard.

Dealers sitting in the bazaar covered their pies, their cakes, and their pumpkin-rolls with their hands, like eagles protecting their young, if they but caught sight of a passing student.

The consul or monitor, who was bound by his duty to look after the comrades entrusted to his care, had such frightfully wide pockets to his trousers that he could stow away the whole contents of the gaping dealer’s stall in them.

From the grass arose, with measured sweep, a gull, and skimmed wantonly through blue waves of air. And now she has vanished on high, and appears only as a black dot: now she has turned her wings, and shines in the sunlight.

Oh, steppes, how beautiful you are!

Our travellers halted only a few minutes for dinner. Their escort of ten Cossacks sprang from their horses and undid the wooden casks of brandy, and the gourds which were used instead of drinking vessels. They ate only cakes of bread and dripping;

No plough had ever passed over the immeasurable waves of wild growth; horses alone, hidden in it as in a forest, trod it down. Nothing in nature could be finer.

The whole surface resembled a golden-green ocean, upon which were sprinkled millions of different flowers.

Through the tall, slender stems of the grass peeped light-blue, dark-blue, and lilac star-thistles; the yellow broom thrust up its pyramidal head; the parasol-shaped white flower of the false flax shimmered on high. A wheat-ear, brought God knows whence, was filling out to ripening.

“Take off your jacket!” said Taras at length: “see how he steams!”—“I can’t,” shouted the Cossack. “Why?”—“I can’t:

I have such a disposition that whatever I take off, I drink up.

” And indeed, the young fellow had not had a cap for a long time, nor a belt to his caftan, nor an embroidered neckerchief: all had gone the proper road. The throng increased; more folk joined the dancer:

… were often so droll, and breathed such power of vivid narration, that it required all the nonchalance of a Zaporozhetz to retain his immovable expression, without even a twitch of the moustache—a feature which to this day distinguishes the Southern Russian from his northern brethren.

It was drunken, noisy mirth; but there was no dark alehouse where a man drowns thought in stupefying intoxication: it was a dense throng of schoolboys.

The only difference as regarded the students was that, instead of sitting under the pointer and listening to the worn-out doctrines of a teacher, they practised racing with five thousand horses;

“Then it must be fitting that Cossack strength should be wasted in vain, that a man should disappear like a dog without having done a single good deed, that he should be of no use to his country or to Christianity!

Why, then, do we live? What the deuce do we live for? just tell me that.

You are a sensible man, you were not chosen as Koschevoi without reason: so just tell me what we live for?”

What did this blessing prophecy? Was it a blessing for their victory over the enemy, and then a joyous return to their home with booty and glory, to be everlastingly commemorated in the songs of guitar-players? or was it … ?

But the future is unknown, and stands before a man like autumnal fogs rising from the swamps; birds fly foolishly up and down in it with flapping wings, never recognising each other, the dove seeing not the vulture, nor the vulture the dove, and no one knowing how far he may be flying from destruction.

Ostap had long since attended to his duties and gone to the kurén. Andrii, without knowing why, felt a kind of oppression at his heart. The Cossacks had finished their evening meal; the wonderful July night had completely fallen;

It must have required supernatural powers to eat it all; the more so, as their kurén numbered fewer than the others. He looked into the cauldron of the other kuréns—nothing anywhere. Involuntarily the saying recurred to his mind, “

The Zaporozhtzi are like children: if there is little they eat it, if there is much they leave nothing.

” What was to be done? There was, somewhere in the wagon belonging to his father’s band, a sack of white bread, which they had found when they pillaged the bakery of the monastery.

you have not eaten for so long that too much bread will be poison to you now.” And she at once dropped her hand, laid her bread upon the plate, and gazed into his eyes like a submissive child. And if any words could express—

But neither chisel, nor brush, nor mighty speech is capable of expressing what is sometimes seen in glances of maidens, nor the tender feeling which takes possession of him who receives such maiden glances.

“My queen!” exclaimed Andrii, his heart and soul filled with emotion, “what do you need? what do you wish? command me! Impose on me the most impossible task in all the world: I fly to fulfil it!

he repeated, with that movement of the hand with which the Cossack expresses his determination to do some unheard-of deed, impossible to any other man. “Who says that the Ukraine is my country? Who gave it to me for my country?

Our country is the one our soul longs for, the one which is dearest of all to us.

My country is—you! That is my native land, and I bear that country in my heart. I will bear it there all my life, and I will see whether any of the Cossacks can tear it thence.

Filled with feelings untasted as yet upon earth, Andrii kissed the sweet mouth which pressed his cheek, and the sweet mouth did not remain unresponsive.

In this union of kisses they experienced that which it is given to a man to feel but once on earth.

And the Cossack was ruined. He was lost to Cossack chivalry. Never again will Zaporozhe, nor his father’s house, nor the Church of God, behold him. The Ukraine will never more see the bravest of the children who have undertaken to defend her.

“What have I to say? I say, Blessed be the father of such a son!

It does not need much wisdom to utter words of reproof; but much wisdom is needed to find such words as do not embitter a man’s misfortune, but encourage him, restore to him his spirit, put spurs to the horse of his soul, refreshed by water.

I meant myself to speak words of comfort to you, but Kukubenko has forestalled me.”

“He did it all for her, he went there for her sake.

When a man is in love, then all things are the same to him; like the sole of a shoe which you can bend in any direction if you soak it in water.

”

“

Because the whole army will hide behind him; and the devil himself couldn’t help you to reach anyone with your spear through that belly of his!

”

But Taras, emerging from ambush at the moment with his troops, headed off the infuriated cattle, which, startled by his yell, swooped down upon the Polish troops, overthrew the cavalry, and crushed and dispersed them all.

“Thank you, oxen!” cried the Zaporozhtzi; “you served us on the march, and now you serve us in war.”

And they attacked the foe with fresh vigour killing many of the enemy. Several distinguished themselves—Metelitza and Schilo, both of the Pisarenki, Vovtuzenko, and many others.

That is so! Let that be my first remark; but now listen to my second. And this is my second remark: Taras spoke even more truly. God grant him many years, and that such leaders may be plentiful in the Ukraine!

A Cossack’s first duty and honour is to guard comradeship.

Never in all my life, brother gentles, have I heard of any Cossack deserting or betraying any of his comrades. Both those made captive at the Setch and these taken here are our comrades. Whether they be few or many, it makes no difference;

that is what our fellowship consists in. There is no more sacred brotherhood. The father loves his children, the mother loves her children, the children love their father and mother; but this is not like that, brothers. The wild beast also loves its young.

But a man can be related only by similarity of mind and not of blood.

There have been brotherhoods in other lands, but never any such brotherhoods as on our Russian soil. It has happened to many of you to be in foreign lands. You look: there are people there also, God’s creatures, too;

Half the Nezamaikovsky kurén was as if it had never been.

As the hail suddenly beats down a field where every ear of grain shines like purest gold, so were they beaten down.

How the Cossacks hastened thither! How they all started up! How raged Kukubenko, the hetman, when he saw that the best half of his kurén was no more!

Here he found the hetman of the Oumansky kurén, and Stepan Guska, hard at work, having already seized the largest cannon. He left those Cossacks there, and plunged with his own into another mass of the foe, making a lane through it.

Where the Nezamaikovtzi passed there was a street; where they turned about there was a square as where streets meet.

The foemen’s ranks were visibly thinning, and the Lyakhs falling in sheaves. Beside the wagons stood Vovtuzenko, and in front Tcherevitchenko, and by the more distant ones Degtyarenko; and behind them the kurén hetman, Vertikhvist.

The brazen helmet flew into pieces and the Lyakh staggered and fell; but Schilo went on hacking and cutting gashes in the body of the stunned man.

Kill not utterly thine enemy, Cossack: look back rather!

The Cossack did not turn, and one of the dead man’s servants plunged a knife into his neck. Schilo turned and tried to seize him, but he disappeared amid the smoke of the powder. On all sides rose the roar of matchlocks.

Some entered into warm discussions, others even laid wagers.

But the majority were of the species who, all the world over, look on at the world and at everything that goes on in it and merely scratch their noses.

In the front ranks, close to the bearded civic-guards, stood a young noble, in warlike array, who had certainly put his whole wardrobe on his back, leaving only his torn shirt and old shoes at his quarters.

“Yes, Dorosch, it is possible; don’t talk such nonsense,” retorted the former consoler. “It is not for nothing that God has given each some special peculiarity; the learned maintain that every witch has a little tail.”

“Every old woman is a witch,” said a grey-headed Cossack quite seriously.

“Yes, you are a fine lot,” retorted the old woman who entered at that moment with a vessel full of fresh galuchkis. “You are great fat pigs!”

At table he was again talkative and ate a fairly large sucking pig almost without assistance. But none the less he resolved to say nothing of what he had seen, and to all curious questions only returned the answer, “Yes, some wonderful things happened.”

The philosopher was one of those men who, when they have had a good meal, are uncommonly amiable.

He lay down on a bench, with his pipe in his mouth, looked blandly at all, and expectorated every minute.

I’m not beating you.” And turning to a second and a third with the same questions, he finally returns home, or goes to drink a little glass of vodka with his neighbour, Ivan Nikiforovitch, or the judge, or the chief of police.

Ivan Ivanovitch is very fond of receiving presents. They please him greatly.

A very fine man too is Ivan Nikiforovitch. They are such friends as the world never saw.

… so clumsy and at the same time so horrible and indecent that I do not even consider it necessary to refute it for the benefit of civilised readers, to whom it is doubtless known that only witches, and very few even of these, have tails.

Witches, moreover, belong more to the feminine than to the masculine gender.

In spite of their great friendship, these rare friends are not always agreed between themselves. Their characters can best be judged by comparing them. Ivan Ivanovitch has the usual gift of speaking in an extremely pleasant manner. Heavens! How he does speak!

Ivan Ivanovitch is tall and thin: Ivan Nikiforovitch is rather shorter in stature, but he makes it up in thickness.

Ivan Ivanovitch’s head is like a radish, tail down; Ivan Nikiforovitch’s like a radish with the tail up.

Ivan Ivanovitch lolls on the balcony in his shirt sleeves after dinner only: in the evening he dons his pelisse and goes out somewhere, either to the village shop, where he supplies flour, or into the fields to catch quail.

Ivan Ivanovitch shaves twice a week; Ivan Nikiforovitch once.

Ivan Ivanovitch is extremely curious. God preserve you if you begin to tell him anything and do not finish it!

If he is displeased with anything he lets it be seen at once. It is very hard to tell from Ivan Nikiforovitch’s countenance whether he is pleased or angry; even if he is rejoiced at anything, he will not show it.

“And you, Ivan Ivanovitch, are a regular goose!”

If Ivan Nikiforovitch had not uttered that word they would not have quarrelled, but would have parted friends as usual; but now things took quite another turn.

Ivan Ivanovitch flew into a rage.

“A great pity! By Heaven, I shall never weep on that account!” retorted Ivan Nikiforovitch.

He lied, by Heaven, he lied! for it was very annoying to him.

“I will never put my foot inside your house again!”

This was extremely displeasing to Ivan Nikiforovitch; but he, to his amazement, obeyed her like a child; and although he occasionally attempted to dispute, yet Agafya Fedosyevna always got the better of him.

I must confess that I do not understand why things are so arranged, that women should seize us by the nose as deftly as they do the handle of a teapot.

Either their hands are so constructed or else our noses are good for nothing else. And notwithstanding the fact that Ivan Nikiforovitch’s nose somewhat resembled a plum, she grasped that nose and led him about after her like a dog.

I must confess that I do not understand why things are so arranged, that women should seize us by the nose as deftly as they do the handle of a teapot.

Either their hands are so constructed or else our noses are good for nothing else.

And notwithstanding the fact that Ivan Nikiforovitch’s nose somewhat resembled a plum, she grasped that nose and led him about after her like a dog. He even, in her presence, involuntarily altered his ordinary manner of life.

from behind them the sunflowers show their sun-like heads, poppies blush, fat pumpkins peep; all is luxury itself! The fence is invariably garnished with articles which render it still more picturesque: woman’s widespread undergarments of checked woollen stuff, shirts, or trousers.

There is no such thing as theft or rascality in Mirgorod, so everybody hangs upon his fence whatever strikes his fancy.

If you go on to the square, you will surely stop and admire the view: such a wonderful pool is there! The finest you ever saw. It occupies nearly the whole of the square. A truly magnificent pool!

The court had been open since morning. The judge, a rather stout man, though thinner than Ivan Nikiforovitch, with a good-natured face, a greasy dressing-gown, a pipe, and a cup of tea, was conversing with the clerk of the court.

The judge’s lips were directly under his nose, so that he could snuff his upper lip as much as he liked.

It served him instead of a snuffbox, for the snuff intended for his nose almost always lodged upon it. So the judge was talking with the assistant. A barefooted girl stood holding a tray with cups at once side of them.

Ivan Ivanovitch put his hand out to the tray and took a cup.

Oh, the deuce! How can a man contrive to support his dignity!

“Demyan Demyanovitch,” said Ivan Ivanovitch, swallowing the last drain, “I have pressing business with you; I want to enter a complaint.”

His left foot had been struck by a ball in the last campaign, and so he limped and threw it out so far to one side as to almost counteract the efforts of the right foot.

The more briskly the chief of police worked his walking apparatus the less progress he made in advance.

So while he was getting to the balcony, Ivan Ivanovitch had plenty of time to lose himself in surmises as to why the chief was flourishing his hands so vigorously. This interested him the more, as the matter seemed one of unusual importance;

“You don’t say so!” Thereupon one-eyed Ivan Ivanovitch raised his eye and clasped his hands.

“Well, if people with good eyes cannot live in peace, how am I to live amicably, with my bad one?”

At these words they all laughed at the tops of their voices. Everyone liked one-eyed Ivan Ivanovitch, because he cracked jokes in that style.

But it is necessary, first of all, to make the reader somewhat acquainted with this noteworthy person. Anton Prokofievitch was a truly good man, in the fullest meaning of the term.

If anyone in Mirgorod gave him a neckerchief or underclothes, he returned thanks; if anyone gave him a fillip on the nose, he returned thanks too.

If he was asked, “Why, Anton Prokofievitch, do you wear a light brown coat with blue sleeves?” he generally replied, “Ah, you haven’t one like it! Wait a bit, it will soon fade and will be alike all over.”

No sooner had he uttered them than a hailstorm of reproaches, scoldings, and, possibly, even fillips were about to descend upon his head for the ill success of his mission, when all at once the door opened, and—Ivan Nikiforovitch entered.

If Satan himself or a corpse had appeared, it would not have caused such consternation amongst the company as Ivan Nikiforovitch’s unexpected arrival created.

But Anton Prokofievitch only went off into a fit of laughter, and held his sides with delight at having played such a joke upon the company.

… in appearance a boot soaked in kvass, nor of the sauce, which is the swan’s song of the old-fashioned cook, nor of that other dish which was brought in all enveloped in the flames of spirit, and amused as well as frightened the ladies extremely.

I will say nothing of these dishes, because I like to eat them better than to spend many words in discussing them.

Ivan Ivanovitch was exceedingly pleased with the fish dressed with horseradish. He devoted himself especially to this useful and nourishing preparation. Picking out all the fine bones from the fish, he laid them on his plate; and happening to glance across the table—Heavenly Creator;

Such an omen forboded no good. Nevertheless, the judge, in order to set things to rights, took the chief of police’s place, and, sweeping all the snuff from his upper lip with his nose, pushed Ivan Ivanovitch in the opposite direction.

In Mirgorod this is the usual manner of effecting a reconciliation: it somewhat resembles a game of ball.

As soon as the judge pushed Ivan Ivanovitch, Ivan Ivanovitch with the one eye exerted all his strength, and pushed Ivan Nikiforovitch, from whom the perspiration streamed like rainwater from a roof.

The case was sent up to the higher court; and when Ivan Ivanovitch received the joyful news that it would be decided on the morrow, then only did he look out upon the world and resolve to emerge from his house.

Alas! from that time forth the council gave notice day by day that the case would be finished on the morrow, for the space of ten years.

Five years ago, I passed through the town of Mirgorod. I came at a bad time. It was autumn, with its damp, melancholy weather, mud and mists.

Five years ago, I passed through the town of Mirgorod. I came at a bad time. It was autumn, with its damp, melancholy weather, mud and mists.

An unnatural verdure, the result of incessant rains, covered with a watery network the fields and meadows, to which it is as well suited as youthful pranks to an old man, or roses to an old woman.

The weather made a deep impression on me at the time: when it was dull, I was dull; but in spite of this, when I came to pass through Mirgorod, my heart beat violently. God, what reminiscences! I had not seen Mirgorod for twenty years.

Again the same fields, in some places black where they had been dug up, in others of a greenish hue; wet daws and crows; monotonous rain; a tearful sky, without one gleam of light! …

It is gloomy in this world, gentlemen!

… beauty no longer converts virgin strength into fire and flame, but when all the burnt-out sentiments become more vulnerable to the sound of gold, hearken more attentively to its seductive music, and little by little permit themselves to be completely lulled to sleep by it.

Fame can give no pleasure to him who has stolen it, not won it; so all his feelings and impulses turned towards wealth.

Gold was his passion, his ideal, his fear, his delight, his aim. The bundles of banknotes increased in his coffers; and, like all to whose lot falls this fearful gift, he began to grow inaccessible to every sentiment except the love of gold.

Fame can give no pleasure to him who has stolen it, not won it; so all his feelings and impulses turned towards wealth.

Gold was his passion, his ideal, his fear, his delight, his aim.

The bundles of banknotes increased in his coffers; and, like all to whose lot falls this fearful gift, he began to grow inaccessible to every sentiment except the love of gold.

his figures, attitudes, groups, thoughts, arranged themselves stiffly, disconnectedly. His hand and his imagination had been too long confined to one groove; and the fruitless effort to escape from the bonds and fetters which he had imposed upon himself, showed itself in irregularities and errors.

He had despised the long, wearisome ladder to knowledge, and the first fundamental law of the future great man, hard work.

He gave vent to his vexation. He ordered all his later productions to be taken out of his studio, all the fashionable, lifeless pictures, all the portraits of hussars, ladies, and councillors of state.

but in all see that you find the hidden soul, and most of all, strive to attain to the grand secret of creation. Blessed is the elect one who masters that! There is for him no mean object in nature.

In lowly themes the artist creator is as great as in great ones: in the despicable there is nothing for him to despise, for it passes through the purifying fire of his mind.

An intimation of God’s heavenly paradise is contained for the artist in art, and by that alone is it higher than all else.

Meanwhile what Meggy went on to say seemed to me still more remarkable. She added, “I wrote to you lately, Fidel; perhaps Polkan did not bring you the letter.”

Now I am willing to forfeit a whole month’s salary if I ever heard of dogs writing before.

This has certainly astonished me. For some little time past I hear and see things which no other man has heard and seen.

I know well, I know why he is angry with me. He is envious; perhaps he has noticed the tokens of favour which have been graciously shown me. But why should I bother about him?

A councillor! What sort of important animal is that?

He wears a gold chain with his watch, buys himself boots at thirty roubles a pair; may the deuce take him! Am I a tailor’s son or some other obscure cabbage? I am a nobleman! I can also work my way up.

But the cunning dog drew in its tail, ruffled up its hair, and went quite quietly out of the door, as though it had heard nothing.

I had long been of the opinion that dogs are much cleverer than men.

I also believed that they could talk, and that only a certain obstinacy kept them from doing so. They are especially watchful animals, and nothing escapes their observation.

December 3rd.—It is not possible that the marriage should take place; it is only idle gossip. What does it signify if he is a chamberlain! That is only a dignity, not a substantial thing which one can see or handle.

His chamberlain’s office will not procure him a third eye in his forehead.

Neither is his nose made of gold; it is just like mine or anyone else’s nose. He does not eat and cough, but smells and sneezes with it. I should like to get to the bottom of the mystery—whence do all these distinctions come?

Perhaps I am really a count or a general, and only appear to be a titular councillor.

Perhaps I don’t even know who and what I am.

How many cases there are in history of a simple gentleman, or even a burgher or peasant, suddenly turning out to be a great lord or baron?

Now it is all clear, and as plain as a pikestaff. Formerly—I don’t know why—everything seemed veiled in a kind of mist. That is, I believe, because people think that the human brain is in the head.

Nothing of the sort; it is carried by the wind from the Caspian Sea.

For the first time I told Mawra who I am. When she learned that the king of Spain stood before her, she struck her hands together over her head, and nearly died of alarm. The stupid thing had never seen the king of Spain before!

As he came through our room, each one hastily buttoned up his coat; but I had no idea of doing anything of the sort. What is the director to me? Should I stand up before him? Never. What sort of a director is he?

He is a bottle-stopper, and no director.

A quite ordinary, simple bottle-stopper—nothing more. I felt quite amused as they gave me a document to sign.

“No,” he said to me, “there is no Spanish deputation here; but if you want to send them a letter, we will forward it at the fixed rate.” The deuce! What do I want with a letter?

Letters are nonsense. Letters are written by apothecaries.

…

When I was alone, I determined to study State affairs; I discovered that Spain and China are one and the same country, and it is only through ignorance that people regard them as separate kingdoms.

I advise everyone urgently to write down the word “Spain” on a sheet of paper; he will see that it is quite the same as China.

But I feel much annoyed by an event which is about to take place tomorrow; at seven o’clock the earth is going to sit on the moon. This is foretold by the famous English chemist, Wellington.

He has sworn to compass my death, and now he is hunting me down. But I know, my friend, that you are only a tool of the English. They are clever fellows, and have a finger in every pie.

All the world knows that France sneezes when England takes a pinch of snuff.

The 25th.—Today the Grand Inquisitor came into my room; when I heard his steps in the distance, I hid myself under a chair. When he did not see me, he began to call. At first he called “Poprishchin!” I made no answer.

Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child!

And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose?

But my conscience is a little uneasy that I have not yet given any detailed information about Ivan Jakovlevitch, an estimable man in many ways.

Like every honest Russian tradesman, Ivan Jakovlevitch was a terrible drunkard, and although he shaved other people’s faces every day, his own was always unshaved.

His coat (he never wore an overcoat) was quite mottled, i.e. it had been black, but become brownish-yellow; the collar was quite shiny, and instead of the three buttons, only the threads by which they had been fastened were to be seen.

“And the man who has run away is your serf.”

“Serf! If he was, it would not be such a great swindle! It is the nose which has absconded.”

“H’m! What a strange name. And this Mr. Nose has stolen from you a considerable sum?”

That is why I want you to advertise that whoever gets hold of it should bring it as soon as possible to me. Consider; how can I live without such a prominent part of my body?

It is not as if it were merely a little toe; I would only have to put my foot in my boot and no one would notice its absence.

Every Thursday I call on the wife of M. Tchektyriev, the state-councillor; Madame Podtotchina, a Colonel’s wife who has a very pretty daughter, is one of my acquaintances; and what am I to do now? I cannot appear before them like this.”

This police commissary was a great patron of all the arts and industries; but what he liked above everything else was a cheque.

“It is a thing,” he used to say, “to which it is not easy to find an equivalent; it requires no food, it does not take up much room, it stays in one’s pocket, and if it falls, it is not broken.”

The commissary accorded Kovaloff a fairly frigid reception, saying that the afternoon was not the best time to come with a case, that nature required one to rest a little after eating (this showed the committeeman that the commissary was acquainted with the aphorisms of …

The last allusion was too direct. We must remember that Kovaloff was a very sensitive man.

He did not mind anything said against him as an individual, but he could not endure any reflection on his rank or social position.

He even believed that in comedies one might allow attacks on junior officers, but never on their seniors.

“Yes, this is it!” he said to himself. “Here is the heat-boil on the left side, which came out yesterday.” And he nearly laughed aloud with delight.

But nothing is permanent in this world. Joy in the second moment of its arrival is already less keen than in the first, is still fainter in the third, and finishes by coalescing with our normal mental state, just as the circles which the fall of a pebble forms on the surface of water, gradually die away.

Kovaloff began to meditate, and saw that his difficulties were not yet over; his nose had been recovered, but it had to be joined on again in its proper place.

One gentleman asserted with great indignation that he could not understand how in our enlightened age such absurdities could spread abroad, and he was astonished that the government did not direct their attention to the matter.

This gentleman evidently belonged to the category of those people who wish the government to interfere in everything, even in their daily quarrels with their wives.

But here the course of events is again obscured by a veil.

But the most incomprehensible thing of all is, how authors can choose such subjects for their stories. That really surpasses my understanding.

In the first place, no advantage results from it for the country; and in the second place, no harm results either.

All the same, when one reflects well, there really is something in the matter. Whatever may be said to the contrary, such cases do occur—rarely, it is true, but now and then actually.

Following a custom very common in the towns of South Russia, the chief of police has long since had all the trees in the gardens cut down to improve the view.

One never meets anything in the town, unless it is a cock crossing the road, full of dust and soft as a pillow.

At the slightest rain this dust is turned into mud, and then all the streets are filled with pigs.

These moustaches showed themselves everywhere, but above all at the market, over the shoulders of the women of the place who flocked there from all sides to make their purchases. The officers lent great animation to society at B⸺.

Society consisted up till then of the judge who was living with a deacon’s wife, and of the chief of police, a very sensible man, but one who slept all day long from dinner till evening, and from evening till dinnertime.

This general liveliness was still further increased when the town of B⸺ became the residence of the general commanding the brigade to which the regiment belonged.

The dinner was magnificent; there were sturgeons, sterlets, bustards, asparagus, quail, partridges, mushrooms.

The flavour of all these dishes supplied an irrefutable proof of the sobriety of the cook during the twenty-four hours preceding the dinner.

Four soldiers, who had been given him as assistants, had not ceased working all night, knife in hand, at the composition of ragouts and jellies. The immense quantity of long-necked bottles, mingled with shorter ones, holding claret and madeira;

They sat down to supper. As might be expected, wine was not lacking, and Tchertokoutski kept involuntarily filling his glass with it, for he was surrounded with bottles. A lengthy conversation took place at table, but the guests carried it on after a strange fashion.

A colonel, who had served in 1812, described a battle which had never taken place; and besides, no one ever could make out why he took a cork and stuck it into a pie.

They began to break up at three in the morning. The coachmen were obliged to take several of them in their arms like bundles;

and besides, no one ever could make out why he took a cork and stuck it into a pie. They began to break up at three in the morning. The coachmen were obliged to take several of them in their arms like bundles; and

Tchertokoutski himself, despite his aristocratic pride, bowed so low to the company, that he took home two thistles in his moustache.

The coachman who drove him home found everyone asleep. He routed out, after some trouble, the valet, who, after having ushered his master through the hall, handed him over to a maidservant.

But it is perhaps better that I do not mention which department it was.

There are in the whole of Russia no persons more sensitive than government officials.

Each of them believes if he is annoyed in any way, that the whole official class is insulted in his person.

They declared that she beat him, and inquired of him when he would lead her to the marriage altar.

Sometimes they let a shower of scraps of paper fall on his head, and told him they were snowflakes.

But Akaki Akakievitch made no answer to all these attacks; he seemed oblivious of their presence. His work was not affected in the slightest degree; during all these interruptions he did not make a single error in copying.

Long afterwards, when surrounded by gay companions, he would see the figure of the poor little councillor and hear the words “Do leave me alone! Why will you always disturb me at work?”

Along with these words, he also heard others: “Am I not your brother?”

On such occasions the young man would hide his face in his hands, and think how little humane feeling after all was to be found in men’s hearts;

how much coarseness and cruelty was to be found even in the educated and those who were everywhere regarded as good and honourable men.

Never was there an official who did his work so zealously as Akaki Akakievitch.

“Zealously,” do I say? He worked with a passionate love of his task. While he copied official documents, a world of varied beauty rose before his eyes. His delight in copying was legible in his face.

Never was there an official who did his work so zealously as Akaki Akakievitch. “Zealously,” do I say?

He worked with a passionate love of his task.

While he copied official documents, a world of varied beauty rose before his eyes. His delight in copying was legible in his face. To form certain letters afforded him special satisfaction, and when he came to them he was quite another man;

“About a hundred and fifty roubles,” answered the tailor, pursing his lips. This diabolical tailor took a special pleasure in embarrassing his customers and watching the expression of their faces with his squinting single eye.

“A hundred and fifty roubles for a cloak!” exclaimed Akaki Akakievitch in a tone which sounded like an outcry⁠—possibly the first he had uttered since his birth.

“Yes,” replied Petrovitch. “And then the marten-fur collar and silk lining for the hood would make it up to two hundred roubles.”