The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

by Nikolai Gogol

  The stairway wound around, and his quick dreams wound with it. "Watch your step!" a voice sounded like a harp and filled his veins with fresh trembling. On the dark height of the fourth floor, the unknown lady knocked at the door—it opened, and they went in together. A rather good-looking woman met them with a candle in her hand, but she gave Piskarev such a strange and insolent look that he involuntarily lowered his eyes. They went into the room.

  Three female figures in different corners appeared before his eyes. One was laying out cards; the second sat at a piano and with two fingers picked out some pathetic semblance of an old polonaise; the third sat before a mirror combing her long hair and never thought of interrupting her toilette at the entrance of a stranger. Some unpleasant disorder, to be met with only in the carefree room of a bachelor, reigned over all. The rather nice furniture was covered with dust; a spider had spread its web over a molded cornice; in the half-open doorway to another room, a spurred boot gleamed and the red piping of a uniform flitted: a loud male voice and female laughter rang out unrestrainedly.

  God, where had he come! At first he refused to believe it and began studying the objects that filled the room more attentively; but the bare walls and curtainless windows showed no presence of a thoughtful housewife; the worn faces of these pathetic creatures, one of whom sat down almost in front of his nose and gazed at him as calmly as at a spot on someone's clothes—all this convinced him that he had come to one of those revolting havens where pathetic depravity makes its abode, born of tawdry education and the terrible populousness of the capital. One of those havens where man blasphemously crushes and derides all the pure and holy that adorns life, where woman, the beauty of the world, the crown of creation, turns into some strange, ambiguous being, where, along with purity of soul, she loses everything feminine and repulsively adopts all the mannerisms and insolence of a man, and ceases to be that weak, that beautiful being so different from us. Piskarev looked her up and down with astonished eyes, as if still wishing to make sure that it was she who had so bewitched him and swept him away on Nevsky Prospect. But she stood before him as beautiful as ever; her hair was as wonderful; her eyes seemed as heavenly. She was fresh; she was just seventeen; one could see that terrible depravity had overtaken her only recently; it had not yet dared to touch her cheeks, they were fresh and lightly tinted by a fine blush—she was beautiful.

  He stood motionless before her and was about to fall into the same simple-hearted reverie as earlier. But the beauty got bored with such long silence and smiled significantly, looking straight into his eyes. Yet this smile was filled with some pathetic insolence; it was as strange and as suited to her face as an expression of piety is to the mug of a bribe-taker, or an accountant's ledger to a poet. He shuddered. She opened her pretty lips and began to say something, but it was all so stupid, so trite ... As if intelligence left a person together with chastity. He did not want to hear any more. He was extremely ridiculous and as simple as a child. Instead of taking advantage of this favor, instead of being glad of such an occasion, as anyone else in his place would undoubtedly have been, he rushed out headlong, like a wild goat, and ran down to the street.

  His head bowed, his arms hanging limp, he sat in his room like a poor man who found a priceless pearl and straightaway dropped it into the sea. "Such a beauty, such divine features—and where, in what place! . . ." That was all he was able to utter.

  Indeed, pity never possesses us so strongly as at the sight of beauty touched by the corrupting breath of depravity. Let ugliness make friends with it, but beauty, tender beauty ...in our thoughts it is united only with chastity and purity. The beauty who had so bewitched poor Piskarev was in fact a marvelous, extraordinary phenomenon. Her presence in that despicable circle seemed still more extraordinary. Her features were all so purely formed, the whole expression of her beautiful face was marked by such nobility, that it was simply impossible to think that depravity had stretched out its terrible claws over her. She would have been a priceless pearl, the whole world, the whole paradise, the whole wealth of an ardent husband; she would have been the beautiful, gentle star of an unostentatious family circle, and would have given sweet orders with one movement of her beautiful mouth. She would have been a divinity in a crowded hall, on the bright parquet, in the glow of candles, the awestruck company of her admirers lying speechless at her feet. But, alas! by the terrible will of some infernal spirit who wishes to destroy the harmony of life, she had been flung, with a loud laugh, into the abyss.

  Filled with rending pity, he sat by a guttering candle. It was long after midnight, the bell in the tower struck half-past, and he sat fixed, sleepless, keeping a pointless vigil. Drowsiness, taking advantage of his fixity, was gradually beginning to come over him, the room was already beginning to disappear, only the light of the candle penetrated the reveries that were coming over him, when suddenly a knock at the door made him start and come to his senses. The door opened and a lackey in rich livery came in. Never had rich livery visited his solitary room, and that at such an unusual hour . . . He was perplexed and looked at the entering lackey with impatient curiosity.

  "The lady whom you were pleased to visit several hours ago," the lackey said with a courteous bow, "bids me invite you to call on her and sends a carriage for you."

  Piskarev stood in wordless astonishment: a carriage, a liveried lackey! . . . No, there must be some mistake here . . .

  "Listen, my good fellow," he said with timidity, "you must have come to the wrong place. The lady undoubtedly sent you for someone else, and not for me."

  "No, sir, I am not mistaken. Was is not you who kindly accompanied a lady on foot to a house on Liteiny, to a room on the fourth floor?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, then, make haste if you please, the lady wishes to see you without fail and asks you kindly to come straight to her house."

  Piskarev ran down the stairs. A carriage was indeed standing outside. He got into it, the door slammed, the pavement rumbled under wheels and hooves, and the lit-up perspective of buildings with bright signboards raced past the carriage windows. On the way, Piskarev kept thinking and was unable to figure out this adventure. A private house, a carriage, a lackey in rich livery ... he could in no way reconcile all this with the room on the fourth floor, the dusty windows, and the out-of-tune piano.

  The carriage stopped in front of a brightly lit entrance, and he was struck at once: by the row of carriages, the talk of the coachmen, the brightly lit windows, and the sounds of music.

  The lackey in rich livery helped him out of the carriage and respectfully led the way to a front hall with marble columns, a doorman all drowned in gold, cloaks and fur coats scattered about, and a bright lamp. An airy stairway with shining banisters, perfumed with scents, raced upwards. He was already on it, he was already in the first room, frightened and drawing back at the first step from the terrible crowdedness. The extraordinary diversity of faces threw him into complete bewilderment; it seemed as if some demon had chopped the whole world up into a multitude of different pieces and mixed those pieces together with no rhyme or reason.

  Ladies' gleaming shoulders, black tailcoats, chandeliers, lamps, airy gauzes flying, ethereal ribbons, and a fat double bass peeking from behind the railing of a magnificent gallery—everything was splendid for him. He saw at once so many venerable old and half-old men with stars on their tailcoats, ladies who stepped so lightly, proudly, and gracefully over the parquet or sat in rows, he heard so many French and English words, moreover the young men in black tailcoats were filled with such nobility, talked or kept silent with such dignity, were so incapable of saying anything superfluous, joked so majestically, smiled so respectfully, wore such superb side-whiskers, knew so well how to display perfect hands as they straightened their ties, the ladies were so airy, so completely immersed in self-satisfaction and rapture, lowered their eyes so charmingly, that. . . but the humble air of Piskarev, who clung fearfully to a column, was enough to show that he was utterly at a loss. At
that moment the crowd surrounded a group of dancers.

  They raced on, wrapped in transparent Parisian creations, dresses woven of the very air; carelessly they touched the parquet with their shining little feet, and were more ethereal than if they had not touched it at all. But one among them was dressed more finely, more splendidly and dazzlingly than the rest. Inexpressible, the very finest combination of taste showed in her attire, and yet it seemed that she did not care about it at all and that it showed inadvertently, of itself. She both looked and did not look at the crowd of spectators around her, her beautiful long eyelashes lowered indifferently, and the shining whiteness of her face struck the eye still more dazzlingly when a slight shadow fell on her charming brow as she inclined her head.

  Piskarev made a great effort to force his way through the crowd and get a better look at her, but, to his greatest vexation, some huge head with dark, curly hair kept getting in the way; the crowd also pressed him so much that he did not dare move forward or backward for fear he might somehow shove some privy councillor. But then he did push to the front and looked at his clothes, wishing to straighten them properly. Heavenly Creator, what was this! He had a frock coat on, and it was all covered with paint: in his haste he had even forgotten to change into decent clothes. He blushed to his ears and, dropping his glance, wanted to disappear somewhere, but there was decidedly nowhere to disappear to: court chamberlains in brilliant uniforms stood in a solid wall behind him. He wished he was far away from the beauty with the wonderful brow and eyelashes. He fearfully raised his eyes to see whether she was looking at him: God! she was standing right in front of him . . . But what is this? what is this? "It's she!" he cried almost aloud. Indeed it was she, the very same one he had met on Nevsky and followed to her house.

  She raised her eyelashes meanwhile and looked at everyone with her bright eyes. "Aie, aie, aie, what beauty! . . ." was all he was able to utter with failing breath. She looked around the whole circle of people, all of whom strove to hold her attention, but her weary and inattentive eyes soon turned away and met the eyes of Piskarev. Oh, what heaven! what paradise! Grant him strength, O Creator, to bear it! Life will not contain it, it will destroy and carry off his soul!

  She made a sign, but not with her hand, not by inclining her head—no, but her devastating eyes expressed this sign so subtly and inconspicuously that no one could see it, yet he saw it, he understood it. The dance lasted a long time; the weary music seemed to fade and go out altogether, then it would break loose again, shriek and thunder. Finally—the end! She sat down, her bosom heaved under the thin smoke of gauze; her hand (O Creator, what a wonderful hand!) dropped on her knees, crushing her airy dress beneath it, and her dress under her hand seemed to start breathing music, and its fine lilac color emphasized still more the bright whiteness of this beautiful hand. Just to touch it—nothing more! No other desires—they are all too bold . . . He stood behind her chair, not daring to speak, not daring to breathe.

  "Was it boring for you?" she said. "I was bored, too. I see that you hate me . . ." she added, lowering her long eyelashes.

  "Hate you? Me? . . . I . . ." Piskarev, utterly at a loss, was about to say, and would probably have produced a whole heap of the most incoherent things, but just then a gentleman-in-waiting approached with witty and pleasant observations and a beautifully curled forelock on his head. He rather pleasantly displayed a row of rather good teeth, and each of his witticisms was a sharp nail in Piskarev's heart. At last some third person, fortunately, addressed the gentleman with some question.

  "How unbearable!" she said, raising her heavenly eyes to him. "I'll go and sit at the other end of the room. Meet me there!"

  She slipped through the crowd and disappeared. He shoved his way through the crowd like a madman and was already there.

  Yes, it was she! She was sitting like a queen, the best of all, the most beautiful of all, and was seeking him with her eyes.

  "You're here," she said softly. "I'll be frank with you: you must have thought the circumstances of our meeting strange. Could you really think that I belong to that despicable class of creatures among whom you met me? To you my actions seem strange, but I will reveal a secret to you. Will you be able," she said, fixing her eyes on him, "to keep it forever?"

  "Oh, I will, I will, I will! . . ."

  But just then a rather elderly man approached, spoke to her in some language unknown to Piskarev, and offered her his arm. She looked at Piskarev with imploring eyes and motioned to him to stay where he was and wait for her to come back, but he, in a fit of impatience, was unable to obey any orders, even from her lips. He started after her; but the crowd parted them.

  He could no longer see the lilac dress! Anxiously he went from room to room, shoving everyone he met unmercifully, but in all the rooms there were aces sitting over whist, sunk in dead silence. In one corner of the room, several elderly men argued about the advantages of military service over civil; in another, people in superb tailcoats were exchanging light remarks about a multivolume edition of a hardworking poet. Piskarev felt one elderly man of respectable appearance seize him by the button of his tailcoat and present for his judgment some quite correct observation of his, but he rudely pushed him away without even noticing that he had a rather significant decoration around his neck. He ran to the next room—she was not there either. To a third—not there. "Where is she? Give her to me! Oh, I cannot live without another look at her! I want to hear what she was going to say"—but his search was all in vain. Anxious, weary, he pressed himself into a corner and gazed at the crowd; but his strained eyes began to present everything to him in some vague way. Finally, the walls of his own room began to show clearly before him. He raised his eyes. Before him stood a candlestick with the light nearly gone out inside it; the whole candle had melted away; tallow had poured over the table.

  So he had been sleeping! God, what a dream! And why wake up? why not wait one more moment: she surely would have appeared again! The unpleasant and wan light of vexatious day showed in his windows. Such gray, such dingy disorder in his room . . . Oh, how repulsive reality is! What is it compared with dreams? He undressed hastily and went to bed, wrapped in a blanket, wishing to call back the flown vision for a moment. Sleep, indeed, was not slow in coming to him, but it did not at all present him with what he would have liked to see: now a Lieutenant Pirogov would come with his pipe, now an Academy watchman, now an actual state councillor, now the head of a Finnish woman whose portrait he had painted once, and other such nonsense.

  He lay in bed till noon, wishing to fall asleep; but she would not appear. If only she would show her beautiful features for a moment, if only he could hear her light footstep for a moment, if only her bare arm, bright as snow on a mountaintop, could flash before him.

  Abandoning everything, forgetting everything, he sat with a crushed, hopeless look, filled only with his dream. He did not think of eating anything; without any interest, without any life, his eyes gazed out the window to the courtyard, where a dirty water-carrier was pouring water that froze in the air, and the bleating voice of a peddler quavered: "Old clothes for sale."

  The everyday and real struck oddly on his ear. Thus he sat till evening, when he greedily rushed to bed. For a long time he struggled with sleeplessness and finally overcame it. Again some dream, some trite, vile dream. "God, be merciful; show her to me for a moment at least, just for one moment!" Again he waited till evening, again fell asleep, again dreamed of some official who was an official and at the same time a bassoon. Oh, this was unbearable! At last she came! her head and her tresses. . . she looks . . . Oh, how brief! Again the mist, again some stupid dream.

  In the end dreams became his life, and his whole life thereafter took a strange turn: one might say he slept while waking and watched while asleep. If anyone had seen him sitting silently before the empty table or walking down the street, he would certainly have taken him for a lunatic or someone destroyed by hard drinking; his gaze was quite senseless, his natural distractedn
ess developed, finally, and imperiously drove all feeling, all movement, from his face. He became animated only with the coming of night.

  Such a state unsettled his health, and his most terrible torment was that sleep finally began to desert him entirely. Wishing to salvage this his only possession, he used every means to restore it. He heard that there was a means of restoring sleep—one had only to take opium.

  But where to get this opium? He remembered one Persian shopkeeper who sold shawls and who, whenever they met, asked him to paint a beauty for him. He decided to go to him, supposing that he would undoubtedly have this opium. The Persian received him sitting on a couch, his legs tucked under him.

  "What do you need opium for?" he asked.

  Piskarev told him about his insomnia.

  "Very well, I give you opium, only paint me a beauty. Must be a fine beauty! Must be with black eyebrows and eyes big as olives; and me lying beside her smoking my pipe! Do you hear? Must be a fine one! a beauty!"

  Piskarev promised everything. The Persian stepped out for a minute and returned with a little pot filled with dark liquid, carefully poured some of it into another little pot and gave it to Piskarev, with instructions to take no more than seven drops in water. He greedily seized this precious pot, which he would not have given up for a heap of gold, and rushed headlong home.