spires, and a number of bridges apparently supported on nothing — in fact, a regular second Nineveh. Well, he made shift to hire a lodging, but found everything so wonderfully furnished with blinds and Persian carpets and so forth that he saw it would mean throwing away a lot of money. True, as one walks the streets of St. Petersburg one seems to smell money by the thousand roubles, but our friend Kopeikin’s bank was limited to a few score coppers and a little silver — not enough to buy a village with! At length, at the price of a rouble a day, he obtained a lodging in the sort of tavern where the daily ration is a bowl of cabbage soup and a crust of bread; and as he felt that he could not manage to live very long on fare of that kind he asked folk what he had better do. ‘What you had better do?’ they said. ‘Well the Government is not here — it is in Paris, and the troops have not yet returned from the war; but there is a TEMPORARY Commission sitting, and you had better go and see what IT can do for you.’ ‘All right!’ he said. ‘I will go and tell the Commission that I have shed my blood, and sacrificed my life, for my country.’ And he got up early one morning, and shaved himself with his left hand (since the expense of a barber was not worth while), and set out, wooden leg and all, to see the President of the Commission. But first he asked where the President lived, and was told that his house was in Naberezhnaia Street. And you may be sure that it was no peasant’s hut, with its glazed windows and great mirrors and statues and lacqueys and brass door handles! Rather, it was the sort of place which you would enter only after you had bought a cheap cake of soap and indulged in a two hours’ wash. Also, at the entrance there was posted a grand Swiss footman with a baton and an embroidered collar — a fellow looking like a fat, over-fed pug dog. However, friend Kopeikin managed to get himself and his wooden leg into the reception room, and there squeezed himself away into a corner, for fear lest he should knock down the gilded china with his elbow. And he stood waiting in great satisfaction at having arrived before the President had so much as left his bed and been served with his silver wash-basin. Nevertheless, it was only when Kopeikin had been waiting four hours that a breakfast waiter entered to say, ‘The President will soon be here.’ By now the room was as full of people as a plate is of beans, and when the President left the breakfast-room he brought with him, oh, such dignity and refinement, and such an air of the metropolis! First he walked up to one person, and then up to another, saying: ‘What do YOU want? And what do YOU want? What can I do for YOU? What is YOUR business?’ And at length he stopped before Kopeikin, and Kopeikin said to him: ‘I have shed my blood, and lost both an arm and a leg, for my country, and am unable to work. Might I therefore dare to ask you for a little help, if the regulations should permit of it, or for a gratuity, or for a pension, or something of the kind?’ Then the President looked at him, and saw that one of his legs was indeed a wooden one, and that an empty right sleeve was pinned to his uniform. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Come to me again in a few days’ time.’ Upon this friend Kopeikin felt delighted. ‘NOW I have done my job!’ he thought to himself; and you may imagine how gaily he trotted along the pavement, and how he dropped into a tavern for a glass of vodka, and how he ordered a cutlet and some caper sauce and some other things for luncheon, and how he called for a bottle of wine, and how he went to the theatre in the evening! In short, he did himself thoroughly well. Next, he saw in the street a young English lady, as graceful as a swan, and set off after her on his wooden leg. ‘But no,’ he thought to himself. ‘To the devil with that sort of thing just now! I will wait until I have drawn my pension. For the present I have spent enough.’ (And I may tell you that by now he had got through fully half his money.) Two or three days later he went to see the President of the Commission again. ‘I should be glad to know,’ he said, ‘whether by now you can do anything for me in return for my having shed my blood and suffered sickness and wounds on military service.’ ‘First of all,’ said the President, ‘I must tell you that nothing can be decided in your case without the authority of the Supreme Government. Without that sanction we cannot move in the matter. Surely you see how things stand until the army shall have returned from the war? All that I can advise you to do is wait for the Minister to return, and, in the meanwhile, to have patience. Rest assured that then you will not be overlooked. And if for the moment you have nothing to live upon, this is the best that I can do for you.’ With that he handed Kopeikin a trifle until his case should have been decided. However, that was not what Kopeikin wanted. He had supposed that he would be given a gratuity of a thousand roubles straight away; whereas, instead of ‘Drink and be merry,’ it was ‘Wait, for the time is not yet.’ Thus, though his head had been full of soup plates and cutlets and English girls, he now descended the steps with his ears and his tail down — looking, in fact, like a poodle over which the cook has poured a bucketful of water. You see, St. Petersburg life had changed him not a little since first he had got a taste of it, and, now that the devil only knew how he was going to live, it came all the harder to him that he should have no more sweets to look forward to. Remember that a man in the prime of years has an appetite like a wolf; and as he passed a restaurant he could see a round-faced, holland-shirted, snow-white aproned fellow of a French chef preparing a dish delicious enough to make it turn to and eat itself; while, again, as he passed a fruit shop he could see delicacies looking out of a window for fools to come and buy them at a hundred roubles apiece. Imagine, therefore, his position! On the one hand, so to speak, were salmon and water-melons, while on the other hand was the bitter fare which passed at a tavern for luncheon. ‘Well,’ he thought to himself, ‘let them do what they like with me at the Commission, but I intend to go and raise the whole place, and to tell every blessed functionary there that I have a mind to do as I choose.’ And in truth this bold impertinence of a man did have the hardihood to return to the Commission. ‘What do you want?’ said the President. ‘Why are you here for the third time? You have had your orders given you.’ ‘I daresay I have,’ he retorted, ‘but I am not going to be put off with THEM. I want some cutlets to eat, and a bottle of French wine, and a chance to go and amuse myself at the theatre.’ ‘Pardon me,’ said the President. ‘What you really need (if I may venture to mention it) is a little patience. You have been given something for food until the Military Committee shall have met, and then, doubtless, you will receive your proper reward, seeing that it would not be seemly that a man who has served his country should be left destitute. On the other hand, if, in the meanwhile, you desire to indulge in cutlets and theatre-going, please understand that we cannot help you, but you must make your own resources, and try as best you can to help yourself.’ You can imagine that this went in at one of Kopeikin’s ears, and out at the other; that it was like shooting peas at a stone wall. Accordingly he raised a turmoil which sent the staff flying. One by one, he gave the mob of secretaries and clerks a real good hammering. ‘You, and you, and you,’ he said, ‘do not even know your duties. You are law-breakers.’ Yes, he trod every man of them under foot. At length the General himself arrived from another office, and sounded the alarm. What was to be done with a fellow like Kopeikin? The President saw that strong measures were imperative. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Since you decline to rest satisfied with what has been given you, and quietly to await the decision of your case in St. Petersburg, I must find you a lodging. Here, constable, remove the man to gaol.’ Then a constable who had been called to the door — a constable three ells in height, and armed with a carbine — a man well fitted to guard a bank — placed our friend in a police waggon. ‘Well,’ reflected Kopeikin, ‘at least I shan’t have to pay my fare for THIS ride. That’s one comfort.’ Again, after he had ridden a little way, he said to himself: ‘they told me at the Commission to go and make my own means of enjoying myself. Very good. I’ll do so.’ However, what became of Kopeikin, and whither he went, is known to no one. He sank, to use the poet’s expression, into the waters of Lethe, and his doings now lie buried in oblivion. But allow me, gentlemen, to piece together the further threads of the story. Not two months later there appeared in the forests of Riazan a band of robbers: and of that band the chieftain was none other than —”
“Allow me,” put in the Head of the Police Department. “You have said that Kopeikin had lost an arm and a leg; whereas Chichikov —”
To say anything more was unnecessary. The Postmaster clapped his hand to his forehead, and publicly called himself a fool, though, later, he tried to excuse his mistake by saying that in England the science of mechanics had reached such a pitch that wooden legs were manufactured which would enable the wearer, on touching a spring, to vanish instantaneously from sight.
Various
