Novels, Tales, Journeys

Adrian had no time to stand on ceremony. The door was open, he went up the stairs, and the man followed him. Adrian fancied there were people walking about his rooms. “What the devil is this!…” he thought and hurriedly went in…Here his legs gave way. The room was filled with dead people. The moonlight coming through the window lit up their yellow and blue faces, sunken mouths, dull, half-closed eyes, and protruding noses…With horror Adrian recognized them as people buried by his best efforts, and in the guest who had come in with him, the brigadier whose funeral had taken place under the pouring rain. All of them, men and ladies, surrounded the coffin-maker with bows and greetings, except for one poor man, recently buried for free, who, aware and ashamed of his rags, did not come near, but stood humbly in the corner. The rest were dressed properly: the dead ladies in bonnets with ribbons, the dead officials in uniforms, but with unshaven beards, the merchants in their holiday kaftans.

“You see, Prokhorov,” the brigadier said on behalf of the whole honorable company, “we all rose up at your invitation; only the really unfit, who have completely fallen apart, or are nothing but skinless bones, stayed home, but even so there was one who couldn’t help himself—he wanted so much to visit you…”

Just then a little skeleton pushed through the crowd and approached Adrian. His skull was smiling sweetly at the coffin-maker. Scraps of light green and red broadcloth and threadbare linen hung on him here and there as on a pole, and his leg bones knocked about loosely in his high boots, like pestles in mortars.

“You don’t recognize me, Prokhorov,” said the skeleton. “Remember the retired sergeant of the guards, Pyotr Petrovich Kurilkin, the one you sold your first coffin to in 1799—a pine one that you passed off for oak?”

With these words the dead man held out a bony embrace to him—but Adrian, summoning all his strength, cried out and pushed him away. Pyotr Petrovich staggered, fell, and broke to pieces. A murmur of indignation arose among the dead people; they all defended the honor of their comrade, came at Adrian with curses and threats, and the poor host, deafened by their cries and nearly crushed, lost his presence of mind, fell himself onto the bones of the retired sergeant of the guards, and passed out.

The sun had long been shining on the bed in which the coffin-maker lay. He finally opened his eyes and saw before him the maidservant, who was blowing on the coals of the samovar. With horror Adrian recalled all of the previous day’s events. Tryukhina, the brigadier, and Sergeant Kurilkin arose vaguely in his imagination. He waited silently for the housekeeper to begin a conversation with him and tell him the consequences of the night’s adventures.

“How long you’ve slept, dear Adrian Prokhorovich,” said Aksinya, handing him his dressing gown. “Our neighbor the tailor came to see you, and the local sentry ran by to announce that today is the police chief’s name day, but you were asleep, and we didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Did anyone come to me from the late Tryukhina?”

“Late? Did she die?”

“You fool! Didn’t you help me arrange her funeral yesterday?”

“What’s got into you, dearie? Have you lost your mind, or has yesterday’s drunkenness still not left you? What kind of funeral was there yesterday? You spent the whole day feasting at the German’s, came home drunk, flopped into bed, and slept right up till now, when they’ve already rung for the morning liturgy.”

“You don’t say!” said the overjoyed coffin-maker.

“Sure enough,” the housekeeper replied.

“Well, in that case serve the tea quickly and call my daughters.”

* “our clientele”

THE STATIONMASTER

A collegiate registrator,

A post-station dictator.

PRINCE VYAZEMSKY1