“To the health of my good Louisa!”
The sparkling wine foamed up. The host tenderly kissed the fresh face of his forty-year-old companion, and the guests noisily drank the health of good Louisa.
“To the health of my dear guests!” proposed the host, uncorking a second bottle—and the guests thanked him, emptying their glasses again. Here toasts began to follow one after the other: they drank the health of each particular guest, drank the health of Moscow and a full dozen small German towns, drank the health of all guilds in general and each in particular, drank the health of masters and apprentices. Adrian drank heartily and became so merry that he offered a sort of jocular toast himself. Suddenly one of the guests, a fat baker, raised his glass and exclaimed:
“To the health of those we work for, unserer Kundleute!”*
This proposal, like all the others, was received joyfully and unanimously. The guests began bowing to each other, the tailor to the shoemaker, the shoemaker to the tailor, the baker to them both, all of them to the baker, and so on. Amidst these mutual reverences, Yurko cried out, turning to his neighbor:
“So then, brother? Drink to the health of your dead.”
Everybody laughed loudly, but the coffin-maker considered himself offended and frowned. Nobody noticed it, the guests went on drinking, and the bells were already ringing for vespers when they got up from the table.
The guests went home late, and for the most part tipsy. The fat baker and the bookbinder,
Whose face seemed bound in red morocco,4
took Yurko under the arms to his sentry box, observing in this case the proverb “One good turn deserves another.” The coffin-maker came home drunk and angry.
“What is this, really?” he reasoned aloud. “What makes my trade less honored than others? Is a coffin-maker a hangman’s brother? Why do those heathens laugh? Is a coffin-maker a Yuletide mummer? I was going to invite them to the housewarming, throw them a big feast: there’ll be none of that! I’ll invite the ones I work for: the Orthodox dead.”
“What’s that, dearie?” said his maidservant, who was just taking off his boots. “What’s that drivel? Cross yourself! To invite dead people to a housewarming! It’s frightful!”
“By God, I will,” Adrian went on, “and tomorrow at that. You are welcome, my benefactors, to come and feast with me tomorrow evening; I’ll regale you with what God sends me!” With those words the coffin-maker put himself to bed and was soon snoring away.
It was still dark outside when Adrian was awakened. Tryukhina, the merchant’s wife, had passed away that same night, and a messenger from her steward came galloping to Adrian with the news. For that the coffin-maker tipped him ten kopecks, quickly got dressed, hired a cab, and drove to Razgulyai. Policemen were already standing by the deceased woman’s gate, and merchants were strolling about like crows, sensing a dead body. The deceased woman lay on the table,5 yellow as wax, but not yet disfigured by corruption. Relations, neighbors, and domestics crowded around her. All the windows were open; candles burned; priests were reciting prayers. Adrian went up to Tryukhina’s nephew, a young merchant in a fashionable frock coat, and told him that the coffin, the candles, the shroud, and other funerary accessories would be delivered to him at once all in good order. The heir thanked him distractedly, saying that he was not going to haggle over the price, but would rely on his conscience in everything. The coffin-maker, as was his habit, swore by God that he would not overcharge him; he exchanged significant glances with the steward and got busy. He spent the whole day driving from Razgulyai to the Nikitsky Gate and back; by evening everything was arranged, and he went home on foot, dismissing his cabby. It was a moonlit night. The coffin-maker reached the Nikitsky Gate safely. By the Church of the Ascension our acquaintance Yurko hailed him and, recognizing the coffin-maker, wished him a good night. It was late. The coffin-maker was already nearing his house when it suddenly seemed to him that someone came to his gate, opened it, and disappeared through it.
“What can this mean?” thought Adrian. “Does somebody need me again? Or is it a thief breaking in on me? Or maybe it’s lovers coming to my two fools, for all I know!” And the coffin-maker was already thinking of calling his friend Yurko to help him. Just then someone else approached the gate and was about to go in, but seeing the owner come running, he stopped and doffed his cocked hat. His face seemed familiar to Adrian, but in his haste he did not manage to make it out properly.
“You’ve come to see me,” Adrian said breathlessly. “Go in, if you please.”
“Don’t stand on ceremony, my good man,” the other replied hollowly. “Go on ahead; show your guests the way!”
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.