"'I have been waiting for you, my son,' he said when I approached to receive his blessing. 'The path which your life will henceforth follow lies before you. This path is pure, do not deviate from it. You have talent, and talent is God's most precious gift-do not ruin it. Seek, study everything you see, submit everything to your brush, but learn to find the inner thought in everything, and try most of all to comprehend the lofty mystery of creation. Blessed is the chosen one who possesses it. No subject in nature is low for him. In the lowly the artist-creator is as great as he is in the great; for him the contemptible is no longer contemptible, for the beautiful soul of the creator shines invisibly through it, and the contemptible is given lofty expression, for it has passed through the purgatory of his soul. For man, art contains a hint of the divine, heavenly paradise, and this alone makes it higher than all else. As solemn peace is higher than all worldly trouble; as creation is higher than destruction; as an angel in the pure innocence of his bright soul is higher than all the innumerable powers and proud passions of Satan-so is a lofty artistic creation higher than anything that exists in the world. Give all in sacrifice to it and love it with all your passion. Not passion that breathes of earthly lust, but quiet, heavenly passion, without which man is powerless to rise above the earth and is unable to give the wondrous sounds of peace. For artistic creation comes down to earth to pacify and reconcile all people. It cannot instill murmuring in the soul, but in the sound of prayer strives eternally toward God. But there are moments, dark moments…'
"He paused, and I noticed that his bright countenance suddenly darkened, as if some momentary cloud passed over it.
" 'There was one event in my life,' he said. 'To this day I cannot understand what that strange image was whose portrait I painted. It was exactly like some diabolical phenomenon. I know the world rejects the existence of the devil, and therefore I will not speak of him. I will say only that I painted it with loathing, that I felt no love for my work at the time. I wanted forcefully to subject myself and to be faithful to nature, soullessly, having stifled everything. It was not a work of art, and therefore the feelings that overcome people as they look at it are stormy, troubling feelings-not the feelings of an artist, for an artist breathes peace even in the midst of trouble. I have been told that this portrait keeps changing hands and spreading its tormenting impressions, producing feelings of envy in an artist, a dark hatred for his brother, a spiteful yearning to persecute and oppress. May the Most High preserve you from such passions! Nothing is more terrible than they. Better to endure all the bitterness of possible persecution than cause even a shadow of persecution for someone else. Save the purity of your soul. He who has talent in him must be purer in soul than anyone else. Another will be forgiven much, but to him it will not be forgiven. A man who leaves the house in bright, festive clothes needs only one drop of mud splashed from under a wheel, and people all surround him, point their fingers at him, and talk about his slovenliness, while the same people ignore many spots on other passers-by who are wearing everyday clothes. For on everyday clothes the spots do not show.'
"He blessed me and embraced me. Never in my life had I been so sublimely moved. With veneration rather than filial feeling, I leaned on his breast and kissed his flowing silver hair. A tear glistened in his eye.
" 'My son, fulfill one request for me,' he said at the very moment of parting. 'Perhaps you will chance to see somewhere the portrait of which I have spoken. You will recognize it at once by its extraordinary eyes and their unnatural expression. Destroy it at all costs…'
"You may judge for yourselves, how could 1 not promise to fulfill it faithfully? For all of fifteen years, I have never chanced to come across anything the least bit like the description given by my father, but now, suddenly, at this auction…"
Here, before finishing what he was saying, the painter turned his eyes to the wall in order to look at the portrait again. The whole crowd of his listeners instantly made the same movement, seeking the extraordinary portrait with their eyes. But to their great astonishment, it was no longer on the wall. A vague stir and murmuring went through the crowd, and after that the word "Stolen!" was clearly heard. Someone had managed to take it, seeing that the listeners' attention had been carried away by the story. And for a long time all those present remained perplexed, not knowing whether they had indeed seen those extraordinary eyes or it had merely been a dream, imagined just for an instant, by their eyes weary from the long examination of old paintings.
The Overcoat
In the department of… but it would be better not to say in which department. There is nothing more irascible than all these departments, regiments, offices-in short, all this officialdom. Nowadays every private individual considers the whole of society insulted in his person. They say a petition came quite recently from some police chief, I don't remember of what town, in which he states clearly that the government's decrees are perishing and his own sacred name is decidedly being taken in vain. And as proof he attached to his petition a most enormous tome of some novelistic work in which a police chief appears on every tenth page, in some places even in a totally drunken state. And so, to avoid any unpleasantness, it would be better to call the department in question a certain department. And so, in a certain department there served a certain clerk; a not very remarkable clerk, one might say-short, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat red-haired, even with a somewhat nearsighted look, slightly bald in front, with wrinkles on both cheeks and a complexion that is known as hemorrhoidal… No help for it! the Petersburg climate is to blame. As for his rank (for with us rank must be announced first of all), he was what is called an eternal titular councillor, at whom, as is known, all sorts of writers have abundandy sneered and jeered, having the praisewor- thy custom of exerting themselves against those who can't bite. The clerk's last name was Bashmachkin. From the name itself one can already see that it once came from bashmak, or "shoe"; but when, at what time, and in what way it came from bashmak -none of that is known. His father, his grandfather, even his brother-in-law, and absolutely all the Bashmachkins, went around in boots, merely having them resoled three times a year. His name was Akaky Akakievich. The reader will perhaps find that somewhat strange and farfetched, but he can be assured that it was not fetched at all, but that such circumstances occurred of themselves as made it quite impossible to give him any other name, and here is precisely how it came about.