Diary of a Madman, the Government Inspector, & Selected Stories by Nikolay Gogol

Author:Nikolay Gogol [Gogol, Nikolay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141910024
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2005-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Diary of a Madman

October 3rd

Something very peculiar happened today. I got up rather late, and when Mavra brought my clean shoes in I asked her what the time was. When she told me it was long past ten I rushed to get dressed. To be honest with you, if I’d known the sour look I was going to get from the head of our department I wouldn’t have gone to the office at all. For some time now he’s been saying: ‘Why are you always in such a muddle? Sometimes you rush around like a madman and make such a mess of your work, the devil himself couldn’t sort it out. You start paragraphs with small letters and leave out the date and reference number altogether.’ Damned old buzzard! Seeing me in the Director’s office sharpening His Excellency’s quills1 must have made him jealous. To cut a long story short, I’d never have gone to the office in the first place if there hadn’t been a good chance of seeing the cashier and making the old Jew cough up a small advance somehow or other. What a man! The Last Judgement will be upon us before you can get a month’s pay out of him in advance. Even if you’re down to your last copeck, you can go on asking until you’re blue in the face, but that grey-haired old devil won’t give in. I’ve heard people say his own cook slaps him on the face in his flat. The whole world knows about it. I don’t see there’s any advantage working in our department. No perks at all. It’s a different story in the Provincial Administration or in the Civil or Treasury Offices. You’ll see someone sitting there curled up in a corner scribbling away. He’ll be wearing a filthy old frock-coat and just one look at his mug is enough to make you spit. But you should see the country house he rents! Just offer him a gilt china cup and all he’ll say is: ‘That’s what you give a doctor!’ He’ll only be satisfied with a pair of racehorses, or a droshky, or a beaver skin that cost three hundred roubles. To look at him you’d think he was so meek and mild, and he talks with such refinement: ‘Please be so good as to lend me that little knife to sharpen my quills.’ But just give him the chance and he’ll strip any petitioner until there’s only the shirt left on his back. I must admit, it’s very civilized working in our department, everything’s kept cleaner than you’ll ever see in a provincial office. And we have mahogany tables, and all the Principals use the polite form of address. But really, if it weren’t for the snob value, I’d have given in my notice long ago.

I put on my old overcoat and took my umbrella, as it was simply teeming down outside. There wasn’t a soul about; except for a few old peasant women sheltering under their skirts, some Russian merchants under their umbrellas and one or two messengers.

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