The Double

Having read the letter, our hero remained as if dumbfounded for several minutes. In terrible anguish, in terrible agitation, pale as a sheet, the letter in his hands, he paced several times about the room; to complete his disastrous position, our hero failed to notice that he was at the present moment the object of the exclusive attention of all those in the room. Probably the disorder of his clothes, his unrestrained agitation, his pacing, or, rather, running about, gesticulating with both hands, maybe a few mysterious words uttered to the wind and in oblivion—probably all that recommended Mr. Goliadkin quite poorly to the opinion of all the customers; even the waiter himself began to glance at him suspiciously. Coming to his senses, our hero noticed that he was standing in the middle of the room and staring in an almost indecent, impolite fashion at a little old man of quite venerable appearance, who, after having dinner and praying to God before an icon, sat down again and, for his part, fixed his gaze on Mr. Goliadkin. Our hero looked around vaguely and noticed that everyone, decidedly everyone, was looking at him with a most sinister and suspicious air. Suddenly a retired officer with a red collar loudly asked for The Police Gazette. Mr. Goliadkin gave a start and blushed: somehow by chance he looked down and saw that his clothes were so indecent that they would have been impossible even in his own home, to say nothing of a public place. His boots, his trousers, and his entire left side were covered with mud; the trouser strap on his right foot had been torn off, and his tailcoat was even ripped in many places. In inexhaustible anguish, our hero went over to the table at which he had been reading and saw a waiter approaching him with an odd and brazenly insistent expression on his face. Totally bewildered and deflated, our hero began to examine the table at which he was standing. There were dishes on the table left after someone’s dinner, a dirty napkin lay there, and a just-used knife, fork, and spoon. “Who was having dinner?” thought our hero. “Could it have been me? Anything’s possible! I had dinner and didn’t notice it: what am I to do?” Raising his eyes, Mr. Goliadkin again saw the waiter standing beside him, about to say something to him.

“How much do I owe, brother?” our hero asked in a trembling voice.

Loud laughter arose around Mr. Goliadkin; the waiter himself grinned. Mr. Goliadkin realized that in this, too, he had flunked and done something awfully stupid. Having realized it all, he became so embarrassed that he had to go to his pocket for a handkerchief, probably so as to do something and not stand there like that; but to his own and everyone else’s indescribable amazement, instead of a handkerchief, he took out a vial with some medication prescribed by Krestyan Ivanovich four days earlier. “Medications from the same apothecary,” raced through Mr. Goliadkin’s head…Suddenly he gave a start and almost cried out in terror. New light was shed…A dark, disgustingly reddish liquid shone with a sinister gleam before Mr. Goliadkin’s eyes. The vial fell from his hand and broke at once. Our hero cried out and sprang two steps back from the spilled liquid…he trembled all over, and sweat broke out on his temples and forehead. “That means my life’s in danger!” Meanwhile there was movement, commotion in the room; everyone surrounded Mr. Goliadkin, everyone talked to Mr. Goliadkin, some even seized Mr. Goliadkin. But our hero was mute and motionless, saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing…Finally, as if tearing himself away, he rushed out of the tavern, shoved aside each and all of those who tried to hold him back, fell almost unconscious into the first droshky that happened along, and flew home.

In the front hall of his apartment he met Mikheev, the department caretaker, with an official envelope in his hand. “I know, my friend, I know everything,” our exhausted hero answered in a weak, melancholy voice, “it’s official…” The envelope indeed contained an order for Mr. Goliadkin, signed by Andrei Filippovich, to hand over the cases in his charge to Ivan Semyonovich. Having taken the envelope and given the caretaker a ten-kopeck piece, Mr. Goliadkin went into his apartment and saw Petrushka preparing and gathering into a heap all his trash and rubbish, all his things, obviously intending to leave Mr. Goliadkin and go over from him to Karolina Ivanovna, who had lured him away to replace her Evstafy.

CHAPTER XII

PETRUSHKA CAME SAUNTERING IN, bearing himself with some strange casualness and with a sort of knavishly solemn expression on his face. It was evident that he had thought up something, felt himself fully within his rights, and looked like a total stranger, that is, anyone else’s servant, only in no way the former servant of Mr. Goliadkin.

“Well, so you see, my dear,” our hero began breathlessly, “what time is it now, my dear?”