one eye and pock-marks all over his face, busied himself with
considerable success in repairing the trousers and coats of officials
and others; that is to say, when he was sober and not nursing some
other scheme in his head.

It is not necessary to say much about this tailor, but as it is the
custom to have the character of each personage in a novel clearly
defined there is no help for it, so here is Petrovich the tailor. At
first he was called only Grigory, and was some gentleman's serf. He
commenced calling himself Petrovich from the time when he received his
free papers, and further began to drink heavily on all holidays, at
first on the great ones, and then on all church festivals without
discrimination, wherever a cross stood in the calendar. On this point
he was faithful to ancestral custom; and when quarrelling with his
wife, he called her a low female and a German. As we have mentioned
his wife, it will be necessary to say a word or two about her.
Unfortunately, little is known of her beyond the fact that Petrovich
had a wife, who wore a cap and a dress, but could not lay claim to
beauty, at least, no one but the soldiers of the guard even looked
under her cap when they met her.

Ascending the staircase which led to Petrovich's room--which staircase
was all soaked with dish-water and reeked with the smell of spirits
which affects the eyes, and is an inevitable adjunct to all dark
stairways in St. Petersburg houses--ascending the stairs, Akaky
Akakiyevich pondered how much Petrovich would ask, and mentally
resolved not to give more than two rubles. The door was open, for the
mistress, in cooking some fish, had raised such a smoke in the kitchen
that not even the beetles were visible. Akaky Akakiyevich passed
through the kitchen unperceived, even by the housewife, and at length