ided that it would be necessary to take the cloak to
Petrovitch, the tailor, who lived somewhere on the fourth floor up
a dark stair-case, and who, in spite of his having but 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 Petrovitch the tailor. At
first he was called only Grigoriy, and was some gentleman's serf; he
commenced calling himself Petrovitch 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 festivities 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 Petrovitch has a wife, who wears
a cap and a dress; but cannot 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 Petrovitch'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, Akakiy
Akakievitch pondered how much Petrovitch 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. Akakiy Akakievitch passed
through the kitchen unperceived, even by the housewife, and at length
reached a room where he beheld Petrovitch seated on a large unpainted
table, with his legs tucked under him like a Turkish pasha. His feet
were bare, after the fashion of tailors who sit at work; and the first
thing which caught the eye was his thumb, with a deformed nail thick and
strong as a turtle's shell. About Petrovitch's neck hung a skein of silk
and thread, and upon his knees lay some old garment. He had been trying
unsuccessfully for three minutes