ever-hidden thought, stands out in that reality which is revealed only when, wishing to understand a beautiful man, one arms oneself with an anatomical knife, cuts into his insides, and sees a repulsive man? Why, then, does simple, lowly nature appear with one artist in such a light that you have no lowly impression; on the contrary, it seems as if you enjoy it, and after that everything around you flows and moves more calmly and evenly? And why, with another artist, does that same nature seem low, dirty, though he has been just as faithful to nature? But no, some radiance is missing. Just as with a natural landscape: however splendid, it still lacks something if there's no sun in the sky.'
He went up to the portrait again, so as to study those wondrous eyes, and noticed with horror that they were indeed staring at him. This was no longer a copy from nature, this was that strange aliveness that would radiate from the face of a dead man rising from the grave. Either it was the light of the moon bringing delirious reveries with it and clothing everything in other images, opposite to positive daylight, or there was some other cause, only suddenly, for some reason, he felt afraid to be alone in the room. He quietly withdrew from the portrait, turned away and tried not to look at it, and yet his eyes, of themselves, involuntarily cast sidelong glances at it. Finally he even became frightened of walking about the room; it seemed to him that some other would immediately start walking behind him, and he kept timorously looking back. He had never been a coward; but his imagination and nerves were sensitive, and that evening he was unable to explain this involun- tary fear to himself. He sat in the corner, but there, too, it seemed to him that someone was about to look over his shoulder into his face. Not even the snores of Nikita resounding from the front room could drive away his fear. Finally, timorously, without raising his eyes, he stood up, went behind his screen, and got into bed. Through a chink in the screen he could see his room lit up by moonlight, and directly opposite him he could see the portrait on the wall. The eyes were fixed still more terribly, still more meaningly, on him, and seemed not to want to look at anything but him. Filled with an oppressive feeling, he decided to get up, grabbed a bedsheet, and, going over to the portrait, covered it completely.
Having done so, he went back to bed more calmly, began thinking about the poverty and pitifulness of the artist's lot, about the thorny path that lay before him in this world; and meanwhile his eyes involuntarily looked through the chink in the screen at the sheet-covered portrait. The moonlight intensified the whiteness of the sheet, and it seemed to him that the terrible eyes even began to glow through the cloth. In fear, he fixed his eyes on it more intently, as if wishing to assure himself that it was nonsense. But finally, indeed now… he saw, saw clearly: the sheet was no longer there… the portrait was all uncovered and staring, past whatever was around it, straight into him, simply staring into his insides… His heart went cold. And he saw: the old man stirred and suddenly leaned on the frame with both hands. Finally he propped himself on his hands and, thrusting out both legs, leaped free of the frame… Now all that could be seen through the chink in the screen was the empty frame. The noise of footsteps sounded in the room, finally coming closer and closer to the screen. The poor artist's heart began to pound harder. Breathless with fear, he expected the old man to look behind the screen at any moment. And then he did look behind the screen, with the same bronze face, moving his big eyes. Chartkov tried to cry out and found that he had no voice, tried to stir, to make some movement, but his limbs would not move. Open-mouthed and with bated breath, he looked at this terrible phantom, tall, in a loose Asian robe, waiting for what he would do. The old man sat down almost at his feet and then took something from under the folds of his loose garment. It was a sack. The old man untied it and, taking it by the corners, shook it upside down: with a dull sound, heavy packets shaped like long posts fell to the floor, and each was wrapped in blue paper and had '1,000 Gold Roubles' written on it. Thrusting his long, bony hands from the wide sleeves, the old man began to unwrap the packets. Gold gleamed. However great the oppressive feeling and frantic fear of the artist, still all of him gazed at the gold, staring fixedly as it was unwrapped by the bony hands, gleaming, clinking thinly and dully, and then wrapped up again. Here he noticed one packet that had rolled farther away than the rest, just near the leg of his bed, by its head. He seized it almost convulsively and looked fearfully to see whether the old man would notice. But it seemed the old man was very busy. He gathered up all his packets, put them back into the sack, and, without looking at him, went out from behind the screen. Chartkov's heart pounded heavily as he heard the shuffle of the retreating steps in the room. He clutched his packet tighter in his hand, his whole body trembling over it, when suddenly he heard the footsteps approaching the screen again-evidently the old man had remembered that one packet was missing. And now-he looked behind the screen again. Filled with despair, the artist clutched the packet in his hand with all his might, tried as hard as he could to make some movement, cried out-and woke up.
He was bathed in a cold sweat; his heart could not have pounded any harder; his chest was so tight that it was as if the last breath was about to fly out of it. 'Could it have been a dream?' he said, clutching his head with both hands; but the terrible aliveness of the apparition was not like a dream. Awake now, he saw the old man going into the frame, even caught a glimpse of the skirts of his loose clothing, and his hand felt clearly that a moment before it had been holding something heavy. Moonlight lit up the room, drawing out of its dark corners now a canvas, now a plaster arm, now some drapery left on the floor, now trousers and a pair of unpolished boots. Only here did he notice that he was not lying in bed but standing right in front of the portrait. How he got there- that he simply could not understand. He was still more amazed that the portrait was all uncovered and there was in fact no sheet over it. In motionless fear he gazed at it and saw living, human eyes peer straight into him. Cold sweat stood out on his brow; he wanted to back away, but felt as if his feet were rooted to the ground. And he saw-this was no longer a dream-the old man's features move, his lips begin to stretch toward him, as if wishing to suck him out… With a scream of despair, he jumped back-and woke up.
'Could this, too, have been a dream?' His heart pounding to the point of bursting, he felt around him with his hands. Yes, he was lying on his bed in the same position in which he had fallen asleep. Before him stood the screen; moonlight filled the room. Through the chink in the screen he could see the portrait properly covered with a sheet-as he himself had covered it. And so, this, too, had been a dream! But his clenched hand felt even now as if something had been in it. The pounding of his heart was hard, almost terrible; the heaviness on his chest was unbearable. He looked through the chink and fixed his eyes on the sheet. And now he saw clearly that the sheet was beginning to come away, as if hands were fumbling under it, trying to throw it off. 'Lord God, what is this!' he cried out, crossing himself desperately, and woke up.
And this had also been a dream! He jumped from the bed, half demented, frantic, no longer able to explain what was happening to him: the oppression of a nightmare or a household spirit, delirious raving or a living vision. Trying to calm somewhat his mental agitation and the stormy blood that throbbed in tense pulsations through all his veins, he went to the window and opened the vent pane. A chill breath of wind revived him. Moonlight still lay on the roofs and white walls of the houses, though small clouds passed across the sky more often. Everything was still: occasionally there came the distant rattle of a droshky, whose coachman was sleeping somewhere in an out- of-sight alley, lulled by his lazy nag as he waited for a late passenger. He gazed for a long time, thrusting his head out the vent. The sky was already beginning to show signs of approaching dawn; finally he felt the approach of drowsiness, slammed the vent shut, left the window, went to bed, and soon fell sound asleep, like the dead.
He woke up very late and felt himself in the unpleasant condition that comes over a man after fume poisoning; his head ached unpleasantly. The room was bleak; an unpleasant dampness drizzled through the air, penetrating the cracks in his windows, obstructed by paintings or primed canvases. Gloomy, disgruntled, he sat down like a wet rooster on his tattered couch, not knowing himself what to undertake, what to do, and finally recalled the whole of his dream. As he recalled it, the dream presented itself to his imagination so oppressively alive that he even began to wonder whether it had indeed been a dream and a mere delirium, and not something else, not an apparition. Pulling off the sheet, he studied this terrible portrait in the light of day. The eyes were indeed striking in their extraordinary aliveness, yet he found nothing especially terrible in them; only, it was as if some inexplicable, unpleasant feeling remained in one's soul. For all that, he still could not be completely certain that it had been a dream. It seemed to him that amidst the dream there had been some terrible fragment of reality. It seemed that even in the very gaze and expression of the old man something was as if saying that he had visited him that night; his hand felt the heaviness that had only just lain in it, as if someone had snatched it away only a moment before. It seemed to him that if he had only held on to the packet more tightly, it would surely have stayed in his hand after he woke up.
