'My God, if I had at least part of that money!' he said, sighing heavily, and in his imagination all the packets he had seen, with the alluring inscription of '1,000 Gold Roubles' began to pour from the sack. The packets came unwrapped, gold gleamed, was wrapped up again, and he sat staring fixedly and mindlessly into the empty air, unable to tear himself away from such a subject- like a child sitting with dessert in front of him, his mouth watering, watching while others eat. Finally there came a knock at the door, which roused him unpleasantly. His landlord entered with the police inspector, whose appearance, as everyone knows, is more unpleasant for little people than the face of a petitioner is for the rich. The owner of the small house where Chartkov lived was such a creature as owners of houses somewhere on the Fifteenth
Line of Vasilievsky Island or on the Petersburg side or in a remote corner of Kolomna 8 usually are-a creature of which there are many in Russia and whose character is as difficult to define as the color of a worn-out frock coat. In his youth, he had been a captain and a loudmouth, had also been employed in civil affairs, had been an expert at flogging, an efficient man, a fop, and a fool; but in his old age, he had merged all these sharp peculiarities in himself into some indefinite dullness. He was a widower, he was retired, he no longer played the fop, stopped boasting, stopped bullying, and only liked drinking tea and babbling all sorts of nonsense over it; paced the room, straightened a tallow candle end; visited his tenants punctually at the end of every month for the money; went outside, key in hand, to look at the roof of his house; repeatedly chased the caretaker out of the nook where he hid and slept; in short-a retired man who, after all his rakish life and jolting about in post chaises, is left with nothing but trite habits.
'Kindly look for yourself, Varukh Kuzmich,' the landlord said, addressing the inspector and spreading his arms. 'You see, he doesn't pay the rent. He doesn't pay.'
'And what if I have no money? Just wait, I'll pay up.'
'I cannot wait, my dear,' the landlord said angrily, gesturing with the key he was holding. 'I've had Potogonkin, a lieutenant colonel, as a tenant for seven years now; Anna Petrovna Bukhmisterova also rents a shed and a stable with two stalls, she has three household serfs with her-that's the sort of tenants I have. I am not, to put it to you candidly, in the habit of letting the rent go unpaid. Kindly pay what you owe and move out.'
'Yes, since that's the arrangement, kindly pay,' said the police inspector, shaking his head slightly and putting one finger behind a button of his uniform.
'But what to pay with-that's the question. Right now I haven't got a cent.'
'In that case, you'll have to satisfy Ivan Ivanovich with your professional productions,' said the inspector. 'Perhaps he'll agree to be paid in pictures.'
'No, my dear fellow, no pictures, thank you. It would be fine if they were pictures with some noble content, something that could be hung on the wall, maybe a general with a star, or a portrait of Prince Kutuzov; 9 but no, he's painted a peasant, a peasant in a shirt, the servant who grinds paints for him. What an idea, to paint a portrait of that swine! He'll get it in the neck from me: he pulled all the nails out of the latches on me, the crook! Look here, what subjects: here he's painted his room. It would be fine if he'd taken a neat, tidy room, but no, he's painted it with all this litter and trash just as it's lying about. Look here, how he's mucked up my room, kindly see for yourself. I've had tenants staying on for seven years now-colonels, Bukhmisterova, Anna Petrovna… No, I tell you, there's no worse tenant than a painter: they live like real pigs, God spare us.'
And the poor painter had to listen patiently to all that. The police inspector was busy meanwhile studying the paintings and sketches, and showed straight away that his soul was more alive than the landlord's and was even no stranger to artistic impressions.
'Heh,' he said, jabbing a finger into one canvas on which a naked woman was portrayed, 'the subject's a bit… playful. And this one, why is it all black under his nose? Did he spill snuff there or what?'
'A shadow,' Chartkov answered sternly and without turning his eyes to him.
'Well, it could have been moved somewhere else, under the nose it's too conspicuous,' said the inspector. 'And whose portrait is that?' he continued, going up to the portrait of the old man. 'Much too terrifying. Was he really as terrible as that? Look how he stares! Eh, what a Gromoboy! 10 Who was your model?'
'But that's some…' said Chartkov, and did not finish. A crack was heard. The inspector must have squeezed the frame of the portrait too hard, owing to the clumsy way his policeman's hands were made; the side boards split inward, one fell to the floor, and along with it a packet wrapped in blue paper fell with a heavy clank. The inscription '1,000 Gold Roubles' struck Chartkov's eyes. He rushed like a madman to pick it up, seized the packet, clutched it convulsively in his hand, which sank from the heavy weight.
'Sounds like the clink of money,' said the inspector, hearing something thud on the floor and unable to see it for the quickness of Chartkov's movement as he rushed to pick it up.
'And what business is it of yours what I have?'
'It's this: that you have to pay the landlord for the apartment right now; that you've got money but don't want to pay-that's what.'
'Well, I'll pay him today.'
'Well, why didn't you want to pay before? Why make the landlord worry, and bother the police besides?'
'Because I didn't want to touch this money. I'll pay him everything by this evening and leave the apartment by tomorrow, because I don't wish to remain with such a landlord.'
'Well, Ivan Ivanovich, he's going to pay you,' said the inspector, turning to the landlord. 'And in the event of your not being properly satisfied by this evening, then I beg your pardon, mister painter.'
So saying, he put on his three-cornered hat and went out to the front hall, followed by the landlord, his head bowed, it seemed, in some sort of reflection.
'Thank God they got the hell out of here,' said Chartkov when he heard the front door close.
He peeked out to the front hall, sent Nikita for something so as to be left completely alone, locked the door behind him, and, returning to his room, began with wildly fluttering heart to unwrap the packet. There were gold roubles in it, every one of them new, hot as fire. Nearly out of his mind, he sat over the heap of gold, still asking himself if he was not dreaming. There was an even thousand of them in the packet, which looked exactly the same as the ones he had seen in his dream. For several minutes he ran his fingers through them, looking at them, and still unable to come to his senses. In his imagination there suddenly arose all the stories about treasures, about boxes with secret compartments, left by forebears to their spendthrift grandchildren in the firm conviction of their future ruined condition. He reflected thus: 'Mightn't some grandfather have decided even now to leave his grandson a gift, locking it up in the frame of a family portrait?' Full of romantic nonsense, he even began thinking whether
