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
reached a room where he beheld Petrovich 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 as they 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.
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