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Updated: May 11, 2025
In a splendid apartment, the Counsellor, his iron-grey frock-coat torn to pieces, his neatly dressed hair in horrible disorder, lay dead, strangled, on the sofa. “Since that time no traces of Barighi have been found, neither in Stuttgart nor elsewhere.” From St. John’s Eve and Other Stories, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood from the Russian of N. V. Gógol.
Once upon a time I made my first appearance at table after a lapse of several days, during which I had been forced to keep my room. The company were talking very eagerly about a certain Signor Barighi, who for some time past had been delighting the other visitors with his lively wit, and his fluency in all languages.
Signor Barighi, however, obliged us to promise that we would not betray him, as he said he was preparing a capital joke to play off on the Counsellor. “We all met at the table d’hôte earlier than usual, and besieged the windows. An old tumble down carriage, drawn by two blind steeds, came crawling down the street; it stopped before the hotel.
There was nothing supernatural in this, to be sure, but listen a moment; for two days Signor Barighi, as the stranger was called, had given a new relish to our meals by his brilliant conversation, when mine host interrupted us suddenly ‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘prepare yourself for an unique entertainment which will be provided for you tomorrow.’
Barighi must have disappeared before the dessert, for when the Counsellor left the table, and the other guests, full of curiosity, imitated his example, Barighi was nowhere to be seen. “The Counsellor took his seat at the window; we all followed his example and watched his movements. The house opposite seemed desolate and uninhabited.
“Our host and the ten waiters were all pale with fear, and trembled. ‘Gentlemen,’ said the former, ‘God pity poor Hasentreffer, for one of those two must be the devil in human shape.’ We laughed at our host, and tried to persuade ourselves that it was a joke of Barighi’s; but our host assured us that no one could have obtained access to the house except he was in possession of the Counsellor’s very artificially contrived keys; also, that Barighi was seated at table not ten minutes before the prodigy happened; how then could he have disguised himself so completely in so short a time, even supposing him to have known how to unlock a strange house?
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