The Tales of The Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin - The Undertaker

The Undertaker

This story was told to Belkin by the shop employee B.V, who like the character who told Belkin "The Blizzard," is not involved in the story. The tale concerns an undertaker, Adrian Prokhorov, who moves to a new village. Prokhorov, who is depicted as cold and regimented, never deviating from his routine, soon sets up shop in his new village. Soon after, he becomes acquainted with his neighbors, also merchants, who come to visit him. They invite him to a dinner with all of the village's other merchants, where after a long night of card games and other entertainment, several toasts are proposed. Prokhorov is offended after someone offers toast to the health of their collective customers, and leaves suddenly, claiming that he could host a better party with own customers. Drunk, he goes to bed and has a dream where he imagines that all of his customers, now in the form of reanimated corpses, and even one, revealed to be Prokhorov's first customer, who returns as a skeleton. The corpses accuse him of cheating, overcharging, and numerous other offenses, when Prokhorov wakes up. Realizing it was all a dream, he calls for his servant to fetch his daughters and to make a cup of tea. Whether or not Prokhorov has actually changed his ways is left up to the reader.