Golyadkin’s attempts to expose his double to the authorities

Yakov Petrovitch Golyadkin’s attempts to expose his double to the authorities are a campaign of letters, accusations, and appeals that repeatedly fail to secure an official hearing. As he tries to make the government department recognize the other man as an impostor, the double gains the advantage through fluent self-presentation and control of the work on which official judgment depends. The campaign makes Golyadkin’s predicament legible as more than a private dispute: his sense of identity confronts an institutional world that accepts documents, reputations, and appearances more readily than his protest.

Letters as Appeals

The effort first takes written form. Golyadkin drafts a letter opening with a formal address to himself as “Dear Sir Yakov Petrovitch!” He insists that necessity, not a premeditated wish to insult, has compelled him to write, and presents the bond between the two men as the circumstance requiring an explanation. When he rereads the draft, he judges it courteous but firm, and reassures himself that he has every right to send it. The language tries to turn a baffling personal relation into a matter that can be stated, delimited, and answered in writing.

A second letter comes from Vahramyev, a former friend and fellow clerk, and sharpens the crisis rather than resolving it. Vahramyev says he will carry out Golyadkin’s commission to deliver a letter, but identifies the intended recipient only as someone whose name he will not mention. He says this person is lodging at Karolina Ivanovna’s and is now among people Vahramyev considers honest, then announces that he intends to end his connection with Golyadkin. His request for repayment of two roubles for a foreign razor, sold seven months earlier, gives the rupture a pointedly material detail: alongside allegations about dignity and reputation stands an ordinary unpaid debt. The letter offers Golyadkin evidence that others are discussing him, but its indirect accusations and withheld name leave him to infer what is being said and who is involved.

After reading it, Golyadkin sits motionless for a long time. He feels that a light is breaking through the fog of the previous two days, yet cannot stand without falling back onto the sofa. He imagines the slander spreading and people working against him, then decides that he must write at once and send his response at daylight before his opponents can act. His answer to Nestor Ignatyevitch represents him as the target of calumny and defends his honour, prosperity, and good name; he also calls the two-rouble debt a sacred duty. Writing promises order and a chance to answer accusation with accusation, but the urgency and elaborate form of the reply reveal how little certainty the correspondence gives him.

The Document Taken from His Hands

The conflict becomes directly institutional when Golyadkin junior takes possession of a document required by the authorities. He has offered to scratch out what he calls a blot with a penknife, presenting the gesture as an act of sympathy. In the brief struggle that follows, however, he overpowers Golyadkin senior, rolls up the document, puts it under his arm, and hurries with Andrey Filippovitch into the Director’s room. Golyadkin is left standing with the penknife in his hand, apparently still poised to make the correction he had been allowed to attempt.

Only after following them does Golyadkin grasp what has happened. He sees Andrey Filippovitch smiling as the younger namesake fawns on him and whispers in his ear. The work has exceeded His Excellency’s expectations and was completed on time; Golyadkin later learns that His Excellency thanked the junior and promised to remember the service. Golyadkin rushes to protest, pale and scarcely in control of himself, but Andrey Filippovitch refuses to listen, saying that he has no time for private business. The episode gives Golyadkin a concrete grievance—his double has taken the document and received credit—while showing why a bare claim of impersonation cannot readily reverse the official result. The work has already been accepted, and the other man has already been publicly praised for it.

Accusation Before the Department

Golyadkin’s next approach combines a threat in writing with an attempt to enlist a clerk as an informant. In a letter to his namesake, he declares that the two cannot remain together, demands that the other man step aside, and threatens extreme measures, including a meeting with pistols. He signs the letter “Y. Golyadkin,” then puts on his greatcoat and hat and goes to the department, where he finds it too late to enter. At half-past two, he notices Ostafyev, a copying clerk whom he believes willing to do anything for a small payment. Golyadkin follows him inside and draws him into a corner behind a large iron stove to question him. His effort to discover what is happening therefore begins not with an authorized inquiry but with a discreet, paid source he hopes he can use.

Before the assembled clerks, the double turns Golyadkin’s attempt to claim his identity into a spectacle. After behaving with ostentatious disgust toward Golyadkin, wiping his fingers after their hands touch, the junior calls him “our Russian Faublas” and invites the clerks to kiss each other. The joke alludes to an incident familiar to the onlookers, and its social force overwhelms the protest Golyadkin has been preparing. He nevertheless pushes through the crowd and demands that Andrey Filippovitch let him speak to His Excellency in private. When the head of the division refuses, Golyadkin says that he is surprised no one has unmasked the impostor and scoundrel. His accusation is direct, but his account quickly turns into an appeal to Andrey Filippovitch’s benevolence and paternal authority, and his voice trembles until tears run down his eyelashes.

The interruption of this confrontation leaves Golyadkin with no clear answer. His Excellency comes out with several officials and proceeds to discuss business with Andrey Filippovitch. Golyadkin then takes refuge beside Anton Antonovitch and asks him to explain what Andrey Filippovitch’s words mean. Anton answers that everything will be explained in due time and that Golyadkin will be officially informed that day. The promise of formal notice briefly offers a recognizable procedure, but it also places the decision beyond Golyadkin’s immediate reach. He tries to answer the accusation of abnormality by telling Anton that he accepts the possibility that Providence created two exactly alike men and that a benevolent government provided a post for twins. His plea that the authorities treat him as a loyal subordinate does not win Anton’s support; Anton has already moved away, while Golyadkin remains bewildered among the clerks.

Appeal to His Excellency and Its Failure

The promised official communication arrives as an order signed by Andrey Filippovitch instructing Golyadkin to hand over the business in his hands to Ivan Semyonovitch. An office attendant, Mihyeev, brings the envelope to Golyadkin’s flat; Golyadkin recognizes that the message is official, gives the attendant ten kopecks, and goes inside. There he finds Petrushka gathering his belongings into a heap, apparently intending to leave Golyadkin and move to Karolina Ivanovna’s flat. The administrative order and the servant’s preparations make the consequences of the conflict tangible: Golyadkin is losing both work responsibilities and the household arrangement around him.

Even after receiving the order, Golyadkin tries to reach the highest authority. He hires a carriage and first tells the driver to go to Ismailovsky Bridge, then pulls the cord and begs him to turn back. The carriage instead stops at the house where His Excellency has a flat. Golyadkin asks the servant whether His Excellency is at home, climbs to the third storey, and attempts to present himself as a titular councillor. Before His Excellency, he says that he looks upon him as a father and asks him to defend him from his enemy. When the audience does not answer, Golyadkin presses on: “there's no accepting imposters nowadays.” He calls the double a “vile, vicious man” and points him out as his unworthy twin.

The appeal meets an audience whose response is already shaped by the double’s presence. His Excellency says nothing and rings violently for the servant; Andrey Filippovitch and another official nod, while the junior steps forward to ask permission to speak, sounding resolute and convinced of his own right. Golyadkin’s repeated attempt to make the authorities name the other man as an impostor thus ends with the rival granted the next turn to address them. The recurring pattern is not simply that Golyadkin makes accusations and is ignored: each appeal depends on an authority willing to receive his account, while the double repeatedly occupies the space of official speech and recognition first.

Documents, Recognition, and the Campaign’s Irony

Across the episode, writing alternately appears to offer a remedy and to expose Golyadkin’s lack of control. His letters let him set out a defense, but Vahramyev’s message arrives with the recipient’s name withheld and a former friendship already withdrawn. Golyadkin’s own formal response casts him as a man of honour facing slander, yet the private correspondence does not compel the department to reconsider its decisions. The document that matters most to the authorities is not his protest but the work taken into the Director’s room by the double, whose timely completion earns official thanks.

The campaign’s progression also changes its scale without changing its basic obstacle. Golyadkin moves from composing letters, to questioning a copying clerk, to accusing the double before colleagues, to petitioning Anton Antonovitch, and finally to confronting His Excellency at home. Each step takes him closer to a more powerful audience, yet none secures the recognition he seeks. The order transferring his business to Ivan Semyonovitch and Petrushka’s apparent departure show that the failure has consequences beyond wounded pride. The episode’s disturbing irony lies in the gap between Golyadkin’s insistence that the other man must be exposed and the institutions’ practical capacity to treat the double as credible: formal rank, accepted work, and public manner keep carrying more force than Golyadkin’s increasingly desperate claim to be himself.