简介
故事围绕着一个名叫Arksenty Ivanovich Poprishchin的低级公务员展开。他渴望被一个美丽的女人,Sophie,他老板的女儿所注意,他已经爱上了她。就像他第一次见到她时所说的那样,他自己像是一个卑微的仆人。他对她的爱毫无结果,索菲根本没有注意到他。
他的日记记录了他逐渐陷入疯狂的过程。在《2000年4月43日》中,波普里什钦显然已经疯了。这篇日记是他失去辨别时间的能力的许多日记中的第一篇。他开始相信自己是西班牙王位的继承人。他决定制作一套西班牙皇家制服,这样普通民众就能认出他来。他相信自己在西班牙,等待西班牙代表的到来,然后决定西班牙和中国实际上是同一个国家。这次旅行实际上是他想象的一种表现,被认为成在精神病院受到虐待。
The story centers on Arksenty Ivanovich Poprishchin, a low-ranking civil servant (titular counsellor), constantly belittled and criticized for underachieving. He yearns to be noticed by a beautiful woman, Sophie, the daughter of his boss, with whom he has fallen in love. As he said in his first sight of her, just after being a beast of a civil servant himself, "A footman opened the carriage door and out she fluttered, just like a little bird." Nothing comes of this love he feels for her; Sophie is effectively unaware of him.
His diary records his gradual slide into insanity. In "The Year 2000, 43rd of April", it is made clear that Poprishchin has now gone mad. This diary entry is the first of many which he has lost the ability to distinguish a true sense of time. He begins to believe himself to be the heir to the throne of Spain. He decides to make a Spanish royal uniform so that the common people will recognize him. Believing himself in Spain, waiting for the Spanish deputies to arrive, he then decides that Spain and China are in fact the same country. This trip is actually an appearance of his imagination that has been translated from being maltreated in an insane asylum.