Dead Souls

DEAD SOULS

By Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

Translated by D. J. Hogarth

Introduction By John Cournos

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, born at Sorochintsky, Russia, on 31st

March 1809. Obtained government post at St. Petersburg and later an

appointment at the university. Lived in Rome from 1836 to 1848. Died on

21st February 1852.

PREPARER’S NOTE

The book this was typed from contains a complete Part I, and a partial

Part II, as it seems only part of Part II survived the adventures

described in the introduction. Where the text notes that pages are

missing from the “original”, this refers to the Russian original, not

the translation.

All the foreign words were italicised in the original, a style not

preserved here. Accents and diphthongs have also been left out.

INTRODUCTION

Dead Souls, first published in 1842, is the great prose classic of

Russia. That amazing institution, “the Russian novel,” not only began

its career with this unfinished masterpiece by Nikolai Vasil’evich

Gogol, but practically all the Russian masterpieces that have come since

have grown out of it, like the limbs of a single tree. Dostoieffsky

goes so far as to bestow this tribute upon an earlier work by the same

author, a short story entitled The Cloak; this idea has been wittily

expressed by another compatriot, who says: “We have all issued out of

Gogol’s Cloak.”

Dead Souls, which bears the word “Poem” upon the title page of the

original, has been generally compared to Don Quixote and to the Pickwick

Papers, while E. M. Vogue places its author somewhere between Cervantes

and Le Sage. However considerable the influences of Cervantes and

Dickens may have been--the first in the matter of structure, the other

in background, humour, and detail of characterisation--the predominating

and distinguishing quality of the work is undeniably something foreign

to both and quite peculiar to itself; something which, for want of

a better term, might be called the quality of the Russian soul. The

English reader familiar with the works of Dostoieffsky, Turgenev, and

Tolstoi, need hardly be told what this implies; it might be defined in

the words of the French critic just named as “a tendency to pity.” One

might indeed go further and say that it implies a certain tolerance of

one’s characters even though they be, in the conventional sense, knaves,

products, as the case might be, of conditions or circumstance, which

after all is the thing to be criticised and not the man. But pity and

tolerance are rare in satire, even in clash with it, producing in the

result a deep sense of tragic humour. It is this that makes of Dead

Souls a unique work, peculiarly Gogolian, peculiarly Russian, and

distinct from its author’s Spanish and English masters.

Still more profound are the contradictions to be seen in the author’s

personal character; and unfortunately they prevented him from completing

his work. The trouble is that he made his art out of life, and when in

his final years he carried his struggle, as Tolstoi did later, back into

life, he repented of all he had written, and in the frenzy of a wakeful

night burned all his manuscripts, including the second part of Dead

Souls, only fragments of which were saved. There was yet a third part to

be written. Indeed, the second part had been written and burned twice.

Accounts differ as to why he had burned it finally. Religious remorse,

fury at adverse criticism, and despair at not reaching ideal perfection

are among the reasons given. Again it is said that he had destroyed the

manuscript with the others inadvertently.

The poet Pushkin, who said of Gogol that “behind his laughter you feel

the unseen tears,” was his chief friend and inspirer. It was he who

suggested the plot of Dead Souls as well as the plot of the earlier work

The Revisor, which is almost the only comedy in Russian. The importance

of both is their introduction of the social element in Russian

literature, as Prince Kropotkin points out. Both hold up the mirror

to Russian officialdom and the effects it has produced on the national

character. The plot of Dead Souls is simple enough, and is said to have

been suggested by an actual episode.

It was the day of serfdom in Russia, and a man’s standing was often

judged by the numbers of “souls” he possessed. There was a periodical

census of serfs, say once every ten or twenty years. This being the

case, an owner had to pay a tax on every “soul” registered at the

last census, though some of the serfs might have died in the meantime.

Nevertheless, the system had its material advantages, inasmuch as an

owner might borrow money from a bank on the “dead souls” no less than

on the living ones. The plan of Chichikov, Gogol’s hero-villain, was

therefore to make a journey through Russia and buy up the “dead souls,”

at reduced rates of course, saving their owners the government tax,

and acquiring for himself a list of fictitious serfs, which he meant to

mortgage to a bank for a considerable sum. With this money he would buy

an estate and some real life serfs, and make the beginning of a fortune.

Obviously, this plot, which is really no plot at all but merely a ruse

to enable Chichikov to go across Russia in a troika, with Selifan the

coachman as a sort of Russian Sancho Panza, gives Gogol a magnificent

opportunity to reveal his genius as a painter of Russian panorama,

peopled with characteristic native types commonplace enough but drawn in

comic relief. “The comic,” explained the author yet at the beginning of

his career, “is hidden everywhere, only living in the midst of it we are

not conscious of it; but if the artist brings it into his art, on the

stage say, we shall roll about with laughter and only wonder we did not

notice it before.” But the comic in Dead Souls is merely external. Let

us see how Pushkin, who loved to laugh, regarded the work. As Gogol read

it aloud to him from the manuscript the poet grew more and more gloomy

and at last cried out: “God! What a sad country Russia is!” And later he

said of it: “Gogol invents nothing; it is the simple truth, the terrible

truth.”

The work on one hand was received as nothing less than an exposure of

all Russia--what would foreigners think of it? The liberal elements,

however, the critical Belinsky among them, welcomed it as a revelation,

as an omen of a freer future. Gogol, who had meant to do a service to

Russia and not to heap ridicule upon her, took the criticisms of the

Slavophiles to heart; and he palliated his critics by promising to bring

about in the succeeding parts of his novel the redemption of Chichikov

and the other “knaves and blockheads.” But the “Westerner” Belinsky

and others of the liberal camp were mistrustful. It was about this time

(1847) that Gogol published his Correspondence with Friends, and aroused

a literary controversy that is alive to this day. Tolstoi is to be found

among his apologists.

Opinions as to the actual significance of Gogol’s masterpiece differ.

Some consider the author a realist who has drawn with meticulous detail

a picture of Russia; others, Merejkovsky among them, see in him a great

symbolist; the very title Dead Souls is taken to describe the living of

Russia as well as its dead. Chichikov himself is now generally regarded

as a universal character. We find an American professor, William Lyon

Phelps [1], of Yale, holding the opinion that “no one can travel far in

America without meeting scores of Chichikovs; indeed, he is an accurate

portrait of the American promoter, of the successful commercial

traveller whose success depends entirely not on the real value and

usefulness of his stock-in-trade, but on his knowledge of human nature

and of the persuasive power of his tongue.” This is also the opinion

held by Prince Kropotkin [2], who says: “Chichikov may buy dead

souls, or railway shares, or he may collect funds for some charitable

institution, or look for a position in a bank, but he is an immortal

international type; we meet him everywhere; he is of all lands and of

all times; he but takes different forms to suit the requirements of

nationality and time.”

Again, the work bears an interesting relation to Gogol himself. A

romantic, writing of realities, he was appalled at the commonplaces

of life, at finding no outlet for his love of colour derived from his

Cossack ancestry. He realised that he had drawn a host of “heroes,” “one

more commonplace than another, that there was not a single palliating

circumstance, that there was not a single place where the reader might

find pause to rest and to console himself, and that when he had finished

the book it was as though he had walked out of an oppressive cellar

into the open air.” He felt perhaps inward need to redeem Chichikov;

in Merejkovsky’s opinion he really wanted to save his own soul, but

had succeeded only in losing it. His last years were spent morbidly;

he suffered torments and ran from place to place like one hunted; but

really always running from himself. Rome was his favourite refuge, and

he returned to it again and again. In 1848, he made a pilgrimage to the

Holy Land, but he could find no peace for his soul. Something of this

mood had reflected itself even much earlier in the Memoirs of a Madman:

“Oh, little mother, save your poor son! Look how they are tormenting

him.... There’s no place for him on earth! He’s being driven!... Oh,

little mother, take pity on thy poor child.”

All the contradictions of Gogol’s character are not to be disposed of

in a brief essay. Such a strange combination of the tragic and the comic

was truly seldom seen in one man. He, for one, realised that “it is

dangerous to jest with laughter.” “Everything that I laughed at became

sad.” “And terrible,” adds Merejkovsky. But earlier his humour was

lighter, less tinged with the tragic; in those days Pushkin never failed

to be amused by what Gogol had brought to read to him. Even Revizor

(1835), with its tragic undercurrent, was a trifle compared to Dead

Souls, so that one is not astonished to hear that not only did the Tsar,

Nicholas I, give permission to have it acted, in spite of its being a

criticism of official rottenness, but laughed uproariously, and led the

applause. Moreover, he gave Gogol a grant of money, and asked that its

source should not be revealed to the author lest “he might feel obliged

to write from the official point of view.”

Gogol was born at Sorotchinetz, Little Russia, in March 1809. He left

college at nineteen and went to St. Petersburg, where he secured a

position as copying clerk in a government department. He did not keep

his position long, yet long enough to store away in his mind a number of

bureaucratic types which proved useful later. He quite suddenly started

for America with money given to him by his mother for another purpose,

but when he got as far as Lubeck he turned back. He then wanted to

become an actor, but his voice proved not strong enough. Later he wrote

a poem which was unkindly received. As the copies remained unsold, he

gathered them all up at the various shops and burned them in his room.

His next effort, Evenings at the Farm of Dikanka (1831) was more

successful. It was a series of gay and colourful pictures of Ukraine,

the land he knew and loved, and if he is occasionally a little over

romantic here and there, he also achieves some beautifully lyrical

passages. Then came another even finer series called Mirgorod, which won

the admiration of Pushkin. Next he planned a “History of Little Russia”

and a “History of the Middle Ages,” this last work to be in eight or

nine volumes. The result of all this study was a beautiful and short

Homeric epic in prose, called Taras Bulba. His appointment to a

professorship in history was a ridiculous episode in his life. After a

brilliant first lecture, in which he had evidently said all he had to

say, he settled to a life of boredom for himself and his pupils. When he

resigned he said joyously: “I am once more a free Cossack.” Between

1834 and 1835 he produced a new series of stories, including his famous

Cloak, which may be regarded as the legitimate beginning of the Russian

novel.

Gogol knew little about women, who played an equally minor role in

his life and in his books. This may be partly because his personal

appearance was not prepossessing. He is described by a contemporary as

“a little man with legs too short for his body. He walked crookedly; he

was clumsy, ill-dressed, and rather ridiculous-looking, with his long

lock of hair flapping on his forehead, and his large prominent nose.”

From 1835 Gogol spent almost his entire time abroad; some strange

unrest--possibly his Cossack blood--possessed him like a demon, and

he never stopped anywhere very long. After his pilgrimage in 1848 to

Jerusalem, he returned to Moscow, his entire possessions in a little

bag; these consisted of pamphlets, critiques, and newspaper articles

mostly inimical to himself. He wandered about with these from house to

house. Everything he had of value he gave away to the poor. He ceased

work entirely. According to all accounts he spent his last days in

praying and fasting. Visions came to him. His death, which came in 1852,

was extremely fantastic. His last words, uttered in a loud frenzy,

were: “A ladder! Quick, a ladder!” This call for a ladder--“a spiritual

ladder,” in the words of Merejkovsky--had been made on an earlier

occasion by a certain Russian saint, who used almost the same language.

“I shall laugh my bitter laugh” [3] was the inscription placed on

Gogol’s grave.

JOHN COURNOS

Evenings on the Farm near the Dikanka, 1829-31; Mirgorod, 1831-33; Taras

Bulba, 1834; Arabesques (includes tales, The Portrait and A Madman’s

Diary), 1831-35; The Cloak, 1835; The Revizor (The Inspector-General),

1836; Dead Souls, 1842; Correspondence with Friends, 1847.

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS: Cossack Tales (The Night of Christmas Eve, Tarass

Boolba), trans. by G. Tolstoy, 1860; St. John’s Eve and Other Stories,

trans. by Isabel F. Hapgood, New York, Crowell, 1886; Taras Bulba: Also

St. John’s Eve and Other Stories, London, Vizetelly, 1887; Taras Bulba,

trans. by B. C. Baskerville, London, Scott, 1907; The Inspector: a

Comedy, Calcutta, 1890; The Inspector-General, trans. by A. A. Sykes,

London, Scott, 1892; Revizor, trans. for the Yale Dramatic Association

by Max S. Mandell, New Haven, Conn., 1908; Home Life in Russia

(adaptation of Dead Souls), London, Hurst, 1854; Tchitchikoff’s

Journey’s; or Dead Souls, trans. by Isabel F. Hapgood, New York,

Crowell, 1886; Dead Souls, London, Vizetelly, 1887; Dead Souls, London,

Maxwell 1887; Meditations on the Divine Liturgy, trans. by L. Alexeieff,

London, A. R. Mowbray and Co., 1913.

LIVES, etc.: (Russian) Kotlyarevsky (N. A.), 1903; Shenrok (V. I.),

Materials for a Biography, 1892; (French) Leger (L.), Nicholas Gogol,

1914.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST PORTION OF THIS WORK

Second Edition published in 1846

From the Author to the Reader

Reader, whosoever or wheresoever you be, and whatsoever be your

station--whether that of a member of the higher ranks of society or that

of a member of the plainer walks of life--I beg of you, if God shall

have given you any skill in letters, and my book shall fall into your

hands, to extend to me your assistance.

For in the book which lies before you, and which, probably, you have

read in its first edition, there is portrayed a man who is a type taken

from our Russian Empire. This man travels about the Russian land and

meets with folk of every condition--from the nobly-born to the humble

toiler. Him I have taken as a type to show forth the vices and the

failings, rather than the merits and the virtues, of the commonplace

Russian individual; and the characters which revolve around him have

also been selected for the purpose of demonstrating our national

weaknesses and shortcomings. As for men and women of the better sort, I

propose to portray them in subsequent volumes. Probably much of what I

have described is improbable and does not happen as things customarily

happen in Russia; and the reason for that is that for me to learn all

that I have wished to do has been impossible, in that human life is not

sufficiently long to become acquainted with even a hundredth part

of what takes place within the borders of the Russian Empire. Also,

carelessness, inexperience, and lack of time have led to my perpetrating

numerous errors and inaccuracies of detail; with the result that in

every line of the book there is something which calls for correction.

For these reasons I beg of you, my reader, to act also as my corrector.

Do not despise the task, for, however superior be your education, and

however lofty your station, and however insignificant, in your eyes,

my book, and however trifling the apparent labour of correcting and

commenting upon that book, I implore you to do as I have said. And you

too, O reader of lowly education and simple status, I beseech you not to

look upon yourself as too ignorant to be able in some fashion, however

small, to help me. Every man who has lived in the world and mixed with

his fellow men will have remarked something which has remained hidden

from the eyes of others; and therefore I beg of you not to deprive me

of your comments, seeing that it cannot be that, should you read my book

with attention, you will have NOTHING to say at some point therein.

For example, how excellent it would be if some reader who is

sufficiently rich in experience and the knowledge of life to be

acquainted with the sort of characters which I have described herein

would annotate in detail the book, without missing a single page, and

undertake to read it precisely as though, laying pen and paper before

him, he were first to peruse a few pages of the work, and then to recall

his own life, and the lives of folk with whom he has come in contact,

and everything which he has seen with his own eyes or has heard of from

others, and to proceed to annotate, in so far as may tally with his own

experience or otherwise, what is set forth in the book, and to jot down

the whole exactly as it stands pictured to his memory, and, lastly, to

send me the jottings as they may issue from his pen, and to continue

doing so until he has covered the entire work! Yes, he would indeed do

me a vital service! Of style or beauty of expression he would need

to take no account, for the value of a book lies in its truth and its

actuality rather than in its wording. Nor would he need to consider my

feelings if at any point he should feel minded to blame or to upbraid

me, or to demonstrate the harm rather than the good which has been

done through any lack of thought or verisimilitude of which I have

been guilty. In short, for anything and for everything in the way of

criticism I should be thankful.

Also, it would be an excellent thing if some reader in the higher walks

of life, some person who stands remote, both by life and by education,

from the circle of folk which I have pictured in my book, but who knows

the life of the circle in which he himself revolves, would undertake to

read my work in similar fashion, and methodically to recall to his mind

any members of superior social classes whom he has met, and carefully to

observe whether there exists any resemblance between one such class and

another, and whether, at times, there may not be repeated in a higher

sphere what is done in a lower, and likewise to note any additional fact

in the same connection which may occur to him (that is to say, any fact

pertaining to the higher ranks of society which would seem to confirm or

to disprove his conclusions), and, lastly, to record that fact as it may

have occurred within his own experience, while giving full details of

persons (of individual manners, tendencies, and customs) and also of

inanimate surroundings (of dress, furniture, fittings of houses, and so

forth). For I need knowledge of the classes in question, which are the

flower of our people. In fact, this very reason--the reason that I do

not yet know Russian life in all its aspects, and in the degree to

which it is necessary for me to know it in order to become a successful

author--is what has, until now, prevented me from publishing any

subsequent volumes of this story.

Again, it would be an excellent thing if some one who is endowed with

the faculty of imagining and vividly picturing to himself the various

situations wherein a character may be placed, and of mentally following

up a character’s career in one field and another--by this I mean some

one who possesses the power of entering into and developing the ideas

of the author whose work he may be reading--would scan each character

herein portrayed, and tell me how each character ought to have acted

at a given juncture, and what, to judge from the beginnings of each

character, ought to have become of that character later, and what new

circumstances might be devised in connection therewith, and what new

details might advantageously be added to those already described.

Honestly can I say that to consider these points against the time when a

new edition of my book may be published in a different and a better form

would give me the greatest possible pleasure.

One thing in particular would I ask of any reader who may be willing to

give me the benefit of his advice. That is to say, I would beg of him

to suppose, while recording his remarks, that it is for the benefit of

a man in no way his equal in education, or similar to him in tastes and

ideas, or capable of apprehending criticisms without full explanation

appended, that he is doing so. Rather would I ask such a reader to

suppose that before him there stands a man of incomparably inferior

enlightenment and schooling--a rude country bumpkin whose life,

throughout, has been passed in retirement--a bumpkin to whom it is

necessary to explain each circumstance in detail, while never forgetting

to be as simple of speech as though he were a child, and at every step

there were a danger of employing terms beyond his understanding. Should

these precautions be kept constantly in view by any reader undertaking

to annotate my book, that reader’s remarks will exceed in weight

and interest even his own expectations, and will bring me very real

advantage.

Thus, provided that my earnest request be heeded by my readers, and

that among them there be found a few kind spirits to do as I desire, the

following is the manner in which I would request them to transmit their

notes for my consideration. Inscribing the package with my name, let

them then enclose that package in a second one addressed either to the

Rector of the University of St. Petersburg or to Professor Shevirev of

the University of Moscow, according as the one or the other of those two

cities may be the nearer to the sender.

Lastly, while thanking all journalists and litterateurs for their

previously published criticisms of my book--criticisms which, in spite

of a spice of that intemperance and prejudice which is common to all

humanity, have proved of the greatest use both to my head and to my

heart--I beg of such writers again to favour me with their reviews. For

in all sincerity I can assure them that whatsoever they may be pleased

to say for my improvement and my instruction will be received by me with

naught but gratitude.

DEAD SOULS

PART I

CHAPTER I

To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart

britchka--a light spring-carriage of the sort affected by bachelors,

retired lieutenant-colonels, staff-captains, land-owners possessed of

about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who rank as gentlemen

of the intermediate category. In the britchka was seated such a

gentleman--a man who, though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not

over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, he was

not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in the town, and was

accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a couple of peasants

who happened to be standing at the door of a dramshop exchanged a few

comments with reference to the equipage rather than to the individual

who was seated in it. “Look at that carriage,” one of them said to the

other. “Think you it will be going as far as Moscow?” “I think it will,”

replied his companion. “But not as far as Kazan, eh?” “No, not as far as

Kazan.” With that the conversation ended. Presently, as the britchka was

approaching the inn, it was met by a young man in a pair of very short,

very tight breeches of white dimity, a quasi-fashionable frockcoat, and

a dickey fastened with a pistol-shaped bronze tie-pin. The young man

turned his head as he passed the britchka and eyed it attentively;

after which he clapped his hand to his cap (which was in danger of being

removed by the wind) and resumed his way. On the vehicle reaching the

inn door, its occupant found standing there to welcome him the polevoi,

or waiter, of the establishment--an individual of such nimble and

brisk movement that even to distinguish the character of his face was

impossible. Running out with a napkin in one hand and his lanky form

clad in a tailcoat, reaching almost to the nape of his neck, he tossed

back his locks, and escorted the gentleman upstairs, along a wooden

gallery, and so to the bedchamber which God had prepared for the

gentleman’s reception. The said bedchamber was of quite ordinary

appearance, since the inn belonged to the species to be found in all

provincial towns--the species wherein, for two roubles a day, travellers

may obtain a room swarming with black-beetles, and communicating by a

doorway with the apartment adjoining. True, the doorway may be blocked

up with a wardrobe; yet behind it, in all probability, there will be

standing a silent, motionless neighbour whose ears are burning to learn

every possible detail concerning the latest arrival. The inn’s exterior

corresponded with its interior. Long, and consisting only of two

storeys, the building had its lower half destitute of stucco; with the

result that the dark-red bricks, originally more or less dingy, had

grown yet dingier under the influence of atmospheric changes. As for the

upper half of the building, it was, of course, painted the usual tint

of unfading yellow. Within, on the ground floor, there stood a number

of benches heaped with horse-collars, rope, and sheepskins; while the

window-seat accommodated a sbitentshik [4], cheek by jowl with a samovar

[5]--the latter so closely resembling the former in appearance that, but

for the fact of the samovar possessing a pitch-black lip, the samovar

and the sbitentshik might have been two of a pair.

During the traveller’s inspection of his room his luggage was brought

into the apartment. First came a portmanteau of white leather whose

raggedness indicated that the receptacle had made several previous

journeys. The bearers of the same were the gentleman’s coachman,

Selifan (a little man in a large overcoat), and the gentleman’s

valet, Petrushka--the latter a fellow of about thirty, clad in a worn,

over-ample jacket which formerly had graced his master’s shoulders, and

possessed of a nose and a pair of lips whose coarseness communicated to

his face rather a sullen expression. Behind the portmanteau came a

small dispatch-box of redwood, lined with birch bark, a boot-case,

and (wrapped in blue paper) a roast fowl; all of which having been

deposited, the coachman departed to look after his horses, and the valet

to establish himself in the little dark anteroom or kennel where already

he had stored a cloak, a bagful of livery, and his own peculiar smell.

Pressing the narrow bedstead back against the wall, he covered it with

the tiny remnant of mattress--a remnant as thin and flat (perhaps also

as greasy) as a pancake--which he had managed to beg of the landlord of

the establishment.

While the attendants had been thus setting things straight the gentleman

had repaired to the common parlour. The appearance of common parlours of

the kind is known to every one who travels. Always they have varnished

walls which, grown black in their upper portions with tobacco smoke,

are, in their lower, grown shiny with the friction of customers’

backs--more especially with that of the backs of such local tradesmen

as, on market-days, make it their regular practice to resort to

the local hostelry for a glass of tea. Also, parlours of this kind

invariably contain smutty ceilings, an equally smutty chandelier, a

number of pendent shades which jump and rattle whenever the waiter

scurries across the shabby oilcloth with a trayful of glasses (the

glasses looking like a flock of birds roosting by the seashore), and a

selection of oil paintings. In short, there are certain objects which

one sees in every inn. In the present case the only outstanding feature

of the room was the fact that in one of the paintings a nymph was

portrayed as possessing breasts of a size such as the reader can never

in his life have beheld. A similar caricaturing of nature is to be noted

in the historical pictures (of unknown origin, period, and creation)

which reach us--sometimes through the instrumentality of Russian

magnates who profess to be connoisseurs of art--from Italy; owing to

the said magnates having made such purchases solely on the advice of the

couriers who have escorted them.

To resume, however--our traveller removed his cap, and divested his neck

of a parti-coloured woollen scarf of the kind which a wife makes for

her husband with her own hands, while accompanying the gift with

interminable injunctions as to how best such a garment ought to be

folded. True, bachelors also wear similar gauds, but, in their case,

God alone knows who may have manufactured the articles! For my part,

I cannot endure them. Having unfolded the scarf, the gentleman ordered

dinner, and whilst the various dishes were being got ready--cabbage

soup, a pie several weeks old, a dish of marrow and peas, a dish of

sausages and cabbage, a roast fowl, some salted cucumber, and the sweet

tart which stands perpetually ready for use in such establishments;

whilst, I say, these things were either being warmed up or brought in

cold, the gentleman induced the waiter to retail certain fragments of

tittle-tattle concerning the late landlord of the hostelry, the amount

of income which the hostelry produced, and the character of its present

proprietor. To the last-mentioned inquiry the waiter returned the answer

invariably given in such cases--namely, “My master is a terribly hard

man, sir.” Curious that in enlightened Russia so many people cannot even

take a meal at an inn without chattering to the attendant and making

free with him! Nevertheless not ALL the questions which the gentleman

asked were aimless ones, for he inquired who was Governor of the town,

who President of the Local Council, and who Public Prosecutor. In short,

he omitted no single official of note, while asking also (though with an

air of detachment) the most exact particulars concerning the landowners

of the neighbourhood. Which of them, he inquired, possessed serfs, and

how many of them? How far from the town did those landowners reside?

What was the character of each landowner, and was he in the habit of

paying frequent visits to the town? The gentleman also made searching

inquiries concerning the hygienic condition of the countryside. Was

there, he asked, much sickness about--whether sporadic fever, fatal

forms of ague, smallpox, or what not? Yet, though his solicitude

concerning these matters showed more than ordinary curiosity, his

bearing retained its gravity unimpaired, and from time to time he

blew his nose with portentous fervour. Indeed, the manner in which he

accomplished this latter feat was marvellous in the extreme, for, though

that member emitted sounds equal to those of a trumpet in intensity,

he could yet, with his accompanying air of guileless dignity, evoke the

waiter’s undivided respect--so much so that, whenever the sounds of

the nose reached that menial’s ears, he would shake back his locks,

straighten himself into a posture of marked solicitude, and inquire

afresh, with head slightly inclined, whether the gentleman happened

to require anything further. After dinner the guest consumed a cup of

coffee, and then, seating himself upon the sofa, with, behind him,

one of those wool-covered cushions which, in Russian taverns,

resemble nothing so much as a cobblestone or a brick, fell to snoring;

whereafter, returning with a start to consciousness, he ordered himself

to be conducted to his room, flung himself at full length upon the bed,

and once more slept soundly for a couple of hours. Aroused, eventually,

by the waiter, he, at the latter’s request, inscribed a fragment of

paper with his name, his surname, and his rank (for communication, in

accordance with the law, to the police): and on that paper the waiter,

leaning forward from the corridor, read, syllable by syllable: “Paul

Ivanovitch Chichikov, Collegiate Councillor--Landowner--Travelling

on Private Affairs.” The waiter had just time to accomplish this

feat before Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov set forth to inspect the town.

Apparently the place succeeded in satisfying him, and, to tell the

truth, it was at least up to the usual standard of our provincial

capitals. Where the staring yellow of stone edifices did not greet his

eye he found himself confronted with the more modest grey of wooden

ones; which, consisting, for the most part, of one or two storeys (added

to the range of attics which provincial architects love so well), looked

almost lost amid the expanses of street and intervening medleys of

broken or half-finished partition-walls. At other points evidence of

more life and movement was to be seen, and here the houses stood crowded

together and displayed dilapidated, rain-blurred signboards whereon

boots or cakes or pairs of blue breeches inscribed “Arshavski, Tailor,”

and so forth, were depicted. Over a shop containing hats and caps

was written “Vassili Thedorov, Foreigner”; while, at another spot, a

signboard portrayed a billiard table and two players--the latter clad

in frockcoats of the kind usually affected by actors whose part it is

to enter the stage during the closing act of a piece, even though, with

arms sharply crooked and legs slightly bent, the said billiard players

were taking the most careful aim, but succeeding only in making abortive

strokes in the air. Each emporium of the sort had written over it: “This

is the best establishment of its kind in the town.” Also, al fresco in

the streets there stood tables heaped with nuts, soap, and gingerbread

(the latter but little distinguishable from the soap), and at an

eating-house there was displayed the sign of a plump fish transfixed

with a gaff. But the sign most frequently to be discerned was the

insignia of the State, the double-headed eagle (now replaced, in this

connection, with the laconic inscription “Dramshop”). As for the paving

of the town, it was uniformly bad.

The gentleman peered also into the municipal gardens, which contained

only a few sorry trees that were poorly selected, requiring to be

propped with oil-painted, triangular green supports, and able to boast

of a height no greater than that of an ordinary walking-stick. Yet

recently the local paper had said (apropos of a gala) that, “Thanks to

the efforts of our Civil Governor, the town has become enriched with a

pleasaunce full of umbrageous, spaciously-branching trees. Even on the

most sultry day they afford agreeable shade, and indeed gratifying

was it to see the hearts of our citizens panting with an impulse of

gratitude as their eyes shed tears in recognition of all that their

Governor has done for them!”

Next, after inquiring of a gendarme as to the best ways and means of

finding the local council, the local law-courts, and the local Governor,

should he (Chichikov) have need of them, the gentleman went on to

inspect the river which ran through the town. En route he tore off a

notice affixed to a post, in order that he might the more conveniently

read it after his return to the inn. Also, he bestowed upon a lady

of pleasant exterior who, escorted by a footman laden with a bundle,

happened to be passing along a wooden sidewalk a prolonged stare.

Lastly, he threw around him a comprehensive glance (as though to fix in

his mind the general topography of the place) and betook himself

home. There, gently aided by the waiter, he ascended the stairs to his

bedroom, drank a glass of tea, and, seating himself at the table, called

for a candle; which having been brought him, he produced from his pocket

the notice, held it close to the flame, and conned its tenour--slightly

contracting his right eye as he did so. Yet there was little in the

notice to call for remark. All that it said was that shortly one of

Kotzebue’s [6] plays would be given, and that one of the parts in the

play was to be taken by a certain Monsieur Poplevin, and another by

a certain Mademoiselle Ziablova, while the remaining parts were to

be filled by a number of less important personages. Nevertheless the

gentleman perused the notice with careful attention, and even jotted

down the prices to be asked for seats for the performance. Also, he

remarked that the bill had been printed in the press of the Provincial

Government. Next, he turned over the paper, in order to see if anything

further was to be read on the reverse side; but, finding nothing there,

he refolded the document, placed it in the box which served him as a

receptacle for odds and ends, and brought the day to a close with a

portion of cold veal, a bottle of pickles, and a sound sleep.

The following day he devoted to paying calls upon the various municipal

officials--a first, and a very respectful, visit being paid to the

Governor. This personage turned out to resemble Chichikov himself in

that he was neither fat nor thin. Also, he wore the riband of the order

of Saint Anna about his neck, and was reported to have been recommended

also for the star. For the rest, he was large and good-natured, and had

a habit of amusing himself with occasional spells of knitting. Next,

Chichikov repaired to the Vice-Governor’s, and thence to the house of

the Public Prosecutor, to that of the President of the Local Council, to

that of the Chief of Police, to that of the Commissioner of Taxes, and

to that of the local Director of State Factories. True, the task of

remembering every big-wig in this world of ours is not a very easy one;

but at least our visitor displayed the greatest activity in his work of

paying calls, seeing that he went so far as to pay his respects also to

the Inspector of the Municipal Department of Medicine and to the City

Architect. Thereafter he sat thoughtfully in his britchka--plunged

in meditation on the subject of whom else it might be well to visit.

However, not a single magnate had been neglected, and in conversation

with his hosts he had contrived to flatter each separate one. For

instance to the Governor he had hinted that a stranger, on arriving

in his, the Governor’s province, would conceive that he had reached

Paradise, so velvety were the roads. “Governors who appoint capable

subordinates,” had said Chichikov, “are deserving of the most ample meed

of praise.” Again, to the Chief of Police our hero had passed a most

gratifying remark on the subject of the local gendarmery; while in

his conversation with the Vice-Governor and the President of the Local

Council (neither of whom had, as yet, risen above the rank of State

Councillor) he had twice been guilty of the gaucherie of addressing his

interlocutors with the title of “Your Excellency”--a blunder which had

not failed to delight them. In the result the Governor had invited

him to a reception the same evening, and certain other officials had

followed suit by inviting him, one of them to dinner, a second to a

tea-party, and so forth, and so forth.

Of himself, however, the traveller had spoken little; or, if he had

spoken at any length, he had done so in a general sort of way and with

marked modesty. Indeed, at moments of the kind his discourse had assumed

something of a literary vein, in that invariably he had stated that,

being a worm of no account in the world, he was deserving of no

consideration at the hands of his fellows; that in his time he had

undergone many strange experiences; that subsequently he had suffered

much in the cause of Truth; that he had many enemies seeking his life;

and that, being desirous of rest, he was now engaged in searching for a

spot wherein to dwell--wherefore, having stumbled upon the town in which

he now found himself, he had considered it his bounden duty to evince

his respect for the chief authorities of the place. This, and no more,

was all that, for the moment, the town succeeded in learning about the

new arrival. Naturally he lost no time in presenting himself at the

Governor’s evening party. First, however, his preparations for that

function occupied a space of over two hours, and necessitated an

attention to his toilet of a kind not commonly seen. That is to say,

after a brief post-prandial nap he called for soap and water, and spent

a considerable period in the task of scrubbing his cheeks (which, for

the purpose, he supported from within with his tongue) and then of

drying his full, round face, from the ears downwards, with a towel which

he took from the waiter’s shoulder. Twice he snorted into the waiter’s

countenance as he did this, and then he posted himself in front of the

mirror, donned a false shirt-front, plucked out a couple of hairs which

were protruding from his nose, and appeared vested in a frockcoat

of bilberry-coloured check. Thereafter driving through broad streets

sparsely lighted with lanterns, he arrived at the Governor’s residence

to find it illuminated as for a ball. Barouches with gleaming lamps,

a couple of gendarmes posted before the doors, a babel of postillions’

cries--nothing of a kind likely to be impressive was wanting; and, on

reaching the salon, the visitor actually found himself obliged to

close his eyes for a moment, so strong was the mingled sheen of lamps,

candles, and feminine apparel. Everything seemed suffused with light,

and everywhere, flitting and flashing, were to be seen black coats--even

as on a hot summer’s day flies revolve around a sugar loaf while the

old housekeeper is cutting it into cubes before the open window, and

the children of the house crowd around her to watch the movements of her

rugged hands as those members ply the smoking pestle; and airy squadrons

of flies, borne on the breeze, enter boldly, as though free of the

house, and, taking advantage of the fact that the glare of the sunshine

is troubling the old lady’s sight, disperse themselves over broken

and unbroken fragments alike, even though the lethargy induced by the

opulence of summer and the rich shower of dainties to be encountered at

every step has induced them to enter less for the purpose of eating than

for that of showing themselves in public, of parading up and down the

sugar loaf, of rubbing both their hindquarters and their fore against

one another, of cleaning their bodies under the wings, of extending

their forelegs over their heads and grooming themselves, and of flying

out of the window again to return with other predatory squadrons.

Indeed, so dazed was Chichikov that scarcely did he realise that the

Governor was taking him by the arm and presenting him to his (the

Governor’s) lady. Yet the newly-arrived guest kept his head sufficiently

to contrive to murmur some such compliment as might fittingly come

from a middle-aged individual of a rank neither excessively high nor

excessively low. Next, when couples had been formed for dancing and the

remainder of the company found itself pressed back against the walls,

Chichikov folded his arms, and carefully scrutinised the dancers. Some

of the ladies were dressed well and in the fashion, while the remainder

were clad in such garments as God usually bestows upon a provincial

town. Also here, as elsewhere, the men belonged to two separate and

distinct categories; one of which comprised slender individuals who,

flitting around the ladies, were scarcely to be distinguished from

denizens of the metropolis, so carefully, so artistically, groomed were

their whiskers, so presentable their oval, clean-shaven faces, so easy

the manner of their dancing attendance upon their womenfolk, so glib

their French conversation as they quizzed their female companions. As

for the other category, it comprised individuals who, stout, or of the

same build as Chichikov (that is to say, neither very portly nor very

lean), backed and sidled away from the ladies, and kept peering hither

and thither to see whether the Governor’s footmen had set out green

tables for whist. Their features were full and plump, some of them had

beards, and in no case was their hair curled or waved or arranged in

what the French call “the devil-may-care” style. On the contrary, their

heads were either close-cropped or brushed very smooth, and their faces

were round and firm. This category represented the more respectable

officials of the town. In passing, I may say that in business matters

fat men always prove superior to their leaner brethren; which is

probably the reason why the latter are mostly to be found in the

Political Police, or acting as mere ciphers whose existence is a purely

hopeless, airy, trivial one. Again, stout individuals never take a back

seat, but always a front one, and, wheresoever it be, they sit firmly,

and with confidence, and decline to budge even though the seat crack and

bend with their weight. For comeliness of exterior they care not a rap,

and therefore a dress coat sits less easily on their figures than is the

case with figures of leaner individuals. Yet invariably fat men amass

the greater wealth. In three years’ time a thin man will not have a

single serf whom he has left unpledged; whereas--well, pray look at

a fat man’s fortunes, and what will you see? First of all a suburban

villa, and then a larger suburban villa, and then a villa close to a

town, and lastly a country estate which comprises every amenity! That is

to say, having served both God and the State, the stout individual

has won universal respect, and will end by retiring from business,

reordering his mode of life, and becoming a Russian landowner--in other

words, a fine gentleman who dispenses hospitality, lives in comfort and

luxury, and is destined to leave his property to heirs who are purposing

to squander the same on foreign travel.

That the foregoing represents pretty much the gist of Chichikov’s

reflections as he stood watching the company I will not attempt to deny.

And of those reflections the upshot was that he decided to join

himself to the stouter section of the guests, among whom he had

already recognised several familiar faces--namely, those of the Public

Prosecutor (a man with beetling brows over eyes which seemed to be

saying with a wink, “Come into the next room, my friend, for I have

something to say to you”--though, in the main, their owner was a man of

grave and taciturn habit), of the Postmaster (an insignificant-looking

individual, yet a would-be wit and a philosopher), and of the President

of the Local Council (a man of much amiability and good sense). These

three personages greeted Chichikov as an old acquaintance, and to their

salutations he responded with a sidelong, yet a sufficiently civil, bow.

Also, he became acquainted with an extremely unctuous and approachable

landowner named Manilov, and with a landowner of more uncouth exterior

named Sobakevitch--the latter of whom began the acquaintance by treading

heavily upon Chichikov’s toes, and then begging his pardon. Next,

Chichikov received an offer of a “cut in” at whist, and accepted

the same with his usual courteous inclination of the head. Seating

themselves at a green table, the party did not rise therefrom till

supper time; and during that period all conversation between the players

became hushed, as is the custom when men have given themselves up to

a really serious pursuit. Even the Postmaster--a talkative man by

nature--had no sooner taken the cards into his hands than he assumed

an expression of profound thought, pursed his lips, and retained this

attitude unchanged throughout the game. Only when playing a court card

was it his custom to strike the table with his fist, and to exclaim (if

the card happened to be a queen), “Now, old popadia [7]!” and (if

the card happened to be a king), “Now, peasant of Tambov!” To which

ejaculations invariably the President of the Local Council retorted,

“Ah, I have him by the ears, I have him by the ears!” And from the

neighbourhood of the table other strong ejaculations relative to the

play would arise, interposed with one or another of those nicknames

which participants in a game are apt to apply to members of the various

suits. I need hardly add that, the game over, the players fell to

quarrelling, and that in the dispute our friend joined, though so

artfully as to let every one see that, in spite of the fact that he was

wrangling, he was doing so only in the most amicable fashion possible.

Never did he say outright, “You played the wrong card at such and such

a point.” No, he always employed some such phrase as, “You permitted

yourself to make a slip, and thus afforded me the honour of covering

your deuce.” Indeed, the better to keep in accord with his antagonists,

he kept offering them his silver-enamelled snuff-box (at the bottom

of which lay a couple of violets, placed there for the sake of their

scent). In particular did the newcomer pay attention to landowners

Manilov and Sobakevitch; so much so that his haste to arrive on good

terms with them led to his leaving the President and the Postmaster

rather in the shade. At the same time, certain questions which he put

to those two landowners evinced not only curiosity, but also a certain

amount of sound intelligence; for he began by asking how many peasant

souls each of them possessed, and how their affairs happened at present

to be situated, and then proceeded to enlighten himself also as their

standing and their families. Indeed, it was not long before he had

succeeded in fairly enchanting his new friends. In particular did

Manilov--a man still in his prime, and possessed of a pair of eyes

which, sweet as sugar, blinked whenever he laughed--find himself unable

to make enough of his enchanter. Clasping Chichikov long and fervently

by the hand, he besought him to do him, Manilov, the honour of visiting

his country house (which he declared to lie at a distance of not more

than fifteen versts from the boundaries of the town); and in return

Chichikov averred (with an exceedingly affable bow and a most sincere

handshake) that he was prepared not only to fulfil his friend’s behest,

but also to look upon the fulfilling of it as a sacred duty. In the same

way Sobakevitch said to him laconically: “And do you pay ME a visit,”

and then proceeded to shuffle a pair of boots of such dimensions that

to find a pair to correspond with them would have been indeed

difficult--more especially at the present day, when the race of epic

heroes is beginning to die out in Russia.

Next day Chichikov dined and spent the evening at the house of the Chief

of Police--a residence where, three hours after dinner, every one sat

down to whist, and remained so seated until two o’clock in the morning.

On this occasion Chichikov made the acquaintance of, among others, a

landowner named Nozdrev--a dissipated little fellow of thirty who had no

sooner exchanged three or four words with his new acquaintance than he

began to address him in the second person singular. Yet although he did

the same to the Chief of Police and the Public Prosecutor, the company

had no sooner seated themselves at the card-table than both the one

and the other of these functionaries started to keep a careful eye upon

Nozdrev’s tricks, and to watch practically every card which he played.

The following evening Chichikov spent with the President of the Local

Council, who received his guests--even though the latter included two

ladies--in a greasy dressing-gown. Upon that followed an evening at the

Vice-Governor’s, a large dinner party at the house of the Commissioner

of Taxes, a smaller dinner-party at the house of the Public Prosecutor

(a very wealthy man), and a subsequent reception given by the Mayor. In

short, not an hour of the day did Chichikov find himself forced to

spend at home, and his return to the inn became necessary only for the

purposes of sleeping. Somehow or other he had landed on his feet, and

everywhere he figured as an experienced man of the world. No matter what

the conversation chanced to be about, he always contrived to maintain

his part in the same. Did the discourse turn upon horse-breeding, upon

horse-breeding he happened to be peculiarly well-qualified to speak. Did

the company fall to discussing well-bred dogs, at once he had remarks of

the most pertinent kind possible to offer. Did the company touch upon

a prosecution which had recently been carried out by the Excise

Department, instantly he showed that he too was not wholly unacquainted

with legal affairs. Did an opinion chance to be expressed concerning

billiards, on that subject too he was at least able to avoid committing

a blunder. Did a reference occur to virtue, concerning virtue he

hastened to deliver himself in a way which brought tears to every eye.

Did the subject in hand happen to be the distilling of brandy--well,

that was a matter concerning which he had the soundest of knowledge. Did

any one happen to mention Customs officials and inspectors, from that

moment he expatiated as though he too had been both a minor functionary

and a major. Yet a remarkable fact was the circumstance that he always

contrived to temper his omniscience with a certain readiness to give

way, a certain ability so to keep a rein upon himself that never did his

utterances become too loud or too soft, or transcend what was perfectly

befitting. In a word, he was always a gentleman of excellent manners,

and every official in the place felt pleased when he saw him enter the

door. Thus the Governor gave it as his opinion that Chichikov was a man

of excellent intentions; the Public Prosecutor, that he was a good man

of business; the Chief of Gendarmery, that he was a man of education;

the President of the Local Council, that he was a man of breeding and

refinement; and the wife of the Chief of Gendarmery, that his politeness

of behaviour was equalled only by his affability of bearing. Nay, even

Sobakevitch--who as a rule never spoke well of ANY ONE--said to his

lanky wife when, on returning late from the town, he undressed and

betook himself to bed by her side: “My dear, this evening, after dining

with the Chief of Police, I went on to the Governor’s, and met there,

among others, a certain Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, who is a Collegiate

Councillor and a very pleasant fellow.” To this his spouse replied “Hm!”

and then dealt him a hearty kick in the ribs.

Such were the flattering opinions earned by the newcomer to the town;

and these opinions he retained until the time when a certain speciality

of his, a certain scheme of his (the reader will learn presently what it

was), plunged the majority of the townsfolk into a sea of perplexity.

CHAPTER II

For more than two weeks the visitor lived amid a round of evening

parties and dinners; wherefore he spent (as the saying goes) a very

pleasant time. Finally he decided to extend his visits beyond the urban

boundaries by going and calling upon landowners Manilov and Sobakevitch,

seeing that he had promised on his honour to do so. Yet what really

incited him to this may have been a more essential cause, a matter of

greater gravity, a purpose which stood nearer to his heart, than the

motive which I have just given; and of that purpose the reader will

learn if only he will have the patience to read this prefatory narrative

(which, lengthy though it be, may yet develop and expand in proportion

as we approach the denouement with which the present work is destined to

be crowned).

One evening, therefore, Selifan the coachman received orders to have

the horses harnessed in good time next morning; while Petrushka

received orders to remain behind, for the purpose of looking after the

portmanteau and the room. In passing, the reader may care to become

more fully acquainted with the two serving-men of whom I have spoken.

Naturally, they were not persons of much note, but merely what folk call

characters of secondary, or even of tertiary, importance. Yet, despite

the fact that the springs and the thread of this romance will not DEPEND

upon them, but only touch upon them, and occasionally include them,

the author has a passion for circumstantiality, and, like the average

Russian, such a desire for accuracy as even a German could not rival.

To what the reader already knows concerning the personages in hand it is

therefore necessary to add that Petrushka usually wore a cast-off brown

jacket of a size too large for him, as also that he had (according to

the custom of individuals of his calling) a pair of thick lips and

a very prominent nose. In temperament he was taciturn rather than

loquacious, and he cherished a yearning for self-education. That is to

say, he loved to read books, even though their contents came alike to

him whether they were books of heroic adventure or mere grammars or

liturgical compendia. As I say, he perused every book with an equal

amount of attention, and, had he been offered a work on chemistry,

would have accepted that also. Not the words which he read, but the mere

solace derived from the act of reading, was what especially pleased his

mind; even though at any moment there might launch itself from the page

some devil-sent word whereof he could make neither head nor tail. For

the most part, his task of reading was performed in a recumbent position

in the anteroom; which circumstance ended by causing his mattress to

become as ragged and as thin as a wafer. In addition to his love of

poring over books, he could boast of two habits which constituted two

other essential features of his character--namely, a habit of

retiring to rest in his clothes (that is to say, in the brown jacket

above-mentioned) and a habit of everywhere bearing with him his own

peculiar atmosphere, his own peculiar smell--a smell which filled

any lodging with such subtlety that he needed but to make up his bed

anywhere, even in a room hitherto untenanted, and to drag thither his

greatcoat and other impedimenta, for that room at once to assume an air

of having been lived in during the past ten years. Nevertheless, though

a fastidious, and even an irritable, man, Chichikov would merely frown

when his nose caught this smell amid the freshness of the morning, and

exclaim with a toss of his head: “The devil only knows what is up with

you! Surely you sweat a good deal, do you not? The best thing you can do

is to go and take a bath.” To this Petrushka would make no reply, but,

approaching, brush in hand, the spot where his master’s coat would be

pendent, or starting to arrange one and another article in order, would

strive to seem wholly immersed in his work. Yet of what was he thinking

as he remained thus silent? Perhaps he was saying to himself: “My master

is a good fellow, but for him to keep on saying the same thing forty

times over is a little wearisome.” Only God knows and sees all things;

wherefore for a mere human being to know what is in the mind of a

servant while his master is scolding him is wholly impossible. However,

no more need be said about Petrushka. On the other hand, Coachman

Selifan--

But here let me remark that I do not like engaging the reader’s

attention in connection with persons of a lower class than himself; for

experience has taught me that we do not willingly familiarise ourselves

with the lower orders--that it is the custom of the average Russian to

yearn exclusively for information concerning persons on the higher rungs

of the social ladder. In fact, even a bowing acquaintance with a prince

or a lord counts, in his eyes, for more than do the most intimate of

relations with ordinary folk. For the same reason the author feels

apprehensive on his hero’s account, seeing that he has made that hero

a mere Collegiate Councillor--a mere person with whom Aulic Councillors

might consort, but upon whom persons of the grade of full General

[8] would probably bestow one of those glances proper to a man who is

cringing at their august feet. Worse still, such persons of the grade of

General are likely to treat Chichikov with studied negligence--and to an

author studied negligence spells death.

However, in spite of the distressfulness of the foregoing possibilities,

it is time that I returned to my hero. After issuing, overnight, the

necessary orders, he awoke early, washed himself, rubbed himself

from head to foot with a wet sponge (a performance executed only on

Sundays--and the day in question happened to be a Sunday), shaved his

face with such care that his cheeks issued of absolutely satin-like

smoothness and polish, donned first his bilberry-coloured, spotted

frockcoat, and then his bearskin overcoat, descended the staircase

(attended, throughout, by the waiter) and entered his britchka. With a

loud rattle the vehicle left the inn-yard, and issued into the street.

A passing priest doffed his cap, and a few urchins in grimy shirts

shouted, “Gentleman, please give a poor orphan a trifle!” Presently the

driver noticed that a sturdy young rascal was on the point of climbing

onto the splashboard; wherefore he cracked his whip and the britchka

leapt forward with increased speed over the cobblestones. At last, with

a feeling of relief, the travellers caught sight of macadam ahead, which

promised an end both to the cobblestones and to sundry other annoyances.

And, sure enough, after his head had been bumped a few more times

against the boot of the conveyance, Chichikov found himself bowling over

softer ground. On the town receding into the distance, the sides of the

road began to be varied with the usual hillocks, fir trees, clumps of

young pine, trees with old, scarred trunks, bushes of wild juniper, and

so forth. Presently there came into view also strings of country villas

which, with their carved supports and grey roofs (the latter looking

like pendent, embroidered tablecloths), resembled, rather, bundles

of old faggots. Likewise the customary peasants, dressed in sheepskin

jackets, could be seen yawning on benches before their huts, while

their womenfolk, fat of feature and swathed of bosom, gazed out of upper

windows, and the windows below displayed, here a peering calf, and there

the unsightly jaws of a pig. In short, the view was one of the familiar

type. After passing the fifteenth verst-stone Chichikov suddenly

recollected that, according to Manilov, fifteen versts was the exact

distance between his country house and the town; but the sixteenth verst

stone flew by, and the said country house was still nowhere to be

seen. In fact, but for the circumstance that the travellers happened to

encounter a couple of peasants, they would have come on their errand in

vain. To a query as to whether the country house known as Zamanilovka

was anywhere in the neighbourhood the peasants replied by doffing their

caps; after which one of them who seemed to boast of a little more

intelligence than his companion, and who wore a wedge-shaped beard, made

answer:

“Perhaps you mean Manilovka--not ZAmanilovka?”

“Yes, yes--Manilovka.”

“Manilovka, eh? Well, you must continue for another verst, and then you

will see it straight before you, on the right.”

“On the right?” re-echoed the coachman.

“Yes, on the right,” affirmed the peasant. “You are on the proper road

for Manilovka, but ZAmanilovka--well, there is no such place. The house

you mean is called Manilovka because Manilovka is its name; but no house

at all is called ZAmanilovka. The house you mean stands there, on that

hill, and is a stone house in which a gentleman lives, and its name

is Manilovka; but ZAmanilovka does not stand hereabouts, nor ever has

stood.”

So the travellers proceeded in search of Manilovka, and, after driving

an additional two versts, arrived at a spot whence there branched off a

by-road. Yet two, three, or four versts of the by-road had been covered

before they saw the least sign of a two-storied stone mansion. Then it

was that Chichikov suddenly recollected that, when a friend has invited

one to visit his country house, and has said that the distance thereto

is fifteen versts, the distance is sure to turn out to be at least

thirty.

Not many people would have admired the situation of Manilov’s abode, for

it stood on an isolated rise and was open to every wind that blew. On

the slope of the rise lay closely-mown turf, while, disposed here and

there, after the English fashion, were flower-beds containing clumps of

lilac and yellow acacia. Also, there were a few insignificant groups

of slender-leaved, pointed-tipped birch trees, with, under two of the

latter, an arbour having a shabby green cupola, some blue-painted wooden

supports, and the inscription “This is the Temple of Solitary Thought.”

Lower down the slope lay a green-coated pond--green-coated ponds

constitute a frequent spectacle in the gardens of Russian landowners;

and, lastly, from the foot of the declivity there stretched a line of

mouldy, log-built huts which, for some obscure reason or another, our

hero set himself to count. Up to two hundred or more did he count, but

nowhere could he perceive a single leaf of vegetation or a single stick

of timber. The only thing to greet the eye was the logs of which the

huts were constructed. Nevertheless the scene was to a certain extent

enlivened by the spectacle of two peasant women who, with clothes

picturesquely tucked up, were wading knee-deep in the pond and dragging

behind them, with wooden handles, a ragged fishing-net, in the meshes

of which two crawfish and a roach with glistening scales were entangled.

The women appeared to have cause of dispute between themselves--to be

rating one another about something. In the background, and to one side

of the house, showed a faint, dusky blur of pinewood, and even the

weather was in keeping with the surroundings, since the day was neither

clear nor dull, but of the grey tint which may be noted in uniforms of

garrison soldiers which have seen long service. To complete the picture,

a cock, the recognised harbinger of atmospheric mutations, was present;

and, in spite of the fact that a certain connection with affairs of

gallantry had led to his having had his head pecked bare by other

cocks, he flapped a pair of wings--appendages as bare as two pieces of

bast--and crowed loudly.

As Chichikov approached the courtyard of the mansion he caught sight

of his host (clad in a green frock coat) standing on the verandah and

pressing one hand to his eyes to shield them from the sun and so get a

better view of the approaching carriage. In proportion as the britchka

drew nearer and nearer to the verandah, the host’s eyes assumed a more

and more delighted expression, and his smile a broader and broader

sweep.

“Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed when at length Chichikov leapt from the

vehicle. “Never should I have believed that you would have remembered

us!”

The two friends exchanged hearty embraces, and Manilov then conducted

his guest to the drawing-room. During the brief time that they are

traversing the hall, the anteroom, and the dining-room, let me try

to say something concerning the master of the house. But such an

undertaking bristles with difficulties--it promises to be a far less

easy task than the depicting of some outstanding personality which calls

but for a wholesale dashing of colours upon the canvas--the colours of

a pair of dark, burning eyes, a pair of dark, beetling brows, a forehead

seamed with wrinkles, a black, or a fiery-red, cloak thrown backwards

over the shoulder, and so forth, and so forth. Yet, so numerous are

Russian serf owners that, though careful scrutiny reveals to one’s sight

a quantity of outre peculiarities, they are, as a class, exceedingly

difficult to portray, and one needs to strain one’s faculties to the

utmost before it becomes possible to pick out their variously subtle,

their almost invisible, features. In short, one needs, before doing

this, to carry out a prolonged probing with the aid of an insight

sharpened in the acute school of research.

Only God can say what Manilov’s real character was. A class of men

exists whom the proverb has described as “men unto themselves, neither

this nor that--neither Bogdan of the city nor Selifan of the village.”

And to that class we had better assign also Manilov. Outwardly he was

presentable enough, for his features were not wanting in amiability, but

that amiability was a quality into which there entered too much of the

sugary element, so that his every gesture, his every attitude, seemed

to connote an excess of eagerness to curry favour and cultivate a closer

acquaintance. On first speaking to the man, his ingratiating smile, his

flaxen hair, and his blue eyes would lead one to say, “What a pleasant,

good-tempered fellow he seems!” yet during the next moment or two one

would feel inclined to say nothing at all, and, during the third moment,

only to say, “The devil alone knows what he is!” And should, thereafter,

one not hasten to depart, one would inevitably become overpowered with

the deadly sense of ennui which comes of the intuition that nothing

in the least interesting is to be looked for, but only a series of

wearisome utterances of the kind which are apt to fall from the lips

of a man whose hobby has once been touched upon. For every man HAS his

hobby. One man’s may be sporting dogs; another man’s may be that of

believing himself to be a lover of music, and able to sound the art to

its inmost depths; another’s may be that of posing as a connoisseur of

recherche cookery; another’s may be that of aspiring to play roles of

a kind higher than nature has assigned him; another’s (though this is

a more limited ambition) may be that of getting drunk, and of dreaming

that he is edifying both his friends, his acquaintances, and people with

whom he has no connection at all by walking arm-in-arm with an Imperial

aide-de-camp; another’s may be that of possessing a hand able to chip

corners off aces and deuces of diamonds; another’s may be that of

yearning to set things straight--in other words, to approximate his

personality to that of a stationmaster or a director of posts. In short,

almost every man has his hobby or his leaning; yet Manilov had none

such, for at home he spoke little, and spent the greater part of

his time in meditation--though God only knows what that meditation

comprised! Nor can it be said that he took much interest in the

management of his estate, for he never rode into the country, and the

estate practically managed itself. Whenever the bailiff said to him, “It

might be well to have such-and-such a thing done,” he would reply, “Yes,

that is not a bad idea,” and then go on smoking his pipe--a habit which

he had acquired during his service in the army, where he had been looked

upon as an officer of modesty, delicacy, and refinement. “Yes, it is NOT

a bad idea,” he would repeat. Again, whenever a peasant approached him

and, rubbing the back of his neck, said “Barin, may I have leave to go

and work for myself, in order that I may earn my obrok [9]?” he would

snap out, with pipe in mouth as usual, “Yes, go!” and never trouble his

head as to whether the peasant’s real object might not be to go and get

drunk. True, at intervals he would say, while gazing from the verandah

to the courtyard, and from the courtyard to the pond, that it would be

indeed splendid if a carriage drive could suddenly materialise, and the

pond as suddenly become spanned with a stone bridge, and little shops

as suddenly arise whence pedlars could dispense the petty merchandise of

the kind which peasantry most need. And at such moments his eyes

would grow winning, and his features assume an expression of intense

satisfaction. Yet never did these projects pass beyond the stage of

debate. Likewise there lay in his study a book with the fourteenth page

permanently turned down. It was a book which he had been reading for

the past two years! In general, something seemed to be wanting in the

establishment. For instance, although the drawing-room was filled with

beautiful furniture, and upholstered in some fine silken material which

clearly had cost no inconsiderable sum, two of the chairs lacked

any covering but bast, and for some years past the master had been

accustomed to warn his guests with the words, “Do not sit upon these

chairs; they are not yet ready for use.” Another room contained no

furniture at all, although, a few days after the marriage, it had been

said: “My dear, to-morrow let us set about procuring at least some

TEMPORARY furniture for this room.” Also, every evening would see placed

upon the drawing-room table a fine bronze candelabrum, a statuette

representative of the Three Graces, a tray inlaid with mother-of-pearl,

and a rickety, lop-sided copper invalide. Yet of the fact that all four

articles were thickly coated with grease neither the master of the

house nor the mistress nor the servants seemed to entertain the least

suspicion. At the same time, Manilov and his wife were quite satisfied

with each other. More than eight years had elapsed since their marriage,

yet one of them was for ever offering his or her partner a piece of

apple or a bonbon or a nut, while murmuring some tender something which

voiced a whole-hearted affection. “Open your mouth, dearest”--thus ran

the formula--“and let me pop into it this titbit.” You may be sure that

on such occasions the “dearest mouth” parted its lips most graciously!

For their mutual birthdays the pair always contrived some “surprise

present” in the shape of a glass receptacle for tooth-powder, or what

not; and as they sat together on the sofa he would suddenly, and for

some unknown reason, lay aside his pipe, and she her work (if at the

moment she happened to be holding it in her hands) and husband and wife

would imprint upon one another’s cheeks such a prolonged and languishing

kiss that during its continuance you could have smoked a small cigar. In

short, they were what is known as “a very happy couple.” Yet it may be

remarked that a household requires other pursuits to be engaged in than

lengthy embracings and the preparing of cunning “surprises.” Yes, many

a function calls for fulfilment. For instance, why should it be thought

foolish or low to superintend the kitchen? Why should care not be taken

that the storeroom never lacks supplies? Why should a housekeeper be

allowed to thieve? Why should slovenly and drunken servants exist?

Why should a domestic staff be suffered in indulge in bouts of

unconscionable debauchery during its leisure time? Yet none of these

things were thought worthy of consideration by Manilov’s wife, for she

had been gently brought up, and gentle nurture, as we all know, is to

be acquired only in boarding schools, and boarding schools, as we know,

hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human

virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness

of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile

a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of

housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other

“surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take

place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations

and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance,

in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the

French language second, and then the above department of housewifery;

while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list,

and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos--so diverse

are the systems in force! None the less, I may remark that Madame

Manilov--

But let me confess that I always shrink from saying too much about

ladies. Moreover, it is time that we returned to our heroes, who, during

the past few minutes, have been standing in front of the drawing-room

door, and engaged in urging one another to enter first.

“Pray be so good as not to inconvenience yourself on my account,” said

Chichikov. “_I_ will follow YOU.”

“No, Paul Ivanovitch--no! You are my guest.” And Manilov pointed towards

the doorway.

“Make no difficulty about it, I pray,” urged Chichikov. “I beg of you to

make no difficulty about it, but to pass into the room.”

“Pardon me, I will not. Never could I allow so distinguished and so

welcome a guest as yourself to take second place.”

“Why call me ‘distinguished,’ my dear sir? I beg of you to proceed.”

“Nay; be YOU pleased to do so.”

“And why?”

“For the reason which I have stated.” And Manilov smiled his very

pleasantest smile.

Finally the pair entered simultaneously and sideways; with the result

that they jostled one another not a little in the process.

“Allow me to present to you my wife,” continued Manilov. “My dear--Paul

Ivanovitch.”

Upon that Chichikov caught sight of a lady whom hitherto he had

overlooked, but who, with Manilov, was now bowing to him in the doorway.

Not wholly of unpleasing exterior, she was dressed in a well-fitting,

high-necked morning dress of pale-coloured silk; and as the visitor

entered the room her small white hands threw something upon the table

and clutched her embroidered skirt before rising from the sofa where she

had been seated. Not without a sense of pleasure did Chichikov take her

hand as, lisping a little, she declared that she and her husband were

equally gratified by his coming, and that, of late, not a day had passed

without her husband recalling him to mind.

“Yes,” affirmed Manilov; “and every day SHE has said to ME: ‘Why does

not your friend put in an appearance?’ ‘Wait a little dearest,’ I have

always replied. ‘’Twill not be long now before he comes.’ And you HAVE

come, you HAVE honoured us with a visit, you HAVE bestowed upon us a

treat--a treat destined to convert this day into a gala day, a true

birthday of the heart.”

The intimation that matters had reached the point of the occasion being

destined to constitute a “true birthday of the heart” caused Chichikov

to become a little confused; wherefore he made modest reply that, as a

matter of fact, he was neither of distinguished origin nor distinguished

rank.

“Ah, you ARE so,” interrupted Manilov with his fixed and engaging smile.

“You are all that, and more.”

“How like you our town?” queried Madame. “Have you spent an agreeable

time in it?”

“Very,” replied Chichikov. “The town is an exceedingly nice one, and I

have greatly enjoyed its hospitable society.”

“And what do you think of our Governor?”

“Yes; IS he not a most engaging and dignified personage?” added Manilov.

“He is all that,” assented Chichikov. “Indeed, he is a man worthy of the

greatest respect. And how thoroughly he performs his duty according to

his lights! Would that we had more like him!”

“And the tactfulness with which he greets every one!” added Manilov,

smiling, and half-closing his eyes, like a cat which is being tickled

behind the ears.

“Quite so,” assented Chichikov. “He is a man of the most eminent

civility and approachableness. And what an artist! Never should I have

thought he could have worked the marvellous household samplers which he

has done! Some specimens of his needlework which he showed me could not

well have been surpassed by any lady in the land!”

“And the Vice-Governor, too--he is a nice man, is he not?” inquired

Manilov with renewed blinkings of the eyes.

“Who? The Vice-Governor? Yes, a most worthy fellow!” replied Chichikov.

“And what of the Chief of Police? Is it not a fact that he too is in the

highest degree agreeable?”

“Very agreeable indeed. And what a clever, well-read individual! With

him and the Public Prosecutor and the President of the Local Council I

played whist until the cocks uttered their last morning crow. He is a

most excellent fellow.”

“And what of his wife?” queried Madame Manilov. “Is she not a most

gracious personality?”

“One of the best among my limited acquaintance,” agreed Chichikov.

Nor were the President of the Local Council and the Postmaster

overlooked; until the company had run through the whole list of urban

officials. And in every case those officials appeared to be persons of

the highest possible merit.

“Do you devote your time entirely to your estate?” asked Chichikov, in

his turn.

“Well, most of it,” replied Manilov; “though also we pay occasional

visits to the town, in order that we may mingle with a little well-bred

society. One grows a trifle rusty if one lives for ever in retirement.”

“Quite so,” agreed Chichikov.

“Yes, quite so,” capped Manilov. “At the same time, it would be a

different matter if the neighbourhood were a GOOD one--if, for example,

one had a friend with whom one could discuss manners and polite

deportment, or engage in some branch of science, and so stimulate one’s

wits. For that sort of thing gives one’s intellect an airing. It, it--”

At a loss for further words, he ended by remarking that his feelings

were apt to carry him away; after which he continued with a gesture:

“What I mean is that, were that sort of thing possible, I, for

one, could find the country and an isolated life possessed of great

attractions. But, as matters stand, such a thing is NOT possible. All

that I can manage to do is, occasionally, to read a little of A Son of

the Fatherland.”

With these sentiments Chichikov expressed entire agreement: adding that

nothing could be more delightful than to lead a solitary life in which

there should be comprised only the sweet contemplation of nature and the

intermittent perusal of a book.

“Nay, but even THAT were worth nothing had not one a friend with whom to

share one’s life,” remarked Manilov.

“True, true,” agreed Chichikov. “Without a friend, what are all the

treasures in the world? ‘Possess not money,’ a wise man has said, ‘but

rather good friends to whom to turn in case of need.’”

“Yes, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Manilov with a glance not merely sweet,

but positively luscious--a glance akin to the mixture which even clever

physicians have to render palatable before they can induce a hesitant

patient to take it. “Consequently you may imagine what happiness--what

PERFECT happiness, so to speak--the present occasion has brought me,

seeing that I am permitted to converse with you and to enjoy your

conversation.”

“But WHAT of my conversation?” replied Chichikov. “I am an insignificant

individual, and, beyond that, nothing.”

“Oh, Paul Ivanovitch!” cried the other. “Permit me to be frank, and to

say that I would give half my property to possess even a PORTION of the

talents which you possess.”

“On the contrary, I should consider it the highest honour in the world

if--”

The lengths to which this mutual outpouring of soul would have proceeded

had not a servant entered to announce luncheon must remain a mystery.

“I humbly invite you to join us at table,” said Manilov. “Also, you will

pardon us for the fact that we cannot provide a banquet such as is to

be obtained in our metropolitan cities? We partake of simple fare,

according to Russian custom--we confine ourselves to shtchi [10], but we

do so with a single heart. Come, I humbly beg of you.”

After another contest for the honour of yielding precedence, Chichikov

succeeded in making his way (in zigzag fashion) to the dining-room,

where they found awaiting them a couple of youngsters. These were

Manilov’s sons, and boys of the age which admits of their presence at

table, but necessitates the continued use of high chairs. Beside them

was their tutor, who bowed politely and smiled; after which the hostess

took her seat before her soup plate, and the guest of honour found

himself esconsed between her and the master of the house, while the

servant tied up the boys’ necks in bibs.

“What charming children!” said Chichikov as he gazed at the pair. “And

how old are they?”

“The eldest is eight,” replied Manilov, “and the younger one attained

the age of six yesterday.”

“Themistocleus,” went on the father, turning to his first-born, who was

engaged in striving to free his chin from the bib with which the footman

had encircled it. On hearing this distinctly Greek name (to which, for

some unknown reason, Manilov always appended the termination “eus”),

Chichikov raised his eyebrows a little, but hastened, the next moment,

to restore his face to a more befitting expression.

“Themistocleus,” repeated the father, “tell me which is the finest city

in France.”

Upon this the tutor concentrated his attention upon Themistocleus, and

appeared to be trying hard to catch his eye. Only when Themistocleus had

muttered “Paris” did the preceptor grow calmer, and nod his head.

“And which is the finest city in Russia?” continued Manilov.

Again the tutor’s attitude became wholly one of concentration.

“St. Petersburg,” replied Themistocleus.

“And what other city?”

“Moscow,” responded the boy.

“Clever little dear!” burst out Chichikov, turning with an air of

surprise to the father. “Indeed, I feel bound to say that the child

evinces the greatest possible potentialities.”

“You do not know him fully,” replied the delighted Manilov. “The amount

of sharpness which he possesses is extraordinary. Our younger one,

Alkid, is not so quick; whereas his brother--well, no matter what he

may happen upon (whether upon a cowbug or upon a water-beetle or upon

anything else), his little eyes begin jumping out of his head, and he

runs to catch the thing, and to inspect it. For HIM I am reserving a

diplomatic post. Themistocleus,” added the father, again turning to his

son, “do you wish to become an ambassador?”

“Yes, I do,” replied Themistocleus, chewing a piece of bread and wagging

his head from side to side.

At this moment the lacquey who had been standing behind the future

ambassador wiped the latter’s nose; and well it was that he did so,

since otherwise an inelegant and superfluous drop would have been added

to the soup. After that the conversation turned upon the joys of a quiet

life--though occasionally it was interrupted by remarks from the hostess

on the subject of acting and actors. Meanwhile the tutor kept his eyes

fixed upon the speakers’ faces; and whenever he noticed that they were

on the point of laughing he at once opened his mouth, and laughed with

enthusiasm. Probably he was a man of grateful heart who wished to

repay his employers for the good treatment which he had received. Once,

however, his features assumed a look of grimness as, fixing his eyes

upon his vis-a-vis, the boys, he tapped sternly upon the table. This

happened at a juncture when Themistocleus had bitten Alkid on the ear,

and the said Alkid, with frowning eyes and open mouth, was preparing

himself to sob in piteous fashion; until, recognising that for such a

proceeding he might possibly be deprived of his plate, he hastened to

restore his mouth to its original expression, and fell tearfully to

gnawing a mutton bone--the grease from which had soon covered his

cheeks.

Every now and again the hostess would turn to Chichikov with the words,

“You are eating nothing--you have indeed taken little;” but invariably

her guest replied: “Thank you, I have had more than enough. A pleasant

conversation is worth all the dishes in the world.”

At length the company rose from table. Manilov was in high spirits,

and, laying his hand upon his guest’s shoulder, was on the point of

conducting him to the drawing-room, when suddenly Chichikov intimated

to him, with a meaning look, that he wished to speak to him on a very

important matter.

“That being so,” said Manilov, “allow me to invite you into my study.”

And he led the way to a small room which faced the blue of the forest.

“This is my sanctum,” he added.

“What a pleasant apartment!” remarked Chichikov as he eyed it carefully.

And, indeed, the room did not lack a certain attractiveness. The walls

were painted a sort of blueish-grey colour, and the furniture consisted

of four chairs, a settee, and a table--the latter of which bore a few

sheets of writing-paper and the book of which I have before had occasion

to speak. But the most prominent feature of the room was tobacco, which

appeared in many different guises--in packets, in a tobacco jar, and in

a loose heap strewn about the table. Likewise, both window sills were

studded with little heaps of ash, arranged, not without artifice, in

rows of more or less tidiness. Clearly smoking afforded the master of

the house a frequent means of passing the time.

“Permit me to offer you a seat on this settee,” said Manilov. “Here you

will be quieter than you would be in the drawing-room.”

“But I should prefer to sit upon this chair.”

“I cannot allow that,” objected the smiling Manilov. “The settee is

specially reserved for my guests. Whether you choose or no, upon it you

MUST sit.”

Accordingly Chichikov obeyed.

“And also let me hand you a pipe.”

“No, I never smoke,” answered Chichikov civilly, and with an assumed air

of regret.

“And why?” inquired Manilov--equally civilly, but with a regret that was

wholly genuine.

“Because I fear that I have never quite formed the habit, owing to

my having heard that a pipe exercises a desiccating effect upon the

system.”

“Then allow me to tell you that that is mere prejudice. Nay, I would

even go so far as to say that to smoke a pipe is a healthier practice

than to take snuff. Among its members our regiment numbered a

lieutenant--a most excellent, well-educated fellow--who was simply

INCAPABLE of removing his pipe from his mouth, whether at table or

(pardon me) in other places. He is now forty, yet no man could enjoy

better health than he has always done.”

Chichikov replied that such cases were common, since nature comprised

many things which even the finest intellect could not compass.

“But allow me to put to you a question,” he went on in a tone in which

there was a strange--or, at all events, RATHER a strange--note. For some

unknown reason, also, he glanced over his shoulder. For some equally

unknown reason, Manilov glanced over HIS.

“How long is it,” inquired the guest, “since you last rendered a census

return?”

“Oh, a long, long time. In fact, I cannot remember when it was.”

“And since then have many of your serfs died?”

“I do not know. To ascertain that I should need to ask my bailiff.

Footman, go and call the bailiff. I think he will be at home to-day.”

Before long the bailiff made his appearance. He was a man of under

forty, clean-shaven, clad in a smock, and evidently used to a quiet

life, seeing that his face was of that puffy fullness, and the skin

encircling his slit-like eyes was of that sallow tint, which shows that

the owner of those features is well acquainted with a feather bed. In a

trice it could be seen that he had played his part in life as all such

bailiffs do--that, originally a young serf of elementary education, he

had married some Agashka of a housekeeper or a mistress’s favourite, and

then himself become housekeeper, and, subsequently, bailiff; after which

he had proceeded according to the rules of his tribe--that is to say,

he had consorted with and stood in with the more well-to-do serfs on the

estate, and added the poorer ones to the list of forced payers of obrok,

while himself leaving his bed at nine o’clock in the morning, and, when

the samovar had been brought, drinking his tea at leisure.

“Look here, my good man,” said Manilov. “How many of our serfs have died

since the last census revision?”

“How many of them have died? Why, a great many.” The bailiff hiccoughed,

and slapped his mouth lightly after doing so.

“Yes, I imagined that to be the case,” corroborated Manilov. “In fact,

a VERY great many serfs have died.” He turned to Chichikov and repeated

the words.

“How many, for instance?” asked Chichikov.

“Yes; how many?” re-echoed Manilov.

“HOW many?” re-echoed the bailiff. “Well, no one knows the exact number,

for no one has kept any account.”

“Quite so,” remarked Manilov. “I supposed the death-rate to have been

high, but was ignorant of its precise extent.”

“Then would you be so good as to have it computed for me?” said

Chichikov. “And also to have a detailed list of the deaths made out?”

“Yes, I will--a detailed list,” agreed Manilov.

“Very well.”

The bailiff departed.

“For what purpose do you want it?” inquired Manilov when the bailiff had

gone.

The question seemed to embarrass the guest, for in Chichikov’s face

there dawned a sort of tense expression, and it reddened as though its

owner were striving to express something not easy to put into words.

True enough, Manilov was now destined to hear such strange and

unexpected things as never before had greeted human ears.

“You ask me,” said Chichikov, “for what purpose I want the list. Well,

my purpose in wanting it is this--that I desire to purchase a few

peasants.” And he broke off in a gulp.

“But may I ask HOW you desire to purchase those peasants?” asked

Manilov. “With land, or merely as souls for transferment--that is to

say, by themselves, and without any land?”

“I want the peasants themselves only,” replied Chichikov. “And I want

dead ones at that.”

“What?--Excuse me, but I am a trifle deaf. Really, your words sound most

strange!”

“All that I am proposing to do,” replied Chichikov, “is to purchase the

dead peasants who, at the last census, were returned by you as alive.”

Manilov dropped his pipe on the floor, and sat gaping. Yes, the two

friends who had just been discussing the joys of camaraderie sat

staring at one another like the portraits which, of old, used to hang on

opposite sides of a mirror. At length Manilov picked up his pipe, and,

while doing so, glanced covertly at Chichikov to see whether there was

any trace of a smile to be detected on his lips--whether, in short, he

was joking. But nothing of the sort could be discerned. On the contrary,

Chichikov’s face looked graver than usual. Next, Manilov wondered

whether, for some unknown reason, his guest had lost his wits; wherefore

he spent some time in gazing at him with anxious intentness. But the

guest’s eyes seemed clear--they contained no spark of the wild, restless

fire which is apt to wander in the eyes of madmen. All was as it should

be. Consequently, in spite of Manilov’s cogitations, he could think

of nothing better to do than to sit letting a stream of tobacco smoke

escape from his mouth.

“So,” continued Chichikov, “what I desire to know is whether you are

willing to hand over to me--to resign--these actually non-living, but

legally living, peasants; or whether you have any better proposal to

make?”

Manilov felt too confused and confounded to do aught but continue

staring at his interlocutor.

“I think that you are disturbing yourself unnecessarily,” was

Chichikov’s next remark.

“I? Oh no! Not at all!” stammered Manilov. “Only--pardon me--I do not

quite comprehend you. You see, never has it fallen to my lot to acquire

the brilliant polish which is, so to speak, manifest in your every

movement. Nor have I ever been able to attain the art of expressing

myself well. Consequently, although there is a possibility that in

the--er--utterances which have just fallen from your lips there may

lie something else concealed, it may equally be that--er--you have been

pleased so to express yourself for the sake of the beauty of the terms

wherein that expression found shape?”

“Oh, no,” asserted Chichikov. “I mean what I say and no more. My

reference to such of your pleasant souls as are dead was intended to be

taken literally.”

Manilov still felt at a loss--though he was conscious that he MUST do

something, he MUST propound some question. But what question? The devil

alone knew! In the end he merely expelled some more tobacco smoke--this

time from his nostrils as well as from his mouth.

“So,” went on Chichikov, “if no obstacle stands in the way, we might as

well proceed to the completion of the purchase.”

“What? Of the purchase of the dead souls?”

“Of the ‘dead’ souls? Oh dear no! Let us write them down as LIVING ones,

seeing that that is how they figure in the census returns. Never do I

permit myself to step outside the civil law, great though has been

the harm which that rule has wrought me in my career. In my eyes an

obligation is a sacred thing. In the presence of the law I am dumb.”

These last words reassured Manilov not a little: yet still the meaning

of the affair remained to him a mystery. By way of answer, he fell to

sucking at his pipe with such vehemence that at length the pipe began

to gurgle like a bassoon. It was as though he had been seeking of

it inspiration in the present unheard-of juncture. But the pipe only

gurgled, et praeterea nihil.

“Perhaps you feel doubtful about the proposal?” said Chichikov.

“Not at all,” replied Manilov. “But you will, I know, excuse me if I

say (and I say it out of no spirit of prejudice, nor yet as criticising

yourself in any way)--you will, I know, excuse me if I say that possibly

this--er--this, er, SCHEME of yours, this--er--TRANSACTION of yours, may

fail altogether to accord with the Civil Statutes and Provisions of the

Realm?”

And Manilov, with a slight gesture of the head, looked meaningly into

Chichikov’s face, while displaying in his every feature, including

his closely-compressed lips, such an expression of profundity as

never before was seen on any human countenance--unless on that of some

particularly sapient Minister of State who is debating some particularly

abstruse problem.

Nevertheless Chichikov rejoined that the kind of scheme or transaction

which he had adumbrated in no way clashed with the Civil Statutes and

Provisions of Russia; to which he added that the Treasury would even

BENEFIT by the enterprise, seeing it would draw therefrom the usual

legal percentage.

“What, then, do you propose?” asked Manilov.

“I propose only what is above-board, and nothing else.”

“Then, that being so, it is another matter, and I have nothing to urge

against it,” said Manilov, apparently reassured to the full.

“Very well,” remarked Chichikov. “Then we need only to agree as to the

price.”

“As to the price?” began Manilov, and then stopped. Presently he went

on: “Surely you cannot suppose me capable of taking money for souls

which, in one sense at least, have completed their existence? Seeing

that this fantastic whim of yours (if I may so call it?) has seized

upon you to the extent that it has, I, on my side, shall be ready to

surrender to you those souls UNCONDITIONALLY, and to charge myself with

the whole expenses of the sale.”

I should be greatly to blame if I were to omit that, as soon as Manilov

had pronounced these words, the face of his guest became replete with

satisfaction. Indeed, grave and prudent a man though Chichikov was,

he had much ado to refrain from executing a leap that would have done

credit to a goat (an animal which, as we all know, finds itself moved

to such exertions only during moments of the most ecstatic joy).

Nevertheless the guest did at least execute such a convulsive shuffle

that the material with which the cushions of the chair were covered came

apart, and Manilov gazed at him with some misgiving. Finally Chichikov’s

gratitude led him to plunge into a stream of acknowledgement of a

vehemence which caused his host to grow confused, to blush, to shake

his head in deprecation, and to end by declaring that the concession was

nothing, and that, his one desire being to manifest the dictates of

his heart and the psychic magnetism which his friend exercised, he, in

short, looked upon the dead souls as so much worthless rubbish.

“Not at all,” replied Chichikov, pressing his hand; after which

he heaved a profound sigh. Indeed, he seemed in the right mood for

outpourings of the heart, for he continued--not without a ring of

emotion in his tone: “If you but knew the service which you have

rendered to an apparently insignificant individual who is devoid both

of family and kindred! For what have I not suffered in my time--I, a

drifting barque amid the tempestuous billows of life? What harryings,

what persecutions, have I not known? Of what grief have I not tasted?

And why? Simply because I have ever kept the truth in view, because ever

I have preserved inviolate an unsullied conscience, because ever I have

stretched out a helping hand to the defenceless widow and the hapless

orphan!” After which outpouring Chichikov pulled out his handkerchief,

and wiped away a brimming tear.

Manilov’s heart was moved to the core. Again and again did the two

friends press one another’s hands in silence as they gazed into one

another’s tear-filled eyes. Indeed, Manilov COULD not let go our hero’s

hand, but clasped it with such warmth that the hero in question began

to feel himself at a loss how best to wrench it free: until, quietly

withdrawing it, he observed that to have the purchase completed as

speedily as possible would not be a bad thing; wherefore he himself

would at once return to the town to arrange matters. Taking up his hat,

therefore, he rose to make his adieus.

“What? Are you departing already?” said Manilov, suddenly recovering

himself, and experiencing a sense of misgiving. At that moment his wife

sailed into the room.

“Is Paul Ivanovitch leaving us so soon, dearest Lizanka?” she said with

an air of regret.

“Yes. Surely it must be that we have wearied him?” her spouse replied.

“By no means,” asserted Chichikov, pressing his hand to his heart. “In

this breast, madam, will abide for ever the pleasant memory of the time

which I have spent with you. Believe me, I could conceive of no greater

blessing than to reside, if not under the same roof as yourselves, at

all events in your immediate neighbourhood.”

“Indeed?” exclaimed Manilov, greatly pleased with the idea. “How

splendid it would be if you DID come to reside under our roof, so that

we could recline under an elm tree together, and talk philosophy, and

delve to the very root of things!”

“Yes, it WOULD be a paradisaical existence!” agreed Chichikov with a

sigh. Nevertheless he shook hands with Madame. “Farewell, sudarina,” he

said. “And farewell to YOU, my esteemed host. Do not forget what I have

requested you to do.”

“Rest assured that I will not,” responded Manilov. “Only for a couple of

days will you and I be parted from one another.”

With that the party moved into the drawing-room.

“Farewell, dearest children,” Chichikov went on as he caught sight of

Alkid and Themistocleus, who were playing with a wooden hussar which

lacked both a nose and one arm. “Farewell, dearest pets. Pardon me for

having brought you no presents, but, to tell you the truth, I was not,

until my visit, aware of your existence. However, now that I shall be

coming again, I will not fail to bring you gifts. Themistocleus, to you

I will bring a sword. You would like that, would you not?”

“I should,” replied Themistocleus.

“And to you, Alkid, I will bring a drum. That would suit you, would it

not?” And he bowed in Alkid’s direction.

“Zeth--a drum,” lisped the boy, hanging his head.

“Good! Then a drum it shall be--SUCH a beautiful drum! What a

tur-r-r-ru-ing and a tra-ta-ta-ta-ing you will be able to kick up!

Farewell, my darling.” And, kissing the boy’s head, he turned to Manilov

and Madame with the slight smile which one assumes before assuring

parents of the guileless merits of their offspring.

“But you had better stay, Paul Ivanovitch,” said the father as the trio

stepped out on to the verandah. “See how the clouds are gathering!”

“They are only small ones,” replied Chichikov.

“And you know your way to Sobakevitch’s?”

“No, I do not, and should be glad if you would direct me.”

“If you like I will tell your coachman.” And in very civil fashion

Manilov did so, even going so far as to address the man in the second

person plural. On hearing that he was to pass two turnings, and then to

take a third, Selifan remarked, “We shall get there all right, sir,” and

Chichikov departed amid a profound salvo of salutations and wavings of

handkerchiefs on the part of his host and hostess, who raised themselves

on tiptoe in their enthusiasm.

For a long while Manilov stood following the departing britchka with his

eyes. In fact, he continued to smoke his pipe and gaze after the

vehicle even when it had become lost to view. Then he re-entered the

drawing-room, seated himself upon a chair, and surrendered his mind to

the thought that he had shown his guest most excellent entertainment.

Next, his mind passed imperceptibly to other matters, until at last it

lost itself God only knows where. He thought of the amenities of a life,

of friendship, and of how nice it would be to live with a comrade on,

say, the bank of some river, and to span the river with a bridge of his

own, and to build an enormous mansion with a facade lofty enough even to

afford a view to Moscow. On that facade he and his wife and friend would

drink afternoon tea in the open air, and discuss interesting subjects;

after which, in a fine carriage, they would drive to some reunion or

other, where with their pleasant manners they would so charm the company

that the Imperial Government, on learning of their merits, would raise

the pair to the grade of General or God knows what--that is to say, to

heights whereof even Manilov himself could form no idea. Then suddenly

Chichikov’s extraordinary request interrupted the dreamer’s reflections,

and he found his brain powerless to digest it, seeing that, turn and

turn the matter about as he might, he could not properly explain its

bearing. Smoking his pipe, he sat where he was until supper time.

CHAPTER III

Meanwhile, Chichikov, seated in his britchka and bowling along the

turnpike, was feeling greatly pleased with himself. From the preceding

chapter the reader will have gathered the principal subject of his bent

and inclinations: wherefore it is no matter for wonder that his body

and his soul had ended by becoming wholly immersed therein. To all

appearances the thoughts, the calculations, and the projects which

were now reflected in his face partook of a pleasant nature, since

momentarily they kept leaving behind them a satisfied smile. Indeed, so

engrossed was he that he never noticed that his coachman, elated with

the hospitality of Manilov’s domestics, was making remarks of a didactic

nature to the off horse of the troika [11], a skewbald. This skewbald

was a knowing animal, and made only a show of pulling; whereas its

comrades, the middle horse (a bay, and known as the Assessor, owing to

his having been acquired from a gentleman of that rank) and the near

horse (a roan), would do their work gallantly, and even evince in their

eyes the pleasure which they derived from their exertions.

“Ah, you rascal, you rascal! I’ll get the better of you!” ejaculated

Selifan as he sat up and gave the lazy one a cut with his whip. “YOU

know your business all right, you German pantaloon! The bay is a good

fellow, and does his duty, and I will give him a bit over his feed, for

he is a horse to be respected; and the Assessor too is a good horse. But

what are YOU shaking your ears for? You are a fool, so just mind when

you’re spoken to. ’Tis good advice I’m giving you, you blockhead. Ah!

You CAN travel when you like.” And he gave the animal another cut,

and then shouted to the trio, “Gee up, my beauties!” and drew his whip

gently across the backs of the skewbald’s comrades--not as a punishment,

but as a sign of his approval. That done, he addressed himself to the

skewbald again.

“Do you think,” he cried, “that I don’t see what you are doing? You can

behave quite decently when you like, and make a man respect you.”

With that he fell to recalling certain reminiscences.

“They were NICE folk, those folk at the gentleman’s yonder,” he mused.

“I DO love a chat with a man when he is a good sort. With a man of that

kind I am always hail-fellow-well-met, and glad to drink a glass of

tea with him, or to eat a biscuit. One CAN’T help respecting a decent

fellow. For instance, this gentleman of mine--why, every one looks up

to him, for he has been in the Government’s service, and is a Collegiate

Councillor.”

Thus soliloquising, he passed to more remote abstractions; until, had

Chichikov been listening, he would have learnt a number of interesting

details concerning himself. However, his thoughts were wholly occupied

with his own subject, so much so that not until a loud clap of thunder

awoke him from his reverie did he glance around him. The sky was

completely covered with clouds, and the dusty turnpike beginning to

be sprinkled with drops of rain. At length a second and a nearer and a

louder peal resounded, and the rain descended as from a bucket. Falling

slantwise, it beat upon one side of the basketwork of the tilt until the

splashings began to spurt into his face, and he found himself forced to

draw the curtains (fitted with circular openings through which to obtain

a glimpse of the wayside view), and to shout to Selifan to quicken his

pace. Upon that the coachman, interrupted in the middle of his harangue,

bethought him that no time was to be lost; wherefore, extracting from

under the box-seat a piece of old blanket, he covered over his sleeves,

resumed the reins, and cheered on his threefold team (which, it may

be said, had so completely succumbed to the influence of the pleasant

lassitude induced by Selifan’s discourse that it had taken to scarcely

placing one leg before the other). Unfortunately, Selifan could not

clearly remember whether two turnings had been passed or three. Indeed,

on collecting his faculties, and dimly recalling the lie of the road,

he became filled with a shrewd suspicion that A VERY LARGE NUMBER of

turnings had been passed. But since, at moments which call for a hasty

decision, a Russian is quick to discover what may conceivably be

the best course to take, our coachman put away from him all ulterior

reasoning, and, turning to the right at the next cross-road, shouted,

“Hi, my beauties!” and set off at a gallop. Never for a moment did he

stop to think whither the road might lead him!

It was long before the clouds had discharged their burden, and,

meanwhile, the dust on the road became kneaded into mire, and the

horses’ task of pulling the britchka heavier and heavier. Also,

Chichikov had taken alarm at his continued failure to catch sight of

Sobakevitch’s country house. According to his calculations, it ought to

have been reached long ago. He gazed about him on every side, but the

darkness was too dense for the eye to pierce.

“Selifan!” he exclaimed, leaning forward in the britchka.

“What is it, barin?” replied the coachman.

“Can you see the country house anywhere?”

“No, barin.” After which, with a flourish of the whip, the man broke

into a sort of endless, drawling song. In that song everything had

a place. By “everything” I mean both the various encouraging and

stimulating cries with which Russian folk urge on their horses, and a

random, unpremeditated selection of adjectives.

Meanwhile Chichikov began to notice that the britchka was swaying

violently, and dealing him occasional bumps. Consequently he suspected

that it had left the road and was being dragged over a ploughed field.

Upon Selifan’s mind there appeared to have dawned a similar inkling, for

he had ceased to hold forth.

“You rascal, what road are you following?” inquired Chichikov.

“I don’t know,” retorted the coachman. “What can a man do at a time of

night when the darkness won’t let him even see his whip?” And as Selifan

spoke the vehicle tilted to an angle which left Chichikov no choice but

to hang on with hands and teeth. At length he realised the fact that

Selifan was drunk.

“Stop, stop, or you will upset us!” he shouted to the fellow.

“No, no, barin,” replied Selifan. “HOW could I upset you? To upset

people is wrong. I know that very well, and should never dream of such

conduct.”

Here he started to turn the vehicle round a little--and kept on doing so

until the britchka capsized on to its side, and Chichikov landed in the

mud on his hands and knees. Fortunately Selifan succeeded in stopping

the horses, although they would have stopped of themselves, seeing

that they were utterly worn out. This unforeseen catastrophe evidently

astonished their driver. Slipping from the box, he stood resting his

hands against the side of the britchka, while Chichikov tumbled and

floundered about in the mud, in a vain endeavour to wriggle clear of the

stuff.

“Ah, you!” said Selifan meditatively to the britchka. “To think of

upsetting us like this!”

“You are as drunk as a lord!” exclaimed Chichikov.

“No, no, barin. Drunk, indeed? Why, I know my manners too well. A word

or two with a friend--that is all that I have taken. Any one may talk

with a decent man when he meets him. There is nothing wrong in

that. Also, we had a snack together. There is nothing wrong in a

snack--especially a snack with a decent man.”

“What did I say to you when last you got drunk?” asked Chichikov. “Have

you forgotten what I said then?”

“No, no, barin. HOW could I forget it? I know what is what, and know

that it is not right to get drunk. All that I have been having is a word

or two with a decent man, for the reason that--”

“Well, if I lay the whip about you, you’ll know then how to talk to a

decent fellow, I’ll warrant!”

“As you please, barin,” replied the complacent Selifan. “Should you

whip me, you will whip me, and I shall have nothing to complain of. Why

should you not whip me if I deserve it? ’Tis for you to do as you like.

Whippings are necessary sometimes, for a peasant often plays the fool,

and discipline ought to be maintained. If I have deserved it, beat me.

Why should you not?”

This reasoning seemed, at the moment, irrefutable, and Chichikov said

nothing more. Fortunately fate had decided to take pity on the pair, for

from afar their ears caught the barking of a dog. Plucking up courage,

Chichikov gave orders for the britchka to be righted, and the horses to

be urged forward; and since a Russian driver has at least this merit,

that, owing to a keen sense of smell being able to take the place

of eyesight, he can, if necessary, drive at random and yet reach a

destination of some sort, Selifan succeeded, though powerless to discern

a single object, in directing his steeds to a country house near by, and

that with such a certainty of instinct that it was not until the shafts

had collided with a garden wall, and thereby made it clear that to

proceed another pace was impossible, that he stopped. All that Chichikov

could discern through the thick veil of pouring rain was something

which resembled a verandah. So he dispatched Selifan to search for the

entrance gates, and that process would have lasted indefinitely had it

not been shortened by the circumstance that, in Russia, the place of

a Swiss footman is frequently taken by watchdogs; of which animals a

number now proclaimed the travellers’ presence so loudly that Chichikov

found himself forced to stop his ears. Next, a light gleamed in one

of the windows, and filtered in a thin stream to the garden wall--thus

revealing the whereabouts of the entrance gates; whereupon Selifan

fell to knocking at the gates until the bolts of the house door were

withdrawn and there issued therefrom a figure clad in a rough cloak.

“Who is that knocking? What have you come for?” shouted the hoarse voice

of an elderly woman.

“We are travellers, good mother,” said Chichikov. “Pray allow us to

spend the night here.”

“Out upon you for a pair of gadabouts!” retorted the old woman. “A fine

time of night to be arriving! We don’t keep an hotel, mind you. This is

a lady’s residence.”

“But what are we to do, mother? We have lost our way, and cannot spend

the night out of doors in such weather.”

“No, we cannot. The night is dark and cold,” added Selifan.

“Hold your tongue, you fool!” exclaimed Chichikov.

“Who ARE you, then?” inquired the old woman.

“A dvorianin [12], good mother.”

Somehow the word dvorianin seemed to give the old woman food for

thought.

“Wait a moment,” she said, “and I will tell the mistress.”

Two minutes later she returned with a lantern in her hand, the gates

were opened, and a light glimmered in a second window. Entering the

courtyard, the britchka halted before a moderate-sized mansion. The

darkness did not permit of very accurate observation being made,

but, apparently, the windows only of one-half of the building were

illuminated, while a quagmire in front of the door reflected the beams

from the same. Meanwhile the rain continued to beat sonorously down upon

the wooden roof, and could be heard trickling into a water butt; nor

for a single moment did the dogs cease to bark with all the strength of

their lungs. One of them, throwing up its head, kept venting a howl

of such energy and duration that the animal seemed to be howling for a

handsome wager; while another, cutting in between the yelpings of the

first animal, kept restlessly reiterating, like a postman’s bell, the

notes of a very young puppy. Finally, an old hound which appeared to be

gifted with a peculiarly robust temperament kept supplying the part of

contrabasso, so that his growls resembled the rumbling of a bass singer

when a chorus is in full cry, and the tenors are rising on tiptoe in

their efforts to compass a particularly high note, and the whole body of

choristers are wagging their heads before approaching a climax, and

this contrabasso alone is tucking his bearded chin into his collar, and

sinking almost to a squatting posture on the floor, in order to produce

a note which shall cause the windows to shiver and their panes to crack.

Naturally, from a canine chorus of such executants it might reasonably

be inferred that the establishment was one of the utmost respectability.

To that, however, our damp, cold hero gave not a thought, for all his

mind was fixed upon bed. Indeed, the britchka had hardly come to a

standstill before he leapt out upon the doorstep, missed his footing,

and came within an ace of falling. To meet him there issued a female

younger than the first, but very closely resembling her; and on his

being conducted to the parlour, a couple of glances showed him that the

room was hung with old striped curtains, and ornamented with pictures

of birds and small, antique mirrors--the latter set in dark frames which

were carved to resemble scrolls of foliage. Behind each mirror was stuck

either a letter or an old pack of cards or a stocking, while on the wall

hung a clock with a flowered dial. More, however, Chichikov could not

discern, for his eyelids were as heavy as though smeared with treacle.

Presently the lady of the house herself entered--an elderly woman in a

sort of nightcap (hastily put on) and a flannel neck wrap. She belonged

to that class of lady landowners who are for ever lamenting failures of

the harvest and their losses thereby; to the class who, drooping their

heads despondently, are all the while stuffing money into striped

purses, which they keep hoarded in the drawers of cupboards. Into one

purse they will stuff rouble pieces, into another half roubles, and into

a third tchetvertachki [13], although from their mien you would suppose

that the cupboard contained only linen and nightshirts and skeins of

wool and the piece of shabby material which is destined--should the

old gown become scorched during the baking of holiday cakes and other

dainties, or should it fall into pieces of itself--to become converted

into a new dress. But the gown never does get burnt or wear out, for

the reason that the lady is too careful; wherefore the piece of shabby

material reposes in its unmade-up condition until the priest advises

that it be given to the niece of some widowed sister, together with a

quantity of other such rubbish.

Chichikov apologised for having disturbed the household with his

unexpected arrival.

“Not at all, not at all,” replied the lady. “But in what dreadful

weather God has brought you hither! What wind and what rain! You could

not help losing your way. Pray excuse us for being unable to make better

preparations for you at this time of night.”

Suddenly there broke in upon the hostess’ words the sound of a strange

hissing, a sound so loud that the guest started in alarm, and the more

so seeing that it increased until the room seemed filled with adders. On

glancing upwards, however, he recovered his composure, for he perceived

the sound to be emanating from the clock, which appeared to be in a mind

to strike. To the hissing sound there succeeded a wheezing one, until,

putting forth its best efforts, the thing struck two with as much

clatter as though some one had been hitting an iron pot with a

cudgel. That done, the pendulum returned to its right-left, right-left

oscillation.

Chichikov thanked his hostess kindly, and said that he needed nothing,

and she must not put herself about: only for rest was he longing--though

also he should like to know whither he had arrived, and whether the

distance to the country house of land-owner Sobakevitch was anything

very great. To this the lady replied that she had never so much as heard

the name, since no gentleman of the name resided in the locality.

“But at least you are acquainted with landowner Manilov?” continued

Chichikov.

“No. Who is he?”

“Another landed proprietor, madam.”

“Well, neither have I heard of him. No such landowner lives hereabouts.”

“Then who ARE your local landowners?”

“Bobrov, Svinin, Kanapatiev, Khapakin, Trepakin, and Plieshakov.”

“Are they rich men?”

“No, none of them. One of them may own twenty souls, and another thirty,

but of gentry who own a hundred there are none.”

Chichikov reflected that he had indeed fallen into an aristocratic

wilderness!

“At all events, is the town far away?” he inquired.

“About sixty versts. How sorry I am that I have nothing for you to eat!

Should you care to drink some tea?”

“I thank you, good mother, but I require nothing beyond a bed.”

“Well, after such a journey you must indeed be needing rest, so you

shall lie upon this sofa. Fetinia, bring a quilt and some pillows and

sheets. What weather God has sent us! And what dreadful thunder! Ever

since sunset I have had a candle burning before the ikon in my bedroom.

My God! Why, your back and sides are as muddy as a boar’s! However have

you managed to get into such a state?”

“That I am nothing worse than muddy is indeed fortunate, since, but for

the Almighty, I should have had my ribs broken.”

“Dear, dear! To think of all that you must have been through. Had I not

better wipe your back?”

“I thank you, I thank you, but you need not trouble. Merely be so good

as to tell your maid to dry my clothes.”

“Do you hear that, Fetinia?” said the hostess, turning to a woman who

was engaged in dragging in a feather bed and deluging the room with

feathers. “Take this coat and this vest, and, after drying them before

the fire--just as we used to do for your late master--give them a good

rub, and fold them up neatly.”

“Very well, mistress,” said Fetinia, spreading some sheets over the bed,

and arranging the pillows.

“Now your bed is ready for you,” said the hostess to Chichikov.

“Good-night, dear sir. I wish you good-night. Is there anything else

that you require? Perhaps you would like to have your heels tickled

before retiring to rest? Never could my late husband get to sleep

without that having been done.”

But the guest declined the proffered heel-tickling, and, on his hostess

taking her departure, hastened to divest himself of his clothing, both

upper and under, and to hand the garments to Fetinia. She wished him

good-night, and removed the wet trappings; after which he found himself

alone. Not without satisfaction did he eye his bed, which reached

almost to the ceiling. Clearly Fetinia was a past mistress in the art of

beating up such a couch, and, as the result, he had no sooner mounted

it with the aid of a chair than it sank well-nigh to the floor, and the

feathers, squeezed out of their proper confines, flew hither and thither

into every corner of the apartment. Nevertheless he extinguished the

candle, covered himself over with the chintz quilt, snuggled down

beneath it, and instantly fell asleep. Next day it was late in the

morning before he awoke. Through the window the sun was shining into his

eyes, and the flies which, overnight, had been roosting quietly on the

walls and ceiling now turned their attention to the visitor. One settled

on his lip, another on his ear, a third hovered as though intending

to lodge in his very eye, and a fourth had the temerity to alight

just under his nostrils. In his drowsy condition he inhaled the latter

insect, sneezed violently, and so returned to consciousness. He

glanced around the room, and perceived that not all the pictures were

representative of birds, since among them hung also a portrait of

Kutuzov [14] and an oil painting of an old man in a uniform with red

facings such as were worn in the days of the Emperor Paul [15]. At this

moment the clock uttered its usual hissing sound, and struck ten, while

a woman’s face peered in at the door, but at once withdrew, for the

reason that, with the object of sleeping as well as possible, Chichikov

had removed every stitch of his clothing. Somehow the face seemed to him

familiar, and he set himself to recall whose it could be. At length he

recollected that it was the face of his hostess. His clothes he found

lying, clean and dry, beside him; so he dressed and approached the

mirror, meanwhile sneezing again with such vehemence that a cock which

happened at the moment to be near the window (which was situated at no

great distance from the ground) chuckled a short, sharp phrase. Probably

it meant, in the bird’s alien tongue, “Good morning to you!” Chichikov

retorted by calling the bird a fool, and then himself approached the

window to look at the view. It appeared to comprise a poulterer’s

premises. At all events, the narrow yard in front of the window was full

of poultry and other domestic creatures--of game fowls and barn door

fowls, with, among them, a cock which strutted with measured gait, and

kept shaking its comb, and tilting its head as though it were trying to

listen to something. Also, a sow and her family were helping to grace

the scene. First, she rooted among a heap of litter; then, in passing,

she ate up a young pullet; lastly, she proceeded carelessly to munch

some pieces of melon rind. To this small yard or poultry-run a length

of planking served as a fence, while beyond it lay a kitchen garden

containing cabbages, onions, potatoes, beetroots, and other household

vegetables. Also, the garden contained a few stray fruit trees that

were covered with netting to protect them from the magpies and sparrows;

flocks of which were even then wheeling and darting from one spot to

another. For the same reason a number of scarecrows with outstretched

arms stood reared on long poles, with, surmounting one of the figures,

a cast-off cap of the hostess’s. Beyond the garden again there stood a

number of peasants’ huts. Though scattered, instead of being arranged in

regular rows, these appeared to Chichikov’s eye to comprise well-to-do

inhabitants, since all rotten planks in their roofing had been replaced

with new ones, and none of their doors were askew, and such of their

tiltsheds as faced him evinced evidence of a presence of a spare

waggon--in some cases almost a new one.

“This lady owns by no means a poor village,” said Chichikov to himself;

wherefore he decided then and there to have a talk with his hostess, and

to cultivate her closer acquaintance. Accordingly he peeped through the

chink of the door whence her head had recently protruded, and, on seeing

her seated at a tea table, entered and greeted her with a cheerful,

kindly smile.

“Good morning, dear sir,” she responded as she rose. “How have you

slept?” She was dressed in better style than she had been on the

previous evening. That is to say, she was now wearing a gown of some

dark colour, and lacked her nightcap, and had swathed her neck in

something stiff.

“I have slept exceedingly well,” replied Chichikov, seating himself upon

a chair. “And how are YOU, good madam?”

“But poorly, my dear sir.”

“And why so?”

“Because I cannot sleep. A pain has taken me in my middle, and my legs,

from the ankles upwards, are aching as though they were broken.”

“That will pass, that will pass, good mother. You must pay no attention

to it.”

“God grant that it MAY pass. However, I have been rubbing myself with

lard and turpentine. What sort of tea will you take? In this jar I have

some of the scented kind.”

“Excellent, good mother! Then I will take that.”

Probably the reader will have noticed that, for all his expressions of

solicitude, Chichikov’s tone towards his hostess partook of a freer, a

more unceremonious, nature than that which he had adopted towards Madam

Manilov. And here I should like to assert that, howsoever much, in

certain respects, we Russians may be surpassed by foreigners, at least

we surpass them in adroitness of manner. In fact the various shades and

subtleties of our social intercourse defy enumeration. A Frenchman or

a German would be incapable of envisaging and understanding all its

peculiarities and differences, for his tone in speaking to a millionaire

differs but little from that which he employs towards a small

tobacconist--and that in spite of the circumstance that he is accustomed

to cringe before the former. With us, however, things are different. In

Russian society there exist clever folk who can speak in one manner to

a landowner possessed of two hundred peasant souls, and in another to

a landowner possessed of three hundred, and in another to a landowner

possessed of five hundred. In short, up to the number of a million

souls the Russian will have ready for each landowner a suitable mode of

address. For example, suppose that somewhere there exists a government

office, and that in that office there exists a director. I would beg of

you to contemplate him as he sits among his myrmidons. Sheer nervousness

will prevent you from uttering a word in his presence, so great are the

pride and superiority depicted on his countenance. Also, were you to

sketch him, you would be sketching a veritable Prometheus, for his

glance is as that of an eagle, and he walks with measured, stately

stride. Yet no sooner will the eagle have left the room to seek the

study of his superior officer than he will go scurrying along (papers

held close to his nose) like any partridge. But in society, and at the

evening party (should the rest of those present be of lesser rank than

himself) the Prometheus will once more become Prometheus, and the man

who stands a step below him will treat him in a way never dreamt of by

Ovid, seeing that each fly is of lesser account than its superior fly,

and becomes, in the presence of the latter, even as a grain of sand.

“Surely that is not Ivan Petrovitch?” you will say of such and such a

man as you regard him. “Ivan Petrovitch is tall, whereas this man is

small and spare. Ivan Petrovitch has a loud, deep voice, and never

smiles, whereas this man (whoever he may be) is twittering like a

sparrow, and smiling all the time.” Yet approach and take a good look at

the fellow and you will see that is IS Ivan Petrovitch. “Alack, alack!”

will be the only remark you can make.

Let us return to our characters in real life. We have seen that, on this

occasion, Chichikov decided to dispense with ceremony; wherefore, taking

up the teapot, he went on as follows:

“You have a nice little village here, madam. How many souls does it

contain?”

“A little less than eighty, dear sir. But the times are hard, and I have

lost a great deal through last year’s harvest having proved a failure.”

“But your peasants look fine, strong fellows. May I enquire your name?

Through arriving so late at night I have quite lost my wits.”

“Korobotchka, the widow of a Collegiate Secretary.”

“I humbly thank you. And your Christian name and patronymic?”

“Nastasia Petrovna.”

“Nastasia Petrovna! Those are excellent names. I have a maternal aunt

named like yourself.”

“And YOUR name?” queried the lady. “May I take it that you are a

Government Assessor?”

“No, madam,” replied Chichikov with a smile. “I am not an Assessor, but

a traveller on private business.”

“Then you must be a buyer of produce? How I regret that I have sold my

honey so cheaply to other buyers! Otherwise YOU might have bought it,

dear sir.”

“I never buy honey.”

“Then WHAT do you buy, pray? Hemp? I have a little of that by me, but

not more than half a pood [16] or so.”

“No, madam. It is in other wares that I deal. Tell me, have you, of late

years, lost many of your peasants by death?”

“Yes; no fewer than eighteen,” responded the old lady with a sigh. “Such

a fine lot, too--all good workers! True, others have since grown up,

but of what use are THEY? Mere striplings. When the Assessor last called

upon me I could have wept; for, though those workmen of mine are dead,

I have to keep on paying for them as though they were still alive! And

only last week my blacksmith got burnt to death! Such a clever hand at

his trade he was!”

“What? A fire occurred at your place?”

“No, no, God preserve us all! It was not so bad as that. You must

understand that the blacksmith SET HIMSELF on fire--he got set on fire

in his bowels through overdrinking. Yes, all of a sudden there burst

from him a blue flame, and he smouldered and smouldered until he had

turned as black as a piece of charcoal! Yet what a clever blacksmith he

was! And now I have no horses to drive out with, for there is no one to

shoe them.”

“In everything the will of God, madam,” said Chichikov with a sigh.

“Against the divine wisdom it is not for us to rebel. Pray hand them

over to me, Nastasia Petrovna.”

“Hand over whom?”

“The dead peasants.”

“But how could I do that?”

“Quite simply. Sell them to me, and I will give you some money in

exchange.”

“But how am I to sell them to you? I scarcely understand what you mean.

Am I to dig them up again from the ground?”

Chichikov perceived that the old lady was altogether at sea, and that he

must explain the matter; wherefore in a few words he informed her that

the transfer or purchase of the souls in question would take place

merely on paper--that the said souls would be listed as still alive.

“And what good would they be to you?” asked his hostess, staring at him

with her eyes distended.

“That is MY affair.”

“But they are DEAD souls.”

“Who said they were not? The mere fact of their being dead entails upon

you a loss as dead as the souls, for you have to continue paying tax

upon them, whereas MY plan is to relieve you both of the tax and of the

resultant trouble. NOW do you understand? And I will not only do as

I say, but also hand you over fifteen roubles per soul. Is that clear

enough?”

“Yes--but I do not know,” said his hostess diffidently. “You see, never

before have I sold dead souls.”

“Quite so. It would be a surprising thing if you had. But surely you do

not think that these dead souls are in the least worth keeping?”

“Oh, no, indeed! Why should they be worth keeping? I am sure they are

not so. The only thing which troubles me is the fact that they are

DEAD.”

“She seems a truly obstinate old woman!” was Chichikov’s inward comment.

“Look here, madam,” he added aloud. “You reason well, but you are simply

ruining yourself by continuing to pay the tax upon dead souls as though

they were still alive.”

“Oh, good sir, do not speak of it!” the lady exclaimed. “Three weeks ago

I took a hundred and fifty roubles to that Assessor, and buttered him

up, and--”

“Then you see how it is, do you not? Remember that, according to my

plan, you will never again have to butter up the Assessor, seeing that

it will be I who will be paying for those peasants--_I_, not YOU, for I

shall have taken over the dues upon them, and have transferred them to

myself as so many bona fide serfs. Do you understand AT LAST?”

However, the old lady still communed with herself. She could see that

the transaction would be to her advantage, yet it was one of such a

novel and unprecedented nature that she was beginning to fear lest this

purchaser of souls intended to cheat her. Certainly he had come from God

only knew where, and at the dead of night, too!

“But, sir, I have never in my life sold dead folk--only living ones.

Three years ago I transferred two wenches to Protopopov for a hundred

roubles apiece, and he thanked me kindly, for they turned out splendid

workers--able to make napkins or anything else.

“Yes, but with the living we have nothing to do, damn it! I am asking

you only about DEAD folk.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But at first sight I felt afraid lest I should be

incurring a loss--lest you should be wishing to outwit me, good sir.

You see, the dead souls are worth rather more than you have offered for

them.”

“See here, madam. (What a woman it is!) HOW could they be worth more?

Think for yourself. They are so much loss to you--so much loss, do you

understand? Take any worthless, rubbishy article you like--a piece of

old rag, for example. That rag will yet fetch its price, for it can be

bought for paper-making. But these dead souls are good for NOTHING AT

ALL. Can you name anything that they ARE good for?”

“True, true--they ARE good for nothing. But what troubles me is the fact

that they are dead.”

“What a blockhead of a creature!” said Chichikov to himself, for he was

beginning to lose patience. “Bless her heart, I may as well be going.

She has thrown me into a perfect sweat, the cursed old shrew!”

He took a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the perspiration from

his brow. Yet he need not have flown into such a passion. More than one

respected statesman reveals himself, when confronted with a business

matter, to be just such another as Madam Korobotchka, in that, once he

has got an idea into his head, there is no getting it out of him--you

may ply him with daylight-clear arguments, yet they will rebound

from his brain as an india-rubber ball rebounds from a flagstone.

Nevertheless, wiping away the perspiration, Chichikov resolved to try

whether he could not bring her back to the road by another path.

“Madam,” he said, “either you are declining to understand what I say or

you are talking for the mere sake of talking. If I hand you over some

money--fifteen roubles for each soul, do you understand?--it is MONEY,

not something which can be picked up haphazard on the street. For

instance, tell me how much you sold your honey for?”

“For twelve roubles per pood.”

“Ah! Then by those words, madam, you have laid a trifling sin upon your

soul; for you did NOT sell the honey for twelve roubles.”

“By the Lord God I did!”

“Well, well! Never mind. Honey is only honey. Now, you had collected

that stuff, it may be, for a year, and with infinite care and labour.

You had fussed after it, you had trotted to and fro, you had duly frozen

out the bees, and you had fed them in the cellar throughout the winter.

But these dead souls of which I speak are quite another matter, for in

this case you have put forth no exertions--it was merely God’s will that

they should leave the world, and thus decrease the personnel of your

establishment. In the former case you received (so you allege) twelve

roubles per pood for your labour; but in this case you will receive

money for having done nothing at all. Nor will you receive twelve

roubles per item, but FIFTEEN--and roubles not in silver, but roubles in

good paper currency.”

That these powerful inducements would certainly cause the old woman to

yield Chichikov had not a doubt.

“True,” his hostess replied. “But how strangely business comes to me as

a widow! Perhaps I had better wait a little longer, seeing that other

buyers might come along, and I might be able to compare prices.”

“For shame, madam! For shame! Think what you are saying. Who else, I

would ask, would care to buy those souls? What use could they be to any

one?”

“If that is so, they might come in useful to ME,” mused the old woman

aloud; after which she sat staring at Chichikov with her mouth open and

a face of nervous expectancy as to his possible rejoinder.

“Dead folk useful in a household!” he exclaimed. “Why, what could you do

with them? Set them up on poles to frighten away the sparrows from your

garden?”

“The Lord save us, but what things you say!” she ejaculated, crossing

herself.

“Well, WHAT could you do with them? By this time they are so much bones

and earth. That is all there is left of them. Their transfer to myself

would be ON PAPER only. Come, come! At least give me an answer.”

Again the old woman communed with herself.

“What are you thinking of, Nastasia Petrovna?” inquired Chichikov.

“I am thinking that I scarcely know what to do. Perhaps I had better

sell you some hemp?”

“What do I want with hemp? Pardon me, but just when I have made to you

a different proposal altogether you begin fussing about hemp! Hemp is

hemp, and though I may want some when I NEXT visit you, I should like to

know what you have to say to the suggestion under discussion.”

“Well, I think it a very queer bargain. Never have I heard of such a

thing.”

Upon this Chichikov lost all patience, upset his chair, and bid her go

to the devil; of which personage even the mere mention terrified her

extremely.

“Do not speak of him, I beg of you!” she cried, turning pale. “May God,

rather, bless him! Last night was the third night that he has appeared

to me in a dream. You see, after saying my prayers, I bethought me

of telling my fortune by the cards; and God must have sent him as a

punishment. He looked so horrible, and had horns longer than a bull’s!”

“I wonder you don’t see SCORES of devils in your dreams! Merely out of

Christian charity he had come to you to say, ‘I perceive a poor widow

going to rack and ruin, and likely soon to stand in danger of want.’

Well, go to rack and ruin--yes, you and all your village together!”

“The insults!” exclaimed the old woman, glancing at her visitor in

terror.

“I should think so!” continued Chichikov. “Indeed, I cannot find words

to describe you. To say no more about it, you are like a dog in a

manger. You don’t want to eat the hay yourself, yet you won’t let

anyone else touch it. All that I am seeking to do is to purchase

certain domestic products of yours, for the reason that I have certain

Government contracts to fulfil.” This last he added in passing, and

without any ulterior motive, save that it came to him as a happy

thought. Nevertheless the mention of Government contracts exercised a

powerful influence upon Nastasia Petrovna, and she hastened to say in a

tone that was almost supplicatory:

“Why should you be so angry with me? Had I known that you were going to

lose your temper in this way, I should never have discussed the matter.”

“No wonder that I lose my temper! An egg too many is no great matter,

yet it may prove exceedingly annoying.”

“Well, well, I will let you have the souls for fifteen roubles each.

Also, with regard to those contracts, do not forget me if at any time

you should find yourself in need of rye-meal or buckwheat or groats or

dead meat.”

“No, I shall NEVER forget you, madam!” he said, wiping his forehead,

where three separate streams of perspiration were trickling down his

face. Then he asked her whether in the town she had any acquaintance or

agent whom she could empower to complete the transference of the serfs,

and to carry out whatsoever else might be necessary.

“Certainly,” replied Madame Korobotchka. “The son of our archpriest,

Father Cyril, himself is a lawyer.”

Upon that Chichikov begged her to accord the gentleman in question a

power of attorney, while, to save extra trouble, he himself would then

and there compose the requisite letter.

“It would be a fine thing if he were to buy up all my meal and stock

for the Government,” thought Madame to herself. “I must encourage him a

little. There has been some dough standing ready since last night, so I

will go and tell Fetinia to try a few pancakes. Also, it might be well

to try him with an egg pie. We make then nicely here, and they do not

take long in the making.”

So she departed to translate her thoughts into action, as well as to

supplement the pie with other products of the domestic cuisine; while,

for his part, Chichikov returned to the drawing-room where he had spent

the night, in order to procure from his dispatch-box the necessary

writing-paper. The room had now been set in order, the sumptuous

feather bed removed, and a table set before the sofa. Depositing his

dispatch-box upon the table, he heaved a gentle sigh on becoming aware

that he was so soaked with perspiration that he might almost have

been dipped in a river. Everything, from his shirt to his socks,

was dripping. “May she starve to death, the cursed old harridan!” he

ejaculated after a moment’s rest. Then he opened his dispatch-box. In

passing, I may say that I feel certain that at least SOME of my readers

will be curious to know the contents and the internal arrangements of

that receptacle. Why should I not gratify their curiosity? To begin

with, the centre of the box contained a soap-dish, with, disposed around

it, six or seven compartments for razors. Next came square partitions

for a sand-box [17] and an inkstand, as well as (scooped out in their

midst) a hollow of pens, sealing-wax, and anything else that required

more room. Lastly there were all sorts of little divisions, both with

and without lids, for articles of a smaller nature, such as visiting

cards, memorial cards, theatre tickets, and things which Chichikov had

laid by as souvenirs. This portion of the box could be taken out, and

below it were both a space for manuscripts and a secret money-box--the

latter made to draw out from the side of the receptacle.

Chichikov set to work to clean a pen, and then to write. Presently his

hostess entered the room.

“What a beautiful box you have got, my dear sir!” she exclaimed as she

took a seat beside him. “Probably you bought it in Moscow?”

“Yes--in Moscow,” replied Chichikov without interrupting his writing.

“I thought so. One CAN get good things there. Three years ago my sister

brought me a few pairs of warm shoes for my sons, and they were such

excellent articles! To this day my boys wear them. And what nice stamped

paper you have!” (she had peered into the dispatch-box, where, sure

enough, there lay a further store of the paper in question). “Would you

mind letting me have a sheet of it? I am without any at all, although I

shall soon have to be presenting a plea to the land court, and possess

not a morsel of paper to write it on.”

Upon this Chichikov explained that the paper was not the sort proper

for the purpose--that it was meant for serf-indenturing, and not for

the framing of pleas. Nevertheless, to quiet her, he gave her a sheet

stamped to the value of a rouble. Next, he handed her the letter to

sign, and requested, in return, a list of her peasants. Unfortunately,

such a list had never been compiled, let alone any copies of it, and the

only way in which she knew the peasants’ names was by heart. However, he

told her to dictate them. Some of the names greatly astonished our hero,

so, still more, did the surnames. Indeed, frequently, on hearing the

latter, he had to pause before writing them down. Especially did he halt

before a certain “Peter Saveliev Neuvazhai Korito.” “What a string of

titles!” involuntarily he ejaculated. To the Christian name of another

serf was appended “Korovi Kirpitch,” and to that of a third “Koleso

Ivan.” However, at length the list was compiled, and he caught a deep

breath; which latter proceeding caused him to catch also the attractive

odour of something fried in fat.

“I beseech you to have a morsel,” murmured his hostess. Chichikov looked

up, and saw that the table was spread with mushrooms, pies, and other

viands.

“Try this freshly-made pie and an egg,” continued Madame.

Chichikov did so, and having eaten more than half of what she offered

him, praised the pie highly. Indeed, it was a toothsome dish, and, after

his difficulties and exertions with his hostess, it tasted even better

than it might otherwise have done.

“And also a few pancakes?” suggested Madame.

For answer Chichikov folded three together, and, having dipped them in

melted butter, consigned the lot to his mouth, and then wiped his

mouth with a napkin. Twice more was the process repeated, and then

he requested his hostess to order the britchka to be got ready. In

dispatching Fetinia with the necessary instructions, she ordered her to

return with a second batch of hot pancakes.

“Your pancakes are indeed splendid,” said Chichikov, applying himself to

the second consignment of fried dainties when they had arrived.

“Yes, we make them well here,” replied Madame. “Yet how unfortunate it

is that the harvest should have proved so poor as to have prevented me

from earning anything on my--But why should you be in such a hurry to

depart, good sir?” She broke off on seeing Chichikov reach for his cap.

“The britchka is not yet ready.”

“Then it is being got so, madam, it is being got so, and I shall need a

moment or two to pack my things.”

“As you please, dear sir; but do not forget me in connection with those

Government contracts.”

“No, I have said that NEVER shall I forget you,” replied Chichikov as he

hurried into the hall.

“And would you like to buy some lard?” continued his hostess, pursuing

him.

“Lard? Oh certainly. Why not? Only, only--I will do so ANOTHER time.”

“I shall have some ready at about Christmas.”

“Quite so, madam. THEN I will buy anything and everything--the lard

included.”

“And perhaps you will be wanting also some feathers? I shall be having

some for sale about St. Philip’s Day.”

“Very well, very well, madam.”

“There you see!” she remarked as they stepped out on to the verandah.

“The britchka is NOT yet ready.”

“But it soon will be, it soon will be. Only direct me to the main road.”

“How am I to do that?” said Madame. “‘Twould puzzle a wise man to do so,

for in these parts there are so many turnings. However, I will send a

girl to guide you. You could find room for her on the box-seat, could

you not?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I will send her. She knows the way thoroughly. Only do not carry

her off for good. Already some traders have deprived me of one of my

girls.”

Chichikov reassured his hostess on the point, and Madame plucked up

courage enough to scan, first of all, the housekeeper, who happened to

be issuing from the storehouse with a bowl of honey, and, next, a

young peasant who happened to be standing at the gates; and, while thus

engaged, she became wholly absorbed in her domestic pursuits. But

why pay her so much attention? The Widow Korobotchka, Madame Manilov,

domestic life, non-domestic life--away with them all! How strangely are

things compounded! In a trice may joy turn to sorrow, should one halt

long enough over it: in a trice only God can say what ideas may strike

one. You may fall even to thinking: “After all, did Madame Korobotchka

stand so very low in the scale of human perfection? Was there really

such a very great gulf between her and Madame Manilov--between her and

the Madame Manilov whom we have seen entrenched behind the walls of a

genteel mansion in which there were a fine staircase of wrought metal

and a number of rich carpets; the Madame Manilov who spent most of her

time in yawning behind half-read books, and in hoping for a visit from

some socially distinguished person in order that she might display her

wit and carefully rehearsed thoughts--thoughts which had been de rigueur

in town for a week past, yet which referred, not to what was going on

in her household or on her estate--both of which properties were at odds

and ends, owing to her ignorance of the art of managing them--but to

the coming political revolution in France and the direction in which

fashionable Catholicism was supposed to be moving? But away with such

things! Why need we speak of them? Yet how comes it that suddenly into

the midst of our careless, frivolous, unthinking moments there may enter

another, and a very different, tendency?--that the smile may not have

left a human face before its owner will have radically changed his or

her nature (though not his or her environment) with the result that

the face will suddenly become lit with a radiance never before seen

there?...

“Here is the britchka, here is the britchka!” exclaimed Chichikov on

perceiving that vehicle slowly advancing. “Ah, you blockhead!” he

went on to Selifan. “Why have you been loitering about? I suppose last

night’s fumes have not yet left your brain?”

To this Selifan returned no reply.

“Good-bye, madam,” added the speaker. “But where is the girl whom you

promised me?”

“Here, Pelagea!” called the hostess to a wench of about eleven who was

dressed in home-dyed garments and could boast of a pair of bare feet

which, from a distance, might almost have been mistaken for boots, so

encrusted were they with fresh mire. “Here, Pelagea! Come and show this

gentleman the way.”

Selifan helped the girl to ascend to the box-seat. Placing one foot upon

the step by which the gentry mounted, she covered the said step with

mud, and then, ascending higher, attained the desired position beside

the coachman. Chichikov followed in her wake (causing the britchka to

heel over with his weight as he did so), and then settled himself back

into his place with an “All right! Good-bye, madam!” as the horses moved

away at a trot.

Selifan looked gloomy as he drove, but also very attentive to his

business. This was invariably his custom when he had committed the fault

of getting drunk. Also, the horses looked unusually well-groomed. In

particular, the collar on one of them had been neatly mended, although

hitherto its state of dilapidation had been such as perennially to allow

the stuffing to protrude through the leather. The silence preserved was

well-nigh complete. Merely flourishing his whip, Selifan spoke to the

team no word of instruction, although the skewbald was as ready as usual

to listen to conversation of a didactic nature, seeing that at such

times the reins hung loosely in the hands of the loquacious driver,

and the whip wandered merely as a matter of form over the backs of the

troika. This time, however, there could be heard issuing from Selifan’s

sullen lips only the uniformly unpleasant exclamation, “Now then, you

brutes! Get on with you, get on with you!” The bay and the Assessor too

felt put out at not hearing themselves called “my pets” or “good lads”;

while, in addition, the skewbald came in for some nasty cuts across his

sleek and ample quarters. “What has put master out like this?” thought

the animal as it shook its head. “Heaven knows where he does not keep

beating me--across the back, and even where I am tenderer still. Yes, he

keeps catching the whip in my ears, and lashing me under the belly.”

“To the right, eh?” snapped Selifan to the girl beside him as he pointed

to a rain-soaked road which trended away through fresh green fields.

“No, no,” she replied. “I will show you the road when the time comes.”

“Which way, then?” he asked again when they had proceeded a little

further.

“This way.” And she pointed to the road just mentioned.

“Get along with you!” retorted the coachman. “That DOES go to the right.

You don’t know your right hand from your left.”

The weather was fine, but the ground so excessively sodden that the

wheels of the britchka collected mire until they had become caked as

with a layer of felt, a circumstance which greatly increased the weight

of the vehicle, and prevented it from clearing the neighbouring parishes

before the afternoon was arrived. Also, without the girl’s help the

finding of the way would have been impossible, since roads wiggled away

in every direction, like crabs released from a net, and, but for the

assistance mentioned, Selifan would have found himself left to his own

devices. Presently she pointed to a building ahead, with the words,

“THERE is the main road.”

“And what is the building?” asked Selifan.

“A tavern,” she said.

“Then we can get along by ourselves,” he observed. “Do you get down, and

be off home.”

With that he stopped, and helped her to alight--muttering as he did so:

“Ah, you blackfooted creature!”

Chichikov added a copper groat, and she departed well pleased with her

ride in the gentleman’s carriage.

CHAPTER IV

On reaching the tavern, Chichikov called a halt. His reasons for this

were twofold--namely, that he wanted to rest the horses, and that he

himself desired some refreshment. In this connection the author feels

bound to confess that the appetite and the capacity of such men are

greatly to be envied. Of those well-to-do folk of St. Petersburg and

Moscow who spend their time in considering what they shall eat on the

morrow, and in composing a dinner for the day following, and who never

sit down to a meal without first of all injecting a pill and then

swallowing oysters and crabs and a quantity of other monsters, while

eternally departing for Karlsbad or the Caucasus, the author has but a

small opinion. Yes, THEY are not the persons to inspire envy. Rather,

it is the folk of the middle classes--folk who at one posthouse call for

bacon, and at another for a sucking pig, and at a third for a steak of

sturgeon or a baked pudding with onions, and who can sit down to table

at any hour, as though they had never had a meal in their lives, and

can devour fish of all sorts, and guzzle and chew it with a view

to provoking further appetite--these, I say, are the folk who enjoy

heaven’s most favoured gift. To attain such a celestial condition the

great folk of whom I have spoken would sacrifice half their serfs and

half their mortgaged and non-mortgaged property, with the foreign and

domestic improvements thereon, if thereby they could compass such

a stomach as is possessed by the folk of the middle class. But,

unfortunately, neither money nor real estate, whether improved or

non-improved, can purchase such a stomach.

The little wooden tavern, with its narrow, but hospitable, curtain

suspended from a pair of rough-hewn doorposts like old church

candlesticks, seemed to invite Chichikov to enter. True, the

establishment was only a Russian hut of the ordinary type, but it was

a hut of larger dimensions than usual, and had around its windows and

gables carved and patterned cornices of bright-coloured wood which threw

into relief the darker hue of the walls, and consorted well with the

flowered pitchers painted on the shutters.

Ascending the narrow wooden staircase to the upper floor, and arriving

upon a broad landing, Chichikov found himself confronted with a creaking

door and a stout old woman in a striped print gown. “This way, if you

please,” she said. Within the apartment designated Chichikov

encountered the old friends which one invariably finds in such roadside

hostelries--to wit, a heavy samovar, four smooth, bescratched walls of

white pine, a three-cornered press with cups and teapots, egg-cups

of gilded china standing in front of ikons suspended by blue and red

ribands, a cat lately delivered of a family, a mirror which gives one

four eyes instead of two and a pancake for a face, and, beside the

ikons, some bunches of herbs and carnations of such faded dustiness

that, should one attempt to smell them, one is bound to burst out

sneezing.

“Have you a sucking-pig?” Chichikov inquired of the landlady as she

stood expectantly before him.

“Yes.”

“And some horse-radish and sour cream?”

“Yes.”

“Then serve them.”

The landlady departed for the purpose, and returned with a plate, a

napkin (the latter starched to the consistency of dried bark), a knife

with a bone handle beginning to turn yellow, a two-pronged fork as thin

as a wafer, and a salt-cellar incapable of being made to stand upright.

Following the accepted custom, our hero entered into conversation with

the woman, and inquired whether she herself or a landlord kept the

tavern; how much income the tavern brought in; whether her sons lived

with her; whether the oldest was a bachelor or married; whom the

eldest had taken to wife; whether the dowry had been large; whether the

father-in-law had been satisfied, and whether the said father-in-law

had not complained of receiving too small a present at the wedding.

In short, Chichikov touched on every conceivable point. Likewise

(of course) he displayed some curiosity as to the landowners of the

neighbourhood. Their names, he ascertained, were Blochin, Potchitaev,

Minoi, Cheprakov, and Sobakevitch.

“Then you are acquainted with Sobakevitch?” he said; whereupon the old

woman informed him that she knew not only Sobakevitch, but also Manilov,

and that the latter was the more delicate eater of the two, since,

whereas Manilov always ordered a roast fowl and some veal and mutton,

and then tasted merely a morsel of each, Sobakevitch would order one

dish only, but consume the whole of it, and then demand more at the same

price.

Whilst Chichikov was thus conversing and partaking of the sucking pig

until only a fragment of it seemed likely to remain, the sound of an

approaching vehicle made itself heard. Peering through the window, he

saw draw up to the tavern door a light britchka drawn by three fine

horses. From it there descended two men--one flaxen-haired and tall, and

the other dark-haired and of slighter build. While the flaxen-haired

man was clad in a dark-blue coat, the other one was wrapped in a coat

of striped pattern. Behind the britchka stood a second, but an empty,

turn-out, drawn by four long-coated steeds in ragged collars and

rope harnesses. The flaxen-haired man lost no time in ascending the

staircase, while his darker friend remained below to fumble at something

in the britchka, talking, as he did so, to the driver of the vehicle

which stood hitched behind. Somehow, the dark-haired man’s voice struck

Chichikov as familiar; and as he was taking another look at him the

flaxen-haired gentleman entered the room. The newcomer was a man of

lofty stature, with a small red moustache and a lean, hard-bitten face

whose redness made it evident that its acquaintance, if not with the

smoke of gunpowder, at all events with that of tobacco, was intimate

and extensive. Nevertheless he greeted Chichikov civilly, and the latter

returned his bow. Indeed, the pair would have entered into conversation,

and have made one another’s acquaintance (since a beginning was made

with their simultaneously expressing satisfaction at the circumstance

that the previous night’s rain had laid the dust on the roads,

and thereby made driving cool and pleasant) when the gentleman’s

darker-favoured friend also entered the room, and, throwing his cap upon

the table, pushed back a mass of dishevelled black locks from his brow.

The latest arrival was a man of medium height, but well put together,

and possessed of a pair of full red cheeks, a set of teeth as white as

snow, and coal-black whiskers. Indeed, so fresh was his complexion that

it seemed to have been compounded of blood and milk, while health danced

in his every feature.

“Ha, ha, ha!” he cried with a gesture of astonishment at the sight of

Chichikov. “What chance brings YOU here?”

Upon that Chichikov recognised Nozdrev--the man whom he had met at

dinner at the Public Prosecutor’s, and who, within a minute or two of

the introduction, had become so intimate with his fellow guest as to

address him in the second person singular, in spite of the fact that

Chichikov had given him no opportunity for doing so.

“Where have you been to-day?” Nozdrev inquired, and, without waiting for

an answer, went on: “For myself, I am just from the fair, and completely

cleaned out. Actually, I have had to do the journey back with stage

horses! Look out of the window, and see them for yourself.” And he

turned Chichikov’s head so sharply in the desired direction that he came

very near to bumping it against the window frame. “Did you ever see such

a bag of tricks? The cursed things have only just managed to get here.

In fact, on the way I had to transfer myself to this fellow’s britchka.”

He indicated his companion with a finger. “By the way, don’t you know

one another? He is Mizhuev, my brother-in-law. He and I were talking of

you only this morning. ‘Just you see,’ said I to him, ‘if we do not fall

in with Chichikov before we have done.’ Heavens, how completely cleaned

out I am! Not only have I lost four good horses, but also my watch and

chain.” Chichikov perceived that in very truth his interlocutor was

minus the articles named, as well as that one of Nozdrev’s whiskers was

less bushy in appearance than the other one. “Had I had another twenty

roubles in my pocket,” went on Nozdrev, “I should have won back all that

I have lost, as well as have pouched a further thirty thousand. Yes, I

give you my word of honour on that.”

“But you were saying the same thing when last I met you,” put in the

flaxen-haired man. “Yet, even though I lent you fifty roubles, you lost

them all.”

“But I should not have lost them THIS time. Don’t try to make me out

a fool. I should NOT have lost them, I tell you. Had I only played the

right card, I should have broken the bank.”

“But you did NOT break the bank,” remarked the flaxen-haired man.

“No. That was because I did not play my cards right. But what about your

precious major’s play? Is THAT good?”

“Good or not, at least he beat you.”

“Splendid of him! Nevertheless I will get my own back. Let him play me

at doubles, and we shall soon see what sort of a player he is!

Friend Chichikov, at first we had a glorious time, for the fair was a

tremendous success. Indeed, the tradesmen said that never yet had there

been such a gathering. I myself managed to sell everything from my

estate at a good price. In fact, we had a magnificent time. I can’t help

thinking of it, devil take me! But what a pity YOU were not there! Three

versts from the town there is quartered a regiment of dragoons, and you

would scarcely believe what a lot of officers it has. Forty at least

there are, and they do a fine lot of knocking about the town and

drinking. In particular, Staff-Captain Potsieluev is a SPLENDID fellow!

You should just see his moustache! Why, he calls good claret ‘trash’!

‘Bring me some of the usual trash,’ is his way of ordering it. And

Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov, too! He is as delightful as the other man. In

fact, I may say that every one of the lot is a rake. I spent my whole

time with them, and you can imagine that Ponomarev, the wine merchant,

did a fine trade indeed! All the same, he is a rascal, you know, and

ought not to be dealt with, for he puts all sorts of rubbish into his

liquor--Indian wood and burnt cork and elderberry juice, the villain!

Nevertheless, get him to produce a bottle from what he calls his

‘special cellar,’ and you will fancy yourself in the seventh heaven of

delight. And what quantities of champagne we drank! Compared with it,

provincial stuff is kvass [18]. Try to imagine not merely Clicquot, but

a sort of blend of Clicquot and Matradura--Clicquot of double strength.

Also Ponomarev produced a bottle of French stuff which he calls

‘Bonbon.’ Had it a bouquet, ask you? Why, it had the bouquet of a rose

garden, of anything else you like. What times we had, to be sure! Just

after we had left Pnomarev’s place, some prince or another arrived in

the town, and sent out for some champagne; but not a bottle was there

left, for the officers had drunk every one! Why, I myself got through

seventeen bottles at a sitting.”

“Come, come! You CAN’T have got through seventeen,” remarked the

flaxen-haired man.

“But I did, I give my word of honour,” retorted Nozdrev.

“Imagine what you like, but you didn’t drink even TEN bottles at a

sitting.”

“Will you bet that I did not?”

“No; for what would be the use of betting about it?”

“Then at least wager the gun which you have bought.”

“No, I am not going to do anything of the kind.”

“Just as an experiment?”

“No.”

“It is as well for you that you don’t, since, otherwise, you would have

found yourself minus both gun and cap. However, friend Chichikov, it

is a pity you were not there. Had you been there, I feel sure you would

have found yourself unable to part with Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. You and

he would have hit it off splendidly. You know, he is quite a

different sort from the Public Prosecutor and our other provincial

skinflints--fellows who shiver in their shoes before they will spend a

single kopeck. HE will play faro, or anything else, and at any time.

Why did you not come with us, instead of wasting your time on cattle

breeding or something of the sort? But never mind. Embrace me. I like

you immensely. Mizhuev, see how curiously things have turned out.

Chichikov has nothing to do with me, or I with him, yet here is he come

from God knows where, and landed in the very spot where I happen to be

living! I may tell you that, no matter how many carriages I possessed, I

should gamble the lot away. Recently I went in for a turn at billiards,

and lost two jars of pomade, a china teapot, and a guitar. Then I staked

some more things, and, like a fool, lost them all, and six roubles in

addition. What a dog is that Kuvshinnikov! He and I attended nearly

every ball in the place. In particular, there was a woman--decolletee,

and such a swell! I merely thought to myself, ‘The devil take her!’ but

Kuvshinnikov is such a wag that he sat down beside her, and began paying

her strings of compliments in French. However, I did not neglect the

damsels altogether--although HE calls that sort of thing ‘going in for

strawberries.’ By the way, I have a splendid piece of fish and some

caviare with me. ’Tis all I HAVE brought back! In fact it is a lucky

chance that I happened to buy the stuff before my money was gone. Where

are you for?”

“I am about to call on a friend.”

“On what friend? Let him go to the devil, and come to my place instead.”

“I cannot, I cannot. I have business to do.”

“Oh, business again! I thought so!”

“But I HAVE business to do--and pressing business at that.”

“I wager that you’re lying. If not, tell me whom you’re going to call

upon.”

“Upon Sobakevitch.”

Instantly Nozdrev burst into a laugh compassable only by a healthy man

in whose head every tooth still remains as white as sugar. By this I

mean the laugh of quivering cheeks, the laugh which causes a neighbour

who is sleeping behind double doors three rooms away to leap from his

bed and exclaim with distended eyes, “Hullo! Something HAS upset him!”

“What is there to laugh at?” asked Chichikov, a trifle nettled; but

Nozdrev laughed more unrestrainedly than ever, ejaculating: “Oh, spare

us all! The thing is so amusing that I shall die of it!”

“I say that there is nothing to laugh at,” repeated Chichikov. “It is in

fulfilment of a promise that I am on my way to Sobakevitch’s.”

“Then you will scarcely be glad to be alive when you’ve got there, for

he is the veriest miser in the countryside. Oh, _I_ know you. However,

if you think to find there either faro or a bottle of ‘Bonbon’ you are

mistaken. Look here, my good friend. Let Sobakevitch go to the devil,

and come to MY place, where at least I shall have a piece of sturgeon

to offer you for dinner. Ponomarev said to me on parting: ‘This piece is

just the thing for you. Even if you were to search the whole market, you

would never find a better one.’ But of course he is a terrible rogue.

I said to him outright: ‘You and the Collector of Taxes are the two

greatest skinflints in the town.’ But he only stroked his beard

and smiled. Every day I used to breakfast with Kuvshinnikov in his

restaurant. Well, what I was nearly forgetting is this: that, though I

am aware that you can’t forgo your engagement, I am not going to give

you up--no, not for ten thousand roubles of money. I tell you that in

advance.”

Here he broke off to run to the window and shout to his servant (who was

holding a knife in one hand and a crust of bread and a piece of sturgeon

in the other--he had contrived to filch the latter while fumbling in the

britchka for something else):

“Hi, Porphyri! Bring here that puppy, you rascal! What a puppy it is!

Unfortunately that thief of a landlord has given it nothing to eat, even

though I have promised him the roan filly which, as you may remember, I

swopped from Khvostirev.” As a matter of fact, Chichikov had never in

his life seen either Khvostirev or the roan filly.

“Barin, do you wish for anything to eat?” inquired the landlady as she

entered.

“No, nothing at all. Ah, friend Chichikov, what times we had! Yes, give

me a glass of vodka, old woman. What sort do you keep?”

“Aniseed.”

“Then bring me a glass of it,” repeated Nozdrev.

“And one for me as well,” added the flaxen-haired man.

“At the theatre,” went on Nozdrev, “there was an actress who sang like a

canary. Kuvshinnikov, who happened to be sitting with me, said: ‘My boy,

you had better go and gather that strawberry.’ As for the booths at the

fair, they numbered, I should say, fifty.” At this point he broke off

to take the glass of vodka from the landlady, who bowed low in

acknowledgement of his doing so. At the same moment Porphyri--a

fellow dressed like his master (that is to say, in a greasy, wadded

overcoat)--entered with the puppy.

“Put the brute down here,” commanded Nozdrev, “and then fasten it up.”

Porphyri deposited the animal upon the floor; whereupon it proceeded to

act after the manner of dogs.

“THERE’S a puppy for you!” cried Nozdrev, catching hold of it by the

back, and lifting it up. The puppy uttered a piteous yelp.

“I can see that you haven’t done what I told you to do,” he continued

to Porphyri after an inspection of the animal’s belly. “You have quite

forgotten to brush him.”

“I DID brush him,” protested Porphyri.

“Then where did these fleas come from?”

“I cannot think. Perhaps they have leapt into his coat out of the

britchka.”

“You liar! As a matter of fact, you have forgotten to brush him.

Nevertheless, look at these ears, Chichikov. Just feel them.”

“Why should I? Without doing that, I can see that he is well-bred.”

“Nevertheless, catch hold of his ears and feel them.”

To humour the fellow Chichikov did as he had requested, remarking: “Yes,

he seems likely to turn out well.”

“And feel the coldness of his nose! Just take it in your hand.”

Not wishing to offend his interlocutor, Chichikov felt the puppy’s nose,

saying: “Some day he will have an excellent scent.”

“Yes, will he not? ’Tis the right sort of muzzle for that. I must say

that I have long been wanting such a puppy. Porphyri, take him away

again.”

Porphyri lifted up the puppy, and bore it downstairs.

“Look here, Chichikov,” resumed Nozdrev. “You MUST come to my place. It

lies only five versts away, and we can go there like the wind, and you

can visit Sobakevitch afterwards.”

“Shall I, or shall I not, go to Nozdrev’s?” reflected Chichikov. “Is he

likely to prove any more useful than the rest? Well, at least he is as

promising, even though he has lost so much at play. But he has a head on

his shoulders, and therefore I must go carefully if I am to tackle him

concerning my scheme.”

With that he added aloud: “Very well, I WILL come with you, but do not

let us be long, for my time is very precious.”

“That’s right, that’s right!” cried Nozdrev. “Splendid, splendid! Let me

embrace you!” And he fell upon Chichikov’s neck. “All three of us will

go.”

“No, no,” put in the flaxen-haired man. “You must excuse me, for I must

be off home.”

“Rubbish, rubbish! I am NOT going to excuse you.”

“But my wife will be furious with me. You and Monsieur Chichikov must

change into the other britchka.”

“Come, come! The thing is not to be thought of.”

The flaxen-haired man was one of those people in whose character, at

first sight, there seems to lurk a certain grain of stubbornness--so

much so that, almost before one has begun to speak, they are ready to

dispute one’s words, and to disagree with anything that may be opposed

to their peculiar form of opinion. For instance, they will decline to

have folly called wisdom, or any tune danced to but their own. Always,

however, will there become manifest in their character a soft spot, and

in the end they will accept what hitherto they have denied, and call

what is foolish sensible, and even dance--yes, better than any one else

will do--to a tune set by some one else. In short, they generally begin

well, but always end badly.

“Rubbish!” said Nozdrev in answer to a further objection on his

brother-in-law’s part. And, sure enough, no sooner had Nozdrev clapped

his cap upon his head than the flaxen-haired man started to follow him

and his companion.

“But the gentleman has not paid for the vodka?” put in the old woman.

“All right, all right, good mother. Look here, brother-in-law. Pay her,

will you, for I have not a kopeck left.”

“How much?” inquired the brother-in-law.

“What, sir? Eighty kopecks, if you please,” replied the old woman.

“A lie! Give her half a rouble. That will be quite enough.”

“No, it will NOT, barin,” protested the old woman. However, she took the

money gratefully, and even ran to the door to open it for the gentlemen.

As a matter of fact, she had lost nothing by the transaction, since she

had demanded fully a quarter more than the vodka was worth.

The travellers then took their seats, and since Chichikov’s britchka

kept alongside the britchka wherein Nozdrev and his brother-in-law were

seated, it was possible for all three men to converse together as they

proceeded. Behind them came Nozdrev’s smaller buggy, with its team

of lean stage horses and Porphyri and the puppy. But inasmuch as the

conversation which the travellers maintained was not of a kind likely

to interest the reader, I might do worse than say something concerning

Nozdrev himself, seeing that he is destined to play no small role in our

story.

Nozdrev’s face will be familiar to the reader, seeing that every one

must have encountered many such. Fellows of the kind are known as

“gay young sparks,” and, even in their boyhood and school days, earn a

reputation for being bons camarades (though with it all they come in for

some hard knocks) for the reason that their faces evince an element of

frankness, directness, and enterprise which enables them soon to make

friends, and, almost before you have had time to look around, to start

addressing you in the second person singular. Yet, while cementing such

friendships for all eternity, almost always they begin quarrelling the

same evening, since, throughout, they are a loquacious, dissipated,

high-spirited, over-showy tribe. Indeed, at thirty-five Nozdrev was just

what he had been an eighteen and twenty--he was just such a lover of

fast living. Nor had his marriage in any way changed him, and the less

so since his wife had soon departed to another world, and left behind

her two children, whom he did not want, and who were therefore placed

in the charge of a good-looking nursemaid. Never at any time could he

remain at home for more than a single day, for his keen scent could

range over scores and scores of versts, and detect any fair which

promised balls and crowds. Consequently in a trice he would be

there--quarrelling, and creating disturbances over the gaming-table

(like all men of his type, he had a perfect passion for cards) yet

playing neither a faultless nor an over-clean game, since he was both

a blunderer and able to indulge in a large number of illicit cuts and

other devices. The result was that the game often ended in another kind

of sport altogether. That is to say, either he received a good kicking,

or he had his thick and very handsome whiskers pulled; with the result

that on certain occasions he returned home with one of those appendages

looking decidedly ragged. Yet his plump, healthy-looking cheeks were

so robustly constituted, and contained such an abundance of recreative

vigour, that a new whisker soon sprouted in place of the old one, and

even surpassed its predecessor. Again (and the following is a phenomenon

peculiar to Russia) a very short time would have elapsed before once

more he would be consorting with the very cronies who had recently

cuffed him--and consorting with them as though nothing whatsoever had

happened--no reference to the subject being made by him, and they too

holding their tongues.

In short, Nozdrev was, as it were, a man of incident. Never was he

present at any gathering without some sort of a fracas occurring

thereat. Either he would require to be expelled from the room by

gendarmes, or his friends would have to kick him out into the street. At

all events, should neither of those occurrences take place, at least he

did something of a nature which would not otherwise have been witnessed.

That is to say, should he not play the fool in a buffet to such an

extent as to make every one smile, you may be sure that he was engaged

in lying to a degree which at times abashed even himself. Moreover, the

man lied without reason. For instance, he would begin telling a story to

the effect that he possessed a blue-coated or a red-coated horse; until,

in the end, his listeners would be forced to leave him with the remark,

“You are giving us some fine stuff, old fellow!” Also, men like Nozdrev

have a passion for insulting their neighbours without the least excuse

afforded. (For that matter, even a man of good standing and of

respectable exterior--a man with a star on his breast--may unexpectedly

press your hand one day, and begin talking to you on subjects of a

nature to give food for serious thought. Yet just as unexpectedly may

that man start abusing you to your face--and do so in a manner worthy of

a collegiate registrar rather than of a man who wears a star on his

breast and aspires to converse on subjects which merit reflection. All

that one can do in such a case is to stand shrugging one’s shoulders in

amazement.) Well, Nozdrev had just such a weakness. The more he became

friendly with a man, the sooner would he insult him, and be ready to

spread calumnies as to his reputation. Yet all the while he would

consider himself the insulted one’s friend, and, should he meet him

again, would greet him in the most amicable style possible, and say,

“You rascal, why have you given up coming to see me.” Thus, taken all

round, Nozdrev was a person of many aspects and numerous potentialities.

In one and the same breath would he propose to go with you whithersoever

you might choose (even to the very ends of the world should you so

require) or to enter upon any sort of an enterprise with you, or to

exchange any commodity for any other commodity which you might care to

name. Guns, horses, dogs, all were subjects for barter--though not for

profit so far as YOU were concerned. Such traits are mostly the outcome

of a boisterous temperament, as is additionally exemplified by the fact

that if at a fair he chanced to fall in with a simpleton and to fleece

him, he would then proceed to buy a quantity of the very first articles

which came to hand--horse-collars, cigar-lighters, dresses for his

nursemaid, foals, raisins, silver ewers, lengths of holland, wheatmeal,

tobacco, revolvers, dried herrings, pictures, whetstones, crockery,

boots, and so forth, until every atom of his money was exhausted. Yet

seldom were these articles conveyed home, since, as a rule, the same day

saw them lost to some more skilful gambler, in addition to his pipe, his

tobacco-pouch, his mouthpiece, his four-horsed turn-out, and his

coachman: with the result that, stripped to his very shirt, he would be

forced to beg the loan of a vehicle from a friend.

Such was Nozdrev. Some may say that characters of his type have become

extinct, that Nozdrevs no longer exist. Alas! such as say this will

be wrong; for many a day must pass before the Nozdrevs will have

disappeared from our ken. Everywhere they are to be seen in our

midst--the only difference between the new and the old being a

difference of garments. Persons of superficial observation are apt to

consider that a man clad in a different coat is quite a different person

from what he used to be.

To continue. The three vehicles bowled up to the steps of Nozdrev’s

house, and their occupants alighted. But no preparations whatsoever had

been made for the guest’s reception, for on some wooden trestles in

the centre of the dining-room a couple of peasants were engaged in

whitewashing the ceiling and drawling out an endless song as they

splashed their stuff about the floor. Hastily bidding peasants and

trestles to be gone, Nozdrev departed to another room with further

instructions. Indeed, so audible was the sound of his voice as he

ordered dinner that Chichikov--who was beginning to feel hungry once

more--was enabled to gather that it would be at least five o’clock

before a meal of any kind would be available. On his return, Nozdrev

invited his companions to inspect his establishment--even though as

early as two o’clock he had to announce that nothing more was to be

seen.

The tour began with a view of the stables, where the party saw two mares

(the one a grey, and the other a roan) and a colt; which latter animal,

though far from showy, Nozdrev declared to have cost him ten thousand

roubles.

“You NEVER paid ten thousand roubles for the brute!” exclaimed the

brother-in-law. “He isn’t worth even a thousand.”

“By God, I DID pay ten thousand!” asserted Nozdrev.

“You can swear that as much as you like,” retorted the other.

“Will you bet that I did not?” asked Nozdrev, but the brother-in-law

declined the offer.

Next, Nozdrev showed his guests some empty stalls where a number of

equally fine animals (so he alleged) had lately stood. Also there was on

view the goat which an old belief still considers to be an indispensable

adjunct to such places, even though its apparent use is to pace up and

down beneath the noses of the horses as though the place belonged to it.

Thereafter the host took his guests to look at a young wolf which he had

got tied to a chain. “He is fed on nothing but raw meat,” he explained,

“for I want him to grow up as fierce as possible.” Then the party

inspected a pond in which there were “fish of such a size that it would

take two men all their time to lift one of them out.”

This piece of information was received with renewed incredulity on the

part of the brother-in-law.

“Now, Chichikov,” went on Nozdrev, “let me show you a truly magnificent

brace of dogs. The hardness of their muscles will surprise you, and they

have jowls as sharp as needles.”

So saying, he led the way to a small, but neatly-built, shed surrounded

on every side with a fenced-in run. Entering this run, the visitors

beheld a number of dogs of all sorts and sizes and colours. In their

midst Nozdrev looked like a father lording it over his family circle.

Erecting their tails--their “stems,” as dog fanciers call those

members--the animals came bounding to greet the party, and fully a score

of them laid their paws upon Chichikov’s shoulders. Indeed, one dog was

moved with such friendliness that, standing on its hind legs, it licked

him on the lips, and so forced him to spit. That done, the visitors duly

inspected the couple already mentioned, and expressed astonishment at

their muscles. True enough, they were fine animals. Next, the party

looked at a Crimean bitch which, though blind and fast nearing her end,

had, two years ago, been a truly magnificent dog. At all events, so said

Nozdrev. Next came another bitch--also blind; then an inspection of

the water-mill, which lacked the spindle-socket wherein the upper stone

ought to have been revolving--“fluttering,” to use the Russian peasant’s

quaint expression. “But never mind,” said Nozdrev. “Let us proceed to

the blacksmith’s shop.” So to the blacksmith’s shop the party proceeded,

and when the said shop had been viewed, Nozdrev said as he pointed to a

field:

“In this field I have seen such numbers of hares as to render the ground

quite invisible. Indeed, on one occasion I, with my own hands, caught a

hare by the hind legs.”

“You never caught a hare by the hind legs with your hands!” remarked the

brother-in-law.

“But I DID” reiterated Nozdrev. “However, let me show you the boundary

where my lands come to an end.”

So saying, he started to conduct his guests across a field which

consisted mostly of moleheaps, and in which the party had to pick their

way between strips of ploughed land and of harrowed. Soon Chichikov

began to feel weary, for the terrain was so low-lying that in many spots

water could be heard squelching underfoot, and though for a while the

visitors watched their feet, and stepped carefully, they soon perceived

that such a course availed them nothing, and took to following their

noses, without either selecting or avoiding the spots where the mire

happened to be deeper or the reverse. At length, when a considerable

distance had been covered, they caught sight of a boundary-post and a

narrow ditch.

“That is the boundary,” said Nozdrev. “Everything that you see on this

side of the post is mine, as well as the forest on the other side of it,

and what lies beyond the forest.”

“WHEN did that forest become yours?” asked the brother-in-law. “It

cannot be long since you purchased it, for it never USED to be yours.”

“Yes, it isn’t long since I purchased it,” said Nozdrev.

“How long?”

“How long? Why, I purchased it three days ago, and gave a pretty sum for

it, as the devil knows!”

“Indeed? Why, three days ago you were at the fair?”

“Wiseacre! Cannot one be at a fair and buy land at the same time? Yes, I

WAS at the fair, and my steward bought the land in my absence.”

“Oh, your STEWARD bought it.” The brother-in-law seemed doubtful, and

shook his head.

The guests returned by the same route as that by which they had come;

whereafter, on reaching the house, Nozdrev conducted them to his study,

which contained not a trace of the things usually to be found in such

apartments--such things as books and papers. On the contrary, the only

articles to be seen were a sword and a brace of guns--the one “of them

worth three hundred roubles,” and the other “about eight hundred.” The

brother-in-law inspected the articles in question, and then shook

his head as before. Next, the visitors were shown some “real Turkish”

daggers, of which one bore the inadvertent inscription, “Saveli

Sibiriakov [19], Master Cutler.” Then came a barrel-organ, on which

Nozdrev started to play some tune or another. For a while the sounds

were not wholly unpleasing, but suddenly something seemed to go wrong,

for a mazurka started, to be followed by “Marlborough has gone to the

war,” and to this, again, there succeeded an antiquated waltz. Also,

long after Nozdrev had ceased to turn the handle, one particularly

shrill-pitched pipe which had, throughout, refused to harmonise with the

rest kept up a protracted whistling on its own account. Then followed

an exhibition of tobacco pipes--pipes of clay, of wood, of meerschaum,

pipes smoked and non-smoked; pipes wrapped in chamois leather and not

so wrapped; an amber-mounted hookah (a stake won at cards) and a tobacco

pouch (worked, it was alleged, by some countess who had fallen in love

with Nozdrev at a posthouse, and whose handiwork Nozdrev averred

to constitute the “sublimity of superfluity”--a term which, in the

Nozdrevian vocabulary, purported to signify the acme of perfection).

Finally, after some hors-d’oeuvres of sturgeon’s back, they sat down

to table--the time being then nearly five o’clock. But the meal did not

constitute by any means the best of which Chichikov had ever partaken,

seeing that some of the dishes were overcooked, and others were scarcely

cooked at all. Evidently their compounder had trusted chiefly to

inspiration--she had laid hold of the first thing which had happened to

come to hand. For instance, had pepper represented the nearest article

within reach, she had added pepper wholesale. Had a cabbage chanced to

be so encountered, she had pressed it also into the service. And the

same with milk, bacon, and peas. In short, her rule seemed to have been

“Make a hot dish of some sort, and some sort of taste will result.” For

the rest, Nozdrev drew heavily upon the wine. Even before the soup

had been served, he had poured out for each guest a bumper of port and

another of “haut” sauterne. (Never in provincial towns is ordinary,

vulgar sauterne even procurable.) Next, he called for a bottle of

madeira--“as fine a tipple as ever a field-marshall drank”; but the

madeira only burnt the mouth, since the dealers, familiar with the taste

of our landed gentry (who love “good” madeira) invariably doctor the

stuff with copious dashes of rum and Imperial vodka, in the hope that

Russian stomachs will thus be enabled to carry off the lot. After this

bottle Nozdrev called for another and “a very special” brand--a brand

which he declared to consist of a blend of burgundy and champagne, and

of which he poured generous measures into the glasses of Chichikov

and the brother-in-law as they sat to right and left of him. But since

Chichikov noticed that, after doing so, he added only a scanty modicum

of the mixture to his own tumbler, our hero determined to be cautious,

and therefore took advantage of a moment when Nozdrev had again plunged

into conversation and was yet a third time engaged in refilling his

brother-in-law’s glass, to contrive to upset his (Chichikov’s)

glass over his plate. In time there came also to table a tart of

mountain-ashberries--berries which the host declared to equal, in taste,

ripe plums, but which, curiously enough, smacked more of corn brandy.

Next, the company consumed a sort of pasty of which the precise name has

escaped me, but which the host rendered differently even on the second

occasion of its being mentioned. The meal over, and the whole tale of

wines tried, the guests still retained their seats--a circumstance which

embarrassed Chichikov, seeing that he had no mind to propound his pet

scheme in the presence of Nozdrev’s brother-in-law, who was a complete

stranger to him. No, that subject called for amicable and PRIVATE

conversation. Nevertheless, the brother-in-law appeared to bode little

danger, seeing that he had taken on board a full cargo, and was now

engaged in doing nothing of a more menacing nature than picking his

nose. At length he himself noticed that he was not altogether in a

responsible condition; wherefore he rose and began to make excuses for

departing homewards, though in a tone so drowsy and lethargic that, to

quote the Russian proverb, he might almost have been “pulling a collar

on to a horse by the clasps.”

“No, no!” cried Nozdrev. “I am NOT going to let you go.”

“But I MUST go,” replied the brother-in-law. “Don’t try to hinder me.

You are annoying me greatly.”

“Rubbish! We are going to play a game of banker.”

“No, no. You must play it without me, my friend. My wife is expecting me

at home, and I must go and tell her all about the fair. Yes, I MUST go

if I am to please her. Do not try to detain me.”

“Your wife be--! But have you REALLY an important piece of business with

her?”

“No, no, my friend. The real reason is that she is a good and trustful

woman, and that she does a great deal for me. The tears spring to my

eyes as I think of it. Do not detain me. As an honourable man I say that

I must go. Of that I do assure you in all sincerity.”

“Oh, let him go,” put in Chichikov under his breath. “What use will he

be here?”

“Very well,” said Nozdrev, “though, damn it, I do not like fellows who

lose their heads.” Then he added to his brother-in-law: “All right,

Thetuk [20]. Off you go to your wife and your woman’s talk and may the

devil go with you!”

“Do not insult me with the term Thetuk,” retorted the brother-in-law.

“To her I owe my life, and she is a dear, good woman, and has shown me

much affection. At the very thought of it I could weep. You see, she

will be asking me what I have seen at the fair, and tell her about it I

must, for she is such a dear, good woman.”

“Then off you go to her with your pack of lies. Here is your cap.”

“No, good friend, you are not to speak of her like that. By so doing you

offend me greatly--I say that she is a dear, good woman.”

“Then run along home to her.”

“Yes, I am just going. Excuse me for having been unable to stay. Gladly

would I have stayed, but really I cannot.”

The brother-in-law repeated his excuses again and again without noticing

that he had entered the britchka, that it had passed through the gates,

and that he was now in the open country. Permissibly we may suppose that

his wife succeeded in gleaning from him few details of the fair.

“What a fool!” said Nozdrev as, standing by the window, he watched the

departing vehicle. “Yet his off-horse is not such a bad one. For a long

time past I have been wanting to get hold of it. A man like that is

simply impossible. Yes, he is a Thetuk, a regular Thetuk.”

With that they repaired to the parlour, where, on Porphyri bringing

candles, Chichikov perceived that his host had produced a pack of cards.

“I tell you what,” said Nozdrev, pressing the sides of the pack

together, and then slightly bending them, so that the pack cracked and

a card flew out. “How would it be if, to pass the time, I were to make a

bank of three hundred?”

Chichikov pretended not to have heard him, but remarked with an air of

having just recollected a forgotten point:

“By the way, I had omitted to say that I have a request to make of you.”

“What request?”

“First give me your word that you will grant it.”

“What is the request, I say?”

“Then you give me your word, do you?”

“Certainly.”

“Your word of honour?”

“My word of honour.”

“This, then, is my request. I presume that you have a large number

of dead serfs whose names have not yet been removed from the revision

list?”

“I have. But why do you ask?”

“Because I want you to make them over to me.”

“Of what use would they be to you?”

“Never mind. I have a purpose in wanting them.”

“What purpose?”

“A purpose which is strictly my own affair. In short, I need them.”

“You seem to have hatched a very fine scheme. Out with it, now! What is

in the wind?”

“How could I have hatched such a scheme as you say? One could not very

well hatch a scheme out of such a trifle as this.”

“Then for what purpose do you want the serfs?”

“Oh, the curiosity of the man! He wants to poke his fingers into and

smell over every detail!”

“Why do you decline to say what is in your mind? At all events, until

you DO say I shall not move in the matter.”

“But how would it benefit you to know what my plans are? A whim has

seized me. That is all. Nor are you playing fair. You have given me your

word of honour, yet now you are trying to back out of it.”

“No matter what you desire me to do, I decline to do it until you have

told me your purpose.”

“What am I to say to the fellow?” thought Chichikov. He reflected for

a moment, and then explained that he wanted the dead souls in order

to acquire a better standing in society, since at present he possessed

little landed property, and only a handful of serfs.

“You are lying,” said Nozdrev without even letting him finish. “Yes, you

are lying my good friend.”

Chichikov himself perceived that his device had been a clumsy one, and

his pretext weak. “I must tell him straight out,” he said to himself as

he pulled his wits together.

“Should I tell you the truth,” he added aloud, “I must beg of you not

to repeat it. The truth is that I am thinking of getting married. But,

unfortunately, my betrothed’s father and mother are very ambitious

people, and do not want me to marry her, since they desire the

bridegroom to own not less than three hundred souls, whereas I own but a

hundred and fifty, and that number is not sufficient.”

“Again you are lying,” said Nozdrev.

“Then look here; I have been lying only to this extent.” And Chichikov

marked off upon his little finger a minute portion.

“Nevertheless I will bet my head that you have been lying throughout.”

“Come, come! That is not very civil of you. Why should I have been

lying?”

“Because I know you, and know that you are a regular skinflint. I say

that in all friendship. If I possessed any power over you I should hang

you to the nearest tree.”

This remark hurt Chichikov, for at any time he disliked expressions

gross or offensive to decency, and never allowed any one--no, not even

persons of the highest rank--to behave towards him with an undue

measure of familiarity. Consequently his sense of umbrage on the present

occasion was unbounded.

“By God, I WOULD hang you!” repeated Nozdrev. “I say this frankly, and

not for the purpose of offending you, but simply to communicate to you

my friendly opinion.”

“To everything there are limits,” retorted Chichikov stiffly. “If you

want to indulge in speeches of that sort you had better return to the

barracks.”

However, after a pause he added:

“If you do not care to give me the serfs, why not SELL them?”

“SELL them? _I_ know you, you rascal! You wouldn’t give me very much for

them, WOULD you?”

“A nice fellow! Look here. What are they to you? So many diamonds, eh?”

“I thought so! _I_ know you!”

“Pardon me, but I could wish that you were a member of the Jewish

persuasion. You would give them to me fast enough then.”

“On the contrary, to show you that I am not a usurer, I will decline to

ask of you a single kopeck for the serfs. All that you need do is to buy

that colt of mine, and then I will throw in the serfs in addition.”

“But what should _I_ want with your colt?” said Chichikov, genuinely

astonished at the proposal.

“What should YOU want with him? Why, I have bought him for ten thousand

roubles, and am ready to let you have him for four.”

“I ask you again: of what use could the colt possibly be to me? I am not

the keeper of a breeding establishment.”

“Ah! I see that you fail to understand me. Let me suggest that you pay

down at once three thousand roubles of the purchase money, and leave the

other thousand until later.”

“But I do not mean to buy the colt, damn him!”

“Then buy the roan mare.”

“No, nor the roan mare.”

“Then you shall have both the mare and the grey horse which you have

seen in my stables for two thousand roubles.”

“I require no horses at all.”

“But you would be able to sell them again. You would be able to get

thrice their purchase price at the very first fair that was held.”

“Then sell them at that fair yourself, seeing that you are so certain of

making a triple profit.”

“Oh, I should make it fast enough, only I want YOU to benefit by the

transaction.”

Chichikov duly thanked his interlocutor, but continued to decline either

the grey horse or the roan mare.

“Then buy a few dogs,” said Nozdrev. “I can sell you a couple of hides

a-quiver, ears well pricked, coats like quills, ribs barrel-shaped, and

paws so tucked up as scarcely to graze the ground when they run.”

“Of what use would those dogs be to me? I am not a sportsman.”

“But I WANT you to have the dogs. Listen. If you won’t have the dogs,

then buy my barrel-organ. ’Tis a splendid instrument. As a man of honour

I can tell you that, when new, it cost me fifteen hundred roubles. Well,

you shall have it for nine hundred.”

“Come, come! What should I want with a barrel-organ? I am not a German,

to go hauling it about the roads and begging for coppers.”

“But this is quite a different kind of organ from the one which Germans

take about with them. You see, it is a REAL organ. Look at it for

yourself. It is made of the best wood. I will take you to have another

view of it.”

And seizing Chichikov by the hand, Nozdrev drew him towards the other

room, where, in spite of the fact that Chichikov, with his feet planted

firmly on the floor, assured his host, again and again, that he knew

exactly what the organ was like, he was forced once more to hear how

Marlborough went to the war.

“Then, since you don’t care to give me any money for it,” persisted

Nozdrev, “listen to the following proposal. I will give you the

barrel-organ and all the dead souls which I possess, and in return you

shall give me your britchka, and another three hundred roubles into the

bargain.”

“Listen to the man! In that case, what should I have left to drive in?”

“Oh, I would stand you another britchka. Come to the coach-house, and

I will show you the one I mean. It only needs repainting to look a

perfectly splendid britchka.”

“The ramping, incorrigible devil!” thought Chichikov to himself as at

all hazards he resolved to escape from britchkas, organs, and every

species of dog, however marvellously barrel-ribbed and tucked up of paw.

“And in exchange, you shall have the britchka, the barrel-organ, and the

dead souls,” repeated Nozdrev.

“I must decline the offer,” said Chichikov.

“And why?”

“Because I don’t WANT the things--I am full up already.”

“I can see that you don’t know how things should be done between good

friends and comrades. Plainly you are a man of two faces.”

“What do you mean, you fool? Think for yourself. Why should I acquire

articles which I don’t want?”

“Say no more about it, if you please. I have quite taken your measure.

But see here. Should you care to play a game of banker? I am ready to

stake both the dead souls and the barrel-organ at cards.”

“No; to leave an issue to cards means to submit oneself to the unknown,”

said Chichikov, covertly glancing at the pack which Nozdrev had got

in his hands. Somehow the way in which his companion had cut that pack

seemed to him suspicious.

“Why ‘to the unknown’?” asked Nozdrev. “There is no such thing as ‘the

unknown.’ Should luck be on your side, you may win the devil knows what

a haul. Oh, luck, luck!” he went on, beginning to deal, in the hope of

raising a quarrel. “Here is the cursed nine upon which, the other night,

I lost everything. All along I knew that I should lose my money. Said I

to myself: ‘The devil take you, you false, accursed card!’”

Just as Nozdrev uttered the words Porphyri entered with a fresh bottle

of liquor; but Chichikov declined either to play or to drink.

“Why do you refuse to play?” asked Nozdrev.

“Because I feel indisposed to do so. Moreover, I must confess that I am

no great hand at cards.”

“WHY are you no great hand at them?”

Chichikov shrugged his shoulders. “Because I am not,” he replied.

“You are no great hand at ANYTHING, I think.”

“What does that matter? God has made me so.”

“The truth is that you are a Thetuk, and nothing else. Once upon a

time I believed you to be a good fellow, but now I see that you

don’t understand civility. One cannot speak to you as one would to an

intimate, for there is no frankness or sincerity about you. You are a

regular Sobakevitch--just such another as he.”

“For what reason are you abusing me? Am I in any way at fault for

declining to play cards? Sell me those souls if you are the man to

hesitate over such rubbish.”

“The foul fiend take you! I was about to have given them to you for

nothing, but now you shan’t have them at all--not if you offer me three

kingdoms in exchange. Henceforth I will have nothing to do with you, you

cobbler, you dirty blacksmith! Porphyri, go and tell the ostler to give

the gentleman’s horses no oats, but only hay.”

This development Chichikov had hardly expected.

“And do you,” added Nozdrev to his guest, “get out of my sight.”

Yet in spite of this, host and guest took supper together--even though

on this occasion the table was adorned with no wines of fictitious

nomenclature, but only with a bottle which reared its solitary head

beside a jug of what is usually known as vin ordinaire. When supper was

over Nozdrev said to Chichikov as he conducted him to a side room where

a bed had been made up:

“This is where you are to sleep. I cannot very well wish you

good-night.”

Left to himself on Nozdrev’s departure, Chichikov felt in a most

unenviable frame of mind. Full of inward vexation, he blamed himself

bitterly for having come to see this man and so wasted valuable

time; but even more did he blame himself for having told him of his

scheme--for having acted as carelessly as a child or a madman. Of a

surety the scheme was not one which ought to have been confided to a man

like Nozdrev, for he was a worthless fellow who might lie about it, and

append additions to it, and spread such stories as would give rise

to God knows what scandals. “This is indeed bad!” Chichikov said to

himself. “I have been an absolute fool.” Consequently he spent an uneasy

night--this uneasiness being increased by the fact that a number of

small, but vigorous, insects so feasted upon him that he could do

nothing but scratch the spots and exclaim, “The devil take you and

Nozdrev alike!” Only when morning was approaching did he fall asleep. On

rising, he made it his first business (after donning dressing-gown

and slippers) to cross the courtyard to the stable, for the purpose of

ordering Selifan to harness the britchka. Just as he was returning from

his errand he encountered Nozdrev, clad in a dressing-gown, and holding

a pipe between his teeth.

Host and guest greeted one another in friendly fashion, and Nozdrev

inquired how Chichikov had slept.

“Fairly well,” replied Chichikov, but with a touch of dryness in his

tone.

“The same with myself,” said Nozdrev. “The truth is that such a lot of

nasty brutes kept crawling over me that even to speak of it gives me

the shudders. Likewise, as the effect of last night’s doings, a whole

squadron of soldiers seemed to be camping on my chest, and giving me a

flogging. Ugh! And whom also do you think I saw in a dream? You would

never guess. Why, it was Staff-Captain Potsieluev and Lieutenant

Kuvshinnikov!”

“Yes,” though Chichikov to himself, “and I wish that they too would give

you a public thrashing!”

“I felt so ill!” went on Nozdrev. “And just after I had fallen asleep

something DID come and sting me. Probably it was a party of hag fleas.

Now, dress yourself, and I will be with you presently. First of all I

must give that scoundrel of a bailiff a wigging.”

Chichikov departed to his own room to wash and dress; which process

completed, he entered the dining-room to find the table laid with

tea-things and a bottle of rum. Clearly no broom had yet touched the

place, for there remained traces of the previous night’s dinner and

supper in the shape of crumbs thrown over the floor and tobacco ash on

the tablecloth. The host himself, when he entered, was still clad in a

dressing-gown exposing a hairy chest; and as he sat holding his pipe in

his hand, and drinking tea from a cup, he would have made a model for

the sort of painter who prefers to portray gentlemen of the less curled

and scented order.

“What think you?” he asked of Chichikov after a short silence. “Are you

willing NOW to play me for those souls?”

“I have told you that I never play cards. If the souls are for sale, I

will buy them.”

“I decline to sell them. Such would not be the course proper between

friends. But a game of banker would be quite another matter. Let us deal

the cards.”

“I have told you that I decline to play.”

“And you will not agree to an exchange?”

“No.”

“Then look here. Suppose we play a game of chess. If you win, the souls

shall be yours. There are lots which I should like to see crossed off

the revision list. Hi, Porphyri! Bring me the chessboard.”

“You are wasting your time. I will play neither chess nor cards.”

“But chess is different from playing with a bank. In chess there can be

neither luck nor cheating, for everything depends upon skill. In fact, I

warn you that I cannot possibly play with you unless you allow me a move

or two in advance.”

“The same with me,” thought Chichikov. “Shall I, or shall I not, play

this fellow? I used not to be a bad chess-player, and it is a sport in

which he would find it more difficult to be up to his tricks.”

“Very well,” he added aloud. “I WILL play you at chess.”

“And stake the souls for a hundred roubles?” asked Nozdrev.

“No. Why for a hundred? Would it not be sufficient to stake them for

fifty?”

“No. What would be the use of fifty? Nevertheless, for the hundred

roubles I will throw in a moderately old puppy, or else a gold seal and

watch-chain.”

“Very well,” assented Chichikov.

“Then how many moves are you going to allow me?”

“Is THAT to be part of the bargain? Why, none, of course.”

“At least allow me two.”

“No, none. I myself am only a poor player.”

“_I_ know you and your poor play,” said Nozdrev, moving a chessman.

“In fact, it is a long time since last I had a chessman in my hand,”

replied Chichikov, also moving a piece.

“Ah! _I_ know you and your poor play,” repeated Nozdrev, moving a second

chessman.

“I say again that it is a long time since last I had a chessman in my

hand.” And Chichikov, in his turn, moved.

“Ah! _I_ know you and your poor play,” repeated Nozdrev, for the third

time as he made a third move. At the same moment the cuff of one of his

sleeves happened to dislodge another chessman from its position.

“Again, I say,” said Chichikov, “that ’tis a long time since last--But

hi! look here! Put that piece back in its place!”

“What piece?”

“This one.” And almost as Chichikov spoke he saw a third chessman coming

into view between the queens. God only knows whence that chessman had

materialised.

“No, no!” shouted Chichikov as he rose from the table. “It is impossible

to play with a man like you. People don’t move three pieces at once.”

“How ‘three pieces’? All that I have done is to make a mistake--to move

one of my pieces by accident. If you like, I will forfeit it to you.”

“And whence has the third piece come?”

“What third piece?”

“The one now standing between the queens?”

“’Tis one of your own pieces. Surely you are forgetting?”

“No, no, my friend. I have counted every move, and can remember each

one. That piece has only just become added to the board. Put it back in

its place, I say.”

“Its place? Which IS its place?” But Nozdrev had reddened a good deal.

“I perceive you to be a strategist at the game.”

“No, no, good friend. YOU are the strategist--though an unsuccessful

one, as it happens.”

“Then of what are you supposing me capable? Of cheating you?”

“I am not supposing you capable of anything. All that I say is that I

will not play with you any more.”

“But you can’t refuse to,” said Nozdrev, growing heated. “You see, the

game has begun.”

“Nevertheless, I have a right not to continue it, seeing that you are

not playing as an honest man should do.”

“You are lying--you cannot truthfully say that.”

“’Tis you who are lying.”

“But I have NOT cheated. Consequently you cannot refuse to play, but

must continue the game to a finish.”

“You cannot force me to play,” retorted Chichikov coldly as, turning to

the chessboard, he swept the pieces into confusion.

Nozdrev approached Chichikov with a manner so threatening that the other

fell back a couple of paces.

“I WILL force you to play,” said Nozdrev. “It is no use you making a

mess of the chessboard, for I can remember every move. We will replace

the chessmen exactly as they were.”

“No, no, my friend. The game is over, and I play you no more.”

“You say that you will not?”

“Yes. Surely you can see for yourself that such a thing is impossible?”

“That cock won’t fight. Say at once that you refuse to play with me.”

And Nozdrev approached a step nearer.

“Very well; I DO say that,” replied Chichikov, and at the same moment

raised his hands towards his face, for the dispute was growing heated.

Nor was the act of caution altogether unwarranted, for Nozdrev

also raised his fist, and it may be that one of our hero’s plump,

pleasant-looking cheeks would have sustained an indelible insult had

not he (Chichikov) parried the blow and, seizing Nozdrev by his whirling

arms, held them fast.

“Porphyri! Pavlushka!” shouted Nozdrev as madly he strove to free

himself.

On hearing the words, Chichikov, both because he wished to avoid

rendering the servants witnesses of the unedifying scene and because he

felt that it would be of no avail to hold Nozdrev any longer, let go of

the latter’s arms; but at the same moment Porphyri and Pavlushka entered

the room--a pair of stout rascals with whom it would be unwise to

meddle.

“Do you, or do you not, intend to finish the game?” said Nozdrev. “Give

me a direct answer.”

“No; it will not be possible to finish the game,” replied Chichikov,

glancing out of the window. He could see his britchka standing ready for

him, and Selifan evidently awaiting orders to draw up to the entrance

steps. But from the room there was no escape, since in the doorway was

posted the couple of well-built serving-men.

“Then it is as I say? You refuse to finish the game?” repeated Nozdrev,

his face as red as fire.

“I would have finished it had you played like a man of honour. But, as

it is, I cannot.”

“You cannot, eh, you villain? You find that you cannot as soon as you

find that you are not winning? Thrash him, you fellows!” And as he spoke

Nozdrev grasped the cherrywood shank of his pipe. Chichikov turned as

white as a sheet. He tried to say something, but his quivering lips

emitted no sound. “Thrash him!” again shouted Nozdrev as he rushed

forward in a state of heat and perspiration more proper to a warrior who

is attacking an impregnable fortress. “Thrash him!” again he shouted

in a voice like that of some half-demented lieutenant whose desperate

bravery has acquired such a reputation that orders have had to be issued

that his hands shall be held lest he attempt deeds of over-presumptuous

daring. Seized with the military spirit, however, the lieutenant’s head

begins to whirl, and before his eye there flits the image of Suvorov

[21]. He advances to the great encounter, and impulsively cries,

“Forward, my sons!”--cries it without reflecting that he may be

spoiling the plan of the general attack, that millions of rifles may

be protruding their muzzles through the embrasures of the impregnable,

towering walls of the fortress, that his own impotent assault may be

destined to be dissipated like dust before the wind, and that already

there may have been launched on its whistling career the bullet which is

to close for ever his vociferous throat. However, if Nozdrev resembled

the headstrong, desperate lieutenant whom we have just pictured as

advancing upon a fortress, at least the fortress itself in no way

resembled the impregnable stronghold which I have described. As a matter

of fact, the fortress became seized with a panic which drove its spirit

into its boots. First of all, the chair with which Chichikov (the

fortress in question) sought to defend himself was wrested from his

grasp by the serfs, and then--blinking and neither alive nor dead--he

turned to parry the Circassian pipe-stem of his host. In fact, God

only knows what would have happened had not the fates been pleased by

a miracle to deliver Chichikov’s elegant back and shoulders from the

onslaught. Suddenly, and as unexpectedly as though the sound had

come from the clouds, there made itself heard the tinkling notes of

a collar-bell, and then the rumble of wheels approaching the entrance

steps, and, lastly, the snorting and hard breathing of a team of horses

as a vehicle came to a standstill. Involuntarily all present glanced

through the window, and saw a man clad in a semi-military greatcoat leap

from a buggy. After making an inquiry or two in the hall, he entered the

dining-room just at the juncture when Chichikov, almost swooning with

terror, had found himself placed in about as awkward a situation as

could well befall a mortal man.

“Kindly tell me which of you is Monsieur Nozdrev?” said the unknown with

a glance of perplexity both at the person named (who was still standing

with pipe-shank upraised) and at Chichikov (who was just beginning to

recover from his unpleasant predicament).

“Kindly tell ME whom I have the honour of addressing?” retorted Nozdrev

as he approached the official.

“I am the Superintendent of Rural Police.”

“And what do you want?”

“I have come to fulfil a commission imposed upon me. That is to say,

I have come to place you under arrest until your case shall have been

decided.”

“Rubbish! What case, pray?”

“The case in which you involved yourself when, in a drunken condition,

and through the instrumentality of a walking-stick, you offered grave

offence to the person of Landowner Maksimov.”

“You lie! To your face I tell you that never in my life have I set eyes

upon Landowner Maksimov.”

“Good sir, allow me to represent to you that I am a Government officer.

Speeches like that you may address to your servants, but not to me.”

At this point Chichikov, without waiting for Nozdrev’s reply, seized

his cap, slipped behind the Superintendent’s back, rushed out on to the

verandah, sprang into his britchka, and ordered Selifan to drive like

the wind.

CHAPTER V

Certainly Chichikov was a thorough coward, for, although the britchka

pursued its headlong course until Nozdrev’s establishment had

disappeared behind hillocks and hedgerows, our hero continued to glance

nervously behind him, as though every moment expecting to see a stern

chase begin. His breath came with difficulty, and when he tried his

heart with his hands he could feel it fluttering like a quail caught in

a net.

“What a sweat the fellow has thrown me into!” he thought to himself,

while many a dire and forceful aspiration passed through his mind.

Indeed, the expressions to which he gave vent were most inelegant

in their nature. But what was to be done next? He was a Russian

and thoroughly aroused. The affair had been no joke. “But for the

Superintendent,” he reflected, “I might never again have looked upon

God’s daylight--I might have vanished like a bubble on a pool, and left

neither trace nor posterity nor property nor an honourable name for my

future offspring to inherit!” (it seemed that our hero was particularly

anxious with regard to his possible issue).

“What a scurvy barin!” mused Selifan as he drove along. “Never have I

seen such a barin. I should like to spit in his face. ’Tis better to

allow a man nothing to eat than to refuse to feed a horse properly. A

horse needs his oats--they are his proper fare. Even if you make a man

procure a meal at his own expense, don’t deny a horse his oats, for he

ought always to have them.”

An equally poor opinion of Nozdrev seemed to be cherished also by

the steeds, for not only were the bay and the Assessor clearly out of

spirits, but even the skewbald was wearing a dejected air. True, at home

the skewbald got none but the poorer sorts of oats to eat, and Selifan

never filled his trough without having first called him a villain; but

at least they WERE oats, and not hay--they were stuff which could be

chewed with a certain amount of relish. Also, there was the fact that

at intervals he could intrude his long nose into his companions’ troughs

(especially when Selifan happened to be absent from the stable) and

ascertain what THEIR provender was like. But at Nozdrev’s there had

been nothing but hay! That was not right. All three horses felt greatly

discontented.

But presently the malcontents had their reflections cut short in a very

rude and unexpected manner. That is to say, they were brought back

to practicalities by coming into violent collision with a six-horsed

vehicle, while upon their heads descended both a babel of cries from the

ladies inside and a storm of curses and abuse from the coachman. “Ah,

you damned fool!” he vociferated. “I shouted to you loud enough! Draw

out, you old raven, and keep to the right! Are you drunk?” Selifan

himself felt conscious that he had been careless, but since a Russian

does not care to admit a fault in the presence of strangers, he retorted

with dignity: “Why have you run into US? Did you leave your eyes behind

you at the last tavern that you stopped at?” With that he started to

back the britchka, in the hope that it might get clear of the other’s

harness; but this would not do, for the pair were too hopelessly

intertwined. Meanwhile the skewbald snuffed curiously at his new

acquaintances as they stood planted on either side of him; while the

ladies in the vehicle regarded the scene with an expression of terror.

One of them was an old woman, and the other a damsel of about sixteen. A

mass of golden hair fell daintily from a small head, and the oval of

her comely face was as shapely as an egg, and white with the transparent

whiteness seen when the hands of a housewife hold a new-laid egg to

the light to let the sun’s rays filter through its shell. The same tint

marked the maiden’s ears where they glowed in the sunshine, and,

in short, what with the tears in her wide-open, arresting eyes, she

presented so attractive a picture that our hero bestowed upon it more

than a passing glance before he turned his attention to the hubbub which

was being raised among the horses and the coachmen.

“Back out, you rook of Nizhni Novgorod!” the strangers’ coachman

shouted. Selifan tightened his reins, and the other driver did the same.

The horses stepped back a little, and then came together again--this

time getting a leg or two over the traces. In fact, so pleased did the

skewbald seem with his new friends that he refused to stir from the

melee into which an unforeseen chance had plunged him. Laying his muzzle

lovingly upon the neck of one of his recently-acquired acquaintances,

he seemed to be whispering something in that acquaintance’s ear--and

whispering pretty nonsense, too, to judge from the way in which that

confidant kept shaking his ears.

At length peasants from a village which happened to be near the scene of

the accident tackled the mess; and since a spectacle of that kind is to

the Russian muzhik what a newspaper or a club-meeting is to the German,

the vehicles soon became the centre of a crowd, and the village denuded

even of its old women and children. The traces were disentangled, and a

few slaps on the nose forced the skewbald to draw back a little; after

which the teams were straightened out and separated. Nevertheless,

either sheer obstinacy or vexation at being parted from their new

friends caused the strange team absolutely to refuse to move a leg.

Their driver laid the whip about them, but still they stood as though

rooted to the spot. At length the participatory efforts of the peasants

rose to an unprecedented degree of enthusiasm, and they shouted in an

intermittent chorus the advice, “Do you, Andrusha, take the head of the

trace horse on the right, while Uncle Mitai mounts the shaft horse. Get

up, Uncle Mitai.” Upon that the lean, long, and red-bearded Uncle Mitai

mounted the shaft horse; in which position he looked like a village

steeple or the winder which is used to raise water from wells. The

coachman whipped up his steeds afresh, but nothing came of it, and

Uncle Mitai had proved useless. “Hold on, hold on!” shouted the peasants

again. “Do you, Uncle Mitai, mount the trace horse, while Uncle Minai

mounts the shaft horse.” Whereupon Uncle Minai--a peasant with a pair of

broad shoulders, a beard as black as charcoal, and a belly like the

huge samovar in which sbiten is brewed for all attending a local

market--hastened to seat himself upon the shaft horse, which almost

sank to the ground beneath his weight. “NOW they will go all right!” the

muzhiks exclaimed. “Lay it on hot, lay it on hot! Give that sorrel horse

the whip, and make him squirm like a koramora [22].” Nevertheless, the

affair in no way progressed; wherefore, seeing that flogging was of

no use, Uncles Mitai and Minai BOTH mounted the sorrel, while Andrusha

seated himself upon the trace horse. Then the coachman himself lost

patience, and sent the two Uncles about their business--and not before

it was time, seeing that the horses were steaming in a way that made it

clear that, unless they were first winded, they would never reach the

next posthouse. So they were given a moment’s rest. That done, they

moved off of their own accord!

Throughout, Chichikov had been gazing at the young unknown with

great attention, and had even made one or two attempts to enter into

conversation with her: but without success. Indeed, when the ladies

departed, it was as in a dream that he saw the girl’s comely presence,

the delicate features of her face, and the slender outline of her form

vanish from his sight; it was as in a dream that once more he saw only

the road, the britchka, the three horses, Selifan, and the bare, empty

fields. Everywhere in life--yes, even in the plainest, the dingiest

ranks of society, as much as in those which are uniformly bright and

presentable--a man may happen upon some phenomenon which is so entirely

different from those which have hitherto fallen to his lot. Everywhere

through the web of sorrow of which our lives are woven there may

suddenly break a clear, radiant thread of joy; even as suddenly along

the street of some poor, poverty-stricken village which, ordinarily,

sees nought but a farm waggon there may came bowling a gorgeous coach

with plated harness, picturesque horses, and a glitter of glass, so that

the peasants stand gaping, and do not resume their caps until long after

the strange equipage has become lost to sight. Thus the golden-haired

maiden makes a sudden, unexpected appearance in our story, and as

suddenly, as unexpectedly, disappears. Indeed, had it not been that the

person concerned was Chichikov, and not some youth of twenty summers--a

hussar or a student or, in general, a man standing on the threshold

of life--what thoughts would not have sprung to birth, and stirred and

spoken, within him; for what a length of time would he not have stood

entranced as he stared into the distance and forgot alike his journey,

the business still to be done, the possibility of incurring loss through

lingering--himself, his vocation, the world, and everything else that

the world contains!

But in the present case the hero was a man of middle-age, and of

cautious and frigid temperament. True, he pondered over the incident,

but in more deliberate fashion than a younger man would have done. That

is to say, his reflections were not so irresponsible and unsteady. “She

was a comely damsel,” he said to himself as he opened his snuff-box and

took a pinch. “But the important point is: Is she also a NICE DAMSEL?

One thing she has in her favour--and that is that she appears only just

to have left school, and not to have had time to become womanly in the

worser sense. At present, therefore, she is like a child. Everything in

her is simple, and she says just what she thinks, and laughs merely when

she feels inclined. Such a damsel might be made into anything--or she

might be turned into worthless rubbish. The latter, I surmise, for

trudging after her she will have a fond mother and a bevy of aunts,

and so forth--persons who, within a year, will have filled her with

womanishness to the point where her own father wouldn’t know her. And

to that there will be added pride and affectation, and she will begin

to observe established rules, and to rack her brains as to how, and how

much, she ought to talk, and to whom, and where, and so forth. Every

moment will see her growing timorous and confused lest she be saying too

much. Finally, she will develop into a confirmed prevaricator, and end

by marrying the devil knows whom!” Chichikov paused awhile. Then he went

on: “Yet I should like to know who she is, and who her father is, and

whether he is a rich landowner of good standing, or merely a respectable

man who has acquired a fortune in the service of the Government.

Should he allow her, on marriage, a dowry of, say, two hundred thousand

roubles, she will be a very nice catch indeed. She might even, so to

speak, make a man of good breeding happy.”

Indeed, so attractively did the idea of the two hundred thousand

roubles begin to dance before his imagination that he felt a twinge of

self-reproach because, during the hubbub, he had not inquired of the

postillion or the coachman who the travellers might be. But soon the

sight of Sobakevitch’s country house dissipated his thoughts, and forced

him to return to his stock subject of reflection.

Sobakevitch’s country house and estate were of very fair size, and on

each side of the mansion were expanses of birch and pine forest in two

shades of green. The wooden edifice itself had dark-grey walls and a

red-gabled roof, for it was a mansion of the kind which Russia builds

for her military settlers and for German colonists. A noticeable

circumstance was the fact that the taste of the architect had differed

from that of the proprietor--the former having manifestly been a pedant

and desirous of symmetry, and the latter having wished only for comfort.

Consequently he (the proprietor) had dispensed with all windows on one

side of the mansion, and had caused to be inserted, in their place, only

a small aperture which, doubtless, was intended to light an otherwise

dark lumber-room. Likewise, the architect’s best efforts had failed to

cause the pediment to stand in the centre of the building, since the

proprietor had had one of its four original columns removed. Evidently

durability had been considered throughout, for the courtyard was

enclosed by a strong and very high wooden fence, and both the stables,

the coach-house, and the culinary premises were partially constructed of

beams warranted to last for centuries. Nay, even the wooden huts of the

peasantry were wonderful in the solidity of their construction, and

not a clay wall or a carved pattern or other device was to be seen.

Everything fitted exactly into its right place, and even the draw-well

of the mansion was fashioned of the oakwood usually thought suitable

only for mills or ships. In short, wherever Chichikov’s eye turned he

saw nothing that was not free from shoddy make and well and skilfully

arranged. As he approached the entrance steps he caught sight of two

faces peering from a window. One of them was that of a woman in a mobcap

with features as long and as narrow as a cucumber, and the other that

of a man with features as broad and as short as the Moldavian pumpkins

(known as gorlianki) whereof balallaiki--the species of light,

two-stringed instrument which constitutes the pride and the joy of

the gay young fellow of twenty as he sits winking and smiling at the

white-necked, white-bosomed maidens who have gathered to listen to his

low-pitched tinkling--are fashioned. This scrutiny made, both faces

withdrew, and there came out on to the entrance steps a lacquey clad

in a grey jacket and a stiff blue collar. This functionary conducted

Chichikov into the hall, where he was met by the master of the house

himself, who requested his guest to enter, and then led him into the

inner part of the mansion.

A covert glance at Sobakevitch showed our hero that his host exactly

resembled a moderate-sized bear. To complete the resemblance,

Sobakevitch’s long frockcoat and baggy trousers were of the precise

colour of a bear’s hide, while, when shuffling across the floor, he made

a criss-cross motion of the legs, and had, in addition, a constant habit

of treading upon his companion’s toes. As for his face, it was of the

warm, ardent tint of a piatok [23]. Persons of this kind--persons

to whose designing nature has devoted not much thought, and in the

fashioning of whose frames she has used no instruments so delicate as a

file or a gimlet and so forth--are not uncommon. Such persons she merely

roughhews. One cut with a hatchet, and there results a nose; another

such cut with a hatchet, and there materialises a pair of lips; two

thrusts with a drill, and there issues a pair of eyes. Lastly, scorning

to plane down the roughness, she sends out that person into the world,

saying: “There is another live creature.” Sobakevitch was just such a

ragged, curiously put together figure--though the above model would seem

to have been followed more in his upper portion than in his lower. One

result was that he seldom turned his head to look at the person with

whom he was speaking, but, rather, directed his eyes towards, say, the

stove corner or the doorway. As host and guest crossed the dining-room

Chichikov directed a second glance at his companion. “He is a bear, and

nothing but a bear,” he thought to himself. And, indeed, the strange

comparison was inevitable. Incidentally, Sobakevitch’s Christian name

and patronymic were Michael Semenovitch. Of his habit of treading upon

other people’s toes Chichikov had become fully aware; wherefore he

stepped cautiously, and, throughout, allowed his host to take the

lead. As a matter of fact, Sobakevitch himself seemed conscious of his

failing, for at intervals he would inquire: “I hope I have not hurt

you?” and Chichikov, with a word of thanks, would reply that as yet he

had sustained no injury.

At length they reached the drawing-room, where Sobakevitch pointed to

an armchair, and invited his guest to be seated. Chichikov gazed with

interest at the walls and the pictures. In every such picture there were

portrayed either young men or Greek generals of the type of Movrogordato

(clad in a red uniform and breaches), Kanaris, and others; and all these

heroes were depicted with a solidity of thigh and a wealth of moustache

which made the beholder simply shudder with awe. Among them there were

placed also, according to some unknown system, and for some unknown

reason, firstly, Bagration [24]--tall and thin, and with a cluster of

small flags and cannon beneath him, and the whole set in the narrowest

of frames--and, secondly, the Greek heroine, Bobelina, whose legs looked

larger than do the whole bodies of the drawing-room dandies of the

present day. Apparently the master of the house was himself a man of

health and strength, and therefore liked to have his apartments adorned

with none but folk of equal vigour and robustness. Lastly, in the

window, and suspended cheek by jowl with Bobelina, there hung a cage

whence at intervals there peered forth a white-spotted blackbird.

Like everything else in the apartment, it bore a strong resemblance to

Sobakevitch. When host and guest had been conversing for two minutes or

so the door opened, and there entered the hostess--a tall lady in a cap

adorned with ribands of domestic colouring and manufacture. She entered

deliberately, and held her head as erect as a palm.

“This is my wife, Theodulia Ivanovna,” said Sobakevitch.

Chichikov approached and took her hand. The fact that she raised it

nearly to the level of his lips apprised him of the circumstance that it

had just been rinsed in cucumber oil.

“My dear, allow me to introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov,” added

Sobakevitch. “He has the honour of being acquainted both with our

Governor and with our Postmaster.”

Upon this Theodulia Ivanovna requested her guest to be seated, and

accompanied the invitation with the kind of bow usually employed only by

actresses who are playing the role of queens. Next, she took a seat upon

the sofa, drew around her her merino gown, and sat thereafter without

moving an eyelid or an eyebrow. As for Chichikov, he glanced upwards,

and once more caught sight of Kanaris with his fat thighs and

interminable moustache, and of Bobelina and the blackbird. For fully

five minutes all present preserved a complete silence--the only sound

audible being that of the blackbird’s beak against the wooden floor of

the cage as the creature fished for grains of corn. Meanwhile Chichikov

again surveyed the room, and saw that everything in it was massive and

clumsy in the highest degree; as also that everything was curiously in

keeping with the master of the house. For example, in one corner of the

apartment there stood a hazelwood bureau with a bulging body on four

grotesque legs--the perfect image of a bear. Also, the tables and the

chairs were of the same ponderous, unrestful order, and every single

article in the room appeared to be saying either, “I, too, am a

Sobakevitch,” or “I am exactly like Sobakevitch.”

“I heard speak of you one day when I was visiting the President of the

Council,” said Chichikov, on perceiving that no one else had a mind to

begin a conversation. “That was on Thursday last. We had a very pleasant

evening.”

“Yes, on that occasion I was not there,” replied Sobakevitch.

“What a nice man he is!”

“Who is?” inquired Sobakevitch, gazing into the corner by the stove.

“The President of the Local Council.”

“Did he seem so to you? True, he is a mason, but he is also the greatest

fool that the world ever saw.”

Chichikov started a little at this mordant criticism, but soon pulled

himself together again, and continued:

“Of course, every man has his weakness. Yet the President seems to be an

excellent fellow.”

“And do you think the same of the Governor?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Because there exists no greater rogue than he.”

“What? The Governor a rogue?” ejaculated Chichikov, at a loss to

understand how the official in question could come to be numbered with

thieves. “Let me say that I should never have guessed it. Permit me

also to remark that his conduct would hardly seem to bear out your

opinion--he seems so gentle a man.” And in proof of this Chichikov

cited the purses which the Governor knitted, and also expatiated on the

mildness of his features.

“He has the face of a robber,” said Sobakevitch. “Were you to give him a

knife, and to turn him loose on a turnpike, he would cut your throat for

two kopecks. And the same with the Vice-Governor. The pair are just Gog

and Magog.”

“Evidently he is not on good terms with them,” thought Chichikov to

himself. “I had better pass to the Chief of Police, which whom he DOES

seem to be friendly.” Accordingly he added aloud: “For my own part, I

should give the preference to the Head of the Gendarmery. What a frank,

outspoken nature he has! And what an element of simplicity does his

expression contain!”

“He is mean to the core,” remarked Sobakevitch coldly. “He will sell you

and cheat you, and then dine at your table. Yes, I know them all, and

every one of them is a swindler, and the town a nest of rascals engaged

in robbing one another. Not a man of the lot is there but would sell

Christ. Yet stay: ONE decent fellow there is--the Public Prosecutor;

though even HE, if the truth be told, is little better than a pig.”

After these eulogia Chichikov saw that it would be useless to continue

running through the list of officials--more especially since suddenly he

had remembered that Sobakevitch was not at any time given to commending

his fellow man.

“Let us go to luncheon, my dear,” put in Theodulia Ivanovna to her

spouse.

“Yes; pray come to table,” said Sobakevitch to his guest; whereupon they

consumed the customary glass of vodka (accompanied by sundry snacks of

salted cucumber and other dainties) with which Russians, both in town

and country, preface a meal. Then they filed into the dining-room in the

wake of the hostess, who sailed on ahead like a goose swimming across a

pond. The small dining-table was found to be laid for four persons--the

fourth place being occupied by a lady or a young girl (it would have

been difficult to say which exactly) who might have been either a

relative, the housekeeper, or a casual visitor. Certain persons in the

world exist, not as personalities in themselves, but as spots or specks

on the personalities of others. Always they are to be seen sitting in

the same place, and holding their heads at exactly the same angle, so

that one comes within an ace of mistaking them for furniture, and thinks

to oneself that never since the day of their birth can they have spoken

a single word.

“My dear,” said Sobakevitch, “the cabbage soup is excellent.” With that

he finished his portion, and helped himself to a generous measure of

niania [25]--the dish which follows shtchi and consists of a sheep’s

stomach stuffed with black porridge, brains, and other things. “What

niania this is!” he added to Chichikov. “Never would you get such stuff

in a town, where one is given the devil knows what.”

“Nevertheless the Governor keeps a fair table,” said Chichikov.

“Yes, but do you know what all the stuff is MADE OF?” retorted

Sobakevitch. “If you DID know you would never touch it.”

“Of course I am not in a position to say how it is prepared, but at

least the pork cutlets and the boiled fish seemed excellent.”

“Ah, it might have been thought so; yet I know the way in which such

things are bought in the market-place. They are bought by some rascal of

a cook whom a Frenchman has taught how to skin a tomcat and then serve

it up as hare.”

“Ugh! What horrible things you say!” put in Madame.

“Well, my dear, that is how things are done, and it is no fault of mine

that it is so. Moreover, everything that is left over--everything that

WE (pardon me for mentioning it) cast into the slop-pail--is used by

such folk for making soup.”

“Always at table you begin talking like this!” objected his helpmeet.

“And why not?” said Sobakevitch. “I tell you straight that I would not

eat such nastiness, even had I made it myself. Sugar a frog as much

as you like, but never shall it pass MY lips. Nor would I swallow an

oyster, for I know only too well what an oyster may resemble. But

have some mutton, friend Chichikov. It is shoulder of mutton, and

very different stuff from the mutton which they cook in noble

kitchens--mutton which has been kicking about the market-place four days

or more. All that sort of cookery has been invented by French and German

doctors, and I should like to hang them for having done so. They go and

prescribe diets and a hunger cure as though what suits their flaccid

German systems will agree with a Russian stomach! Such devices are no

good at all.” Sobakevitch shook his head wrathfully. “Fellows like

those are for ever talking of civilisation. As if THAT sort of thing was

civilisation! Phew!” (Perhaps the speaker’s concluding exclamation would

have been even stronger had he not been seated at table.) “For myself, I

will have none of it. When I eat pork at a meal, give me the WHOLE pig;

when mutton, the WHOLE sheep; when goose, the WHOLE of the bird. Two

dishes are better than a thousand, provided that one can eat of them as

much as one wants.”

And he proceeded to put precept into practice by taking half the

shoulder of mutton on to his plate, and then devouring it down to the

last morsel of gristle and bone.

“My word!” reflected Chichikov. “The fellow has a pretty good holding

capacity!”

“None of it for me,” repeated Sobakevitch as he wiped his hands on his

napkin. “I don’t intend to be like a fellow named Plushkin, who owns

eight hundred souls, yet dines worse than does my shepherd.”

“Who is Plushkin?” asked Chichikov.

“A miser,” replied Sobakevitch. “Such a miser as never you could

imagine. Even convicts in prison live better than he does. And he

starves his servants as well.”

“Really?” ejaculated Chichikov, greatly interested. “Should you, then,

say that he has lost many peasants by death?”

“Certainly. They keep dying like flies.”

“Then how far from here does he reside?”

“About five versts.”

“Only five versts?” exclaimed Chichikov, feeling his heart beating

joyously. “Ought one, when leaving your gates, to turn to the right or

to the left?”

“I should be sorry to tell you the way to the house of such a cur,” said

Sobakevitch. “A man had far better go to hell than to Plushkin’s.”

“Quite so,” responded Chichikov. “My only reason for asking you is

that it interests me to become acquainted with any and every sort of

locality.”

To the shoulder of mutton there succeeded, in turn, cutlets (each one

larger than a plate), a turkey of about the size of a calf, eggs, rice,

pastry, and every conceivable thing which could possibly be put into a

stomach. There the meal ended. When he rose from table Chichikov felt as

though a pood’s weight were inside him. In the drawing-room the company

found dessert awaiting them in the shape of pears, plums, and apples;

but since neither host nor guest could tackle these particular dainties

the hostess removed them to another room. Taking advantage of her

absence, Chichikov turned to Sobakevitch (who, prone in an armchair,

seemed, after his ponderous meal, to be capable of doing little

beyond belching and grunting--each such grunt or belch necessitating a

subsequent signing of the cross over the mouth), and intimated to him

a desire to have a little private conversation concerning a certain

matter. At this moment the hostess returned.

“Here is more dessert,” she said. “Pray have a few radishes stewed in

honey.”

“Later, later,” replied Sobakevitch. “Do you go to your room, and Paul

Ivanovitch and I will take off our coats and have a nap.”

Upon this the good lady expressed her readiness to send for feather beds

and cushions, but her husband expressed a preference for slumbering in

an armchair, and she therefore departed. When she had gone Sobakevitch

inclined his head in an attitude of willingness to listen to Chichikov’s

business. Our hero began in a sort of detached manner--touching lightly

upon the subject of the Russian Empire, and expatiating upon the

immensity of the same, and saying that even the Empire of Ancient Rome

had been of considerably smaller dimensions. Meanwhile Sobakevitch sat

with his head drooping.

From that Chichikov went on to remark that, according to the statutes of

the said Russian Empire (which yielded to none in glory--so much so that

foreigners marvelled at it), peasants on the census lists who had ended

their earthly careers were nevertheless, on the rendering of new lists,

returned equally with the living, to the end that the courts might be

relieved of a multitude of trifling, useless emendations which might

complicate the already sufficiently complex mechanism of the State.

Nevertheless, said Chichikov, the general equity of this measure did

not obviate a certain amount of annoyance to landowners, since it forced

them to pay upon a non-living article the tax due upon a living. Hence

(our hero concluded) he (Chichikov) was prepared, owing to the personal

respect which he felt for Sobakevitch, to relieve him, in part, of

the irksome obligation referred to (in passing, it may be said that

Chichikov referred to his principal point only guardedly, for he called

the souls which he was seeking not “dead,” but “non-existent”).

Meanwhile Sobakevitch listened with bent head; though something like a

trace of expression dawned in his face as he did so. Ordinarily his

body lacked a soul--or, if he did possess a soul, he seemed to keep it

elsewhere than where it ought to have been; so that, buried beneath

mountains (as it were) or enclosed within a massive shell, its movements

produced no sort of agitation on the surface.

“Well?” said Chichikov--though not without a certain tremor of

diffidence as to the possible response.

“You are after dead souls?” were Sobakevitch’s perfectly simple words.

He spoke without the least surprise in his tone, and much as though the

conversation had been turning on grain.

“Yes,” replied Chichikov, and then, as before, softened down the

expression “dead souls.”

“They are to be found,” said Sobakevitch. “Why should they not be?”

“Then of course you will be glad to get rid of any that you may chance

to have?”

“Yes, I shall have no objection to SELLING them.” At this point the

speaker raised his head a little, for it had struck him that surely the

would-be buyer must have some advantage in view.

“The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself. “Here is he selling the goods

before I have even had time to utter a word!”

“And what about the price?” he added aloud. “Of course, the articles are

not of a kind very easy to appraise.”

“I should be sorry to ask too much,” said Sobakevitch. “How would a

hundred roubles per head suit you?”

“What, a hundred roubles per head?” Chichikov stared open-mouthed at

his host--doubting whether he had heard aright, or whether his host’s

slow-moving tongue might not have inadvertently substituted one word for

another.

“Yes. Is that too much for you?” said Sobakevitch. Then he added: “What

is your own price?”

“My own price? I think that we cannot properly have understood one

another--that you must have forgotten of what the goods consist. With

my hand on my heart do I submit that eight grivni per soul would be a

handsome, a VERY handsome, offer.”

“What? Eight grivni?”

“In my opinion, a higher offer would be impossible.”

“But I am not a seller of boots.”

“No; yet you, for your part, will agree that these souls are not live

human beings?”

“I suppose you hope to find fools ready to sell you souls on the census

list for a couple of groats apiece?”

“Pardon me, but why do you use the term ‘on the census list’? The souls

themselves have long since passed away, and have left behind them only

their names. Not to trouble you with any further discussion of the

subject, I can offer you a rouble and a half per head, but no more.”

“You should be ashamed even to mention such a sum! Since you deal in

articles of this kind, quote me a genuine price.”

“I cannot, Michael Semenovitch. Believe me, I cannot. What a man

cannot do, that he cannot do.” The speaker ended by advancing another

half-rouble per head.

“But why hang back with your money?” said Sobakevitch. “Of a truth I am

not asking much of you. Any other rascal than myself would have cheated

you by selling you old rubbish instead of good, genuine souls, whereas

I should be ready to give you of my best, even were you buying only

nut-kernels. For instance, look at wheelwright Michiev. Never was there

such a one to build spring carts! And his handiwork was not like your

Moscow handiwork--good only for an hour. No, he did it all himself, even

down to the varnishing.”

Chichikov opened his mouth to remark that, nevertheless, the said

Michiev had long since departed this world; but Sobakevitch’s eloquence

had got too thoroughly into its stride to admit of any interruption.

“And look, too, at Probka Stepan, the carpenter,” his host went on. “I

will wager my head that nowhere else would you find such a workman. What

a strong fellow he was! He had served in the Guards, and the Lord only

knows what they had given for him, seeing that he was over three arshins

in height.”

Again Chichikov tried to remark that Probka was dead, but Sobakevitch’s

tongue was borne on the torrent of its own verbiage, and the only thing

to be done was to listen.

“And Milushkin, the bricklayer! He could build a stove in any house you

liked! And Maksim Teliatnikov, the bootmaker! Anything that he drove

his awl into became a pair of boots--and boots for which you would

be thankful, although he WAS a bit foul of the mouth. And Eremi

Sorokoplechin, too! He was the best of the lot, and used to work at

his trade in Moscow, where he paid a tax of five hundred roubles. Well,

THERE’S an assortment of serfs for you!--a very different assortment

from what Plushkin would sell you!”

“But permit me,” at length put in Chichikov, astounded at this flood of

eloquence to which there appeared to be no end. “Permit me, I say, to

inquire why you enumerate the talents of the deceased, seeing that they

are all of them dead, and that therefore there can be no sense in doing

so. ‘A dead body is only good to prop a fence with,’ says the proverb.”

“Of course they are dead,” replied Sobakevitch, but rather as though the

idea had only just occurred to him, and was giving him food for thought.

“But tell me, now: what is the use of listing them as still alive? And

what is the use of them themselves? They are flies, not human beings.”

“Well,” said Chichikov, “they exist, though only in idea.”

“But no--NOT only in idea. I tell you that nowhere else would you

find such a fellow for working heavy tools as was Michiev. He had the

strength of a horse in his shoulders.” And, with the words, Sobakevitch

turned, as though for corroboration, to the portrait of Bagration, as is

frequently done by one of the parties in a dispute when he purports to

appeal to an extraneous individual who is not only unknown to him, but

wholly unconnected with the subject in hand; with the result that the

individual is left in doubt whether to make a reply, or whether to

betake himself elsewhere.

“Nevertheless, I CANNOT give you more than two roubles per head,” said

Chichikov.

“Well, as I don’t want you to swear that I have asked too much of you

and won’t meet you halfway, suppose, for friendship’s sake, that you pay

me seventy-five roubles in assignats?”

“Good heavens!” thought Chichikov to himself. “Does the man take me for

a fool?” Then he added aloud: “The situation seems to me a strange

one, for it is as though we were performing a stage comedy. No other

explanation would meet the case. Yet you appear to be a man of sense,

and possessed of some education. The matter is a very simple one. The

question is: what is a dead soul worth, and is it of any use to any

one?”

“It is of use to YOU, or you would not be buying such articles.”

Chichikov bit his lip, and stood at a loss for a retort. He tried

to saying something about “family and domestic circumstances,” but

Sobakevitch cut him short with:

“I don’t want to know your private affairs, for I never poke my nose

into such things. You need the souls, and I am ready to sell them.

Should you not buy them, I think you will repent it.”

“Two roubles is my price,” repeated Chichikov.

“Come, come! As you have named that sum, I can understand your not

liking to go back upon it; but quote me a bona fide figure.”

“The devil fly away with him!” mused Chichikov. “However, I will add

another half-rouble.” And he did so.

“Indeed?” said Sobakevitch. “Well, my last word upon it is--fifty

roubles in assignats. That will mean a sheer loss to me, for nowhere

else in the world could you buy better souls than mine.”

“The old skinflint!” muttered Chichikov. Then he added aloud, with

irritation in his tone: “See here. This is a serious matter. Any one but

you would be thankful to get rid of the souls. Only a fool would stick

to them, and continue to pay the tax.”

“Yes, but remember (and I say it wholly in a friendly way) that

transactions of this kind are not generally allowed, and that any one

would say that a man who engages in them must have some rather doubtful

advantage in view.”

“Have it your own away,” said Chichikov, with assumed indifference. “As

a matter of fact, I am not purchasing for profit, as you suppose, but to

humour a certain whim of mine. Two and a half roubles is the most that I

can offer.”

“Bless your heart!” retorted the host. “At least give me thirty roubles

in assignats, and take the lot.”

“No, for I see that you are unwilling to sell. I must say good-day to

you.”

“Hold on, hold on!” exclaimed Sobakevitch, retaining his guest’s hand,

and at the same moment treading heavily upon his toes--so heavily,

indeed, that Chichikov gasped and danced with the pain.

“I BEG your pardon!” said Sobakevitch hastily. “Evidently I have hurt

you. Pray sit down again.”

“No,” retorted Chichikov. “I am merely wasting my time, and must be

off.”

“Oh, sit down just for a moment. I have something more agreeable to

say.” And, drawing closer to his guest, Sobakevitch whispered in his

ear, as though communicating to him a secret: “How about twenty-five

roubles?”

“No, no, no!” exclaimed Chichikov. “I won’t give you even a QUARTER of

that. I won’t advance another kopeck.”

For a while Sobakevitch remained silent, and Chichikov did the same.

This lasted for a couple of minutes, and, meanwhile, the aquiline-nosed

Bagration gazed from the wall as though much interested in the

bargaining.

“What is your outside price?” at length said Sobakevitch.

“Two and a half roubles.”

“Then you seem to rate a human soul at about the same value as a boiled

turnip. At least give me THREE roubles.”

“No, I cannot.”

“Pardon me, but you are an impossible man to deal with. However, even

though it will mean a dead loss to me, and you have not shown a very

nice spirit about it, I cannot well refuse to please a friend. I suppose

a purchase deed had better be made out in order to have everything in

order?”

“Of course.”

“Then for that purpose let us repair to the town.”

The affair ended in their deciding to do this on the morrow, and to

arrange for the signing of a deed of purchase. Next, Chichikov requested

a list of the peasants; to which Sobakevitch readily agreed. Indeed, he

went to his writing-desk then and there, and started to indite a

list which gave not only the peasants’ names, but also their late

qualifications.

Meanwhile Chichikov, having nothing else to do, stood looking at the

spacious form of his host; and as he gazed at his back as broad as that

of a cart horse, and at the legs as massive as the iron standards which

adorn a street, he could not help inwardly ejaculating:

“Truly God has endowed you with much! Though not adjusted with nicety,

at least you are strongly built. I wonder whether you were born a

bear or whether you have come to it through your rustic life, with its

tilling of crops and its trading with peasants? Yet no; I believe that,

even if you had received a fashionable education, and had mixed with

society, and had lived in St. Petersburg, you would still have been just

the kulak [26] that you are. The only difference is that circumstances,

as they stand, permit of your polishing off a stuffed shoulder of mutton

at a meal; whereas in St. Petersburg you would have been unable to

do so. Also, as circumstances stand, you have under you a number

of peasants, whom you treat well for the reason that they are your

property; whereas, otherwise, you would have had under you tchinovniks

[27]: whom you would have bullied because they were NOT your property.

Also, you would have robbed the Treasury, since a kulak always remains a

money-grubber.”

“The list is ready,” said Sobakevitch, turning round.

“Indeed? Then please let me look at it.” Chichikov ran his eye over the

document, and could not but marvel at its neatness and accuracy. Not

only were there set forth in it the trade, the age, and the pedigree

of every serf, but on the margin of the sheet were jotted remarks

concerning each serf’s conduct and sobriety. Truly it was a pleasure to

look at it.

“And do you mind handing me the earnest money?” said Sobakevitch.

“Yes, I do. Why need that be done? You can receive the money in a lump

sum as soon as we visit the town.”

“But it is always the custom, you know,” asserted Sobakevitch.

“Then I cannot follow it, for I have no money with me. However, here are

ten roubles.”

“Ten roubles, indeed? You might as well hand me fifty while you are

about it.”

Once more Chichikov started to deny that he had any money upon him, but

Sobakevitch insisted so strongly that this was not so that at length

the guest pulled out another fifteen roubles, and added them to the ten

already produced.

“Kindly give me a receipt for the money,” he added.

“A receipt? Why should I give you a receipt?”

“Because it is better to do so, in order to guard against mistakes.”

“Very well; but first hand me over the money.”

“The money? I have it here. Do you write out the receipt, and then the

money shall be yours.”

“Pardon me, but how am I to write out the receipt before I have seen the

cash?”

Chichikov placed the notes in Sobakevitch’s hand; whereupon the host

moved nearer to the table, and added to the list of serfs a note that

he had received for the peasants, therewith sold, the sum of twenty-five

roubles, as earnest money. This done, he counted the notes once more.

“This is a very OLD note,” he remarked, holding one up to the light.

“Also, it is a trifle torn. However, in a friendly transaction one must

not be too particular.”

“What a kulak!” thought Chichikov to himself. “And what a brute beast!”

“Then you do not want any WOMEN souls?” queried Sobakevitch.

“I thank you, no.”

“I could let you have some cheap--say, as between friends, at a rouble a

head?”

“No, I should have no use for them.”

“Then, that being so, there is no more to be said. There is no

accounting for tastes. ‘One man loves the priest, and another the

priest’s wife,’ says the proverb.”

Chichikov rose to take his leave. “Once more I would request of you,” he

said, “that the bargain be left as it is.”

“Of course, of course. What is done between friends holds good because

of their mutual friendship. Good-bye, and thank you for your visit. In

advance I would beg that, whenever you should have an hour or two to

spare, you will come and lunch with us again. Perhaps we might be able

to do one another further service?”

“Not if I know it!” reflected Chichikov as he mounted his britchka. “Not

I, seeing that I have had two and a half roubles per soul squeezed out

of me by a brute of a kulak!”

Altogether he felt dissatisfied with Sobakevitch’s behaviour. In spite

of the man being a friend of the Governor and the Chief of Police,

he had acted like an outsider in taking money for what was worthless

rubbish. As the britchka left the courtyard Chichikov glanced back

and saw Sobakevitch still standing on the verandah--apparently for the

purpose of watching to see which way the guest’s carriage would turn.

“The old villain, to be still standing there!” muttered Chichikov

through his teeth; after which he ordered Selifan to proceed so that the

vehicle’s progress should be invisible from the mansion--the truth

being that he had a mind next to visit Plushkin (whose serfs, to quote

Sobakevitch, had a habit of dying like flies), but not to let his late

host learn of his intention. Accordingly, on reaching the further end of

the village, he hailed the first peasant whom he saw--a man who was in

the act of hoisting a ponderous beam on to his shoulder before setting

off with it, ant-like, to his hut.

“Hi!” shouted Chichikov. “How can I reach landowner Plushkin’s place

without first going past the mansion here?”

The peasant seemed nonplussed by the question.

“Don’t you know?” queried Chichikov.

“No, barin,” replied the peasant.

“What? You don’t know skinflint Plushkin who feeds his people so badly?”

“Of course I do!” exclaimed the fellow, and added thereto an

uncomplimentary expression of a species not ordinarily employed in

polite society. We may guess that it was a pretty apt expression, since

long after the man had become lost to view Chichikov was still laughing

in his britchka. And, indeed, the language of the Russian populace is

always forcible in its phraseology.

CHAPTER VI

Chichikov’s amusement at the peasant’s outburst prevented him from

noticing that he had reached the centre of a large and populous village;

but, presently, a violent jolt aroused him to the fact that he was

driving over wooden pavements of a kind compared with which the

cobblestones of the town had been as nothing. Like the keys of a piano,

the planks kept rising and falling, and unguarded passage over them

entailed either a bump on the back of the neck or a bruise on the

forehead or a bite on the tip of one’s tongue. At the same time

Chichikov noticed a look of decay about the buildings of the village.

The beams of the huts had grown dark with age, many of their roofs were

riddled with holes, others had but a tile of the roof remaining, and yet

others were reduced to the rib-like framework of the same. It would

seem as though the inhabitants themselves had removed the laths and

traverses, on the very natural plea that the huts were no protection

against the rain, and therefore, since the latter entered in bucketfuls,

there was no particular object to be gained by sitting in such huts when

all the time there was the tavern and the highroad and other places to

resort to.

Suddenly a woman appeared from an outbuilding--apparently the

housekeeper of the mansion, but so roughly and dirtily dressed as almost

to seem indistinguishable from a man. Chichikov inquired for the master

of the place.

“He is not at home,” she replied, almost before her interlocutor had had

time to finish. Then she added: “What do you want with him?”

“I have some business to do,” said Chichikov.

“Then pray walk into the house,” the woman advised. Then she turned upon

him a back that was smeared with flour and had a long slit in the lower

portion of its covering. Entering a large, dark hall which reeked like

a tomb, he passed into an equally dark parlour that was lighted only by

such rays as contrived to filter through a crack under the door. When

Chichikov opened the door in question, the spectacle of the untidiness

within struck him almost with amazement. It would seem that the floor

was never washed, and that the room was used as a receptacle for every

conceivable kind of furniture. On a table stood a ragged chair, with,

beside it, a clock minus a pendulum and covered all over with cobwebs.

Against a wall leant a cupboard, full of old silver, glassware, and

china. On a writing table, inlaid with mother-of-pearl which, in places,

had broken away and left behind it a number of yellow grooves (stuffed

with putty), lay a pile of finely written manuscript, an overturned

marble press (turning green), an ancient book in a leather cover with

red edges, a lemon dried and shrunken to the dimensions of a hazelnut,

the broken arm of a chair, a tumbler containing the dregs of some liquid

and three flies (the whole covered over with a sheet of notepaper), a

pile of rags, two ink-encrusted pens, and a yellow toothpick with which

the master of the house had picked his teeth (apparently) at least

before the coming of the French to Moscow. As for the walls, they were

hung with a medley of pictures. Among the latter was a long engraving of

a battle scene, wherein soldiers in three-cornered hats were brandishing

huge drums and slender lances. It lacked a glass, and was set in a frame

ornamented with bronze fretwork and bronze corner rings. Beside it hung

a huge, grimy oil painting representative of some flowers and fruit,

half a water melon, a boar’s head, and the pendent form of a dead

wild duck. Attached to the ceiling there was a chandelier in a holland

covering--the covering so dusty as closely to resemble a huge cocoon

enclosing a caterpillar. Lastly, in one corner of the room lay a pile

of articles which had evidently been adjudged unworthy of a place on the

table. Yet what the pile consisted of it would have been difficult to

say, seeing that the dust on the same was so thick that any hand which

touched it would have at once resembled a glove. Prominently protruding

from the pile was the shaft of a wooden spade and the antiquated sole

of a shoe. Never would one have supposed that a living creature had

tenanted the room, were it not that the presence of such a creature was

betrayed by the spectacle of an old nightcap resting on the table.

Whilst Chichikov was gazing at this extraordinary mess, a side door

opened and there entered the housekeeper who had met him near the

outbuildings. But now Chichikov perceived this person to be a man rather

than a woman, since a female housekeeper would have had no beard to

shave, whereas the chin of the newcomer, with the lower portion of his

cheeks, strongly resembled the curry-comb which is used for grooming

horses. Chichikov assumed a questioning air, and waited to hear what the

housekeeper might have to say. The housekeeper did the same. At length,

surprised at the misunderstanding, Chichikov decided to ask the first

question.

“Is the master at home?” he inquired.

“Yes,” replied the person addressed.

“Then where is he?” continued Chichikov.

“Are you blind, my good sir?” retorted the other. “_I_ am the master.”

Involuntarily our hero started and stared. During his travels it had

befallen him to meet various types of men--some of them, it may be,

types which you and I have never encountered; but even to Chichikov this

particular species was new. In the old man’s face there was nothing very

special--it was much like the wizened face of many another dotard, save

that the chin was so greatly projected that whenever he spoke he was

forced to wipe it with a handkerchief to avoid dribbling, and that his

small eyes were not yet grown dull, but twinkled under their overhanging

brows like the eyes of mice when, with attentive ears and sensitive

whiskers, they snuff the air and peer forth from their holes to

see whether a cat or a boy may not be in the vicinity. No, the most

noticeable feature about the man was his clothes. In no way could it

have been guessed of what his coat was made, for both its sleeves and

its skirts were so ragged and filthy as to defy description, while

instead of two posterior tails, there dangled four of those appendages,

with, projecting from them, a torn newspaper. Also, around his neck

there was wrapped something which might have been a stocking, a garter,

or a stomacher, but was certainly not a tie. In short, had Chichikov

chanced to encounter him at a church door, he would have bestowed upon

him a copper or two (for, to do our hero justice, he had a sympathetic

heart and never refrained from presenting a beggar with alms), but in

the present case there was standing before him, not a mendicant, but

a landowner--and a landowner possessed of fully a thousand serfs, the

superior of all his neighbours in wealth of flour and grain, and the

owner of storehouses, and so forth, that were crammed with homespun

cloth and linen, tanned and undressed sheepskins, dried fish, and every

conceivable species of produce. Nevertheless, such a phenomenon is

rare in Russia, where the tendency is rather to prodigality than to

parsimony.

For several minutes Plushkin stood mute, while Chichikov remained so

dazed with the appearance of the host and everything else in the room,

that he too, could not begin a conversation, but stood wondering how

best to find words in which to explain the object of his visit. For a

while he thought of expressing himself to the effect that, having heard

so much of his host’s benevolence and other rare qualities of spirit,

he had considered it his duty to come and pay a tribute of respect; but

presently even HE came to the conclusion that this would be overdoing

the thing, and, after another glance round the room, decided that

the phrase “benevolence and other rare qualities of spirit” might to

advantage give place to “economy and genius for method.” Accordingly,

the speech mentally composed, he said aloud that, having heard of

Plushkin’s talents for thrifty and systematic management, he had

considered himself bound to make the acquaintance of his host, and

to present him with his personal compliments (I need hardly say that

Chichikov could easily have alleged a better reason, had any better one

happened, at the moment, to have come into his head).

With toothless gums Plushkin murmured something in reply, but nothing is

known as to its precise terms beyond that it included a statement

that the devil was at liberty to fly away with Chichikov’s sentiments.

However, the laws of Russian hospitality do not permit even of a miser

infringing their rules; wherefore Plushkin added to the foregoing a more

civil invitation to be seated.

“It is long since I last received a visitor,” he went on. “Also, I feel

bound to say that I can see little good in their coming. Once introduce

the abominable custom of folk paying calls, and forthwith there will

ensue such ruin to the management of estates that landowners will be

forced to feed their horses on hay. Not for a long, long time have I

eaten a meal away from home--although my own kitchen is a poor one, and

has its chimney in such a state that, were it to become overheated, it

would instantly catch fire.”

“What a brute!” thought Chichikov. “I am lucky to have got through so

much pastry and stuffed shoulder of mutton at Sobakevitch’s!”

“Also,” went on Plushkin, “I am ashamed to say that hardly a wisp of

fodder does the place contain. But how can I get fodder? My lands are

small, and the peasantry lazy fellows who hate work and think of nothing

but the tavern. In the end, therefore, I shall be forced to go and spend

my old age in roaming about the world.”

“But I have been told that you possess over a thousand serfs?” said

Chichikov.

“Who told you that? No matter who it was, you would have been justified

in giving him the lie. He must have been a jester who wanted to make

a fool of you. A thousand souls, indeed! Why, just reckon the taxes

on them, and see what there would be left! For these three years that

accursed fever has been killing off my serfs wholesale.”

“Wholesale, you say?” echoed Chichikov, greatly interested.

“Yes, wholesale,” replied the old man.

“Then might I ask you the exact number?”

“Fully eighty.”

“Surely not?”

“But it is so.”

“Then might I also ask whether it is from the date of the last census

revision that you are reckoning these souls?”

“Yes, damn it! And since that date I have been bled for taxes upon a

hundred and twenty souls in all.”

“Indeed? Upon a hundred and twenty souls in all!” And Chichikov’s

surprise and elation were such that, this said, he remained sitting

open-mouthed.

“Yes, good sir,” replied Plushkin. “I am too old to tell you lies, for I

have passed my seventieth year.”

Somehow he seemed to have taken offence at Chichikov’s almost joyous

exclamation; wherefore the guest hastened to heave a profound sigh, and

to observe that he sympathised to the full with his host’s misfortunes.

“But sympathy does not put anything into one’s pocket,” retorted

Plushkin. “For instance, I have a kinsman who is constantly plaguing me.

He is a captain in the army, damn him, and all day he does nothing but

call me ‘dear uncle,’ and kiss my hand, and express sympathy until I am

forced to stop my ears. You see, he has squandered all his money upon

his brother-officers, as well as made a fool of himself with an actress;

so now he spends his time in telling me that he has a sympathetic

heart!”

Chichikov hastened to explain that HIS sympathy had nothing in common

with the captain’s, since he dealt, not in empty words alone, but in

actual deeds; in proof of which he was ready then and there (for

the purpose of cutting the matter short, and of dispensing with

circumlocution) to transfer to himself the obligation of paying the

taxes due upon such serfs as Plushkin’s as had, in the unfortunate

manner just described, departed this world. The proposal seemed to

astonish Plushkin, for he sat staring open-eyed. At length he inquired:

“My dear sir, have you seen military service?”

“No,” replied the other warily, “but I have been a member of the CIVIL

Service.”

“Oh! Of the CIVIL Service?” And Plushkin sat moving his lips as though

he were chewing something. “Well, what of your proposal?” he added

presently. “Are you prepared to lose by it?”

“Yes, certainly, if thereby I can please you.”

“My dear sir! My good benefactor!” In his delight Plushkin lost sight of

the fact that his nose was caked with snuff of the consistency of thick

coffee, and that his coat had parted in front and was disclosing some

very unseemly underclothing. “What comfort you have brought to an old

man! Yes, as God is my witness!”

For the moment he could say no more. Yet barely a minute had elapsed

before this instantaneously aroused emotion had, as instantaneously,

disappeared from his wooden features. Once more they assumed a careworn

expression, and he even wiped his face with his handkerchief, then

rolled it into a ball, and rubbed it to and fro against his upper lip.

“If it will not annoy you again to state the proposal,” he went on,

“what you undertake to do is to pay the annual tax upon these souls, and

to remit the money either to me or to the Treasury?”

“Yes, that is how it shall be done. We will draw up a deed of purchase

as though the souls were still alive and you had sold them to myself.”

“Quite so--a deed of purchase,” echoed Plushkin, once more relapsing

into thought and the chewing motion of the lips. “But a deed of such

a kind will entail certain expenses, and lawyers are so devoid of

conscience! In fact, so extortionate is their avarice that they will

charge one half a rouble, and then a sack of flour, and then a whole

waggon-load of meal. I wonder that no one has yet called attention to

the system.”

Upon that Chichikov intimated that, out of respect for his host, he

himself would bear the cost of the transfer of souls. This led Plushkin

to conclude that his guest must be the kind of unconscionable fool who,

while pretending to have been a member of the Civil Service, has in

reality served in the army and run after actresses; wherefore the old

man no longer disguised his delight, but called down blessings alike

upon Chichikov’s head and upon those of his children (he had never even

inquired whether Chichikov possessed a family). Next, he shuffled to the

window, and, tapping one of its panes, shouted the name of “Proshka.”

Immediately some one ran quickly into the hall, and, after much stamping

of feet, burst into the room. This was Proshka--a thirteen-year-old

youngster who was shod with boots of such dimensions as almost to engulf

his legs as he walked. The reason why he had entered thus shod was

that Plushkin only kept one pair of boots for the whole of his domestic

staff. This universal pair was stationed in the hall of the mansion, so

that any servant who was summoned to the house might don the said boots

after wading barefooted through the mud of the courtyard, and enter

the parlour dry-shod--subsequently leaving the boots where he had found

them, and departing in his former barefooted condition. Indeed, had any

one, on a slushy winter’s morning, glanced from a window into the said

courtyard, he would have seen Plushkin’s servitors performing saltatory

feats worthy of the most vigorous of stage-dancers.

“Look at that boy’s face!” said Plushkin to Chichikov as he pointed to

Proshka. “It is stupid enough, yet, lay anything aside, and in a trice

he will have stolen it. Well, my lad, what do you want?”

He paused a moment or two, but Proshka made no reply.

“Come, come!” went on the old man. “Set out the samovar, and then give

Mavra the key of the store-room--here it is--and tell her to get out

some loaf sugar for tea. Here! Wait another moment, fool! Is the devil

in your legs that they itch so to be off? Listen to what more I have to

tell you. Tell Mavra that the sugar on the outside of the loaf has gone

bad, so that she must scrape it off with a knife, and NOT throw away

the scrapings, but give them to the poultry. Also, see that you yourself

don’t go into the storeroom, or I will give you a birching that you

won’t care for. Your appetite is good enough already, but a better one

won’t hurt you. Don’t even TRY to go into the storeroom, for I shall be

watching you from this window.”

“You see,” the old man added to Chichikov, “one can never trust these

fellows.” Presently, when Proshka and the boots had departed, he fell

to gazing at his guest with an equally distrustful air, since certain

features in Chichikov’s benevolence now struck him as a little open to

question, and he had begin to think to himself: “After all, the

devil only knows who he is--whether a braggart, like most of these

spendthrifts, or a fellow who is lying merely in order to get some tea

out of me.” Finally, his circumspection, combined with a desire to

test his guest, led him to remark that it might be well to complete

the transaction IMMEDIATELY, since he had not overmuch confidence in

humanity, seeing that a man might be alive to-day and dead to-morrow.

To this Chichikov assented readily enough--merely adding that he should

like first of all to be furnished with a list of the dead souls. This

reassured Plushkin as to his guest’s intention of doing business, so

he got out his keys, approached a cupboard, and, having pulled back the

door, rummaged among the cups and glasses with which it was filled. At

length he said:

“I cannot find it now, but I used to possess a splendid bottle of

liquor. Probably the servants have drunk it all, for they are such

thieves. Oh no: perhaps this is it!”

Looking up, Chichikov saw that Plushkin had extracted a decanter coated

with dust.

“My late wife made the stuff,” went on the old man, “but that rascal of

a housekeeper went and threw away a lot of it, and never even replaced

the stopper. Consequently bugs and other nasty creatures got into the

decanter, but I cleaned it out, and now beg to offer you a glassful.”

The idea of a drink from such a receptacle was too much for Chichikov,

so he excused himself on the ground that he had just had luncheon.

“You have just had luncheon?” re-echoed Plushkin. “Now, THAT shows how

invariably one can tell a man of good society, wheresoever one may be.

A man of that kind never eats anything--he always says that he has had

enough. Very different that from the ways of a rogue, whom one can never

satisfy, however much one may give him. For instance, that captain of

mine is constantly begging me to let him have a meal--though he is about

as much my nephew as I am his grandfather. As it happens, there is never

a bite of anything in the house, so he has to go away empty. But about

the list of those good-for-nothing souls--I happen to possess such a

list, since I have drawn one up in readiness for the next revision.”

With that Plushkin donned his spectacles, and once more started to

rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied

successive packages of papers--so much so that his victim burst out

sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the

names of the deceased peasants lay as close-packed as a cloud of midges,

for there were a hundred and twenty of them in all. Chichikov grinned

with joy at the sight of the multitude. Stuffing the list into his

pocket, he remarked that, to complete the transaction, it would be

necessary to return to the town.

“To the town?” repeated Plushkin. “But why? Moreover, how could I leave

the house, seeing that every one of my servants is either a thief or

a rogue? Day by day they pilfer things, until soon I shall have not a

single coat to hang on my back.”

“Then you possess acquaintances in the town?”

“Acquaintances? No. Every acquaintance whom I ever possessed has either

left me or is dead. But stop a moment. I DO know the President of the

Council. Even in my old age he has once or twice come to visit me, for

he and I used to be schoolfellows, and to go climbing walls together.

Yes, him I do know. Shall I write him a letter?”

“By all means.”

“Yes, him I know well, for we were friends together at school.”

Over Plushkin’s wooden features there had gleamed a ray of warmth--a

ray which expressed, if not feeling, at all events feeling’s pale

reflection. Just such a phenomenon may be witnessed when, for a brief

moment, a drowning man makes a last re-appearance on the surface of a

river, and there rises from the crowd lining the banks a cry of hope

that even yet the exhausted hands may clutch the rope which has been

thrown him--may clutch it before the surface of the unstable element

shall have resumed for ever its calm, dread vacuity. But the hope is

short-lived, and the hands disappear. Even so did Plushkin’s face,

after its momentary manifestation of feeling, become meaner and more

insensible than ever.

“There used to be a sheet of clean writing paper lying on the table,” he

went on. “But where it is now I cannot think. That comes of my servants

being such rascals.”

With that he fell to looking also under the table, as well as to

hurrying about with cries of “Mavra, Mavra!” At length the call was

answered by a woman with a plateful of the sugar of which mention has

been made; whereupon there ensued the following conversation.

“What have you done with my piece of writing paper, you pilferer?”

“I swear that I have seen no paper except the bit with which you covered

the glass.”

“Your very face tells me that you have made off with it.”

“Why should I make off with it? ‘Twould be of no use to me, for I can

neither read nor write.”

“You lie! You have taken it away for the sexton to scribble upon.”

“Well, if the sexton wanted paper he could get some for himself. Neither

he nor I have set eyes upon your piece.”

“Ah! Wait a bit, for on the Judgment Day you will be roasted by devils

on iron spits. Just see if you are not!”

“But why should I be roasted when I have never even TOUCHED the paper?

You might accuse me of any other fault than theft.”

“Nay, devils shall roast you, sure enough. They will say to you, ‘Bad

woman, we are doing this because you robbed your master,’ and then stoke

up the fire still hotter.”

“Nevertheless _I_ shall continue to say, ‘You are roasting me for

nothing, for I never stole anything at all.’ Why, THERE it is, lying on

the table! You have been accusing me for no reason whatever!”

And, sure enough, the sheet of paper was lying before Plushkin’s very

eyes. For a moment or two he chewed silently. Then he went on:

“Well, and what are you making such a noise about? If one says a single

word to you, you answer back with ten. Go and fetch me a candle to seal

a letter with. And mind you bring a TALLOW candle, for it will not cost

so much as the other sort. And bring me a match too.”

Mavra departed, and Plushkin, seating himself, and taking up a pen, sat

turning the sheet of paper over and over, as though in doubt whether

to tear from it yet another morsel. At length he came to the conclusion

that it was impossible to do so, and therefore, dipping the pen into the

mixture of mouldy fluid and dead flies which the ink bottle contained,

started to indite the letter in characters as bold as the notes of a

music score, while momentarily checking the speed of his hand, lest it

should meander too much over the paper, and crawling from line to line

as though he regretted that there was so little vacant space left on the

sheet.

“And do you happen to know any one to whom a few runaway serfs would be

of use?” he asked as subsequently he folded the letter.

“What? You have some runaways as well?” exclaimed Chichikov, again

greatly interested.

“Certainly I have. My son-in-law has laid the necessary information

against them, but says that their tracks have grown cold. However, he is

only a military man--that is to say, good at clinking a pair of spurs,

but of no use for laying a plea before a court.”

“And how many runaways have you?”

“About seventy.”

“Surely not?”

“Alas, yes. Never does a year pass without a certain number of them

making off. Yet so gluttonous and idle are my serfs that they are simply

bursting with food, whereas I scarcely get enough to eat. I will take

any price for them that you may care to offer. Tell your friends about

it, and, should they find even a score of the runaways, it will repay

them handsomely, seeing that a living serf on the census list is at

present worth five hundred roubles.”

“Perhaps so, but I am not going to let any one but myself have a finger

in this,” thought Chichikov to himself; after which he explained to

Plushkin that a friend of the kind mentioned would be impossible to

discover, since the legal expenses of the enterprise would lead to the

said friend having to cut the very tail from his coat before he would

get clear of the lawyers.

“Nevertheless,” added Chichikov, “seeing that you are so hard pressed

for money, and that I am so interested in the matter, I feel moved to

advance you--well, to advance you such a trifle as would scarcely be

worth mentioning.”

“But how much is it?” asked Plushkin eagerly, and with his hands

trembling like quicksilver.

“Twenty-five kopecks per soul.”

“What? In ready money?”

“Yes--in money down.”

“Nevertheless, consider my poverty, dear friend, and make it FORTY

kopecks per soul.”

“Venerable sir, would that I could pay you not merely forty kopecks,

but five hundred roubles. I should be only too delighted if that were

possible, since I perceive that you, an aged and respected gentleman,

are suffering for your own goodness of heart.”

“By God, that is true, that is true.” Plushkin hung his head, and wagged

it feebly from side to side. “Yes, all that I have done I have done

purely out of kindness.”

“See how instantaneously I have divined your nature! By now it will have

become clear to you why it is impossible for me to pay you five hundred

roubles per runaway soul: for by now you will have gathered the fact

that I am not sufficiently rich. Nevertheless, I am ready to add another

five kopecks, and so to make it that each runaway serf shall cost me, in

all, thirty kopecks.”

“As you please, dear sir. Yet stretch another point, and throw in

another two kopecks.”

“Pardon me, but I cannot. How many runaway serfs did you say that you

possess? Seventy?”

“No; seventy-eight.”

“Seventy-eight souls at thirty kopecks each will amount to--to--” only

for a moment did our hero halt, since he was strong in his arithmetic,

“--will amount to twenty-four roubles, ninety-six kopecks.” [28]

With that he requested Plushkin to make out the receipt, and then handed

him the money. Plushkin took it in both hands, bore it to a bureau with

as much caution as though he were carrying a liquid which might at any

moment splash him in the face, and, arrived at the bureau, and glancing

round once more, carefully packed the cash in one of his money bags,

where, doubtless, it was destined to lie buried until, to the intense

joy of his daughters and his son-in-law (and, perhaps, of the captain

who claimed kinship with him), he should himself receive burial at the

hands of Fathers Carp and Polycarp, the two priests attached to his

village. Lastly, the money concealed, Plushkin re-seated himself in the

armchair, and seemed at a loss for further material for conversation.

“Are you thinking of starting?” at length he inquired, on seeing

Chichikov making a trifling movement, though the movement was only

to extract from his pocket a handkerchief. Nevertheless the question

reminded Chichikov that there was no further excuse for lingering.

“Yes, I must be going,” he said as he took his hat.

“Then what about the tea?”

“Thank you, I will have some on my next visit.”

“What? Even though I have just ordered the samovar to be got ready?

Well, well! I myself do not greatly care for tea, for I think it an

expensive beverage. Moreover, the price of sugar has risen terribly.”

“Proshka!” he then shouted. “The samovar will not be needed. Return the

sugar to Mavra, and tell her to put it back again. But no. Bring the

sugar here, and _I_ will put it back.”

“Good-bye, dear sir,” finally he added to Chichikov. “May the Lord bless

you! Hand that letter to the President of the Council, and let him

read it. Yes, he is an old friend of mine. We knew one another as

schoolfellows.”

With that this strange phenomenon, this withered old man, escorted his

guest to the gates of the courtyard, and, after the guest had departed,

ordered the gates to be closed, made the round of the outbuildings for

the purpose of ascertaining whether the numerous watchmen were at their

posts, peered into the kitchen (where, under the pretence of seeing

whether his servants were being properly fed, he made a light meal

of cabbage soup and gruel), rated the said servants soundly for their

thievishness and general bad behaviour, and then returned to his room.

Meditating in solitude, he fell to thinking how best he could contrive

to recompense his guest for the latter’s measureless benevolence. “I

will present him,” he thought to himself, “with a watch. It is a good

silver article--not one of those cheap metal affairs; and though it

has suffered some damage, he can easily get that put right. A young man

always needs to give a watch to his betrothed.”

“No,” he added after further thought. “I will leave him the watch in my

will, as a keepsake.”

Meanwhile our hero was bowling along in high spirit. Such an unexpected

acquisition both of dead souls and of runaway serfs had come as

a windfall. Even before reaching Plushkin’s village he had had a

presentiment that he would do successful business there, but not

business of such pre-eminent profitableness as had actually resulted.

As he proceeded he whistled, hummed with hand placed trumpetwise to his

mouth, and ended by bursting into a burst of melody so striking that

Selifan, after listening for a while, nodded his head and exclaimed, “My

word, but the master CAN sing!”

By the time they reached the town darkness had fallen, and changed the

character of the scene. The britchka bounded over the cobblestones, and

at length turned into the hostelry’s courtyard, where the travellers

were met by Petrushka. With one hand holding back the tails of his coat

(which he never liked to see fly apart), the valet assisted his

master to alight. The waiter ran out with candle in hand and napkin on

shoulder. Whether or not Petrushka was glad to see the barin return

it is impossible to say, but at all events he exchanged a wink with

Selifan, and his ordinarily morose exterior seemed momentarily to

brighten.

“Then you have been travelling far, sir?” said the waiter, as he lit the

way upstarts.

“Yes,” said Chichikov. “What has happened here in the meanwhile?”

“Nothing, sir,” replied the waiter, bowing, “except that last night

there arrived a military lieutenant. He has got room number sixteen.”

“A lieutenant?”

“Yes. He came from Riazan, driving three grey horses.”

On entering his room, Chichikov clapped his hand to his nose, and asked

his valet why he had never had the windows opened.

“But I did have them opened,” replied Petrushka. Nevertheless this was

a lie, as Chichikov well knew, though he was too tired to contest the

point. After ordering and consuming a light supper of sucking pig, he

undressed, plunged beneath the bedclothes, and sank into the profound

slumber which comes only to such fortunate folk as are troubled neither

with mosquitoes nor fleas nor excessive activity of brain.

CHAPTER VII

When Chichikov awoke he stretched himself and realised that he had slept

well. For a moment or two he lay on his back, and then suddenly clapped

his hands at the recollection that he was now owner of nearly four

hundred souls. At once he leapt out of bed without so much as glancing

at his face in the mirror, though, as a rule, he had much solicitude for

his features, and especially for his chin, of which he would make the

most when in company with friends, and more particularly should any one

happen to enter while he was engaged in the process of shaving. “Look

how round my chin is!” was his usual formula. On the present occasion,

however, he looked neither at chin nor at any other feature, but at once

donned his flower-embroidered slippers of morroco leather (the kind

of slippers in which, thanks to the Russian love for a dressing-gowned

existence, the town of Torzhok does such a huge trade), and, clad only

in a meagre shirt, so far forgot his elderliness and dignity as to cut

a couple of capers after the fashion of a Scottish highlander--alighting

neatly, each time, on the flat of his heels. Only when he had done that

did he proceed to business. Planting himself before his dispatch-box,

he rubbed his hands with a satisfaction worthy of an incorruptible rural

magistrate when adjourning for luncheon; after which he extracted from

the receptacle a bundle of papers. These he had decided not to deposit

with a lawyer, for the reason that he would hasten matters, as well as

save expense, by himself framing and fair-copying the necessary deeds

of indenture; and since he was thoroughly acquainted with the necessary

terminology, he proceeded to inscribe in large characters the date, and

then in smaller ones, his name and rank. By two o’clock the whole was

finished, and as he looked at the sheets of names representing bygone

peasants who had ploughed, worked at handicrafts, cheated their masters,

fetched, carried, and got drunk (though SOME of them may have behaved

well), there came over him a strange, unaccountable sensation. To his

eye each list of names seemed to possess a character of its own;

and even individual peasants therein seemed to have taken on certain

qualities peculiar to themselves. For instance, to the majority of

Madame Korobotchka’s serfs there were appended nicknames and other

additions; Plushkin’s list was distinguished by a conciseness of

exposition which had led to certain of the items being represented

merely by Christian name, patronymic, and a couple of dots;

and Sobakevitch’s list was remarkable for its amplitude and

circumstantiality, in that not a single peasant had such of his peculiar

characteristics omitted as that the deceased had been “excellent at

joinery,” or “sober and ready to pay attention to his work.” Also, in

Sobakevitch’s list there was recorded who had been the father and

the mother of each of the deceased, and how those parents had behaved

themselves. Only against the name of a certain Thedotov was there

inscribed: “Father unknown, Mother the maidservant Kapitolina, Morals

and Honesty good.” These details communicated to the document a certain

air of freshness, they seemed to connote that the peasants in question

had lived but yesterday. As Chichikov scanned the list he felt softened

in spirit, and said with a sigh:

“My friends, what a concourse of you is here! How did you all pass your

lives, my brethren? And how did you all come to depart hence?”

As he spoke his eyes halted at one name in particular--that of the same

Peter Saveliev Neuvazhai Korito who had once been the property of the

window Korobotchka. Once more he could not help exclaiming:

“What a series of titles! They occupy a whole line! Peter Saveliev, I

wonder whether you were an artisan or a plain muzhik. Also, I wonder how

you came to meet your end; whether in a tavern, or whether through going

to sleep in the middle of the road and being run over by a train of

waggons. Again, I see the name, ‘Probka Stepan, carpenter, very sober.’

That must be the hero of whom the Guards would have been so glad to get

hold. How well I can imagine him tramping the country with an axe in his

belt and his boots on his shoulder, and living on a few groats’-worth

of bread and dried fish per day, and taking home a couple of half-rouble

pieces in his purse, and sewing the notes into his breeches, or stuffing

them into his boots! In what manner came you by your end, Probka Stepan?

Did you, for good wages, mount a scaffold around the cupola of the

village church, and, climbing thence to the cross above, miss your

footing on a beam, and fall headlong with none at hand but Uncle

Michai--the good uncle who, scratching the back of his neck, and

muttering, ‘Ah, Vania, for once you have been too clever!’ straightway

lashed himself to a rope, and took your place? ‘Maksim Teliatnikov,

shoemaker.’ A shoemaker, indeed? ‘As drunk as a shoemaker,’ says the

proverb. _I_ know what you were like, my friend. If you wish, I will

tell you your whole history. You were apprenticed to a German, who fed

you and your fellows at a common table, thrashed you with a strap,

kept you indoors whenever you had made a mistake, and spoke of you in

uncomplimentary terms to his wife and friends. At length, when your

apprenticeship was over, you said to yourself, ‘I am going to set up

on my own account, and not just to scrape together a kopeck here and a

kopeck there, as the Germans do, but to grow rich quick.’ Hence you took

a shop at a high rent, bespoke a few orders, and set to work to buy up

some rotten leather out of which you could make, on each pair of boots,

a double profit. But those boots split within a fortnight, and brought

down upon your head dire showers of maledictions; with the result that

gradually your shop grew empty of customers, and you fell to roaming

the streets and exclaiming, ‘The world is a very poor place indeed!

A Russian cannot make a living for German competition.’ Well, well!

‘Elizabeta Vorobei!’ But that is a WOMAN’S name! How comes SHE to be on

the list? That villain Sobakevitch must have sneaked her in without my

knowing it.”

“‘Grigori Goiezhai-ne-Doiedesh,’” he went on. “What sort of a man were

YOU, I wonder? Were you a carrier who, having set up a team of three

horses and a tilt waggon, left your home, your native hovel, for ever,

and departed to cart merchandise to market? Was it on the highway that

you surrendered your soul to God, or did your friends first marry you

to some fat, red-faced soldier’s daughter; after which your harness and

team of rough, but sturdy, horses caught a highwayman’s fancy, and you,

lying on your pallet, thought things over until, willy-nilly, you felt

that you must get up and make for the tavern, thereafter blundering into

an icehole? Ah, our peasant of Russia! Never do you welcome death when

it comes!”

“And you, my friends?” continued Chichikov, turning to the sheet whereon

were inscribed the names of Plushkin’s absconded serfs. “Although you

are still alive, what is the good of you? You are practically dead.

Whither, I wonder, have your fugitive feet carried you? Did you fare

hardly at Plushkin’s, or was it that your natural inclinations led you

to prefer roaming the wilds and plundering travellers? Are you, by this

time, in gaol, or have you taken service with other masters for the

tillage of their lands? ‘Eremei Kariakin, Nikita Volokita and Anton

Volokita (son of the foregoing).’ To judge from your surnames, you would

seem to have been born gadabouts [29]. ‘Popov, household serf.’ Probably

you are an educated man, good Popov, and go in for polite thieving, as

distinguished from the more vulgar cut-throat sort. In my mind’s eye I

seem to see a Captain of Rural Police challenging you for being without

a passport; whereupon you stake your all upon a single throw. ‘To whom

do you belong?’ asks the Captain, probably adding to his question a

forcible expletive. ‘To such and such a landowner,’ stoutly you reply.

‘And what are you doing here?’ continues the Captain. ‘I have

just received permission to go and earn my obrok,’ is your fluent

explanation. ‘Then where is your passport?’ ‘At Miestchanin [30]

Pimenov’s.’ ‘Pimenov’s? Then are you Pimenov himself?’ ‘Yes, I am

Pimenov himself.’ ‘He has given you his passport?’ ‘No, he has not given

me his passport.’ ‘Come, come!’ shouts the Captain with another forcible

expletive. ‘You are lying!’ ‘No, I am not,’ is your dogged reply. ‘It is

only that last night I could not return him his passport, because I came

home late; so I handed it to Antip Prochorov, the bell-ringer, for him

to take care of.’ ‘Bell-ringer, indeed! Then HE gave you a passport?’

‘No; I did not receive a passport from him either.’ ‘What?’--and here

the Captain shouts another expletive--‘How dare you keep on lying? Where

is YOUR OWN passport?’ ‘I had one all right,’ you reply cunningly, ‘but

must have dropped it somewhere on the road as I came along.’ ‘And what

about that soldier’s coat?’ asks the Captain with an impolite addition.

‘Whence did you get it? And what of the priest’s cashbox and copper

money?’’ ‘About them I know nothing,’ you reply doggedly. ‘Never at any

time have I committed a theft.’ ‘Then how is it that the coat was found

at your place?’ ‘I do not know. Probably some one else put it there.’

‘You rascal, you rascal!’ shouts the Captain, shaking his head, and

closing in upon you. ‘Put the leg-irons upon him, and off with him to

prison!’ ‘With pleasure,’ you reply as, taking a snuff-box from your

pocket, you offer a pinch to each of the two gendarmes who are manacling

you, while also inquiring how long they have been discharged from the

army, and in what wars they may have served. And in prison you remain

until your case comes on, when the justice orders you to be removed from

Tsarev-Kokshaika to such and such another prison, and a second justice

orders you to be transferred thence to Vesiegonsk or somewhere else, and

you go flitting from gaol to gaol, and saying each time, as you eye your

new habitation, ‘The last place was a good deal cleaner than this one

is, and one could play babki [31] there, and stretch one’s legs, and see

a little society.’”

“‘Abakum Thirov,’” Chichikov went on after a pause. “What of YOU,

brother? Where, and in what capacity, are YOU disporting yourself?

Have you gone to the Volga country, and become bitten with the life of

freedom, and joined the fishermen of the river?”

Here, breaking off, Chichikov relapsed into silent meditation. Of what

was he thinking as he sat there? Was he thinking of the fortunes of

Abakum Thirov, or was he meditating as meditates every Russian when his

thoughts once turn to the joys of an emancipated existence?

“Ah, well!” he sighed, looking at his watch. “It has now gone twelve

o’clock. Why have I so forgotten myself? There is still much to be done,

yet I go shutting myself up and letting my thoughts wander! What a fool

I am!”

So saying, he exchanged his Scottish costume (of a shirt and nothing

else) for attire of a more European nature; after which he pulled

tight the waistcoat over his ample stomach, sprinkled himself with

eau-de-Cologne, tucked his papers under his arm, took his fur cap, and

set out for the municipal offices, for the purpose of completing the

transfer of souls. The fact that he hurried along was not due to a fear

of being late (seeing that the President of the Local Council was an

intimate acquaintance of his, as well as a functionary who could shorten

or prolong an interview at will, even as Homer’s Zeus was able to

shorten or to prolong a night or a day, whenever it became necessary to

put an end to the fighting of his favourite heroes, or to enable them

to join battle), but rather to a feeling that he would like to have the

affair concluded as quickly as possible, seeing that, throughout, it had

been an anxious and difficult business. Also, he could not get rid of

the idea that his souls were unsubstantial things, and that therefore,

under the circumstances, his shoulders had better be relieved of their

load with the least possible delay. Pulling on his cinnamon-coloured,

bear-lined overcoat as he went, he had just stepped thoughtfully into

the street when he collided with a gentleman dressed in a similar

coat and an ear-lappeted fur cap. Upon that the gentleman uttered an

exclamation. Behold, it was Manilov! At once the friends became folded

in a strenuous embrace, and remained so locked for fully five minutes.

Indeed, the kisses exchanged were so vigorous that both suffered from

toothache for the greater portion of the day. Also, Manilov’s delight

was such that only his nose and lips remained visible--the eyes

completely disappeared. Afterwards he spent about a quarter of an hour

in holding Chichikov’s hand and chafing it vigorously. Lastly, he, in

the most pleasant and exquisite terms possible, intimated to his friend

that he had just been on his way to embrace Paul Ivanovitch; and upon

this followed a compliment of the kind which would more fittingly have

been addressed to a lady who was being asked to accord a partner the

favour of a dance. Chichikov had opened his mouth to reply--though

even HE felt at a loss how to acknowledge what had just been said--when

Manilov cut him short by producing from under his coat a roll of paper

tied with red riband.

“What have you there?” asked Chichikov.

“The list of my souls.”

“Ah!” And as Chichikov unrolled the document and ran his eye over it

he could not but marvel at the elegant neatness with which it had been

inscribed.

“It is a beautiful piece of writing,” he said. “In fact, there will be

no need to make a copy of it. Also, it has a border around its edge! Who

worked that exquisite border?”

“Do not ask me,” said Manilov.

“Did YOU do it?”

“No; my wife.”

“Dear, dear!” Chichikov cried. “To think that I should have put her to

so much trouble!”

“NOTHING could be too much trouble where Paul Ivanovitch is concerned.”

Chichikov bowed his acknowledgements. Next, on learning that he was

on his way to the municipal offices for the purpose of completing the

transfer, Manilov expressed his readiness to accompany him; wherefore

the pair linked arm in arm and proceeded together. Whenever they

encountered a slight rise in the ground--even the smallest unevenness

or difference of level--Manilov supported Chichikov with such energy as

almost to lift him off his feet, while accompanying the service with a

smiling implication that not if HE could help it should Paul Ivanovitch

slip or fall. Nevertheless this conduct appeared to embarrass Chichikov,

either because he could not find any fitting words of gratitude or

because he considered the proceeding tiresome; and it was with a

sense of relief that he debouched upon the square where the municipal

offices--a large, three-storied building of a chalky whiteness which

probably symbolised the purity of the souls engaged within--were

situated. No other building in the square could vie with them in size,

seeing that the remaining edifices consisted only of a sentry-box, a

shelter for two or three cabmen, and a long hoarding--the latter adorned

with the usual bills, posters, and scrawls in chalk and charcoal. At

intervals, from the windows of the second and third stories of the

municipal offices, the incorruptible heads of certain of the attendant

priests of Themis would peer quickly forth, and as quickly disappear

again--probably for the reason that a superior official had just entered

the room. Meanwhile the two friends ascended the staircase--nay, almost

flew up it, since, longing to get rid of Manilov’s ever-supporting

arm, Chichikov hastened his steps, and Manilov kept darting forward to

anticipate any possible failure on the part of his companion’s legs.

Consequently the pair were breathless when they reached the first

corridor. In passing it may be remarked that neither corridors nor rooms

evinced any of that cleanliness and purity which marked the exterior of

the building, for such attributes were not troubled about within, and

anything that was dirty remained so, and donned no meritricious, purely

external, disguise. It was as though Themis received her visitors in

neglige and a dressing-gown. The author would also give a description of

the various offices through which our hero passed, were it not that he

(the author) stands in awe of such legal haunts.

Approaching the first desk which he happened to encounter, Chichikov

inquired of the two young officials who were seated at it whether they

would kindly tell him where business relating to serf-indenture was

transacted.

“Of what nature, precisely, IS your business?” countered one of the

youthful officials as he turned himself round.

“I desire to make an application.”

“In connection with a purchase?”

“Yes. But, as I say, I should like first to know where I can find the

desk devoted to such business. Is it here or elsewhere?”

“You must state what it is you have bought, and for how much. THEN we

shall be happy to give you the information.”

Chichikov perceived that the officials’ motive was merely one of

curiosity, as often happens when young tchinovniks desire to cut a more

important and imposing figure than is rightfully theirs.

“Look here, young sirs,” he said. “I know for a fact that all serf

business, no matter to what value, is transacted at one desk alone.

Consequently I again request you to direct me to that desk. Of course,

if you do not know your business I can easily ask some one else.”

To this the tchinovniks made no reply beyond pointing towards a corner

of the room where an elderly man appeared to be engaged in sorting some

papers. Accordingly Chichikov and Manilov threaded their way in his

direction through the desks; whereupon the elderly man became violently

busy.

“Would you mind telling me,” said Chichikov, bowing, “whether this is

the desk for serf affairs?”

The elderly man raised his eyes, and said stiffly:

“This is NOT the desk for serf affairs.”

“Where is it, then?”

“In the Serf Department.”

“And where might the Serf Department be?”

“In charge of Ivan Antonovitch.”

“And where is Ivan Antonovitch?”

The elderly man pointed to another corner of the room; whither

Chichikov and Manilov next directed their steps. As they advanced, Ivan

Antonovitch cast an eye backwards and viewed them askance. Then, with

renewed ardour, he resumed his work of writing.

“Would you mind telling me,” said Chichikov, bowing, “whether this is

the desk for serf affairs?”

It appeared as though Ivan Antonovitch had not heard, so completely did

he bury himself in his papers and return no reply. Instantly it became

plain that HE at least was of an age of discretion, and not one of your

jejune chatterboxes and harum-scarums; for, although his hair was still

thick and black, he had long ago passed his fortieth year. His whole

face tended towards the nose--it was what, in common parlance, is known

as a “pitcher-mug.”

“Would you mind telling me,” repeated Chichikov, “whether this is the

desk for serf affairs?”

“It is that,” said Ivan Antonovitch, again lowering his jug-shaped jowl,

and resuming his writing.

“Then I should like to transact the following business. From various

landowners in this canton I have purchased a number of peasants for

transfer. Here is the purchase list, and it needs but to be registered.”

“Have you also the vendors here?”

“Some of them, and from the rest I have obtained powers of attorney.”

“And have you your statement of application?”

“Yes. I desire--indeed, it is necessary for me so to do--to hasten

matters a little. Could the affair, therefore, be carried through

to-day?”

“To-day? Oh, dear no!” said Ivan Antonovitch. “Before that can be done

you must furnish me with further proofs that no impediments exist.”

“Then, to expedite matters, let me say that Ivan Grigorievitch, the

President of the Council, is a very intimate friend of mine.”

“Possibly,” said Ivan Antonovitch without enthusiasm. “But Ivan

Grigorievitch alone will not do--it is customary to have others as

well.”

“Yes, but the absence of others will not altogether invalidate the

transaction. I too have been in the service, and know how things can be

done.”

“You had better go and see Ivan Grigorievitch,” said Ivan Antonovitch

more mildly. “Should he give you an order addressed to whom it may

concern, we shall soon be able to settle the matter.”

Upon that Chichikov pulled from his pocket a paper, and laid it before

Ivan Antonovitch. At once the latter covered it with a book. Chichikov

again attempted to show it to him, but, with a movement of his head,

Ivan Antonovitch signified that that was unnecessary.

“A clerk,” he added, “will now conduct you to Ivan Grigorievitch’s

room.”

Upon that one of the toilers in the service of Themis--a zealot who

had offered her such heartfelt sacrifice that his coat had burst at the

elbows and lacked a lining--escorted our friends (even as Virgil had

once escorted Dante) to the apartment of the Presence. In this sanctum

were some massive armchairs, a table laden with two or three fat books,

and a large looking-glass. Lastly, in (apparently) sunlike isolation,

there was seated at the table the President. On arriving at the door of

the apartment, our modern Virgil seemed to have become so overwhelmed

with awe that, without daring even to intrude a foot, he turned back,

and, in so doing, once more exhibited a back as shiny as a mat, and

having adhering to it, in one spot, a chicken’s feather. As soon as the

two friends had entered the hall of the Presence they perceived that the

President was NOT alone, but, on the contrary, had seated by his side

Sobakevitch, whose form had hitherto been concealed by the intervening

mirror. The newcomers’ entry evoked sundry exclamations and the

pushing back of a pair of Government chairs as the voluminous-sleeved

Sobakevitch rose into view from behind the looking-glass. Chichikov

the President received with an embrace, and for a while the hall of

the Presence resounded with osculatory salutations as mutually the pair

inquired after one another’s health. It seemed that both had lately

had a touch of that pain under the waistband which comes of a sedentary

life. Also, it seemed that the President had just been conversing with

Sobakevitch on the subject of sales of souls, since he now proceeded

to congratulate Chichikov on the same--a proceeding which rather

embarrassed our hero, seeing that Manilov and Sobakevitch, two of

the vendors, and persons with whom he had bargained in the strictest

privacy, were now confronting one another direct. However, Chichikov

duly thanked the President, and then, turning to Sobakevitch, inquired

after HIS health.

“Thank God, I have nothing to complain of,” replied Sobakevitch: which

was true enough, seeing that a piece of iron would have caught cold and

taken to sneezing sooner than would that uncouthly fashioned landowner.

“Ah, yes; you have always had good health, have you not?” put in the

President. “Your late father was equally strong.”

“Yes, he even went out bear hunting alone,” replied Sobakevitch.

“I should think that you too could worst a bear if you were to try a

tussle with him,” rejoined the President.

“Oh no,” said Sobakevitch. “My father was a stronger man than I am.”

Then with a sigh the speaker added: “But nowadays there are no such men

as he. What is even a life like mine worth?”

“Then you do not have a comfortable time of it?” exclaimed the

President.

“No; far from it,” rejoined Sobakevitch, shaking his head. “Judge for

yourself, Ivan Grigorievitch. I am fifty years old, yet never in my life

had been ill, except for an occasional carbuncle or boil. That is not a

good sign. Sooner or later I shall have to pay for it.” And he relapsed

into melancholy.

“Just listen to the fellow!” was Chichikov’s and the President’s joint

inward comment. “What on earth has HE to complain of?”

“I have a letter for you, Ivan Grigorievitch,” went on Chichikov aloud

as he produced from his pocket Plushkin’s epistle.

“From whom?” inquired the President. Having broken the seal, he

exclaimed: “Why, it is from Plushkin! To think that HE is still alive!

What a strange world it is! He used to be such a nice fellow, and now--”

“And now he is a cur,” concluded Sobakevitch, “as well as a miser who

starves his serfs to death.”

“Allow me a moment,” said the President. Then he read the letter

through. When he had finished he added: “Yes, I am quite ready to act

as Plushkin’s attorney. When do you wish the purchase deeds to be

registered, Monsieur Chichikov--now or later?”

“Now, if you please,” replied Chichikov. “Indeed, I beg that, if

possible, the affair may be concluded to-day, since to-morrow I wish to

leave the town. I have brought with me both the forms of indenture and

my statement of application.”

“Very well. Nevertheless we cannot let you depart so soon. The

indentures shall be completed to-day, but you must continue your sojourn

in our midst. I will issue the necessary orders at once.”

So saying, he opened the door into the general office, where the clerks

looked like a swarm of bees around a honeycomb (if I may liken affairs

of Government to such an article?).

“Is Ivan Antonovitch here?” asked the President.

“Yes,” replied a voice from within.

“Then send him here.”

Upon that the pitcher-faced Ivan Antonovitch made his appearance in the

doorway, and bowed.

“Take these indentures, Ivan Antonovitch,” said the President, “and see

that they--”

“But first I would ask you to remember,” put in Sobakevitch, “that

witnesses ought to be in attendance--not less than two on behalf of

either party. Let us, therefore, send for the Public Prosecutor, who has

little to do, and has even that little done for him by his chief clerk,

Zolotucha. The Inspector of the Medical Department is also a man of

leisure, and likely to be at home--if he has not gone out to a card

party. Others also there are--all men who cumber the ground for

nothing.”

“Quite so, quite so,” agreed the President, and at once dispatched a

clerk to fetch the persons named.

“Also,” requested Chichikov, “I should be glad if you would send for the

accredited representative of a certain lady landowner with whom I have

done business. He is the son of a Father Cyril, and a clerk in your

offices.”

“Certainly we shall call him here,” replied the President. “Everything

shall be done to meet your convenience, and I forbid you to present any

of our officials with a gratuity. That is a special request on my part.

No friend of mine ever pays a copper.”

With that he gave Ivan Antonovitch the necessary instructions; and

though they scarcely seemed to meet with that functionary’s approval,

upon the President the purchase deeds had evidently produced an

excellent impression, more especially since the moment when he had

perceived the sum total to amount to nearly a hundred thousand roubles.

For a moment or two he gazed into Chichikov’s eyes with an expression of

profound satisfaction. Then he said:

“Well done, Paul Ivanovitch! You have indeed made a nice haul!”

“That is so,” replied Chichikov.

“Excellent business! Yes, excellent business!”

“I, too, conceive that I could not well have done better. The truth is

that never until a man has driven home the piles of his life’s structure

upon a lasting bottom, instead of upon the wayward chimeras of youth,

will his aims in life assume a definite end.” And, that said, Chichikov

went on to deliver himself of a very telling indictment of Liberalism

and our modern young men. Yet in his words there seemed to lurk a

certain lack of conviction. Somehow he seemed secretly to be saying to

himself, “My good sir, you are talking the most absolute rubbish, and

nothing but rubbish.” Nor did he even throw a glance at Sobakevitch and

Manilov. It was as though he were uncertain what he might not encounter

in their expression. Yet he need not have been afraid. Never once did

Sobakevitch’s face move a muscle, and, as for Manilov, he was too much

under the spell of Chichikov’s eloquence to do aught beyond nod his

approval at intervals, and strike the kind of attitude which is assumed

by lovers of music when a lady singer has, in rivalry of an accompanying

violin, produced a note whereof the shrillness would exceed even the

capacity of a bird’s throstle.

“But why not tell Ivan Grigorievitch precisely what you have bought?”

inquired Sobakevitch of Chichikov. “And why, Ivan Grigorievitch, do YOU

not ask Monsieur Chichikov precisely what his purchases have consisted

of? What a splendid lot of serfs, to be sure! I myself have sold him my

wheelwright, Michiev.”

“What? You have sold him Michiev?” exclaimed the President. “I know the

man well. He is a splendid craftsman, and, on one occasion, made me a

drozhki [32]. Only, only--well, lately didn’t you tell me that he is

dead?”

“That Michiev is dead?” re-echoed Sobakevitch, coming perilously near

to laughing. “Oh dear no! That was his brother. Michiev himself is very

much alive, and in even better health than he used to be. Any day he

could knock you up a britchka such as you could not procure even in

Moscow. However, he is now bound to work for only one master.”

“Indeed a splendid craftsman!” repeated the President. “My only wonder

is that you can have brought yourself to part with him.”

“Then think you that Michiev is the ONLY serf with whom I have parted?

Nay, for I have parted also with Probka Stepan, my carpenter, with

Milushkin, my bricklayer, and with Teliatnikov, my bootmaker. Yes, the

whole lot I have sold.”

And to the President’s inquiry why he had so acted, seeing that the

serfs named were all skilled workers and indispensable to a household,

Sobakevitch replied that a mere whim had led him to do so, and thus the

sale had owed its origin to a piece of folly. Then he hung his head as

though already repenting of his rash act, and added:

“Although a man of grey hairs, I have not yet learned wisdom.”

“But,” inquired the President further, “how comes it about, Paul

Ivanovitch, that you have purchased peasants apart from land? Is it for

transferment elsewhere that you need them?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then. That is quite another matter. To what province of the

country?”

“To the province of Kherson.”

“Indeed? That region contains some splendid land,” said the President;

whereupon he proceeded to expatiate on the fertility of the Kherson

pastures.

“And have you MUCH land there?” he continued.

“Yes; quite sufficient to accommodate the serfs whom I have purchased.”

“And is there a river on the estate or a lake?”

“Both.”

After this reply Chichikov involuntarily threw a glance at Sobakevitch;

and though that landowner’s face was as motionless as every other, the

other seemed to detect in it: “You liar! Don’t tell ME that you own both

a river and a lake, as well as the land which you say you do.”

Whilst the foregoing conversation had been in progress, various

witnesses had been arriving on the scene. They consisted of the

constantly blinking Public Prosecutor, the Inspector of the Medical

Department, and others--all, to quote Sobakevitch, “men who cumbered

the ground for nothing.” With some of them, however, Chichikov was

altogether unacquainted, since certain substitutes and supernumeraries

had to be pressed into the service from among the ranks of the

subordinate staff. There also arrived, in answer to the summons, not

only the son of Father Cyril before mentioned, but also Father Cyril

himself. Each such witness appended to his signature a full list of his

dignities and qualifications: one man in printed characters, another in

a flowing hand, a third in topsy-turvy characters of a kind never before

seen in the Russian alphabet, and so forth. Meanwhile our friend Ivan

Antonovitch comported himself with not a little address; and after the

indentures had been signed, docketed, and registered, Chichikov

found himself called upon to pay only the merest trifle in the way of

Government percentage and fees for publishing the transaction in the

Official Gazette. The reason of this was that the President had given

orders that only half the usual charges were to be exacted from the

present purchaser--the remaining half being somehow debited to the

account of another applicant for serf registration.

“And now,” said Ivan Grigorievitch when all was completed, “we need only

to wet the bargain.”

“For that too I am ready,” said Chichikov. “Do you but name the hour.

If, in return for your most agreeable company, I were not to set a few

champagne corks flying, I should be indeed in default.”

“But we are not going to let you charge yourself with anything

whatsoever. WE must provide the champagne, for you are our guest, and

it is for us--it is our duty, it is our bounden obligation--to entertain

you. Look here, gentlemen. Let us adjourn to the house of the Chief

of Police. He is the magician who needs but to wink when passing a

fishmonger’s or a wine merchant’s. Not only shall we fare well at his

place, but also we shall get a game of whist.”

To this proposal no one had any objection to offer, for the mere mention

of the fish shop aroused the witnesses’ appetite. Consequently, the

ceremony being over, there was a general reaching for hats and caps.

As the party were passing through the general office, Ivan Antonovitch

whispered in Chichikov’s ear, with a courteous inclination of his

jug-shaped physiognomy:

“You have given a hundred thousand roubles for the serfs, but have paid

ME only a trifle for my trouble.”

“Yes,” replied Chichikov with a similar whisper, “but what sort of serfs

do you suppose them to be? They are a poor, useless lot, and not worth

even half the purchase money.”

This gave Ivan Antonovitch to understand that the visitor was a man of

strong character--a man from whom nothing more was to be expected.

“Why have you gone and purchased souls from Plushkin?” whispered

Sobakevitch in Chichikov’s other ear.

“Why did YOU go and add the woman Vorobei to your list?” retorted

Chichikov.

“Vorobei? Who is Vorobei?”

“The woman ‘Elizabet’ Vorobei--‘Elizabet,’ not ‘Elizabeta?’”

“I added no such name,” replied Sobakevitch, and straightway joined the

other guests.

At length the party arrived at the residence of the Chief of Police. The

latter proved indeed a man of spells, for no sooner had he learnt what

was afoot than he summoned a brisk young constable, whispered in his

ear, adding laconically, “You understand, do you not?” and brought it

about that, during the time that the guests were cutting for partners at

whist in an adjoining room, the dining-table became laden with sturgeon,

caviare, salmon, herrings, cheese, smoked tongue, fresh roe, and a

potted variety of the same--all procured from the local fish market, and

reinforced with additions from the host’s own kitchen. The fact was that

the worthy Chief of Police filled the office of a sort of father and

general benefactor to the town, and that he moved among the citizens as

though they constituted part and parcel of his own family, and watched

over their shops and markets as though those establishments were

merely his own private larder. Indeed, it would be difficult to say--so

thoroughly did he perform his duties in this respect--whether the post

most fitted him, or he the post. Matters were also so arranged that

though his income more than doubled that of his predecessors, he had

never lost the affection of his fellow townsmen. In particular did the

tradesmen love him, since he was never above standing godfather to their

children or dining at their tables. True, he had differences of opinion

with them, and serious differences at that; but always these were

skilfully adjusted by his slapping the offended ones jovially on the

shoulder, drinking a glass of tea with them, promising to call at their

houses and play a game of chess, asking after their belongings, and,

should he learn that a child of theirs was ill, prescribing the proper

medicine. In short, he bore the reputation of being a very good fellow.

On perceiving the feast to be ready, the host proposed that his guests

should finish their whist after luncheon; whereupon all proceeded to the

room whence for some time past an agreeable odour had been tickling the

nostrils of those present, and towards the door of which Sobakevitch in

particular had been glancing since the moment when he had caught sight

of a huge sturgeon reposing on the sideboard. After a glassful of warm,

olive-coloured vodka apiece--vodka of the tint to be seen only in the

species of Siberian stone whereof seals are cut--the company applied

themselves to knife-and-fork work, and, in so doing, evinced their

several characteristics and tastes. For instance, Sobakevitch,

disdaining lesser trifles, tackled the large sturgeon, and, during the

time that his fellow guests were eating minor comestibles, and drinking

and talking, contrived to consume more than a quarter of the whole fish;

so that, on the host remembering the creature, and, with fork in hand,

leading the way in its direction and saying, “What, gentlemen, think you

of this striking product of nature?” there ensued the discovery that of

the said product of nature there remained little beyond the tail, while

Sobakevitch, with an air as though at least HE had not eaten it, was

engaged in plunging his fork into a much more diminutive piece of fish

which happened to be resting on an adjacent platter. After his divorce

from the sturgeon, Sobakevitch ate and drank no more, but sat frowning

and blinking in an armchair.

Apparently the host was not a man who believed in sparing the wine, for

the toasts drunk were innumerable. The first toast (as the reader may

guess) was quaffed to the health of the new landowner of Kherson; the

second to the prosperity of his peasants and their safe transferment;

and the third to the beauty of his future wife--a compliment which

brought to our hero’s lips a flickering smile. Lastly, he received from

the company a pressing, as well as an unanimous, invitation to extend

his stay in town for at least another fortnight, and, in the meanwhile,

to allow a wife to be found for him.

“Quite so,” agreed the President. “Fight us tooth and nail though you

may, we intend to have you married. You have happened upon us by chance,

and you shall have no reason to repent of it. We are in earnest on this

subject.”

“But why should I fight you tooth and nail?” said Chichikov, smiling.

“Marriage would not come amiss to me, were I but provided with a

betrothed.”

“Then a betrothed you shall have. Why not? We will do as you wish.”

“Very well,” assented Chichikov.

“Bravo, bravo!” the company shouted. “Long live Paul Ivanovitch! Hurrah!

Hurrah!” And with that every one approached to clink glasses with him,

and he readily accepted the compliment, and accepted it many times in

succession. Indeed, as the hours passed on, the hilarity of the company

increased yet further, and more than once the President (a man of great

urbanity when thoroughly in his cups) embraced the chief guest of the

day with the heartfelt words, “My dearest fellow! My own most precious

of friends!” Nay, he even started to crack his fingers, to dance around

Chichikov’s chair, and to sing snatches of a popular song. To the

champagne succeeded Hungarian wine, which had the effect of still

further heartening and enlivening the company. By this time every

one had forgotten about whist, and given himself up to shouting and

disputing. Every conceivable subject was discussed, including politics

and military affairs; and in this connection guests voiced jejune

opinions for the expression of which they would, at any other time, have

soundly spanked their offspring. Chichikov, like the rest, had never

before felt so gay, and, imagining himself really and truly to be a

landowner of Kherson, spoke of various improvements in agriculture, of

the three-field system of tillage [33], and of the beatific felicity of

a union between two kindred souls. Also, he started to recite poetry to

Sobakevitch, who blinked as he listened, for he greatly desired to go to

sleep. At length the guest of the evening realised that matters had gone

far enough, so begged to be given a lift home, and was accommodated with

the Public Prosecutor’s drozhki. Luckily the driver of the vehicle was

a practised man at his work, for, while driving with one hand, he

succeeded in leaning backwards and, with the other, holding Chichikov

securely in his place. Arrived at the inn, our hero continued babbling

awhile about a flaxen-haired damsel with rosy lips and a dimple in her

right cheek, about villages of his in Kherson, and about the amount of

his capital. Nay, he even issued seignorial instructions that Selifan

should go and muster the peasants about to be transferred, and make a

complete and detailed inventory of them. For a while Selifan listened

in silence; then he left the room, and instructed Petrushka to help the

barin to undress. As it happened, Chichikov’s boots had no sooner

been removed than he managed to perform the rest of his toilet without

assistance, to roll on to the bed (which creaked terribly as he did so),

and to sink into a sleep in every way worthy of a landowner of Kherson.

Meanwhile Petrushka had taken his master’s coat and trousers of

bilberry-coloured check into the corridor; where, spreading them over a

clothes’ horse, he started to flick and to brush them, and to fill the

whole corridor with dust. Just as he was about to replace them in his

master’s room he happened to glance over the railing of the gallery, and

saw Selifan returning from the stable. Glances were exchanged, and in

an instant the pair had arrived at an instinctive understanding--an

understanding to the effect that the barin was sound asleep, and that

therefore one might consider one’s own pleasure a little. Accordingly

Petrushka proceeded to restore the coat and trousers to their appointed

places, and then descended the stairs; whereafter he and Selifan left

the house together. Not a word passed between them as to the object

of their expedition. On the contrary, they talked solely of extraneous

subjects. Yet their walk did not take them far; it took them only to

the other side of the street, and thence into an establishment which

immediately confronted the inn. Entering a mean, dirty courtyard covered

with glass, they passed thence into a cellar where a number of customers

were seated around small wooden tables. What thereafter was done by

Selifan and Petrushka God alone knows. At all events, within an hour’s

time they issued, arm in arm, and in profound silence, yet remaining

markedly assiduous to one another, and ever ready to help one another

around an awkward corner. Still linked together--never once releasing

their mutual hold--they spent the next quarter of an hour in attempting

to negotiate the stairs of the inn; but at length even that ascent had

been mastered, and they proceeded further on their way. Halting

before his mean little pallet, Petrushka stood awhile in thought. His

difficulty was how best to assume a recumbent position. Eventually he

lay down on his face, with his legs trailing over the floor; after which

Selifan also stretched himself upon the pallet, with his head resting

upon Petrushka’s stomach, and his mind wholly oblivious of the fact that

he ought not to have been sleeping there at all, but in the servant’s

quarters, or in the stable beside his horses. Scarcely a moment had

passed before the pair were plunged in slumber and emitting the most

raucous snores; to which their master (next door) responded with snores

of a whistling and nasal order. Indeed, before long every one in the

inn had followed their soothing example, and the hostelry lay plunged

in complete restfulness. Only in the window of the room of the

newly-arrived lieutenant from Riazan did a light remain burning.

Evidently he was a devotee of boots, for he had purchased four pairs,

and was now trying on a fifth. Several times he approached the bed with

a view to taking off the boots and retiring to rest; but each time he

failed, for the reason that the boots were so alluring in their make

that he had no choice but to lift up first one foot, and then the other,

for the purpose of scanning their elegant welts.

CHAPTER VIII

It was not long before Chichikov’s purchases had become the talk of the

town; and various were the opinions expressed as to whether or not it

was expedient to procure peasants for transferment. Indeed such was the

interest taken by certain citizens in the matter that they advised the

purchaser to provide himself and his convoy with an escort, in order

to ensure their safe arrival at the appointed destination; but though

Chichikov thanked the donors of this advice for the same, and declared

that he should be very glad, in case of need, to avail himself of it, he

declared also that there was no real need for an escort, seeing that the

peasants whom he had purchased were exceptionally peace-loving folk,

and that, being themselves consenting parties to the transferment, they

would undoubtedly prove in every way tractable.

One particularly good result of this advertisement of his scheme was

that he came to rank as neither more nor less than a millionaire.

Consequently, much as the inhabitants had liked our hero in the first

instance (as seen in Chapter I.), they now liked him more than ever.

As a matter of fact, they were citizens of an exceptionally quiet,

good-natured, easy-going disposition; and some of them were even

well-educated. For instance, the President of the Local Council could

recite the whole of Zhukovski’s LUDMILLA by heart, and give such an

impressive rendering of the passage “The pine forest was asleep and the

valley at rest” (as well as of the exclamation “Phew!”) that one felt,

as he did so, that the pine forest and the valley really WERE as he

described them. The effect was also further heightened by the manner in

which, at such moments, he assumed the most portentous frown. For his

part, the Postmaster went in more for philosophy, and diligently perused

such works as Young’s Night Thoughts, and Eckharthausen’s A Key to

the Mysteries of Nature; of which latter work he would make copious

extracts, though no one had the slightest notion what they referred

to. For the rest, he was a witty, florid little individual, and much

addicted to a practice of what he called “embellishing” whatsoever he

had to say--a feat which he performed with the aid of such by-the-way

phrases as “my dear sir,” “my good So-and-So,” “you know,” “you

understand,” “you may imagine,” “relatively speaking,” “for instance,”

and “et cetera”; of which phrases he would add sackfuls to his

speech. He could also “embellish” his words by the simple expedient of

half-closing, half-winking one eye; which trick communicated to some of

his satirical utterances quite a mordant effect. Nor were his colleagues

a wit inferior to him in enlightenment. For instance, one of them made

a regular practice of reading Karamzin, another of conning the Moscow

Gazette, and a third of never looking at a book at all. Likewise,

although they were the sort of men to whom, in their more intimate

movements, their wives would very naturally address such nicknames

as “Toby Jug,” “Marmot,” “Fatty,” “Pot Belly,” “Smutty,” “Kiki,” and

“Buzz-Buzz,” they were men also of good heart, and very ready to extend

their hospitality and their friendship when once a guest had eaten

of their bread and salt, or spent an evening in their company.

Particularly, therefore, did Chichikov earn these good folk’s approval

with his taking methods and qualities--so much so that the expression

of that approval bid fair to make it difficult for him to quit the town,

seeing that, wherever he went, the one phrase dinned into his ears was

“Stay another week with us, Paul Ivanovitch.” In short, he ceased to

be a free agent. But incomparably more striking was the impression

(a matter for unbounded surprise!) which he produced upon the ladies.

Properly to explain this phenomenon I should need to say a great deal

about the ladies themselves, and to describe in the most vivid of

colours their social intercourse and spiritual qualities. Yet this would

be a difficult thing for me to do, since, on the one hand, I should be

hampered by my boundless respect for the womenfolk of all Civil

Service officials, and, on the other hand--well, simply by the innate

arduousness of the task. The ladies of N. were--But no, I cannot do

it; my heart has already failed me. Come, come! The ladies of N. were

distinguished for--But it is of no use; somehow my pen seems to refuse

to move over the paper--it seems to be weighted as with a plummet

of lead. Very well. That being so, I will merely say a word or

two concerning the most prominent tints on the feminine palette of

N.--merely a word or two concerning the outward appearance of

its ladies, and a word or two concerning their more superficial

characteristics. The ladies of N. were pre-eminently what is known as

“presentable.” Indeed, in that respect they might have served as a

model to the ladies of many another town. That is to say, in whatever

pertained to “tone,” etiquette, the intricacies of decorum, and strict

observance of the prevailing mode, they surpassed even the ladies of

Moscow and St. Petersburg, seeing that they dressed with taste, drove

about in carriages in the latest fashions, and never went out without

the escort of a footman in gold-laced livery. Again, they looked upon

a visiting card--even upon a make-shift affair consisting of an ace of

diamonds or a two of clubs--as a sacred thing; so sacred that on one

occasion two closely related ladies who had also been closely attached

friends were known to fall out with one another over the mere fact of an

omission to return a social call! Yes, in spite of the best efforts

of husbands and kinsfolk to reconcile the antagonists, it became clear

that, though all else in the world might conceivably be possible, never

could the hatchet be buried between ladies who had quarrelled over

a neglected visit. Likewise strenuous scenes used to take place over

questions of precedence--scenes of a kind which had the effect of

inspiring husbands to great and knightly ideas on the subject of

protecting the fair. True, never did a duel actually take place, since

all the husbands were officials belonging to the Civil Service; but at

least a given combatant would strive to heap contumely upon his rival,

and, as we all know, that is a resource which may prove even more

effectual than a duel. As regards morality, the ladies of N. were

nothing if not censorious, and would at once be fired with virtuous

indignation when they heard of a case of vice or seduction. Nay, even to

mere frailty they would award the lash without mercy. On the other hand,

should any instance of what they called “third personism” occur among

THEIR OWN circle, it was always kept dark--not a hint of what was going

on being allowed to transpire, and even the wronged husband holding

himself ready, should he meet with, or hear of, the “third person,” to

quote, in a mild and rational manner, the proverb, “Whom concerns it

that a friend should consort with friend?” In addition, I may say that,

like most of the female world of St. Petersburg, the ladies of N. were

pre-eminently careful and refined in their choice of words and phrases.

Never did a lady say, “I blew my nose,” or “I perspired,” or “I spat.”

No, it had to be, “I relieved my nose through the expedient of wiping it

with my handkerchief,” and so forth. Again, to say, “This glass, or

this plate, smells badly,” was forbidden. No, not even a hint to such an

effect was to be dropped. Rather, the proper phrase, in such a case, was

“This glass, or this plate, is not behaving very well,”--or some such

formula.

In fact, to refine the Russian tongue the more thoroughly, something

like half the words in it were cut out: which circumstance necessitated

very frequent recourse to the tongue of France, since the same words, if

spoken in French, were another matter altogether, and one could use even

blunter ones than the ones originally objected to.

So much for the ladies of N., provided that one confines one’s

observations to the surface; yet hardly need it be said that, should one

penetrate deeper than that, a great deal more would come to light. At

the same time, it is never a very safe proceeding to peer deeply into

the hearts of ladies; wherefore, restricting ourselves to the foregoing

superficialities, let us proceed further on our way.

Hitherto the ladies had paid Chichikov no particular attention, though

giving him full credit for his gentlemanly and urbane demeanour; but

from the moment that there arose rumours of his being a millionaire

other qualities of his began to be canvassed. Nevertheless, not ALL the

ladies were governed by interested motives, since it is due to the term

“millionaire” rather than to the character of the person who bears it,

that the mere sound of the word exercises upon rascals, upon decent

folk, and upon folk who are neither the one nor the other, an undeniable

influence. A millionaire suffers from the disadvantage of everywhere

having to behold meanness, including the sort of meanness which, though

not actually based upon calculations of self-interest, yet runs after

the wealthy man with smiles, and doffs his hat, and begs for invitations

to houses where the millionaire is known to be going to dine. That

a similar inclination to meanness seized upon the ladies of N. goes

without saying; with the result that many a drawing-room heard it

whispered that, if Chichikov was not exactly a beauty, at least he was

sufficiently good-looking to serve for a husband, though he could have

borne to have been a little more rotund and stout. To that there would

be added scornful references to lean husbands, and hints that they

resembled tooth-brushes rather than men--with many other feminine

additions. Also, such crowds of feminine shoppers began to repair to the

Bazaar as almost to constitute a crush, and something like a procession

of carriages ensued, so long grew the rank of vehicles. For their part,

the tradesmen had the joy of seeing highly priced dress materials which

they had bought at fairs, and then been unable to dispose of, now

suddenly become tradeable, and go off with a rush. For instance, on one

occasion a lady appeared at Mass in a bustle which filled the church to

an extent which led the verger on duty to bid the commoner folk withdraw

to the porch, lest the lady’s toilet should be soiled in the crush.

Even Chichikov could not help privately remarking the attention which he

aroused. On one occasion, when he returned to the inn, he found on

his table a note addressed to himself. Whence it had come, and who had

delivered it, he failed to discover, for the waiter declared that the

person who had brought it had omitted to leave the name of the writer.

Beginning abruptly with the words “I MUST write to you,” the letter went

on to say that between a certain pair of souls there existed a bond of

sympathy; and this verity the epistle further confirmed with rows of

full stops to the extent of nearly half a page. Next there followed a

few reflections of a correctitude so remarkable that I have no choice

but to quote them. “What, I would ask, is this life of ours?” inquired

the writer. “’Tis nought but a vale of woe. And what, I would ask, is

the world? ’Tis nought but a mob of unthinking humanity.” Thereafter,

incidentally remarking that she had just dropped a tear to the memory of

her dear mother, who had departed this life twenty-five years ago, the

(presumably) lady writer invited Chichikov to come forth into the wilds,

and to leave for ever the city where, penned in noisome haunts, folk

could not even draw their breath. In conclusion, the writer gave way to

unconcealed despair, and wound up with the following verses:

“Two turtle doves to thee, one day,

My dust will show, congealed in death;

And, cooing wearily, they’ll say:

‘In grief and loneliness she drew her closing breath.’”

True, the last line did not scan, but that was a trifle, since the

quatrain at least conformed to the mode then prevalent. Neither

signature nor date were appended to the document, but only a postscript

expressing a conjecture that Chichikov’s own heart would tell him who

the writer was, and stating, in addition, that the said writer would be

present at the Governor’s ball on the following night.

This greatly interested Chichikov. Indeed, there was so much that was

alluring and provocative of curiosity in the anonymous missive that he

read it through a second time, and then a third, and finally said to

himself: “I SHOULD like to know who sent it!” In short, he took the

thing seriously, and spent over an hour in considering the same. At

length, muttering a comment upon the epistle’s efflorescent style, he

refolded the document, and committed it to his dispatch-box in company

with a play-bill and an invitation to a wedding--the latter of which had

for the last seven years reposed in the self-same receptacle and in

the self-same position. Shortly afterwards there arrived a card of

invitation to the Governor’s ball already referred to. In passing, it

may be said that such festivities are not infrequent phenomena in county

towns, for the reason that where Governors exist there must take place

balls if from the local gentry there is to be evoked that respectful

affection which is every Governor’s due.

Thenceforth all extraneous thoughts and considerations were laid aside

in favour of preparing for the coming function. Indeed, this conjunction

of exciting and provocative motives led to Chichikov devoting to his

toilet an amount of time never witnessed since the creation of the

world. Merely in the contemplation of his features in the mirror, as he

tried to communicate to them a succession of varying expressions, was an

hour spent. First of all he strove to make his features assume an air

of dignity and importance, and then an air of humble, but faintly

satirical, respect, and then an air of respect guiltless of any alloy

whatsoever. Next, he practised performing a series of bows to his

reflection, accompanied with certain murmurs intended to bear a

resemblance to a French phrase (though Chichikov knew not a single word

of the Gallic tongue). Lastly came the performing of a series of what I

might call “agreeable surprises,” in the shape of twitchings of the brow

and lips and certain motions of the tongue. In short, he did all that a

man is apt to do when he is not only alone, but also certain that he is

handsome and that no one is regarding him through a chink. Finally he

tapped himself lightly on the chin, and said, “Ah, good old face!” In

the same way, when he started to dress himself for the ceremony, the

level of his high spirits remained unimpaired throughout the process.

That is to say, while adjusting his braces and tying his tie, he

shuffled his feet in what was not exactly a dance, but might be called

the entr’acte of a dance: which performance had the not very serious

result of setting a wardrobe a-rattle, and causing a brush to slide from

the table to the floor.

Later, his entry into the ballroom produced an extraordinary effect.

Every one present came forward to meet him, some with cards in their

hands, and one man even breaking off a conversation at the most

interesting point--namely, the point that “the Inferior Land Court must

be made responsible for everything.” Yes, in spite of the responsibility

of the Inferior Land Court, the speaker cast all thoughts of it to

the winds as he hurried to greet our hero. From every side resounded

acclamations of welcome, and Chichikov felt himself engulfed in a sea of

embraces. Thus, scarcely had he extricated himself from the arms of

the President of the Local Council when he found himself just as firmly

clasped in the arms of the Chief of Police, who, in turn, surrendered

him to the Inspector of the Medical Department, who, in turn, handed

him over to the Commissioner of Taxes, who, again, committed him to the

charge of the Town Architect. Even the Governor, who hitherto had been

standing among his womenfolk with a box of sweets in one hand and

a lap-dog in the other, now threw down both sweets and lap-dog (the

lap-dog giving vent to a yelp as he did so) and added his greeting to

those of the rest of the company. Indeed, not a face was there to be

seen on which ecstatic delight--or, at all events, the reflection of

other people’s ecstatic delight--was not painted. The same expression

may be discerned on the faces of subordinate officials when, the newly

arrived Director having made his inspection, the said officials are

beginning to get over their first sense of awe on perceiving that he

has found much to commend, and that he can even go so far as to jest

and utter a few words of smiling approval. Thereupon every tchinovnik

responds with a smile of double strength, and those who (it may be) have

not heard a single word of the Director’s speech smile out of sympathy

with the rest, and even the gendarme who is posted at the distant

door--a man, perhaps, who has never before compassed a smile, but is

more accustomed to dealing out blows to the populace--summons up a kind

of grin, even though the grin resembles the grimace of a man who is

about to sneeze after inadvertently taking an over-large pinch of

snuff. To all and sundry Chichikov responded with a bow, and felt

extraordinarily at his ease as he did so. To right and left did he

incline his head in the sidelong, yet unconstrained, manner that was

his wont and never failed to charm the beholder. As for the ladies,

they clustered around him in a shining bevy that was redolent of every

species of perfume--of roses, of spring violets, and of mignonette; so

much so that instinctively Chichikov raised his nose to snuff the air.

Likewise the ladies’ dresses displayed an endless profusion of taste and

variety; and though the majority of their wearers evinced a tendency to

embonpoint, those wearers knew how to call upon art for the concealment

of the fact. Confronting them, Chichikov thought to himself: “Which of

these beauties is the writer of the letter?” Then again he snuffed the

air. When the ladies had, to a certain extent, returned to their seats,

he resumed his attempts to discern (from glances and expressions) which

of them could possibly be the unknown authoress. Yet, though those

glances and expressions were too subtle, too insufficiently open, the

difficulty in no way diminished his high spirits. Easily and gracefully

did he exchange agreeable bandinage with one lady, and then approach

another one with the short, mincing steps usually affected by young-old

dandies who are fluttering around the fair. As he turned, not without

dexterity, to right and left, he kept one leg slightly dragging

behind the other, like a short tail or comma. This trick the ladies

particularly admired. In short, they not only discovered in him a host

of recommendations and attractions, but also began to see in his face

a sort of grand, Mars-like, military expression--a thing which, as we

know, never fails to please the feminine eye. Certain of the ladies even

took to bickering over him, and, on perceiving that he spent most of

his time standing near the door, some of their number hastened to occupy

chairs nearer to his post of vantage. In fact, when a certain dame

chanced to have the good fortune to anticipate a hated rival in the

race there very nearly ensued a most lamentable scene--which, to many

of those who had been desirous of doing exactly the same thing, seemed a

peculiarly horrible instance of brazen-faced audacity.

So deeply did Chichikov become plunged in conversation with his fair

pursuers--or rather, so deeply did those fair pursuers enmesh him in the

toils of small talk (which they accomplished through the expedient of

asking him endless subtle riddles which brought the sweat to his brow in

his attempts to guess them)--that he forgot the claims of courtesy which

required him first of all to greet his hostess. In fact, he remembered

those claims only on hearing the Governor’s wife herself addressing him.

She had been standing before him for several minutes, and now greeted

him with suave expressement and the words, “So HERE you are, Paul

Ivanovitch!” But what she said next I am not in a position to report,

for she spoke in the ultra-refined tone and vein wherein ladies and

gentlemen customarily express themselves in high-class novels which have

been written by experts more qualified than I am to describe salons, and

able to boast of some acquaintance with good society. In effect, what

the Governor’s wife said was that she hoped--she greatly hoped--that

Monsieur Chichikov’s heart still contained a corner--even the smallest

possible corner--for those whom he had so cruelly forgotten. Upon that

Chichikov turned to her, and was on the point of returning a reply at

least no worse than that which would have been returned, under similar

circumstances, by the hero of a fashionable novelette, when he stopped

short, as though thunderstruck.

Before him there was standing not only Madame, but also a young girl

whom she was holding by the hand. The golden hair, the fine-drawn,

delicate contours, the face with its bewitching oval--a face which might

have served as a model for the countenance of the Madonna, since it was

of a type rarely to be met with in Russia, where nearly everything, from

plains to human feet, is, rather, on the gigantic scale; these features,

I say, were those of the identical maiden whom Chichikov had encountered

on the road when he had been fleeing from Nozdrev’s. His emotion was

such that he could not formulate a single intelligible syllable; he

could merely murmur the devil only knows what, though certainly

nothing of the kind which would have risen to the lips of the hero of a

fashionable novel.

“I think that you have not met my daughter before?” said Madame. “She is

just fresh from school.”

He replied that he HAD had the happiness of meeting Mademoiselle before,

and under rather unexpected circumstances; but on his trying to say

something further his tongue completely failed him. The Governor’s wife

added a word or two, and then carried off her daughter to speak to some

of the other guests.

Chichikov stood rooted to the spot, like a man who, after issuing

into the street for a pleasant walk, has suddenly come to a halt on

remembering that something has been left behind him. In a moment, as

he struggles to recall what that something is, the mien of careless

expectancy disappears from his face, and he no longer sees a single

person or a single object in his vicinity. In the same way did Chichikov

suddenly become oblivious to the scene around him. Yet all the while the

melodious tongues of ladies were plying him with multitudinous hints

and questions--hints and questions inspired with a desire to captivate.

“Might we poor cumberers of the ground make so bold as to ask you what

you are thinking of?” “Pray tell us where lie the happy regions in which

your thoughts are wandering?” “Might we be informed of the name of her

who has plunged you into this sweet abandonment of meditation?”--such

were the phrases thrown at him. But to everything he turned a dead ear,

and the phrases in question might as well have been stones dropped into

a pool. Indeed, his rudeness soon reached the pitch of his walking

away altogether, in order that he might go and reconnoitre wither the

Governor’s wife and daughter had retreated. But the ladies were not

going to let him off so easily. Every one of them had made up her mind

to use upon him her every weapon, and to exhibit whatsoever might chance

to constitute her best point. Yet the ladies’ wiles proved useless, for

Chichikov paid not the smallest attention to them, even when the dancing

had begun, but kept raising himself on tiptoe to peer over people’s

heads and ascertain in which direction the bewitching maiden with the

golden hair had gone. Also, when seated, he continued to peep between

his neighbours’ backs and shoulders, until at last he discovered her

sitting beside her mother, who was wearing a sort of Oriental turban and

feather. Upon that one would have thought that his purpose was to carry

the position by storm; for, whether moved by the influence of spring,

or whether moved by a push from behind, he pressed forward with such

desperate resolution that his elbow caused the Commissioner of Taxes

to stagger on his feet, and would have caused him to lose his balance

altogether but for the supporting row of guests in the rear. Likewise

the Postmaster was made to give ground; whereupon he turned and eyed

Chichikov with mingled astonishment and subtle irony. But Chichikov

never even noticed him; he saw in the distance only the golden-haired

beauty. At that moment she was drawing on a long glove and, doubtless,

pining to be flying over the dancing-floor, where, with clicking heels,

four couples had now begun to thread the mazes of the mazurka. In

particular was a military staff-captain working body and soul and

arms and legs to compass such a series of steps as were never before

performed, even in a dream. However, Chichikov slipped past the mazurka

dancers, and, almost treading on their heels, made his way towards the

spot where Madame and her daughter were seated. Yet he approached them

with great diffidence and none of his late mincing and prancing. Nay,

he even faltered as he walked; his every movement had about it an air of

awkwardness.

It is difficult to say whether or not the feeling which had awakened

in our hero’s breast was the feeling of love; for it is problematical

whether or not men who are neither stout nor thin are capable of any

such sentiment. Nevertheless, something strange, something which he

could not altogether explain, had come upon him. It seemed as though

the ball, with its talk and its clatter, had suddenly become a thing

remote--that the orchestra had withdrawn behind a hill, and the scene

grown misty, like the carelessly painted-in background of a picture. And

from that misty void there could be seen glimmering only the delicate

outlines of the bewitching maiden. Somehow her exquisite shape reminded

him of an ivory toy, in such fair, white, transparent relief did it

stand out against the dull blur of the surrounding throng.

Herein we see a phenomenon not infrequently observed--the phenomenon of

the Chichikovs of this world becoming temporarily poets. At all events,

for a moment or two our Chichikov felt that he was a young man again, if

not exactly a military officer. On perceiving an empty chair beside the

mother and daughter, he hastened to occupy it, and though conversation

at first hung fire, things gradually improved, and he acquired more

confidence.

At this point I must reluctantly deviate to say that men of weight and

high office are always a trifle ponderous when conversing with ladies.

Young lieutenants--or, at all events, officers not above the rank of

captain--are far more successful at the game. How they contrive to be so

God only knows. Let them but make the most inane of remarks, and at once

the maiden by their side will be rocking with laughter; whereas, should

a State Councillor enter into conversation with a damsel, and remark

that the Russian Empire is one of vast extent, or utter a compliment

which he has elaborated not without a certain measure of intelligence

(however strongly the said compliment may smack of a book), of a surety

the thing will fall flat. Even a witticism from him will be laughed at

far more by him himself than it will by the lady who may happen to be

listening to his remarks.

These comments I have interposed for the purpose of explaining to the

reader why, as our hero conversed, the maiden began to yawn. Blind to

this, however, he continued to relate to her sundry adventures which had

befallen him in different parts of the world. Meanwhile (as need hardly

be said) the rest of the ladies had taken umbrage at his behaviour. One

of them purposely stalked past him to intimate to him the fact, as well

as to jostle the Governor’s daughter, and let the flying end of a scarf

flick her face; while from a lady seated behind the pair came both a

whiff of violets and a very venomous and sarcastic remark. Nevertheless,

either he did not hear the remark or he PRETENDED not to hear it. This

was unwise of him, since it never does to disregard ladies’ opinions.

Later--but too late--he was destined to learn this to his cost.

In short, dissatisfaction began to display itself on every feminine

face. No matter how high Chichikov might stand in society, and no matter

how much he might be a millionaire and include in his expression of

countenance an indefinable element of grandness and martial ardour,

there are certain things which no lady will pardon, whosoever be the

person concerned. We know that at Governor’s balls it is customary for

the onlookers to compose verses at the expense of the dancers; and in

this case the verses were directed to Chichikov’s address. Briefly, the

prevailing dissatisfaction grew until a tacit edict of proscription had

been issued against both him and the poor young maiden.

But an even more unpleasant surprise was in store for our hero; for

whilst the young lady was still yawning as Chichikov recounted to her

certain of his past adventures and also touched lightly upon the subject

of Greek philosophy, there appeared from an adjoining room the figure of

Nozdrev. Whether he had come from the buffet, or whether he had issued

from a little green retreat where a game more strenuous than whist had

been in progress, or whether he had left the latter resort unaided, or

whether he had been expelled therefrom, is unknown; but at all events

when he entered the ballroom, he was in an elevated condition, and

leading by the arm the Public Prosecutor, whom he seemed to have been

dragging about for a long while past, seeing that the poor man was

glancing from side to side as though seeking a means of putting an end

to this personally conducted tour. Certainly he must have found the

situation almost unbearable, in view of the fact that, after deriving

inspiration from two glasses of tea not wholly undiluted with rum,

Nozdrev was engaged in lying unmercifully. On sighting him in the

distance, Chichikov at once decided to sacrifice himself. That is to

say, he decided to vacate his present enviable position and make off

with all possible speed, since he could see that an encounter with the

newcomer would do him no good. Unfortunately at that moment the Governor

buttonholed him with a request that he would come and act as arbiter

between him (the Governor) and two ladies--the subject of dispute

being the question as to whether or not woman’s love is lasting.

Simultaneously Nozdrev descried our hero and bore down upon him.

“Ah, my fine landowner of Kherson!” he cried with a smile which set his

fresh, spring-rose-pink cheeks a-quiver. “Have you been doing much

trade in departed souls lately?” With that he turned to the Governor. “I

suppose your Excellency knows that this man traffics in dead peasants?”

he bawled. “Look here, Chichikov. I tell you in the most friendly

way possible that every one here likes you--yes, including even the

Governor. Nevertheless, had I my way, I would hang you! Yes, by God I

would!”

Chichikov’s discomfiture was complete.

“And, would you believe it, your Excellency,” went on Nozdrev, “but this

fellow actually said to me, ‘Sell me your dead souls!’ Why, I laughed

till I nearly became as dead as the souls. And, behold, no sooner do

I arrive here than I am told that he has bought three million roubles’

worth of peasants for transferment! For transferment, indeed! And he

wanted to bargain with me for my DEAD ones! Look here, Chichikov. You

are a swine! Yes, by God, you are an utter swine! Is not that so, your

Excellency? Is not that so, friend Prokurator [34]?”

But both his Excellency, the Public Prosecutor, and Chichikov were too

taken aback to reply. The half-tipsy Nozdrev, without noticing them,

continued his harangue as before.

“Ah, my fine sir!” he cried. “THIS time I don’t mean to let you go. No,

not until I have learnt what all this purchasing of dead peasants means.

Look here. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Yes, _I_ say that--_I_

who am one of your best friends.” Here he turned to the Governor

again. “Your Excellency,” he continued, “you would never believe what

inseperables this man and I have been. Indeed, if you had stood there

and said to me, ‘Nozdrev, tell me on your honour which of the two you

love best--your father or Chichikov?’ I should have replied, ‘Chichikov,

by God!’” With that he tackled our hero again, “Come, come, my friend!”

he urged. “Let me imprint upon your cheeks a baiser or two. You will

excuse me if I kiss him, will you not, your Excellency? No, do not

resist me, Chichikov, but allow me to imprint at least one baiser upon

your lily-white cheek.” And in his efforts to force upon Chichikov what

he termed his “baisers” he came near to measuring his length upon the

floor.

Every one now edged away, and turned a deaf ear to his further

babblings; but his words on the subject of the purchase of dead souls

had none the less been uttered at the top of his voice, and been

accompanied with such uproarious laughter that the curiosity even of

those who had happened to be sitting or standing in the remoter corners

of the room had been aroused. So strange and novel seemed the idea that

the company stood with faces expressive of nothing but a dumb, dull

wonder. Only some of the ladies (as Chichikov did not fail to remark)

exchanged meaning, ill-natured winks and a series of sarcastic smiles:

which circumstance still further increased his confusion. That Nozdrev

was a notorious liar every one, of course, knew, and that he should have

given vent to an idiotic outburst of this sort had surprised no one; but

a dead soul--well, what was one to make of Nozdrev’s reference to such a

commodity?

Naturally this unseemly contretemps had greatly upset our hero; for,

however foolish be a madman’s words, they may yet prove sufficient to

sow doubt in the minds of saner individuals. He felt much as does a

man who, shod with well-polished boots, has just stepped into a dirty,

stinking puddle. He tried to put away from him the occurrence, and to

expand, and to enjoy himself once more. Nay, he even took a hand

at whist. But all was of no avail--matters kept going as awry as a

badly-bent hoop. Twice he blundered in his play, and the President of

the Council was at a loss to understand how his friend, Paul Ivanovitch,

lately so good and so circumspect a player, could perpetrate such a

mauvais pas as to throw away a particular king of spades which the

President has been “trusting” as (to quote his own expression) “he would

have trusted God.” At supper, too, matters felt uncomfortable, even

though the society at Chichikov’s table was exceedingly agreeable and

Nozdrev had been removed, owing to the fact that the ladies had found

his conduct too scandalous to be borne, now that the delinquent had

taken to seating himself on the floor and plucking at the skirts of

passing lady dancers. As I say, therefore, Chichikov found the situation

not a little awkward, and eventually put an end to it by leaving the

supper room before the meal was over, and long before the hour when

usually he returned to the inn.

In his little room, with its door of communication blocked with a

wardrobe, his frame of mind remained as uncomfortable as the chair in

which he was seated. His heart ached with a dull, unpleasant sensation,

with a sort of oppressive emptiness.

“The devil take those who first invented balls!” was his reflection.

“Who derives any real pleasure from them? In this province there exist

want and scarcity everywhere: yet folk go in for balls! How absurd,

too, were those overdressed women! One of them must have had a thousand

roubles on her back, and all acquired at the expense of the overtaxed

peasant, or, worse still, at that of the conscience of her neighbour.

Yes, we all know why bribes are accepted, and why men become crooked

in soul. It is all done to provide wives--yes, may the pit swallow them

up!--with fal-lals. And for what purpose? That some woman may not have

to reproach her husband with the fact that, say, the Postmaster’s wife

is wearing a better dress than she is--a dress which has cost a thousand

roubles! ‘Balls and gaiety, balls and gaiety’ is the constant cry. Yet

what folly balls are! They do not consort with the Russian spirit and

genius, and the devil only knows why we have them. A grown, middle-aged

man--a man dressed in black, and looking as stiff as a poker--suddenly

takes the floor and begins shuffling his feet about, while another man,

even though conversing with a companion on important business, will, the

while, keep capering to right and left like a billy-goat! Mimicry, sheer

mimicry! The fact that the Frenchman is at forty precisely what he was

at fifteen leads us to imagine that we too, forsooth, ought to be the

same. No; a ball leaves one feeling that one has done a wrong thing--so

much so that one does not care even to think of it. It also leaves one’s

head perfectly empty, even as does the exertion of talking to a man of

the world. A man of that kind chatters away, and touches lightly upon

every conceivable subject, and talks in smooth, fluent phrases which he

has culled from books without grazing their substance; whereas go and

have a chat with a tradesman who knows at least ONE thing thoroughly,

and through the medium of experience, and see whether his conversation

will not be worth more than the prattle of a thousand chatterboxes. For

what good does one get out of balls? Suppose that a competent writer

were to describe such a scene exactly as it stands? Why, even in a

book it would seem senseless, even as it certainly is in life. Are,

therefore, such functions right or wrong? One would answer that the

devil alone knows, and then spit and close the book.”

Such were the unfavourable comments which Chichikov passed upon balls

in general. With it all, however, there went a second source of

dissatisfaction. That is to say, his principal grudge was not so much

against balls as against the fact that at this particular one he had

been exposed, he had been made to disclose the circumstance that he had

been playing a strange, an ambiguous part. Of course, when he reviewed

the contretemps in the light of pure reason, he could not but see that

it mattered nothing, and that a few rude words were of no account now

that the chief point had been attained; yet man is an odd creature, and

Chichikov actually felt pained by the cold-shouldering administered to

him by persons for whom he had not an atom of respect, and whose vanity

and love of display he had only that moment been censuring. Still more,

on viewing the matter clearly, he felt vexed to think that he himself

had been so largely the cause of the catastrophe.

Yet he was not angry with HIMSELF--of that you may be sure, seeing that

all of us have a slight weakness for sparing our own faults, and

always do our best to find some fellow-creature upon whom to vent our

displeasure--whether that fellow-creature be a servant, a subordinate

official, or a wife. In the same way Chichikov sought a scapegoat upon

whose shoulders he could lay the blame for all that had annoyed him. He

found one in Nozdrev, and you may be sure that the scapegoat in question

received a good drubbing from every side, even as an experienced captain

or chief of police will give a knavish starosta or postboy a rating not

only in the terms become classical, but also in such terms as the said

captain or chief of police may invent for himself. In short, Nozdrev’s

whole lineage was passed in review; and many of its members in the

ascending line fared badly in the process.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the town there was in progress an event

which was destined to augment still further the unpleasantness of our

hero’s position. That is to say, through the outlying streets and

alleys of the town there was clattering a vehicle to which it would be

difficult precisely to assign a name, seeing that, though it was of a

species peculiar to itself, it most nearly resembled a large, rickety

water melon on wheels. Eventually this monstrosity drew up at the gates

of a house where the archpriest of one of the churches resided, and from

its doors there leapt a damsel clad in a jerkin and wearing a scarf over

her head. For a while she thumped the gates so vigorously as to set

all the dogs barking; then the gates stiffly opened, and admitted this

unwieldy phenomenon of the road. Lastly, the barinia herself alighted,

and stood revealed as Madame Korobotchka, widow of a Collegiate

Secretary! The reason of her sudden arrival was that she had felt so

uneasy about the possible outcome of Chichikov’s whim, that during the

three nights following his departure she had been unable to sleep a

wink; whereafter, in spite of the fact that her horses were not shod,

she had set off for the town, in order to learn at first hand how the

dead souls were faring, and whether (which might God forfend!) she

had not sold them at something like a third of their true value. The

consequences of her venture the reader will learn from a conversation

between two ladies. We will reserve it for the ensuing chapter.

CHAPTER IX

Next morning, before the usual hour for paying calls, there tripped from

the portals of an orange-coloured wooden house with an attic storey and

a row of blue pillars a lady in an elegant plaid cloak. With her came

a footman in a many-caped greatcoat and a polished top hat with a gold

band. Hastily, but gracefully, the lady ascended the steps let down from

a koliaska which was standing before the entrance, and as soon as

she had done so the footman shut her in, put up the steps again, and,

catching hold of the strap behind the vehicle, shouted to the coachman,

“Right away!” The reason of all this was that the lady was the possessor

of a piece of intelligence that she was burning to communicate to a

fellow-creature. Every moment she kept looking out of the carriage

window, and perceiving, with almost speechless vexation, that, as yet,

she was but half-way on her journey. The fronts of the houses appeared

to her longer than usual, and in particular did the front of the white

stone hospital, with its rows of narrow windows, seem interminable to

a degree which at length forced her to ejaculate: “Oh, the cursed

building! Positively there is no end to it!” Also, she twice adjured the

coachman with the words, “Go quicker, Andrusha! You are a horribly long

time over the journey this morning.” But at length the goal was reached,

and the koliaska stopped before a one-storied wooden mansion, dark grey

in colour, and having white carvings over the windows, a tall wooden

fence and narrow garden in front of the latter, and a few meagre trees

looming white with an incongruous coating of road dust. In the windows

of the building were also a few flower pots and a parrot that kept

alternately dancing on the floor of its cage and hanging on to the ring

of the same with its beak. Also, in the sunshine before the door two pet

dogs were sleeping. Here there lived the lady’s bosom friend. As soon as

the bosom friend in question learnt of the newcomer’s arrival, she ran

down into the hall, and the two ladies kissed and embraced one another.

Then they adjourned to the drawing-room.

“How glad I am to see you!” said the bosom friend. “When I heard some

one arriving I wondered who could possibly be calling so early. Parasha

declared that it must be the Vice-Governor’s wife, so, as I did not want

to be bored with her, I gave orders that I was to be reported ‘not at

home.’”

For her part, the guest would have liked to have proceeded to business

by communicating her tidings, but a sudden exclamation from the hostess

imparted (temporarily) a new direction to the conversation.

“What a pretty chintz!” she cried, gazing at the other’s gown.

“Yes, it IS pretty,” agreed the visitor. “On the other hand, Praskovia

Thedorovna thinks that--”

In other words, the ladies proceeded to indulge in a conversation on

the subject of dress; and only after this had lasted for a considerable

while did the visitor let fall a remark which led her entertainer to

inquire:

“And how is the universal charmer?”

“My God!” replied the other. “There has been SUCH a business! In fact,

do you know why I am here at all?” And the visitor’s breathing became

more hurried, and further words seemed to be hovering between her lips

like hawks preparing to stoop upon their prey. Only a person of the

unhumanity of a “true friend” would have had the heart to interrupt her;

but the hostess was just such a friend, and at once interposed with:

“I wonder how any one can see anything in the man to praise or to

admire. For my own part, I think--and I would say the same thing

straight to his face--that he is a perfect rascal.”

“Yes, but do listen to what I have got to tell you.”

“Oh, I know that some people think him handsome,” continued the

hostess, unmoved; “but _I_ say that he is nothing of the kind--that, in

particular, his nose is perfectly odious.”

“Yes, but let me finish what I was saying.” The guest’s tone was almost

piteous in its appeal.

“What is it, then?”

“You cannot imagine my state of mind! You see, this morning I received

a visit from Father Cyril’s wife--the Archpriest’s wife--you know her,

don’t you? Well, whom do you suppose that fine gentleman visitor of ours

has turned out to be?”

“The man who has built the Archpriest a poultry-run?”

“Oh dear no! Had that been all, it would have been nothing. No. Listen

to what Father Cyril’s wife had to tell me. She said that, last night,

a lady landowner named Madame Korobotchka arrived at the Archpriest’s

house--arrived all pale and trembling--and told her, oh, such things!

They sound like a piece out of a book. That is to say, at dead of night,

just when every one had retired to rest, there came the most dreadful

knocking imaginable, and some one screamed out, ‘Open the gates, or we

will break them down!’ Just think! After this, how any one can say that

the man is charming I cannot imagine.”

“Well, what of Madame Korobotchka? Is she a young woman or good

looking?”

“Oh dear no! Quite an old woman.”

“Splendid indeed! So he is actually engaged to a person like that? One

may heartily commend the taste of our ladies for having fallen in love

with him!”

“Nevertheless, it is not as you suppose. Think, now! Armed with weapons

from head to foot, he called upon this old woman, and said: ‘Sell me any

souls of yours which have lately died.’ Of course, Madame Korobotchka

answered, reasonably enough: ‘I cannot sell you those souls, seeing that

they have departed this world;’ but he replied: ‘No, no! They are NOT

dead. ’Tis I who tell you that--I who ought to know the truth of the

matter. I swear that they are still alive.’ In short, he made such a

scene that the whole village came running to the house, and children

screamed, and men shouted, and no one could tell what it was all

about. The affair seemed to me so horrible, so utterly horrible, that I

trembled beyond belief as I listened to the story. ‘My dearest madam,’

said my maid, Mashka, ‘pray look at yourself in the mirror, and see how

white you are.’ ‘But I have no time for that,’ I replied, ‘as I must

be off to tell my friend, Anna Grigorievna, the news.’ Nor did I lose a

moment in ordering the koliaska. Yet when my coachman, Andrusha, asked

me for directions I could not get a word out--I just stood staring

at him like a fool, until I thought he must think me mad. Oh, Anna

Grigorievna, if you but knew how upset I am!”

“What a strange affair!” commented the hostess. “What on earth can

the man have meant by ‘dead souls’? I confess that the words pass my

understanding. Curiously enough, this is the second time I have heard

speak of those souls. True, my husband avers that Nozdrev was lying; yet

in his lies there seems to have been a grain of truth.”

“Well, just think of my state when I heard all this! ‘And now,’

apparently said Korobotchka to the Archpriest’s wife, ‘I am altogether

at a loss what to do, for, throwing me fifteen roubles, the man forced

me to sign a worthless paper--yes, me, an inexperienced, defenceless

widow who knows nothing of business.’ That such things should happen!

TRY and imagine my feelings!”

“In my opinion, there is in this more than the dead souls which meet the

eye.”

“I think so too,” agreed the other. As a matter of fact, her friend’s

remark had struck her with complete surprise, as well as filled her with

curiosity to know what the word “more” might possibly signify. In fact,

she felt driven to inquire: “What do YOU suppose to be hidden beneath it

all?”

“No; tell me what YOU suppose?”

“What _I_ suppose? I am at a loss to conjecture.”

“Yes, but tell me what is in your mind?”

Upon this the visitor had to confess herself nonplussed; for, though

capable of growing hysterical, she was incapable of propounding any

rational theory. Consequently she felt the more that she needed tender

comfort and advice.

“Then THIS is what I think about the dead souls,” said the hostess.

Instantly the guest pricked up her ears (or, rather, they pricked

themselves up) and straightened herself and became, somehow, more

modish, and, despite her not inconsiderable weight, posed herself to

look like a piece of thistledown floating on the breeze.

“The dead souls,” began the hostess.

“Are what, are what?” inquired the guest in great excitement.

“Are, are--”

“Tell me, tell me, for heaven’s sake!”

“They are an invention to conceal something else. The man’s real object

is, is--TO ABDUCT THE GOVERNOR’S DAUGHTER.”

So startling and unexpected was this conclusion that the guest sat

reduced to a state of pale, petrified, genuine amazement.

“My God!” she cried, clapping her hands, “I should NEVER have guessed

it!”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I guessed it as soon as ever you opened

your mouth.”

“So much, then, for educating girls like the Governor’s daughter at

school! Just see what comes of it!”

“Yes, indeed! And they tell me that she says things which I hesitate

even to repeat.”

“Truly it wrings one’s heart to see to what lengths immorality has

come.”

“Some of the men have quite lost their heads about her, but for my part

I think her not worth noticing.”

“Of course. And her manners are unbearable. But what puzzles me most is

how a travelled man like Chichikov could come to let himself in for such

an affair. Surely he must have accomplices?”

“Yes; and I should say that one of those accomplices is Nozdrev.”

“Surely not?”

“CERTAINLY I should say so. Why, I have known him even try to sell his

own father! At all events he staked him at cards.”

“Indeed? You interest me. I should never had thought him capable of such

things.”

“I always guessed him to be so.”

The two ladies were still discussing the matter with acumen and success

when there walked into the room the Public Prosecutor--bushy eyebrows,

motionless features, blinking eyes, and all. At once the ladies hastened

to inform him of the events related, adducing therewith full details

both as to the purchase of dead souls and as to the scheme to abduct the

Governor’s daughter; after which they departed in different directions,

for the purpose of raising the rest of the town. For the execution of

this undertaking not more than half an hour was required. So thoroughly

did they succeed in throwing dust in the public’s eyes that for a while

every one--more especially the army of public officials--was placed in

the position of a schoolboy who, while still asleep, has had a bag of

pepper thrown in his face by a party of more early-rising comrades. The

questions now to be debated resolved themselves into two--namely, the

question of the dead souls and the question of the Governor’s daughter.

To this end two parties were formed--the men’s party and the feminine

section. The men’s party--the more absolutely senseless of the

two--devoted its attention to the dead souls: the women’s party

occupied itself exclusively with the alleged abduction of the Governor’s

daughter. And here it may be said (to the ladies’ credit) that the

women’s party displayed far more method and caution than did its rival

faction, probably because the function in life of its members had always

been that of managing and administering a household. With the ladies,

therefore, matters soon assumed vivid and definite shape; they became

clearly and irrefutably materialised; they stood stripped of all doubt

and other impedimenta. Said some of the ladies in question, Chichikov

had long been in love with the maiden, and the pair had kept tryst by

the light of the moon, while the Governor would have given his consent

(seeing that Chichikov was as rich as a Jew) but for the obstacle that

Chichikov had deserted a wife already (how the worthy dames came to

know that he was married remains a mystery), and the said deserted wife,

pining with love for her faithless husband, had sent the Governor a

letter of the most touching kind, so that Chichikov, on perceiving that

the father and mother would never give their consent, had decided to

abduct the girl. In other circles the matter was stated in a different

way. That is to say, this section averred that Chichikov did NOT possess

a wife, but that, as a man of subtlety and experience, he had bethought

him of obtaining the daughter’s hand through the expedient of first

tackling the mother and carrying on with her an ardent liaison, and

that, thereafter, he had made an application for the desired hand, but

that the mother, fearing to commit a sin against religion, and feeling

in her heart certain gnawings of conscience, had returned a blank

refusal to Chichikov’s request; whereupon Chichikov had decided to carry

out the abduction alleged. To the foregoing, of course, there became

appended various additional proofs and items of evidence, in proportion

as the sensation spread to more remote corners of the town. At length,

with these perfectings, the affair reached the ears of the Governor’s

wife herself. Naturally, as the mother of a family, and as the first

lady in the town, and as a matron who had never before been suspected of

things of the kind, she was highly offended when she heard the stories,

and very justly so: with the result that her poor young daughter, though

innocent, had to endure about as unpleasant a tete-a-tete as ever befell

a maiden of sixteen, while, for his part, the Swiss footman received

orders never at any time to admit Chichikov to the house.

Having done their business with the Governor’s wife, the ladies’ party

descended upon the male section, with a view to influencing it to their

own side by asserting that the dead souls were an invention used solely

for the purpose of diverting suspicion and successfully affecting the

abduction. And, indeed, more than one man was converted, and joined the

feminine camp, in spite of the fact that thereby such seceders incurred

strong names from their late comrades--names such as “old women,”

“petticoats,” and others of a nature peculiarly offensive to the male

sex.

Also, however much they might arm themselves and take the field, the

men could not compass such orderliness within their ranks as could the

women. With the former everything was of the antiquated and rough-hewn

and ill-fitting and unsuitable and badly-adapted and inferior kind;

their heads were full of nothing but discord and triviality and

confusion and slovenliness of thought. In brief, they displayed

everywhere the male bent, the rude, ponderous nature which is incapable

either of managing a household or of jumping to a conclusion, as well

as remains always distrustful and lazy and full of constant doubt and

everlasting timidity. For instance, the men’s party declared that the

whole story was rubbish--that the alleged abduction of the Governor’s

daughter was the work rather of a military than of a civilian culprit;

that the ladies were lying when they accused Chichikov of the deed;

that a woman was like a money-bag--whatsoever you put into her she

thenceforth retained; that the subject which really demanded attention

was the dead souls, of which the devil only knew the meaning, but in

which there certainly lurked something that was contrary to good order

and discipline. One reason why the men’s party was so certain that the

dead souls connoted something contrary to good order and discipline,

was that there had just been appointed to the province a new

Governor-General--an event which, of course, had thrown the whole army

of provincial tchinovniks into a state of great excitement, seeing that

they knew that before long there would ensue transferments and sentences

of censure, as well as the series of official dinners with which a

Governor-General is accustomed to entertain his subordinates. “Alas,”

thought the army of tchinovniks, “it is probable that, should he learn

of the gross reports at present afloat in our town, he will make such a

fuss that we shall never hear the last of them.” In particular did

the Director of the Medical Department turn pale at the thought that

possibly the new Governor-General would surmise the term “dead folk”

to connote patients in the local hospitals who, for want of proper

preventative measures, had died of sporadic fever. Indeed, might it not

be that Chichikov was neither more nor less than an emissary of the said

Governor-General, sent to conduct a secret inquiry? Accordingly he (the

Director of the Medical Department) communicated this last supposition

to the President of the Council, who, though at first inclined to

ejaculate “Rubbish!” suddenly turned pale on propounding to himself the

theory. “What if the souls purchased by Chichikov should REALLY be

dead ones?”--a terrible thought considering that he, the President, had

permitted their transferment to be registered, and had himself acted

as Plushkin’s representative! What if these things should reach the

Governor-General’s ears? He mentioned the matter to one friend and

another, and they, in their turn, went white to the lips, for panic

spreads faster and is even more destructive, than the dreaded black

death. Also, to add to the tchinovniks’ troubles, it so befell that

just at this juncture there came into the local Governor’s hands two

documents of great importance. The first of them contained advices that,

according to received evidence and reports, there was operating in the

province a forger of rouble-notes who had been passing under various

aliases and must therefore be sought for with the utmost diligence;

while the second document was a letter from the Governor of a

neighbouring province with regard to a malefactor who had there evaded

apprehension--a letter conveying also a warning that, if in the province

of the town of N. there should appear any suspicious individual who

could produce neither references nor passports, he was to be arrested

forthwith. These two documents left every one thunderstruck, for they

knocked on the head all previous conceptions and theories. Not for

a moment could it be supposed that the former document referred to

Chichikov; yet, as each man pondered the position from his own point of

view, he remembered that no one REALLY knew who Chichikov was; as also

that his vague references to himself had--yes!--included statements that

his career in the service had suffered much to the cause of Truth, and

that he possessed a number of enemies who were seeking his life. This

gave the tchinovniks further food for thought. Perhaps his life really

DID stand in danger? Perhaps he really WAS being sought for by some one?

Perhaps he really HAD done something of the kind above referred to? As a

matter of fact, who was he?--not that it could actually be supposed that

he was a forger of notes, still less a brigand, seeing that his exterior

was respectable in the highest degree. Yet who was he? At length

the tchinovniks decided to make enquiries among those of whom he had

purchased souls, in order that at least it might be learnt what the

purchases had consisted of, and what exactly underlay them, and whether,

in passing, he had explained to any one his real intentions, or revealed

to any one his identity. In the first instance, therefore, resort was

had to Korobotchka. Yet little was gleaned from that source--merely

a statement that he had bought of her some souls for fifteen roubles

apiece, and also a quantity of feathers, while promising also to buy

some other commodities in the future, seeing that, in particular, he had

entered into a contract with the Treasury for lard, a fact constituting

fairly presumptive proof that the man was a rogue, seeing that just such

another fellow had bought a quantity of feathers, yet had cheated folk

all round, and, in particular, had done the Archpriest out of over a

hundred roubles. Thus the net result of Madame’s cross-examination was

to convince the tchinovniks that she was a garrulous, silly old woman.

With regard to Manilov, he replied that he would answer for Chichikov as

he would for himself, and that he would gladly sacrifice his property in

toto if thereby he could attain even a tithe of the qualities which

Paul Ivanovitch possessed. Finally, he delivered on Chichikov, with

acutely-knitted brows, a eulogy couched in the most charming of terms,

and coupled with sundry sentiments on the subject of friendship and

affection in general. True, these remarks sufficed to indicate the

tender impulses of the speaker’s heart, but also they did nothing to

enlighten his examiners concerning the business that was actually at

hand. As for Sobakevitch, that landowner replied that he considered

Chichikov an excellent fellow, as well as that the souls whom he had

sold to his visitor had been in the truest sense of the word alive, but

that he could not answer for anything which might occur in the future,

seeing that any difficulties which might arise in the course of the

actual transferment of souls would not be HIS fault, in view of the fact

that God was lord of all, and that fevers and other mortal complaints

were so numerous in the world, and that instances of whole villages

perishing through the same could be found on record.

Finally, our friends the tchinovniks found themselves compelled to

resort to an expedient which, though not particularly savoury, is not

infrequently employed--namely, the expedient of getting lacqueys quietly

to approach the servants of the person concerning whom information is

desired, and to ascertain from them (the servants) certain details with

regard to their master’s life and antecedents. Yet even from this source

very little was obtained, since Petrushka provided his interrogators

merely with a taste of the smell of his living-room, and Selifan

confined his replies to a statement that the barin had “been in the

employment of the State, and also had served in the Customs.”

In short, the sum total of the results gathered by the tchinovniks was

that they still stood in ignorance of Chichikov’s identity, but that he

MUST be some one; wherefore it was decided to hold a final debate on the

subject on what ought to be done, and who Chichikov could possibly be,

and whether or not he was a man who ought to be apprehended and detained

as not respectable, or whether he was a man who might himself be able

to apprehend and detain THEM as persons lacking in respectability. The

debate in question, it was proposed, should be held at the residence of

the Chief of Police, who is known to our readers as the father and the

general benefactor of the town.

CHAPTER X

On assembling at the residence indicated, the tchinovniks had occasion

to remark that, owing to all these cares and excitements, every one

of their number had grown thinner. Yes, the appointment of a new

Governor-General, coupled with the rumours described and the reception

of the two serious documents above-mentioned, had left manifest traces

upon the features of every one present. More than one frockcoat had come

to look too large for its wearer, and more than one frame had fallen

away, including the frames of the President of the Council, the Director

of the Medical Department, and the Public Prosecutor. Even a certain

Semen Ivanovitch, who, for some reason or another, was never alluded to

by his family name, but who wore on his index finger a ring with which

he was accustomed to dazzle his lady friends, had diminished in bulk.

Yet, as always happens at such junctures, there were also present

a score of brazen individuals who had succeeded in NOT losing their

presence of mind, even though they constituted a mere sprinkling.

Of them the Postmaster formed one, since he was a man of equable

temperament who could always say: “WE know you, Governor-Generals! We

have seen three or four of you come and go, whereas WE have been sitting

on the same stools these thirty years.” Nevertheless a prominent feature

of the gathering was the total absence of what is vulgarly known as

“common sense.” In general, we Russians do not make a good show at

representative assemblies, for the reason that, unless there be in

authority a leading spirit to control the rest, the affair always

develops into confusion. Why this should be so one could hardly say, but

at all events a success is scored only by such gatherings as have for

their object dining and festivity--to wit, gatherings at clubs or in

German-run restaurants. However, on the present occasion, the meeting

was NOT one of this kind; it was a meeting convoked of necessity, and

likely in view of the threatened calamity to affect every tchinovnik in

the place. Also, in addition to the great divergency of views expressed

thereat, there was visible in all the speakers an invincible tendency to

indecision which led them at one moment to make assertions, and at the

next to contradict the same. But on at least one point all seemed to

agree--namely, that Chichikov’s appearance and conversation were too

respectable for him to be a forger or a disguised brigand. That is to

say, all SEEMED to agree on the point; until a sudden shout arose from

the direction of the Postmaster, who for some time past had been sitting

plunged in thought.

“_I_ can tell you,” he cried, “who Chichikov is!”

“Who, then?” replied the crowd in great excitement.

“He is none other than Captain Kopeikin.”

“And who may Captain Kopeikin be?”

Taking a pinch of snuff (which he did with the lid of his snuff-box

half-open, lest some extraneous person should contrive to insert a not

over-clean finger into the stuff), the Postmaster related the following

story [35].

“After fighting in the campaign of 1812, there was sent home, wounded,

a certain Captain Kopeikin--a headstrong, lively blade who, whether on

duty or under arrest, made things lively for everybody. Now, since at

Krasni or at Leipzig (it matters not which) he had lost an arm and a

leg, and in those days no provision was made for wounded soldiers, and

he could not work with his left arm alone, he set out to see his father.

Unfortunately his father could only just support himself, and was forced

to tell his son so; wherefore the Captain decided to go and apply for

help in St. Petersburg, seeing that he had risked his life for his

country, and had lost much blood in its service. You can imagine him

arriving in the capital on a baggage waggon--in the capital which is

like no other city in the world! Before him there lay spread out the

whole field of life, like a sort of Arabian Nights--a picture made up of

the Nevski Prospect, Gorokhovaia Street, countless tapering spires, and

a number of bridges apparently supported on nothing--in fact, a regular

second Nineveh. Well, he made shift to hire a lodging, but found

everything so wonderfully furnished with blinds and Persian carpets and

so forth that he saw it would mean throwing away a lot of money. True,

as one walks the streets of St. Petersburg one seems to smell money by

the thousand roubles, but our friend Kopeikin’s bank was limited to a

few score coppers and a little silver--not enough to buy a village with!

At length, at the price of a rouble a day, he obtained a lodging in the

sort of tavern where the daily ration is a bowl of cabbage soup and a

crust of bread; and as he felt that he could not manage to live very

long on fare of that kind he asked folk what he had better do. ‘What you

had better do?’ they said. ‘Well the Government is not here--it is in

Paris, and the troops have not yet returned from the war; but there is a

TEMPORARY Commission sitting, and you had better go and see what IT can

do for you.’ ‘All right!’ he said. ‘I will go and tell the Commission

that I have shed my blood, and sacrificed my life, for my country.’

And he got up early one morning, and shaved himself with his left hand

(since the expense of a barber was not worth while), and set out, wooden

leg and all, to see the President of the Commission. But first he

asked where the President lived, and was told that his house was in

Naberezhnaia Street. And you may be sure that it was no peasant’s hut,

with its glazed windows and great mirrors and statues and lacqueys and

brass door handles! Rather, it was the sort of place which you would

enter only after you had bought a cheap cake of soap and indulged in a

two hours’ wash. Also, at the entrance there was posted a grand Swiss

footman with a baton and an embroidered collar--a fellow looking like a

fat, over-fed pug dog. However, friend Kopeikin managed to get himself

and his wooden leg into the reception room, and there squeezed himself

away into a corner, for fear lest he should knock down the gilded china

with his elbow. And he stood waiting in great satisfaction at having

arrived before the President had so much as left his bed and been served

with his silver wash-basin. Nevertheless, it was only when Kopeikin had

been waiting four hours that a breakfast waiter entered to say, ‘The

President will soon be here.’ By now the room was as full of people as

a plate is of beans, and when the President left the breakfast-room he

brought with him, oh, such dignity and refinement, and such an air

of the metropolis! First he walked up to one person, and then up to

another, saying: ‘What do YOU want? And what do YOU want? What can I

do for YOU? What is YOUR business?’ And at length he stopped before

Kopeikin, and Kopeikin said to him: ‘I have shed my blood, and lost

both an arm and a leg, for my country, and am unable to work. Might I

therefore dare to ask you for a little help, if the regulations should

permit of it, or for a gratuity, or for a pension, or something of the

kind?’ Then the President looked at him, and saw that one of his legs

was indeed a wooden one, and that an empty right sleeve was pinned to

his uniform. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Come to me again in a few days’

time.’ Upon this friend Kopeikin felt delighted. ‘NOW I have done my

job!’ he thought to himself; and you may imagine how gaily he trotted

along the pavement, and how he dropped into a tavern for a glass of

vodka, and how he ordered a cutlet and some caper sauce and some other

things for luncheon, and how he called for a bottle of wine, and how he

went to the theatre in the evening! In short, he did himself thoroughly

well. Next, he saw in the street a young English lady, as graceful as a

swan, and set off after her on his wooden leg. ‘But no,’ he thought to

himself. ‘To the devil with that sort of thing just now! I will wait

until I have drawn my pension. For the present I have spent enough.’

(And I may tell you that by now he had got through fully half his

money.) Two or three days later he went to see the President of the

Commission again. ‘I should be glad to know,’ he said, ‘whether by now

you can do anything for me in return for my having shed my blood and

suffered sickness and wounds on military service.’ ‘First of all,’ said

the President, ‘I must tell you that nothing can be decided in your case

without the authority of the Supreme Government. Without that sanction

we cannot move in the matter. Surely you see how things stand until the

army shall have returned from the war? All that I can advise you to

do is wait for the Minister to return, and, in the meanwhile, to have

patience. Rest assured that then you will not be overlooked. And if for

the moment you have nothing to live upon, this is the best that I can

do for you.’ With that he handed Kopeikin a trifle until his case should

have been decided. However, that was not what Kopeikin wanted. He

had supposed that he would be given a gratuity of a thousand roubles

straight away; whereas, instead of ‘Drink and be merry,’ it was ‘Wait,

for the time is not yet.’ Thus, though his head had been full of soup

plates and cutlets and English girls, he now descended the steps with

his ears and his tail down--looking, in fact, like a poodle over which

the cook has poured a bucketful of water. You see, St. Petersburg life

had changed him not a little since first he had got a taste of it, and,

now that the devil only knew how he was going to live, it came all the

harder to him that he should have no more sweets to look forward to.

Remember that a man in the prime of years has an appetite like a

wolf; and as he passed a restaurant he could see a round-faced,

holland-shirted, snow-white aproned fellow of a French chef preparing a

dish delicious enough to make it turn to and eat itself; while, again,

as he passed a fruit shop he could see delicacies looking out of a

window for fools to come and buy them at a hundred roubles apiece.

Imagine, therefore, his position! On the one hand, so to speak, were

salmon and water-melons, while on the other hand was the bitter fare

which passed at a tavern for luncheon. ‘Well,’ he thought to himself,

‘let them do what they like with me at the Commission, but I intend

to go and raise the whole place, and to tell every blessed functionary

there that I have a mind to do as I choose.’ And in truth this

bold impertinence of a man did have the hardihood to return to the

Commission. ‘What do you want?’ said the President. ‘Why are you here

for the third time? You have had your orders given you.’ ‘I daresay I

have,’ he retorted, ‘but I am not going to be put off with THEM. I want

some cutlets to eat, and a bottle of French wine, and a chance to go and

amuse myself at the theatre.’ ‘Pardon me,’ said the President. ‘What you

really need (if I may venture to mention it) is a little patience. You

have been given something for food until the Military Committee shall

have met, and then, doubtless, you will receive your proper reward,

seeing that it would not be seemly that a man who has served his country

should be left destitute. On the other hand, if, in the meanwhile, you

desire to indulge in cutlets and theatre-going, please understand that

we cannot help you, but you must make your own resources, and try as

best you can to help yourself.’ You can imagine that this went in at one

of Kopeikin’s ears, and out at the other; that it was like shooting peas

at a stone wall. Accordingly he raised a turmoil which sent the staff

flying. One by one, he gave the mob of secretaries and clerks a real

good hammering. ‘You, and you, and you,’ he said, ‘do not even know

your duties. You are law-breakers.’ Yes, he trod every man of them under

foot. At length the General himself arrived from another office, and

sounded the alarm. What was to be done with a fellow like Kopeikin?

The President saw that strong measures were imperative. ‘Very well,’ he

said. ‘Since you decline to rest satisfied with what has been given you,

and quietly to await the decision of your case in St. Petersburg, I must

find you a lodging. Here, constable, remove the man to gaol.’ Then a

constable who had been called to the door--a constable three ells

in height, and armed with a carbine--a man well fitted to guard a

bank--placed our friend in a police waggon. ‘Well,’ reflected Kopeikin,

‘at least I shan’t have to pay my fare for THIS ride. That’s one

comfort.’ Again, after he had ridden a little way, he said to himself:

‘they told me at the Commission to go and make my own means of enjoying

myself. Very good. I’ll do so.’ However, what became of Kopeikin,

and whither he went, is known to no one. He sank, to use the poet’s

expression, into the waters of Lethe, and his doings now lie buried in

oblivion. But allow me, gentlemen, to piece together the further threads

of the story. Not two months later there appeared in the forests of

Riazan a band of robbers: and of that band the chieftain was none other

than--”

“Allow me,” put in the Head of the Police Department. “You have said

that Kopeikin had lost an arm and a leg; whereas Chichikov--”

To say anything more was unnecessary. The Postmaster clapped his hand

to his forehead, and publicly called himself a fool, though, later, he

tried to excuse his mistake by saying that in England the science of

mechanics had reached such a pitch that wooden legs were manufactured

which would enable the wearer, on touching a spring, to vanish

instantaneously from sight.

Various other theories were then propounded, among them a theory that

Chichikov was Napoleon, escaped from St. Helena and travelling about

the world in disguise. And if it should be supposed that no such notion

could possibly have been broached, let the reader remember that these

events took place not many years after the French had been driven out of

Russia, and that various prophets had since declared that Napoleon was

Antichrist, and would one day escape from his island prison to exercise

universal sway on earth. Nay, some good folk had even declared the

letters of Napoleon’s name to constitute the Apocalyptic cipher!

As a last resort, the tchinovniks decided to question Nozdrev, since not

only had the latter been the first to mention the dead souls, but

also he was supposed to stand on terms of intimacy with Chichikov.

Accordingly the Chief of Police dispatched a note by the hand of a

commissionaire. At the time Nozdrev was engaged on some very important

business--so much so that he had not left his room for four days, and

was receiving his meals through the window, and no visitors at all. The

business referred to consisted of the marking of several dozen selected

cards in such a way as to permit of his relying upon them as upon his

bosom friend. Naturally he did not like having his retirement invaded,

and at first consigned the commissionaire to the devil; but as soon

as he learnt from the note that, since a novice at cards was to be the

guest of the Chief of Police that evening, a call at the latter’s house

might prove not wholly unprofitable he relented, unlocked the door of

his room, threw on the first garments that came to hand, and set forth.

To every question put to him by the tchinovniks he answered firmly and

with assurance. Chichikov, he averred, had indeed purchased dead souls,

and to the tune of several thousand roubles. In fact, he (Nozdrev) had

himself sold him some, and still saw no reason why he should not have

done so. Next, to the question of whether or not he considered Chichikov

to be a spy, he replied in the affirmative, and added that, as long ago

as his and Chichikov’s joint schooldays, the said Chichikov had been

known as “The Informer,” and repeatedly been thrashed by his companions

on that account. Again, to the question of whether or not Chichikov was

a forger of currency notes the deponent, as before, responded in

the affirmative, and appended thereto an anecdote illustrative of

Chichikov’s extraordinary dexterity of hand--namely, an anecdote to

that effect that, once upon a time, on learning that two million

roubles worth of counterfeit notes were lying in Chichikov’s house, the

authorities had placed seals upon the building, and had surrounded it

on every side with an armed guard; whereupon Chichikov had, during the

night, changed each of these seals for a new one, and also so arranged

matters that, when the house was searched, the forged notes were found

to be genuine ones!

Again, to the question of whether or not Chichikov had schemed to abduct

the Governor’s daughter, and also whether it was true that he, Nozdrev,

had undertaken to aid and abet him in the act, the witness replied that,

had he not undertaken to do so, the affair would never have come off. At

this point the witness pulled himself up, on realising that he had told

a lie which might get him into trouble; but his tongue was not to be

denied--the details trembling on its tip were too alluring, and he

even went on to cite the name of the village church where the pair

had arranged to be married, that of the priest who had performed

the ceremony, the amount of the fees paid for the same (seventy-five

roubles), and statements (1) that the priest had refused to solemnise

the wedding until Chichikov had frightened him by threatening to expose

the fact that he (the priest) had married Mikhail, a local corn dealer,

to his paramour, and (2) that Chichikov had ordered both a koliaska for

the couple’s conveyance and relays of horses from the post-houses on the

road. Nay, the narrative, as detailed by Nozdrev, even reached the

point of his mentioning certain of the postillions by name! Next, the

tchinovniks sounded him on the question of Chichikov’s possible identity

with Napoleon; but before long they had reason to regret the step, for

Nozdrev responded with a rambling rigmarole such as bore no resemblance

to anything possibly conceivable. Finally, the majority of the audience

left the room, and only the Chief of Police remained to listen (in the

hope of gathering something more); but at last even he found himself

forced to disclaim the speaker with a gesture which said: “The devil

only knows what the fellow is talking about!” and so voiced the general

opinion that it was no use trying to gather figs of thistles.

Meanwhile Chichikov knew nothing of these events; for, having contracted

a slight chill, coupled with a sore throat, he had decided to keep his

room for three days; during which time he gargled his throat with

milk and fig juice, consumed the fruit from which the juice had been

extracted, and wore around his neck a poultice of camomile and camphor.

Also, to while away the hours, he made new and more detailed lists of

the souls which he had bought, perused a work by the Duchesse de la

Valliere [36], rummaged in his portmanteau, looked through various

articles and papers which he discovered in his dispatch-box, and found

every one of these occupations tedious. Nor could he understand why

none of his official friends had come to see him and inquire after his

health, seeing that, not long since, there had been standing in front of

the inn the drozhkis both of the Postmaster, the Public Prosecutor, and

the President of the Council. He wondered and wondered, and then, with

a shrug of his shoulders, fell to pacing the room. At length he felt

better, and his spirits rose at the prospect of once more going out into

the fresh air; wherefore, having shaved a plentiful growth of hair from

his face, he dressed with such alacrity as almost to cause a split

in his trousers, sprinkled himself with eau-de-Cologne, and wrapping

himself in warm clothes, and turning up the collar of his coat, sallied

forth into the street. His first destination was intended to be the

Governor’s mansion, and, as he walked along, certain thoughts concerning

the Governor’s daughter would keep whirling through his head, so that

almost he forgot where he was, and took to smiling and cracking jokes to

himself.

Arrived at the Governor’s entrance, he was about to divest himself

of his scarf when a Swiss footman greeted him with the words, “I am

forbidden to admit you.”

“What?” he exclaimed. “You do not know me? Look at me again, and see if

you do not recognise me.”

“Of course I recognise you,” the footman replied. “I have seen you

before, but have been ordered to admit any one else rather than Monsieur

Chichikov.”

“Indeed? And why so?”

“Those are my orders, and they must be obeyed,” said the footman,

confronting Chichikov with none of that politeness with which, on

former occasions, he had hastened to divest our hero of his wrappings.

Evidently he was of opinion that, since the gentry declined to receive

the visitor, the latter must certainly be a rogue.

“I cannot understand it,” said Chichikov to himself. Then he departed,

and made his way to the house of the President of the Council. But so

put about was that official by Chichikov’s entry that he could not utter

two consecutive words--he could only murmur some rubbish which left both

his visitor and himself out of countenance. Chichikov wondered, as he

left the house, what the President’s muttered words could have meant,

but failed to make head or tail of them. Next, he visited, in turn, the

Chief of Police, the Vice-Governor, the Postmaster, and others; but in

each case he either failed to be accorded admittance or was received

so strangely, and with such a measure of constraint and conversational

awkwardness and absence of mind and embarrassment, that he began to fear

for the sanity of his hosts. Again and again did he strive to divine

the cause, but could not do so; so he went wandering aimlessly about

the town, without succeeding in making up his mind whether he or

the officials had gone crazy. At length, in a state bordering upon

bewilderment, he returned to the inn--to the establishment whence, that

every afternoon, he had set forth in such exuberance of spirits. Feeling

the need of something to do, he ordered tea, and, still marvelling at

the strangeness of his position, was about to pour out the beverage when

the door opened and Nozdrev made his appearance.

“What says the proverb?” he began. “‘To see a friend, seven versts is

not too long a round to make.’ I happened to be passing the house, saw a

light in your window, and thought to myself: ‘Now, suppose I were to run

up and pay him a visit? It is unlikely that he will be asleep.’ Ah, ha!

I see tea on your table! Good! Then I will drink a cup with you, for I

had wretched stuff for dinner, and it is beginning to lie heavy on my

stomach. Also, tell your man to fill me a pipe. Where is your own pipe?”

“I never smoke,” rejoined Chichikov drily.

“Rubbish! As if I did not know what a chimney-pot you are! What is your

man’s name? Hi, Vakhramei! Come here!”

“Petrushka is his name, not Vakhramei.”

“Indeed? But you USED to have a man called Vakhramei, didn’t you?”

“No, never.”

“Oh, well. Then it must be Derebin’s man I am thinking of. What a lucky

fellow that Derebin is! An aunt of his has gone and quarrelled with her

son for marrying a serf woman, and has left all her property to HIM,

to Derebin. Would that _I_ had an aunt of that kind to provide against

future contingencies! But why have you been hiding yourself away? I

suppose the reason has been that you go in for abstruse subjects and are

fond of reading” (why Nozdrev should have drawn these conclusions no one

could possibly have said--least of all Chichikov himself). “By the way,

I can tell you of something that would have found you scope for your

satirical vein” (the conclusion as to Chichikov’s “satirical vein” was,

as before, altogether unwarranted on Nozdrev’s part). “That is to say,

you would have seen merchant Likhachev losing a pile of money at play.

My word, you would have laughed! A fellow with me named Perependev said:

‘Would that Chichikov had been here! It would have been the very thing

for him!’” (As a matter of fact, never since the day of his birth had

Nozdrev met any one of the name of Perependev.) “However, my friend, you

must admit that you treated me rather badly the day that we played that

game of chess; but, as I won the game, I bear you no malice. A propos,

I am just from the President’s, and ought to tell you that the feeling

against you in the town is very strong, for every one believes you to be

a forger of currency notes. I myself was sent for and questioned

about you, but I stuck up for you through thick and thin, and told

the tchinovniks that I had been at school with you, and had known your

father. In fact, I gave the fellows a knock or two for themselves.”

“You say that I am believed to be a forger?” said Chichikov, starting

from his seat.

“Yes,” said Nozdrev. “Why have you gone and frightened everybody as you

have done? Some of our folk are almost out of their minds about it, and

declare you to be either a brigand in disguise or a spy. Yesterday the

Public Prosecutor even died of it, and is to be buried to-morrow”

(this was true in so far as that, on the previous day, the official in

question had had a fatal stroke--probably induced by the excitement of

the public meeting). “Of course, _I_ don’t suppose you to be anything of

the kind, but, you see, these fellows are in a blue funk about the new

Governor-General, for they think he will make trouble for them over your

affair. A propos, he is believed to be a man who puts on airs, and turns

up his nose at everything; and if so, he will get on badly with the

dvoriane, seeing that fellows of that sort need to be humoured a bit.

Yes, my word! Should the new Governor-General shut himself up in his

study, and give no balls, there will be the very devil to pay! By the

way, Chichikov, that is a risky scheme of yours.”

“What scheme to you mean?” Chichikov asked uneasily.

“Why, that scheme of carrying off the Governor’s daughter. However, to

tell the truth, I was expecting something of the kind. No sooner did

I see you and her together at the ball than I said to myself: ‘Ah, ha!

Chichikov is not here for nothing!’ For my own part, I think you have

made a poor choice, for I can see nothing in her at all. On the other

hand, the niece of a friend of mine named Bikusov--she IS a girl, and no

mistake! A regular what you might call ‘miracle in muslin!’”

“What on earth are you talking about?” asked Chichikov with his eyes

distended. “HOW could I carry off the Governor’s daughter? What on earth

do you mean?”

“Come, come! What a secretive fellow you are! My only object in having

come to see you is to lend you a helping hand in the matter. Look here.

On condition that you will lend me three thousand roubles, I will stand

you the cost of the wedding, the koliaska, and the relays of horses. I

must have the money even if I die for it.”

Throughout Nozdrev’s maunderings Chichikov had been rubbing his eyes to

ascertain whether or not he was dreaming. What with the charge of being

a forger, the accusation of having schemed an abduction, the death of

the Public Prosecutor (whatever might have been its cause), and the

advent of a new Governor-General, he felt utterly dismayed.

“Things having come to their present pass,” he reflected, “I had better

not linger here--I had better be off at once.”

Getting rid of Nozdrev as soon as he could, he sent for Selifan, and

ordered him to be up at daybreak, in order to clean the britchka and to

have everything ready for a start at six o’clock. Yet, though Selifan

replied, “Very well, Paul Ivanovitch,” he hesitated awhile by the door.

Next, Chichikov bid Petrushka get out the dusty portmanteau from under