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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1081 ***
+
+
+
+
+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
+the bed, and then set to work to cram into it, pell-mell, socks, shirts,
+collars (both clean and dirty), boot trees, a calendar, and a variety of
+other articles. Everything went into the receptacle just as it came
+to hand, since his one object was to obviate any possible delay in
+the morning’s departure. Meanwhile the reluctant Selifan slowly, very
+slowly, left the room, as slowly descended the staircase (on each
+separate step of which he left a muddy foot-print), and, finally, halted
+to scratch his head. What that scratching may have meant no one could
+say; for, with the Russian populace, such a scratching may mean any one
+of a hundred things.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Nevertheless events did not turn out as Chichikov had intended they
+should. In the first place, he overslept himself. That was check number
+one. In the second place, on his rising and inquiring whether the
+britchka had been harnessed and everything got ready, he was informed
+that neither of those two things had been done. That was check number
+two. Beside himself with rage, he prepared to give Selifan the wigging
+of his life, and, meanwhile, waited impatiently to hear what the
+delinquent had got to say in his defence. It goes without saying that
+when Selifan made his appearance in the doorway he had only the usual
+excuses to offer--the sort of excuses usually offered by servants when a
+hasty departure has become imperatively necessary.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “the horses require shoeing.”
+
+“Blockhead!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Why did you not tell me of that
+before, you damned fool? Was there not time enough for them to be shod?”
+
+“Yes, I suppose there was,” agreed Selifan. “Also one of the wheels is
+in want of a new tyre, for the roads are so rough that the old tyre is
+worn through. Also, the body of the britchka is so rickety that probably
+it will not last more than a couple of stages.”
+
+“Rascal!” shouted Chichikov, clenching his fists and approaching Selifan
+in such a manner that, fearing to receive a blow, the man backed and
+dodged aside. “Do you mean to ruin me, and to break all our bones on the
+road, you cursed idiot? For these three weeks past you have been doing
+nothing at all; yet now, at the last moment, you come here stammering
+and playing the fool! Do you think I keep you just to eat and to drive
+yourself about? You must have known of this before? Did you, or did you
+not, know it? Answer me at once.”
+
+“Yes, I did know it,” replied Selifan, hanging his head.
+
+“Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”
+
+Selifan had no reply immediately ready, so continued to hang his head
+while quietly saying to himself: “See how well I have managed things! I
+knew what was the matter, yet I did not say.”
+
+“And now,” continued Chichikov, “go you at once and fetch a blacksmith.
+Tell him that everything must be put right within two hours at the most.
+Do you hear? If that should not be done, I, I--I will give you the best
+flogging that ever you had in your life.” Truly Chichikov was almost
+beside himself with fury.
+
+Turning towards the door, as though for the purpose of going and
+carrying out his orders, Selifan halted and added:
+
+“That skewbald, barin--you might think it well to sell him, seeing that
+he is nothing but a rascal? A horse like that is more of a hindrance
+than a help.”
+
+“What? Do you expect me to go NOW to the market-place and sell him?”
+
+“Well, Paul Ivanovitch, he is good for nothing but show, since by nature
+he is a most cunning beast. Never in my life have I seen such a horse.”
+
+“Fool! Whenever I may wish to sell him I SHALL sell him. Meanwhile,
+don’t you trouble your head about what doesn’t concern you, but go and
+fetch a blacksmith, and see that everything is put right within two
+hours. Otherwise I will take the very hair off your head, and beat you
+till you haven’t a face left. Be off! Hurry!”
+
+Selifan departed, and Chichikov, his ill-humour vented, threw down
+upon the floor the poignard which he always took with him as a means of
+instilling respect into whomsoever it might concern, and spent the next
+quarter of an hour in disputing with a couple of blacksmiths--men who,
+as usual, were rascals of the type which, on perceiving that something
+is wanted in a hurry, at once multiplies its terms for providing the
+same. Indeed, for all Chichikov’s storming and raging as he dubbed
+the fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could make no
+impression upon the pair, since, true to their character, they declined
+to abate their prices, and, even when they had begun their work, spent
+upon it, not two hours, but five and a half. Meanwhile he had the
+satisfaction of experiencing that delightful time with which all
+travellers are familiar--namely, the time during which one sits in a
+room where, except for a litter of string, waste paper, and so forth,
+everything else has been packed. But to all things there comes an end,
+and there arrived also the long-awaited moment when the britchka had
+received the luggage, the faulty wheel had been fitted with a new tyre,
+the horses had been re-shod, and the predatory blacksmiths had departed
+with their gains. “Thank God!” thought Chichikov as the britchka rolled
+out of the gates of the inn, and the vehicle began to jolt over the
+cobblestones. Yet a feeling which he could not altogether have defined
+filled his breast as he gazed upon the houses and the streets and the
+garden walls which he might never see again. Presently, on turning a
+corner, the britchka was brought to a halt through the fact that along
+the street there was filing a seemingly endless funeral procession.
+Leaning forward in his britchka, Chichikov asked Petrushka whose
+obsequies the procession represented, and was told that they represented
+those of the Public Prosecutor. Disagreeably shocked, our hero hastened
+to raise the hood of the vehicle, to draw the curtains across the
+windows, and to lean back into a corner. While the britchka remained
+thus halted Selifan and Petrushka, their caps doffed, sat watching the
+progress of the cortege, after they had received strict instructions not
+to greet any fellow-servant whom they might recognise. Behind the hearse
+walked the whole body of tchinovniks, bare-headed; and though, for a
+moment or two, Chichikov feared that some of their number might discern
+him in his britchka, he need not have disturbed himself, since their
+attention was otherwise engaged. In fact, they were not even exchanging
+the small talk customary among members of such processions, but
+thinking exclusively of their own affairs, of the advent of the new
+Governor-General, and of the probable manner in which he would take up
+the reins of administration. Next came a number of carriages, from
+the windows of which peered the ladies in mourning toilets. Yet the
+movements of their hands and lips made it evident that they were
+indulging in animated conversation--probably about the Governor-General,
+the balls which he might be expected to give, and their own eternal
+fripperies and gewgaws. Lastly came a few empty drozhkis. As soon as the
+latter had passed, our hero was able to continue on his way. Throwing
+back the hood of the britchka, he said to himself:
+
+“Ah, good friend, you have lived your life, and now it is over! In the
+newspapers they will say of you that you died regretted not only by
+your subordinates, but also by humanity at large, as well as that, a
+respected citizen, a kind father, and a husband beyond reproach, you
+went to your grave amid the tears of your widow and orphans. Yet, should
+those journals be put to it to name any particular circumstance which
+justified this eulogy of you, they would be forced to fall back upon the
+fact that you grew a pair of exceptionally thick eyebrows!”
+
+With that Chichikov bid Selifan quicken his pace, and concluded: “After
+all, it is as well that I encountered the procession, for they say that
+to meet a funeral is lucky.”
+
+Presently the britchka turned into some less frequented streets, lines
+of wooden fencing of the kind which mark the outskirts of a town began
+to file by, the cobblestones came to an end, the macadam of the highroad
+succeeded to them, and once more there began on either side of the
+turnpike a procession of verst stones, road menders, and grey villages;
+inns with samovars and peasant women and landlords who came running out
+of yards with seivefuls of oats; pedestrians in worn shoes which, it
+might be, had covered eight hundred versts; little towns, bright with
+booths for the sale of flour in barrels, boots, small loaves, and other
+trifles; heaps of slag; much repaired bridges; expanses of field to
+right and to left; stout landowners; a mounted soldier bearing a green,
+iron-clamped box inscribed: “The --th Battery of Artillery”; long strips
+of freshly-tilled earth which gleamed green, yellow, and black on the
+face of the countryside. With it mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of
+elm-tops amid mist, the far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks,
+and the illimitable line of the horizon.
+
+Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still
+see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you
+the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which
+a yet more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities
+with lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque
+trees, no ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and
+roar, no beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony
+immensity, no vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and
+ageless lines of blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear,
+silvery background of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your
+towns project like points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and
+nothing whatsoever enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what
+invincible force draws me to you? Why does there ceaselessly echo and
+re-echo in my ears the sad song which hovers throughout the length and
+the breadth of your borders? What is the burden of that song? Why does
+it wail and sob and catch at my heart? What say the notes which
+thus painfully caress and embrace my soul, and flit, uttering their
+lamentations, around me? What is it you seek of me, O Russia? What is
+the hidden bond which subsists between us? Why do you regard me as you
+do? Why does everything within you turn upon me eyes full of
+yearning? Even at this moment, as I stand dumbly, fixedly, perplexedly
+contemplating your vastness, a menacing cloud, charged with gathering
+rain, seems to overshadow my head. What is it that your boundless
+expanses presage? Do they not presage that one day there will arise in
+you ideas as boundless as yourself? Do they not presage that one day you
+too will know no limits? Do they not presage that one day, when again
+you shall have room for their exploits, there will spring to life
+the heroes of old? How the power of your immensity enfolds me, and
+reverberates through all my being with a wild, strange spell, and
+flashes in my eyes with an almost supernatural radiance! Yes, a strange,
+brilliant, unearthly vista indeed do you disclose, O Russia, country of
+mine!
+
+“Stop, stop, you fool!” shouted Chichikov to Selifan; and even as he
+spoke a troika, bound on Government business, came chattering by, and
+disappeared in a cloud of dust. To Chichikov’s curses at Selifan for not
+having drawn out of the way with more alacrity a rural constable with
+moustaches of the length of an arshin added his quota.
+
+What a curious and attractive, yet also what an unreal, fascination
+the term “highway” connotes! And how interesting for its own sake is
+a highway! Should the day be a fine one (though chilly) in mellowing
+autumn, press closer your travelling cloak, and draw down your cap over
+your ears, and snuggle cosily, comfortably into a corner of the britchka
+before a last shiver shall course through your limbs, and the ensuing
+warmth shall put to flight the autumnal cold and damp. As the horses
+gallop on their way, how delightfully will drowsiness come stealing upon
+you, and make your eyelids droop! For a while, through your somnolence,
+you will continue to hear the hard breathing of the team and the
+rumbling of the wheels; but at length, sinking back into your corner,
+you will relapse into the stage of snoring. And when you awake--behold!
+you will find that five stages have slipped away, and that the moon is
+shining, and that you have reached a strange town of churches and old
+wooden cupolas and blackened spires and white, half-timbered houses! And
+as the moonlight glints hither and thither, almost you will believe that
+the walls and the streets and the pavements of the place are spread with
+sheets--sheets shot with coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs
+look all the brighter under the slanting beams of the pale luminary.
+Nowhere is a soul to be seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet
+no. In a solitary window a light is flickering where some good burgher
+is mending his boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night
+and powers of heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite
+vault--how lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies
+spread in an intangible, yet audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling
+breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into
+snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as
+he begins to be conscious of your weight. Then again you awake, but
+this time to find yourself confronted with only fields and steppes.
+Everywhere in the ascendant is the desolation of space. But suddenly the
+ciphers on a verst stone leap to the eye! Morning is rising, and on the
+chill, gradually paling line of the horizon you can see gleaming a faint
+gold streak. The wind freshens and grows keener, and you snuggle closer
+in your cloak; yet how glorious is that freshness, and how marvellous
+the sleep in which once again you become enfolded! A jolt!--and for the
+last time you return to consciousness. By now the sun is high in the
+heavens, and you hear a voice cry “gently, gently!” as a farm waggon
+issues from a by-road. Below, enclosed within an ample dike, stretches
+a sheet of water which glistens like copper in the sunlight. Beyond, on
+the side of a slope, lie some scattered peasants’ huts, a manor house,
+and, flanking the latter, a village church with its cross flashing
+like a star. There also comes wafted to your ear the sound of peasants’
+laughter, while in your inner man you are becoming conscious of an
+appetite which is not to be withstood.
+
+Oh long-drawn highway, how excellent you are! How often have I in
+weariness and despondency set forth upon your length, and found in you
+salvation and rest! How often, as I followed your leading, have I been
+visited with wonderful thoughts and poetic dreams and curious, wild
+impressions!
+
+At this moment our friend Chichikov also was experiencing visions of a
+not wholly prosaic nature. Let us peep into his soul and share them.
+At first he remained unconscious of anything whatsoever, for he was too
+much engaged in making sure that he was really clear of the town; but
+as soon as he saw that it had completely disappeared, with its mills and
+factories and other urban appurtenances, and that even the steeples
+of the white stone churches had sunk below the horizon, he turned his
+attention to the road, and the town of N. vanished from his thoughts as
+completely as though he had not seen it since childhood. Again, in its
+turn, the road ceased to interest him, and he began to close his eyes
+and to loll his head against the cushions. Of this let the author
+take advantage, in order to speak at length concerning his hero; since
+hitherto he (the author) has been prevented from so doing by Nozdrev and
+balls and ladies and local intrigues--by those thousand trifles which
+seem trifles only when they are introduced into a book, but which, in
+life, figure as affairs of importance. Let us lay them aside, and betake
+ourselves to business.
+
+Whether the character whom I have selected for my hero has pleased my
+readers is, of course, exceedingly doubtful. At all events the ladies
+will have failed to approve him for the fair sex demands in a hero
+perfection, and, should there be the least mental or physical stain
+on him--well, woe betide! Yes, no matter how profoundly the author may
+probe that hero’s soul, no matter how clearly he may portray his figure
+as in a mirror, he will be given no credit for the achievement. Indeed,
+Chichikov’s very stoutness and plenitude of years may have militated
+against him, for never is a hero pardoned for the former, and the
+majority of ladies will, in such case, turn away, and mutter to
+themselves: “Phew! What a beast!” Yes, the author is well aware of this.
+Yet, though he could not, to save his life, take a person of virtue for
+his principal character, it may be that this story contains themes
+never before selected, and that in it there projects the whole boundless
+wealth of Russian psychology; that it portrays, as well as Chichikov,
+the peasant who is gifted with the virtues which God has sent him, and
+the marvellous maiden of Russia who has not her like in all the world
+for her beautiful feminine spirituality, the roots of which lie buried
+in noble aspirations and boundless self-denial. In fact, compared with
+these types, the virtuous of other races seem lifeless, as does an
+inanimate volume when compared with the living word. Yes, each time that
+there arises in Russia a movement of thought, it becomes clear that the
+movement sinks deep into the Slavonic nature where it would but have
+skimmed the surface of other nations.--But why am I talking like this?
+Whither am I tending? It is indeed shameful that an author who long
+ago reached man’s estate, and was brought up to a course of severe
+introspection and sober, solitary self-enlightenment, should give way to
+such jejune wandering from the point. To everything its proper time
+and place and turn. As I was saying, it does not lie in me to take a
+virtuous character for my hero: and I will tell you why. It is because
+it is high time that a rest were given to the “poor, but virtuous”
+ individual; it is because the phrase “a man of worth” has grown into a
+by-word; it is because the “man of worth” has become converted into a
+horse, and there is not a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out
+of season; it is because the “man of worth” has been starved until he
+has not a shred of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is
+but the ribs and the hide; it is because the “man of worth” is for ever
+being smuggled upon the scene; it is because the “man of worth” has at
+length forfeited every one’s respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm
+that it is high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that
+rascal.
+
+Our hero’s beginnings were both modest and obscure. True, his parents
+were dvoriane, but he in no way resembled them. At all events, a short,
+squab female relative who was present at his birth exclaimed as she
+lifted up the baby: “He is altogether different from what I had expected
+him to be. He ought to have taken after his maternal grandmother,
+whereas he has been born, as the proverb has it, ‘like not father nor
+mother, but like a chance passer-by.’” Thus from the first life
+regarded the little Chichikov with sour distaste, and as through a dim,
+frost-encrusted window. A tiny room with diminutive casements which were
+never opened, summer or winter; an invalid father in a dressing-gown
+lined with lambskin, and with an ailing foot swathed in bandages--a man
+who was continually drawing deep breaths, and walking up and down the
+room, and spitting into a sandbox; a period of perpetually sitting on
+a bench with pen in hand and ink on lips and fingers; a period of being
+eternally confronted with the copy-book maxim, “Never tell a lie, but
+obey your superiors, and cherish virtue in your heart;” an everlasting
+scraping and shuffling of slippers up and down the room; a period of
+continually hearing a well-known, strident voice exclaim: “So you have
+been playing the fool again!” at times when the child, weary of the
+mortal monotony of his task, had added a superfluous embellishment
+to his copy; a period of experiencing the ever-familiar, but
+ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those words as the boy’s
+ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent backwards at
+the tips--such is the miserable picture of that youth of which, in later
+life, Chichikov preserved but the faintest of memories! But in this
+world everything is liable to swift and sudden change; and, one day in
+early spring, when the rivers had melted, the father set forth with
+his little son in a teliezshka [37] drawn by a sorrel steed of the kind
+known to horsy folk as a soroka, and having as coachman the diminutive
+hunchback who, father of the only serf family belonging to the elder
+Chichikov, served as general factotum in the Chichikov establishment.
+For a day and a half the soroka conveyed them on their way; during which
+time they spent the night at a roadside inn, crossed a river, dined off
+cold pie and roast mutton, and eventually arrived at the county town. To
+the lad the streets presented a spectacle of unwonted brilliancy, and
+he gaped with amazement. Turning into a side alley wherein the mire
+necessitated both the most strenuous exertions on the soroka’s part and
+the most vigorous castigation on the part of the driver and the barin,
+the conveyance eventually reached the gates of a courtyard which,
+combined with a small fruit garden containing various bushes, a couple
+of apple-trees in blossom, and a mean, dirty little shed, constituted
+the premises attached to an antiquated-looking villa. Here there lived
+a relative of the Chichikovs, a wizened old lady who went to market in
+person and dried her stockings at the samovar. On seeing the boy, she
+patted his cheek and expressed satisfaction at his physique; whereupon
+the fact became disclosed that here he was to abide for a while, for
+the purpose of attending a local school. After a night’s rest his father
+prepared to betake himself homeward again; but no tears marked the
+parting between him and his son, he merely gave the lad a copper or two
+and (a far more important thing) the following injunctions. “See here,
+my boy. Do your lessons well, do not idle or play the fool, and above
+all things, see that you please your teachers. So long as you observe
+these rules you will make progress, and surpass your fellows, even if
+God shall have denied you brains, and you should fail in your studies.
+Also, do not consort overmuch with your comrades, for they will do you
+no good; but, should you do so, then make friends with the richer of
+them, since one day they may be useful to you. Also, never entertain or
+treat any one, but see that every one entertains and treats YOU. Lastly,
+and above all else, keep and save your every kopeck. To save money is
+the most important thing in life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail
+you, and be the first to desert you in a time of adversity; but never
+will a KOPECK fail you, whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the
+world cannot be done, cannot be attained, with the aid of money.” These
+injunctions given, the father embraced his son, and set forth on his
+return; and though the son never again beheld his parent, the latter’s
+words and precepts sank deep into the little Chichikov’s soul.
+
+The next day young Pavlushka made his first attendance at school. But no
+special aptitude in any branch of learning did he display. Rather, his
+distinguishing characteristics were diligence and neatness. On the other
+hand, he developed great intelligence as regards the PRACTICAL aspect
+of life. In a trice he divined and comprehended how things ought to
+be worked, and, from that time forth, bore himself towards his
+school-fellows in such a way that, though they frequently gave him
+presents, he not only never returned the compliment, but even on
+occasions pocketed the gifts for the mere purpose of selling them again.
+Also, boy though he was, he acquired the art of self-denial. Of the
+trifle which his father had given him on parting he spent not a kopeck,
+but, the same year, actually added to his little store by fashioning
+a bullfinch of wax, painting it, and selling the same at a handsome
+profit. Next, as time went on, he engaged in other speculations--in
+particular, in the scheme of buying up eatables, taking his seat in
+class beside boys who had plenty of pocket-money, and, as soon as such
+opulent individuals showed signs of failing attention (and, therefore,
+of growing appetite), tendering them, from beneath the desk, a roll of
+pudding or a piece of gingerbread, and charging according to degree
+of appetite and size of portion. He also spent a couple of months in
+training a mouse, which he kept confined in a little wooden cage in his
+bedroom. At length, when the training had reached the point that, at the
+several words of command, the mouse would stand upon its hind legs,
+lie down, and get up again, he sold the creature for a respectable sum.
+Thus, in time, his gains attained the amount of five roubles; whereupon
+he made himself a purse and then started to fill a second receptacle of
+the kind. Still more studied was his attitude towards the authorities.
+No one could sit more quietly in his place on the bench than he. In the
+same connection it may be remarked that his teacher was a man who, above
+all things, loved peace and good behaviour, and simply could not
+abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him.
+Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master’s attention with
+a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or
+unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to
+burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and
+to visit him with unmerciful punishment. “Ah, my fine fellow,” he would
+say, “I’LL cure you of your impudence and want of respect! I know you
+through and through far better than you know yourself, and will take
+good care that you have to go down upon your knees and curb your
+appetite.” Whereupon the wretched lad would, for no cause of which he
+was aware, be forced to wear out his breeches on the floor and go hungry
+for days. “Talents and gifts,” the schoolmaster would declare, “are so
+much rubbish. I respect only good behaviour, and shall award full marks
+to those who conduct themselves properly, even if they fail to learn a
+single letter of their alphabet: whereas to those in whom I may perceive
+a tendency to jocularity I shall award nothing, even though they should
+outdo Solon himself.” For the same reason he had no great love of the
+author Krylov, in that the latter says in one of his Fables: “In my
+opinion, the more one sings, the better one works;” and often the
+pedagogue would relate how, in a former school of his, the silence had
+been such that a fly could be heard buzzing on the wing, and for the
+space of a whole year not a single pupil sneezed or coughed in class,
+and so complete was the absence of all sound that no one could have
+told that there was a soul in the place. Of this mentor young Chichikov
+speedily appraised the mentality; wherefore he fashioned his behaviour
+to correspond with it. Not an eyelid, not an eyebrow, would he stir
+during school hours, howsoever many pinches he might receive from
+behind; and only when the bell rang would he run to anticipate his
+fellows in handing the master the three-cornered cap which that
+dignitary customarily sported, and then to be the first to leave the
+class-room, and contrive to meet the master not less than two or three
+times as the latter walked homeward, in order that, on each occasion,
+he might doff his cap. And the scheme proved entirely successful.
+Throughout the period of his attendance at school he was held in high
+favour, and, on leaving the establishment, received full marks for every
+subject, as well as a diploma and a book inscribed (in gilt letters)
+“For Exemplary Diligence and the Perfection of Good Conduct.” By this
+time he had grown into a fairly good-looking youth of the age when the
+chin first calls for a razor; and at about the same period his father
+died, leaving behind him, as his estate, four waistcoats completely worn
+out, two ancient frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had
+been skilled only in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks--not in ACTUALLY
+PRACTISING the art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its
+little parcel of land for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his
+one serf and the serf’s family, to the capital, where he set about
+organising a new establishment and entering the Civil Service.
+Simultaneously with his doing so, his old schoolmaster lost (through
+stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over which he had hitherto
+presided, and in which he had set so much store by silence and good
+behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was left, even
+for that purpose, he retired--ill, helpless, and starving--into a
+broken-down, cheerless hovel. But certain of his former pupils--the same
+clever, witty lads whom he had once been wont to accuse of impertinence
+and evil conduct generally--heard of his pitiable plight, and collected
+for him what money they could, even to the point of selling their own
+necessaries. Only Chichikov, when appealed to, pleaded inability, and
+compromised with a contribution of a single piatak [38]: which his
+old schoolfellows straightway returned him--full in the face, and
+accompanied with a shout of “Oh, you skinflint!” As for the poor
+schoolmaster, when he heard what his former pupils had done, he buried
+his face in his hands, and the tears gushed from his failing eyes as
+from those of a helpless infant. “God has brought you but to weep over
+my death-bed,” he murmured feebly; and added with a profound sigh, on
+hearing of Chichikov’s conduct: “Ah, Pavlushka, how a human being may
+become changed! Once you were a good lad, and gave me no trouble; but
+now you are become proud indeed!”
+
+Yet let it not be inferred from this that our hero’s character had grown
+so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude his
+experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of fact,
+he was capable both of the one and the other, and would have been glad
+to assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or had he not
+been called upon to touch the fund which he had decided should remain
+intact. In other words, the father’s injunction, “Guard and save every
+kopeck,” had become a hard and fast rule of the son’s. Yet the youth had
+no particular attachment to money for money’s sake; he was not possessed
+with the true instinct for hoarding and niggardliness. Rather, before
+his eyes there floated ever a vision of life and its amenities and
+advantages--a vision of carriages and an elegantly furnished house and
+recherche dinners; and it was in the hope that some day he might attain
+these things that he saved every kopeck and, meanwhile, stinted both
+himself and others. Whenever a rich man passed him by in a splendid
+drozhki drawn by swift and handsomely-caparisoned horses, he would halt
+as though deep in thought, and say to himself, like a man awakening
+from a long sleep: “That gentleman must have been a financier, he has so
+little hair on his brow.” In short, everything connected with wealth and
+plenty produced upon him an ineffaceable impression. Even when he left
+school he took no holiday, so strong in him was the desire to get to
+work and enter the Civil Service. Yet, for all the encomiums contained
+in his diploma, he had much ado to procure a nomination to a Government
+Department; and only after a long time was a minor post found for him,
+at a salary of thirty or forty roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched
+though this appointment was, he determined, by strict attention to
+business, to overcome all obstacles, and to win success. And, indeed,
+the self-denial, the patience, and the economy which he displayed
+were remarkable. From early morn until late at night he would, with
+indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed in his sordid task
+of copying official documents--never going home, snatching what sleep he
+could on tables in the building, and dining with the watchman on duty.
+Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and neat, to preserve
+a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to cultivate a certain
+elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked that his fellow
+tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some of them having
+faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding chins, and
+cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was
+handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of
+sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and
+by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there
+remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the
+Director’s room itself they would invade while still licking their lips,
+and since their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room
+grew not over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man
+like Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in
+everything--in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and
+in complete neglect of the use of strong potions--he was the absolute
+antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread,
+for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief
+Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia.
+Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in
+his life have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance’s health.
+Nor had any one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his
+own home from what he was in the office, or showing the least interest
+in anything whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in
+his cups, or indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when
+intoxicated, even a burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was
+there in him. Nor, for that matter, was there in him a particle of
+anything at all, whether good or bad: which complete negativeness
+of character produced rather a strange effect. In the same way, his
+wizened, marble-like features reminded one of nothing in particular, so
+primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous pockmarks and dimples
+with which they were pitted placed him among the number of those over
+whose faces, to quote the popular saying, “The Devil has walked by night
+to grind peas.” In short, it would seem that no human agency could have
+approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet Chichikov made the
+effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the other’s convenience
+in all manner of insignificant trifles--to cleaning his pens carefully,
+and, when they had been prepared exactly to the Chief Clerk’s liking,
+laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and sweeping from his table
+all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to procuring a new mat for his
+inkstand; to looking for his hat--the meanest-looking hat that ever
+the world beheld--and having it ready for him at the exact moment when
+business came to an end; to brushing his back if it happened to become
+smeared with whitewash from a wall. Yet all this passed as unnoticed
+as though it had never been done. Finally, Chichikov sniffed into his
+superior’s family and domestic life, and learnt that he possessed a
+grown-up daughter on whose face also there had taken place a nocturnal,
+diabolical grinding of peas. HERE was a quarter whence a fresh attack
+might be delivered! After ascertaining what church the daughter attended
+on Sundays, our hero took to contriving to meet her in a neat suit and a
+well-starched dickey: and soon the scheme began to work. The surly Chief
+Clerk wavered for a while; then ended by inviting Chichikov to tea. Nor
+could any man in the office have told you how it came about that before
+long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk’s house, and become a
+person necessary--indeed indispensable--to the household, seeing that he
+bought the flour and the sugar, treated the daughter as his betrothed,
+called the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” and occasionally kissed “Papenka’s”
+ hand. In fact, every one at the office supposed that, at the end of
+February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent) there would take place
+a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to agitate with the
+authorities on Chichikov’s behalf, and so enabled our hero, on a vacancy
+occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk. Apparently this marked
+the consummation of Chichikov’s relations with his host, for he hastened
+stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day, figured in a fresh
+lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” or to kiss
+his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as abrupt a termination
+as though it had never been mooted. Yet also he never failed to press
+his late host’s hand, whenever he met him, and to invite him to tea;
+while, on the other hand, for all his immobility and dry indifference,
+the Chief Clerk never failed to shake his head with a muttered, “Ah, my
+fine fellow, you have grown too proud, you have grown too proud.”
+
+The foregoing constituted the most difficult step that our hero had to
+negotiate. Thereafter things came with greater ease and swifter
+success. Everywhere he attracted notice, for he developed within
+himself everything necessary for this world--namely, charm of manner
+and bearing, and great diligence in business matters. Armed with these
+resources, he next obtained promotion to what is known as “a fat post,”
+ and used it to the best advantage; and even though, at that period,
+strict inquiry had begun to be made into the whole subject of bribes,
+such inquiry failed to alarm him--nay, he actually turned it to account
+and thereby manifested the Russian resourcefulness which never fails to
+attain its zenith where extortion is concerned. His method of working
+was the following. As soon as a petitioner or a suitor put his hand into
+his pocket, to extract thence the necessary letters of recommendation
+for signature, Chichikov would smilingly exclaim as he detained his
+interlocutor’s hand: “No, no! Surely you do not think that I--? But no,
+no! It is our duty, it is our obligation, and we do not require rewards
+for doing our work properly. So far as YOUR matter is concerned, you may
+rest easy. Everything shall be carried through to-morrow. But may I
+have your address? There is no need to trouble yourself, seeing that the
+documents can easily be brought to you at your residence.” Upon which
+the delighted suitor would return home in raptures, thinking: “Here, at
+long last, is the sort of man so badly needed. A man of that kind is
+a jewel beyond price.” Yet for a day, for two days--nay, even for
+three--the suitor would wait in vain so far as any messengers with
+documents were concerned. Then he would repair to the office--to find
+that his business had not so much as been entered upon! Lastly, he would
+confront the “jewel beyond price.” “Oh, pardon me, pardon me!” Chichikov
+would exclaim in the politest of tones as he seized and grasped the
+visitor’s hands. “The truth is that we have SUCH a quantity of business
+on hand! But the matter shall be put through to-morrow, and in the
+meanwhile I am most sorry about it.” And with this would go the most
+fascinating of gestures. Yet neither on the morrow, nor on the day
+following, nor on the third would documents arrive at the suitor’s
+abode. Upon that he would take thought as to whether something more
+ought not to have been done; and, sure enough, on his making inquiry,
+he would be informed that “something will have to be given to the
+copyists.” “Well, there can be no harm in that,” he would reply. “As a
+matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak [39] or two.” “Oh, no, no,”
+ the answer would come. “Not a tchetvertak per copyist, but a rouble,
+is the fee.” “What? A rouble per copyist?” “Certainly. What is there to
+grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a tchetvertak
+apiece, and the rest will go to the Government.” Upon that the
+disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought
+about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks
+and their uppish, insolent behaviour. “Once upon a time,” would the
+suitor lament, “one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the
+Director a bank-note, one’s affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But
+now one has to pay a rouble per copyist after waiting a week because
+otherwise it was impossible to guess how the wind might set! The devil
+fly away with all ‘disinterested’ and ‘trustworthy’ tchinovniks!” And
+certainly the aggrieved suitor had reason to grumble, seeing that,
+now that bribe-takers had ceased to exist, and Directors had uniformly
+become men of honour and integrity, secretaries and clerks ought not
+with impunity to have continued their thievish ways. In time there
+opened out to Chichikov a still wider field, for a Commission was
+appointed to supervise the erection of a Government building, and, on
+his being nominated to that body, he proved himself one of its most
+active members. The Commission got to work without delay, but for a
+space of six years had some trouble with the building in question.
+Either the climate hindered operations or the materials used were of the
+kind which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the
+basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for each
+member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official style of
+architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the soil of those parts
+was better than that where the Government building was still engaged
+in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission began to look
+exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family life; and, for
+the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also departed from the
+iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and inexorable self-denial, and
+so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism as to show himself a man not
+averse to those amenities which, during his youth, he had been capable
+of renouncing. That is to say, certain superfluities began to make their
+appearance in his establishment. He engaged a good cook, took to wearing
+linen shirts, bought for himself cloth of a pattern worn by no one else
+in the province, figured in checks shot with the brightest of reds and
+browns, fitted himself out with two splendid horses (which he drove with
+a single pair of reins, added to a ring attachment for the trace horse),
+developed a habit of washing with a sponge dipped in eau-de-Cologne, and
+invested in soaps of the most expensive quality, in order to communicate
+to his skin a more elegant polish.
+
+But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director--a military
+man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and
+anything which might be called irregular. On the very day after his
+arrival he struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts,
+discovering hosts of deficits and missing sums, and directing his
+attention to the aforesaid fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon
+that there ensued a complete reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired
+wholesale, and the houses were sequestrated to the Government, or else
+converted into various pious institutions and schools for soldiers’
+children. Thus the whole fabric, and especially Chichikov, came crashing
+to the ground. Particularly did our hero’s agreeable face displease the
+new Director. Why that was so it is impossible to say, but frequently,
+in cases of the kind, no reason exists. However, the Director conceived
+a mortal dislike to him, and also extended that enmity to the whole of
+Chichikov’s colleagues. But inasmuch as the said Director was a military
+man, he was not fully acquainted with the myriad subtleties of the
+civilian mind; wherefore it was not long before, by dint of maintaining
+a discreet exterior, added to a faculty for humouring all and sundry,
+a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in restoring him to mildness, and
+the General found himself in the hands of greater thieves than before,
+but thieves whom he did not even suspect, seeing that he believed
+himself to have selected men fit and proper, and even ventured to
+boast of possessing a keen eye for talent. In a trice the tchinovniks
+concerned appraised his spirit and character; with the result that the
+entire sphere over which he ruled became an agency for the detection of
+irregularities. Everywhere, and in every case, were those irregularities
+pursued as a fisherman pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff; and to such
+an extent did the sport prove successful that almost in no time each
+participator in the hunt was seen to be in possession of several
+thousand roubles of capital. Upon that a large number of the former band
+of tchinovniks also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were
+allowed to re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could
+Chichikov worm his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry
+items of paper currency, the General’s first secretary and principal
+bear leader did all he could on our hero’s behalf. It seemed that the
+General was the kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided
+it was done without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head
+than it stuck there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted;
+and all that the wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing
+up of a certain dirty fragment of paper--even that being effected only
+by an appeal to the General’s compassion, on the score of the unhappy
+fate which, otherwise, would befall Chichikov’s wife and children (who,
+luckily, had no existence in fact).
+
+“Well,” said Chichikov to himself, “I have done my best, and now
+everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won’t help me, but only
+action.” And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once
+more to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The
+better to effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town. Yet
+somehow, for a while, things miscarried. More than once he found himself
+forced to exchange one post for another, and at the briefest of notice;
+and all of them were posts of the meanest, the most wretched, order.
+Yet, being a man of the utmost nicety of feeling, the fact that he found
+himself rubbing shoulders with anything but nice companions did not
+prevent him from preserving intact his innate love of what was decent
+and seemly, or from cherishing the instinct which led him to hanker
+after office fittings of lacquered wood, with neatness and orderliness
+everywhere. Nor did he at any time permit a foul word to creep into
+his speech, and would feel hurt even if in the speech of others there
+occurred a scornful reference to anything which pertained to rank and
+dignity. Also, the reader will be pleased to know that our hero changed
+his linen every other day, and in summer, when the weather was very
+hot, EVERY day, seeing that the very faintest suspicion of an unpleasant
+odour offended his fastidiousness. For the same reason it was his
+custom, before being valeted by Petrushka, always to plug his nostrils
+with a couple of cloves. In short, there were many occasions when his
+nerves suffered rackings as cruel as a young girl’s, and so helped to
+increase his disgust at having once more to associate with men who set
+no store by the decencies of life. Yet, though he braced himself to the
+task, this period of adversity told upon his health, and he even grew a
+trifle shabby. More than once, on happening to catch sight of himself
+in the mirror, he could not forbear exclaiming: “Holy Mother of God,
+but what a nasty-looking brute I have become!” and for a long while
+afterwards could not with anything like sang-froid contemplate his
+reflection. Yet throughout he bore up stoutly and patiently--and ended
+by being transferred to the Customs Department. It may be said that the
+department had long constituted the secret goal of his ambition, for
+he had noted the foreign elegancies with which its officials always
+contrived to provide themselves, and had also observed that invariably
+they were able to send presents of china and cambric to their sisters
+and aunts--well, to their lady friends generally. Yes, more than once
+he had said to himself with a sigh: “THAT is the department to which I
+ought to belong, for, given a town near the frontier, and a sensible set
+of colleagues, I might be able to fit myself out with excellent linen
+shirts.” Also, it may be said that most frequently of all had his
+thoughts turned towards a certain quality of French soap which imparted
+a peculiar whiteness to the skin and a peerless freshness to the cheeks.
+Its name is known to God alone, but at least it was to be procured only
+in the immediate neighbourhood of the frontier. So, as I say, Chichikov
+had long felt a leaning towards the Customs, but for a time had been
+restrained from applying for the same by the various current advantages
+of the Building Commission; since rightly he had adjudged the latter to
+constitute a bird in the hand, and the former to constitute only a bird
+in the bush. But now he decided that, come what might, into the Customs
+he must make his way. And that way he made, and then applied himself
+to his new duties with a zeal born of the fact that he realised that
+fortune had specially marked him out for a Customs officer. Indeed,
+such activity, perspicuity, and ubiquity as his had never been seen or
+thought of. Within four weeks at the most he had so thoroughly got his
+hand in that he was conversant with Customs procedure in every detail.
+Not only could he weigh and measure, but also he could divine from
+an invoice how many arshins of cloth or other material a given piece
+contained, and then, taking a roll of the latter in his hand, could
+specify at once the number of pounds at which it would tip the scale. As
+for searchings, well, even his colleagues had to admit that he possessed
+the nose of a veritable bloodhound, and that it was impossible not
+to marvel at the patience wherewith he would try every button of the
+suspected person, yet preserve, throughout, a deadly politeness and an
+icy sang-froid which surpass belief. And while the searched were raging,
+and foaming at the mouth, and feeling that they would give worlds to
+alter his smiling exterior with a good, resounding slap, he would
+move not a muscle of his face, nor abate by a jot the urbanity of his
+demeanour, as he murmured, “Do you mind so far incommoding yourself as
+to stand up?” or “Pray step into the next room, madam, where the wife
+of one of our staff will attend you,” or “Pray allow me to slip this
+penknife of mine into the lining of your coat” (after which he would
+extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he
+would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors
+acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so
+perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles,
+horses’ ears, and places whither an author ought not to penetrate even
+in thought--places whither only a Customs official is permitted to go.
+The result was that the wretched traveller who had just crossed the
+frontier would, within a few minutes, become wholly at sea, and, wiping
+away the perspiration, and breaking out into body flushes, would be
+reduced to crossing himself and muttering, “Well, well, well!” In fact,
+such a traveller would feel in the position of a schoolboy who, having
+been summoned to the presence of the headmaster for the ostensible
+purpose of being given an order, has found that he receives, instead, a
+sound flogging. In short, for some time Chichikov made it impossible
+for smugglers to earn a living. In particular, he reduced Polish
+Jewry almost to despair, so invincible, so almost unnatural, was the
+rectitude, the incorruptibility which led him to refrain from converting
+himself into a small capitalist with the aid of confiscated goods and
+articles which, “to save excessive clerical labour,” had failed to be
+handed over to the Government. Also, without saying it goes that
+such phenomenally zealous and disinterested service attracted general
+astonishment, and, eventually, the notice of the authorities; whereupon
+he received promotion, and followed that up by mooting a scheme for
+the infallible detection of contrabandists, provided that he could be
+furnished with the necessary authority for carrying out the same. At
+once such authority was accorded him, as also unlimited power to conduct
+every species of search and investigation. And that was all he
+wanted. It happened that previously there had been formed a well-found
+association for smuggling on regular, carefully prepared lines, and
+that this daring scheme seemed to promise profit to the extent of
+some millions of money: yet, though he had long had knowledge of it,
+Chichikov had said to the association’s emissaries, when sent to buy him
+over, “The time is not yet.” But now that he had got all the reins into
+his hands, he sent word of the fact to the gang, and with it the remark,
+“The time is NOW.” Nor was he wrong in his calculations, for, within
+the space of a year, he had acquired what he could not have made during
+twenty years of non-fraudulent service. With similar sagacity he had,
+during his early days in the department, declined altogether to enter
+into relations with the association, for the reason that he had then
+been a mere cipher, and would have come in for nothing large in the way
+of takings; but now--well, now it was another matter altogether, and
+he could dictate what terms he liked. Moreover, that the affair might
+progress the more smoothly, he suborned a fellow tchinovnik of the type
+which, in spite of grey hairs, stands powerless against temptation;
+and, the contract concluded, the association duly proceeded to business.
+Certainly business began brilliantly. But probably most of my readers
+are familiar with the oft-repeated story of the passage of Spanish sheep
+across the frontier in double fleeces which carried between their outer
+layers and their inner enough lace of Brabant to sell to the tune of
+millions of roubles; wherefore I will not recount the story again beyond
+saying that those journeys took place just when Chichikov had become
+head of the Customs, and that, had he not a hand in the enterprise, not
+all the Jews in the world could have brought it to success. By the time
+that three or four of these ovine invasions had taken place, Chichikov
+and his accomplice had come to be the possessors of four hundred
+thousand roubles apiece; while some even aver that the former’s gains
+totalled half a million, owing to the greater industry which he had
+displayed in the matter. Nor can any one but God say to what a figure
+the fortunes of the pair might not eventually have attained, had not an
+awkward contretemps cut right across their arrangements. That is to
+say, for some reason or another the devil so far deprived these
+tchinovnik-conspirators of sense as to make them come to words with
+one another, and then to engage in a quarrel. Beginning with a heated
+argument, this quarrel reached the point of Chichikov--who was,
+possibly, a trifle tipsy--calling his colleague a priest’s son; and
+though that description of the person so addressed was perfectly
+accurate, he chose to take offence, and to answer Chichikov with the
+words (loudly and incisively uttered), “It is YOU who have a priest for
+your father,” and to add to that (the more to incense his companion),
+“Yes, mark you! THAT is how it is.” Yet, though he had thus turned the
+tables upon Chichikov with a tu quoque, and then capped that exploit
+with the words last quoted, the offended tchinovnik could not remain
+satisfied, but went on to send in an anonymous document to the
+authorities. On the other hand, some aver that it was over a woman that
+the pair fell out--over a woman who, to quote the phrase then current
+among the staff of the Customs Department, was “as fresh and as strong
+as the pulp of a turnip,” and that night-birds were hired to assault our
+hero in a dark alley, and that the scheme miscarried, and that in any
+case both Chichikov and his friend had been deceived, seeing that the
+person to whom the lady had really accorded her favours was a certain
+staff-captain named Shamsharev. However, only God knows the truth of the
+matter. Let the inquisitive reader ferret it out for himself. The fact
+remains that a complete exposure of the dealings with the contrabandists
+followed, and that the two tchinovniks were put to the question,
+deprived of their property, and made to formulate in writing all that
+they had done. Against this thunderbolt of fortune the State Councillor
+could make no headway, and in some retired spot or another sank into
+oblivion; but Chichikov put a brave face upon the matter, for, in
+spite of the authorities’ best efforts to smell out his gains, he had
+contrived to conceal a portion of them, and also resorted to every
+subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an
+experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows.
+Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving
+oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of
+a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was
+retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual
+trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all his capital,
+stripped of his imported effects, stripped of everything. That is to
+say, all that remained to him consisted of ten thousand roubles which he
+had stored against a rainy day, two dozen linen shirts, a small britchka
+of the type used by bachelors, and two serving-men named Selifan and
+Petrushka. Yes, and an impulse of kindness moved the tchinovniks of the
+Customs also to set aside for him a few cakes of the soap which he had
+found so excellent for the freshness of the cheeks. Thus once more our
+hero found himself stranded. And what an accumulation of misfortunes had
+descended upon his head!--though, true, he termed them “suffering in the
+Service in the cause of Truth.” Certainly one would have thought that,
+after these buffetings and trials and changes of fortune--after this
+taste of the sorrows of life--he and his precious ten thousand roubles
+would have withdrawn to some peaceful corner in a provincial town,
+where, clad in a stuff dressing-gown, he could have sat and listened to
+the peasants quarrelling on festival days, or (for the sake of a breath
+of fresh air) have gone in person to the poulterer’s to finger chickens
+for soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly useless, existence;
+but nothing of the kind took place, and therein we must do justice to
+the strength of his character. In other words, although he had undergone
+what, to the majority of men, would have meant ruin and discouragement
+and a shattering of ideals, he still preserved his energy. True,
+downcast and angry, and full of resentment against the world in general,
+he felt furious with the injustice of fate, and dissatisfied with
+the dealings of men; yet he could not forbear courting additional
+experiences. In short, the patience which he displayed was such as to
+make the wooden persistency of the German--a persistency merely due to
+the slow, lethargic circulation of the Teuton’s blood--seem nothing at
+all, seeing that by nature Chichikov’s blood flowed strongly, and
+that he had to employ much force of will to curb within himself those
+elements which longed to burst forth and revel in freedom. He thought
+things over, and, as he did so, a certain spice of reason appeared in
+his reflections.
+
+“How have I come to be what I am?” he said to himself. “Why has
+misfortune overtaken me in this way? Never have I wronged a poor person,
+or robbed a widow, or turned any one out of doors: I have always been
+careful only to take advantage of those who possess more than their
+share. Moreover, I have never gleaned anywhere but where every one else
+was gleaning; and, had I not done so, others would have gleaned in my
+place. Why, then, should those others be prospering, and I be sunk as
+low as a worm? What am I? What am I good for? How can I, in future, hope
+to look any honest father of a family in the face? How shall I escape
+being tortured with the thought that I am cumbering the ground? What,
+in the years to come, will my children say, save that ‘our father was a
+brute, for he left us nothing to live upon?’”
+
+Here I may remark that we have seen how much thought Chichikov devoted
+to his future descendants. Indeed, had not there been constantly
+recurring to his mind the insistent question, “What will my children
+say?” he might not have plunged into the affair so deeply. Nevertheless,
+like a wary cat which glances hither and thither to see whether its
+mistress be not coming before it can make off with whatsoever first
+falls to its paw (butter, fat, lard, a duck, or anything else), so our
+future founder of a family continued, though weeping and bewailing
+his lot, to let not a single detail escape his eye. That is to say,
+he retained his wits ever in a state of activity, and kept his brain
+constantly working. All that he required was a plan. Once more he pulled
+himself together, once more he embarked upon a life of toil, once more
+he stinted himself in everything, once more he left clean and decent
+surroundings for a dirty, mean existence. In other words, until
+something better should turn up, he embraced the calling of an ordinary
+attorney--a calling which, not then possessed of a civic status, was
+jostled on very side, enjoyed little respect at the hands of the minor
+legal fry (or, indeed, at its own), and perforce met with universal
+slights and rudeness. But sheer necessity compelled Chichikov to face
+these things. Among commissions entrusted to him was that of placing in
+the hands of the Public Trustee several hundred peasants who belonged
+to a ruined estate. The estate had reached its parlous condition through
+cattle disease, through rascally bailiffs, through failures of the
+harvest, through such epidemic diseases that had killed off the best
+workmen, and, last, but not least, through the senseless conduct of the
+owner himself, who had furnished a house in Moscow in the latest style,
+and then squandered his every kopeck, so that nothing was left for
+his further maintenance, and it became necessary to mortgage the
+remains--including the peasants--of the estate. In those days mortgage
+to the Treasury was an innovation looked upon with reserve, and, as
+attorney in the matter, Chichikov had first of all to “entertain” every
+official concerned (we know that, unless that be previously done, unless
+a whole bottle of madeira first be emptied down each clerical throat,
+not the smallest legal affair can be carried through), and to explain,
+for the barring of future attachments, that half of the peasants were
+dead.
+
+“And are they entered on the revision lists?” asked the secretary.
+“Yes,” replied Chichikov. “Then what are you boggling at?” continued the
+Secretary. “Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time grow
+up to take the first one’s place.” Upon that there dawned on our hero
+one of the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human brain. “What
+a simpleton I am!” he thought to himself. “Here am I looking about for
+my mittens when all the time I have got them tucked into my belt. Why,
+were I myself to buy up a few souls which are dead--to buy them before
+a new revision list shall have been made, the Council of Public Trust
+might pay me two hundred roubles apiece for them, and I might find
+myself with, say, a capital of two hundred thousand roubles! The present
+moment is particularly propitious, since in various parts of the country
+there has been an epidemic, and, glory be to God, a large number of
+souls have died of it. Nowadays landowners have taken to card-playing
+and junketting and wasting their money, or to joining the Civil Service
+in St. Petersburg; consequently their estates are going to rack and
+ruin, and being managed in any sort of fashion, and succeeding in paying
+their dues with greater difficulty each year. That being so, not a man
+of the lot but would gladly surrender to me his dead souls rather than
+continue paying the poll-tax; and in this fashion I might make--well,
+not a few kopecks. Of course there are difficulties, and, to avoid
+creating a scandal, I should need to employ plenty of finesse; but man
+was given his brain to USE, not to neglect. One good point about the
+scheme is that it will seem so improbable that in case of an accident,
+no one in the world will believe in it. True, it is illegal to buy or
+mortgage peasants without land, but I can easily pretend to be buying
+them only for transferment elsewhere. Land is to be acquired in the
+provinces of Taurida and Kherson almost for nothing, provided that one
+undertakes subsequently to colonise it; so to Kherson I will ‘transfer’
+them, and long may they live there! And the removal of my dead souls
+shall be carried out in the strictest legal form; and if the authorities
+should want confirmation by testimony, I shall produce a letter signed
+by my own superintendent of the Khersonian rural police--that is to
+say, by myself. Lastly, the supposed village in Kherson shall be called
+Chichikovoe--better still Pavlovskoe, according to my Christian name.”
+
+In this fashion there germinated in our hero’s brain that strange scheme
+for which the reader may or may not be grateful, but for which the
+author certainly is so, seeing that, had it never occurred to Chichikov,
+this story would never have seen the light.
+
+After crossing himself, according to the Russian custom, Chichikov set
+about carrying out his enterprise. On pretence of selecting a place
+wherein to settle, he started forth to inspect various corners of the
+Russian Empire, but more especially those which had suffered from
+such unfortunate accidents as failures of the harvest, a high rate of
+mortality, or whatsoever else might enable him to purchase souls at the
+lowest possible rate. But he did not tackle his landowners haphazard: he
+rather selected such of them as seemed more particularly suited to his
+taste, or with whom he might with the least possible trouble conclude
+identical agreements; though, in the first instance, he always tried, by
+getting on terms of acquaintanceship--better still, of friendship--with
+them, to acquire the souls for nothing, and so to avoid purchase at all.
+In passing, my readers must not blame me if the characters whom they
+have encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their
+liking. The fault is Chichikov’s rather than mine, for he is the master,
+and where he leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me
+for a certain dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters
+and actors, that will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad
+tendency and the general scope of a work become immediately apparent.
+Similarly does the entry to every town--the entry even to the Capital
+itself--convey to the traveller such an impression of vagueness that
+at first everything looks grey and monotonous, and the lines of smoky
+factories and workshops seem never to be coming to an end; but in time
+there will begin also to stand out the outlines of six-storied mansions,
+and of shops and balconies, and wide perspectives of streets, and a
+medley of steeples, columns, statues, and turrets--the whole framed in
+rattle and roar and the infinite wonders which the hand and the brain of
+men have conceived. Of the manner in which Chichikov’s first purchases
+were made the reader is aware. Subsequently he will see also how the
+affair progressed, and with what success or failure our hero met,
+and how Chichikov was called upon to decide and to overcome even more
+difficult problems than the foregoing, and by what colossal forces the
+levers of his far-flung tale are moved, and how eventually the horizon
+will become extended until everything assumes a grandiose and a lyrical
+tendency. Yes, many a verst of road remains to be travelled by a party
+made up of an elderly gentleman, a britchka of the kind affected by
+bachelors, a valet named Petrushka, a coachman named Selifan, and
+three horses which, from the Assessor to the skewbald, are known to us
+individually by name. Again, although I have given a full description of
+our hero’s exterior (such as it is), I may yet be asked for an inclusive
+definition also of his moral personality. That he is no hero compounded
+of virtues and perfections must be already clear. Then WHAT is he? A
+villain? Why should we call him a villain? Why should we be so hard upon
+a fellow man? In these days our villains have ceased to exist. Rather
+it would be fairer to call him an ACQUIRER. The love of acquisition, the
+love of gain, is a fault common to many, and gives rise to many and many
+a transaction of the kind generally known as “not strictly honourable.”
+ True, such a character contains an element of ugliness, and the same
+reader who, on his journey through life, would sit at the board of a
+character of this kind, and spend a most agreeable time with him, would
+be the first to look at him askance if he should appear in the guise of
+the hero of a novel or a play. But wise is the reader who, on meeting
+such a character, scans him carefully, and, instead of shrinking from
+him with distaste, probes him to the springs of his being. The human
+personality contains nothing which may not, in the twinkling of an eye,
+become altogether changed--nothing in which, before you can look round,
+there may not spring to birth some cankerous worm which is destined to
+suck thence the essential juice. Yes, it is a common thing to see not
+only an overmastering passion, but also a passion of the most petty
+order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and lead him both
+to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and to see only in
+the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy. For human passions are as
+numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his most
+insistent of masters. Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from
+among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will
+that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by
+hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his
+soul. But there are passions of which a man cannot rid himself, seeing
+that they are born with him at his birth, and he has no power to abjure
+them. Higher powers govern those passions, and in them is something
+which will call to him, and refuse to be silenced, to the end of his
+life. Yes, whether in a guise of darkness, or whether in a guise which
+will become converted into a light to lighten the world, they will and
+must attain their consummation on life’s field: and in either case they
+have been evoked for man’s good. In the same way may the passion
+which drew our Chichikov onwards have been one that was independent of
+himself; in the same way may there have lurked even in his cold essence
+something which will one day cause men to humble themselves in the dust
+before the infinite wisdom of God.
+
+Yet that folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing. What
+matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their approval
+could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to say, had not
+the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov’s soul, nor stirred up in
+its depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light, nor disclosed
+those of his hero’s thoughts which that hero would have not have
+disclosed even to his most intimate friend; had the author, indeed,
+exhibited Chichikov just as he exhibited himself to the townsmen of
+N. and Manilov and the rest; well, then we may rest assured that every
+reader would have been delighted with him, and have voted him a most
+interesting person. For it is not nearly so necessary that Chichikov
+should figure before the reader as though his form and person were
+actually present to the eye as that, on concluding a perusal of this
+work, the reader should be able to return, unharrowed in soul, to that
+cult of the card-table which is the solace and delight of all good
+Russians. Yes, readers of this book, none of you really care to see
+humanity revealed in its nakedness. “Why should we do so?” you say.
+“What would be the use of it? Do we not know for ourselves that human
+life contains much that is gross and contemptible? Do we not with our
+own eyes have to look upon much that is anything but comforting?
+Far better would it be if you would put before us what is comely and
+attractive, so that we might forget ourselves a little.” In the same
+fashion does a landowner say to his bailiff: “Why do you come and tell
+me that the affairs of my estate are in a bad way? I know that without
+YOUR help. Have you nothing else to tell me? Kindly allow me to forget
+the fact, or else to remain in ignorance of it, and I shall be much
+obliged to you.” Whereafter the said landowner probably proceeds to
+spend on his diversion the money which ought to have gone towards the
+rehabilitation of his affairs.
+
+Possibly the author may also incur censure at the hands of those
+so-called “patriots” who sit quietly in corners, and become capitalists
+through making fortunes at the expense of others. Yes, let but something
+which they conceive to be derogatory to their country occur--for
+instance, let there be published some book which voices the bitter
+truth--and out they will come from their hiding-places like a spider
+which perceives a fly to be caught in its web. “Is it well to proclaim
+this to the world, and to set folk talking about it?” they will cry.
+“What you have described touches US, is OUR affair. Is conduct of that
+kind right? What will foreigners say? Does any one care calmly to sit
+by and hear himself traduced? Why should you lead foreigners to suppose
+that all is not well with us, and that we are not patriotic?” Well, to
+these sage remarks no answer can really be returned, especially to such
+of the above as refer to foreign opinion. But see here. There once lived
+in a remote corner of Russia two natives of the region indicated. One of
+those natives was a good man named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly
+disposition; a man who went through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no
+heed to his household, for the reason that his whole being was centred
+upon the province of speculation, and that, in particular, he was
+preoccupied with a philosophical problem usually stated by him thus:
+“A beast,” he would say, “is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why
+should not a beast be born as a bird is born--that is to say, through
+the process of being hatched from an egg? Nature is beyond the
+understanding, however much one may probe her.” This was the substance
+of Kifa Mokievitch’s reflections. But herein is not the chief point.
+The other of the pair was a fellow named Mofi Kifovitch, and son to the
+first named. He was what we Russians call a “hero,” and while his
+father was pondering the parturition of beasts, his, the son’s, lusty,
+twenty-year-old temperament was violently struggling for development.
+Yet that son could tackle nothing without some accident occurring. At
+one moment would he crack some one’s fingers in half, and at another
+would he raise a bump on somebody’s nose; so that both at home
+and abroad every one and everything--from the serving-maid to the
+yard-dog--fled on his approach, and even the bed in his bedroom became
+shattered to splinters. Such was Mofi Kifovitch; and with it all he had
+a kindly soul. But herein is not the chief point. “Good sir, good Kifa
+Mokievitch,” servants and neighbours would come and say to the father,
+“what are you going to do about your Moki Kifovitch? We get no rest from
+him, he is so above himself.” “That is only his play, that is only his
+play,” the father would reply. “What else can you expect? It is too late
+now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one would accuse
+me of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but, were I to reprove
+him in public, the whole thing would become common talk, and folk would
+begin giving him a dog’s name. And if they did that, would not their
+opinion touch me also, seeing that I am his father? Also, I am busy with
+philosophy, and have no time for such things. Lastly, Moki Kifovitch
+is my son, and very dear to my heart.” And, beating his breast, Kifa
+Mokievitch again asserted that, even though his son should elect
+to continue his pranks, it would not be for HIM, for the father,
+to proclaim the fact, or to fall out with his offspring. And, this
+expression of paternal feeling uttered, Kifa Mokievitch left Moki
+Kifovitch to his heroic exploits, and himself returned to his beloved
+subject of speculation, which now included also the problem, “Suppose
+elephants were to take to being hatched from eggs, would not the
+shell of such eggs be of a thickness proof against cannonballs, and
+necessitate the invention of some new type of firearm?” Thus at the end
+of this little story we have these two denizens of a peaceful corner of
+Russia looking thence, as from a window, in less terror of doing what
+was scandalous than of having it SAID of them that they were acting
+scandalously. Yes, the feeling animating our so-called “patriots” is not
+true patriotism at all. Something else lies beneath it. Who, if not an
+author, is to speak aloud the truth? Men like you, my pseudo-patriots,
+stand in dread of the eye which is able to discern, yet shrink from
+using your own, and prefer, rather, to glance at everything unheedingly.
+Yes, after laughing heartily over Chichikov’s misadventures, and perhaps
+even commending the author for his dexterity of observation and pretty
+turn of wit, you will look at yourselves with redoubled pride and a
+self-satisfied smile, and add: “Well, we agree that in certain parts of
+the provinces there exists strange and ridiculous individuals, as well
+as unconscionable rascals.”
+
+Yet which of you, when quiet, and alone, and engaged in solitary
+self-communion, would not do well to probe YOUR OWN souls, and to put
+to YOURSELVES the solemn question, “Is there not in ME an element of
+Chichikov?” For how should there not be? Which of you is not liable at
+any moment to be passed in the street by an acquaintance who, nudging
+his neighbour, may say of you, with a barely suppressed sneer: “Look!
+there goes Chichikov! That is Chichikov who has just gone by!”
+
+But here are we talking at the top of our voices whilst all the time our
+hero lies slumbering in his britchka! Indeed, his name has been repeated
+so often during the recital of his life’s history that he must almost
+have heard us! And at any time he is an irritable, irascible fellow when
+spoken of with disrespect. True, to the reader Chichikov’s displeasure
+cannot matter a jot; but for the author it would mean ruin to quarrel
+with his hero, seeing that, arm in arm, Chichikov and he have yet far to
+go.
+
+“Tut, tut, tut!” came in a shout from Chichikov. “Hi, Selifan!”
+
+“What is it?” came the reply, uttered with a drawl.
+
+“What is it? Why, how dare you drive like that? Come! Bestir yourself a
+little!”
+
+And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and
+hands which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save an
+occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst Petrushka
+had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head had come to
+rest against Chichikov’s knees--a position which necessitated his being
+awakened with a cuff. Selifan also roused himself, and apportioned to
+the skewbald a few cuts across the back of a kind which at least had the
+effect of inciting that animal to trot; and when, presently, the other
+two horses followed their companion’s example, the light britchka moved
+forwards like a piece of thistledown. Selifan flourished his whip and
+shouted, “Hi, hi!” as the inequalities of the road jerked him vertically
+on his seat; and meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions
+of the vehicle’s interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the
+sensation of driving fast. For what Russian does not love to drive fast?
+Which of us does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and
+to let them go, and to cry, “To the devil with the world!”? At such
+moments a great force seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies,
+and everything else flies, but contrariwise--both the verst stones, and
+traders riding on the shafts of their waggons, and the forest with
+dark lines of spruce and fir amid which may be heard the axe of the
+woodcutter and the croaking of the raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote
+distance the road comes towards one, and while nothing save the sky and
+the light clouds through which the moon is cleaving her way seem halted,
+the brief glimpses wherein one can discern nothing clearly have in them
+a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika, troika, swift as a bird, who
+was it first invented you? Only among a hardy race of folk can you have
+come to birth--only in a land which, though poor and rough, lies spread
+over half the world, and spans versts the counting whereof would leave
+one with aching eyes. Nor are you a modishly-fashioned vehicle of the
+road--a thing of clamps and iron. Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen
+and fitted with the axe or chisel of some handy peasant of Yaroslav.
+Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed in German livery, but by a man
+bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts, and flourishes his whip, and
+breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the wind go the horses, and
+the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent circles, and the
+road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of
+astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on
+its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon--a speck amid a
+cloud of dust!
+
+And you, Russia of mine--are not you also speeding like a troika which
+nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and
+the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in
+the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder
+whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that
+awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force
+which lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves
+must abide in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an
+ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids them, with
+iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the earth as
+they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? Whither, then, are
+you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer
+comes--only the weird sound of your collar-bells. Rent into a thousand
+shreds, the air roars past you, for you are overtaking the whole world,
+and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside, to give
+you way!
+
+                                                                 1841.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Why do I so persistently paint the poverty, the imperfections of Russian
+life, and delve into the remotest depths, the most retired holes and
+corners, of our Empire for my subjects? The answer is that there is
+nothing else to be done when an author’s idiosyncrasy happens to incline
+him that way. So again we find ourselves in a retired spot. But what a
+spot!
+
+Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with
+embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards
+the heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse
+of plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone cliffs.
+Here and there those cliffs are seamed with water-courses and gullies,
+while at other points they are rounded off into spurs of green--spurs
+now coated with fleece-like tufts of young undergrowth, now studded with
+the stumps of felled trees, now covered with timber which has, by some
+miracle, escaped the woodman’s axe. Also, a river winds awhile between
+its banks, then leaves the meadow land, divides into runlets (all
+flashing in the sun like fire), plunges, re-united, into the midst of a
+thicket of elder, birch, and pine, and, lastly, speeds triumphantly past
+bridges and mills and weirs which seem to be lying in wait for it at
+every turn.
+
+At one particular spot the steep flank of the mountain range is covered
+with billowy verdure of denser growth than the rest; and here the aid of
+skilful planting, added to the shelter afforded by a rugged ravine, has
+enabled the flora of north and south so to be brought together that,
+twined about with sinuous hop-tendrils, the oak, the spruce fir, the
+wild pear, the maple, the cherry, the thorn, and the mountain ash either
+assist or check one another’s growth, and everywhere cover the declivity
+with their straggling profusion. Also, at the edge of the summit there
+can be seen mingling with the green of the trees the red roofs of a
+manorial homestead, while behind the upper stories of the mansion proper
+and its carved balcony and a great semi-circular window there gleam the
+tiles and gables of some peasants’ huts. Lastly, over this combination
+of trees and roofs there rises--overtopping everything with its gilded,
+sparkling steeple--an old village church. On each of its pinnacles a
+cross of carved gilt is stayed with supports of similar gilding and
+design; with the result that from a distance the gilded portions
+have the effect of hanging without visible agency in the air. And
+the whole--the three successive tiers of woodland, roofs, and crosses
+whole--lies exquisitely mirrored in the river below, where hollow
+willows, grotesquely shaped (some of them rooted on the river’s banks,
+and some in the water itself, and all drooping their branches until
+their leaves have formed a tangle with the water lilies which float on
+the surface), seem to be gazing at the marvellous reflection at their
+feet.
+
+Thus the view from below is beautiful indeed. But the view from above
+is even better. No guest, no visitor, could stand on the balcony of the
+mansion and remain indifferent. So boundless is the panorama revealed
+that surprise would cause him to catch at his breath, and exclaim: “Lord
+of Heaven, but what a prospect!” Beyond meadows studded with spinneys
+and water-mills lie forests belted with green; while beyond, again,
+there can be seen showing through the slightly misty air strips of
+yellow heath, and, again, wide-rolling forests (as blue as the sea or a
+cloud), and more heath, paler than the first, but still yellow. Finally,
+on the far horizon a range of chalk-topped hills gleams white, even in
+dull weather, as though it were lightened with perpetual sunshine;
+and here and there on the dazzling whiteness of its lower slopes some
+plaster-like, nebulous patches represent far-off villages which lie
+too remote for the eye to discern their details. Indeed, only when the
+sunlight touches a steeple to gold does one realise that each such
+patch is a human settlement. Finally, all is wrapped in an immensity of
+silence which even the far, faint echoes of persons singing in the void
+of the plain cannot shatter.
+
+Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the
+visitor would still find nothing to say, save: “Lord of Heaven, but
+what a prospect!” Then who is the dweller in, the proprietor of, this
+manor--a manor to which, as to an impregnable fortress, entrance cannot
+be gained from the side where we have been standing, but only from the
+other approach, where a few scattered oaks offer hospitable welcome to
+the visitor, and then, spreading above him their spacious branches (as
+in friendly embrace), accompany him to the facade of the mansion whose
+top we have been regarding from the reverse aspect, but which now stands
+frontwise on to us, and has, on one side of it, a row of peasants’ huts
+with red tiles and carved gables, and, on the other, the village church,
+with those glittering golden crosses and gilded open-work charms which
+seem to hang suspended in the air? Yes, indeed!--to what fortunate
+individual does this corner of the world belong? It belongs to Andrei
+Ivanovitch Tientietnikov, landowner of the canton of Tremalakhan, and,
+withal, a bachelor of about thirty.
+
+Should my lady readers ask of me what manner of man is Tientietnikov,
+and what are his attributes and peculiarities, I should refer them
+to his neighbours. Of these, a member of the almost extinct tribe
+of intelligent staff officers on the retired list once summed up
+Tientietnikov in the phrase, “He is an absolute blockhead;” while a
+General who resided ten versts away was heard to remark that “he is a
+young man who, though not exactly a fool, has at least too much crowded
+into his head. I myself might have been of use to him, for not only do
+I maintain certain connections with St. Petersburg, but also--” And the
+General left his sentence unfinished. Thirdly, a captain-superintendent
+of rural police happened to remark in the course of conversation:
+“To-morrow I must go and see Tientietnikov about his arrears.” Lastly,
+a peasant of Tientietnikov’s own village, when asked what his barin was
+like, returned no answer at all. All of which would appear to show that
+Tientietnikov was not exactly looked upon with favour.
+
+To speak dispassionately, however, he was not a bad sort of
+fellow--merely a star-gazer; and since the world contains many watchers
+of the skies, why should Tientietnikov not have been one of them?
+However, let me describe in detail a specimen day of his existence--one
+that will closely resemble the rest, and then the reader will be enabled
+to judge of Tientietnikov’s character, and how far his life corresponded
+to the beauties of nature with which he lived surrounded.
+
+On the morning of the specimen day in question he awoke very late, and,
+raising himself to a sitting posture, rubbed his eyes. And since those
+eyes were small, the process of rubbing them occupied a very long time,
+and throughout its continuance there stood waiting by the door his
+valet, Mikhailo, armed with a towel and basin. For one hour, for two
+hours, did poor Mikhailo stand there: then he departed to the kitchen,
+and returned to find his master still rubbing his eyes as he sat on the
+bed. At length, however, Tientietnikov rose, washed himself, donned a
+dressing-gown, and moved into the drawing-room for morning tea, coffee,
+cocoa, and warm milk; of all of which he partook but sparingly, while
+munching a piece of bread, and scattering tobacco ash with complete
+insouciance. Two hours did he sit over this meal, then poured himself
+out another cup of the rapidly cooling tea, and walked to the window.
+This faced the courtyard, and outside it, as usual, there took place the
+following daily altercation between a serf named Grigory (who purported
+to act as butler) and the housekeeper, Perfilievna.
+
+Grigory. Ah, you nuisance, you good-for-nothing, you had better hold
+your stupid tongue.
+
+Perfilievna. Yes; and don’t you wish that I would?
+
+Grigory. What? You so thick with that bailiff of yours, you housekeeping
+jade!
+
+Perfilievna. Nay, he is as big a thief as you are. Do you think the
+barin doesn’t know you? And there he is! He must have heard everything!
+
+Grigory. Where?
+
+Perfilievna. There--sitting by the window, and looking at us!
+
+Next, to complete the hubbub, a serf child which had been clouted by its
+mother broke out into a bawl, while a borzoi puppy which had happened
+to get splashed with boiling water by the cook fell to yelping
+vociferously. In short, the place soon became a babel of shouts and
+squeals, and, after watching and listening for a time, the barin found
+it so impossible to concentrate his mind upon anything that he sent out
+word that the noise would have to be abated.
+
+The next item was that, a couple of hours before luncheon time, he
+withdrew to his study, to set about employing himself upon a weighty
+work which was to consider Russia from every point of view: from the
+political, from the philosophical, and from the religious, as well as to
+resolve various problems which had arisen to confront the Empire, and to
+define clearly the great future to which the country stood ordained. In
+short, it was to be the species of compilation in which the man of the
+day so much delights. Yet the colossal undertaking had progressed but
+little beyond the sphere of projection, since, after a pen had been
+gnawed awhile, and a few strokes had been committed to paper, the whole
+would be laid aside in favour of the reading of some book; and that
+reading would continue also during luncheon and be followed by the
+lighting of a pipe, the playing of a solitary game of chess, and the
+doing of more or less nothing for the rest of the day.
+
+The foregoing will give the reader a pretty clear idea of the manner in
+which it was possible for this man of thirty-three to waste his time.
+Clad constantly in slippers and a dressing-gown, Tientietnikov never
+went out, never indulged in any form of dissipation, and never walked
+upstairs. Nothing did he care for fresh air, and would bestow not a
+passing glance upon all those beauties of the countryside which moved
+visitors to such ecstatic admiration. From this the reader will see that
+Andrei Ivanovitch Tientietnikov belonged to that band of sluggards whom
+we always have with us, and who, whatever be their present appellation,
+used to be known by the nicknames of “lollopers,” “bed pressers,” and
+“marmots.” Whether the type is a type originating at birth, or a type
+resulting from untoward circumstances in later life, it is impossible to
+say. A better course than to attempt to answer that question would be to
+recount the story of Tientietnikov’s boyhood and upbringing.
+
+Everything connected with the latter seemed to promise success, for at
+twelve years of age the boy--keen-witted, but dreamy of temperament, and
+inclined to delicacy--was sent to an educational establishment presided
+over by an exceptional type of master. The idol of his pupils, and the
+admiration of his assistants, Alexander Petrovitch was gifted with
+an extraordinary measure of good sense. How thoroughly he knew the
+peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he understood boys!
+How capable he was of drawing them out! Not a practical joker in the
+school but, after perpetrating a prank, would voluntarily approach his
+preceptor and make to him free confession. True, the preceptor would
+put a stern face upon the matter, yet the culprit would depart with head
+held higher, not lower, than before, since in Alexander Petrovitch
+there was something which heartened--something which seemed to say to a
+delinquent: “Forward you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have
+fallen!” Not lectures on good behaviour was it, therefore, that fell
+from his lips, but rather the injunction, “I want to see intelligence,
+and nothing else. The boy who devotes his attention to becoming clever
+will never play the fool, for under such circumstances, folly disappears
+of itself.” And so folly did, for the boy who failed to strive in the
+desired direction incurred the contempt of all his comrades, and even
+dunces and fools of senior standing did not dare to raise a finger when
+saluted by their juniors with opprobrious epithets. Yet “This is too
+much,” certain folk would say to Alexander. “The result will be that
+your students will turn out prigs.” “But no,” he would reply. “Not at
+all. You see, I make it my principle to keep the incapables for a single
+term only, since that is enough for them; but to the clever ones I allot
+a double course of instruction.” And, true enough, any lad of brains was
+retained for this finishing course. Yet he did not repress all boyish
+playfulness, since he declared it to be as necessary as a rash to a
+doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to diagnose what lay hidden within.
+
+Consequently, how the boys loved him! Never was there such an attachment
+between master and pupils. And even later, during the foolish years,
+when foolish things attract, the measure of affection which Alexander
+Petrovitch retained was extraordinary. In fact, to the day of his death,
+every former pupil would celebrate the birthday of his late master by
+raising his glass in gratitude to the mentor dead and buried--then close
+his eyelids upon the tears which would come trickling through them.
+Even the slightest word of encouragement from Alexander Petrovitch could
+throw a lad into a transport of tremulous joy, and arouse in him an
+honourable emulation of his fellows. Boys of small capacity he did
+not long retain in his establishment; whereas those who possessed
+exceptional talent he put through an extra course of schooling. This
+senior class--a class composed of specially-selected pupils--was a very
+different affair from what usually obtains in other colleges. Only when
+a boy had attained its ranks did Alexander demand of him what other
+masters indiscreetly require of mere infants--namely the superior
+frame of mind which, while never indulging in mockery, can itself bear
+ridicule, and disregard the fool, and keep its temper, and repress
+itself, and eschew revenge, and calmly, proudly retain its tranquillity
+of soul. In short, whatever avails to form a boy into a man of assured
+character, that did Alexander Petrovitch employ during the pupil’s
+youth, as well as constantly put him to the test. How well he understood
+the art of life!
+
+Of assistant tutors he kept but few, since most of the necessary
+instruction he imparted in person, and, without pedantic terminology
+and inflated diction and views, could so transmit to his listeners the
+inmost spirit of a lesson that even the youngest present absorbed its
+essential elements. Also, of studies he selected none but those which
+may help a boy to become a good citizen; and therefore most of the
+lectures which he delivered consisted of discourses on what may be
+awaiting a youth, as well as of such demarcations of life’s field that
+the pupil, though seated, as yet, only at the desk, could beforehand
+bear his part in that field both in thought and spirit. Nor did the
+master CONCEAL anything. That is to say, without mincing words, he
+invariably set before his hearers the sorrows and the difficulties which
+may confront a man, the trials and the temptations which may beset
+him. And this he did in terms as though, in every possible calling and
+capacity, he himself had experienced the same. Consequently, either the
+vigorous development of self-respect or the constant stimulus of the
+master’s eye (which seemed to say to the pupil, “Forward!”--that word
+which has become so familiar to the contemporary Russian, that word
+which has worked such wonders upon his sensitive temperament); one or
+the other, I repeat, would from the first cause the pupil to tackle
+difficulties, and only difficulties, and to hunger for prowess only
+where the path was arduous, and obstacles were many, and it was
+necessary to display the utmost strength of mind. Indeed, few completed
+the course of which I have spoken without issuing therefrom reliable,
+seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most embarrassing
+of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men, distracted
+with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything or, grown
+slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and the
+rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered from
+the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the
+weapons of prudence, exerted a powerful influence upon wrongdoers.
+
+For a long time past the ardent young Tientietnikov’s excitable heart
+had also beat at the thought that one day he might attain the senior
+class described. And, indeed, what better teacher could he have had
+befall him than its preceptor? Yet just at the moment when he had been
+transferred thereto, just at the moment when he had reached the coveted
+position, did his instructor come suddenly by his death! This was
+indeed a blow for the boy--indeed a terrible initial loss! In his eyes
+everything connected with the school seemed to undergo a change--the
+chief reason being the fact that to the place of the deceased headmaster
+there succeeded a certain Thedor Ivanovitch, who at once began to
+insist upon certain external rules, and to demand of the boys what ought
+rightly to have been demanded only of adults. That is to say, since
+the lads’ frank and open demeanour savoured to him only of lack
+of discipline, he announced (as though in deliberate spite of his
+predecessor) that he cared nothing for progress and intellect, but that
+heed was to be paid only to good behaviour. Yet, curiously enough, good
+behaviour was just what he never obtained, for every kind of secret
+prank became the rule; and while, by day, there reigned restraint
+and conspiracy, by night there began to take place chambering and
+wantonness.
+
+Also, certain changes in the curriculum of studies came about, for there
+were engaged new teachers who held new views and opinions, and confused
+their hearers with a multitude of new terms and phrases, and displayed
+in their exposition of things both logical sequence and a zest
+for modern discovery and much warmth of individual bias. Yet their
+instruction, alas! contained no LIFE--in the mouths of those teachers a
+dead language savoured merely of carrion. Thus everything connected with
+the school underwent a radical alteration, and respect for authority
+and the authorities waned, and tutors and ushers came to be dubbed “Old
+Thedor,” “Crusty,” and the like. And sundry other things began to take
+place--things which necessitated many a penalty and expulsion; until,
+within a couple of years, no one who had known the school in former days
+would now have recognised it.
+
+Nevertheless Tientietnikov, a youth of retiring disposition, experienced
+no leanings towards the nocturnal orgies of his companions, orgies
+during which the latter used to flirt with damsels before the very
+windows of the headmaster’s rooms, nor yet towards their mockery of
+all that was sacred, simply because fate had cast in their way an
+injudicious priest. No, despite its dreaminess, his soul ever remembered
+its celestial origin, and could not be diverted from the path of virtue.
+Yet still he hung his head, for, while his ambition had come to life,
+it could find no sort of outlet. Truly ‘twere well if it had NOT come
+to life, for throughout the time that he was listening to professors
+who gesticulated on their chairs he could not help remembering the
+old preceptor who, invariably cool and calm, had yet known how to make
+himself understood. To what subjects, to what lectures, did the boy not
+have to listen!--to lectures on medicine, and on philosophy, and on law,
+and on a version of general history so enlarged that even three years
+failed to enable the professor to do more than finish the introduction
+thereto, and also the account of the development of some self-governing
+towns in Germany. None of the stuff remained fixed in Tientietnikov’s
+brain save as shapeless clots; for though his native intellect could not
+tell him how instruction ought to be imparted, it at least told him that
+THIS was not the way. And frequently, at such moments he would recall
+Alexander Petrovitch, and give way to such grief that scarcely did he
+know what he was doing.
+
+But youth is fortunate in the fact that always before it there lies a
+future; and in proportion as the time for his leaving school drew nigh,
+Tientietnikov’s heart began to beat higher and higher, and he said to
+himself: “This is not life, but only a preparation for life. True life
+is to be found in the Public Service. There at least will there be scope
+for activity.” So, bestowing not a glance upon that beautiful corner of
+the world which never failed to strike the guest or chance visitor with
+amazement, and reverencing not a whit the dust of his ancestors, he
+followed the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to
+St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia
+from every quarter gravitates--there to enter the Public Service, to
+shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks
+of that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But
+the real starting-point of Tientietnikov’s ambition was the moment when
+his uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into him
+the maxim that the only means to success in the Service lay in good
+handwriting, and that, without that accomplishment, no one could ever
+hope to become a Minister or Statesman. Thus, with great difficulty,
+and also with the help of his uncle’s influence, young Tientietnikov at
+length succeeded in being posted to a Department. On the day that he
+was conducted into a splendid, shining hall--a hall fitted with inlaid
+floors and lacquered desks as fine as though this were actually the
+place where the great ones of the Empire met for discussion of the
+fortunes of the State; on the day that he saw legions of handsome
+gentlemen of the quill-driving profession making loud scratchings with
+pens, and cocking their heads to one side; lastly on the day that he
+saw himself also allotted a desk, and requested to copy a document which
+appeared purposely to be one of the pettiest possible order (as a matter
+of fact it related to a sum of three roubles, and had taken half a
+year to produce)--well, at that moment a curious, an unwonted sensation
+seized upon the inexperienced youth, for the gentlemen around him
+appeared so exactly like a lot of college students. And, the further to
+complete the resemblance, some of them were engaged in reading trashy
+translated novels, which they kept hurriedly thrusting between the
+sheets of their apportioned work whenever the Director appeared, as
+though to convey the impression that it was to that work alone that they
+were applying themselves. In short, the scene seemed to Tientietnikov
+strange, and his former pursuits more important than his present, and
+his preparation for the Service preferable to the Service itself. Yes,
+suddenly he felt a longing for his old school; and as suddenly, and with
+all the vividness of life, there appeared before his vision the figure
+of Alexander Petrovitch. He almost burst into tears as he beheld his old
+master, and the room seemed to swim before his eyes, and the tchinovniks
+and the desks to become a blur, and his sight to grow dim. Then he
+thought to himself with an effort: “No, no! I WILL apply myself to
+my work, however petty it be at first.” And hardening his heart and
+recovering his spirit, he determined then and there to perform his
+duties in such a manner as should be an example to the rest.
+
+But where are compensations to be found? Even in St. Petersburg, despite
+its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though thirty degrees
+of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and the family of
+the North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch have heaped
+high the pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and
+fur collars and the shaggy manes of horses--even THEN there will be
+shining hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window
+where, in a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, and to the
+hiss of the samovar, there will be in progress a discussion which warms
+the heart and soul, or else a reading aloud of a brilliant page of one
+of those inspired Russian poets with whom God has dowered us, while the
+breast of each member of the company is heaving with a rapture unknown
+under a noontide sky.
+
+Gradually, therefore, Tientietnikov grew more at home in the Service.
+Yet never did it become, for him, the main pursuit, the main object
+in life, which he had expected. No, it remained but one of a secondary
+kind. That is to say, it served merely to divide up his time, and enable
+him the more to value his hours of leisure. Nevertheless, just when his
+uncle was beginning to flatter himself that his nephew was destined to
+succeed in the profession, the said nephew elected to ruin his every
+hope. Thus it befell. Tientietnikov’s friends (he had many) included
+among their number a couple of fellows of the species known as
+“embittered.” That is to say, though good-natured souls of that
+curiously restless type which cannot endure injustice, nor anything
+which it conceives to be such, they were thoroughly unbalanced of
+conduct themselves, and, while demanding general agreement with
+their views, treated those of others with the scantiest of ceremony.
+Nevertheless these two associates exercised upon Tientietnikov--both
+by the fire of their eloquence and by the form of their noble
+dissatisfaction with society--a very strong influence; with the result
+that, through arousing in him an innate tendency to nervous resentment,
+they led him also to notice trifles which before had escaped his
+attention. An instance of this is seen in the fact that he conceived
+against Thedor Thedorovitch Lienitsin, Director of one of the
+Departments which was quartered in the splendid range of offices before
+mentioned, a dislike which proved the cause of his discerning in the
+man a host of hitherto unmarked imperfections. Above all things did
+Tientietnikov take it into his head that, when conversing with his
+superiors, Lienitsin became, of the moment, a stick of luscious
+sweetmeat, but that, when conversing with his inferiors, he approximated
+more to a vinegar cruet. Certain it is that, like all petty-minded
+individuals, Lienitsin made a note of any one who failed to offer him
+a greeting on festival days, and that he revenged himself upon any one
+whose visiting-card had not been handed to his butler. Eventually the
+youth’s aversion almost attained the point of hysteria; until he felt
+that, come what might, he MUST insult the fellow in some fashion. To
+that task he applied himself con amore; and so thoroughly that he met
+with complete success. That is to say, he seized on an occasion to
+address Lienitsin in such fashion that the delinquent received
+notice either to apologise or to leave the Service; and when of these
+alternatives he chose the latter his uncle came to him, and made a
+terrified appeal. “For God’s sake remember what you are doing!” he
+cried. “To think that, after beginning your career so well, you should
+abandon it merely for the reason that you have not fallen in with the
+sort of Director whom you prefer! What do you mean by it, what do you
+mean by it? Were others to regard things in the same way, the Service
+would find itself without a single individual. Reconsider your
+conduct--forego your pride and conceit, and make Lienitsin amends.”
+
+“But, dear Uncle,” the nephew replied, “that is not the point. The point
+is, not that I should find an apology difficult to offer, seeing that,
+since Lienitsin is my superior, and I ought not to have addressed him as
+I did, I am clearly in the wrong. Rather, the point is the following.
+To my charge there has been committed the performance of another kind of
+service. That is to say, I am the owner of three hundred peasant souls,
+a badly administered estate, and a fool of a bailiff. That being so,
+whereas the State will lose little by having to fill my stool with
+another copyist, it will lose very much by causing three hundred peasant
+souls to fail in the payment of their taxes. As I say (how am I to put
+it?), I am a landowner who has preferred to enter the Public Service.
+Now, should I employ myself henceforth in conserving, restoring, and
+improving the fortunes of the souls whom God has entrusted to my care,
+and thereby provide the State with three hundred law-abiding, sober,
+hard-working taxpayers, how will that service of mine rank as inferior
+to the service of a department-directing fool like Lienitsin?”
+
+On hearing this speech, the State Councillor could only gape, for he
+had not expected Tientietnikov’s torrent of words. He reflected a few
+moments, and then murmured:
+
+“Yes, but, but--but how can a man like you retire to rustication in
+the country? What society will you get there? Here one meets at least
+a general or a prince sometimes; indeed, no matter whom you pass in the
+street, that person represents gas lamps and European civilisation; but
+in the country, no matter what part of it you are in, not a soul is
+to be encountered save muzhiks and their women. Why should you go and
+condemn yourself to a state of vegetation like that?”
+
+Nevertheless the uncle’s expostulations fell upon deaf ears, for already
+the nephew was beginning to think of his estate as a retreat of a type
+more likely to nourish the intellectual faculties and afford the only
+profitable field of activity. After unearthing one or two modern works
+on agriculture, therefore, he, two weeks later, found himself in
+the neighbourhood of the home where his boyhood had been spent, and
+approaching the spot which never failed to enthral the visitor or guest.
+And in the young man’s breast there was beginning to palpitate a
+new feeling--in the young man’s soul there were reawakening old,
+long-concealed impressions; with the result that many a spot which had
+long been faded from his memory now filled him with interest, and the
+beautiful views on the estate found him gazing at them like a newcomer,
+and with a beating heart. Yes, as the road wound through a narrow
+ravine, and became engulfed in a forest where, both above and below, he
+saw three-centuries-old oaks which three men could not have spanned,
+and where Siberian firs and elms overtopped even the poplars, and as
+he asked the peasants to tell him to whom the forest belonged, and
+they replied, “To Tientietnikov,” and he issued from the forest, and
+proceeded on his way through meadows, and past spinneys of elder, and
+of old and young willows, and arrived in sight of the distant range of
+hills, and, crossing by two different bridges the winding river (which
+he left successively to right and to left of him as he did so), he again
+questioned some peasants concerning the ownership of the meadows and
+the flooded lands, and was again informed that they all belonged to
+Tientietnikov, and then, ascending a rise, reached a tableland where, on
+one side, lay ungarnered fields of wheat and rye and barley, and, on the
+other, the country already traversed (but which now showed in shortened
+perspective), and then plunged into the shade of some forked, umbrageous
+trees which stood scattered over turf and extended to the manor-house
+itself, and caught glimpses of the carved huts of the peasants, and of
+the red roofs of the stone manorial outbuildings, and of the glittering
+pinnacles of the church, and felt his heart beating, and knew, without
+being told by any one, whither he had at length arrived--well, then the
+feeling which had been growing within his soul burst forth, and he cried
+in ecstasy:
+
+“Why have I been a fool so long? Why, seeing that fate has appointed
+me to be ruler of an earthly paradise, did I prefer to bind myself in
+servitude as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I had
+been nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge necessary
+for the diffusion of good among those under me, and for the improvement
+of my domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold duties of a
+landowner who is at once judge, administrator, and constable of his
+people, I should have entrusted my estate to an ignorant bailiff, and
+sought to maintain an absentee guardianship over the affairs of serfs
+whom I have never met, and of whose capabilities and characters I am
+yet ignorant! To think that I should have deemed true estate-management
+inferior to a documentary, fantastical management of provinces which lie
+a thousand versts away, and which my foot has never trod, and where I
+could never have effected aught but blunders and irregularities!”
+
+Meanwhile another spectacle was being prepared for him. On learning
+that the barin was approaching the mansion, the muzhiks collected on
+the verandah in very variety of picturesque dress and tonsure; and when
+these good folk surrounded him, and there arose a resounding shout of
+“Here is our Foster Father! He has remembered us!” and, in spite of
+themselves, some of the older men and women began weeping as they
+recalled his grandfather and great-grandfather, he himself could not
+restrain his tears, but reflected: “How much affection! And in return
+for what? In return for my never having come to see them--in return for
+my never having taken the least interest in their affairs!” And then
+and there he registered a mental vow to share their every task and
+occupation.
+
+So he applied himself to supervising and administering. He reduced the
+amount of the barstchina [40], he decreased the number of working-days
+for the owner, and he augmented the sum of the peasants’ leisure-time.
+He also dismissed the fool of a bailiff, and took to bearing a
+personal hand in everything--to being present in the fields, at the
+threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of barges
+and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore even the
+lazy hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last long. The
+peasant is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov’s muzhiks soon
+scented the fact that, though energetic and desirous of doing much, the
+barin had no notion how to do it, nor even how to set about it--that, in
+short, he spoke by the book rather than out of his personal knowledge.
+Consequently things resulted, not in master and men failing to
+understand one another, but in their not singing together, in their not
+producing the very same note.
+
+That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on
+the manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the
+peasants’. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up well,
+and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that Tientietnikov,
+who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of vodka to be served
+out as a reward for the excellence of the labour performed. Yet the rye
+on the peasants’ land had formed into ear, and the oats had begun to
+shoot their grain, and the millet had filled before, on the manorial
+lands, the corn had so much as grown to stalk, or the ears had sprouted
+in embryo. In short, gradually the barin realised that, in spite of
+favours conferred, the peasants were playing the rogue with him. Next he
+resorted to remonstrance, but was met with the reply, “How could we not
+do our best for our barin? You yourself saw how well we laboured at the
+ploughing and the sowing, for you gave us mugs of vodka for our pains.”
+
+“Then why have things turned out so badly?” the barin persisted.
+
+“Who can say? It must be that a grub has eaten the crop from below.
+Besides, what a summer has it been--never a drop of rain!”
+
+Nevertheless, the barin noted that no grub had eaten the PEASANTS’
+crops, as well as that the rain had fallen in the most curious
+fashion--namely, in patches. It had obliged the muzhiks, but had shed a
+mere sprinkling for the barin.
+
+Still more difficult did he find it to deal with the peasant women.
+Ever and anon they would beg to be excused from work, or start making
+complaints of the severity of the barstchina. Indeed, they were terrible
+folk! However, Tientietnikov abolished the majority of the tithes of
+linen, hedge fruit, mushrooms, and nuts, and also reduced by one-half
+other tasks proper to the women, in the hope that they would devote
+their spare time to their own domestic concerns--namely, to sewing and
+mending, and to making clothes for their husbands, and to increasing
+the area of their kitchen gardens. Yet no such result came about. On the
+contrary, such a pitch did the idleness, the quarrelsomeness, and the
+intriguing and caballing of the fair sex attain that their helpmeets
+were for ever coming to the barin with a request that he would rid one
+or another of his wife, since she had become a nuisance, and to live
+with her was impossible.
+
+Next, hardening his heart, the barin attempted severity. But of what
+avail was severity? The peasant woman remained always the peasant
+woman, and would come and whine that she was sick and ailing, and keep
+pitifully hugging to herself the mean and filthy rags which she had
+donned for the occasion. And when poor Tientietnikov found himself
+unable to say more to her than just, “Get out of my sight, and may the
+Lord go with you!” the next item in the comedy would be that he would
+see her, even as she was leaving his gates, fall to contending with a
+neighbour for, say, the possession of a turnip, and dealing out slaps
+in the face such as even a strong, healthy man could scarcely have
+compassed!
+
+Again, amongst other things, Tientietnikov conceived the idea of
+establishing a school for his people; but the scheme resulted in a farce
+which left him in sackcloth and ashes. In the same way he found that,
+when it came to a question of dispensing justice and of adjusting
+disputes, the host of juridical subtleties with which the professors had
+provided him proved absolutely useless. That is to say, the one party
+lied, and the other party lied, and only the devil could have decided
+between them. Consequently he himself perceived that a knowledge of
+mankind would have availed him more than all the legal refinements and
+philosophical maxims in the world could do. He lacked something; and
+though he could not divine what it was, the situation brought about was
+the common one of the barin failing to understand the peasant, and the
+peasant failing to understand the barin, and both becoming disaffected.
+In the end, these difficulties so chilled Tientietnikov’s enthusiasm
+that he took to supervising the labours of the field with greatly
+diminished attention. That is to say, no matter whether the scythes were
+softly swishing through the grass, or ricks were being built, or rafts
+were being loaded, he would allow his eyes to wander from his men, and
+to fall to gazing at, say, a red-billed, red-legged heron which, after
+strutting along the bank of a stream, would have caught a fish in its
+beak, and be holding it awhile, as though in doubt whether to swallow
+it. Next he would glance towards the spot where a similar bird, but one
+not yet in possession of a fish, was engaged in watching the doings of
+its mate. Lastly, with eyebrows knitted, and face turned to scan the
+zenith, he would drink in the smell of the fields, and fall to listening
+to the winged population of the air as from earth and sky alike the
+manifold music of winged creatures combined in a single harmonious
+chorus. In the rye the quail would be calling, and, in the grass, the
+corncrake, and over them would be wheeling flocks of twittering linnets.
+Also, the jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark executing
+its roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and cranes
+sending forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards the
+zenith in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood would seem
+to have become converted into one great concert of melody. O Creator,
+how fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart
+from cities and from highways!
+
+But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased
+altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up
+in his rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that
+functionary called with his reports. Again, although, until now, he had
+to a certain extent associated with a retired colonel of hussars--a man
+saturated with tobacco smoke--and also with a student of pronounced, but
+immature, opinions who culled the bulk of his wisdom from contemporary
+newspapers and pamphlets, he found, as time went on, that these
+companions proved as tedious as the rest, and came to think their
+conversation superficial, and their European method of comporting
+themselves--that is to say, the method of conversing with much slapping
+of knees and a great deal of bowing and gesticulation--too direct and
+unadorned. So these and every one else he decided to “drop,” and carried
+this resolution into effect with a certain amount of rudeness. On the
+next occasion that Varvar Nikolaievitch Vishnepokromov called to indulge
+in a free-and-easy symposium on politics, philosophy, literature,
+morals, and the state of financial affairs in England (he was, in all
+matters which admit of superficial discussion, the pleasantest fellow
+alive, seeing that he was a typical representative both of the retired
+fire-eater and of the school of thought which is now becoming the
+rage)--when, I say, this next happened, Tientietnikov merely sent out
+to say that he was not at home, and then carefully showed himself at the
+window. Host and guest exchanged glances, and, while the one muttered
+through his teeth “The cur!” the other relieved his feelings with a
+remark or two on swine. Thus the acquaintance came to an abrupt end, and
+from that time forth no visitor called at the mansion.
+
+Tientietnikov in no way regretted this, for he could now devote himself
+wholly to the projection of a great work on Russia. Of the scale on
+which this composition was conceived the reader is already aware. The
+reader also knows how strange, how unsystematic, was the system employed
+in it. Yet to say that Tientietnikov never awoke from his lethargy
+would not be altogether true. On the contrary, when the post brought him
+newspapers and reviews, and he saw in their printed pages, perhaps, the
+well-known name of some former comrade who had succeeded in the great
+field of Public Service, or had conferred upon science and the
+world’s work some notable contribution, he would succumb to secret and
+suppressed grief, and involuntarily there would burst from his soul
+an expression of aching, voiceless regret that he himself had done so
+little. And at these times his existence would seem to him odious and
+repellent; at these times there would uprise before him the memory of
+his school days, and the figure of Alexander Petrovitch, as vivid as in
+life. And, slowly welling, the tears would course over Tientietnikov’s
+cheeks.
+
+What meant these repinings? Was there not disclosed in them the secret
+of his galling spiritual pain--the fact that he had failed to order his
+life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started his
+course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he
+had failed to attain the better and the higher state, and there to
+strengthen himself for the overcoming of hindrances and obstacles; the
+fact that, dissolving like overheated metal, his bounteous store of
+superior instincts had failed to take the final tempering; the fact that
+the tutor of his boyhood, a man in a thousand, had prematurely died, and
+left to Tientietnikov no one who could restore to him the moral
+strength shattered by vacillation and the will power weakened by want
+of virility--no one, in short, who could cry hearteningly to his soul
+“Forward!”--the word for which the Russian of every degree, of every
+class, of every occupation, of every school of thought, is for ever
+hungering.
+
+Indeed, WHERE is the man who can cry aloud for any of us, in the Russian
+tongue dear to our soul, the all-compelling command “Forward!”? Who is
+there who, knowing the strength and the nature and the inmost depths of
+the Russian genius, can by a single magic incantation divert our ideals
+to the higher life? Were there such a man, with what tears, with what
+affection, would not the grateful sons of Russia repay him! Yet age
+succeeds to age, and our callow youth still lies wrapped in shameful
+sloth, or strives and struggles to no purpose. God has not yet given us
+the man able to sound the call.
+
+One circumstance which almost aroused Tientietnikov, which almost
+brought about a revolution in his character, was the fact that he came
+very near to falling in love. Yet even this resulted in nothing. Ten
+versts away there lived the general whom we have heard expressing
+himself in highly uncomplimentary terms concerning Tientietnikov. He
+maintained a General-like establishment, dispensed hospitality (that
+is to say, was glad when his neighbours came to pay him their respects,
+though he himself never went out), spoke always in a hoarse voice, read
+a certain number of books, and had a daughter--a curious, unfamiliar
+type, but full of life as life itself. This maiden’s name was Ulinka,
+and she had been strangely brought up, for, losing her mother in early
+childhood, she had subsequently received instruction at the hands of an
+English governess who knew not a single word of Russian. Moreover her
+father, though excessively fond of her, treated her always as a toy;
+with the result that, as she grew to years of discretion, she became
+wholly wayward and spoilt. Indeed, had any one seen the sudden rage
+which would gather on her beautiful young forehead when she was engaged
+in a heated dispute with her father, he would have thought her one of
+the most capricious beings in the world. Yet that rage gathered only
+when she had heard of injustice or harsh treatment, and never because
+she desired to argue on her own behalf, or to attempt to justify her own
+conduct. Also, that anger would disappear as soon as ever she saw any
+one whom she had formerly disliked fall upon evil times, and, at his
+first request for alms would, without consideration or subsequent
+regret, hand him her purse and its whole contents. Yes, her every act
+was strenuous, and when she spoke her whole personality seemed to be
+following hot-foot upon her thought--both her expression of face and her
+diction and the movements of her hands. Nay, the very folds of her frock
+had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have thought
+that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she know
+reticence: before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force
+could compel her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also,
+her enchanting, peculiar gait--a gait which belonged to her alone--was
+so absolutely free and unfettered that every one involuntarily gave her
+way. Lastly, in her presence churls seemed to become confused and fall
+to silence, and even the roughest and most outspoken would lose their
+heads, and have not a word to say; whereas the shy man would find
+himself able to converse as never in his life before, and would feel,
+from the first, as though he had seen her and known her at some previous
+period--during the days of some unremembered childhood, when he was at
+home, and spending a merry evening among a crowd of romping children.
+And for long afterwards he would feel as though his man’s intellect and
+estate were a burden.
+
+This was what now befell Tientietnikov; and as it did so a new feeling
+entered into his soul, and his dreamy life lightened for a moment.
+
+At first the General used to receive him with hospitable civility, but
+permanent concord between them proved impossible; their conversation
+always merged into dissension and soreness, seeing that, while the
+General could not bear to be contradicted or worsted in an argument,
+Tientietnikov was a man of extreme sensitiveness. True, for the
+daughter’s sake, the father was for a while deferred to, and thus peace
+was maintained; but this lasted only until the time when there arrived,
+on a visit to the General, two kinswomen of his--the Countess Bordirev
+and the Princess Uziakin, retired Court dames, but ladies who still
+kept up a certain connection with Court circles, and therefore were much
+fawned upon by their host. No sooner had they appeared on the scene than
+(so it seemed to Tientietnikov) the General’s attitude towards the young
+man became colder--either he ceased to notice him at all or he spoke to
+him familiarly, and as to a person having no standing in society. This
+offended Tientietnikov deeply, and though, when at length he spoke out
+on the subject, he retained sufficient presence of mind to compress his
+lips, and to preserve a gentle and courteous tone, his face flushed and
+his inner man was boiling.
+
+“General,” he said, “I thank you for your condescension. By addressing
+me in the second person singular, you have admitted me to the circle
+of your most intimate friends. Indeed, were it not that a difference of
+years forbids any familiarity on my part, I should answer you in similar
+fashion.”
+
+The General sat aghast. At length, rallying his tongue and his
+faculties, he replied that, though he had spoken with a lack of
+ceremony, he had used the term “thou” merely as an elderly man naturally
+employs it towards a junior (he made no reference to difference of
+rank).
+
+Nevertheless, the acquaintance broke off here, and with it any
+possibility of love-making. The light which had shed a momentary gleam
+before Tientietnikov’s eyes had become extinguished for ever, and upon
+it there followed a darkness denser than before. Henceforth everything
+conduced to evolve the regime which the reader has noted--that regime
+of sloth and inaction which converted Tientietnikov’s residence into a
+place of dirt and neglect. For days at a time would a broom and a heap
+of dust be left lying in the middle of a room, and trousers tossing
+about the salon, and pairs of worn-out braces adorning the what-not near
+the sofa. In short, so mean and untidy did Tientietnikov’s mode of life
+become, that not only his servants, but even his very poultry ceased to
+treat him with respect. Taking up a pen, he would spend hours in idly
+sketching houses, huts, waggons, troikas, and flourishes on a piece of
+paper; while at other times, when he had sunk into a reverie, the pen
+would, all unknowingly, sketch a small head which had delicate features,
+a pair of quick, penetrating eyes, and a raised coiffure. Then suddenly
+the dreamer would perceive, to his surprise, that the pen had executed
+the portrait of a maiden whose picture no artist could adequately have
+painted; and therewith his despondency would become greater than ever,
+and, believing that happiness did not exist on earth, he would relapse
+into increased ennui, increased neglect of his responsibilities.
+
+But one morning he noticed, on moving to the window after breakfast,
+that not a word was proceeding either from the butler or the
+housekeeper, but that, on the contrary, the courtyard seemed to smack of
+a certain bustle and excitement. This was because through the entrance
+gates (which the kitchen maid and the scullion had run to open) there
+were appearing the noses of three horses--one to the right, one in the
+middle, and one to the left, after the fashion of triumphal groups of
+statuary. Above them, on the box seat, were seated a coachman and a
+valet, while behind, again, there could be discerned a gentleman in a
+scarf and a fur cap. Only when the equipage had entered the courtyard
+did it stand revealed as a light spring britchka. And as it came to a
+halt, there leapt on to the verandah of the mansion an individual
+of respectable exterior, and possessed of the art of moving with the
+neatness and alertness of a military man.
+
+Upon this Tientietnikov’s heart stood still. He was unused to receiving
+visitors, and for the moment conceived the new arrival to be a
+Government official, sent to question him concerning an abortive society
+to which he had formerly belonged. (Here the author may interpolate the
+fact that, in Tientietnikov’s early days, the young man had become mixed
+up in a very absurd affair. That is to say, a couple of philosophers
+belonging to a regiment of hussars had, together with an aesthete
+who had not yet completed his student’s course and a gambler who had
+squandered his all, formed a secret society of philanthropic aims under
+the presidency of a certain old rascal of a freemason and the ruined
+gambler aforesaid. The scope of the society’s work was to be extensive:
+it was to bring lasting happiness to humanity at large, from the banks
+of the Thames to the shores of Kamtchatka. But for this much money was
+needed: wherefore from the noble-minded members of the society generous
+contributions were demanded, and then forwarded to a destination known
+only to the supreme authorities of the concern. As for Tientietnikov’s
+adhesion, it was brought about by the two friends already alluded to as
+“embittered”--good-hearted souls whom the wear and tear of their efforts
+on behalf of science, civilisation, and the future emancipation of
+mankind had ended by converting into confirmed drunkards. Perhaps it
+need hardly be said that Tientietnikov soon discovered how things stood,
+and withdrew from the association; but, meanwhile, the latter had had
+the misfortune so to have engaged in dealings not wholly creditable
+to gentlemen of noble origin as likewise to have become entangled in
+dealings with the police. Consequently, it is not to be wondered at
+that, though Tientietnikov had long severed his connection with the
+society and its policy, he still remained uneasy in his mind as to what
+might even yet be the result.)
+
+However, his fears vanished the instant that the guest saluted him with
+marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of the
+head, and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time past
+he (the newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business and
+in the pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects
+of interest--not to mention a plenitude of manufactures and a great
+diversity of soil, and that, in spite of the fact that he was greatly
+struck with the amenities of his host’s domain, he would certainly
+not have presumed to intrude at such an inconvenient hour but for the
+circumstance that the inclement spring weather, added to the state of
+the roads, had necessitated sundry repairs to his carriage at the hands
+of wheelwrights and blacksmiths. Finally he declared that, even if this
+last had NOT happened, he would still have felt unable to deny himself
+the pleasure of offering to his host that meed of homage which was the
+latter’s due.
+
+This speech--a speech of fascinating bonhomie--delivered, the guest
+executed a sort of shuffle with a half-boot of patent leather studded
+with buttons of mother-of-pearl, and followed that up by (in spite of
+his pronounced rotundity of figure) stepping backwards with all the elan
+of an india-rubber ball.
+
+From this the somewhat reassured Tientietnikov concluded that his
+visitor must be a literary, knowledge-seeking professor who was engaged
+in roaming the country in search of botanical specimens and fossils;
+wherefore he hastened to express both his readiness to further the
+visitor’s objects (whatever they might be) and his personal willingness
+to provide him with the requisite wheelwrights and blacksmiths.
+Meanwhile he begged his guest to consider himself at home, and,
+after seating him in an armchair, made preparations to listen to the
+newcomer’s discourse on natural history.
+
+But the newcomer applied himself, rather, to phenomena of the internal
+world, saying that his life might be likened to a barque tossed on the
+crests of perfidious billows, that in his time he had been fated to play
+many parts, and that on more than one occasion his life had stood
+in danger at the hands of foes. At the same time, these tidings were
+communicated in a manner calculated to show that the speaker was also
+a man of PRACTICAL capabilities. In conclusion, the visitor took out a
+cambric pocket-handkerchief, and sneezed into it with a vehemence wholly
+new to Tientietnikov’s experience. In fact, the sneeze rather resembled
+the note which, at times, the trombone of an orchestra appears to utter
+not so much from its proper place on the platform as from the immediate
+neighbourhood of the listener’s ear. And as the echoes of the drowsy
+mansion resounded to the report of the explosion there followed upon the
+same a wave of perfume, skilfully wafted abroad with a flourish of the
+eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.
+
+By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none
+other than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov.
+Naturally, time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms;
+wherefore his exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his
+frockcoat had taken on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka,
+coachman, valet, horses, and harness alike had about them a sort of
+second-hand, worse-for-wear effect. Evidently the Chichikovian finances
+were not in the most flourishing of conditions. Nevertheless, the old
+expression of face, the old air of breeding and refinement, remained
+unimpaired, and our hero had even improved in the art of walking and
+turning with grace, and of dexterously crossing one leg over the
+other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of diction, his discreet
+moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if anything, increased
+measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused his tactfulness
+to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these accomplishments
+had their effect further heightened by a snowy immaculateness of collar
+and dickey, and an absence of dust from his frockcoat, as complete as
+though he had just arrived to attend a nameday festival. Lastly, his
+cheeks and chin were of such neat clean-shavenness that no one but a
+blind man could have failed to admire their rounded contours.
+
+From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov’s
+establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
+cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
+Chichikov, while one other apartment--a little front chamber opening
+into the hall--became permeated with Petrushka’s own peculiar smell.
+But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
+transferred to the servants’ quarters, a course which ought to have been
+adopted in the first instance.
+
+During the initial days of Chichikov’s sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
+rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his
+guest might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the
+established routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless, for
+Paul Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for accommodating
+himself to his new position. To begin with, he encouraged his host
+in his philosophical inertia by saying that the latter would help
+Tientietnikov to become a centenarian. Next, in the matter of a life of
+isolation, he hit things off exactly by remarking that such a life
+bred in a man a capacity for high thinking. Lastly, as he inspected the
+library and dilated on books in general, he contrived an opportunity to
+observe that literature safeguarded a man from a tendency to waste his
+time. In short, the few words of which he delivered himself were brief,
+but invariably to the point. And this discretion of speech was outdone
+by his discretion of conduct. That is to say, whether entering
+or leaving the room, he never wearied his host with a question if
+Tientietnikov had the air of being disinclined to talk; and with equal
+satisfaction the guest could either play chess or hold his tongue.
+Consequently Tientietnikov said to himself:
+
+“For the first time in my life I have met with a man with whom it is
+possible to live. In general, not many of the type exist in Russia, and,
+though clever, good-humoured, well-educated men abound, one would be
+hard put to it to find an individual of equable temperament with whom
+one could share a roof for centuries without a quarrel arising. Anyway,
+Chichikov is the first of his sort that I have met.”
+
+For his part, Chichikov was only too delighted to reside with a
+person so quiet and agreeable as his host. Of a wandering life he was
+temporarily weary, and to rest, even for a month, in such a beautiful
+spot, and in sight of green fields and the slow flowering of spring, was
+likely to benefit him also from the hygienic point of view. And, indeed,
+a more delightful retreat in which to recuperate could not possibly have
+been found. The spring, long retarded by previous cold, had now begun
+in all its comeliness, and life was rampant. Already, over the first
+emerald of the grass, the dandelion was showing yellow, and the red-pink
+anemone was hanging its tender head; while the surface of every pond
+was a swarm of dancing gnats and midges, and the water-spider was being
+joined in their pursuit by birds which gathered from every quarter to
+the vantage-ground of the dry reeds. Every species of creature also
+seemed to be assembling in concourse, and taking stock of one another.
+Suddenly the earth became populous, the forest had opened its eyes, and
+the meadows were lifting up their voice in song. In the same way had
+choral dances begun to be weaved in the village, and everywhere that the
+eye turned there was merriment. What brightness in the green of nature,
+what freshness in the air, what singing of birds in the gardens of the
+mansion, what general joy and rapture and exaltation! Particularly in
+the village might the shouting and singing have been in honour of a
+wedding!
+
+Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere--a pursuit for which
+there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his
+steps along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths
+below, where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of
+winter, and where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless
+boughs; while at another time he would plunge into the thicket and
+ravine country, where nests of birds weighted branches almost to the
+ground, and the sky was darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing
+rooks. Again, the drier portions of the meadows could be crossed to the
+river wharves, whence the first barges were just beginning to set forth
+with pea-meal and barley and wheat, while at the same time one’s ear
+would be caught with the sound of some mill resuming its functions as
+once more the water turned the wheel. Chichikov would also walk afield
+to watch the early tillage operations of the season, and observe how
+the blackness of a new furrow would make its way across the expanse of
+green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking his hand against the
+pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his fistfuls of seed with
+equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too much to one side or to
+the other.
+
+In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with the
+bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into the
+manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how an
+estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what species
+of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was the name
+of each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had bought his
+cow, and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made inquiry concerning
+the number of peasants who had lately died: but of these there appeared
+to be few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned that Tientietnikov’s
+estate was not being worked as it might have been--that much neglect and
+listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness was abroad; and on perceiving
+this, he thought to himself: “What a fool is that Tientietnikov! To
+think of letting a property like this decay when he might be drawing
+from it an income of fifty thousand roubles a year!”
+
+Also, more than once, while taking these walks, our hero pondered the
+idea of himself becoming a landowner--not now, of course, but later,
+when his chief aim should have been achieved, and he had got into his
+hands the necessary means for living the quiet life of the proprietor
+of an estate. Yes, and at these times there would include itself in his
+castle-building the figure of a young, fresh, fair-faced maiden of the
+mercantile or other rich grade of society, a woman who could both play
+and sing. He also dreamed of little descendants who should perpetuate
+the name of Chichikov; perhaps a frolicsome little boy and a fair young
+daughter, or possibly, two boys and quite two or three daughters; so
+that all should know that he had really lived and had his being, that he
+had not merely roamed the world like a spectre or a shadow; so that for
+him and his the country should never be put to shame. And from that he
+would go on to fancy that a title appended to his rank would not be
+a bad thing--the title of State Councillor, for instance, which was
+deserving of all honour and respect. Ah, it is a common thing for a
+man who is taking a solitary walk so to detach himself from the irksome
+realities of the present that he is able to stir and to excite and to
+provoke his imagination to the conception of things he knows can never
+really come to pass!
+
+Chichikov’s servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like
+their master, speedily made themselves at home in it. In particular did
+Petrushka make friends with Grigory the butler, although at first the
+pair showed a tendency to outbrag one another--Petrushka beginning
+by throwing dust in Grigory’s eyes on the score of his (Petrushka’s)
+travels, and Grigory taking him down a peg or two by referring to St.
+Petersburg (a city which Petrushka had never visited), and Petrushka
+seeking to recover lost ground by dilating on towns which he HAD
+visited, and Grigory capping this by naming some town which is not to be
+found on any map in existence, and then estimating the journey
+thither as at least thirty thousand versts--a statement which would so
+completely flabbergast the henchman of Chichikov’s suite that he would
+be left staring open-mouthed, amid the general laughter of the domestic
+staff. However, as I say, the pair ended by swearing eternal friendship
+with one another, and making a practice of resorting to the village
+tavern in company.
+
+For Selifan, however, the place had a charm of a different kind. That is
+to say, each evening there would take place in the village a singing of
+songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and buxom were the
+maidens--maidens of a type hard to find in our present-day villages on
+large estates--that he would stand for hours wondering which of them was
+the best. White-necked and white-bosomed, all had great roving eyes, the
+gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to the waist. And as, with his hands
+clasping theirs, he glided hither and thither in the dance, or retired
+backwards towards a wall with a row of other young fellows, and then,
+with them, returned to meet the damsels--all singing in chorus (and
+laughing as they sang it), “Boyars, show me my bridegroom!” and dusk was
+falling gently, and from the other side of the river there kept coming
+far, faint, plaintive echoes of the melody--well, then our Selifan
+hardly knew whether he were standing upon his head or his heels. Later,
+when sleeping and when waking, both at noon and at twilight, he would
+seem still to be holding a pair of white hands, and moving in the dance.
+
+Chichikov’s horses also found nothing of which to disapprove. Yes,
+both the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at
+Tientietnikov’s a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats excellent,
+and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True, on this
+occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking over the
+intervening partition, it was possible always to see one’s fellows, and,
+should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a neigh, to answer it
+at once.
+
+As for the errand which had hitherto led Chichikov to travel about
+Russia, he had now decided to move very cautiously and secretly in the
+matter. In fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for
+reading and for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself, “No--I
+had better begin at the other end,” and proceeded first to feel his way
+among the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt several
+things, and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go and
+call upon a certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the General
+possessed a daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had an affair
+of some sort, but that the pair had subsequently parted, and gone
+their several ways. For that matter, Chichikov himself had noticed
+that Tientietnikov was in the habit of drawing heads of which each
+representation exactly resembled the rest.
+
+Once, as he sat tapping his silver snuff-box after luncheon, Chichikov
+remarked:
+
+“One thing you lack, and only one, Andrei Ivanovitch.”
+
+“What is that?” asked his host.
+
+“A female friend or two,” replied Chichikov.
+
+Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily
+to an end.
+
+But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for
+supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to
+interject:
+
+“Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry.”
+
+As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the
+subject seemed to have annoyed him.
+
+For the third time--it was after supper--Chichikov returned to the
+charge by remarking:
+
+“To-day, as I was walking round your property, I could not help thinking
+that marriage would do you a great deal of good. Otherwise you will
+develop into a hypochondriac.”
+
+Whether Chichikov’s words now voiced sufficiently the note of
+persuasion, or whether Tientietnikov happened, at the moment, to be
+unusually disposed to frankness, at all events the young landowner
+sighed, and then responded as he expelled a puff of tobacco smoke:
+
+“To attain anything, Paul Ivanovitch, one needs to have been born under
+a lucky star.”
+
+And he related to his guest the whole history of his acquaintanceship
+and subsequent rupture with the General.
+
+As Chichikov listened to the recital, and gradually realised that the
+affair had arisen merely out of a chance word on the General’s part, he
+was astounded beyond measure, and gazed at Tientietnikov without knowing
+what to make of him.
+
+“Andrei Ivanovitch,” he said at length, “what was there to take offence
+at?”
+
+“Nothing, as regards the actual words spoken,” replied the other. “The
+offence lay, rather, in the insult conveyed in the General’s tone.”
+ Tientietnikov was a kindly and peaceable man, yet his eyes flashed as he
+said this, and his voice vibrated with wounded feeling.
+
+“Yet, even then, need you have taken it so much amiss?”
+
+“What? Could I have gone on visiting him as before?”
+
+“Certainly. No great harm had been done?”
+
+“I disagree with you. Had he been an old man in a humble station of
+life, instead of a proud and swaggering officer, I should not have
+minded so much. But, as it was, I could not, and would not, brook his
+words.”
+
+“A curious fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov to himself.
+
+“A curious fellow, this Chichikov!” was Tientietnikov’s inward
+reflection.
+
+“I tell you what,” resumed Chichikov. “To-morrow I myself will go and
+see the General.”
+
+“To what purpose?” asked Tientietnikov, with astonishment and distrust
+in his eyes.
+
+“To offer him an assurance of my personal respect.”
+
+“A strange fellow, this Chichikov!” reflected Tientietnikov.
+
+“A strange fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov, and then
+added aloud: “Yes, I will go and see him at ten o’clock to-morrow; but
+since my britchka is not yet altogether in travelling order, would you
+be so good as to lend me your koliaska for the purpose?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Tientietnikov’s good horses covered the ten versts to the General’s
+house in a little over half an hour. Descending from the koliaska with
+features attuned to deference, Chichikov inquired for the master of the
+house, and was at once ushered into his presence. Bowing with head
+held respectfully on one side and hands extended like those of a waiter
+carrying a trayful of teacups, the visitor inclined his whole body
+forward, and said:
+
+“I have deemed it my duty to present myself to your Excellency. I have
+deemed it my duty because in my heart I cherish a most profound respect
+for the valiant men who, on the field of battle, have proved the
+saviours of their country.”
+
+That this preliminary attack did not wholly displease the General was
+proved by the fact that, responding with a gracious inclination of the
+head, he replied:
+
+“I am glad to make your acquaintance. Pray be so good as to take a seat.
+In what capacity or capacities have you yourself seen service?”
+
+“Of my service,” said Chichikov, depositing his form, not exactly in the
+centre of the chair, but rather on one side of it, and resting a hand
+upon one of its arms, “--of my service the scene was laid, in the first
+instance, in the Treasury; while its further course bore me successively
+into the employ of the Public Buildings Commission, of the Customs
+Board, and of other Government Offices. But, throughout, my life has
+resembled a barque tossed on the crests of perfidious billows. In
+suffering I have been swathed and wrapped until I have come to be, as
+it were, suffering personified; while of the extent to which my life
+has been sought by foes, no words, no colouring, no (if I may so express
+it?) painter’s brush could ever convey to you an adequate idea. And now,
+at length, in my declining years, I am seeking a corner in which to eke
+out the remainder of my miserable existence, while at the present moment
+I am enjoying the hospitality of a neighbour of your acquaintance.”
+
+“And who is that?”
+
+“Your neighbour Tientietnikov, your Excellency.”
+
+Upon that the General frowned.
+
+“Led me add,” put in Chichikov hastily, “that he greatly regrets that
+on a former occasion he should have failed to show a proper respect
+for--for--”
+
+“For what?” asked the General.
+
+“For the services to the public which your Excellency has rendered.
+Indeed, he cannot find words to express his sorrow, but keeps repeating
+to himself: ‘Would that I had valued at their true worth the men who
+have saved our fatherland!’”
+
+“And why should he say that?” asked the mollified General. “I bear him
+no grudge. In fact, I have never cherished aught but a sincere liking
+for him, a sincere esteem, and do not doubt but that, in time, he may
+become a useful member of society.”
+
+“In the words which you have been good enough to utter,” said Chichikov
+with a bow, “there is embodied much justice. Yes, Tientietnikov is
+in very truth a man of worth. Not only does he possess the gift of
+eloquence, but also he is a master of the pen.”
+
+“Ah, yes; he DOES write rubbish of some sort, doesn’t he? Verses, or
+something of the kind?”
+
+“Not rubbish, your Excellency, but practical stuff. In short, he is
+inditing a history.”
+
+“A HISTORY? But a history of what?”
+
+“A history of, of--” For a moment or two Chichikov hesitated. Then,
+whether because it was a General that was seated in front of him, or
+because he desired to impart greater importance to the subject which
+he was about to invent, he concluded: “A history of Generals, your
+Excellency.”
+
+“Of Generals? Of WHAT Generals?”
+
+“Of Generals generally--of Generals at large. That is to say, and to be
+more precise, a history of the Generals of our fatherland.”
+
+By this time Chichikov was floundering badly. Mentally he spat upon
+himself and reflected: “Gracious heavens! What rubbish I am talking!”
+
+“Pardon me,” went on his interlocutor, “but I do not quite understand
+you. Is Tientietnikov producing a history of a given period, or only a
+history made up of a series of biographies? Also, is he including ALL
+our Generals, or only those who took part in the campaign of 1812?”
+
+“The latter, your Excellency--only the Generals of 1812,” replied
+Chichikov. Then he added beneath his breath: “Were I to be killed for
+it, I could not say what that may be supposed to mean.”
+
+“Then why should he not come and see me in person?” went on his
+host. “Possibly I might be able to furnish him with much interesting
+material?”
+
+“He is afraid to come, your Excellency.”
+
+“Nonsense! Just because of a hasty word or two! I am not that sort of
+man at all. In fact, I should be very happy to call upon HIM.”
+
+“Never would he permit that, your Excellency. He would greatly prefer to
+be the first to make advances.” And Chichikov added to himself: “What a
+stroke of luck those Generals were! Otherwise, the Lord knows where my
+tongue might have landed me!”
+
+At this moment the door into the adjoining room opened, and there
+appeared in the doorway a girl as fair as a ray of the sun--so fair,
+indeed, that Chichikov stared at her in amazement. Apparently she had
+come to speak to her father for a moment, but had stopped short on
+perceiving that there was some one with him. The only fault to be
+found in her appearance was the fact that she was too thin and
+fragile-looking.
+
+“May I introduce you to my little pet?” said the General to Chichikov.
+“To tell you the truth, I do not know your name.”
+
+“That you should be unacquainted with the name of one who has never
+distinguished himself in the manner of which you yourself can boast is
+scarcely to be wondered at.” And Chichikov executed one of his sidelong,
+deferential bows.
+
+“Well, I should be delighted to know it.”
+
+“It is Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, your Excellency.” With that went
+the easy bow of a military man and the agile backward movement of an
+india-rubber ball.
+
+“Ulinka, this is Paul Ivanovitch,” said the General, turning to his
+daughter. “He has just told me some interesting news--namely, that
+our neighbour Tientietnikov is not altogether the fool we had at first
+thought him. On the contrary, he is engaged upon a very important
+work--upon a history of the Russian Generals of 1812.”
+
+“But who ever supposed him to be a fool?” asked the girl quickly. “What
+happened was that you took Vishnepokromov’s word--the word of a man who
+is himself both a fool and a good-for-nothing.”
+
+“Well, well,” said the father after further good-natured dispute on the
+subject of Vishnepokromov. “Do you now run away, for I wish to dress for
+luncheon. And you, sir,” he added to Chichikov, “will you not join us at
+table?”
+
+Chichikov bowed so low and so long that, by the time that his eyes had
+ceased to see nothing but his own boots, the General’s daughter had
+disappeared, and in her place was standing a bewhiskered butler, armed
+with a silver soap-dish and a hand-basin.
+
+“Do you mind if I wash in your presence?” asked the host.
+
+“By no means,” replied Chichikov. “Pray do whatsoever you please in that
+respect.”
+
+Upon that the General fell to scrubbing himself--incidentally, to
+sending soapsuds flying in every direction. Meanwhile he seemed so
+favourably disposed that Chichikov decided to sound him then and there,
+more especially since the butler had left the room.
+
+“May I put to you a problem?” he asked.
+
+“Certainly,” replied the General. “What is it?”
+
+“It is this, your Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns three
+hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property. Also,
+except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although his
+infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his property in
+person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the reason for his
+conduct--his very strange conduct--he states as follows: ‘I do not know
+my nephew, and very likely he is a spendthrift. If he wishes to show me
+that he is good for anything, let him go and acquire as many souls as
+_I_ have acquired; and when he has done that I will transfer to him my
+three hundred souls as well.”
+
+“The man must be an absolute fool,” commented the General.
+
+“Possibly. And were that all, things would not be as bad as they are.
+But, unfortunately, my uncle has gone and taken up with his housekeeper,
+and has had children by her. Consequently, everything will now pass to
+THEM.”
+
+“The old man must have taken leave of his senses,” remarked the General.
+“Yet how _I_ can help you I fail to see.”
+
+“Well, I have thought of a plan. If you will hand me over all the dead
+souls on your estate--hand them over to me exactly as though they were
+still alive, and were purchasable property--I will offer them to the old
+man, and then he will leave me his fortune.”
+
+At this point the General burst into a roar of laughter such as few can
+ever have heard. Half-dressed, he subsided into a chair, threw back his
+head, and guffawed until he came near to choking. In fact, the house
+shook with his merriment, so much so that the butler and his daughter
+came running into the room in alarm.
+
+It was long before he could produce a single articulate word; and
+even when he did so (to reassure his daughter and the butler) he kept
+momentarily relapsing into spluttering chuckles which made the house
+ring and ring again.
+
+Chichikov was greatly taken aback.
+
+“Oh, that uncle!” bellowed the General in paroxysms of mirth. “Oh, that
+blessed uncle! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha! Dead souls offered
+him instead of live ones! Oh, my goodness!”
+
+“I suppose I’ve put my foot in it again,” ruefully reflected Chichikov.
+“But, good Lord, what a man the fellow is to laugh! Heaven send that he
+doesn’t burst of it!”
+
+“Ha, ha, ha!” broke out the General afresh. “WHAT a donkey the old man
+must be! To think of his saying to you: ‘You go and fit yourself out
+with three hundred souls, and I’ll cap them with my own lot’! My word!
+What a jackass!”
+
+“A jackass, your Excellency?”
+
+“Yes, indeed! And to think of the jest of putting him off with dead
+souls! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT wouldn’t I give to see you handing him the title
+deeds? Who is he? What is he like? Is he very old?”
+
+“He is eighty, your Excellency.”
+
+“But still brisk and able to move about, eh? Surely he must be pretty
+strong to go on living with his housekeeper like that?”
+
+“Yes. But what does such strength mean? Sand runs away, your
+Excellency.”
+
+“The old fool! But is he really such a fool?”
+
+“Yes, your Excellency.”
+
+“And does he go out at all? Does he see company? Can he still hold
+himself upright?”
+
+“Yes, but with great difficulty.”
+
+“And has he any teeth left?”
+
+“No more than two at the most.”
+
+“The old jackass! Don’t be angry with me, but I must say that, though
+your uncle, he is also a jackass.”
+
+“Quite so, your Excellency. And though it grieves ME to have to confess
+that he is my uncle, what am I to do with him?”
+
+Yet this was not altogether the truth. What would have been a far harder
+thing for Chichikov to have confessed was the fact that he possessed no
+uncles at all.
+
+“I beg of you, your Excellency,” he went on, “to hand me over those,
+those--”
+
+“Those dead souls, eh? Why, in return for the jest I will give you some
+land as well. Yes, you can take the whole graveyard if you like. Ha, ha,
+ha! The old man! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha!”
+
+And once more the General’s guffaws went ringing through the house.
+
+
+       [At this point there is a long hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+“If Colonel Koshkarev should turn out to be as mad as the last one it
+is a bad look-out,” said Chichikov to himself on opening his eyes amid
+fields and open country--everything else having disappeared save the
+vault of heaven and a couple of low-lying clouds.
+
+“Selifan,” he went on, “did you ask how to get to Colonel Koshkarev’s?”
+
+“Yes, Paul Ivanovitch. At least, there was such a clatter around the
+koliaska that I could not; but Petrushka asked the coachman.”
+
+“You fool! How often have I told you not to rely on Petrushka? Petrushka
+is a blockhead, an idiot. Besides, at the present moment I believe him
+to be drunk.”
+
+“No, you are wrong, barin,” put in the person referred to, turning his
+head with a sidelong glance. “After we get down the next hill we shall
+need but to keep bending round it. That is all.”
+
+“Yes, and I suppose you’ll tell me that sivnkha is the only thing that
+has passed your lips? Well, the view at least is beautiful. In fact,
+when one has seen this place one may say that one has seen one of
+the beauty spots of Europe.” This said, Chichikov added to himself,
+smoothing his chin: “What a difference between the features of a
+civilised man of the world and those of a common lacquey!”
+
+Meanwhile the koliaska quickened its pace, and Chichikov once more
+caught sight of Tientietnikov’s aspen-studded meadows. Undulating gently
+on elastic springs, the vehicle cautiously descended the steep incline,
+and then proceeded past water-mills, rumbled over a bridge or two, and
+jolted easily along the rough-set road which traversed the flats. Not a
+molehill, not a mound jarred the spine. The vehicle was comfort itself.
+
+Swiftly there flew by clumps of osiers, slender elder trees, and
+silver-leaved poplars, their branches brushing against Selifan and
+Petrushka, and at intervals depriving the valet of his cap. Each time
+that this happened, the sullen-faced servitor fell to cursing both the
+tree responsible for the occurrence and the landowner responsible for
+the tree being in existence; yet nothing would induce him thereafter
+either to tie on the cap or to steady it with his hand, so complete was
+his assurance that the accident would never be repeated. Soon to the
+foregoing trees there became added an occasional birch or spruce fir,
+while in the dense undergrowth around their roots could be seen the blue
+iris and the yellow wood-tulip. Gradually the forest grew darker, as
+though eventually the obscurity would become complete. Then through
+the trunks and the boughs there began to gleam points of light like
+glittering mirrors, and as the number of trees lessened, these points
+grew larger, until the travellers debouched upon the shore of a lake
+four versts or so in circumference, and having on its further margin
+the grey, scattered log huts of a peasant village. In the water a great
+commotion was in progress. In the first place, some twenty men, immersed
+to the knee, to the breast, or to the neck, were dragging a large
+fishing-net inshore, while, in the second place, there was entangled in
+the same, in addition to some fish, a stout man shaped precisely like a
+melon or a hogshead. Greatly excited, he was shouting at the top of his
+voice: “Let Kosma manage it, you lout of a Denis! Kosma, take the end
+of the rope from Denis! Don’t bear so hard on it, Thoma Bolshoy [41]! Go
+where Thoma Menshov [42] is! Damn it, bring the net to land, will you!”
+ From this it became clear that it was not on his own account that the
+stout man was worrying. Indeed, he had no need to do so, since his fat
+would in any case have prevented him from sinking. Yes, even if he
+had turned head over heels in an effort to dive, the water would
+persistently have borne him up; and the same if, say, a couple of men
+had jumped on his back--the only result would have been that he would
+have become a trifle deeper submerged, and forced to draw breath by
+spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the cause of his agitation was
+lest the net should break, and the fish escape: wherefore he was urging
+some additional peasants who were standing on the bank to lay hold of
+and to pull at, an extra rope or two.
+
+“That must be the barin--Colonel Koshkarev,” said Selifan.
+
+“Why?” asked Chichikov.
+
+“Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has
+the respectable paunch of a gentleman.”
+
+Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the barin;
+until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright position,
+and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with Chichikov
+seated therein, descending the declivity.
+
+“Have you dined yet?” shouted the barin as, still entangled in the net,
+he approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one hand
+shading his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he
+looked, in point of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her bath.
+
+“No,” replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of
+bows.
+
+“Then thank God for that,” rejoined the gentleman.
+
+“Why?” asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his
+cap over his head.
+
+“Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that
+sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma.”
+
+With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a
+veritable monster of a fish.
+
+“Isn’t it a beauty--a sturgeon fresh run from the river?” exclaimed the
+stout barin. “And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take the
+lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma Bolshoy,
+and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house, and I myself
+shall be along presently.”
+
+Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt,
+ran ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had
+hanging in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every
+inhabitant of the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a
+large vegetable enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a square
+near a wooden church, with, showing beyond the latter, the roofs of the
+manorial homestead.
+
+“A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!” said Chichikov to himself.
+
+“Well, whatever I may be, at least I’m here,” said a voice by his side.
+Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile, the barin
+had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair of yellow
+trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck was as
+guiltless of a collar as Cupid’s. Also, as he sat sideways in his
+drozhki, his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle.
+Chichikov was about to make some remark or another when the stout
+gentleman disappeared; and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view at
+the spot where the fish had been drawn to land, and his voice could be
+heard reiterating exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov reached
+the verandah of the house he found, to his intense surprise, the stout
+gentleman waiting to welcome the visitor. How he had contrived to
+convey himself thither passed Chichikov’s comprehension. Host and guest
+embraced three times, according to a bygone custom of Russia. Evidently
+the barin was one of the old school.
+
+“I bring you,” said Chichikov, “a greeting from his Excellency.”
+
+“From whom?”
+
+“From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch.”
+
+“Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?”
+
+“What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?”
+ exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.
+
+“No, I do not,” replied the gentleman.
+
+Chichikov’s surprise grew to absolute astonishment.
+
+“How comes that about?” he ejaculated. “I hope that I have the honour of
+addressing Colonel Koshkarev?”
+
+“Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have come;
+and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh--yes, Peter Petrovitch Pietukh.”
+
+Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.
+
+“What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “I told you to drive to the house
+of Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter
+Petrovitch Pietukh.”
+
+“All the same, your fellows have done quite right,” put in the gentleman
+referred to. “Do you” (this to Selifan and Petrushka) “go to the
+kitchen, where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then put
+up the horses, and be off to the servants’ quarters.”
+
+“I regret the mistake extremely,” said Chichikov.
+
+“But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have in
+store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I beg of
+you.” And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him within,
+where they were met by a couple of youths.
+
+“Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the
+Gymnasium [43],” said Pietukh. “Nikolasha, come and entertain our
+good visitor, while you, Aleksasha, follow me.” And with that the host
+disappeared.
+
+Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
+town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no
+good was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he and
+his brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the provinces
+not being worth living in.
+
+“I quite understand,” Chichikov thought to himself. “The end of the
+chapter will be confectioners’ assistants and the boulevards.”
+
+“Tell me,” he added aloud, “how does your father’s property at present
+stand?”
+
+“It is all mortgaged,” put in the father himself as he re-entered the
+room. “Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it.”
+
+“What a pity!” thought Chichikov. “At this rate it will not be long
+before this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my departure.”
+ Aloud he said with an air of sympathy: “That you have mortgaged the
+estate seems to me a matter of regret.”
+
+“No, not at all,” replied Pietukh. “In fact, they tell me that it is a
+good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I act
+differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of living
+here, and should like to try Moscow--more especially since my sons are
+always begging me to give them a metropolitan education.”
+
+“Oh, the fool, the fool!” reflected Chichikov. “He is for throwing
+up everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice
+property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and
+that the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon as
+ever these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres, the
+devil will away with every stick of their substance. For my own part, I
+could desire nothing better than this quiet life in the country.”
+
+“Let me guess what is in your mind,” said Pietukh.
+
+“What, then?” asked Chichikov, rather taken aback.
+
+“You are thinking to yourself: ‘That fool of a Pietukh has asked me to
+dinner, yet not a bite of dinner do I see.’ But wait a little. It will
+be ready presently, for it is being cooked as fast as a maiden who has
+had her hair cut off plaits herself a new set of tresses.”
+
+“Here comes Platon Mikhalitch, father!” exclaimed Aleksasha, who had
+been peeping out of the window.
+
+“Yes, and on a grey horse,” added his brother.
+
+“Who is Platon Mikhalitch?” inquired Chichikov.
+
+“A neighbour of ours, and an excellent fellow.”
+
+The next moment Platon Mikhalitch himself entered the room, accompanied
+by a sporting dog named Yarb. He was a tall, handsome man, with
+extremely red hair. As for his companion, it was of the keen-muzzled
+species used for shooting.
+
+“Have you dined yet?” asked the host.
+
+“Yes,” replied Platon.
+
+“Indeed? What do you mean by coming here to laugh at us all? Do I ever
+go to YOUR place after dinner?”
+
+The newcomer smiled. “Well, if it can bring you any comfort,” he said,
+“let me tell you that I ate nothing at the meal, for I had no appetite.”
+
+“But you should see what I have caught--what sort of a sturgeon fate has
+brought my way! Yes, and what crucians and carp!”
+
+“Really it tires one to hear you. How come you always to be so
+cheerful?”
+
+“And how come YOU always to be so gloomy?” retorted the host.
+
+“How, you ask? Simply because I am so.”
+
+“The truth is you don’t eat enough. Try the plan of making a good
+dinner. Weariness of everything is a modern invention. Once upon a time
+one never heard of it.”
+
+“Well, boast away, but have you yourself never been tired of things?”
+
+“Never in my life. I do not so much as know whether I should find time
+to be tired. In the morning, when one awakes, the cook is waiting, and
+the dinner has to be ordered. Then one drinks one’s morning tea, and
+then the bailiff arrives for HIS orders, and then there is fishing to be
+done, and then one’s dinner has to be eaten. Next, before one has even
+had a chance to utter a snore, there enters once again the cook, and one
+has to order supper; and when she has departed, behold, back she comes
+with a request for the following day’s dinner! What time does THAT leave
+one to be weary of things?”
+
+Throughout this conversation, Chichikov had been taking stock of
+the newcomer, who astonished him with his good looks, his upright,
+picturesque figure, his appearance of fresh, unwasted youthfulness,
+and the boyish purity, innocence, and clarity of his features. Neither
+passion nor care nor aught of the nature of agitation or anxiety of mind
+had ventured to touch his unsullied face, or to lay a single wrinkle
+thereon. Yet the touch of life which those emotions might have imparted
+was wanting. The face was, as it were, dreaming, even though from time
+to time an ironical smile disturbed it.
+
+“I, too, cannot understand,” remarked Chichikov, “how a man of your
+appearance can find things wearisome. Of course, if a man is hard
+pressed for money, or if he has enemies who are lying in wait for his
+life (as have certain folk of whom I know), well, then--”
+
+“Believe me when I say,” interrupted the handsome guest, “that, for the
+sake of a diversion, I should be glad of ANY sort of an anxiety. Would
+that some enemy would conceive a grudge against me! But no one does so.
+Everything remains eternally dull.”
+
+“But perhaps you lack a sufficiency of land or souls?”
+
+“Not at all. I and my brother own ten thousand desiatins [44] of land,
+and over a thousand souls.”
+
+“Curious! I do not understand it. But perhaps the harvest has failed,
+or you have sickness about, and many of your male peasants have died of
+it?”
+
+“On the contrary, everything is in splendid order, for my brother is the
+best of managers.”
+
+“Then to find things wearisome!” exclaimed Chichikov. “It passes my
+comprehension.” And he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Well, we will soon put weariness to flight,” interrupted the host.
+“Aleksasha, do you run helter-skelter to the kitchen, and there tell
+the cook to serve the fish pasties. Yes, and where have that gawk of an
+Emelian and that thief of an Antoshka got to? Why have they not handed
+round the zakuski?”
+
+At this moment the door opened, and the “gawk” and the “thief” in
+question made their appearance with napkins and a tray--the latter
+bearing six decanters of variously-coloured beverages. These they placed
+upon the table, and then ringed them about with glasses and platefuls
+of every conceivable kind of appetiser. That done, the servants applied
+themselves to bringing in various comestibles under covers, through
+which could be heard the hissing of hot roast viands. In particular
+did the “gawk” and the “thief” work hard at their tasks. As a matter
+of fact, their appellations had been given them merely to spur them to
+greater activity, for, in general, the barin was no lover of abuse, but,
+rather, a kind-hearted man who, like most Russians, could not get on
+without a sharp word or two. That is to say, he needed them for his
+tongue as he need a glass of vodka for his digestion. What else could
+you expect? It was his nature to care for nothing mild.
+
+To the zakuski succeeded the meal itself, and the host became a perfect
+glutton on his guests’ behalf. Should he notice that a guest had taken
+but a single piece of a comestible, he added thereto another one,
+saying: “Without a mate, neither man nor bird can live in this world.”
+ Should any one take two pieces, he added thereto a third, saying: “What
+is the good of the number 2? God loves a trinity.” Should any one
+take three pieces, he would say: “Where do you see a waggon with three
+wheels? Who builds a three-cornered hut?” Lastly, should any one take
+four pieces, he would cap them with a fifth, and add thereto the punning
+quip, “Na piat opiat [45]”. After devouring at least twelve steaks
+of sturgeon, Chichikov ventured to think to himself, “My host cannot
+possibly add to THEM,” but found that he was mistaken, for, without a
+word, Pietukh heaped upon his plate an enormous portion of spit-roasted
+veal, and also some kidneys. And what veal it was!
+
+“That calf was fed two years on milk,” he explained. “I cared for it
+like my own son.”
+
+“Nevertheless I can eat no more,” said Chichikov.
+
+“Do you try the veal before you say that you can eat no more.”
+
+“But I could not get it down my throat. There is no room left.”
+
+“If there be no room in a church for a newcomer, the beadle is sent for,
+and room is very soon made--yes, even though before there was such a
+crush that an apple couldn’t have been dropped between the people. Do
+you try the veal, I say. That piece is the titbit of all.”
+
+So Chichikov made the attempt; and in very truth the veal was beyond all
+praise, and room was found for it, even though one would have supposed
+the feat impossible.
+
+“Fancy this good fellow removing to St. Petersburg or Moscow!” said the
+guest to himself. “Why, with a scale of living like this, he would be
+ruined in three years.” For that matter, Pietukh might well have been
+ruined already, for hospitality can dissipate a fortune in three months
+as easily as it can in three years.
+
+The host also dispensed the wine with a lavish hand, and what the guests
+did not drink he gave to his sons, who thus swallowed glass after glass.
+Indeed, even before coming to table, it was possible to discern to what
+department of human accomplishment their bent was turned. When the meal
+was over, however, the guests had no mind for further drinking. Indeed,
+it was all that they could do to drag themselves on to the balcony,
+and there to relapse into easy chairs. Indeed, the moment that the host
+subsided into his seat--it was large enough for four--he fell asleep,
+and his portly presence, converting itself into a sort of blacksmith’s
+bellows, started to vent, through open mouth and distended nostrils,
+such sounds as can have greeted the reader’s ear but seldom--sounds as
+of a drum being beaten in combination with the whistling of a flute and
+the strident howling of a dog.
+
+“Listen to him!” said Platon.
+
+Chichikov smiled.
+
+“Naturally, on such dinners as that,” continued the other, “our host
+does NOT find the time dull. And as soon as dinner is ended there can
+ensue sleep.”
+
+“Yes, but, pardon me, I still fail to understand why you should find
+life wearisome. There are so many resources against ennui!”
+
+“As for instance?”
+
+“For a young man, dancing, the playing of one or another musical
+instrument, and--well, yes, marriage.”
+
+“Marriage to whom?”
+
+“To some maiden who is both charming and rich. Are there none in these
+parts?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then, were I you, I should travel, and seek a maiden elsewhere.” And a
+brilliant idea therewith entered Chichikov’s head. “This last resource,”
+ he added, “is the best of all resources against ennui.”
+
+“What resource are you speaking of?”
+
+“Of travel.”
+
+“But whither?”
+
+“Well, should it so please you, you might join me as my companion.” This
+said, the speaker added to himself as he eyed Platon: “Yes, that would
+suit me exactly, for then I should have half my expenses paid, and could
+charge him also with the cost of mending the koliaska.”
+
+“And whither should we go?”
+
+“In that respect I am not wholly my own master, as I have business to do
+for others as well as for myself. For instance, General Betristchev--an
+intimate friend and, I might add, a generous benefactor of mine--has
+charged me with commissions to certain of his relatives. However, though
+relatives are relatives, I am travelling likewise on my own account,
+since I wish to see the world and the whirligig of humanity--which, in
+spite of what people may say, is as good as a living book or a second
+education.” As a matter of fact, Chichikov was reflecting, “Yes, the
+plan is an excellent one. I might even contrive that he should have to
+bear the whole of our expenses, and that his horses should be used while
+my own should be put out to graze on his farm.”
+
+“Well, why should I not adopt the suggestion?” was Platon’s thought.
+“There is nothing for me to do at home, since the management of the
+estate is in my brother’s hands, and my going would cause him no
+inconvenience. Yes, why should I not do as Chichikov has suggested?”
+
+Then he added aloud:
+
+“Would you come and stay with my brother for a couple of days? Otherwise
+he might refuse me his consent.”
+
+“With great pleasure,” said Chichikov. “Or even for three days.”
+
+“Then here is my hand on it. Let us be off at once.” Platon seemed
+suddenly to have come to life again.
+
+“Where are you off to?” put in their host unexpectedly as he roused
+himself and stared in astonishment at the pair. “No, no, my good sirs. I
+have had the wheels removed from your koliaska, Monsieur Chichikov, and
+have sent your horse, Platon Mikhalitch, to a grazing ground fifteen
+versts away. Consequently you must spend the night here, and depart
+to-morrow morning after breakfast.”
+
+What could be done with a man like Pietukh? There was no help for it but
+to remain. In return, the guests were rewarded with a beautiful spring
+evening, for, to spend the time, the host organised a boating expedition
+on the river, and a dozen rowers, with a dozen pairs of oars, conveyed
+the party (to the accompaniment of song) across the smooth surface of
+the lake and up a great river with towering banks. From time to time the
+boat would pass under ropes, stretched across for purposes of fishing,
+and at each turn of the rippling current new vistas unfolded themselves
+as tier upon tier of woodland delighted the eye with a diversity of
+timber and foliage. In unison did the rowers ply their sculls, yet it
+was though of itself that the skiff shot forward, bird-like, over the
+glassy surface of the water; while at intervals the broad-shouldered
+young oarsman who was seated third from the bow would raise, as from
+a nightingale’s throat, the opening staves of a boat song, and then be
+joined by five or six more, until the melody had come to pour forth in a
+volume as free and boundless as Russia herself. And Pietukh, too, would
+give himself a shake, and help lustily to support the chorus; and even
+Chichikov felt acutely conscious of the fact that he was a Russian. Only
+Platon reflected: “What is there so splendid in these melancholy songs?
+They do but increase one’s depression of spirits.”
+
+The journey homeward was made in the gathering dusk. Rhythmically the
+oars smote a surface which no longer reflected the sky, and darkness had
+fallen when they reached the shore, along which lights were twinkling
+where the fisherfolk were boiling live eels for soup. Everything had now
+wended its way homeward for the night; the cattle and poultry had
+been housed, and the herdsmen, standing at the gates of the village
+cattle-pens, amid the trailing dust lately raised by their charges,
+were awaiting the milk-pails and a summons to partake of the eel-broth.
+Through the dusk came the hum of humankind, and the barking of dogs in
+other and more distant villages; while, over all, the moon was rising,
+and the darkened countryside was beginning to glimmer to light again
+under her beams. What a glorious picture! Yet no one thought of admiring
+it. Instead of galloping over the countryside on frisky cobs,
+Nikolasha and Aleksasha were engaged in dreaming of Moscow, with its
+confectioners’ shops and the theatres of which a cadet, newly arrived on
+a visit from the capital, had just been telling them; while their father
+had his mind full of how best to stuff his guests with yet more food,
+and Platon was given up to yawning. Only in Chichikov was a spice of
+animation visible. “Yes,” he reflected, “some day I, too, will become
+lord of such a country place.” And before his mind’s eye there arose
+also a helpmeet and some little Chichikovs.
+
+By the time that supper was finished the party had again over-eaten
+themselves, and when Chichikov entered the room allotted him for the
+night, he lay down upon the bed, and prodded his stomach. “It is as
+tight as a drum,” he said to himself. “Not another titbit of veal could
+now get into it.” Also, circumstances had so brought it about that
+next door to him there was situated his host’s apartment; and since the
+intervening wall was thin, Chichikov could hear every word that was
+said there. At the present moment the master of the house was engaged in
+giving the cook orders for what, under the guise of an early breakfast,
+promised to constitute a veritable dinner. You should have heard
+Pietukh’s behests! They would have excited the appetite of a corpse.
+
+“Yes,” he said, sucking his lips, and drawing a deep breath, “in the
+first place, make a pasty in four divisions. Into one of the divisions
+put the sturgeon’s cheeks and some viaziga [46], and into another
+division some buckwheat porridge, young mushrooms and onions,
+sweet milk, calves’ brains, and anything else that you may find
+suitable--anything else that you may have got handy. Also, bake the
+pastry to a nice brown on one side, and but lightly on the other. Yes,
+and, as to the under side, bake it so that it will be all juicy and
+flaky, so that it shall not crumble into bits, but melt in the mouth
+like the softest snow that ever you heard of.” And as he said this
+Pietukh fairly smacked his lips.
+
+“The devil take him!” muttered Chichikov, thrusting his head beneath the
+bedclothes to avoid hearing more. “The fellow won’t give one a chance to
+sleep.”
+
+Nevertheless he heard through the blankets:
+
+“And garnish the sturgeon with beetroot, smelts, peppered mushrooms,
+young radishes, carrots, beans, and anything else you like, so as to
+have plenty of trimmings. Yes, and put a lump of ice into the pig’s
+bladder, so as to swell it up.”
+
+Many other dishes did Pietukh order, and nothing was to be heard but
+his talk of boiling, roasting, and stewing. Finally, just as mention was
+being made of a turkey cock, Chichikov fell asleep.
+
+Next morning the guest’s state of repletion had reached the point
+of Platon being unable to mount his horse; wherefore the latter was
+dispatched homeward with one of Pietukh’s grooms, and the two guests
+entered Chichikov’s koliaska. Even the dog trotted lazily in the rear;
+for he, too, had over-eaten himself.
+
+“It has been rather too much of a good thing,” remarked Chichikov as the
+vehicle issued from the courtyard.
+
+“Yes, and it vexes me to see the fellow never tire of it,” replied
+Platon.
+
+“Ah,” thought Chichikov to himself, “if _I_ had an income of seventy
+thousand roubles, as you have, I’d very soon give tiredness one in
+the eye! Take Murazov, the tax-farmer--he, again, must be worth ten
+millions. What a fortune!”
+
+“Do you mind where we drive?” asked Platon. “I should like first to go
+and take leave of my sister and my brother-in-law.”
+
+“With pleasure,” said Chichikov.
+
+“My brother-in-law is the leading landowner hereabouts. At the present
+moment he is drawing an income of two hundred thousand roubles from a
+property which, eight years ago, was producing a bare twenty thousand.”
+
+“Truly a man worthy of the utmost respect! I shall be most interested to
+make his acquaintance. To think of it! And what may his family name be?”
+
+“Kostanzhoglo.”
+
+“And his Christian name and patronymic?”
+
+“Constantine Thedorovitch.”
+
+“Constantine Thedorovitch Kostanzhoglo. Yes, it will be a most
+interesting event to make his acquaintance. To know such a man must be a
+whole education.”
+
+Here Platon set himself to give Selifan some directions as to the way,
+a necessary proceeding in view of the fact that Selifan could hardly
+maintain his seat on the box. Twice Petrushka, too, had fallen headlong,
+and this necessitated being tied to his perch with a piece of rope.
+“What a clown!” had been Chichikov’s only comment.
+
+“This is where my brother-in-law’s land begins,” said Platon.
+
+“They give one a change of view.”
+
+And, indeed, from this point the countryside became planted with timber;
+the rows of trees running as straight as pistol-shots, and having beyond
+them, and on higher ground, a second expanse of forest, newly planted
+like the first; while beyond it, again, loomed a third plantation of
+older trees. Next there succeeded a flat piece of the same nature.
+
+“All this timber,” said Platon, “has grown up within eight or ten years
+at the most; whereas on another man’s land it would have taken twenty to
+attain the same growth.”
+
+“And how has your brother-in-law effected this?”
+
+“You must ask him yourself. He is so excellent a husbandman that nothing
+ever fails with him. You see, he knows the soil, and also knows what
+ought to be planted beside what, and what kinds of timber are the best
+neighbourhood for grain. Again, everything on his estate is made to
+perform at least three or four different functions. For instance, he
+makes his timber not only serve as timber, but also serve as a provider
+of moisture and shade to a given stretch of land, and then as a
+fertiliser with its fallen leaves. Consequently, when everywhere else
+there is drought, he still has water, and when everywhere else there
+has been a failure of the harvest, on his lands it will have proved a
+success. But it is a pity that I know so little about it all as to be
+unable to explain to you his many expedients. Folk call him a wizard,
+for he produces so much. Nevertheless, personally I find what he does
+uninteresting.”
+
+“Truly an astonishing fellow!” reflected Chichikov with a glance at his
+companion. “It is sad indeed to see a man so superficial as to be unable
+to explain matters of this kind.”
+
+At length the manor appeared in sight--an establishment looking almost
+like a town, so numerous were the huts where they stood arranged in
+three tiers, crowned with three churches, and surrounded with huge ricks
+and barns. “Yes,” thought Chichikov to himself, “one can see what a
+jewel of a landowner lives here.” The huts in question were stoutly
+built and the intervening alleys well laid-out; while, wherever a waggon
+was visible, it looked serviceable and more or less new. Also, the local
+peasants bore an intelligent look on their faces, the cattle were of the
+best possible breed, and even the peasants’ pigs belonged to the porcine
+aristocracy. Clearly there dwelt here peasants who, to quote the
+song, were accustomed to “pick up silver by the shovelful.” Nor were
+Englishified gardens and parterres and other conceits in evidence, but,
+on the contrary, there ran an open view from the manor house to the
+farm buildings and the workmen’s cots, so that, after the old Russian
+fashion, the barin should be able to keep an eye upon all that was going
+on around him. For the same purpose, the mansion was topped with a tall
+lantern and a superstructure--a device designed, not for ornament,
+nor for a vantage-spot for the contemplation of the view, but for
+supervision of the labourers engaged in distant fields. Lastly, the
+brisk, active servants who received the visitors on the verandah were
+very different menials from the drunken Petrushka, even though they did
+not wear swallow-tailed coats, but only Cossack tchekmenu [47] of blue
+homespun cloth.
+
+The lady of the house also issued on to the verandah. With her face of
+the freshness of “blood and milk” and the brightness of God’s daylight,
+she as nearly resembled Platon as one pea resembles another, save that,
+whereas he was languid, she was cheerful and full of talk.
+
+“Good day, brother!” she cried. “How glad I am to see you! Constantine
+is not at home, but will be back presently.”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“Doing business in the village with a party of factors,” replied the
+lady as she conducted her guests to the drawing-room.
+
+With no little curiosity did Chichikov gaze at the interior of the
+mansion inhabited by the man who received an annual income of two
+hundred thousand roubles; for he thought to discern therefrom the nature
+of its proprietor, even as from a shell one may deduce the species of
+oyster or snail which has been its tenant, and has left therein its
+impression. But no such conclusions were to be drawn. The rooms were
+simple, and even bare. Not a fresco nor a picture nor a bronze nor a
+flower nor a china what-not nor a book was there to be seen. In short,
+everything appeared to show that the proprietor of this abode spent the
+greater part of his time, not between four walls, but in the field, and
+that he thought out his plans, not in sybaritic fashion by the fireside,
+nor in an easy chair beside the stove, but on the spot where work was
+actually in progress--that, in a word, where those plans were conceived,
+there they were put into execution. Nor in these rooms could Chichikov
+detect the least trace of a feminine hand, beyond the fact that
+certain tables and chairs bore drying-boards whereon were arranged some
+sprinklings of flower petals.
+
+“What is all this rubbish for?” asked Platon.
+
+“It is not rubbish,” replied the lady of the house. “On the contrary, it
+is the best possible remedy for fever. Last year we cured every one of
+our sick peasants with it. Some of the petals I am going to make into an
+ointment, and some into an infusion. You may laugh as much as you like
+at my potting and preserving, yet you yourself will be glad of things of
+the kind when you set out on your travels.”
+
+Platon moved to the piano, and began to pick out a note or two.
+
+“Good Lord, what an ancient instrument!” he exclaimed. “Are you not
+ashamed of it, sister?”
+
+“Well, the truth is that I get no time to practice my music. You see,”
+ she added to Chichikov, “I have an eight-year-old daughter to educate;
+and to hand her over to a foreign governess in order that I may have
+leisure for my own piano-playing--well, that is a thing which I could
+never bring myself to do.”
+
+“You have become a wearisome sort of person,” commented Platon, and
+walked away to the window. “Ah, here comes Constantine,” presently he
+added.
+
+Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the
+verandah a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad in
+a rough cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of those
+who care little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded, there
+came a couple of men of a somewhat lower station in life, and all
+three were engaged in an animated discussion. One of the barin’s two
+companions was a plain peasant, and the other (clad in a blue Siberian
+smock) a travelling factor. The fact that the party halted awhile by
+the entrance steps made it possible to overhear a portion of their
+conversation from within.
+
+“This is what you peasants had better do,” the barin was saying.
+“Purchase your release from your present master. I will lend you the
+necessary money, and afterwards you can work for me.”
+
+“No, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the peasant. “Why should we do
+that? Remove us just as we are. You will know how to arrange it, for a
+cleverer gentleman than you is nowhere to be found. The misfortune of us
+muzhiks is that we cannot protect ourselves properly. The tavern-keepers
+sell us such liquor that, before a man knows where he is, a glassful of
+it has eaten a hole through his stomach, and made him feel as though
+he could drink a pail of water. Yes, it knocks a man over before he can
+look around. Everywhere temptation lies in wait for the peasant, and he
+needs to be cunning if he is to get through the world at all. In fact,
+things seem to be contrived for nothing but to make us peasants lose
+our wits, even to the tobacco which they sell us. What are folk like
+ourselves to do, Constantine Thedorovitch? I tell you it is terribly
+difficult for a muzhik to look after himself.”
+
+“Listen to me. This is how things are done here. When I take on a serf,
+I fit him out with a cow and a horse. On the other hand, I demand of him
+thereafter more than is demanded of a peasant anywhere else. That is to
+say, first and foremost I make him work. Whether a peasant be working
+for himself or for me, never do I let him waste time. I myself toil like
+a bullock, and I force my peasants to do the same, for experience
+has taught me that that is the only way to get through life. All the
+mischief in the world comes through lack of employment. Now, do you go
+and consider the matter, and talk it over with your mir [48].”
+
+“We have done that already, Constantine Thedorovitch, and our elders’
+opinion is: ‘There is no need for further talk. Every peasant belonging
+to Constantine Thedorovitch is well off, and hasn’t to work for nothing.
+The priests of his village, too, are men of good heart, whereas ours
+have been taken away, and there is no one to bury us.’”
+
+“Nevertheless, do you go and talk the matter over again.”
+
+“We will, barin.”
+
+Here the factor who had been walking on the barin’s other side put in a
+word.
+
+“Constantine Thedorovitch,” he said, “I beg of you to do as I have
+requested.”
+
+“I have told you before,” replied the barin, “that I do not care to play
+the huckster. I am not one of those landowners whom fellows of your sort
+visit on the very day that the interest on a mortgage is due. Ah, I know
+your fraternity thoroughly, and know that you keep lists of all who have
+mortgages to repay. But what is there so clever about that? Any man,
+if you pinch him sufficiently, will surrender you a mortgage at
+half-price,--any man, that is to say, except myself, who care nothing
+for your money. Were a loan of mine to remain out three years, I should
+never demand a kopeck of interest on it.”
+
+“Quite so, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the factor. “But I am
+asking this of you more for the purpose of establishing us on a business
+footing than because I desire to win your favour. Prey, therefore,
+accept this earnest money of three thousand roubles.” And the man drew
+from his breast pocket a dirty roll of bank-notes, which, carelessly
+receiving, Kostanzhoglo thrust, uncounted, into the back pocket of his
+overcoat.
+
+“Hm!” thought Chichikov. “For all he cares, the notes might have been a
+handkerchief.”
+
+When Kostanzhoglo appeared at closer quarters--that is to say, in the
+doorway of the drawing-room--he struck Chichikov more than ever with the
+swarthiness of his complexion, the dishevelment of his black, slightly
+grizzled locks, the alertness of his eye, and the impression of fiery
+southern origin which his whole personality diffused. For he was not
+wholly a Russian, nor could he himself say precisely who his forefathers
+had been. Yet, inasmuch as he accounted genealogical research no part of
+the science of estate-management, but a mere superfluity, he looked upon
+himself as, to all intents and purposes, a native of Russia, and the
+more so since the Russian language was the only tongue he knew.
+
+Platon presented Chichikov, and the pair exchanged greetings.
+
+“To get rid of my depression, Constantine,” continued Platon, “I am
+thinking of accompanying our guest on a tour through a few of the
+provinces.”
+
+“An excellent idea,” said Kostanzhoglo. “But precisely whither?” he
+added, turning hospitably to Chichikov.
+
+“To tell you the truth,” replied that personage with an affable
+inclination of the head as he smoothed the arm of his chair with his
+hand, “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and,
+I might add, a generous benefactor, of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are
+relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in
+that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the
+world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, so to speak, a
+living book, a second course of education.”
+
+“Yes, there is no harm in looking at other corners of the world besides
+one’s own.”
+
+“You speak truly. There IS no harm in such a proceeding. Thereby one may
+see things which one has not before encountered, one may meet men with
+whom one has not before come in contact. And with some men of that kind
+a conversation is as precious a benefit as has been conferred upon me
+by the present occasion. I come to you, most worthy Constantine
+Thedorovitch, for instruction, and again for instruction, and beg of you
+to assuage my thirst with an exposition of the truth as it is. I hunger
+for the favour of your words as for manna.”
+
+“But how so? What can _I_ teach you?” exclaimed Kostanzhoglo in
+confusion. “I myself was given but the plainest of educations.”
+
+“Nay, most worthy sir, you possess wisdom, and again wisdom. Wisdom only
+can direct the management of a great estate, that can derive a
+sound income from the same, that can acquire wealth of a real, not a
+fictitious, order while also fulfilling the duties of a citizen and
+thereby earning the respect of the Russian public. All this I pray you
+to teach me.”
+
+“I tell you what,” said Kostanzhoglo, looking meditatively at his guest.
+“You had better stay with me for a few days, and during that time I can
+show you how things are managed here, and explain to you everything.
+Then you will see for yourself that no great wisdom is required for the
+purpose.”
+
+“Yes, certainly you must stay here,” put in the lady of the house. Then,
+turning to her brother, she added: “And you too must stay. Why should
+you be in such a hurry?”
+
+“Very well,” he replied. “But what say YOU, Paul Ivanovitch?”
+
+“I say the same as you, and with much pleasure,” replied Chichikov.
+“But also I ought to tell you this: that there is a relative of General
+Betristchev’s, a certain Colonel Koshkarev--”
+
+“Yes, we know him; but he is quite mad.”
+
+“As you say, he is mad, and I should not have been intending to visit
+him, were it not that General Betristchev is an intimate friend of mine,
+as well as, I might add, my most generous benefactor.”
+
+“Then,” said Kostanzhoglo, “do you go and see Colonel Koshkarev NOW.
+He lives less than ten versts from here, and I have a gig already
+harnessed. Go to him at once, and return here for tea.”
+
+“An excellent idea!” cried Chichikov, and with that he seized his cap.
+
+Half an hour’s drive sufficed to bring him to the Colonel’s
+establishment. The village attached to the manor was in a state of utter
+confusion, since in every direction building and repairing operations
+were in progress, and the alleys were choked with heaps of lime, bricks,
+and beams of wood. Also, some of the huts were arranged to resemble
+offices, and superscribed in gilt letters “Depot for Agricultural
+Implements,” “Chief Office of Accounts,” “Estate Works Committee,”
+ “Normal School for the Education of Colonists,” and so forth.
+
+Chichikov found the Colonel posted behind a desk and holding a pen
+between his teeth. Without an instant’s delay the master of the
+establishment--who seemed a kindly, approachable man, and accorded to
+his visitor a very civil welcome--plunged into a recital of the labour
+which it had cost him to bring the property to its present condition of
+affluence. Then he went on to lament the fact that he could not make
+his peasantry understand the incentives to labour which the riches
+of science and art provide; for instance, he had failed to induce his
+female serfs to wear corsets, whereas in Germany, where he had resided
+for fourteen years, every humble miller’s daughter could play the piano.
+None the less, he said, he meant to peg away until every peasant on
+the estate should, as he walked behind the plough, indulge in a regular
+course of reading Franklin’s Notes on Electricity, Virgil’s Georgics, or
+some work on the chemical properties of soil.
+
+“Good gracious!” mentally exclaimed Chichikov. “Why, I myself have not
+had time to finish that book by the Duchesse de la Valliere!”
+
+Much else the Colonel said. In particular did he aver that, provided
+the Russian peasant could be induced to array himself in German costume,
+science would progress, trade increase, and the Golden Age dawn in
+Russia.
+
+For a while Chichikov listened with distended eyes. Then he felt
+constrained to intimate that with all that he had nothing to do, seeing
+that his business was merely to acquire a few souls, and thereafter to
+have their purchase confirmed.
+
+“If I understand you aright,” said the Colonel, “you wish to present a
+Statement of Plea?”
+
+“Yes, that is so.”
+
+“Then kindly put it into writing, and it shall be forwarded to the
+Office for the Reception of Reports and Returns. Thereafter that Office
+will consider it, and return it to me, who will, in turn, dispatch it to
+the Estate Works Committee, who will, in turn, revise it, and present it
+to the Administrator, who, jointly with the Secretary, will--”
+
+“Pardon me,” expostulated Chichikov, “but that procedure will take up a
+great deal of time. Why need I put the matter into writing at all? It is
+simply this. I want a few souls which are--well, which are, so to speak,
+dead.”
+
+“Very good,” commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your Statement
+of Plea that the souls which you desire are, ‘so to speak, dead.’”
+
+“But what would be the use of my doing so? Though the souls are dead, my
+purpose requires that they should be represented as alive.”
+
+“Very good,” again commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your
+Statement that ‘it is necessary’ (or, should you prefer an alternative
+phrase, ‘it is requested,’ or ‘it is desiderated,’ or ‘it is prayed,’)
+‘that the souls be represented as alive.’ At all events, WITHOUT
+documentary process of that kind, the matter cannot possibly be carried
+through. Also, I will appoint a Commissioner to guide you round the
+various Offices.”
+
+And he sounded a bell; whereupon there presented himself a man whom,
+addressing as “Secretary,” the Colonel instructed to summon the
+“Commissioner.” The latter, on appearing, was seen to have the air, half
+of a peasant, half of an official.
+
+“This man,” the Colonel said to Chichikov, “will act as your escort.”
+
+What could be done with a lunatic like Koshkarev? In the end, curiosity
+moved Chichikov to accompany the Commissioner. The Committee for the
+Reception of Reports and Returns was discovered to have put up its
+shutters, and to have locked its doors, for the reason that the Director
+of the Committee had been transferred to the newly-formed Committee
+of Estate Management, and his successor had been annexed by the same
+Committee. Next, Chichikov and his escort rapped at the doors of the
+Department of Estate Affairs; but that Department’s quarters happened to
+be in a state of repair, and no one could be made to answer the
+summons save a drunken peasant from whom not a word of sense was to be
+extracted. At length the escort felt himself moved to remark:
+
+“There is a deal of foolishness going on here. Fellows like that
+drunkard lead the barin by the nose, and everything is ruled by the
+Committee of Management, which takes men from their proper work, and
+sets them to do any other it likes. Indeed, only through the Committee
+does ANYTHING get done.”
+
+By this time Chichikov felt that he had seen enough; wherefore he
+returned to the Colonel, and informed him that the Office for the
+Reception of Reports and Returns had ceased to exist. At once the
+Colonel flamed to noble rage. Pressing Chichikov’s hand in token of
+gratitude for the information which the guest had furnished, he took
+paper and pen, and noted eight searching questions under three separate
+headings: (1) “Why has the Committee of Management presumed to issue
+orders to officials not under its jurisdiction?” (2) “Why has the Chief
+Manager permitted his predecessor, though still in retention of his
+post, to follow him to another Department?” and (3) “Why has the
+Committee of Estate Affairs suffered the Office for the Reception of
+Reports and Returns to lapse?”
+
+“Now for a row!” thought Chichikov to himself, and turned to depart; but
+his host stopped him, saying:
+
+“I cannot let you go, for, in addition to my honour having become
+involved, it behoves me to show my people how the regular, the
+organised, administration of an estate may be conducted. Herewith I will
+hand over the conduct of your affair to a man who is worth all the rest
+of the staff put together, and has had a university education. Also, the
+better to lose no time, may I humbly beg you to step into my library,
+where you will find notebooks, paper, pens, and everything else that
+you may require. Of these articles pray make full use, for you are
+a gentleman of letters, and it is your and my joint duty to bring
+enlightenment to all.”
+
+So saying, he ushered his guest into a large room lined from floor to
+ceiling with books and stuffed specimens. The books in question
+were divided into sections--a section on forestry, a section on
+cattle-breeding, a section on the raising of swine, and a section on
+horticulture, together with special journals of the type circulated
+merely for the purposes of reference, and not for general reading.
+Perceiving that these works were scarcely of a kind calculated to while
+away an idle hour, Chichikov turned to a second bookcase. But to do so
+was to fall out of the frying-pan into the fire, for the contents of the
+second bookcase proved to be works on philosophy, while, in particular,
+six huge volumes confronted him under a label inscribed “A Preparatory
+Course to the Province of Thought, with the Theory of Community of
+Effort, Co-operation, and Subsistence, in its Application to a Right
+Understanding of the Organic Principles of a Mutual Division of
+Social Productivity.” Indeed, wheresoever Chichikov looked, every page
+presented to his vision some such words as “phenomenon,” “development,”
+ “abstract,” “contents,” and “synopsis.” “This is not the sort of thing
+for me,” he murmured, and turned his attention to a third bookcase,
+which contained books on the Arts. Extracting a huge tome in which some
+by no means reticent mythological illustrations were contained, he set
+himself to examine these pictures. They were of the kind which pleases
+mostly middle-aged bachelors and old men who are accustomed to seek
+in the ballet and similar frivolities a further spur to their waning
+passions. Having concluded his examination, Chichikov had just extracted
+another volume of the same species when Colonel Koshkarev returned with
+a document of some sort and a radiant countenance.
+
+“Everything has been carried through in due form!” he cried. “The man
+whom I mentioned is a genius indeed, and I intend not only to promote
+him over the rest, but also to create for him a special Department.
+Herewith shall you hear what a splendid intellect is his, and how in a
+few minutes he has put the whole affair in order.”
+
+“May the Lord be thanked for that!” thought Chichikov. Then he settled
+himself while the Colonel read aloud:
+
+“‘After giving full consideration to the Reference which your Excellency
+has entrusted to me, I have the honour to report as follows:
+
+“‘(1) In the Statement of Plea presented by one Paul Ivanovitch
+Chichikov, Gentleman, Chevalier, and Collegiate Councillor, there
+lurks an error, in that an oversight has led the Petitioner to apply to
+Revisional Souls the term “Dead.” Now, from the context it would appear
+that by this term the Petitioner desires to signify Souls Approaching
+Death rather than Souls Actually Deceased: wherefore the term employed
+betrays such an empirical instruction in letters as must, beyond doubt,
+have been confined to the Village School, seeing that in truth the Soul
+is Deathless.’
+
+“The rascal!” Koshkarev broke off to exclaim delightedly. “He has
+got you there, Monsieur Chichikov. And you will admit that he has a
+sufficiently incisive pen?
+
+“‘(2) On this Estate there exist no Unmortgaged Souls whatsoever,
+whether Approaching Death or Otherwise; for the reason that all Souls
+thereon have been pledged not only under a First Deed of Mortgage, but
+also (for the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Roubles per Soul) under
+a Second,--the village of Gurmailovka alone excepted, in that,
+in consequence of a Suit having been brought against Landowner
+Priadistchev, and of a caveat having been pronounced by the Land Court,
+and of such caveat having been published in No. 42 of the Gazette of
+Moscow, the said Village has come within the Jurisdiction of the Court
+Above-Mentioned.”
+
+“Why did you not tell me all this before?” cried Chichikov furiously.
+“Why you have kept me dancing about for nothing?”
+
+“Because it was absolutely necessary that you should view the matter
+through forms of documentary process. This is no jest on my part. The
+inexperienced may see things subconsciously, yet it is imperative that
+he should also see them CONSCIOUSLY.”
+
+But to Chichikov’s patience an end had come. Seizing his cap, and
+casting all ceremony to the winds, he fled from the house, and rushed
+through the courtyard. As it happened, the man who had driven him
+thither had, warned by experience, not troubled even to take out the
+horses, since he knew that such a proceeding would have entailed not
+only the presentation of a Statement of Plea for fodder, but also a
+delay of twenty-four hours until the Resolution granting the same should
+have been passed. Nevertheless the Colonel pursued his guest to the
+gates, and pressed his hand warmly as he thanked him for having enabled
+him (the Colonel) thus to exhibit in operation the proper management of
+an estate. Also, he begged to state that, under the circumstances, it
+was absolutely necessary to keep things moving and circulating, since,
+otherwise, slackness was apt to supervene, and the working of the
+machine to grow rusty and feeble; but that, in spite of all, the
+present occasion had inspired him with a happy idea--namely, the idea
+of instituting a Committee which should be entitled “The Committee of
+Supervision of the Committee of Management,” and which should have
+for its function the detection of backsliders among the body first
+mentioned.
+
+It was late when, tired and dissatisfied, Chichikov regained
+Kostanzhoglo’s mansion. Indeed, the candles had long been lit.
+
+“What has delayed you?” asked the master of the house as Chichikov
+entered the drawing-room.
+
+“Yes, what has kept you and the Colonel so long in conversation
+together?” added Platon.
+
+“This--the fact that never in my life have I come across such an
+imbecile,” was Chichikov’s reply.
+
+“Never mind,” said Kostanzhoglo. “Koshkarev is a most reassuring
+phenomenon. He is necessary in that in him we see expressed in
+caricature all the more crying follies of our intellectuals--of the
+intellectuals who, without first troubling to make themselves acquainted
+with their own country, borrow silliness from abroad. Yet that is
+how certain of our landowners are now carrying on. They have set up
+‘offices’ and factories and schools and ‘commissions,’ and the devil
+knows what else besides. A fine lot of wiseacres! After the French War
+in 1812 they had to reconstruct their affairs: and see how they have
+done it! Yet so much worse have they done it than a Frenchman would have
+done that any fool of a Peter Petrovitch Pietukh now ranks as a good
+landowner!”
+
+“But he has mortgaged the whole of his estate?” remarked Chichikov.
+
+“Yes, nowadays everything is being mortgaged, or is going to be.” This
+said, Kostanzhoglo’s temper rose still further. “Out upon your factories
+of hats and candles!” he cried. “Out upon procuring candle-makers
+from London, and then turning landowners into hucksters! To think of
+a Russian pomiestchik [49], a member of the noblest of callings,
+conducting workshops and cotton mills! Why, it is for the wenches of
+towns to handle looms for muslin and lace.”
+
+“But you yourself maintain workshops?” remarked Platon.
+
+“I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
+instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
+began to weave it into cloth--but, mark you, only into good, plain cloth
+of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and which
+is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on end
+did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the river;
+wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I took
+to boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by the
+process.”
+
+“The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself as he stared at his host.
+“What a fist this man has for making money!”
+
+“Another reason why I started those factories,” continued Kostanzhoglo,
+“is that they might give employment to many peasants who would otherwise
+have starved. You see, the year happened to have been a lean one--thanks
+to those same industry-mongering landowners, in that they had neglected
+to sow their crops; and now my factories keep growing at the rate of
+a factory a year, owing to the circumstance that such quantities
+of remnants and cuttings become so accumulated that, if a man looks
+carefully to his management, he will find every sort of rubbish to be
+capable of bringing in a return--yes, to the point of his having to
+reject money on the plea that he has no need of it. Yet I do not find
+that to do all this I require to build a mansion with facades and
+pillars!”
+
+“Marvellous!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Beyond all things does it surprise
+me that refuse can be so utilised.”
+
+“Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays every
+one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an instrument
+instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England. Yes, THAT is
+the thing to do. What folly!” Kostanzhoglo spat and added: “Yet when
+he returns from abroad he is a hundred times more ignorant than when he
+went.”
+
+“Ah, Constantine,” put in his wife anxiously, “you know how bad for you
+it is to talk like this.”
+
+“Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too
+closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character
+should be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort of
+Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man get
+a little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote, and
+establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would never have
+dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who is good for
+nothing, whether in the country or in the town--a fellow who drinks
+and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our landowners keep
+taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into philanthropic
+knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless hospitals and
+institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning their families
+adrift. Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy.”
+
+Chichikov’s business had nothing to do with the spread of enlightenment,
+he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further concerning the
+putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo would not let
+him get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow of sarcastic
+comment pour from the speaker’s lips.
+
+“Yes,” went on Kostanzhoglo, “folk are always scheming to educate the
+peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will
+educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown
+stupid to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our present-day
+scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and at once you
+will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will you find
+folk saying: ‘The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought to be
+familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above his
+station.’ And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant will
+become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only knows
+what diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of eighteen
+who will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and found himself
+left with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate. Yes, that is
+what will come of infecting the peasant with such rubbish. But, thank
+God, there is still one healthy class left to us--a class which has
+never taken up with the ‘advantages’ of which I speak. For that we ought
+to be grateful. And since, even yet, the Russian agriculturist remains
+the most respect-worthy man in the land, why should he be touched? Would
+to God every one were an agriculturist!”
+
+“Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of occupations?”
+ said Chichikov.
+
+“The best, at all events--if not the most profitable. ‘In the sweat
+of thy brow shalt thou till the land.’ To quote that requires no
+great wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the
+agricultural calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure, more
+noble than in any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no other
+calling ought to be practised: simply that the calling in question lies
+at the root of all the rest. However much factories may be established
+privately or by the law, there will still lie ready to man’s hand all
+that he needs--he will still require none of those amenities which
+are sapping the vitality of our present-day folk, nor any of those
+industrial establishments which make their profit, and keep themselves
+going, by causing foolish measures to be adopted which, in the end,
+are bound to deprave and corrupt our unfortunate masses. I myself am
+determined never to establish any manufacture, however profitable,
+which will give rise to a demand for ‘higher things,’ such as sugar
+and tobacco--no not if I lose a million by my refusing to do so. If
+corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it shall not be through my hands.
+And I think that God will justify me in my resolve. Twenty years have
+I lived among the common folk, and I know what will inevitably come of
+such things.”
+
+“But what surprises me most,” persisted Chichikov, “is that from refuse
+it should be possible, with good management, to make such an immensity
+of profit.”
+
+“And as for political economy,” continued Kostanzhoglo, without noticing
+him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, “--as for political
+economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool sitting on another
+fool’s back, and flogging him along, even though the rider can see
+no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle will that fool
+climb--spectacles and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of such things!” And
+the speaker spat derisively.
+
+“That may be true,” said his wife. “Yet you must not get angry about it.
+Surely one can speak on such subjects without losing one’s temper?”
+
+“As I listen to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch,” Chichikov
+hastened to remark, “it becomes plain to me that you have penetrated
+into the meaning of life, and laid your finger upon the essential root
+of the matter. Yet supposing, for a moment, we leave the affairs of
+humanity in general, and turn our attention to a purely individual
+affair, might I ask you how, in the case of a man becoming a landowner,
+and having a mind to grow wealthy as quickly as possible (in order that
+he may fulfil his bounden obligations as a citizen), he can best set
+about it?”
+
+“How he can best set about growing wealthy?” repeated Kostanzhoglo.
+“Why,--”
+
+“Let us go to supper,” interrupted the lady of the house, rising from
+her chair, and moving towards the centre of the room, where she wrapped
+her shivering young form in a shawl. Chichikov sprang up with the
+alacrity of a military man, offered her his arm, and escorted her, as
+on parade, to the dining-room, where awaiting them there was the
+soup-toureen. From it the lid had just been removed, and the room was
+redolent of the fragrant odour of early spring roots and herbs. The
+company took their seats, and at once the servants placed the
+remainder of the dishes (under covers) upon the table and withdrew,
+for Kostanzhoglo hated to have servants listening to their employers’
+conversation, and objected still more to their staring at him all the
+while that he was eating.
+
+When the soup had been consumed, and glasses of an excellent vintage
+resembling Hungarian wine had been poured out, Chichikov said to his
+host:
+
+“Most worthy sir, allow me once more to direct your attention to the
+subject of which we were speaking at the point when the conversation
+became interrupted. You will remember that I was asking you how best a
+man can set about, proceed in, the matter of growing...”
+
+
+           [Here from the original two pages are missing.]
+
+
+... “A property for which, had he asked forty thousand, I should still
+have demanded a reduction.”
+
+“Hm!” thought Chichikov; then added aloud: “But why do you not purchase
+it yourself?”
+
+“Because to everything there must be assigned a limit. Already my
+property keeps me sufficiently employed. Moreover, I should cause our
+local dvoriane to begin crying out in chorus that I am exploiting their
+extremities, their ruined position, for the purpose of acquiring land
+for under its value. Of that I am weary.”
+
+“How readily folk speak evil!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+
+“Yes, and the amount of evil-speaking in our province surpasses belief.
+Never will you hear my name mentioned without my being called also
+a miser and a usurer of the worst possible sort; whereas my accusers
+justify themselves in everything, and say that, ‘though we have wasted
+our money, we have started a demand for the higher amenities of life,
+and therefore encouraged industry with our wastefulness, a far better
+way of doing things than that practised by Kostanzhoglo, who lives like
+a pig.’”
+
+“Would _I_ could live in your ‘piggish’ fashion!” ejaculated Chichikov.
+
+“And so forth, and so forth. Yet what are the ‘higher amenities of
+life’? What good can they do to any one? Even if a landowner of the
+day sets up a library, he never looks at a single book in it, but soon
+relapses into card-playing--the usual pursuit. Yet folk call me names
+simply because I do not waste my means upon the giving of dinners! One
+reason why I do not give such dinners is that they weary me; and another
+reason is that I am not used to them. But come you to my house for the
+purpose of taking pot luck, and I shall be delighted to see you. Also,
+folk foolishly say that I lend money on interest; whereas the truth is
+that if you should come to me when you are really in need, and should
+explain to me openly how you propose to employ my money, and I should
+perceive that you are purposing to use that money wisely, and that you
+are really likely to profit thereby--well, in that case you would find
+me ready to lend you all that you might ask without interest at all.”
+
+“That is a thing which it is well to know,” reflected Chichikov.
+
+“Yes,” repeated Kostanzhoglo, “under those circumstances I should never
+refuse you my assistance. But I do object to throwing my money to the
+winds. Pardon me for expressing myself so plainly. To think of lending
+money to a man who is merely devising a dinner for his mistress, or
+planning to furnish his house like a lunatic, or thinking of taking his
+paramour to a masked ball or a jubilee in honour of some one who had
+better never have been born!”
+
+And, spitting, he came near to venting some expression which would
+scarcely have been becoming in the presence of his wife. Over his face
+the dark shadow of hypochondria had cast a cloud, and furrows had formed
+on his brow and temples, and his every gesture bespoke the influence of
+a hot, nervous rancour.
+
+“But allow me once more to direct your attention to the subject of our
+recently interrupted conversation,” persisted Chichikov as he sipped a
+glass of excellent raspberry wine. “That is to say, supposing I were
+to acquire the property which you have been good enough to bring to my
+notice, how long would it take me to grow rich?”
+
+“That would depend on yourself,” replied Kostanzhoglo with grim
+abruptness and evident ill-humour. “You might either grow rich quickly
+or you might never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow
+rich, sooner or later you would find yourself a wealthy man.”
+
+“Indeed?” ejaculated Chichikov.
+
+“Yes,” replied Kostanzhoglo, as sharply as though he were angry with
+Chichikov. “You would merely need to be fond of work: otherwise you
+would effect nothing. The main thing is to like looking after your
+property. Believe me, you would never grow weary of doing so. People
+would have it that life in the country is dull; whereas, if I were to
+spend a single day as it is spent by some folk, with their stupid clubs
+and their restaurants and their theatres, I should die of ennui. The
+fools, the idiots, the generations of blind dullards! But a landowner
+never finds the days wearisome--he has not the time. In his life not a
+moment remains unoccupied; it is full to the brim. And with it all goes
+an endless variety of occupations. And what occupations! Occupations
+which genuinely uplift the soul, seeing that the landowner walks with
+nature and the seasons of the year, and takes part in, and is intimate
+with, everything which is evolved by creation. For let us look at the
+round of the year’s labours. Even before spring has arrived there will
+have begun a general watching and a waiting for it, and a preparing for
+sowing, and an apportioning of crops, and a measuring of seed grain by
+byres, and drying of seed, and a dividing of the workers into teams.
+For everything needs to be examined beforehand, and calculations must be
+made at the very start. And as soon as ever the ice shall have melted,
+and the rivers be flowing, and the land have dried sufficiently to be
+workable, the spade will begin its task in kitchen and flower garden,
+and the plough and the harrow their tasks in the field; until everywhere
+there will be tilling and sowing and planting. And do you understand
+what the sum of that labour will mean? It will mean that the harvest is
+being sown, that the welfare of the world is being sown, that the
+food of millions is being put into the earth. And thereafter will come
+summer, the season of reaping, endless reaping; for suddenly the crops
+will have ripened, and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped upon rye-sheaf,
+with, elsewhere, stocks of barley, and of oats, and of wheat. And
+everything will be teeming with life, and not a moment will there need
+to be lost, seeing that, had you even twenty eyes, you would have need
+for them all. And after the harvest festivities there will be grain to
+be carted to byre or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared for the
+winter, and storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned for the
+same purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the totals
+of everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of
+what has been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every
+threshing-floor the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed,
+will need to be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be
+seen to, and the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen’s
+huts to be visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is
+faring (for, given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one,
+am only too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering
+to me is labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which
+everything is moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are
+everywhere multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more
+fruit to one’s profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes
+place in a man’s soul. And that, not because of the growth in his
+wealth--money is money and no more--but because he will feel that
+everything is the work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause
+of everything, and its creator, and that from him, as from a magician,
+there has flowed bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will
+you find such delights in prospect?” As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised
+his face, and it became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and
+that, like the Tsar on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo’s
+whole form was diffusing light, and his features had in them a gentle
+radiance. “In all the world,” he repeated, “you will find no joys like
+these, for herein man imitates the God who projected creation as the
+supreme happiness, and now demands of man that he, too, should act as
+the creator of prosperity. Yet there are folk who call such functions
+tedious!”
+
+Kostanzhoglo’s mellifluous periods fell upon Chichikov’s ear like
+the notes of a bird of paradise. From time to time he gulped, and his
+softened eyes expressed the pleasure which it gave him to listen.
+
+“Constantine, it is time to leave the table,” said the lady of the
+house, rising from her seat. Every one followed her example, and
+Chichikov once again acted as his hostess’s escort--although with less
+dexterity of deportment than before, owing to the fact that this time
+his thoughts were occupied with more essential matters of procedure.
+
+“In spite of what you say,” remarked Platon as he walked behind the
+pair, “I, for my part, find these things wearisome.”
+
+But the master of the house paid no attention to his remark, for he was
+reflecting that his guest was no fool, but a man of serious thought
+and speech who did not take things lightly. And, with the thought,
+Kostanzhoglo grew lighter in soul, as though he had warmed himself with
+his own words, and were exulting in the fact that he had found some one
+capable of listening to good advice.
+
+When they had settled themselves in the cosy, candle-lighted
+drawing-room, with its balcony and the glass door opening out into the
+garden--a door through which the stars could be seen glittering amid the
+slumbering tops of the trees--Chichikov felt more comfortable than he
+had done for many a day past. It was as though, after long journeying,
+his own roof-tree had received him once more--had received him when
+his quest had been accomplished, when all that he wished for had been
+gained, when his travelling-staff had been laid aside with the words “It
+is finished.” And of this seductive frame of mind the true source had
+been the eloquent discourse of his hospitable host. Yes, for every man
+there exist certain things which, instantly that they are said, seem to
+touch him more closely, more intimately, than anything has done before.
+Nor is it an uncommon occurrence that in the most unexpected fashion,
+and in the most retired of retreats, one will suddenly come face to face
+with a man whose burning periods will lead one to forget oneself and
+the tracklessness of the route and the discomfort of one’s nightly
+halting-places, and the futility of crazes and the falseness of tricks
+by which one human being deceives another. And at once there will become
+engraven upon one’s memory--vividly, and for all time--the evening thus
+spent. And of that evening one’s remembrance will hold true, both as to
+who was present, and where each such person sat, and what he or she was
+wearing, and what the walls and the stove and other trifling features of
+the room looked like.
+
+In the same way did Chichikov note each detail that evening--both the
+appointments of the agreeable, but not luxuriously furnished, room, and
+the good-humoured expression which reigned on the face of the thoughtful
+host, and the design of the curtains, and the amber-mounted pipe smoked
+by Platon, and the way in which he kept puffing smoke into the fat
+jowl of the dog Yarb, and the sneeze which, on each such occasion, Yarb
+vented, and the laughter of the pleasant-faced hostess (though always
+followed by the words “Pray do not tease him any more”) and the cheerful
+candle-light, and the cricket chirping in a corner, and the glass door,
+and the spring night which, laying its elbows upon the tree-tops, and
+spangled with stars, and vocal with the nightingales which were pouring
+forth warbled ditties from the recesses of the foliage, kept glancing
+through the door, and regarding the company within.
+
+“How it delights me to hear your words, good Constantine Thedorovitch!”
+ said Chichikov. “Indeed, nowhere in Russia have I met with a man of
+equal intellect.”
+
+Kostanzhoglo smiled, while realising that the compliment was scarcely
+deserved.
+
+“If you want a man of GENUINE intellect,” he said, “I can tell you of
+one. He is a man whose boot soles are worth more than my whole body.”
+
+“Who may he be?” asked Chichikov in astonishment.
+
+“Murazov, our local Commissioner of Taxes.”
+
+“Ah! I have heard of him before,” remarked Chichikov.
+
+“He is a man who, were he not the director of an estate, might well be a
+director of the Empire. And were the Empire under my direction, I should
+at once appoint him my Minister of Finance.”
+
+“I have heard tales beyond belief concerning him--for instance, that he
+has acquired ten million roubles.”
+
+“Ten? More than forty. Soon half Russia will be in his hands.”
+
+“You don’t say so?” cried Chichikov in amazement.
+
+“Yes, certainly. The man who has only a hundred thousand roubles to work
+with grows rich but slowly, whereas he who has millions at his disposal
+can operate over a greater radius, and so back whatsoever he undertakes
+with twice or thrice the money which can be brought against him.
+Consequently his field becomes so spacious that he ends by having no
+rivals. Yes, no one can compete with him, and, whatsoever price he may
+fix for a given commodity, at that price it will have to remain, nor
+will any man be able to outbid it.”
+
+“My God!” muttered Chichikov, crossing himself, and staring at
+Kostanzhoglo with his breath catching in his throat. “The mind cannot
+grasp it--it petrifies one’s thoughts with awe. You see folk marvelling
+at what Science has achieved in the matter of investigating the habits
+of cowbugs, but to me it is a far more marvellous thing that in the
+hands of a single mortal there can become accumulated such gigantic sums
+of money. But may I ask whether the great fortune of which you speak has
+been acquired through honest means?”
+
+“Yes; through means of the most irreproachable kind--through the most
+honourable of methods.”
+
+“Yet so improbable does it seem that I can scarcely believe it.
+Thousands I could understand, but millions--!”
+
+“On the contrary, to make thousands honestly is a far more difficult
+matter than to make millions. Millions are easily come by, for a
+millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways; the way lies straight
+before him, and he needs but to annex whatsoever he comes across. No
+rival will spring up to oppose him, for no rival will be sufficiently
+strong, and since the millionaire can operate over an extensive radius,
+he can bring (as I have said) two or three roubles to bear upon any one
+else’s one. Consequently, what interest will he derive from a thousand
+roubles? Why, ten or twenty per cent. at the least.”
+
+“And it is beyond measure marvellous that the whole should have started
+from a single kopeck.”
+
+“Had it started otherwise, the thing could never have been done at all.
+Such is the normal course. He who is born with thousands, and is brought
+up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for he will
+have been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and so never
+come to stand in need of anything. It is necessary to begin from the
+beginning rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather than from a
+rouble; from the bottom rather than from the top. For only thus will a
+man get to know the men and conditions among which his career will have
+to be carved. That is to say, through encountering the rough and the
+tumble of life, and through learning that every kopeck has to be beaten
+out with a three-kopeck nail, and through worsting knave after knave, he
+will acquire such a degree of perspicuity and wariness that he will err
+in nothing which he may tackle, and never come to ruin. Believe me, it
+is so. The beginning, and not the middle, is the right starting point.
+No one who comes to me and says, ‘Give me a hundred thousand roubles,
+and I will grow rich in no time,’ do I believe, for he is likely to meet
+with failure rather than with the success of which he is so assured.
+’Tis with a kopeck, and with a kopeck only, that a man must begin.”
+
+“If that is so, _I_ shall grow rich,” said Chichikov, involuntarily
+remembering the dead souls. “For of a surety _I_ began with nothing.”
+
+“Constantine, pray allow Paul Ivanovitch to retire to rest,” put in
+the lady of the house. “It is high time, and I am sure you have talked
+enough.”
+
+“Yes, beyond a doubt you will grow rich,” continued Kostanzhoglo,
+without heeding his wife. “For towards you there will run rivers and
+rivers of gold, until you will not know what to do with all your gains.”
+
+As though spellbound, Chichikov sat in an aureate world of ever-growing
+dreams and fantasies. All his thoughts were in a whirl, and on a carpet
+of future wealth his tumultuous imagination was weaving golden patterns,
+while ever in his ears were ringing the words, “towards you there will
+run rivers and rivers of gold.”
+
+“Really, Constantine, DO allow Paul Ivanovitch to go to bed.”
+
+“What on earth is the matter?” retorted the master of the household
+testily. “Pray go yourself if you wish to.” Then he stopped short, for
+the snoring of Platon was filling the whole room, and also--outrivalling
+it--that of the dog Yarb. This caused Kostanzhoglo to realise that
+bedtime really had arrived; wherefore, after he had shaken Platon out
+of his slumbers, and bidden Chichikov good night, all dispersed to their
+several chambers, and became plunged in sleep.
+
+All, that is to say, except Chichikov, whose thoughts remained wakeful,
+and who kept wondering and wondering how best he could become the owner,
+not of a fictitious, but of a real, estate. The conversation with
+his host had made everything clear, had made the possibility of
+his acquiring riches manifest, had made the difficult art of estate
+management at once easy and understandable; until it would seem as
+though particularly was his nature adapted for mastering the art in
+question. All that he would need to do would be to mortgage the dead
+souls, and then to set up a genuine establishment. Already he
+saw himself acting and administering as Kostanzhoglo had advised
+him--energetically, and through personal oversight, and undertaking
+nothing new until the old had been thoroughly learned, and viewing
+everything with his own eyes, and making himself familiar with each
+member of his peasantry, and abjuring all superfluities, and giving
+himself up to hard work and husbandry. Yes, already could he taste the
+pleasure which would be his when he had built up a complete industrial
+organisation, and the springs of the industrial machine were in vigorous
+working order, and each had become able to reinforce the other. Labour
+should be kept in active operation, and, even as, in a mill, flour comes
+flowing from grain, so should cash, and yet more cash, come flowing from
+every atom of refuse and remnant. And all the while he could see before
+him the landowner who was one of the leading men in Russia, and for whom
+he had conceived such an unbounded respect. Hitherto only for rank or
+for opulence had Chichikov respected a man--never for mere intellectual
+power; but now he made a first exception in favour of Kostanzhoglo,
+seeing that he felt that nothing undertaken by his host could possibly
+come to naught. And another project which was occupying Chichikov’s mind
+was the project of purchasing the estate of a certain landowner named
+Khlobuev. Already Chichikov had at his disposal ten thousand roubles,
+and a further fifteen thousand he would try and borrow of Kostanzhoglo
+(seeing that the latter had himself said that he was prepared to help
+any one who really desired to grow rich); while, as for the remainder,
+he would either raise the sum by mortgaging the estate or force Khlobuev
+to wait for it--just to tell him to resort to the courts if such might
+be his pleasure.
+
+Long did our hero ponder the scheme; until at length the slumber which
+had, these four hours past, been holding the rest of the household in
+its embraces enfolded also Chichikov, and he sank into oblivion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Next day, with Platon and Constantine, Chichikov set forth to interview
+Khlobuev, the owner whose estate Constantine had consented to help
+Chichikov to purchase with a non-interest-bearing, uncovenanted loan of
+ten thousand roubles. Naturally, our hero was in the highest of spirits.
+For the first fifteen versts or so the road led through forest land and
+tillage belonging to Platon and his brother-in-law; but directly the
+limit of these domains was reached, forest land began to be replaced
+with swamp, and tillage with waste. Also, the village in Khlobuev’s
+estate had about it a deserted air, and as for the proprietor himself,
+he was discovered in a state of drowsy dishevelment, having not long
+left his bed. A man of about forty, he had his cravat crooked, his
+frockcoat adorned with a large stain, and one of his boots worn through.
+Nevertheless he seemed delighted to see his visitors.
+
+“What?” he exclaimed. “Constantine Thedorovitch and Platon Mikhalitch?
+Really I must rub my eyes! Never again in this world did I look to see
+callers arriving. As a rule, folk avoid me like the devil, for they
+cannot disabuse their minds of the idea that I am going to ask them for
+a loan. Yes, it is my own fault, I know, but what would you? To the end
+will swine cheat swine. Pray excuse my costume. You will observe that my
+boots are in holes. But how can I afford to get them mended?”
+
+“Never mind,” said Constantine. “We have come on business only. May I
+present to you a possible purchaser of your estate, in the person of
+Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+
+“I am indeed glad to meet you!” was Khlobuev’s response. “Pray shake
+hands with me, Paul Ivanovitch.”
+
+Chichikov offered one hand, but not both.
+
+“I can show you a property worth your attention,” went on the master of
+the estate. “May I ask if you have yet dined?”
+
+“Yes, we have,” put in Constantine, desirous of escaping as soon as
+possible. “To save you further trouble, let us go and view the estate at
+once.”
+
+“Very well,” replied Khlobuev. “Pray come and inspect my irregularities
+and futilities. You have done well to dine beforehand, for not so much
+as a fowl is left in the place, so dire are the extremities to which you
+see me reduced.”
+
+Sighing deeply, he took Platon by the arm (it was clear that he did
+not look for any sympathy from Constantine) and walked ahead, while
+Constantine and Chichikov followed.
+
+“Things are going hard with me, Platon Mikhalitch,” continued Khlobuev.
+“How hard you cannot imagine. No money have I, no food, no boots. Were
+I still young and a bachelor, it would have come easy to me to live on
+bread and cheese; but when a man is growing old, and has got a wife
+and five children, such trials press heavily upon him, and, in spite of
+himself, his spirits sink.”
+
+“But, should you succeed in selling the estate, that would help to put
+you right, would it not?” said Platon.
+
+“How could it do so?” replied Khlobuev with a despairing gesture. “What
+I might get for the property would have to go towards discharging my
+debts, and I should find myself left with less than a thousand roubles
+besides.”
+
+“Then what do you intend to do?”
+
+“God knows.”
+
+“But is there NOTHING to which you could set your hand in order to clear
+yourself of your difficulties?”
+
+“How could there be?”
+
+“Well, you might accept a Government post.”
+
+“Become a provincial secretary, you mean? How could I obtain such a
+post? They would not offer me one of the meanest possible kind. Even
+supposing that they did, how could I live on a salary of five hundred
+roubles--I who have a wife and five children?”
+
+“Then try and obtain a bailiff’s post.”
+
+“Who would entrust their property to a man who has squandered his own
+estate?”
+
+“Nevertheless, when death and destitution threaten, a man must either
+do something or starve. Shall I ask my brother to use his influence to
+procure you a post?”
+
+“No, no, Platon Mikhalitch,” sighed Khlobuev, gripping the other’s hand.
+“I am no longer serviceable--I am grown old before my time, and find
+that liver and rheumatism are paying me for the sins of my youth. Why
+should the Government be put to a loss on my account?--not to speak of
+the fact that for every salaried post there are countless numbers of
+applicants. God forbid that, in order to provide me with a livelihood
+further burdens should be imposed upon an impoverished public!”
+
+“Such are the results of improvident management!” thought Platon to
+himself. “The disease is even worse than my slothfulness.”
+
+Meanwhile Kostanzhoglo, walking by Chichikov’s side, was almost taking
+leave of his senses.
+
+“Look at it!” he cried with a wave of his hand. “See to what
+wretchedness the peasant has become reduced! Should cattle disease come,
+Khlobuev will have nothing to fall back upon, but will be forced to sell
+his all--to leave the peasant without a horse, and therefore without the
+means to labour, even though the loss of a single day’s work may take
+years of labour to rectify. Meanwhile it is plain that the local peasant
+has become a mere dissolute, lazy drunkard. Give a muzhik enough to live
+upon for twelve months without working, and you will corrupt him for
+ever, so inured to rags and vagrancy will he grow. And what is the good
+of that piece of pasture there--of that piece on the further side of
+those huts? It is a mere flooded tract. Were it mine, I should put
+it under flax, and clear five thousand roubles, or else sow it with
+turnips, and clear, perhaps, four thousand. And see how the rye is
+drooping, and nearly laid. As for wheat, I am pretty sure that he has
+not sown any. Look, too, at those ravines! Were they mine, they would
+be standing under timber which even a rook could not top. To think of
+wasting such quantities of land! Where land wouldn’t bear corn, I should
+dig it up, and plant it with vegetables. What ought to be done is that
+Khlobuev ought to take a spade into his own hands, and to set his wife
+and children and servants to do the same; and even if they died of the
+exertion, they would at least die doing their duty, and not through
+guzzling at the dinner table.”
+
+This said, Kostanzhoglo spat, and his brow flushed with grim
+indignation.
+
+Presently they reached an elevation whence the distant flashing of a
+river, with its flood waters and subsidiary streams, caught the eye,
+while, further off, a portion of General Betristchev’s homestead could
+be discerned among the trees, and, over it, a blue, densely wooded hill
+which Chichikov guessed to be the spot where Tientietnikov’s mansion was
+situated.
+
+“This is where I should plant timber,” said Chichikov. “And, regarded
+as a site for a manor house, the situation could scarcely be beaten for
+beauty of view.”
+
+“You seem to get great store upon views and beauty,” remarked
+Kostanzhoglo with reproof in his tone. “Should you pay too much
+attention to those things, you might find yourself without crops or
+view. Utility should be placed first, not beauty. Beauty will come of
+itself. Take, for example, towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns
+are those which have built themselves--those in which each man has built
+to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which
+men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than
+collections of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only to what is
+NECESSARY.”
+
+“Yes, but to me it would always be irksome to have to wait. All the time
+that I was doing so I should be hungering to see in front of me the
+sort of prospect which I prefer.”
+
+“Come, come! Are you a man of twenty-five--you who have served as a
+tchinovnik in St. Petersburg? Have patience, have patience. For six
+years work, and work hard. Plant, sow, and dig the earth without taking
+a moment’s rest. It will be difficult, I know--yes, difficult indeed;
+but at the end of that time, if you have thoroughly stirred the soil,
+the land will begin to help you as nothing else can do. That is to say,
+over and above your seventy or so pairs of hands, there will begin to
+assist in the work seven hundred pairs of hands which you cannot see.
+Thus everything will be multiplied tenfold. I myself have ceased even
+to have to lift a finger, for whatsoever needs to be done gets done of
+itself. Nature loves patience: always remember that. It is a law given
+her of God Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure.”
+
+“To hear your words is to be both encouraged and strengthened,” said
+Chichikov. To this Kostanzhoglo made no reply, but presently went on:
+
+“And see how that piece of land has been ploughed! To stay here longer
+is more than I can do. For me, to have to look upon such want of
+orderliness and foresight is death. Finish your business with Khlobuev
+without me, and whatsoever you do, get this treasure out of that fool’s
+hands as quickly as possible, for he is dishonouring God’s gifts.”
+
+And Kostanzhoglo, his face dark with the rage that was seething in
+his excitable soul, left Chichikov, and caught up the owner of the
+establishment.
+
+“What, Constantine Thedorovitch?” cried Khlobuev in astonishment. “Just
+arrived, you are going already?”
+
+“Yes; I cannot help it; urgent business requires me at home.” And
+entering his gig, Kostanzhoglo drove rapidly away. Somehow Khlobuev
+seemed to divine the cause of his sudden departure.
+
+“It was too much for him,” he remarked. “An agriculturist of that
+kind does not like to have to look upon the results of such feckless
+management as mine. Would you believe it, Paul Ivanovitch, but this year
+I have been unable to sow any wheat! Am I not a fine husbandman? There
+was no seed for the purpose, nor yet anything with which to prepare the
+ground. No, I am not like Constantine Thedorovitch, who, I hear, is a
+perfect Napoleon in his particular line. Again and again the thought
+occurs to me, ‘Why has so much intellect been put into that head, and
+only a drop or two into my own dull pate?’ Take care of that puddle,
+gentlemen. I have told my peasants to lay down planks for the spring,
+but they have not done so. Nevertheless my heart aches for the poor
+fellows, for they need a good example, and what sort of an example am I?
+How am _I_ to give them orders? Pray take them under your charge, Paul
+Ivanovitch, for I cannot teach them orderliness and method when I myself
+lack both. As a matter of fact, I should have given them their freedom
+long ago, had there been any use in my doing so; for even I can see that
+peasants must first be afforded the means of earning a livelihood before
+they can live. What they need is a stern, yet just, master who shall
+live with them, day in, day out, and set them an example of tireless
+energy. The present-day Russian--I know of it myself--is helpless
+without a driver. Without one he falls asleep, and the mould grows over
+him.”
+
+“Yet I cannot understand WHY he should fall asleep and grow mouldy in
+that fashion,” said Platon. “Why should he need continual surveillance
+to keep him from degenerating into a drunkard and a good-for-nothing?”
+
+“The cause is lack of enlightenment,” said Chichikov.
+
+“Possibly--only God knows. Yet enlightenment has reached us right
+enough. Do we not attend university lectures and everything else that
+is befitting? Take my own education. I learnt not only the usual things,
+but also the art of spending money upon the latest refinement, the
+latest amenity--the art of familiarising oneself with whatsoever money
+can buy. How, then, can it be said that I was educated foolishly? And
+my comrades’ education was the same. A few of them succeeded in annexing
+the cream of things, for the reason that they had the wit to do so, and
+the rest spent their time in doing their best to ruin their health and
+squander their money. Often I think there is no hope for the present-day
+Russian. While desiring to do everything, he accomplishes nothing. One
+day he will scheme to begin a new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet
+before evening he will have so over-eaten himself as to be unable to
+speak or do aught but sit staring like an owl. The same with every one.”
+
+“Quite so,” agreed Chichikov with a smile. “’Tis everywhere the same
+story.”
+
+“To tell the truth, we are not born to common sense. I doubt whether
+Russia has ever produced a really sensible man. For my own part, if I
+see my neighbour living a regular life, and making money, and saving
+it, I begin to distrust him, and to feel certain that in old age, if not
+before, he too will be led astray by the devil--led astray in a moment.
+Yes, whether or not we be educated, there is something we lack. But what
+that something is passes my understanding.”
+
+On the return journey the prospect was the same as before. Everywhere
+the same slovenliness, the same disorder, was displaying itself
+unadorned: the only difference being that a fresh puddle had formed in
+the middle of the village street. This want and neglect was noticeable
+in the peasants’ quarters equally with the quarters of the barin. In
+the village a furious woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor young
+wench within an ace of her life, and at the same time devoting some
+third person to the care of all the devils in hell; further away
+a couple of peasants were stoically contemplating the virago--one
+scratching his rump as he did so, and the other yawning. The same yawn
+was discernible in the buildings, for not a roof was there but had a
+gaping hole in it. As he gazed at the scene Platon himself yawned. Patch
+was superimposed upon patch, and, in place of a roof, one hut had a
+piece of wooden fencing, while its crumbling window-frames were stayed
+with sticks purloined from the barin’s barn. Evidently the system
+of upkeep in vogue was the system employed in the case of Trishkin’s
+coat--the system of cutting up the cuffs and the collar into mendings
+for the elbows.
+
+“No, I do not admire your way of doing things,” was Chichikov’s unspoken
+comment when the inspection had been concluded and the party had
+re-entered the house. Everywhere in the latter the visitors were
+struck with the way in which poverty went with glittering, fashionable
+profusion. On a writing-table lay a volume of Shakespeare, and, on an
+occasional table, a carved ivory back-scratcher. The hostess, too, was
+elegantly and fashionably attired, and devoted her whole conversation
+to the town and the local theatre. Lastly, the children--bright, merry
+little things--were well-dressed both as regards boys and girls. Yet
+far better would it have been for them if they had been clad in plain
+striped smocks, and running about the courtyard like peasant children.
+Presently a visitor arrived in the shape of a chattering, gossiping
+woman; whereupon the hostess carried her off to her own portion of the
+house, and, the children following them, the men found themselves alone.
+
+“How much do you want for the property?” asked Chichikov of Khlobuev.
+“I am afraid I must request you to name the lowest possible sum, since I
+find the estate in a far worse condition than I had expected to do.”
+
+“Yes, it IS in a terrible state,” agreed Khlobuev. “Nor is that the
+whole of the story. That is to say, I will not conceal from you the fact
+that, out of a hundred souls registered at the last revision, only fifty
+survive, so terrible have been the ravages of cholera. And of these,
+again, some have absconded; wherefore they too must be reckoned as dead,
+seeing that, were one to enter process against them, the costs would
+end in the property having to pass en bloc to the legal authorities.
+For these reasons I am asking only thirty-five thousand roubles for the
+estate.”
+
+Chichikov (it need hardly be said) started to haggle.
+
+“Thirty-five thousand?” he cried. “Come, come! Surely you will accept
+TWENTY-five thousand?”
+
+This was too much for Platon’s conscience.
+
+“Now, now, Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed. “Take the property at the
+price named, and have done with it. The estate is worth at least that
+amount--so much so that, should you not be willing to give it, my
+brother-in-law and I will club together to effect the purchase.”
+
+“That being so,” said Chichikov, taken aback, “I beg to agree to the
+price in question. At the same time, I must ask you to allow me to defer
+payment of one-half of the purchase money until a year from now.”
+
+“No, no, Paul Ivanovitch. Under no circumstances could I do that. Pay
+me half now, and the rest in... [50] You see, I need the money for the
+redemption of the mortgage.”
+
+“That places me in a difficulty,” remarked Chichikov. “Ten thousand
+roubles is all that at the moment I have available.” As a matter of
+fact, this was not true, seeing that, counting also the money which he
+had borrowed of Kostanzhoglo, he had at his disposal TWENTY thousand.
+His real reason for hesitating was that he disliked the idea of making
+so large a payment in a lump sum.
+
+“I must repeat my request, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Khlobuev, “--namely,
+that you pay me at least fifteen thousand immediately.”
+
+“The odd five thousand _I_ will lend you,” put in Platon to Chichikov.
+
+“Indeed?” exclaimed Chichikov as he reflected: “So he also lends money!”
+
+In the end Chichikov’s dispatch-box was brought from the koliaska, and
+Khlobuev received thence ten thousand roubles, together with a promise
+that the remaining five thousand should be forthcoming on the morrow;
+though the promise was given only after Chichikov had first proposed
+that THREE thousand should be brought on the day named, and the rest
+be left over for two or three days longer, if not for a still more
+protracted period. The truth was that Paul Ivanovitch hated parting with
+money. No matter how urgent a situation might have been, he would still
+have preferred to pay a sum to-morrow rather than to-day. In other
+words, he acted as we all do, for we all like keeping a petitioner
+waiting. “Let him rub his back in the hall for a while,” we say. “Surely
+he can bide his time a little?” Yet of the fact that every hour may be
+precious to the poor wretch, and that his business may suffer from
+the delay, we take no account. “Good sir,” we say, “pray come again
+to-morrow. To-day I have no time to spare you.”
+
+“Where do you intend henceforth to live?” inquired Platon. “Have you any
+other property to which you can retire?”
+
+“No,” replied Khlobuev. “I shall remove to the town, where I possess
+a small villa. That would have been necessary, in any case, for the
+children’s sake. You see, they must have instruction in God’s word, and
+also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can these
+things be procured in the country.
+
+“Nothing to eat, yet dancing lessons for his children!” reflected
+Chichikov.
+
+“An extraordinary man!” was Platon’s unspoken comment.
+
+“However, we must contrive to wet our bargain somehow,” continued
+Khlobuev. “Hi, Kirushka! Bring that bottle of champagne.”
+
+“Nothing to eat, yet champagne to drink!” reflected Chichikov. As for
+Platon, he did not know WHAT to think.
+
+In Khlobuev’s eyes it was de rigueur that he should provide a guest with
+champagne; but, though he had sent to the town for some, he had been met
+with a blank refusal to forward even a bottle of kvass on credit.
+Only the discovery of a French dealer who had recently transferred his
+business from St. Petersburg, and opened a connection on a system
+of general credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev under the
+obligation of patronising him.
+
+The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful.
+In particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and
+friendliness, and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left.
+What knowledge of men and the world did his utterances display! How well
+and accurately could he divine things! With what appositeness did he
+sketch the neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their
+faults and failings! How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined
+gentry--the story of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen
+upon evil days! With what comic originality could he describe their
+little habits and customs!
+
+In short, his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and
+felt inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect.
+
+“What most surprises me,” said Chichikov, “is how, in view of your
+ability, you come to be so destitute of means or resources.”
+
+“But I have plenty of both,” said Khlobuev, and with that went on to
+deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects
+proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge
+of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and
+mentally exclaim: “Good Lord! What a difference between worldly wisdom
+and the capacity to use it!” In every case the projects in question were
+based upon the imperative necessity of at once procuring from somewhere
+two hundred--or at least one hundred--thousand roubles. That done (so
+Khlobuev averred), everything would fall into its proper place,
+the holes in his pockets would become stopped, his income would be
+quadrupled, and he would find himself in a position to liquidate his
+debts in full. Nevertheless he ended by saying: “What would you advise
+me to do? I fear that the philanthropist who would lend me two hundred
+thousand roubles or even a hundred thousand, does not exist. It is not
+God’s will that he should.”
+
+“Good gracious!” inwardly ejaculated Chichikov. “To suppose that God
+would send such a fool two hundred thousand roubles!”
+
+“However,” went on Khlobuev, “I possess an aunt worth three millions--a
+pious old woman who gives freely to churches and monasteries, but finds
+a difficulty in helping her neighbour. At the same time, she is a lady
+of the old school, and worth having a peep at. Her canaries alone
+number four hundred, and, in addition, there is an army of pug-dogs,
+hangers-on, and servants. Even the youngest of the servants is sixty,
+but she calls them all ‘young fellows,’ and if a guest happens to offend
+her during dinner, she orders them to leave him out when handing out the
+dishes. THERE’S a woman for you!”
+
+Platon laughed.
+
+“And what may her family name be?” asked Chichikov. “And where does she
+live?”
+
+“She lives in the county town, and her name is Alexandra Ivanovna
+Khanasarov.”
+
+“Then why do you not apply to her?” asked Platon earnestly. “It seems
+to me that, once she realised the position of your family, she could not
+possibly refuse you.”
+
+“Alas! nothing is to be looked for from that quarter,” replied Khlobuev.
+“My aunt is of a very stubborn disposition--a perfect stone of a woman.
+Moreover, she has around her a sufficient band of favourites already.
+In particular is there a fellow who is aiming for a Governorship, and
+to that end has managed to insinuate himself into the circle of her
+kinsfolk. By the way,” the speaker added, turning to Platon, “would you
+do me a favour? Next week I am giving a dinner to the associated guilds
+of the town.”
+
+Platon stared. He had been unaware that both in our capitals and in
+our provincial towns there exists a class of men whose lives are
+an enigma--men who, though they will seem to have exhausted their
+substance, and to have become enmeshed in debt, will suddenly be
+reported as in funds, and on the point of giving a dinner! And though,
+at this dinner, the guests will declare that the festival is bound to
+be their host’s last fling, and that for a certainty he will be haled to
+prison on the morrow, ten years or more will elapse, and the rascal will
+still be at liberty, even though, in the meanwhile, his debts will have
+increased!
+
+In the same way did the conduct of Khlobuev’s menage afford a curious
+phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te
+Deum, performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play
+performed by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again,
+one day would see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day a
+banquet and generous largesse given to a party of artists and sculptors.
+During these seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to have led any
+one but Khlobuev to seek suicide by hanging or shooting), the master of
+the house would be preserved from rash action by his strongly religious
+disposition, which, contriving in some curious way to conform with his
+irregular mode of life, enabled him to fall back upon reading the lives
+of saints, ascetics, and others of the type which has risen superior to
+its misfortunes. And at such times his spirit would become softened, his
+thoughts full of gentleness, and his eyes wet with tears; he would fall
+to saying his prayers, and invariably some strange coincidence would
+bring an answer thereto in the shape of an unexpected measure of
+assistance. That is to say, some former friend of his would remember
+him, and send him a trifle in the way of money; or else some female
+visitor would be moved by his story to let her impulsive, generous heart
+proffer him a handsome gift; or else a suit whereof tidings had never
+even reached his ears would end by being decided in his favour. And when
+that happened he would reverently acknowledge the immensity of the mercy
+of Providence, gratefully tender thanksgiving for the same, and betake
+himself again to his irregular mode of existence.
+
+“Somehow I feel sorry for the man,” said Platon when he and Chichikov
+had taken leave of their host, and left the house.
+
+“Perhaps so, but he is a hopeless prodigal,” replied the other.
+“Personally I find it impossible to compassionate such fellows.”
+
+And with that the pair ceased to devote another thought to Khlobuev. In
+the case of Platon, this was because he contemplated the fortunes of his
+fellows with the lethargic, half-somnolent eye which he turned upon all
+the rest of the world; for though the sight of distress of others would
+cause his heart to contract and feel full of sympathy, the impression
+thus produced never sank into the depths of his being. Accordingly,
+before many minutes were over he had ceased to bestow a single thought
+upon his late host. With Chichikov, however, things were different.
+Whereas Platon had ceased to think of Khlobuev no more than he had
+ceased to think of himself, Chichikov’s mind had strayed elsewhere,
+for the reason that it had become taken up with grave meditation on the
+subject of the purchase just made. Suddenly finding himself no longer
+a fictitious proprietor, but the owner of a real, an actually existing,
+estate, he became contemplative, and his plans and ideas assumed such a
+serious vein as imparted to his features an unconsciously important air.
+
+“Patience and hard work!” he muttered to himself. “The thing will not be
+difficult, for with those two requisites I have been familiar from the
+days of my swaddling clothes. Yes, no novelty will they be to me. Yet,
+in middle age, shall I be able to compass the patience whereof I was
+capable in my youth?”
+
+However, no matter how he regarded the future, and no matter from what
+point of view he considered his recent acquisition, he could see nothing
+but advantage likely to accrue from the bargain. For one thing, he might
+be able to proceed so that, first the whole of the estate should be
+mortgaged, and then the better portions of land sold outright. Or he
+might so contrive matters as to manage the property for a while
+(and thus become a landowner like Kostanzhoglo, whose advice, as his
+neighbour and his benefactor, he intended always to follow), and then to
+dispose of the property by private treaty (provided he did not wish to
+continue his ownership), and still to retain in his hands the dead and
+abandoned souls. And another possible coup occurred to his mind. That is
+to say, he might contrive to withdraw from the district without having
+repaid Kostanzhoglo at all! Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair
+to say that the idea was not one of Chichikov’s own conception. Rather,
+it had presented itself--mocking, laughing, and winking--unbidden. Yet
+the impudent, the wanton thing! Who is the procreator of suddenly
+born ideas of the kind? The thought that he was now a real, an actual,
+proprietor instead of a fictitious--that he was now a proprietor of real
+land, real rights of timber and pasture, and real serfs who existed not
+only in the imagination, but also in veritable actuality--greatly elated
+our hero. So he took to dancing up and down in his seat, to rubbing
+his hands together, to winking at himself, to holding his fist,
+trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making believe to execute a march),
+and even to uttering aloud such encouraging nicknames and phrases as
+“bulldog” and “little fat capon.” Then suddenly recollecting that he
+was not alone, he hastened to moderate his behaviour and endeavoured to
+stifle the endless flow of his good spirits; with the result that when
+Platon, mistaking certain sounds for utterances addressed to himself,
+inquired what his companion had said, the latter retained the presence
+of mind to reply “Nothing.”
+
+Presently, as Chichikov gazed about him, he saw that for some time past
+the koliaska had been skirting a beautiful wood, and that on either side
+the road was bordered with an edging of birch trees, the tenderly-green,
+recently-opened leaves of which caused their tall, slender trunks to
+show up with the whiteness of a snowdrift. Likewise nightingales were
+warbling from the recesses of the foliage, and some wood tulips were
+glowing yellow in the grass. Next (and almost before Chichikov had
+realised how he came to be in such a beautiful spot when, but a moment
+before, there had been visible only open fields) there glimmered among
+the trees the stony whiteness of a church, with, on the further side
+of it, the intermittent, foliage-buried line of a fence; while from the
+upper end of a village street there was advancing to meet the vehicle a
+gentleman with a cap on his head, a knotted cudgel in his hands, and a
+slender-limbed English dog by his side.
+
+“This is my brother,” said Platon. “Stop, coachman.” And he descended
+from the koliaska, while Chichikov followed his example. Yarb and the
+strange dog saluted one another, and then the active, thin-legged,
+slender-tongued Azor relinquished his licking of Yarb’s blunt jowl,
+licked Platon’s hands instead, and, leaping upon Chichikov, slobbered
+right into his ear.
+
+The two brothers embraced.
+
+“Really, Platon,” said the gentleman (whose name was Vassili), “what do
+you mean by treating me like this?”
+
+“How so?” said Platon indifferently.
+
+“What? For three days past I have seen and heard nothing of you! A groom
+from Pietukh’s brought your cob home, and told me you had departed on an
+expedition with some barin. At least you might have sent me word as to
+your destination and the probable length of your absence. What made you
+act so? God knows what I have not been wondering!”
+
+“Does it matter?” rejoined Platon. “I forgot to send you word, and we
+have been no further than Constantine’s (who, with our sister, sends you
+his greeting). By the way, may I introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+
+The pair shook hands with one another. Then, doffing their caps, they
+embraced.
+
+“What sort of man is this Chichikov?” thought Vassili. “As a rule my
+brother Platon is not over-nice in his choice of acquaintances.” And,
+eyeing our hero as narrowly as civility permitted, he saw that his
+appearance was that of a perfectly respectable individual.
+
+Chichikov returned Vassili’s scrutiny with a similar observance of the
+dictates of civility, and perceived that he was shorter than Platon,
+that his hair was of a darker shade, and that his features, though less
+handsome, contained far more life, animation, and kindliness than did
+his brother’s. Clearly he indulged in less dreaming, though that was an
+aspect which Chichikov little regarded.
+
+“I have made up my mind to go touring our Holy Russia with Paul
+Ivanovitch,” said Platon. “Perhaps it will rid me of my melancholy.”
+
+“What has made you come to such a sudden decision?” asked the perplexed
+Vassili (very nearly he added: “Fancy going travelling with a man whose
+acquaintance you have just made, and who may turn out to be a rascal
+or the devil knows what!” But, in spite of his distrust, he contented
+himself with another covert scrutiny of Chichikov, and this time came to
+the conclusion that there was no fault to be found with his exterior).
+
+The party turned to the right, and entered the gates of an ancient
+courtyard attached to an old-fashioned house of a type no longer
+built--the type which has huge gables supporting a high-pitched roof.
+In the centre of the courtyard two great lime trees covered half the
+surrounding space with shade, while beneath them were ranged a number
+of wooden benches, and the whole was encircled with a ring of blossoming
+lilacs and cherry trees which, like a beaded necklace, reinforced the
+wooden fence, and almost buried it beneath their clusters of leaves and
+flowers. The house, too, stood almost concealed by this greenery,
+except that the front door and the windows peered pleasantly through the
+foliage, and that here and there between the stems of the trees there
+could be caught glimpses of the kitchen regions, the storehouses, and
+the cellar. Lastly, around the whole stood a grove, from the recesses of
+which came the echoing songs of nightingales.
+
+Involuntarily the place communicated to the soul a sort of quiet,
+restful feeling, so eloquently did it speak of that care-free period
+when every one lived on good terms with his neighbour, and all was
+simple and unsophisticated. Vassili invited Chichikov to seat himself,
+and the party approached, for that purpose, the benches under the lime
+trees; after which a youth of about seventeen, and clad in a red shirt,
+brought decanters containing various kinds of kvass (some of them as
+thick as syrup, and others hissing like aerated lemonade), deposited the
+same upon the table, and, taking up a spade which he had left leaning
+against a tree, moved away towards the garden. The reason of this was
+that in the brothers’ household, as in that of Kostanzhoglo, no servants
+were kept, since the whole staff were rated as gardeners, and performed
+that duty in rotation--Vassili holding that domestic service was not a
+specialised calling, but one to which any one might contribute a hand,
+and therefore one which did not require special menials to be kept for
+the purpose. Moreover, he held that the average Russian peasant remains
+active and willing (rather than lazy) only so long as he wears a shirt
+and a peasant’s smock; but that as soon as ever he finds himself
+put into a German tailcoat, he becomes awkward, sluggish, indolent,
+disinclined to change his vest or take a bath, fond of sleeping in his
+clothes, and certain to breed fleas and bugs under the German apparel.
+And it may be that Vassili was right. At all events, the brothers’
+peasantry were exceedingly well clad--the women, in particular, having
+their head-dresses spangled with gold, and the sleeves of their blouses
+embroidered after the fashion of a Turkish shawl.
+
+“You see here the species of kvass for which our house has long been
+famous,” said Vassili to Chichikov. The latter poured himself out a
+glassful from the first decanter which he lighted upon, and found
+the contents to be linden honey of a kind never tasted by him even in
+Poland, seeing that it had a sparkle like that of champagne, and also an
+effervescence which sent a pleasant spray from the mouth into the nose.
+
+“Nectar!” he proclaimed. Then he took some from a second decanter. It
+proved to be even better than the first. “A beverage of beverages!” he
+exclaimed. “At your respected brother-in-law’s I tasted the finest
+syrup which has ever come my way, but here I have tasted the very finest
+kvass.”
+
+“Yet the recipe for the syrup also came from here,” said Vassili,
+“seeing that my sister took it with her. By the way, to what part of the
+country, and to what places, are you thinking of travelling?”
+
+“To tell the truth,” replied Chichikov, rocking himself to and fro on
+the bench, and smoothing his knee with his hand, and gently inclining
+his head, “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and,
+I might add, a generous benefactor of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are
+relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in
+that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the
+world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, to so speak, a
+living book, a second course of education.”
+
+Vassili took thought. “The man speaks floridly,” he reflected, “yet his
+words contain a certain element of truth.” After a moment’s silence he
+added to Platon: “I am beginning to think that the tour might help you
+to bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition of mental slumber.
+You have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness or satiety, as
+through a lack of vivid perceptions and impressions. For myself, I am
+your complete antithesis. I should be only too glad if I could feel less
+acutely, if I could take things less to heart.”
+
+“Emotion has become a disease with you,” said Platon. “You seek your own
+troubles, and make your own anxieties.”
+
+“How can you say that when ready-made anxieties greet one at every
+step?” exclaimed Vassili. “For example, have you heard of the trick
+which Lienitsin has just played us--of his seizing the piece of vacant
+land whither our peasants resort for their sports? That piece I would
+not sell for all the money in the world. It has long been our peasants’
+play-ground, and all the traditions of our village are bound up with it.
+Moreover, for me, old custom is a sacred thing for which I would gladly
+sacrifice everything else.”
+
+“Lienitsin cannot have known of this, or he would not have seized the
+land,” said Platon. “He is a newcomer, just arrived from St. Petersburg.
+A few words of explanation ought to meet the case.”
+
+“But he DOES know of what I have stated; he DOES know of it. Purposely
+I sent him word to that affect, yet he has returned me the rudest of
+answers.”
+
+“Then go yourself and explain matters to him.”
+
+“No, I will not do that; he has tried to carry off things with too high
+a hand. But YOU can go if you like.”
+
+“I would certainly go were it not that I scarcely like to interfere.
+Also, I am a man whom he could easily hoodwink and outwit.”
+
+“Would it help you if _I_ were to go?” put in Chichikov. “Pray enlighten
+me as to the matter.”
+
+Vassili glanced at the speaker, and thought to himself: “What a passion
+the man has for travelling!”
+
+“Yes, pray give me an idea of the kind of fellow,” repeated Chichikov,
+“and also outline to me the affair.”
+
+“I should be ashamed to trouble you with such an unpleasant commission,”
+ replied Vassili. “He is a man whom I take to be an utter rascal.
+Originally a member of a family of plain dvoriane in this province, he
+entered the Civil Service in St. Petersburg, then married some one’s
+natural daughter in that city, and has returned to lord it with a high
+hand. I cannot bear the tone he adopts. Our folk are by no means fools.
+They do not look upon the current fashion as the Tsar’s ukaz any more
+than they look upon St. Petersburg as the Church.”
+
+“Naturally,” said Chichikov. “But tell me more of the particulars of the
+quarrel.”
+
+“They are these. He needs additional land and, had he not acted as he
+has done, I would have given him some land elsewhere for nothing; but,
+as it is, the pestilent fellow has taken it into his head to--”
+
+“I think I had better go and have a talk with him. That might settle the
+affair. Several times have people charged me with similar commissions,
+and never have they repented of it. General Betristchev is an example.”
+
+“Nevertheless I am ashamed that you should be put to the annoyance of
+having to converse with such a fellow.”
+
+
+             [At this point there occurs a long hiatus.]
+
+
+“And above all things, such a transaction would need to be carried
+through in secret,” said Chichikov. “True, the law does not forbid such
+things, but there is always the risk of a scandal.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so,” said Lienitsin with head bent down.
+
+“Then we agree!” exclaimed Chichikov. “How charming! As I say, my
+business is both legal and illegal. Though needing to effect a mortgage,
+I desire to put no one to the risk of having to pay the two roubles
+on each living soul; wherefore I have conceived the idea of relieving
+landowners of that distasteful obligation by acquiring dead and
+absconded souls who have failed to disappear from the revision list.
+This enables me at once to perform an act of Christian charity and
+to remove from the shoulders of our more impoverished proprietors the
+burden of tax-payment upon souls of the kind specified. Should you
+yourself care to do business with me, we will draw up a formal purchase
+agreement as though the souls in question were still alive.”
+
+“But it would be such a curious arrangement,” muttered Lienitsin, moving
+his chair and himself a little further away. “It would be an arrangement
+which, er--er--”
+
+“Would involve you in no scandal whatever, seeing that the affair
+would be carried through in secret. Moreover, between friends who are
+well-disposed towards one another--”
+
+“Nevertheless--”
+
+Chichikov adopted a firmer and more decided tone. “I repeat that there
+would be no scandal,” he said. “The transaction would take place as
+between good friends, and as between friends of mature age, and as
+between friends of good status, and as between friends who know how
+to keep their own counsel.” And, so saying, he looked his interlocutor
+frankly and generously in the eyes.
+
+Nevertheless Lienitsin’s resourcefulness and acumen in business matters
+failed to relieve his mind of a certain perplexity--and the less so
+since he had contrived to become caught in his own net. Yet, in general,
+he possessed neither a love for nor a talent for underhand dealings,
+and, had not fate and circumstances favoured Chichikov by causing
+Lienitsin’s wife to enter the room at that moment, things might have
+turned out very differently from what they did. Madame was a pale, thin,
+insignificant-looking young lady, but none the less a lady who wore her
+clothes a la St. Petersburg, and cultivated the society of persons who
+were unimpeachably comme il faut. Behind her, borne in a nurse’s arms,
+came the first fruits of the love of husband and wife. Adopting his
+most telling method of approach (the method accompanied with a sidelong
+inclination of the head and a sort of hop), Chichikov hastened to greet
+the lady from the metropolis, and then the baby. At first the latter
+started to bellow disapproval, but the words “Agoo, agoo, my pet!” added
+to a little cracking of the fingers and a sight of a beautiful seal on a
+watch chain, enabled Chichikov to weedle the infant into his arms; after
+which he fell to swinging it up and down until he had contrived to raise
+a smile on its face--a circumstance which greatly delighted the parents,
+and finally inclined the father in his visitor’s favour. Suddenly,
+however--whether from pleasure or from some other cause--the infant
+misbehaved itself!
+
+“My God!” cried Madame. “He has gone and spoilt your frockcoat!”
+
+True enough, on glancing downwards, Chichikov saw that the sleeve of
+his brand-new garment had indeed suffered a hurt. “If I could catch you
+alone, you little devil,” he muttered to himself, “I’d shoot you!”
+
+Host, hostess and nurse all ran for eau-de-Cologne, and from three sides
+set themselves to rub the spot affected.
+
+“Never mind, never mind; it is nothing,” said Chichikov as he strove to
+communicate to his features as cheerful an expression as possible.
+“What does it matter what a child may spoil during the golden age of its
+infancy?”
+
+To himself he remarked: “The little brute! Would it could be devoured by
+wolves. It has made only too good a shot, the cussed young ragamuffin!”
+
+How, after this--after the guest had shown such innocent affection for
+the little one, and magnanimously paid for his so doing with a brand-new
+suit--could the father remain obdurate? Nevertheless, to avoid setting a
+bad example to the countryside, he and Chichikov agreed to carry through
+the transaction PRIVATELY, lest, otherwise, a scandal should arise.
+
+“In return,” said Chichikov, “would you mind doing me the following
+favour? I desire to mediate in the matter of your difference with the
+Brothers Platonov. I believe that you wish to acquire some additional
+land? Is not that so?”
+
+
+            [Here there occurs a hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov’s tour in search
+of a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little money
+passed into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he did not
+steal, he merely used. And every one of us at times does the same: one
+man with regard to Government timber, and another with regard to a sum
+belonging to his employer, while a third defrauds his children for the
+sake of an actress, and a fourth robs his peasantry for the sake of
+smart furniture or a carriage. What can one do when one is surrounded
+on every side with roguery, and everywhere there are insanely expensive
+restaurants, masked balls, and dances to the music of gipsy bands? To
+abstain when every one else is indulging in these things, and fashion
+commands, is difficult indeed!
+
+Chichikov was for setting forth again, but the roads had now got into a
+bad state, and, in addition, there was in preparation a second fair--one
+for the dvoriane only. The former fair had been held for the sale of
+horses, cattle, cheese, and other peasant produce, and the buyers had
+been merely cattle-jobbers and kulaks; but this time the function was
+to be one for the sale of manorial produce which had been bought up by
+wholesale dealers at Nizhni Novgorod, and then transferred hither. To
+the fair, of course, came those ravishers of the Russian purse who, in
+the shape of Frenchmen with pomades and Frenchwomen with hats, make away
+with money earned by blood and hard work, and, like the locusts of Egypt
+(to use Kostanzhoglo’s term) not only devour their prey, but also dig
+holes in the ground and leave behind their eggs.
+
+Although, unfortunately, the occurrence of a bad harvest retained many
+landowners at their country houses, the local tchinovniks (whom the
+failure of the harvest did NOT touch) proceeded to let themselves go--as
+also, to their undoing, did their wives. The reading of books of the
+type diffused, in these modern days, for the inoculation of humanity
+with a craving for new and superior amenities of life had caused every
+one to conceive a passion for experimenting with the latest luxury; and
+to meet this want the French wine merchant opened a new establishment
+in the shape of a restaurant as had never before been heard of in the
+province--a restaurant where supper could be procured on credit as
+regarded one-half, and for an unprecedentedly low sum as regarded the
+other. This exactly suited both heads of boards and clerks who were
+living in hope of being able some day to resume their bribes-taking from
+suitors. There also developed a tendency to compete in the matter of
+horses and liveried flunkeys; with the result that despite the damp and
+snowy weather exceedingly elegant turnouts took to parading backwards
+and forwards. Whence these equipages had come God only knows, but at
+least they would not have disgraced St. Petersburg. From within them
+merchants and attorneys doffed their caps to ladies, and inquired after
+their health, and likewise it became a rare sight to see a bearded man
+in a rough fur cap, since every one now went about clean-shaven and with
+dirty teeth, after the European fashion.
+
+“Sir, I beg of you to inspect my goods,” said a tradesman as Chichikov
+was passing his establishment. “Within my doors you will find a large
+variety of clothing.”
+
+“Have you a cloth of bilberry-coloured check?” inquired the person
+addressed.
+
+“I have cloths of the finest kind,” replied the tradesman, raising his
+cap with one hand, and pointing to his shop with the other. Chichikov
+entered, and in a trice the proprietor had dived beneath the counter,
+and appeared on the other side of it, with his back to his wares and his
+face towards the customer. Leaning forward on the tips of his fingers,
+and indicating his merchandise with just the suspicion of a nod, he
+requested the gentleman to specify exactly the species of cloth which he
+required.
+
+“A cloth with an olive-coloured or a bottle-tinted spot in its
+pattern--anything in the nature of bilberry,” explained Chichikov.
+
+“That being so, sir, I may say that I am about to show you clothes of a
+quality which even our illustrious capitals could not surpass. Hi, boy!
+Reach down that roll up there--number 34. No, NOT that one, fool! Such
+fellows as you are always too good for your job. There--hand it to me.
+This is indeed a nice pattern!”
+
+Unfolding the garment, the tradesman thrust it close to Chichikov’s nose
+in order that he might not only handle, but also smell it.
+
+“Excellent, but not what I want,” pronounced Chichikov. “Formerly I was
+in the Custom’s Department, and therefore wear none but cloth of the
+latest make. What I want is of a ruddier pattern than this--not exactly
+a bottle-tinted pattern, but something approaching bilberry.”
+
+“I understand, sir. Of course you require only the very newest thing. A
+cloth of that kind I DO possess, sir, and though excessive in price, it
+is of a quality to match.”
+
+Carrying the roll of stuff to the light--even stepping into the street
+for the purpose--the shopman unfolded his prize with the words, “A truly
+beautiful shade! A cloth of smoked grey, shot with flame colour!”
+
+The material met with the customer’s approval, a price was agreed upon,
+and with incredible celerity the vendor made up the purchase into a
+brown-paper parcel, and stowed it away in Chichikov’s koliaska.
+
+At this moment a voice asked to be shown a black frockcoat.
+
+“The devil take me if it isn’t Khlobuev!” muttered our hero, turning his
+back upon the newcomer. Unfortunately the other had seen him.
+
+“Come, come, Paul Ivanovitch!” he expostulated. “Surely you do not
+intend to overlook me? I have been searching for you everywhere, for I
+have something important to say to you.”
+
+“My dear sir, my very dear sir,” said Chichikov as he pressed Khlobuev’s
+hand, “I can assure you that, had I the necessary leisure, I should
+at all times be charmed to converse with you.” And mentally he added:
+“Would that the Evil One would fly away with you!”
+
+Almost at the same time Murazov, the great landowner, entered the
+shop. As he did so our hero hastened to exclaim: “Why, it is Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! How ARE you, my very dear sir?”
+
+“Well enough,” replied Murazov, removing his cap (Khlobuev and the
+shopman had already done the same). “How, may I ask, are YOU?”
+
+“But poorly,” replied Chichikov, “for of late I have been troubled with
+indigestion, and my sleep is bad. I do not get sufficient exercise.”
+
+However, instead of probing deeper into the subject of Chichikov’s
+ailments, Murazov turned to Khlobuev.
+
+“I saw you enter the shop,” he said, “and therefore followed you, for
+I have something important for your ear. Could you spare me a minute or
+two?”
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” said Khlobuev, and the pair left the shop
+together.
+
+“I wonder what is afoot between them,” said Chichikov to himself.
+
+“A wise and noble gentleman, Athanasi Vassilievitch!” remarked the
+tradesman. Chichikov made no reply save a gesture.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch, I have been looking for you everywhere,” Lienitsin’s
+voice said from behind him, while again the tradesman hastened to remove
+his cap. “Pray come home with me, for I have something to say to you.”
+
+Chichikov scanned the speaker’s face, but could make nothing of it.
+Paying the tradesman for the cloth, he left the shop.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov had conveyed Khlobuev to his rooms.
+
+“Tell me,” he said to his guest, “exactly how your affairs stand. I take
+it that, after all, your aunt left you something?”
+
+“It would be difficult to say whether or not my affairs are improved,”
+ replied Khlobuev. “True, fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles came
+to me from Madame Khanasarova, but I had to pay them away to satisfy my
+debts. Consequently I am once more destitute. But the important point is
+that there was trickery connected with the legacy, and shameful trickery
+at that. Yes, though it may surprise you, it is a fact that that fellow
+Chichikov--”
+
+“Yes, Semen Semenovitch, but, before you go on to speak of Chichikov,
+pray tell me something about yourself, and how much, in your opinion,
+would be sufficient to clear you of your difficulties?”
+
+“My difficulties are grievous,” replied Khlobuev. “To rid myself of
+them, and also to have enough to go on with, I should need to acquire
+at least a hundred thousand roubles, if not more. In short, things are
+becoming impossible for me.”
+
+“And, had you the money, what should you do with it?”
+
+“I should rent a tenement, and devote myself to the education of my
+children. Not a thought should I give to myself, for my career is over,
+seeing that it is impossible for me to re-enter the Civil Service and I
+am good for nothing else.”
+
+“Nevertheless, when a man is leading an idle life he is apt to incur
+temptations which shun his better-employed brother.”
+
+“Yes, but beyond question I am good for nothing, so broken is my health,
+and such a martyr I am to dyspepsia.”
+
+“But how do you propose to live without working? How can a man like you
+exist without a post or a position of any kind? Look around you at the
+works of God. Everything has its proper function, and pursues its proper
+course. Even a stone can be used for one purpose or another. How, then,
+can it be right for a man who is a thinking being to remain a drone?”
+
+“But I should not be a drone, for I should employ myself with the
+education of my children.”
+
+“No, Semen Semenovitch--no: THAT you would find the hardest task of
+all. For how can a man educate his children who has never even educated
+himself? Instruction can be imparted to children only through the medium
+of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a profitable
+example--a life which has been spent in idleness and the playing of
+cards? No, Semen Semenovitch. You had far better hand your children over
+to me. Otherwise they will be ruined. Do not think that I am jesting.
+Idleness has wrecked your life, and you must flee from it. Can a man
+live with nothing to keep him in place? Even a journeyman labourer who
+earns the barest pittance may take an interest in his occupation.”
+
+“Athanasi Vassilievitch, I have tried to overcome myself, but what
+further resource lies open to me? Can I who am old and incapable
+re-enter the Civil Service and spend year after year at a desk with
+youths who are just starting their careers? Moreover, I have lost the
+trick of taking bribes; I should only hinder both myself and others;
+while, as you know, it is a department which has an established caste
+of its own. Therefore, though I have considered, and even attempted to
+obtain, every conceivable post, I find myself incompetent for them all.
+Only in a monastery should I--”
+
+“Nay, nay. Monasteries, again, are only for those who have worked. To
+those who have spent their youth in dissipation such havens say what
+the ant said to the dragonfly--namely, ‘Go you away, and return to your
+dancing.’ Yes, even in a monastery do folk toil and toil--they do
+not sit playing whist.” Murazov looked at Khlobuev, and added: “Semen
+Semenovitch, you are deceiving both yourself and me.”
+
+Poor Khlobuev could not utter a word in reply, and Murazov began to feel
+sorry for him.
+
+“Listen, Semen Semenovitch,” he went on. “I know that you say your
+prayers, and that you go to church, and that you observe both Matins and
+Vespers, and that, though averse to early rising, you leave your bed at
+four o’clock in the morning before the household fires have been lit.”
+
+“Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said Khlobuev, “that is another matter
+altogether. That I do, not for man’s sake, but for the sake of Him who
+has ordered all things here on earth. Yes, I believe that He at least
+can feel compassion for me, that He at least, though I be foul and
+lowly, will pardon me and receive me when all men have cast me out, and
+my best friend has betrayed me and boasted that he has done it for a
+good end.”
+
+Khlobuev’s face was glowing with emotion, and from the older man’s eyes
+also a tear had started.
+
+“You will do well to hearken unto Him who is merciful,” he said. “But
+remember also that, in the eyes of the All-Merciful, honest toil is of
+equal merit with a prayer. Therefore take unto yourself whatsoever task
+you may, and do it as though you were doing it, not unto man, but unto
+God. Even though to your lot there should fall but the cleaning of a
+floor, clean that floor as though it were being cleaned for Him alone.
+And thence at least this good you will reap: that there will remain to
+you no time for what is evil--for card playing, for feasting, for all
+the life of this gay world. Are you acquainted with Ivan Potapitch?”
+
+“Yes, not only am I acquainted with him, but I also greatly respect
+him.”
+
+“Time was when Ivan Potapitch was a merchant worth half a million
+roubles. In everything did he look but for gain, and his affairs
+prospered exceedingly, so much so that he was able to send his son to be
+educated in France, and to marry his daughter to a General. And whether
+in his office or at the Exchange, he would stop any friend whom he
+encountered and carry him off to a tavern to drink, and spend whole days
+thus employed. But at last he became bankrupt, and God sent him other
+misfortunes also. His son! Ah, well! Ivan Potapitch is now my steward,
+for he had to begin life over again. Yet once more his affairs are in
+order, and, had it been his wish, he could have restarted in business
+with a capital of half a million roubles. ‘But no,’ he said. ‘A
+steward am I, and a steward will I remain to the end; for, from being
+full-stomached and heavy with dropsy, I have become strong and well.’
+Not a drop of liquor passes his lips, but only cabbage soup and gruel.
+And he prays as none of the rest of us pray, and he helps the poor as
+none of the rest of us help them; and to this he would add yet further
+charity if his means permitted him to do so.”
+
+Poor Khlobuev remained silent, as before.
+
+The elder man took his two hands in his.
+
+“Semen Semenovitch,” he said, “you cannot think how much I pity you, or
+how much I have had you in my thoughts. Listen to me. In the monastery
+there is a recluse who never looks upon a human face. Of all men whom
+I know he has the broadest mind, and he breaks not his silence save to
+give advice. To him I went and said that I had a friend (though I
+did not actually mention your name) who was in great trouble of soul.
+Suddenly the recluse interrupted me with the words: ‘God’s work first,
+and our own last. There is need for a church to be built, but no money
+wherewith to build it. Money must be collected to that end.’ Then he
+shut to the wicket. I wondered to myself what this could mean, and
+concluded that the recluse had been unwilling to accord me his counsel.
+Next I repaired to the Archimandrite, and had scarce reached his door
+when he inquired of me whether I could commend to him a man meet to be
+entrusted with the collection of alms for a church--a man who should
+belong to the dvoriane or to the more lettered merchants, but who would
+guard the trust as he would guard the salvation of his soul. On the
+instant thought I to myself: ‘Why should not the Holy Father appoint
+my friend Semen Semenovitch? For the way of suffering would benefit him
+greatly; and as he passed with his ledger from landowner to peasant,
+and from peasant to townsman, he would learn where folk dwell, and who
+stands in need of aught, and thus would become better acquainted with
+the countryside than folk who dwell in cities. And, thus become, he
+would find that his services were always in demand.’ Only of late did
+the Governor-General say to me that, could he but be furnished with the
+name of a secretary who should know his work not only by the book but
+also by experience, he would give him a great sum, since nothing is to
+be learned by the former means, and, through it, much confusion arises.”
+
+“You confound me, you overwhelm me!” said Khlobuev, staring at his
+companion in open-eyed astonishment. “I can scarcely believe that your
+words are true, seeing that for such a trust an active, indefatigable
+man would be necessary. Moreover, how could I leave my wife and children
+unprovided for?”
+
+“Have no fear,” said Murazov, “I myself will take them under my care, as
+well as procure for the children a tutor. Far better and nobler were
+it for you to be travelling with a wallet, and asking alms on behalf
+of God, then to be remaining here and asking alms for yourself alone.
+Likewise, I will furnish you with a tilt-waggon, so that you may be
+saved some of the hardships of the journey, and thus be preserved in
+good health. Also, I will give you some money for the journey, in
+order that, as you pass on your way, you may give to those who stand
+in greater need than their fellows. Thus, if, before giving, you assure
+yourself that the recipient of the alms is worthy of the same, you will
+do much good; and as you travel you will become acquainted with all men
+and sundry, and they will treat you, not as a tchinovnik to be feared,
+but as one to whom, as a petitioner on behalf of the Church, they may
+unloose their tongues without peril.”
+
+“I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my part
+in it were it not likely to exceed my strength.”
+
+“What is there that does NOT exceed your strength?” said Murazov.
+“Nothing is wholly proportionate to it--everything surpasses it. Help
+from above is necessary: otherwise we are all powerless. Strength comes
+of prayer, and of prayer alone. When a man crosses himself, and cries,
+‘Lord, have mercy upon me!’ he soon stems the current and wins to the
+shore. Nor need you take any prolonged thought concerning this matter.
+All that you need do is to accept it as a commission sent of God. The
+tilt-waggon can be prepared for you immediately; and then, as soon as
+you have been to the Archimandrite for your book of accounts and his
+blessing, you will be free to start on your journey.”
+
+“I submit myself to you, and accept the commission as a divine trust.”
+
+And even as Khlobuev spoke he felt renewed vigour and confidence arise
+in his soul, and his mind begin to awake to a sense of hopefulness of
+eventually being able to put to flight his troubles. And even as it was,
+the world seemed to be growing dim to his eyes....
+
+Meanwhile, plea after plea had been presented to the legal authorities,
+and daily were relatives whom no one had before heard of putting in
+an appearance. Yes, like vultures to a corpse did these good folk come
+flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov had left behind
+her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov, rumours with
+regard to the validity of the second will, rumours with regard to will
+number one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of funds. Also, there
+came to hand information with regard both to Chichikov’s purchase of
+dead souls and to his conniving at contraband goods during his service
+in the Customs Department. In short, every possible item of evidence
+was exhumed, and the whole of his previous history investigated. How
+the authorities had come to suspect and to ascertain all this God only
+knows, but the fact remains that there had fallen into the hands of
+those authorities information concerning matters of which Chichikov had
+believed only himself and the four walls to be aware. True, for a
+time these matters remained within the cognisance of none but the
+functionaries concerned, and failed to reach Chichikov’s ears; but at
+length a letter from a confidential friend gave him reason to think that
+the fat was about to fall into the fire. Said the letter briefly: “Dear
+sir, I beg to advise you that possibly legal trouble is pending, but
+that you have no cause for uneasiness, seeing that everything will
+be attended to by yours very truly.” Yet, in spite of its tenor, the
+epistle reassured its recipient. “What a genius the fellow is!” thought
+Chichikov to himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his tailor
+arrived with the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a certain
+sense of pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey shot
+with flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then
+try on the breeches--the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite
+concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves
+(though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a
+drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight
+tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined
+that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. “Sir,” he said
+triumphantly, “you may rest assured that the work has been executed
+exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St.
+Petersburg, could have done it better.” As a matter of fact, the tailor
+himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his signboard
+“Foreign Costumier from London and Paris”--the truth being that by
+the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to mere
+“Karlsruhe” and “Copenhagen” he designed to acquire business and cut out
+his local rivals.
+
+Chichikov graciously settled the man’s account, and, as soon as he had
+gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an
+artist of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to look
+better than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a still
+more interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while his
+white collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened the
+effect of the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie,
+the rich satin waistcoat emphasised the dickey, and the
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, shining like silk,
+splendidly rounded off the whole. When he turned to the right he looked
+well: when he turned to the left he looked even better. In short, it
+was a costume worthy of a Lord Chamberlain or the species of dandy who
+shrinks from swearing in the Russian language, but amply relieves his
+feelings in the language of France. Next, inclining his head slightly
+to one side, our hero endeavoured to pose as though he were addressing
+a middle-aged lady of exquisite refinement; and the result of these
+efforts was a picture which any artist might have yearned to portray.
+Next, his delight led him gracefully to execute a hop in ballet fashion,
+so that the wardrobe trembled and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne came
+crashing to the floor. Yet even this contretemps did not upset him; he
+merely called the offending bottle a fool, and then debated whom first
+he should visit in his attractive guise.
+
+Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels,
+and then the voice of a gendarme saying: “You are commanded to present
+yourself before the Governor-General!” Turning round, Chichikov stared
+in horror at the spectacle presented; for in the doorway there was
+standing an apparition wearing a huge moustache, a helmet surmounted
+with a horsehair plume, a pair of crossed shoulder-belts, and a gigantic
+sword! A whole army might have been combined into a single individual!
+And when Chichikov opened his mouth to speak the apparition repeated,
+“You are commanded to present yourself before the Governor-General,”
+ and at the same moment our hero caught sight both of a second apparition
+outside the door and of a coach waiting beneath the window. What was
+to be done? Nothing whatever was possible. Just as he stood--in his
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour suit--he had then and there to enter
+the vehicle, and, shaking in every limb, and with a gendarme seated by
+his side, to start for the residence of the Governor-General.
+
+And even in the hall of that establishment no time was given him to
+pull himself together, for at once an aide-de-camp said: “Go inside
+immediately, for the Prince is awaiting you.” And as in a dream did our
+hero see a vestibule where couriers were being handed dispatches, and
+then a salon which he crossed with the thought, “I suppose I am not to
+be allowed a trial, but shall be sent straight to Siberia!” And at the
+thought his heart started beating in a manner which the most jealous
+of lovers could not have rivalled. At length there opened a door,
+and before him he saw a study full of portfolios, ledgers, and
+dispatch-boxes, with, standing behind them, the gravely menacing figure
+of the Prince.
+
+“There stands my executioner,” thought Chichikov to himself. “He is
+about to tear me to pieces as a wolf tears a lamb.”
+
+Indeed, the Prince’s lips were simply quivering with rage.
+
+“Once before did I spare you,” he said, “and allow you to remain in the
+town when you ought to have been in prison: yet your only return for
+my clemency has been to revert to a career of fraud--and of fraud as
+dishonourable as ever a man engaged in.”
+
+“To what dishonourable fraud do you refer, your Highness?” asked
+Chichikov, trembling from head to foot.
+
+The Prince approached, and looked him straight in the eyes.
+
+“Let me tell you,” he said, “that the woman whom you induced to witness
+a certain will has been arrested, and that you will be confronted with
+her.”
+
+The world seemed suddenly to grow dim before Chichikov’s sight.
+
+“Your Highness,” he gasped, “I will tell you the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth. I am guilty--yes, I am guilty; but I am not so
+guilty as you think, for I was led away by rascals.”
+
+“That any one can have led you away is impossible,” retorted the Prince.
+“Recorded against your name there stand more felonies than even the most
+hardened liar could have invented. I believe that never in your life
+have you done a deed not innately dishonourable--that not a kopeck have
+you ever obtained by aught but shameful methods of trickery and theft,
+the penalty for which is Siberia and the knut. But enough of this! From
+this room you will be conveyed to prison, where, with other rogues and
+thieves, you will be confined until your trial may come on. And this
+is lenient treatment on my part, for you are worse, far worse, than the
+felons who will be your companions. THEY are but poor men in smocks and
+sheepskins, whereas YOU--” Without concluding his words, the Prince shot
+a glance at Chichikov’s smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour apparel.
+
+Then he touched a bell.
+
+“Your Highness,” cried Chichikov, “have mercy upon me! You are the
+father of a family! Spare me for the sake of my aged mother!”
+
+“Rubbish!” exclaimed the Prince. “Even as before you besought me for the
+sake of a wife and children whom you did not even possess, so now you
+would speak to me of an aged mother!”
+
+“Your Highness,” protested Chichikov, “though I am a wretch and the
+lowest of rascals, and though it is true that I lied when I told
+you that I possessed a wife and children, I swear that, as God is my
+witness, it has always been my DESIRE to possess a wife, and to fulfil
+all the duties of a man and a citizen, and to earn the respect of my
+fellows and the authorities. But what could be done against the force
+of circumstances? By hook or by crook I have ever been forced to win
+a living, though confronted at every step by wiles and temptations and
+traitorous enemies and despoilers. So much has this been so that my
+life has, throughout, resembled a barque tossed by tempestuous waves,
+a barque driven at the mercy of the winds. Ah, I am only a man, your
+Highness!”
+
+And in a moment the tears had gushed in torrents from his eyes, and he
+had fallen forward at the Prince’s feet--fallen forward just as he
+was, in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, his velvet
+waistcoat, his satin tie, and his exquisitely fitting breeches, while
+from his neatly brushed pate, as again and again he struck his hand
+against his forehead, there came an odorous whiff of best-quality
+eau-de-Cologne.
+
+“Away with him!” exclaimed the Prince to the gendarme who had just
+entered. “Summon the escort to remove him.”
+
+“Your Highness!” Chichikov cried again as he clasped the Prince’s knees;
+but, shuddering all over, and struggling to free himself, the Prince
+repeated his order for the prisoner’s removal.
+
+“Your Highness, I say that I will not leave this room until you have
+accorded me mercy!” cried Chichikov as he clung to the Prince’s leg with
+such tenacity that, frockcoat and all, he began to be dragged along the
+floor.
+
+“Away with him, I say!” once more the Prince exclaimed with the sort of
+indefinable aversion which one feels at the sight of a repulsive
+insect which he cannot summon up the courage to crush with his boot. So
+convulsively did the Prince shudder that Chichikov, clinging to his leg,
+received a kick on the nose. Yet still the prisoner retained his hold;
+until at length a couple of burly gendarmes tore him away and,
+grasping his arms, hurried him--pale, dishevelled, and in that strange,
+half-conscious condition into which a man sinks when he sees before
+him only the dark, terrible figure of death, the phantom which is so
+abhorrent to all our natures--from the building. But on the threshold
+the party came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov’s heart
+the circumstance revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with almost
+supernatural strength from the grasp of the escorting gendarmes, he
+threw himself at the feet of the horror-stricken old man.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” Murazov exclaimed, “what has happened to you?”
+
+“Save me!” gasped Chichikov. “They are taking me away to prison and
+death!”
+
+Yet almost as he spoke the gendarmes seized him again, and hurried him
+away so swiftly that Murazov’s reply escaped his ears.
+
+A damp, mouldy cell which reeked of soldiers’ boots and leggings, an
+unvarnished table, two sorry chairs, a window closed with a grating, a
+crazy stove which, while letting the smoke emerge through its cracks,
+gave out no heat--such was the den to which the man who had just begun
+to taste the sweets of life, and to attract the attention of his fellows
+with his new suit of smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour, now found
+himself consigned. Not even necessaries had he been allowed to bring
+away with him, nor his dispatch-box which contained all his booty. No,
+with the indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands
+of a tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled
+about the floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and
+gnaw at his heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that
+heart so defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind
+that, should he have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery,
+there would no longer be a Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over
+every one, there hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his
+arrival at the prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.
+
+Compared with poor Chichikov’s sense of relief when the old man entered
+his cell, even the pleasure experienced by a thirsty, dusty traveller
+when he is given a drink of clear spring water to cool his dry, parched
+throat fades into insignificance.
+
+“Ah, my deliverer!” he cried as he rose from the floor, where he had
+been grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old
+man’s hand, he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting
+into tears, he added: “God Himself will reward you for having come to
+visit an unfortunate wretch!”
+
+Murazov looked at him sorrowfully, and said no more than “Ah, Paul
+Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch! What has happened?”
+
+“What has happened?” cried Chichikov. “I have been ruined by an accursed
+woman. That was because I could not do things in moderation--I was
+powerless to stop myself in time, Satan tempted me, and drove me from
+my senses, and bereft me of human prudence. Yes, truly I have sinned, I
+have sinned! Yet how came I so to sin? To think that a dvorianin--yes,
+a dvorianin--should be thrown into prison without process or trial! I
+repeat, a dvorianin! Why was I not given time to go home and collect my
+effects? Whereas now they are left with no one to look after them! My
+dispatch-box, my dispatch-box! It contained my whole property, all that
+my heart’s blood and years of toil and want have been needed to acquire.
+And now everything will be stolen, Athanasi Vassilievitch--everything
+will be taken from me! My God!”
+
+And, unable to stand against the torrent of grief which came rushing
+over his heart once more, he sobbed aloud in tones which penetrated even
+the thickness of the prison walls, and made dull echoes awake behind
+them. Then, tearing off his satin tie, and seizing by the collar, the
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, he stripped the latter
+from his shoulders.
+
+“Ah, Paul Ivanovitch,” said the old man, “how even now the property
+which you have acquired is blinding your eyes, and causing you to fail
+to realise your terrible position!”
+
+“Yes, my good friend and benefactor,” wailed poor Chichikov
+despairingly, and clasping Murazov by the knees. “Yet save me if you
+can! The Prince is fond of you, and would do anything for your sake.”
+
+“No, Paul Ivanovitch; however much I might wish to save you, and however
+much I might try to do so, I could not help you as you desire; for it is
+to the power of an inexorable law, and not to the authority of any one
+man, that you have rendered yourself subject.”
+
+“Satan tempted me, and has ended by making of me an outcast from the
+human race!” Chichikov beat his head against the wall and struck the
+table with his fist until the blood spurted from his hand. Yet neither
+his head nor his hand seemed to be conscious of the least pain.
+
+“Calm yourself, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov. “Calm yourself, and
+consider how best you can make your peace with God. Think of your
+miserable soul, and not of the judgment of man.”
+
+“I will, Athanasi Vassilievitch, I will. But what a fate is mine! Did
+ever such a fate befall a man? To think of all the patience with which
+I have gathered my kopecks, of all the toil and trouble which I have
+endured! Yet what I have done has not been done with the intention of
+robbing any one, nor of cheating the Treasury. Why, then, did I gather
+those kopecks? I gathered them to the end that one day I might be able
+to live in plenty, and also to have something to leave to the wife
+and children whom, for the benefit and welfare of my country, I hoped
+eventually to win and maintain. That was why I gathered those kopecks.
+True, I worked by devious methods--that I fully admit; but what else
+could I do? And even devious methods I employed only when I saw that the
+straight road would not serve my purpose so well as a crooked. Moreover,
+as I toiled, the appetite for those methods grew upon me. Yet what
+I took I took only from the rich; whereas villains exist who, while
+drawing thousands a year from the Treasury, despoil the poor, and take
+from the man with nothing even that which he has. Is it not the cruelty
+of fate, therefore, that, just when I was beginning to reap the harvest
+of my toil--to touch it, so to speak, with the tip of one finger--there
+should have arisen a sudden storm which has sent my barque to pieces on
+a rock? My capital had nearly reached the sum of three hundred thousand
+roubles, and a three-storied house was as good as mine, and twice over
+I could have bought a country estate. Why, then, should such a tempest
+have burst upon me? Why should I have sustained such a blow? Was not my
+life already like a barque tossed to and fro by the billows? Where
+is Heaven’s justice--where is the reward for all my patience, for my
+boundless perseverance? Three times did I have to begin life afresh, and
+each time that I lost my all I began with a single kopeck at a moment
+when other men would have given themselves up to despair and drink. How
+much did I not have to overcome. How much did I not have to bear! Every
+kopeck which I gained I had to make with my whole strength; for though,
+to others, wealth may come easily, every coin of mine had to be ‘forged
+with a nail worth three kopecks’ as the proverb has it. With such a
+nail--with the nail of an iron, unwearying perseverance--did _I_ forge
+my kopecks.”
+
+Convulsively sobbing with a grief which he could not repress, Chichikov
+sank upon a chair, tore from his shoulders the last ragged, trailing
+remnants of his frockcoat, and hurled them from him. Then, thrusting his
+fingers into the hair which he had once been so careful to preserve, he
+pulled it out by handfuls at a time, as though he hoped through physical
+pain to deaden the mental agony which he was suffering.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov sat gazing in silence at the unwonted spectacle of
+a man who had lately been mincing with the gait of a worldling or a
+military fop now writhing in dishevelment and despair as he poured out
+upon the hostile forces by which human ingenuity so often finds itself
+outwitted a flood of invective.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch,” at length said Murazov, “what
+could not each of us rise to be did we but devote to good ends the same
+measure of energy and of patience which we bestow upon unworthy objects!
+How much good would not you yourself have effected! Yet I do not grieve
+so much for the fact that you have sinned against your fellow as I
+grieve for the fact that you have sinned against yourself and the rich
+store of gifts and opportunities which has been committed to your care.
+Though originally destined to rise, you have wandered from the path and
+fallen.”
+
+“Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” cried poor Chichikov, clasping his friend’s
+hands, “I swear to you that, if you would but restore me my freedom, and
+recover for me my lost property, I would lead a different life from this
+time forth. Save me, you who alone can work my deliverance! Save me!”
+
+“How can I do that? So to do I should need to procure the setting aside
+of a law. Again, even if I were to make the attempt, the Prince is a
+strict administrator, and would refuse on any consideration to release
+you.”
+
+“Yes, but for you all things are possible. It is not the law that
+troubles me: with that I could find a means to deal. It is the fact that
+for no offence at all I have been cast into prison, and treated like
+a dog, and deprived of my papers and dispatch-box and all my property.
+Save me if you can.”
+
+Again clasping the old man’s knees, he bedewed them with his tears.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov, shaking his head, “how that property
+of yours still seals your eyes and ears, so that you cannot so much as
+listen to the promptings of your own soul!”
+
+“Ah, I will think of my soul, too, if only you will save me.”
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man began again, and then stopped. For a
+little while there was a pause.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” at length he went on, “to save you does not lie
+within my power. Surely you yourself see that? But, so far as I can,
+I will endeavour to, at all events, lighten your lot and procure your
+eventual release. Whether or not I shall succeed I do not know; but I
+will make the attempt. And should I, contrary to my expectations, prove
+successful, I beg of you, in return for these my efforts, to renounce
+all thought of benefit from the property which you have acquired.
+Sincerely do I assure you that, were I myself to be deprived of my
+property (and my property greatly exceeds yours in magnitude), I should
+not shed a single tear. It is not the property of which men can deprive
+us that matters, but the property of which no one on earth can deprive
+or despoil us. You are a man who has seen something of life--to use
+your own words, you have been a barque tossed hither and thither by
+tempestuous waves: yet still will there be left to you a remnant of
+substance on which to live, and therefore I beseech you to settle down
+in some quiet nook where there is a church, and where none but plain,
+good-hearted folk abide. Or, should you feel a yearning to leave behind
+you posterity, take in marriage a good woman who shall bring you,
+not money, but an aptitude for simple, modest domestic life. But
+this life--the life of turmoil, with its longings and its
+temptations--forget, and let it forget YOU; for there is no peace in
+it. See for yourself how, at every step, it brings one but hatred and
+treachery and deceit.”
+
+“Indeed, yes!” agreed the repentant Chichikov. “Gladly will I do as you
+wish, since for many a day past have I been longing to amend my life,
+and to engage in husbandry, and to reorder my affairs. A demon, the
+tempter Satan himself, has beguiled me and led me from the right path.”
+
+Suddenly there had recurred to Chichikov long-unknown, long-unfamiliar
+feelings. Something seemed to be striving to come to life again in
+him--something dim and remote, something which had been crushed out of
+his boyhood by the dreary, deadening education of his youthful days, by
+his desolate home, by his subsequent lack of family ties, by the poverty
+and niggardliness of his early impressions, by the grim eye of fate--an
+eye which had always seemed to be regarding him as through a misty,
+mournful, frost-encrusted window-pane, and to be mocking at his
+struggles for freedom. And as these feelings came back to the penitent
+a groan burst from his lips, and, covering his face with his hands, he
+moaned: “It is all true, it is all true!”
+
+“Of little avail are knowledge of the world and experience of men unless
+based upon a secure foundation,” observed Murazov. “Though you have
+fallen, Paul Ivanovitch, awake to better things, for as yet there is
+time.”
+
+“No, no!” groaned Chichikov in a voice which made Murazov’s heart bleed.
+“It is too late, too late. More and more is the conviction gaining upon
+me that I am powerless, that I have strayed too far ever to be able to
+do as you bid me. The fact that I have become what I am is due to my
+early schooling; for, though my father taught me moral lessons, and beat
+me, and set me to copy maxims into a book, he himself stole land from
+his neighbours, and forced me to help him. I have even known him to
+bring an unjust suit, and defraud the orphan whose guardian he was!
+Consequently I know and feel that, though my life has been different
+from his, I do not hate roguery as I ought to hate it, and that my
+nature is coarse, and that in me there is no real love for what is good,
+no real spark of that beautiful instinct for well-doing which becomes
+a second nature, a settled habit. Also, never do I yearn to strive for
+what is right as I yearn to acquire property. This is no more than the
+truth. What else could I do but confess it?”
+
+The old man sighed.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “I know that you possess will-power, and
+that you possess also perseverance. A medicine may be bitter, yet the
+patient will gladly take it when assured that only by its means can he
+recover. Therefore, if it really be that you have no genuine love for
+doing good, do good by FORCING yourself to do so. Thus you will benefit
+yourself even more than you will benefit him for whose sake the act
+is performed. Only force yourself to do good just once and again, and,
+behold, you will suddenly conceive the TRUE love for well-doing. That
+is so, believe me. ‘A kingdom is to be won only by striving,’ says the
+proverb. That is to say, things are to be attained only by putting forth
+one’s whole strength, since nothing short of one’s whole strength will
+bring one to the desired goal. Paul Ivanovitch, within you there is a
+source of strength denied to many another man. I refer to the strength
+of an iron perseverance. Cannot THAT help you to overcome? Most men are
+weak and lack will-power, whereas I believe that you possess the power
+to act a hero’s part.”
+
+Sinking deep into Chichikov’s heart, these words would seem to have
+aroused in it a faint stirring of ambition, so much so that, if it was
+not fortitude which shone in his eyes, at all events it was something
+virile, and of much the same nature.
+
+“Athanasi Vassilievitch,” he said firmly, “if you will but petition
+for my release, as well as for permission for me to leave here with a
+portion of my property, I swear to you on my word of honour that I will
+begin a new life, and buy a country estate, and become the head of a
+household, and save money, not for myself, but for others, and do good
+everywhere, and to the best of my ability, and forget alike myself and
+the feasting and debauchery of town life, and lead, instead, a plain,
+sober existence.”
+
+“In that resolve may God strengthen you!” cried the old man with
+unbounded joy. “And I, for my part, will do my utmost to procure
+your release. And though God alone knows whether my efforts will be
+successful, at all events I hope to bring about a mitigation of your
+sentence. Come, let me embrace you! How you have filled my heart with
+gladness! With God’s help, I will now go to the Prince.”
+
+And the next moment Chichikov found himself alone. His whole nature felt
+shaken and softened, even as, when the bellows have fanned the furnace
+to a sufficient heat, a plate compounded even of the hardest and most
+fire-resisting metal dissolves, glows, and turns to the liquefied state.
+
+“I myself can feel but little,” he reflected, “but I intend to use my
+every faculty to help others to feel. I myself am but bad and worthless,
+but I intend to do my utmost to set others on the right road. I myself
+am but an indifferent Christian, but I intend to strive never to yield
+to temptation, but to work hard, and to till my land with the sweat of
+my brow, and to engage only in honourable pursuits, and to influence my
+fellows in the same direction. For, after all, am I so very useless?
+At least I could maintain a household, for I am frugal and active and
+intelligent and steadfast. The only thing is to make up my mind to it.”
+
+Thus Chichikov pondered; and as he did so his half-awakened energies of
+soul touched upon something. That is to say, dimly his instinct
+divined that every man has a duty to perform, and that that duty may
+be performed here, there, and everywhere, and no matter what the
+circumstances and the emotions and the difficulties which compass a man
+about. And with such clearness did Chichikov mentally picture to himself
+the life of grateful toil which lies removed from the bustle of towns
+and the temptations which man, forgetful of the obligation of labour,
+has invented to beguile an hour of idleness that almost our hero forgot
+his unpleasant position, and even felt ready to thank Providence for
+the calamity which had befallen him, provided that it should end in his
+being released, and in his receiving back a portion of his property.
+
+Presently the massive door of the cell opened to admit a tchinovnik
+named Samosvitov, a robust, sensual individual who was reputed by his
+comrades to be something of a rake. Had he served in the army, he
+would have done wonders, for he would have stormed any point, however
+dangerous and inaccessible, and captured cannon under the very noses
+of the foe; but, as it was, the lack of a more warlike field for his
+energies caused him to devote the latter principally to dissipation.
+Nevertheless he enjoyed great popularity, for he was loyal to the point
+that, once his word had been given, nothing would ever make him break
+it. At the same time, some reason or another led him to regard his
+superiors in the light of a hostile battery which, come what might, he
+must breach at any weak or unguarded spot or gap which might be capable
+of being utilised for the purpose.
+
+“We have all heard of your plight,” he began as soon as the door had
+been safely closed behind him. “Yes, every one has heard of it. But
+never mind. Things will yet come right. We will do our very best for
+you, and act as your humble servants in everything. Thirty thousand
+roubles is our price--no more.”
+
+“Indeed?” said Chichikov. “And, for that, shall I be completely
+exonerated?”
+
+“Yes, completely, and also given some compensation for your loss of
+time.”
+
+“And how much am I to pay in return, you say?”
+
+“Thirty thousand roubles, to be divided among ourselves, the
+Governor-General’s staff, and the Governor-General’s secretary.”
+
+“But how is even that to be managed, for all my effects, including my
+dispatch-box, will have been sealed up and taken away for examination?”
+
+“In an hour’s time they will be within your hands again,” said
+Samosvitov. “Shall we shake hands over the bargain?”
+
+Chichikov did so with a beating heart, for he could scarcely believe his
+ears.
+
+“For the present, then, farewell,” concluded Samosvitov. “I have
+instructed a certain mutual friend that the important points are silence
+and presence of mind.”
+
+“Hm!” thought Chichikov. “It is to my lawyer that he is referring.”
+
+Even when Samosvitov had departed the prisoner found it difficult to
+credit all that had been said. Yet not an hour had elapsed before a
+messenger arrived with his dispatch-box and the papers and money therein
+practically undisturbed and intact! Later it came out that Samosvitov
+had assumed complete authority in the matter. First, he had rebuked the
+gendarmes guarding Chichikov’s effects for lack of vigilance, and then
+sent word to the Superintendent that additional men were required for
+the purpose; after which he had taken the dispatch-box into his own
+charge, removed from it every paper which could possibly compromise
+Chichikov, sealed up the rest in a packet, and ordered a gendarme to
+convey the whole to their owner on the pretence of forwarding him sundry
+garments necessary for the night. In the result Chichikov received not
+only his papers, but also some warm clothing for his hypersensitive
+limbs. Such a swift recovery of his treasures delighted him beyond
+expression, and, gathering new hope, he began once more to dream of such
+allurements as theatre-going and the ballet girl after whom he had for
+some time past been dangling. Gradually did the country estate and the
+simple life begin to recede into the distance: gradually did the town
+house and the life of gaiety begin to loom larger and larger in the
+foreground. Oh, life, life!
+
+Meanwhile in Government offices and chancellories there had been set
+on foot a boundless volume of work. Clerical pens slaved, and brains
+skilled in legal casus toiled; for each official had the artist’s liking
+for the curved line in preference to the straight. And all the while,
+like a hidden magician, Chichikov’s lawyer imparted driving power to
+that machine which caught up a man into its mechanism before he could
+even look round. And the complexity of it increased and increased, for
+Samosvitov surpassed himself in importance and daring. On learning
+of the place of confinement of the woman who had been arrested, he
+presented himself at the doors, and passed so well for a smart young
+officer of gendarmery that the sentry saluted and sprang to attention.
+
+“Have you been on duty long?” asked Samosvitov.
+
+“Since this morning, your Excellency.”
+
+“And shall you soon be relieved?”
+
+“In three hours from now, your Excellency.”
+
+“Presently I shall want you, so I will instruct your officer to have you
+relieved at once.”
+
+“Very good, your Excellency.”
+
+Hastening home, thereafter, at top speed, and donning the uniform of
+a gendarme, with a false moustache and a pair of false whiskers--an
+ensemble in which the devil himself would not have known him, Samosvitov
+then made for the gaol where Chichikov was confined, and, en route,
+impressed into the service the first street woman whom he encountered,
+and handed her over to the care of two young fellows of like sort
+with himself. The next step was to hurry back to the prison where the
+original woman had been interned, and there to intimate to the sentry
+that he, Samosvitov (with whiskers and rifle complete), had been sent
+to relieve the said sentry at his post--a proceeding which, of course,
+enabled the newly-arrived relief to ensure, while performing his
+self-assumed turn of duty, that for the woman lying under arrest there
+should be substituted the woman recently recruited to the plot, and that
+the former should then be conveyed to a place of concealment where she
+was highly unlikely to be discovered.
+
+Meanwhile, Samosvitov’s feats in the military sphere were being rivalled
+by the wonders worked by Chichikov’s lawyer in the civilian field of
+action. As a first step, the lawyer caused it to be intimated to the
+local Governor that the Public Prosecutor was engaged in drawing up a
+report to his, the local Governor’s, detriment; whereafter the lawyer
+caused it to be intimated also to the Chief of Gendarmery that a certain
+confidential official was engaged in doing the same by HIM; whereafter,
+again, the lawyer confided to the confidential official in question
+that, owing to the documentary exertions of an official of a still
+more confidential nature than the first, he (the confidential official
+first-mentioned) was in a fair way to find himself in the same boat as
+both the local Governor and the Chief of Gendarmery: with the result
+that the whole trio were reduced to a frame of mind in which they were
+only too glad to turn to him (Samosvitov) for advice. The ultimate and
+farcical upshot was that report came crowding upon report, and that such
+alleged doings were brought to light as the sun had never before beheld.
+In fact, the documents in question employed anything and everything as
+material, even to announcing that such and such an individual had an
+illegitimate son, that such and such another kept a paid mistress, and
+that such and such a third was troubled with a gadabout wife; whereby
+there became interwoven with and welded into Chichikov’s past history
+and the story of the dead souls such a crop of scandals and innuendoes
+that by no manner of means could any mortal decide to which of these
+rubbishy romances to award the palm, since all of them presented an equal
+claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at length, the dossier reached
+the Governor-General himself it simply flabbergasted the poor man; and
+even the exceptionally clever and energetic secretary to whom he deputed
+the making of an abstract of the same very nearly lost his reason with
+the strain of attempting to lay hold of the tangled end of the skein. It
+happened that just at that time the Prince had several other important
+affairs on hand, and affairs of a very unpleasant nature. That is to
+say, famine had made its appearance in one portion of the province, and
+the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to the people had done their
+work badly; in another portion of the province certain Raskolniki [51]
+were in a state of ferment, owing to the spreading of a report than
+an Antichrist had arisen who would not even let the dead rest, but was
+purchasing them wholesale--wherefore the said Raskolniki were summoning
+folk to prayer and repentance, and, under cover of capturing the
+Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning non-Antichrists in batches;
+lastly, the peasants of a third portion of the province had risen
+against the local landowners and superintendents of police, for the
+reason that certain rascals had started a rumour that the time was come
+when the peasants themselves were to become landowners, and to wear
+frockcoats, while the landowners in being were about to revert to the
+peasant state, and to take their own wares to market; wherefore one of
+the local volosts[52], oblivious of the fact that an order of things
+of that kind would lead to a superfluity alike of landowners and
+of superintendents of police, had refused to pay its taxes, and
+necessitated recourse to forcible measures. Hence it was in a mood
+of the greatest possible despondency that the poor Prince was sitting
+plunged when word was brought to him that the old man who had gone bail
+for Chichikov was waiting to see him.
+
+“Show him in,” said the Prince; and the old man entered.
+
+“A fine fellow your Chichikov!” began the Prince angrily. “You defended
+him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to business which
+even the lowest thief would not have touched!”
+
+“Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are
+referring.”
+
+“I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought
+to have been given a public flogging for it.”
+
+“Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention, might I ask
+you whether you do not think the case is non-proven? At all events,
+sufficient evidence against him is still lacking.”
+
+“What? We have as chief witness the woman who personated the deceased,
+and I will have her interrogated in your presence.”
+
+Touching a bell, the Prince ordered her to be sent for.
+
+“It is a most disgraceful affair,” he went on; “and, ashamed though I am
+to have to say it, some of our leading tchinovniks, including the local
+Governor himself, have become implicated in the matter. Yet you tell me
+that this Chichikov ought not to be confined among thieves and rascals!”
+ Clearly the Governor-General’s wrath was very great indeed.
+
+“Your Highness,” said Murazov, “the Governor of the town is one of the
+heirs under the will: wherefore he has a certain right to intervene.
+Also, the fact that extraneous persons have meddled in the matter is
+only what is to be expected from human nature. A rich woman dies, and
+no exact, regular disposition of her property is made. Hence there comes
+flocking from every side a cloud of fortune hunters. What else could one
+expect? Such is human nature.”
+
+“Yes, but why should such persons go and commit fraud?” asked the
+Prince irritably. “I feel as though not a single honest tchinovnik were
+available--as though every one of them were a rogue.”
+
+“Your Highness, which of us is altogether beyond reproach? The
+tchinovniks of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them are
+men of worth, and nearly all of them men skilled in business--though
+also, unfortunately, largely inter-related.”
+
+“Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said the Prince, “for you
+are about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in
+you such a penchant for defending rascals?”
+
+“This,” replied Murazov. “Take any man you like of the persons whom you
+thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being. That
+being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one
+knows that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and
+stupidity? Each of us commits faults with every step that we take;
+each of us entails unhappiness upon others with every breath that we
+draw--and that although we may have no evil intention whatever in our
+minds. Your Highness himself has, before now, committed an injustice of
+the gravest nature.”
+
+“_I_ have?” cried the Prince, taken aback by this unexpected turn given
+to the conversation.
+
+Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating
+something in his thoughts. Then he said:
+
+“Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case of
+the lad Dierpiennikov.”
+
+“What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the
+Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!”
+
+“I am not seeking to justify him; I am only asking you whether you think
+it right that an inexperienced youth who had been tempted and led away
+by others should have received the same sentence as the man who
+had taken the chief part in the affair. That is to say, although
+Dierpiennikov and the man Voron-Drianni received an equal measure of
+punishment, their CRIMINALITY was not equal.”
+
+“If,” exclaimed the Prince excitedly, “you know anything further
+concerning the case, for God’s sake tell it me at once. Only the other
+day did I forward a recommendation that St. Petersburg should remit a
+portion of the sentence.”
+
+“Your Highness,” replied Murazov, “I do not mean that I know of
+anything which does not lie also within your own cognisance, though one
+circumstance there was which might have told in the lad’s favour had he
+not refused to admit it, lest another should suffer injury. All that
+I have in my mind is this. On that occasion were you not a little
+over-hasty in coming to a conclusion? You will understand, of course,
+that I am judging only according to my own poor lights, and for the
+reason that on more than one occasion you have urged me to be frank. In
+the days when I myself acted as a chief of gendarmery I came in contact
+with a great number of accused--some of them bad, some of them good; and
+in each case I found it well also to consider a man’s past career, for
+the reason that, unless one views things calmly, instead of at once
+decrying a man, he is apt to take alarm, and to make it impossible
+thereafter to get any real confession from him. If, on the other hand,
+you question a man as friend might question friend, the result will be
+that straightway he will tell you everything, nor ask for mitigation of
+his penalty, nor bear you the least malice, in that he will understand
+that it is not you who have punished him, but the law.”
+
+The Prince relapsed into thought; until presently there entered a young
+tchinovnik. Portfolio in hand, this official stood waiting respectfully.
+Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia upon his fresh
+young face; for evidently he had not been in the Service for nothing. As
+a matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and
+successfully to unravel it.
+
+
+        [At this point a long hiatus occurs in the original.]
+
+
+“I will send corn to the localities where famine is worst,” said
+Murazov, “for I understand that sort of work better than do the
+tchinovniks, and will personally see to the needs of each person. Also,
+if you will allow me, your Highness, I will go and have a talk with the
+Raskolniki. They are more likely to listen to a plain man than to an
+official. God knows whether I shall succeed in calming them, but at
+least no tchinovnik could do so, for officials of the kind merely draw
+up reports and lose their way among their own documents--with the result
+that nothing comes of it. Nor will I accept from you any money for these
+purposes, since I am ashamed to devote as much as a thought to my own
+pocket at a time when men are dying of hunger. I have a large stock of
+grain lying in my granaries; in addition to which, I have sent orders to
+Siberia that a new consignment shall be forwarded me before the coming
+summer.”
+
+“Of a surety will God reward you for your services, Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! Not another word will I say to you on the subject, for
+you yourself feel that any words from me would be inadequate. Yet tell
+me one thing: I refer to the case of which you know. Have I the right to
+pass over the case? Also, would it be just and honourable on my part to
+let the offending tchinovniks go unpunished?”
+
+“Your Highness, it is impossible to return a definite answer to those
+two questions: and the more so because many rascals are at heart men of
+rectitude. Human problems are difficult things to solve. Sometimes a man
+may be drawn into a vicious circle, so that, having once entered it, he
+ceases to be himself.”
+
+“But what would the tchinovniks say if I allowed the case to be passed
+over? Would not some of them turn up their noses at me, and declare
+that they have effected my intimidation? Surely they would be the last
+persons in the world to respect me for my action?”
+
+“Your Highness, I think this: that your best course would be to call
+them together, and to inform them that you know everything, and to
+explain to them your personal attitude (exactly as you have explained
+it to me), and to end by at once requesting their advice and asking
+them what each of them would have done had he been placed in similar
+circumstances.”
+
+“What? You think that those tchinovniks would be so accessible to lofty
+motives that they would cease thereafter to be venal and meticulous? I
+should be laughed at for my pains.”
+
+“I think not, your Highness. Even the baser section of humanity
+possesses a certain sense of equity. Your wisest plan, your Highness,
+would be to conceal nothing and to speak to them as you have just spoken
+to me. If, at present, they imagine you to be ambitious and proud
+and unapproachable and self-assured, your action would afford them
+an opportunity of seeing how the case really stands. Why should you
+hesitate? You would but be exercising your undoubted right. Speak to
+them as though delivering not a message of your own, but a message from
+God.”
+
+“I will think it over,” the Prince said musingly, “and meanwhile I thank
+you from my heart for your good advice.”
+
+“Also, I should order Chichikov to leave the town,” suggested Murazov.
+
+“Yes, I will do so. Tell him from me that he is to depart hence as
+quickly as possible, and that the further he should remove himself, the
+better it will be for him. Also, tell him that it is only owing to your
+efforts that he has received a pardon at my hands.”
+
+Murazov bowed, and proceeded from the Prince’s presence to that of
+Chichikov. He found the prisoner cheerfully enjoying a hearty dinner
+which, under hot covers, had been brought him from an exceedingly
+excellent kitchen. But almost the first words which he uttered showed
+Murazov that the prisoner had been having dealings with the army of
+bribe-takers; as also that in those transactions his lawyer had played
+the principal part.
+
+“Listen, Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man said. “I bring you your freedom,
+but only on this condition--that you depart out of the town forthwith.
+Therefore gather together your effects, and waste not a moment, lest
+worse befall you. Also, of all that a certain person has contrived to
+do on your behalf I am aware; wherefore let me tell you, as between
+ourselves, that should the conspiracy come to light, nothing on earth
+can save him, and in his fall he will involve others rather then be left
+unaccompanied in the lurch, and not see the guilt shared. How is it that
+when I left you recently you were in a better frame of mind than you are
+now? I beg of you not to trifle with the matter. Ah me! what boots that
+wealth for which men dispute and cut one another’s throats? Do they
+think that it is possible to prosper in this world without thinking of
+the world to come? Believe me when I say that, until a man shall have
+renounced all that leads humanity to contend without giving a thought to
+the ordering of spiritual wealth, he will never set his temporal goods
+either upon a satisfactory foundation. Yes, even as times of want and
+scarcity may come upon nations, so may they come upon individuals. No
+matter what may be said to the contrary, the body can never dispense
+with the soul. Why, then, will you not try to walk in the right way,
+and, by thinking no longer of dead souls, but only of your only living
+one, regain, with God’s help, the better road? I too am leaving the town
+to-morrow. Hasten, therefore, lest, bereft of my assistance, you meet
+with some dire misfortune.”
+
+And the old man departed, leaving Chichikov plunged in thought. Once
+more had the gravity of life begun to loom large before him.
+
+“Yes, Murazov was right,” he said to himself. “It is time that I were
+moving.”
+
+Leaving the prison--a warder carrying his effects in his wake--he found
+Selifan and Petrushka overjoyed at seeing their master once more at
+liberty.
+
+“Well, good fellows?” he said kindly. “And now we must pack and be off.”
+
+“True, true, Paul Ivanovitch,” agreed Selifan. “And by this time the
+roads will have become firmer, for much snow has fallen. Yes, high time
+is it that we were clear of the town. So weary of it am I that the sight
+of it hurts my eyes.”
+
+“Go to the coachbuilder’s,” commanded Chichikov, “and have
+sledge-runners fitted to the koliaska.”
+
+Chichikov then made his way into the town--though not with the object of
+paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have given
+rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an unobtrusive
+call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his latest
+suit. There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with
+the intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
+previous costume; and by promising double remuneration he induced the
+tailor in question so to hasten the cutting out of the garments that,
+through sitting up all night over the work, the man might have the whole
+ready by break of day. True, the goods were delivered a trifle after
+the appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and breeches
+completed; and while the horses were being put to, Chichikov tried on
+the clothes, and found them equal to the previous creation, even though
+during the process he caught sight of a bald patch on his head, and was
+led mournfully to reflect: “Alas! Why did I give way to such despair?
+Surely I need not have torn my hair out so freely?”
+
+Then, when the tailor had been paid, our hero left the town. But no
+longer was he the old Chichikov--he was only a ruin of what he had been,
+and his frame of mind might have been compared to a building recently
+pulled down to make room for a new one, while the new one had not yet
+been erected owing to the non-receipt of the plans from the architect.
+Murazov, too, had departed, but at an earlier hour, and in a tilt-waggon
+with Ivan Potapitch.
+
+An hour later the Governor-General issued to all and sundry officials
+a notice that, on the occasion of his departure for St. Petersburg,
+he would be glad to see the corps of tchinovniks at a private meeting.
+Accordingly all ranks and grades of officialdom repaired to his
+residence, and there awaited--not without a certain measure of
+trepidation and of searching of heart--the Governor-General’s entry.
+When that took place he looked neither clear nor dull. Yet his bearing
+was proud, and his step assured. The tchinovniks bowed--some of them to
+the waist, and he answered their salutations with a slight inclination
+of the head. Then he spoke as follows:
+
+“Since I am about to pay a visit to St. Petersburg, I have thought it
+right to meet you, and to explain to you privately my reasons for doing
+so. An affair of a most scandalous character has taken place in our
+midst. To what affair I am referring I think most of those present will
+guess. Now, an automatic process has led to that affair bringing about
+the discovery of other matters. Those matters are no less dishonourable
+than the primary one; and to that I regret to have to add that there
+stand involved in them certain persons whom I had hitherto believed
+to be honourable. Of the object aimed at by those who have complicated
+matters to the point of making their resolution almost impossible by
+ordinary methods I am aware; as also I am aware of the identity of the
+ringleader, despite the skill with which he has sought to conceal his
+share in the scandal. But the principal point is, that I propose to
+decide these matters, not by formal documentary process, but by the
+more summary process of court-martial, and that I hope, when the
+circumstances have been laid before his Imperial Majesty, to receive
+from him authority to adopt the course which I have mentioned. For I
+conceive that when it has become impossible to resolve a case by civil
+means, and some of the necessary documents have been burnt, and attempts
+have been made (both through the adduction of an excess of false and
+extraneous evidence and through the framing of fictitious reports)
+to cloud an already sufficiently obscure investigation with an added
+measure of complexity,--when all these circumstances have arisen, I
+conceive that the only possible tribunal to deal with them is a military
+tribunal. But on that point I should like your opinion.”
+
+The Prince paused for a moment or two, as though awaiting a reply; but
+none came, seeing that every man had his eyes bent upon the floor, and
+many of the audience had turned white in the face.
+
+“Then,” he went on, “I may say that I am aware also of a matter which
+those who have carried it through believe to lie only within the
+cognisance of themselves. The particulars of that matter will not be set
+forth in documentary form, but only through process of myself acting as
+plaintiff and petitioner, and producing none but ocular evidence.”
+
+Among the throng of tchinovniks some one gave a start, and thereby
+caused others of the more apprehensive sort to fall to trembling in
+their shoes.
+
+“Without saying does it go that the prime conspirators ought to undergo
+deprivation of rank and property, and that the remainder ought to be
+dismissed from their posts; for though that course would cause a certain
+proportion of the innocent to suffer with the guilty, there would seem
+to be no other course available, seeing that the affair is one of
+the most disgraceful nature, and calls aloud for justice. Therefore,
+although I know that to some my action will fail to serve as a lesson,
+since it will lead to their succeeding to the posts of dismissed
+officials, as well as that others hitherto considered honourable will
+lose their reputation, and others entrusted with new responsibilities
+will continue to cheat and betray their trust,--although all this is
+known to me, I still have no choice but to satisfy the claims of justice
+by proceeding to take stern measures. I am also aware that I shall be
+accused of undue severity; but, lastly, I am aware that it is my duty to
+put aside all personal feeling, and to act as the unconscious instrument
+of that retribution which justice demands.”
+
+Over every face there passed a shudder. Yet the Prince had spoken calmly,
+and not a trace of anger or any other kind of emotion had been visible
+on his features.
+
+“Nevertheless,” he went on, “the very man in whose hands the fate of
+so many now lies, the very man whom no prayer for mercy could ever have
+influenced, himself desires to make a request of you. Should you grant
+that request, all will be forgotten and blotted out and pardoned, for
+I myself will intercede with the Throne on your behalf. That request is
+this. I know that by no manner of means, by no preventive measures, and
+by no penalties will dishonesty ever be completely extirpated from our
+midst, for the reason that its roots have struck too deep, and that
+the dishonourable traffic in bribes has become a necessity to, even the
+mainstay of, some whose nature is not innately venal. Also, I know that,
+to many men, it is an impossibility to swim against the stream. Yet now,
+at this solemn and critical juncture, when the country is calling aloud
+for saviours, and it is the duty of every citizen to contribute and to
+sacrifice his all, I feel that I cannot but issue an appeal to every man
+in whom a Russian heart and a spark of what we understand by the word
+‘nobility’ exist. For, after all, which of us is more guilty than his
+fellow? It may be to ME the greatest culpability should be assigned, in
+that at first I may have adopted towards you too reserved an attitude,
+that I may have been over-hasty in repelling those who desired but to
+serve me, even though of their services I did not actually stand in
+need. Yet, had they really loved justice and the good of their country,
+I think that they would have been less prone to take offence at the
+coldness of my attitude, but would have sacrificed their feelings and
+their personality to their superior convictions. For hardly can it
+be that I failed to note their overtures and the loftiness of their
+motives, or that I would not have accepted any wise and useful advice
+proffered. At the same time, it is for a subordinate to adapt himself to
+the tone of his superior, rather than for a superior to adapt himself to
+the tone of his subordinate. Such a course is at once more regular
+and more smooth of working, since a corps of subordinates has but one
+director, whereas a director may have a hundred subordinates. But let us
+put aside the question of comparative culpability. The important point
+is, that before us all lies the duty of rescuing our fatherland. Our
+fatherland is suffering, not from the incursion of a score of alien
+tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in addition to the lawful
+administration, there has grown up a second administration possessed of
+infinitely greater powers than the system established by law. And that
+second administration has established its conditions, fixed its tariff
+of prices, and published that tariff abroad; nor could any ruler, even
+though the wisest of legislators and administrators, do more to correct
+the evil than limit it in the conduct of his more venal tchinovniks by
+setting over them, as their supervisors, men of superior rectitude. No,
+until each of us shall come to feel that, just as arms were taken up
+during the period of the upheaval of nations, so now each of us must
+make a stand against dishonesty, all remedies will end in failure. As a
+Russian, therefore--as one bound to you by consanguinity and identity of
+blood--I make to you my appeal. I make it to those of you who understand
+wherein lies nobility of thought. I invite those men to remember the
+duty which confronts us, whatsoever our respective stations; I invite
+them to observe more closely their duty, and to keep more constantly in
+mind their obligations of holding true to their country, in that before
+us the future looms dark, and that we can scarcely....”
+
+                 *****
+
+   [Here the manuscript of the original comes abruptly to an end.]
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Essays on Russian Novelists. Macmillan.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature. Duckworth and
+Co.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This is generally referred to in the Russian criticisms of
+Gogol as a quotation from Jeremiah. It appears upon investigation,
+however, that it actually occurs only in the Slavonic version from the
+Greek, and not in the Russian translation made direct from the Hebrew.]
+
+[Footnote 4: An urn for brewing honey tea.]
+
+[Footnote 5: An urn for brewing ordinary tea.]
+
+[Footnote 6: A German dramatist (1761-1819) who also filled sundry posts
+in the service of the Russian Government.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Priest’s wife.]
+
+[Footnote 8: In this case the term General refers to a civil grade
+equivalent to the military rank of the same title.]
+
+[Footnote 9: An annual tax upon peasants, payment of which secured to
+the payer the right of removal.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Cabbage soup.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Three horses harnessed abreast.]
+
+[Footnote 12: A member of the gentry class.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Pieces equal in value to twenty-five kopecks (a quarter of
+a rouble).]
+
+[Footnote 14: A Russian general who, in 1812, stoutly opposed Napoleon
+at the battle of Borodino.]
+
+[Footnote 15: The late eighteenth century.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Forty Russian pounds.]
+
+[Footnote 17: To serve as blotting-paper.]
+
+[Footnote 18: A liquor distilled from fermented bread crusts or sour
+fruit.]
+
+[Footnote 19: That is to say, a distinctively Russian name.]
+
+[Footnote 20: A jeering appellation which owes its origin to the fact
+that certain Russians cherish a prejudice against the initial character
+of the word--namely, the Greek theta, or TH.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The great Russian general who, after winning fame in the
+Seven Years’ War, met with disaster when attempting to assist the
+Austrians against the French in 1799.]
+
+[Footnote 22: A kind of large gnat.]
+
+[Footnote 23: A copper coin worth five kopecks.]
+
+[Footnote 24: A Russian general who fought against Napoleon, and was
+mortally wounded at Borodino.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Literally, “nursemaid.”]
+
+[Footnote 26: Village factor or usurer.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Subordinate government officials.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Nevertheless Chichikov would appear to have erred, since
+most people would make the sum amount to twenty-three roubles, forty
+kopecks. If so, Chichikov cheated himself of one rouble, fifty-six
+kopecks.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The names Kariakin and Volokita might, perhaps, be
+translated as “Gallant” and “Loafer.”]
+
+[Footnote 30: Tradesman or citizen.]
+
+[Footnote 31: The game of knucklebones.]
+
+[Footnote 32: A sort of low, four-wheeled carriage.]
+
+[Footnote 33: The system by which, in annual rotation, two-thirds of a
+given area are cultivated, while the remaining third is left fallow.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Public Prosecutor.]
+
+[Footnote 35: To reproduce this story with a raciness worthy of the
+Russian original is practically impossible. The translator has not
+attempted the task.]
+
+[Footnote 36: One of the mistresses of Louis XIV. of France. In 1680 she
+wrote a book called Reflexions sur la Misericorde de Dieu, par une Dame
+Penitente.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Four-wheeled open carriage.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Silver five kopeck piece.]
+
+[Footnote 39: A silver quarter rouble.]
+
+[Footnote 40: In the days of serfdom, the rate of forced labour--so many
+hours or so many days per week--which the serf had to perform for his
+proprietor.]
+
+[Footnote 41: The Elder.]
+
+[Footnote 42: The Younger.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Secondary School.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The desiatin = 2.86 English acres.]
+
+[Footnote 45: “One more makes five.”]
+
+[Footnote 46: Dried spinal marrow of the sturgeon.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Long, belted Tartar blouses.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Village commune.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Landowner.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Here, in the original, a word is missing.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Dissenters or Old Believers: i.e. members of the sect
+which refused to accept the revised version of the Church Service Books
+promulgated by the Patriarch Nikon in 1665.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Fiscal districts.]
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1081 ***
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Dead Souls | Project Gutenberg   </title>
+          <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+
+    <style>
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    .p2 {margin-top: 2em;}
+    .right {text-align: right; text-indent: 0em;}
+    .center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;}
+    .big {font-size: 1.3em;}
+    .xbig {font-size: 2em;}
+    .poetry {margin-left: 10%; text-indent: 0em;}
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1081 ***</div>
+
+    <h1>
+      DEAD SOULS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br>
+    </p>
+    <p class="center big">
+      By Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
+    </p>
+
+    <p class="center big p2">
+      Translated by D. J. Hogarth
+    </p>
+    <p class="center big">
+      Introduction By John Cournos
+    </p>
+
+    <hr>
+
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <span class="big"><b>CONTENTS</b></span>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_INTR"> Introduction By John Cournos </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> PREPARER’S NOTE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        INTRODUCTION
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST PORTION OF THIS
+        WORK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> <b>DEAD SOULS</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PART"> <b>PART I</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PART2"> <b>PART II</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_FOOT"> FOOTNOTES: </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br>
+    </p>
+    <hr>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br> <a id="link2H_INTR">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Introduction By John Cournos
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREPARER’S NOTE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the foreign words were italicised in the original, a style not
+      preserved here. Accents and diphthongs have also been left out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2H_INTR2_">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the first in the matter of structure, the other in
+      background, humour, and detail of characterisation&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The work on one hand was received as nothing less than an exposure of all
+      Russia&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      <a href="#linknote-1" id="linknoteref-1"><small>1</small></a>,
+      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 <a
+      href="#linknote-2" id="linknoteref-2"><small>2</small></a>,
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From 1835 Gogol spent almost his entire time abroad; some strange unrest&mdash;possibly
+      his Cossack blood&mdash;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&mdash;“a spiritual ladder,” in the words of Merejkovsky&mdash;had
+      been made on an earlier occasion by a certain Russian saint, who used
+      almost the same language. “I shall laugh my bitter laugh” <a
+      href="#linknote-3" id="linknoteref-3"><small>3</small></a>
+      was the inscription placed on Gogol’s grave.
+    </p>
+<p class="right">
+                                                          JOHN COURNOS
+</p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LIVES, etc.: (Russian) Kotlyarevsky (N. A.), 1903; Shenrok (V. I.),
+      Materials for a Biography, 1892; (French) Leger (L.), Nicholas Gogol,
+      1914.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST PORTION OF THIS WORK
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Second Edition published in 1846
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      From the Author to the Reader
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reader, whosoever or wheresoever you be, and whatsoever be your station&mdash;whether
+      that of a member of the higher ranks of society or that of a member of the
+      plainer walks of life&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;is
+      what has, until now, prevented me from publishing any subsequent volumes
+      of this story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a rude country bumpkin whose life, throughout, has been
+      passed in retirement&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lastly, while thanking all journalists and litterateurs for their
+      previously published criticisms of my book&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br>
+    </p>
+    <hr>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br> <a id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="center xbig">
+      DEAD SOULS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2H_PART">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart
+      britchka&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-4" id="linknoteref-4"><small>4</small></a>, cheek by
+      jowl with a samovar <a href="#linknote-5" id="linknoteref-5"><small>5</small></a>&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      remnant as thin and flat (perhaps also as greasy) as a pancake&mdash;which
+      he had managed to beg of the landlord of the establishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes
+      through the instrumentality of Russian magnates who profess to be
+      connoisseurs of art&mdash;from Italy; owing to the said magnates having
+      made such purchases solely on the advice of the couriers who have escorted
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To resume, however&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Landowner&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-6" id="linknoteref-6"><small>6</small></a> 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day he devoted to paying calls upon the various municipal
+      officials&mdash;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&mdash;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”&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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”&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      talkative man by nature&mdash;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 <a
+      href="#linknote-7" id="linknoteref-7"><small>7</small></a>!”
+       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&mdash;a man still in his prime, and possessed of
+      a pair of eyes which, sweet as sugar, blinked whenever he laughed&mdash;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&mdash;more especially at the present day, when the race of epic
+      heroes is beginning to die out in Russia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day Chichikov dined and spent the evening at the house of the Chief
+      of Police&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;even though the latter included two ladies&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;who as a rule never
+      spoke well of ANY ONE&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;a mere person with whom Aulic Councillors might consort,
+      but upon whom persons of the grade of full General <a href="#linknote-8"
+       id="linknoteref-8"><small>8</small></a> 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&mdash;and to an author
+      studied negligence spells death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Perhaps you mean Manilovka&mdash;not ZAmanilovka?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, yes&mdash;Manilovka.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Manilovka, eh? Well, you must continue for another verst, and then you
+      will see it straight before you, on the right.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the right?” re-echoed the coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, on the right,” affirmed the peasant. “You are on the proper road for
+      Manilovka, but ZAmanilovka&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;appendages
+      as bare as two pieces of bast&mdash;and crowed loudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed when at length Chichikov leapt from the
+      vehicle. “Never should I have believed that you would have remembered us!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-9" id="linknoteref-9"><small>9</small></a>?” 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”&mdash;thus ran the
+      formula&mdash;“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&mdash;so diverse are the systems in force! None the
+      less, I may remark that Madame Manilov&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pray be so good as not to inconvenience yourself on my account,” said
+      Chichikov. “<i>I</i> will follow YOU.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Paul Ivanovitch&mdash;no! You are my guest.” And Manilov pointed
+      towards the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, I will not. Never could I allow so distinguished and so
+      welcome a guest as yourself to take second place.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why call me ‘distinguished,’ my dear sir? I beg of you to proceed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay; be YOU pleased to do so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the reason which I have stated.” And Manilov smiled his very
+      pleasantest smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally the pair entered simultaneously and sideways; with the result that
+      they jostled one another not a little in the process.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Allow me to present to you my wife,” continued Manilov. “My dear&mdash;Paul
+      Ivanovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;a
+      treat destined to convert this day into a gala day, a true birthday of the
+      heart.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, you ARE so,” interrupted Manilov with his fixed and engaging smile.
+      “You are all that, and more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How like you our town?” queried Madame. “Have you spent an agreeable time
+      in it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very,” replied Chichikov. “The town is an exceedingly nice one, and I
+      have greatly enjoyed its hospitable society.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what do you think of our Governor?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; IS he not a most engaging and dignified personage?” added Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And the Vice-Governor, too&mdash;he is a nice man, is he not?” inquired
+      Manilov with renewed blinkings of the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who? The Vice-Governor? Yes, a most worthy fellow!” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what of the Chief of Police? Is it not a fact that he too is in the
+      highest degree agreeable?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what of his wife?” queried Madame Manilov. “Is she not a most
+      gracious personality?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “One of the best among my limited acquaintance,” agreed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you devote your time entirely to your estate?” asked Chichikov, in his
+      turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so,” agreed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, quite so,” capped Manilov. “At the same time, it would be a
+      different matter if the neighbourhood were a GOOD one&mdash;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&mdash;”
+       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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay, but even THAT were worth nothing had not one a friend with whom to
+      share one’s life,” remarked Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Manilov with a glance not merely sweet, but
+      positively luscious&mdash;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&mdash;what
+      PERFECT happiness, so to speak&mdash;the present occasion has brought me,
+      seeing that I am permitted to converse with you and to enjoy your
+      conversation.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But WHAT of my conversation?” replied Chichikov. “I am an insignificant
+      individual, and, beyond that, nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the contrary, I should consider it the highest honour in the world if&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lengths to which this mutual outpouring of soul would have proceeded
+      had not a servant entered to announce luncheon must remain a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;we confine ourselves to shtchi <a
+      href="#linknote-10" id="linknoteref-10"><small>10</small></a>,
+      but we do so with a single heart. Come, I humbly beg of you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What charming children!” said Chichikov as he gazed at the pair. “And how
+      old are they?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The eldest is eight,” replied Manilov, “and the younger one attained the
+      age of six yesterday.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Themistocleus,” repeated the father, “tell me which is the finest city in
+      France.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And which is the finest city in Russia?” continued Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the tutor’s attitude became wholly one of concentration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “St. Petersburg,” replied Themistocleus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what other city?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Moscow,” responded the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I do,” replied Themistocleus, chewing a piece of bread and wagging
+      his head from side to side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;the grease
+      from which had soon covered his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every now and again the hostess would turn to Chichikov with the words,
+      “You are eating nothing&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I should prefer to sit upon this chair.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly Chichikov obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And also let me hand you a pipe.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I never smoke,” answered Chichikov civilly, and with an assumed air
+      of regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why?” inquired Manilov&mdash;equally civilly, but with a regret that
+      was wholly genuine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;a
+      most excellent, well-educated fellow&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov replied that such cases were common, since nature comprised many
+      things which even the finest intellect could not compass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But allow me to put to you a question,” he went on in a tone in which
+      there was a strange&mdash;or, at all events, RATHER a strange&mdash;note.
+      For some unknown reason, also, he glanced over his shoulder. For some
+      equally unknown reason, Manilov glanced over HIS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How long is it,” inquired the guest, “since you last rendered a census
+      return?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, a long, long time. In fact, I cannot remember when it was.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And since then have many of your serfs died?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Look here, my good man,” said Manilov. “How many of our serfs have died
+      since the last census revision?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How many of them have died? Why, a great many.” The bailiff hiccoughed,
+      and slapped his mouth lightly after doing so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How many, for instance?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; how many?” re-echoed Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “HOW many?” re-echoed the bailiff. “Well, no one knows the exact number,
+      for no one has kept any account.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so,” remarked Manilov. “I supposed the death-rate to have been
+      high, but was ignorant of its precise extent.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I will&mdash;a detailed list,” agreed Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bailiff departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For what purpose do you want it?” inquired Manilov when the bailiff had
+      gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You ask me,” said Chichikov, “for what purpose I want the list. Well, my
+      purpose in wanting it is this&mdash;that I desire to purchase a few
+      peasants.” And he broke off in a gulp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But may I ask HOW you desire to purchase those peasants?” asked Manilov.
+      “With land, or merely as souls for transferment&mdash;that is to say, by
+      themselves, and without any land?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I want the peasants themselves only,” replied Chichikov. “And I want dead
+      ones at that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What?&mdash;Excuse me, but I am a trifle deaf. Really, your words sound
+      most strange!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “So,” continued Chichikov, “what I desire to know is whether you are
+      willing to hand over to me&mdash;to resign&mdash;these actually
+      non-living, but legally living, peasants; or whether you have any better
+      proposal to make?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Manilov felt too confused and confounded to do aught but continue staring
+      at his interlocutor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think that you are disturbing yourself unnecessarily,” was Chichikov’s
+      next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I? Oh no! Not at all!” stammered Manilov. “Only&mdash;pardon me&mdash;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&mdash;er&mdash;utterances
+      which have just fallen from your lips there may lie something else
+      concealed, it may equally be that&mdash;er&mdash;you have been pleased so
+      to express yourself for the sake of the beauty of the terms wherein that
+      expression found shape?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Manilov still felt at a loss&mdash;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&mdash;this
+      time from his nostrils as well as from his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “So,” went on Chichikov, “if no obstacle stands in the way, we might as
+      well proceed to the completion of the purchase.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Of the purchase of the dead souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Perhaps you feel doubtful about the proposal?” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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)&mdash;you will, I know, excuse me if I say that
+      possibly this&mdash;er&mdash;this, er, SCHEME of yours, this&mdash;er&mdash;TRANSACTION
+      of yours, may fail altogether to accord with the Civil Statutes and
+      Provisions of the Realm?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;unless on that of some
+      particularly sapient Minister of State who is debating some particularly
+      abstruse problem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, then, do you propose?” asked Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I propose only what is above-board, and nothing else.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then, that being so, it is another matter, and I have nothing to urge
+      against it,” said Manilov, apparently reassured to the full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” remarked Chichikov. “Then we need only to agree as to the
+      price.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is Paul Ivanovitch leaving us so soon, dearest Lizanka?” she said with an
+      air of regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Surely it must be that we have wearied him?” her spouse replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rest assured that I will not,” responded Manilov. “Only for a couple of
+      days will you and I be parted from one another.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that the party moved into the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should,” replied Themistocleus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And to you, Alkid, I will bring a drum. That would suit you, would it
+      not?” And he bowed in Alkid’s direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Zeth&mdash;a drum,” lisped the boy, hanging his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good! Then a drum it shall be&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are only small ones,” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And you know your way to Sobakevitch’s?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I do not, and should be glad if you would direct me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-11" id="linknoteref-11"><small>11</small></a>,
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;not as a punishment, but as a sign of his
+      approval. That done, he addressed himself to the skewbald again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he fell to recalling certain reminiscences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;why, every one looks up to him, for
+      he has been in the Government’s service, and is a Collegiate Councillor.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Selifan!” he exclaimed, leaning forward in the britchka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it, barin?” replied the coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Can you see the country house anywhere?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You rascal, what road are you following?” inquired Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Stop, stop, or you will upset us!” he shouted to the fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here he started to turn the vehicle round a little&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, you!” said Selifan meditatively to the britchka. “To think of
+      upsetting us like this!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are as drunk as a lord!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, barin. Drunk, indeed? Why, I know my manners too well. A word or
+      two with a friend&mdash;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&mdash;especially
+      a snack with a decent man.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What did I say to you when last you got drunk?” asked Chichikov. “Have
+      you forgotten what I said then?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, if I lay the whip about you, you’ll know then how to talk to a
+      decent fellow, I’ll warrant!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is that knocking? What have you come for?” shouted the hoarse voice
+      of an elderly woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “We are travellers, good mother,” said Chichikov. “Pray allow us to spend
+      the night here.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what are we to do, mother? We have lost our way, and cannot spend the
+      night out of doors in such weather.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, we cannot. The night is dark and cold,” added Selifan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hold your tongue, you fool!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who ARE you, then?” inquired the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A dvorianin <a href="#linknote-12" id="linknoteref-12"><small>12</small></a>, good mother.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somehow the word dvorianin seemed to give the old woman food for thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Wait a moment,” she said, “and I will tell the mistress.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-13" id="linknoteref-13"><small>13</small></a>, 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&mdash;should
+      the old gown become scorched during the baking of holiday cakes and other
+      dainties, or should it fall into pieces of itself&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov apologised for having disturbed the household with his
+      unexpected arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov thanked his hostess kindly, and said that he needed nothing, and
+      she must not put herself about: only for rest was he longing&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But at least you are acquainted with landowner Manilov?” continued
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No. Who is he?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Another landed proprietor, madam.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, neither have I heard of him. No such landowner lives hereabouts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then who ARE your local landowners?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Bobrov, Svinin, Kanapatiev, Khapakin, Trepakin, and Plieshakov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are they rich men?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, none of them. One of them may own twenty souls, and another thirty,
+      but of gentry who own a hundred there are none.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov reflected that he had indeed fallen into an aristocratic
+      wilderness!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “At all events, is the town far away?” he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “About sixty versts. How sorry I am that I have nothing for you to eat!
+      Should you care to drink some tea?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thank you, good mother, but I require nothing beyond a bed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That I am nothing worse than muddy is indeed fortunate, since, but for
+      the Almighty, I should have had my ribs broken.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Dear, dear! To think of all that you must have been through. Had I not
+      better wipe your back?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thank you, I thank you, but you need not trouble. Merely be so good as
+      to tell your maid to dry my clothes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;just
+      as we used to do for your late master&mdash;give them a good rub, and fold
+      them up neatly.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well, mistress,” said Fetinia, spreading some sheets over the bed,
+      and arranging the pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-14" id="linknoteref-14"><small>14</small></a> 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 <a href="#linknote-15" id="linknoteref-15"><small>15</small></a>. 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&mdash;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&mdash;in some cases almost a new
+      one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have slept exceedingly well,” replied Chichikov, seating himself upon a
+      chair. “And how are YOU, good madam?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But poorly, my dear sir.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why so?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That will pass, that will pass, good mother. You must pay no attention to
+      it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Excellent, good mother! Then I will take that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You have a nice little village here, madam. How many souls does it
+      contain?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But your peasants look fine, strong fellows. May I enquire your name?
+      Through arriving so late at night I have quite lost my wits.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Korobotchka, the widow of a Collegiate Secretary.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I humbly thank you. And your Christian name and patronymic?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nastasia Petrovna.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nastasia Petrovna! Those are excellent names. I have a maternal aunt
+      named like yourself.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And YOUR name?” queried the lady. “May I take it that you are a
+      Government Assessor?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, madam,” replied Chichikov with a smile. “I am not an Assessor, but a
+      traveller on private business.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I never buy honey.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then WHAT do you buy, pray? Hemp? I have a little of that by me, but not
+      more than half a pood <a href="#linknote-16" id="linknoteref-16"><small>16</small></a> or so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, madam. It is in other wares that I deal. Tell me, have you, of late
+      years, lost many of your peasants by death?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; no fewer than eighteen,” responded the old lady with a sigh. “Such a
+      fine lot, too&mdash;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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? A fire occurred at your place?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, God preserve us all! It was not so bad as that. You must
+      understand that the blacksmith SET HIMSELF on fire&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hand over whom?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The dead peasants.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how could I do that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite simply. Sell them to me, and I will give you some money in
+      exchange.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that the said souls would be listed as still alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what good would they be to you?” asked his hostess, staring at him
+      with her eyes distended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That is MY affair.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But they are DEAD souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes&mdash;but I do not know,” said his hostess diffidently. “You see,
+      never before have I sold dead souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;<i>I</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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But, sir, I have never in my life sold dead folk&mdash;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&mdash;able to make napkins or anything else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but with the living we have nothing to do, damn it! I am asking you
+      only about DEAD folk.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, yes, of course. But at first sight I felt afraid lest I should be
+      incurring a loss&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “See here, madam. (What a woman it is!) HOW could they be worth more?
+      Think for yourself. They are so much loss to you&mdash;so much loss, do
+      you understand? Take any worthless, rubbishy article you like&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “True, true&mdash;they ARE good for nothing. But what troubles me is the
+      fact that they are dead.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;fifteen roubles for each soul, do you understand?&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For twelve roubles per pood.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “By the Lord God I did!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;and roubles not in silver, but roubles in good
+      paper currency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That these powerful inducements would certainly cause the old woman to
+      yield Chichikov had not a doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The Lord save us, but what things you say!” she ejaculated, crossing
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the old woman communed with herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What are you thinking of, Nastasia Petrovna?” inquired Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am thinking that I scarcely know what to do. Perhaps I had better sell
+      you some hemp?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, I think it a very queer bargain. Never have I heard of such a
+      thing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, you and all your village together!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The insults!” exclaimed the old woman, glancing at her visitor in terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No wonder that I lose my temper! An egg too many is no great matter, yet
+      it may prove exceedingly annoying.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly,” replied Madame Korobotchka. “The son of our archpriest,
+      Father Cyril, himself is a lawyer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-17" id="linknoteref-17"><small>17</small></a> 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&mdash;the latter made to draw out from the side of the
+      receptacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov set to work to clean a pen, and then to write. Presently his
+      hostess entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes&mdash;in Moscow,” replied Chichikov without interrupting his writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this Chichikov explained that the paper was not the sort proper for
+      the purpose&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Try this freshly-made pie and an egg,” continued Madame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And also a few pancakes?” suggested Madame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your pancakes are indeed splendid,” said Chichikov, applying himself to
+      the second consignment of fried dainties when they had arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then it is being got so, madam, it is being got so, and I shall need a
+      moment or two to pack my things.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As you please, dear sir; but do not forget me in connection with those
+      Government contracts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I have said that NEVER shall I forget you,” replied Chichikov as he
+      hurried into the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And would you like to buy some lard?” continued his hostess, pursuing
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Lard? Oh certainly. Why not? Only, only&mdash;I will do so ANOTHER time.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I shall have some ready at about Christmas.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, madam. THEN I will buy anything and everything&mdash;the lard
+      included.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And perhaps you will be wanting also some feathers? I shall be having
+      some for sale about St. Philip’s Day.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well, very well, madam.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “There you see!” she remarked as they stepped out on to the verandah. “The
+      britchka is NOT yet ready.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it soon will be, it soon will be. Only direct me to the main road.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, of course.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;both of which properties were at odds and ends,
+      owing to her ignorance of the art of managing them&mdash;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?&mdash;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?...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Selifan returned no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good-bye, madam,” added the speaker. “But where is the girl whom you
+      promised me?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no,” she replied. “I will show you the road when the time comes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Which way, then?” he asked again when they had proceeded a little
+      further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This way.” And she pointed to the road just mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Get along with you!” retorted the coachman. “That DOES go to the right.
+      You don’t know your right hand from your left.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what is the building?” asked Selifan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A tavern,” she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then we can get along by ourselves,” he observed. “Do you get down, and
+      be off home.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he stopped, and helped her to alight&mdash;muttering as he did
+      so: “Ah, you blackfooted creature!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov added a copper groat, and she departed well pleased with her
+      ride in the gentleman’s carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On reaching the tavern, Chichikov called a halt. His reasons for this were
+      twofold&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you a sucking-pig?” Chichikov inquired of the landlady as she stood
+      expectantly before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And some horse-radish and sour cream?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then serve them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ha, ha, ha!” he cried with a gesture of astonishment at the sight of
+      Chichikov. “What chance brings YOU here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that Chichikov recognised Nozdrev&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you did NOT break the bank,” remarked the flaxen-haired man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No. That was because I did not play my cards right. But what about your
+      precious major’s play? Is THAT good?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good or not, at least he beat you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-18" id="linknoteref-18"><small>18</small></a>. Try to
+      imagine not merely Clicquot, but a sort of blend of Clicquot and Matradura&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! You CAN’T have got through seventeen,” remarked the
+      flaxen-haired man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I did, I give my word of honour,” retorted Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Imagine what you like, but you didn’t drink even TEN bottles at a
+      sitting.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Will you bet that I did not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; for what would be the use of betting about it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then at least wager the gun which you have bought.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I am not going to do anything of the kind.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Just as an experiment?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am about to call on a friend.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On what friend? Let him go to the devil, and come to my place instead.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I cannot, I cannot. I have business to do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, business again! I thought so!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I HAVE business to do&mdash;and pressing business at that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I wager that you’re lying. If not, tell me whom you’re going to call
+      upon.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Upon Sobakevitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</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&mdash;no, not for ten
+      thousand roubles of money. I tell you that in advance.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;he had contrived to filch the latter while fumbling in
+      the britchka for something else):
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Barin, do you wish for anything to eat?” inquired the landlady as she
+      entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Aniseed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then bring me a glass of it,” repeated Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And one for me as well,” added the flaxen-haired man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;a
+      fellow dressed like his master (that is to say, in a greasy, wadded
+      overcoat)&mdash;entered with the puppy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Put the brute down here,” commanded Nozdrev, “and then fasten it up.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Porphyri deposited the animal upon the floor; whereupon it proceeded to
+      act after the manner of dogs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I DID brush him,” protested Porphyri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then where did these fleas come from?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I cannot think. Perhaps they have leapt into his coat out of the
+      britchka.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You liar! As a matter of fact, you have forgotten to brush him.
+      Nevertheless, look at these ears, Chichikov. Just feel them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why should I? Without doing that, I can see that he is well-bred.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, catch hold of his ears and feel them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To humour the fellow Chichikov did as he had requested, remarking: “Yes,
+      he seems likely to turn out well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And feel the coldness of his nose! Just take it in your hand.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Not wishing to offend his interlocutor, Chichikov felt the puppy’s nose,
+      saying: “Some day he will have an excellent scent.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Porphyri lifted up the puppy, and bore it downstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no,” put in the flaxen-haired man. “You must excuse me, for I must be
+      off home.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish, rubbish! I am NOT going to excuse you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But my wife will be furious with me. You and Monsieur Chichikov must
+      change into the other britchka.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! The thing is not to be thought of.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flaxen-haired man was one of those people in whose character, at first
+      sight, there seems to lurk a certain grain of stubbornness&mdash;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&mdash;yes, better than any one else will do&mdash;to
+      a tune set by some one else. In short, they generally begin well, but
+      always end badly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But the gentleman has not paid for the vodka?” put in the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “All right, all right, good mother. Look here, brother-in-law. Pay her,
+      will you, for I have not a kopeck left.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How much?” inquired the brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, sir? Eighty kopecks, if you please,” replied the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A lie! Give her half a rouble. That will be quite enough.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and consorting with them as though nothing
+      whatsoever had happened&mdash;no reference to the subject being made by
+      him, and they too holding their tongues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a man with a star
+      on his breast&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;who was
+      beginning to feel hungry once more&mdash;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&mdash;even though as early as two o’clock he had to announce
+      that nothing more was to be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You NEVER paid ten thousand roubles for the brute!” exclaimed the
+      brother-in-law. “He isn’t worth even a thousand.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “By God, I DID pay ten thousand!” asserted Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You can swear that as much as you like,” retorted the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Will you bet that I did not?” asked Nozdrev, but the brother-in-law
+      declined the offer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This piece of information was received with renewed incredulity on the
+      part of the brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;their “stems,” as dog fanciers call those members&mdash;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&mdash;also blind; then an inspection of the water-mill,
+      which lacked the spindle-socket wherein the upper stone ought to have been
+      revolving&mdash;“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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You never caught a hare by the hind legs with your hands!” remarked the
+      brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I DID” reiterated Nozdrev. “However, let me show you the boundary
+      where my lands come to an end.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, it isn’t long since I purchased it,” said Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How long?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How long? Why, I purchased it three days ago, and gave a pretty sum for
+      it, as the devil knows!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? Why, three days ago you were at the fair?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, your STEWARD bought it.” The brother-in-law seemed doubtful, and
+      shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;such things as books and papers. On the contrary, the
+      only articles to be seen were a sword and a brace of guns&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-19" id="linknoteref-19"><small>19</small></a>,
+      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&mdash;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”&mdash;a
+      term which, in the Nozdrevian vocabulary, purported to signify the acme of
+      perfection).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, after some hors-d’oeuvres of sturgeon’s back, they sat down to
+      table&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;“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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no!” cried Nozdrev. “I am NOT going to let you go.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I MUST go,” replied the brother-in-law. “Don’t try to hinder me. You
+      are annoying me greatly.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish! We are going to play a game of banker.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your wife be&mdash;! But have you REALLY an important piece of business
+      with her?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, let him go,” put in Chichikov under his breath. “What use will he be
+      here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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
+      <a href="#linknote-20" id="linknoteref-20"><small>20</small></a>.
+      Off you go to your wife and your woman’s talk and may the devil go with
+      you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then off you go to her with your pack of lies. Here is your cap.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, good friend, you are not to speak of her like that. By so doing you
+      offend me greatly&mdash;I say that she is a dear, good woman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then run along home to her.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I am just going. Excuse me for having been unable to stay. Gladly
+      would I have stayed, but really I cannot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that they repaired to the parlour, where, on Porphyri bringing
+      candles, Chichikov perceived that his host had produced a pack of cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov pretended not to have heard him, but remarked with an air of
+      having just recollected a forgotten point:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “By the way, I had omitted to say that I have a request to make of you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What request?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “First give me your word that you will grant it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is the request, I say?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you give me your word, do you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your word of honour?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My word of honour.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have. But why do you ask?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because I want you to make them over to me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of what use would they be to you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind. I have a purpose in wanting them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What purpose?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A purpose which is strictly my own affair. In short, I need them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You seem to have hatched a very fine scheme. Out with it, now! What is in
+      the wind?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then for what purpose do you want the serfs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, the curiosity of the man! He wants to poke his fingers into and smell
+      over every detail!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No matter what you desire me to do, I decline to do it until you have
+      told me your purpose.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are lying,” said Nozdrev without even letting him finish. “Yes, you
+      are lying my good friend.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Again you are lying,” said Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then look here; I have been lying only to this extent.” And Chichikov
+      marked off upon his little finger a minute portion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless I will bet my head that you have been lying throughout.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! That is not very civil of you. Why should I have been lying?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This remark hurt Chichikov, for at any time he disliked expressions gross
+      or offensive to decency, and never allowed any one&mdash;no, not even
+      persons of the highest rank&mdash;to behave towards him with an undue
+      measure of familiarity. Consequently his sense of umbrage on the present
+      occasion was unbounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, after a pause he added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “If you do not care to give me the serfs, why not SELL them?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “SELL them? <i>I</i> know you, you rascal! You wouldn’t give me very much
+      for them, WOULD you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A nice fellow! Look here. What are they to you? So many diamonds, eh?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thought so! <i>I</i> know you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, but I could wish that you were a member of the Jewish
+      persuasion. You would give them to me fast enough then.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what should <i>I</i> want with your colt?” said Chichikov, genuinely
+      astonished at the proposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I ask you again: of what use could the colt possibly be to me? I am not
+      the keeper of a breeding establishment.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I do not mean to buy the colt, damn him!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then buy the roan mare.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, nor the roan mare.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you shall have both the mare and the grey horse which you have seen
+      in my stables for two thousand roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I require no horses at all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then sell them at that fair yourself, seeing that you are so certain of
+      making a triple profit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, I should make it fast enough, only I want YOU to benefit by the
+      transaction.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov duly thanked his interlocutor, but continued to decline either
+      the grey horse or the roan mare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of what use would those dogs be to me? I am not a sportsman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen to the man! In that case, what should I have left to drive in?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And in exchange, you shall have the britchka, the barrel-organ, and the
+      dead souls,” repeated Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I must decline the offer,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because I don’t WANT the things&mdash;I am full up already.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What do you mean, you fool? Think for yourself. Why should I acquire
+      articles which I don’t want?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as Nozdrev uttered the words Porphyri entered with a fresh bottle of
+      liquor; but Chichikov declined either to play or to drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why do you refuse to play?” asked Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because I feel indisposed to do so. Moreover, I must confess that I am no
+      great hand at cards.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “WHY are you no great hand at them?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov shrugged his shoulders. “Because I am not,” he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are no great hand at ANYTHING, I think.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What does that matter? God has made me so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;just
+      such another as he.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This development Chichikov had hardly expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And do you,” added Nozdrev to his guest, “get out of my sight.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet in spite of this, host and guest took supper together&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is where you are to sleep. I cannot very well wish you good-night.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Host and guest greeted one another in friendly fashion, and Nozdrev
+      inquired how Chichikov had slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fairly well,” replied Chichikov, but with a touch of dryness in his tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” though Chichikov to himself, “and I wish that they too would give
+      you a public thrashing!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What think you?” he asked of Chichikov after a short silence. “Are you
+      willing NOW to play me for those souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have told you that I never play cards. If the souls are for sale, I
+      will buy them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have told you that I decline to play.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And you will not agree to an exchange?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are wasting your time. I will play neither chess nor cards.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” he added aloud. “I WILL play you at chess.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And stake the souls for a hundred roubles?” asked Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No. Why for a hundred? Would it not be sufficient to stake them for
+      fifty?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” assented Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then how many moves are you going to allow me?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is THAT to be part of the bargain? Why, none, of course.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “At least allow me two.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, none. I myself am only a poor player.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “<i>I</i> know you and your poor play,” said Nozdrev, moving a chessman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “In fact, it is a long time since last I had a chessman in my hand,”
+       replied Chichikov, also moving a piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! <i>I</i> know you and your poor play,” repeated Nozdrev, moving a
+      second chessman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I say again that it is a long time since last I had a chessman in my
+      hand.” And Chichikov, in his turn, moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! <i>I</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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Again, I say,” said Chichikov, “that ’tis a long time since last&mdash;But
+      hi! look here! Put that piece back in its place!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What piece?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How ‘three pieces’? All that I have done is to make a mistake&mdash;to
+      move one of my pieces by accident. If you like, I will forfeit it to you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And whence has the third piece come?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What third piece?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The one now standing between the queens?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “’Tis one of your own pieces. Surely you are forgetting?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Its place? Which IS its place?” But Nozdrev had reddened a good deal. “I
+      perceive you to be a strategist at the game.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, good friend. YOU are the strategist&mdash;though an unsuccessful
+      one, as it happens.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then of what are you supposing me capable? Of cheating you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am not supposing you capable of anything. All that I say is that I will
+      not play with you any more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you can’t refuse to,” said Nozdrev, growing heated. “You see, the
+      game has begun.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, I have a right not to continue it, seeing that you are not
+      playing as an honest man should do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are lying&mdash;you cannot truthfully say that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “’Tis you who are lying.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I have NOT cheated. Consequently you cannot refuse to play, but must
+      continue the game to a finish.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You cannot force me to play,” retorted Chichikov coldly as, turning to
+      the chessboard, he swept the pieces into confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nozdrev approached Chichikov with a manner so threatening that the other
+      fell back a couple of paces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, my friend. The game is over, and I play you no more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You say that you will not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Surely you can see for yourself that such a thing is impossible?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That cock won’t fight. Say at once that you refuse to play with me.” And
+      Nozdrev approached a step nearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Porphyri! Pavlushka!” shouted Nozdrev as madly he strove to free himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a
+      pair of stout rascals with whom it would be unwise to meddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you, or do you not, intend to finish the game?” said Nozdrev. “Give me
+      a direct answer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then it is as I say? You refuse to finish the game?” repeated Nozdrev,
+      his face as red as fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I would have finished it had you played like a man of honour. But, as it
+      is, I cannot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a
+      href="#linknote-21" id="linknoteref-21"><small>21</small></a>.
+      He advances to the great encounter, and impulsively cries, “Forward, my
+      sons!”&mdash;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&mdash;blinking
+      and neither alive nor dead&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Kindly tell ME whom I have the honour of addressing?” retorted Nozdrev as
+      he approached the official.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am the Superintendent of Rural Police.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what do you want?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish! What case, pray?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You lie! To your face I tell you that never in my life have I set eyes
+      upon Landowner Maksimov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;and whispering
+      pretty nonsense, too, to judge from the way in which that confidant kept
+      shaking his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a
+      href="#linknote-22" id="linknoteref-22"><small>22</small></a>.”
+       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&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;yes, even in the plainest, the dingiest ranks of
+      society, as much as in those which are uniformly bright and presentable&mdash;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&mdash;a hussar or a student or, in general, a
+      man standing on the threshold of life&mdash;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&mdash;himself, his vocation, the
+      world, and everything else that the world contains!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-23" id="linknoteref-23"><small>23</small></a>. Persons of this kind&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-24" id="linknoteref-24"><small>24</small></a>&mdash;tall and thin, and with a
+      cluster of small flags and cannon beneath him, and the whole set in the
+      narrowest of frames&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is my wife, Theodulia Ivanovna,” said Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, on that occasion I was not there,” replied Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a nice man he is!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is?” inquired Sobakevitch, gazing into the corner by the stove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The President of the Local Council.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Did he seem so to you? True, he is a mason, but he is also the greatest
+      fool that the world ever saw.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov started a little at this mordant criticism, but soon pulled
+      himself together again, and continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of course, every man has his weakness. Yet the President seems to be an
+      excellent fellow.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And do you think the same of the Governor?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Why not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because there exists no greater rogue than he.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;the Public Prosecutor; though
+      even HE, if the truth be told, is little better than a pig.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After these eulogia Chichikov saw that it would be useless to continue
+      running through the list of officials&mdash;more especially since suddenly
+      he had remembered that Sobakevitch was not at any time given to commending
+      his fellow man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let us go to luncheon, my dear,” put in Theodulia Ivanovna to her spouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My dear,” said Sobakevitch, “the cabbage soup is excellent.” With that he
+      finished his portion, and helped himself to a generous measure of niania
+      <a href="#linknote-25" id="linknoteref-25"><small>25</small></a>&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless the Governor keeps a fair table,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but do you know what all the stuff is MADE OF?” retorted
+      Sobakevitch. “If you DID know you would never touch it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ugh! What horrible things you say!” put in Madame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;everything
+      that WE (pardon me for mentioning it) cast into the slop-pail&mdash;is
+      used by such folk for making soup.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Always at table you begin talking like this!” objected his helpmeet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My word!” reflected Chichikov. “The fellow has a pretty good holding
+      capacity!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is Plushkin?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really?” ejaculated Chichikov, greatly interested. “Should you, then, say
+      that he has lost many peasants by death?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly. They keep dying like flies.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then how far from here does he reside?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “About five versts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Here is more dessert,” she said. “Pray have a few radishes stewed in
+      honey.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Later, later,” replied Sobakevitch. “Do you go to your room, and Paul
+      Ivanovitch and I will take off our coats and have a nap.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that Chichikov went on to remark that, according to the statutes of
+      the said Russian Empire (which yielded to none in glory&mdash;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”).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well?” said Chichikov&mdash;though not without a certain tremor of
+      diffidence as to the possible response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied Chichikov, and then, as before, softened down the
+      expression “dead souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are to be found,” said Sobakevitch. “Why should they not be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then of course you will be glad to get rid of any that you may chance to
+      have?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself. “Here is he selling the goods
+      before I have even had time to utter a word!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what about the price?” he added aloud. “Of course, the articles are
+      not of a kind very easy to appraise.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should be sorry to ask too much,” said Sobakevitch. “How would a
+      hundred roubles per head suit you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, a hundred roubles per head?” Chichikov stared open-mouthed at his
+      host&mdash;doubting whether he had heard aright, or whether his host’s
+      slow-moving tongue might not have inadvertently substituted one word for
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Is that too much for you?” said Sobakevitch. Then he added: “What is
+      your own price?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My own price? I think that we cannot properly have understood one another&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Eight grivni?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In my opinion, a higher offer would be impossible.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I am not a seller of boots.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; yet you, for your part, will agree that these souls are not live
+      human beings?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I suppose you hope to find fools ready to sell you souls on the census
+      list for a couple of groats apiece?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You should be ashamed even to mention such a sum! Since you deal in
+      articles of this kind, quote me a genuine price.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;good only for an hour. No, he did it all himself,
+      even down to the varnishing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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!&mdash;a very different assortment
+      from what Plushkin would sell you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well,” said Chichikov, “they exist, though only in idea.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But no&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, I CANNOT give you more than two roubles per head,” said
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is of use to YOU, or you would not be buying such articles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Two roubles is my price,” repeated Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil fly away with him!” mused Chichikov. “However, I will add
+      another half-rouble.” And he did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” said Sobakevitch. “Well, my last word upon it is&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Bless your heart!” retorted the host. “At least give me thirty roubles in
+      assignats, and take the lot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, for I see that you are unwilling to sell. I must say good-day to
+      you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hold on, hold on!” exclaimed Sobakevitch, retaining his guest’s hand, and
+      at the same moment treading heavily upon his toes&mdash;so heavily,
+      indeed, that Chichikov gasped and danced with the pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I BEG your pardon!” said Sobakevitch hastily. “Evidently I have hurt you.
+      Pray sit down again.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” retorted Chichikov. “I am merely wasting my time, and must be off.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, no!” exclaimed Chichikov. “I won’t give you even a QUARTER of
+      that. I won’t advance another kopeck.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is your outside price?” at length said Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Two and a half roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you seem to rate a human soul at about the same value as a boiled
+      turnip. At least give me THREE roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I cannot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of course.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then for that purpose let us repair to the town.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-26" id="linknoteref-26"><small>26</small></a>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-27" id="linknoteref-27"><small>27</small></a>: 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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The list is ready,” said Sobakevitch, turning round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And do you mind handing me the earnest money?” said Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I do. Why need that be done? You can receive the money in a lump sum
+      as soon as we visit the town.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it is always the custom, you know,” asserted Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then I cannot follow it, for I have no money with me. However, here are
+      ten roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ten roubles, indeed? You might as well hand me fifty while you are about
+      it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Kindly give me a receipt for the money,” he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A receipt? Why should I give you a receipt?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because it is better to do so, in order to guard against mistakes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well; but first hand me over the money.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The money? I have it here. Do you write out the receipt, and then the
+      money shall be yours.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, but how am I to write out the receipt before I have seen the
+      cash?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a kulak!” thought Chichikov to himself. “And what a brute beast!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you do not want any WOMEN souls?” queried Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thank you, no.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I could let you have some cheap&mdash;say, as between friends, at a
+      rouble a head?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I should have no use for them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov rose to take his leave. “Once more I would request of you,” he
+      said, “that the bargain be left as it is.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;apparently for the purpose of
+      watching to see which way the guest’s carriage would turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hi!” shouted Chichikov. “How can I reach landowner Plushkin’s place
+      without first going past the mansion here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The peasant seemed nonplussed by the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Don’t you know?” queried Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, barin,” replied the peasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You don’t know skinflint Plushkin who feeds his people so badly?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a woman appeared from an outbuilding&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have some business to do,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is the master at home?” he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied the person addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then where is he?” continued Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are you blind, my good sir?” retorted the other. “<i>I</i> am the
+      master.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Involuntarily our hero started and stared. During his travels it had
+      befallen him to meet various types of men&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a brute!” thought Chichikov. “I am lucky to have got through so much
+      pastry and stuffed shoulder of mutton at Sobakevitch’s!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I have been told that you possess over a thousand serfs?” said
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Wholesale, you say?” echoed Chichikov, greatly interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, wholesale,” replied the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then might I ask you the exact number?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fully eighty.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Surely not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it is so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then might I also ask whether it is from the date of the last census
+      revision that you are reckoning these souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, damn it! And since that date I have been bled for taxes upon a
+      hundred and twenty souls in all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, good sir,” replied Plushkin. “I am too old to tell you lies, for I
+      have passed my seventieth year.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My dear sir, have you seen military service?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” replied the other warily, “but I have been a member of the CIVIL
+      Service.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, certainly, if thereby I can please you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a moment or two, but Proshka made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come!” went on the old man. “Set out the samovar, and then give
+      Mavra the key of the store-room&mdash;here it is&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Chichikov assented readily enough&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking up, Chichikov saw that Plushkin had extracted a decanter coated
+      with dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;I happen to possess such a
+      list, since I have drawn one up in readiness for the next revision.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you possess acquaintances in the town?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “By all means.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, him I know well, for we were friends together at school.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Over Plushkin’s wooden features there had gleamed a ray of warmth&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What have you done with my piece of writing paper, you pilferer?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I swear that I have seen no paper except the bit with which you covered
+      the glass.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your very face tells me that you have made off with it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why should I make off with it? ‘Twould be of no use to me, for I can
+      neither read nor write.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You lie! You have taken it away for the sexton to scribble upon.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, if the sexton wanted paper he could get some for himself. Neither
+      he nor I have set eyes upon your piece.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! Wait a bit, for on the Judgment Day you will be roasted by devils on
+      iron spits. Just see if you are not!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But why should I be roasted when I have never even TOUCHED the paper? You
+      might accuse me of any other fault than theft.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless <i>I</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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You have some runaways as well?” exclaimed Chichikov, again greatly
+      interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;that is to say, good at clinking a pair of
+      spurs, but of no use for laying a plea before a court.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how many runaways have you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “About seventy.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Surely not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;well, to advance you such a trifle as would scarcely be worth
+      mentioning.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how much is it?” asked Plushkin eagerly, and with his hands trembling
+      like quicksilver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Twenty-five kopecks per soul.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? In ready money?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes&mdash;in money down.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, consider my poverty, dear friend, and make it FORTY kopecks
+      per soul.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As you please, dear sir. Yet stretch another point, and throw in another
+      two kopecks.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, but I cannot. How many runaway serfs did you say that you
+      possess? Seventy?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; seventy-eight.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Seventy-eight souls at thirty kopecks each will amount to&mdash;to&mdash;”
+       only for a moment did our hero halt, since he was strong in his
+      arithmetic, “&mdash;will amount to twenty-four roubles, ninety-six
+      kopecks.” <a href="#linknote-28" id="linknoteref-28"><small>28</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I must be going,” he said as he took his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then what about the tea?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Thank you, I will have some on my next visit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</i> will put it back.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” he added after further thought. “I will leave him the watch in my
+      will, as a keepsake.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you have been travelling far, sir?” said the waiter, as he lit the
+      way upstarts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” said Chichikov. “What has happened here in the meanwhile?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing, sir,” replied the waiter, bowing, “except that last night there
+      arrived a military lieutenant. He has got room number sixteen.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A lieutenant?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. He came from Riazan, driving three grey horses.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On entering his room, Chichikov clapped his hand to his nose, and asked
+      his valet why he had never had the windows opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke his eyes halted at one name in particular&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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>I</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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-29" id="linknoteref-29"><small>29</small></a>. ‘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 <a href="#linknote-30" id="linknoteref-30"><small>30</small></a>
+      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?’&mdash;and here the
+      Captain shouts another expletive&mdash;‘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 <a href="#linknote-31" id="linknoteref-31"><small>31</small></a>
+      there, and stretch one’s legs, and see a little society.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;though even HE felt
+      at a loss how to acknowledge what had just been said&mdash;when Manilov
+      cut him short by producing from under his coat a roll of paper tied with
+      red riband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What have you there?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The list of my souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do not ask me,” said Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Did YOU do it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; my wife.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Dear, dear!” Chichikov cried. “To think that I should have put her to so
+      much trouble!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “NOTHING could be too much trouble where Paul Ivanovitch is concerned.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;even the smallest unevenness or difference
+      of level&mdash;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&mdash;a large,
+      three-storied building of a chalky whiteness which probably symbolised the
+      purity of the souls engaged within&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;probably for the
+      reason that a superior official had just entered the room. Meanwhile the
+      two friends ascended the staircase&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of what nature, precisely, IS your business?” countered one of the
+      youthful officials as he turned himself round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I desire to make an application.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In connection with a purchase?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You must state what it is you have bought, and for how much. THEN we
+      shall be happy to give you the information.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you mind telling me,” said Chichikov, bowing, “whether this is the
+      desk for serf affairs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The elderly man raised his eyes, and said stiffly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is NOT the desk for serf affairs.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where is it, then?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In the Serf Department.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And where might the Serf Department be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In charge of Ivan Antonovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And where is Ivan Antonovitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you mind telling me,” said Chichikov, bowing, “whether this is the
+      desk for serf affairs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;it was what, in common parlance, is known as a
+      “pitcher-mug.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you mind telling me,” repeated Chichikov, “whether this is the desk
+      for serf affairs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is that,” said Ivan Antonovitch, again lowering his jug-shaped jowl,
+      and resuming his writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you also the vendors here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Some of them, and from the rest I have obtained powers of attorney.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And have you your statement of application?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. I desire&mdash;indeed, it is necessary for me so to do&mdash;to
+      hasten matters a little. Could the affair, therefore, be carried through
+      to-day?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To-day? Oh, dear no!” said Ivan Antonovitch. “Before that can be done you
+      must furnish me with further proofs that no impediments exist.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then, to expedite matters, let me say that Ivan Grigorievitch, the
+      President of the Council, is a very intimate friend of mine.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Possibly,” said Ivan Antonovitch without enthusiasm. “But Ivan
+      Grigorievitch alone will not do&mdash;it is customary to have others as
+      well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A clerk,” he added, “will now conduct you to Ivan Grigorievitch’s room.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that one of the toilers in the service of Themis&mdash;a zealot who
+      had offered her such heartfelt sacrifice that his coat had burst at the
+      elbows and lacked a lining&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, yes; you have always had good health, have you not?” put in the
+      President. “Your late father was equally strong.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, he even went out bear hunting alone,” replied Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should think that you too could worst a bear if you were to try a
+      tussle with him,” rejoined the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you do not have a comfortable time of it?” exclaimed the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Just listen to the fellow!” was Chichikov’s and the President’s joint
+      inward comment. “What on earth has HE to complain of?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have a letter for you, Ivan Grigorievitch,” went on Chichikov aloud as
+      he produced from his pocket Plushkin’s epistle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And now he is a cur,” concluded Sobakevitch, “as well as a miser who
+      starves his serfs to death.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;now or later?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is Ivan Antonovitch here?” asked the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied a voice from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then send him here.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that the pitcher-faced Ivan Antonovitch made his appearance in the
+      doorway, and bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Take these indentures, Ivan Antonovitch,” said the President, “and see
+      that they&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But first I would ask you to remember,” put in Sobakevitch, “that
+      witnesses ought to be in attendance&mdash;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&mdash;if he has not gone out to a card
+      party. Others also there are&mdash;all men who cumber the ground for
+      nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, quite so,” agreed the President, and at once dispatched a clerk
+      to fetch the persons named.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well done, Paul Ivanovitch! You have indeed made a nice haul!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That is so,” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Excellent business! Yes, excellent business!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-32" id="linknoteref-32"><small>32</small></a>.
+      Only, only&mdash;well, lately didn’t you tell me that he is dead?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed a splendid craftsman!” repeated the President. “My only wonder is
+      that you can have brought yourself to part with him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Although a man of grey hairs, I have not yet learned wisdom.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well, then. That is quite another matter. To what province of the
+      country?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To the province of Kherson.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? That region contains some splendid land,” said the President;
+      whereupon he proceeded to expatiate on the fertility of the Kherson
+      pastures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And have you MUCH land there?” he continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; quite sufficient to accommodate the serfs whom I have purchased.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And is there a river on the estate or a lake?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Both.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;the remaining half being somehow debited to the
+      account of another applicant for serf registration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And now,” said Ivan Grigorievitch when all was completed, “we need only
+      to wet the bargain.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;it
+      is our duty, it is our bounden obligation&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You have given a hundred thousand roubles for the serfs, but have paid ME
+      only a trifle for my trouble.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave Ivan Antonovitch to understand that the visitor was a man of
+      strong character&mdash;a man from whom nothing more was to be expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why have you gone and purchased souls from Plushkin?” whispered
+      Sobakevitch in Chichikov’s other ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why did YOU go and add the woman Vorobei to your list?” retorted
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Vorobei? Who is Vorobei?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The woman ‘Elizabet’ Vorobei&mdash;‘Elizabet,’ not ‘Elizabeta?’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I added no such name,” replied Sobakevitch, and straightway joined the
+      other guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;so
+      thoroughly did he perform his duties in this respect&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;vodka of the tint to be seen only in the
+      species of Siberian stone whereof seals are cut&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then a betrothed you shall have. Why not? We will do as you wish.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” assented Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-33" id="linknoteref-33"><small>33</small></a>,
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;never once releasing their
+      mutual hold&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;well, simply by the innate arduousness of the task. The
+      ladies of N. were&mdash;But no, I cannot do it; my heart has already
+      failed me. Come, come! The ladies of N. were distinguished for&mdash;But
+      it is of no use; somehow my pen seems to refuse to move over the paper&mdash;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.&mdash;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&mdash;even upon a make-shift affair consisting of an ace of
+      diamonds or a two of clubs&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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,”&mdash;or
+      some such formula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+<p class="poetry">
+    “Two turtle doves to thee, one day,<br>
+    My dust will show, congealed in death;<br>
+    And, cooing wearily, they’ll say:<br>
+    ‘In grief and loneliness she drew her closing breath.’”
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;or, at all events, the
+      reflection of other people’s ecstatic delight&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      man, perhaps, who has never before compassed a smile, but is more
+      accustomed to dealing out blows to the populace&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;which, to many of those
+      who had been desirous of doing exactly the same thing, seemed a peculiarly
+      horrible instance of brazen-faced audacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So deeply did Chichikov become plunged in conversation with his fair
+      pursuers&mdash;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)&mdash;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&mdash;she greatly hoped&mdash;that
+      Monsieur Chichikov’s heart still contained a corner&mdash;even the
+      smallest possible corner&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think that you have not met my daughter before?” said Madame. “She is
+      just fresh from school.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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?”&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Herein we see a phenomenon not infrequently observed&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;or, at all events, officers not above the rank of
+      captain&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;but too late&mdash;he
+      was destined to learn this to his cost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, including even the Governor.
+      Nevertheless, had I my way, I would hang you! Yes, by God I would!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s discomfiture was complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-34" id="linknoteref-34"><small>34</small></a>?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</i> say that&mdash;<i>I</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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;well,
+      what was one to make of Nozdrev’s reference to such a commodity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, may the pit swallow them up!&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a man dressed in
+      black, and looking as stiff as a poker&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet he was not angry with HIMSELF&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a pretty chintz!” she cried, gazing at the other’s gown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, it IS pretty,” agreed the visitor. “On the other hand, Praskovia
+      Thedorovna thinks that&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how is the universal charmer?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I wonder how any one can see anything in the man to praise or to admire.
+      For my own part, I think&mdash;and I would say the same thing straight to
+      his face&mdash;that he is a perfect rascal.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but do listen to what I have got to tell you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, I know that some people think him handsome,” continued the hostess,
+      unmoved; “but <i>I</i> say that he is nothing of the kind&mdash;that, in
+      particular, his nose is perfectly odious.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but let me finish what I was saying.” The guest’s tone was almost
+      piteous in its appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it, then?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You cannot imagine my state of mind! You see, this morning I received a
+      visit from Father Cyril’s wife&mdash;the Archpriest’s wife&mdash;you know
+      her, don’t you? Well, whom do you suppose that fine gentleman visitor of
+      ours has turned out to be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The man who has built the Archpriest a poultry-run?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;arrived
+      all pale and trembling&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, what of Madame Korobotchka? Is she a young woman or good looking?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh dear no! Quite an old woman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, me, an inexperienced, defenceless widow who
+      knows nothing of business.’ That such things should happen! TRY and
+      imagine my feelings!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In my opinion, there is in this more than the dead souls which meet the
+      eye.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; tell me what YOU suppose?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What <i>I</i> suppose? I am at a loss to conjecture.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but tell me what is in your mind?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The dead souls,” began the hostess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are what, are what?” inquired the guest in great excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are, are&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tell me, tell me, for heaven’s sake!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are an invention to conceal something else. The man’s real object
+      is, is&mdash;TO ABDUCT THE GOVERNOR’S DAUGHTER.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So startling and unexpected was this conclusion that the guest sat reduced
+      to a state of pale, petrified, genuine amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My God!” she cried, clapping her hands, “I should NEVER have guessed it!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, to tell you the truth, I guessed it as soon as ever you opened your
+      mouth.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “So much, then, for educating girls like the Governor’s daughter at
+      school! Just see what comes of it!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, indeed! And they tell me that she says things which I hesitate even
+      to repeat.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Truly it wrings one’s heart to see to what lengths immorality has come.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Some of the men have quite lost their heads about her, but for my part I
+      think her not worth noticing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; and I should say that one of those accomplices is Nozdrev.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Surely not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? You interest me. I should never had thought him capable of such
+      things.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I always guessed him to be so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two ladies were still discussing the matter with acumen and success
+      when there walked into the room the Public Prosecutor&mdash;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&mdash;more especially the army of public officials&mdash;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&mdash;namely,
+      the question of the dead souls and the question of the Governor’s
+      daughter. To this end two parties were formed&mdash;the men’s party and
+      the feminine section. The men’s party&mdash;the more absolutely senseless
+      of the two&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;names such as “old women,”
+       “petticoats,” and others of a nature peculiarly offensive to the male sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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?”&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;yes!&mdash;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?&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, our friends the tchinovniks found themselves compelled to resort
+      to an expedient which, though not particularly savoury, is not
+      infrequently employed&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “<i>I</i> can tell you,” he cried, “who Chichikov is!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who, then?” replied the crowd in great excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is none other than Captain Kopeikin.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And who may Captain Kopeikin be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-35" id="linknoteref-35"><small>35</small></a>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “After fighting in the campaign of 1812, there was sent home, wounded, a
+      certain Captain Kopeikin&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a picture made up of the Nevski
+      Prospect, Gorokhovaia Street, countless tapering spires, and a number of
+      bridges apparently supported on nothing&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a constable three ells in height,
+      and armed with a carbine&mdash;a man well fitted to guard a bank&mdash;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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Allow me,” put in the Head of the Police Department. “You have said that
+      Kopeikin had lost an arm and a leg; whereas Chichikov&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a
+      href="#linknote-36" id="linknoteref-36"><small>36</small></a>,
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What?” he exclaimed. “You do not know me? Look at me again, and see if
+      you do not recognise me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? And why so?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I never smoke,” rejoined Chichikov drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish! As if I did not know what a chimney-pot you are! What is your
+      man’s name? Hi, Vakhramei! Come here!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Petrushka is his name, not Vakhramei.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? But you USED to have a man called Vakhramei, didn’t you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, never.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You say that I am believed to be a forger?” said Chichikov, starting from
+      his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;probably induced by the excitement of the
+      public meeting). “Of course, <i>I</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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What scheme to you mean?” Chichikov asked uneasily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;she IS a girl, and no mistake! A
+      regular what you might call ‘miracle in muslin!’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Things having come to their present pass,” he reflected, “I had better
+      not linger here&mdash;I had better be off at once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 the
+      bed, and then set to work to cram into it, pell-mell, socks, shirts,
+      collars (both clean and dirty), boot trees, a calendar, and a variety of
+      other articles. Everything went into the receptacle just as it came to
+      hand, since his one object was to obviate any possible delay in the
+      morning’s departure. Meanwhile the reluctant Selifan slowly, very slowly,
+      left the room, as slowly descended the staircase (on each separate step of
+      which he left a muddy foot-print), and, finally, halted to scratch his
+      head. What that scratching may have meant no one could say; for, with the
+      Russian populace, such a scratching may mean any one of a hundred things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless events did not turn out as Chichikov had intended they
+      should. In the first place, he overslept himself. That was check number
+      one. In the second place, on his rising and inquiring whether the britchka
+      had been harnessed and everything got ready, he was informed that neither
+      of those two things had been done. That was check number two. Beside
+      himself with rage, he prepared to give Selifan the wigging of his life,
+      and, meanwhile, waited impatiently to hear what the delinquent had got to
+      say in his defence. It goes without saying that when Selifan made his
+      appearance in the doorway he had only the usual excuses to offer&mdash;the
+      sort of excuses usually offered by servants when a hasty departure has
+      become imperatively necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “the horses require shoeing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Blockhead!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Why did you not tell me of that before,
+      you damned fool? Was there not time enough for them to be shod?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I suppose there was,” agreed Selifan. “Also one of the wheels is in
+      want of a new tyre, for the roads are so rough that the old tyre is worn
+      through. Also, the body of the britchka is so rickety that probably it
+      will not last more than a couple of stages.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rascal!” shouted Chichikov, clenching his fists and approaching Selifan
+      in such a manner that, fearing to receive a blow, the man backed and
+      dodged aside. “Do you mean to ruin me, and to break all our bones on the
+      road, you cursed idiot? For these three weeks past you have been doing
+      nothing at all; yet now, at the last moment, you come here stammering and
+      playing the fool! Do you think I keep you just to eat and to drive
+      yourself about? You must have known of this before? Did you, or did you
+      not, know it? Answer me at once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I did know it,” replied Selifan, hanging his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Selifan had no reply immediately ready, so continued to hang his head
+      while quietly saying to himself: “See how well I have managed things! I
+      knew what was the matter, yet I did not say.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And now,” continued Chichikov, “go you at once and fetch a blacksmith.
+      Tell him that everything must be put right within two hours at the most.
+      Do you hear? If that should not be done, I, I&mdash;I will give you the
+      best flogging that ever you had in your life.” Truly Chichikov was almost
+      beside himself with fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning towards the door, as though for the purpose of going and carrying
+      out his orders, Selifan halted and added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That skewbald, barin&mdash;you might think it well to sell him, seeing
+      that he is nothing but a rascal? A horse like that is more of a hindrance
+      than a help.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Do you expect me to go NOW to the market-place and sell him?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, Paul Ivanovitch, he is good for nothing but show, since by nature
+      he is a most cunning beast. Never in my life have I seen such a horse.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fool! Whenever I may wish to sell him I SHALL sell him. Meanwhile, don’t
+      you trouble your head about what doesn’t concern you, but go and fetch a
+      blacksmith, and see that everything is put right within two hours.
+      Otherwise I will take the very hair off your head, and beat you till you
+      haven’t a face left. Be off! Hurry!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Selifan departed, and Chichikov, his ill-humour vented, threw down upon
+      the floor the poignard which he always took with him as a means of
+      instilling respect into whomsoever it might concern, and spent the next
+      quarter of an hour in disputing with a couple of blacksmiths&mdash;men
+      who, as usual, were rascals of the type which, on perceiving that
+      something is wanted in a hurry, at once multiplies its terms for providing
+      the same. Indeed, for all Chichikov’s storming and raging as he dubbed the
+      fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could make no impression
+      upon the pair, since, true to their character, they declined to abate
+      their prices, and, even when they had begun their work, spent upon it, not
+      two hours, but five and a half. Meanwhile he had the satisfaction of
+      experiencing that delightful time with which all travellers are familiar&mdash;namely,
+      the time during which one sits in a room where, except for a litter of
+      string, waste paper, and so forth, everything else has been packed. But to
+      all things there comes an end, and there arrived also the long-awaited
+      moment when the britchka had received the luggage, the faulty wheel had
+      been fitted with a new tyre, the horses had been re-shod, and the
+      predatory blacksmiths had departed with their gains. “Thank God!” thought
+      Chichikov as the britchka rolled out of the gates of the inn, and the
+      vehicle began to jolt over the cobblestones. Yet a feeling which he could
+      not altogether have defined filled his breast as he gazed upon the houses
+      and the streets and the garden walls which he might never see again.
+      Presently, on turning a corner, the britchka was brought to a halt through
+      the fact that along the street there was filing a seemingly endless
+      funeral procession. Leaning forward in his britchka, Chichikov asked
+      Petrushka whose obsequies the procession represented, and was told that
+      they represented those of the Public Prosecutor. Disagreeably shocked, our
+      hero hastened to raise the hood of the vehicle, to draw the curtains
+      across the windows, and to lean back into a corner. While the britchka
+      remained thus halted Selifan and Petrushka, their caps doffed, sat
+      watching the progress of the cortege, after they had received strict
+      instructions not to greet any fellow-servant whom they might recognise.
+      Behind the hearse walked the whole body of tchinovniks, bare-headed; and
+      though, for a moment or two, Chichikov feared that some of their number
+      might discern him in his britchka, he need not have disturbed himself,
+      since their attention was otherwise engaged. In fact, they were not even
+      exchanging the small talk customary among members of such processions, but
+      thinking exclusively of their own affairs, of the advent of the new
+      Governor-General, and of the probable manner in which he would take up the
+      reins of administration. Next came a number of carriages, from the windows
+      of which peered the ladies in mourning toilets. Yet the movements of their
+      hands and lips made it evident that they were indulging in animated
+      conversation&mdash;probably about the Governor-General, the balls which he
+      might be expected to give, and their own eternal fripperies and gewgaws.
+      Lastly came a few empty drozhkis. As soon as the latter had passed, our
+      hero was able to continue on his way. Throwing back the hood of the
+      britchka, he said to himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, good friend, you have lived your life, and now it is over! In the
+      newspapers they will say of you that you died regretted not only by your
+      subordinates, but also by humanity at large, as well as that, a respected
+      citizen, a kind father, and a husband beyond reproach, you went to your
+      grave amid the tears of your widow and orphans. Yet, should those journals
+      be put to it to name any particular circumstance which justified this
+      eulogy of you, they would be forced to fall back upon the fact that you
+      grew a pair of exceptionally thick eyebrows!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that Chichikov bid Selifan quicken his pace, and concluded: “After
+      all, it is as well that I encountered the procession, for they say that to
+      meet a funeral is lucky.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the britchka turned into some less frequented streets, lines of
+      wooden fencing of the kind which mark the outskirts of a town began to
+      file by, the cobblestones came to an end, the macadam of the highroad
+      succeeded to them, and once more there began on either side of the
+      turnpike a procession of verst stones, road menders, and grey villages;
+      inns with samovars and peasant women and landlords who came running out of
+      yards with seivefuls of oats; pedestrians in worn shoes which, it might
+      be, had covered eight hundred versts; little towns, bright with booths for
+      the sale of flour in barrels, boots, small loaves, and other trifles;
+      heaps of slag; much repaired bridges; expanses of field to right and to
+      left; stout landowners; a mounted soldier bearing a green, iron-clamped
+      box inscribed: “The &mdash;th Battery of Artillery”; long strips of
+      freshly-tilled earth which gleamed green, yellow, and black on the face of
+      the countryside. With it mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of elm-tops
+      amid mist, the far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks, and the
+      illimitable line of the horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still
+      see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you the
+      eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which a yet
+      more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities with
+      lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque trees, no
+      ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and roar, no
+      beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony immensity, no
+      vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and ageless lines of
+      blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear, silvery background
+      of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your towns project like
+      points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and nothing whatsoever
+      enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what invincible force draws
+      me to you? Why does there ceaselessly echo and re-echo in my ears the sad
+      song which hovers throughout the length and the breadth of your borders?
+      What is the burden of that song? Why does it wail and sob and catch at my
+      heart? What say the notes which thus painfully caress and embrace my soul,
+      and flit, uttering their lamentations, around me? What is it you seek of
+      me, O Russia? What is the hidden bond which subsists between us? Why do
+      you regard me as you do? Why does everything within you turn upon me eyes
+      full of yearning? Even at this moment, as I stand dumbly, fixedly,
+      perplexedly contemplating your vastness, a menacing cloud, charged with
+      gathering rain, seems to overshadow my head. What is it that your
+      boundless expanses presage? Do they not presage that one day there will
+      arise in you ideas as boundless as yourself? Do they not presage that one
+      day you too will know no limits? Do they not presage that one day, when
+      again you shall have room for their exploits, there will spring to life
+      the heroes of old? How the power of your immensity enfolds me, and
+      reverberates through all my being with a wild, strange spell, and flashes
+      in my eyes with an almost supernatural radiance! Yes, a strange,
+      brilliant, unearthly vista indeed do you disclose, O Russia, country of
+      mine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Stop, stop, you fool!” shouted Chichikov to Selifan; and even as he spoke
+      a troika, bound on Government business, came chattering by, and
+      disappeared in a cloud of dust. To Chichikov’s curses at Selifan for not
+      having drawn out of the way with more alacrity a rural constable with
+      moustaches of the length of an arshin added his quota.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a curious and attractive, yet also what an unreal, fascination the
+      term “highway” connotes! And how interesting for its own sake is a
+      highway! Should the day be a fine one (though chilly) in mellowing autumn,
+      press closer your travelling cloak, and draw down your cap over your ears,
+      and snuggle cosily, comfortably into a corner of the britchka before a
+      last shiver shall course through your limbs, and the ensuing warmth shall
+      put to flight the autumnal cold and damp. As the horses gallop on their
+      way, how delightfully will drowsiness come stealing upon you, and make
+      your eyelids droop! For a while, through your somnolence, you will
+      continue to hear the hard breathing of the team and the rumbling of the
+      wheels; but at length, sinking back into your corner, you will relapse
+      into the stage of snoring. And when you awake&mdash;behold! you will find
+      that five stages have slipped away, and that the moon is shining, and that
+      you have reached a strange town of churches and old wooden cupolas and
+      blackened spires and white, half-timbered houses! And as the moonlight
+      glints hither and thither, almost you will believe that the walls and the
+      streets and the pavements of the place are spread with sheets&mdash;sheets
+      shot with coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs look all the
+      brighter under the slanting beams of the pale luminary. Nowhere is a soul
+      to be seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet no. In a solitary
+      window a light is flickering where some good burgher is mending his boots,
+      or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night and powers of heaven, how
+      perfect is the blackness of your infinite vault&mdash;how lofty, how
+      remote its inaccessible depths where it lies spread in an intangible, yet
+      audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling breath of night blow in your
+      face, until once more you relapse into snoring oblivion, and your poor
+      neighbour turns angrily in his corner as he begins to be conscious of your
+      weight. Then again you awake, but this time to find yourself confronted
+      with only fields and steppes. Everywhere in the ascendant is the
+      desolation of space. But suddenly the ciphers on a verst stone leap to the
+      eye! Morning is rising, and on the chill, gradually paling line of the
+      horizon you can see gleaming a faint gold streak. The wind freshens and
+      grows keener, and you snuggle closer in your cloak; yet how glorious is
+      that freshness, and how marvellous the sleep in which once again you
+      become enfolded! A jolt!&mdash;and for the last time you return to
+      consciousness. By now the sun is high in the heavens, and you hear a voice
+      cry “gently, gently!” as a farm waggon issues from a by-road. Below,
+      enclosed within an ample dike, stretches a sheet of water which glistens
+      like copper in the sunlight. Beyond, on the side of a slope, lie some
+      scattered peasants’ huts, a manor house, and, flanking the latter, a
+      village church with its cross flashing like a star. There also comes
+      wafted to your ear the sound of peasants’ laughter, while in your inner
+      man you are becoming conscious of an appetite which is not to be
+      withstood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh long-drawn highway, how excellent you are! How often have I in
+      weariness and despondency set forth upon your length, and found in you
+      salvation and rest! How often, as I followed your leading, have I been
+      visited with wonderful thoughts and poetic dreams and curious, wild
+      impressions!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment our friend Chichikov also was experiencing visions of a not
+      wholly prosaic nature. Let us peep into his soul and share them. At first
+      he remained unconscious of anything whatsoever, for he was too much
+      engaged in making sure that he was really clear of the town; but as soon
+      as he saw that it had completely disappeared, with its mills and factories
+      and other urban appurtenances, and that even the steeples of the white
+      stone churches had sunk below the horizon, he turned his attention to the
+      road, and the town of N. vanished from his thoughts as completely as
+      though he had not seen it since childhood. Again, in its turn, the road
+      ceased to interest him, and he began to close his eyes and to loll his
+      head against the cushions. Of this let the author take advantage, in order
+      to speak at length concerning his hero; since hitherto he (the author) has
+      been prevented from so doing by Nozdrev and balls and ladies and local
+      intrigues&mdash;by those thousand trifles which seem trifles only when
+      they are introduced into a book, but which, in life, figure as affairs of
+      importance. Let us lay them aside, and betake ourselves to business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether the character whom I have selected for my hero has pleased my
+      readers is, of course, exceedingly doubtful. At all events the ladies will
+      have failed to approve him for the fair sex demands in a hero perfection,
+      and, should there be the least mental or physical stain on him&mdash;well,
+      woe betide! Yes, no matter how profoundly the author may probe that hero’s
+      soul, no matter how clearly he may portray his figure as in a mirror, he
+      will be given no credit for the achievement. Indeed, Chichikov’s very
+      stoutness and plenitude of years may have militated against him, for never
+      is a hero pardoned for the former, and the majority of ladies will, in
+      such case, turn away, and mutter to themselves: “Phew! What a beast!” Yes,
+      the author is well aware of this. Yet, though he could not, to save his
+      life, take a person of virtue for his principal character, it may be that
+      this story contains themes never before selected, and that in it there
+      projects the whole boundless wealth of Russian psychology; that it
+      portrays, as well as Chichikov, the peasant who is gifted with the virtues
+      which God has sent him, and the marvellous maiden of Russia who has not
+      her like in all the world for her beautiful feminine spirituality, the
+      roots of which lie buried in noble aspirations and boundless self-denial.
+      In fact, compared with these types, the virtuous of other races seem
+      lifeless, as does an inanimate volume when compared with the living word.
+      Yes, each time that there arises in Russia a movement of thought, it
+      becomes clear that the movement sinks deep into the Slavonic nature where
+      it would but have skimmed the surface of other nations.&mdash;But why am I
+      talking like this? Whither am I tending? It is indeed shameful that an
+      author who long ago reached man’s estate, and was brought up to a course
+      of severe introspection and sober, solitary self-enlightenment, should
+      give way to such jejune wandering from the point. To everything its proper
+      time and place and turn. As I was saying, it does not lie in me to take a
+      virtuous character for my hero: and I will tell you why. It is because it
+      is high time that a rest were given to the “poor, but virtuous”
+       individual; it is because the phrase “a man of worth” has grown into a
+      by-word; it is because the “man of worth” has become converted into a
+      horse, and there is not a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out
+      of season; it is because the “man of worth” has been starved until he has
+      not a shred of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is but
+      the ribs and the hide; it is because the “man of worth” is for ever being
+      smuggled upon the scene; it is because the “man of worth” has at length
+      forfeited every one’s respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm that it is
+      high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that rascal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our hero’s beginnings were both modest and obscure. True, his parents were
+      dvoriane, but he in no way resembled them. At all events, a short, squab
+      female relative who was present at his birth exclaimed as she lifted up
+      the baby: “He is altogether different from what I had expected him to be.
+      He ought to have taken after his maternal grandmother, whereas he has been
+      born, as the proverb has it, ‘like not father nor mother, but like a
+      chance passer-by.’” Thus from the first life regarded the little Chichikov
+      with sour distaste, and as through a dim, frost-encrusted window. A tiny
+      room with diminutive casements which were never opened, summer or winter;
+      an invalid father in a dressing-gown lined with lambskin, and with an
+      ailing foot swathed in bandages&mdash;a man who was continually drawing
+      deep breaths, and walking up and down the room, and spitting into a
+      sandbox; a period of perpetually sitting on a bench with pen in hand and
+      ink on lips and fingers; a period of being eternally confronted with the
+      copy-book maxim, “Never tell a lie, but obey your superiors, and cherish
+      virtue in your heart;” an everlasting scraping and shuffling of slippers
+      up and down the room; a period of continually hearing a well-known,
+      strident voice exclaim: “So you have been playing the fool again!” at
+      times when the child, weary of the mortal monotony of his task, had added
+      a superfluous embellishment to his copy; a period of experiencing the
+      ever-familiar, but ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those
+      words as the boy’s ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent
+      backwards at the tips&mdash;such is the miserable picture of that youth of
+      which, in later life, Chichikov preserved but the faintest of memories!
+      But in this world everything is liable to swift and sudden change; and,
+      one day in early spring, when the rivers had melted, the father set forth
+      with his little son in a teliezshka <a href="#linknote-37"
+       id="linknoteref-37"><small>37</small></a> drawn by a
+      sorrel steed of the kind known to horsy folk as a soroka, and having as
+      coachman the diminutive hunchback who, father of the only serf family
+      belonging to the elder Chichikov, served as general factotum in the
+      Chichikov establishment. For a day and a half the soroka conveyed them on
+      their way; during which time they spent the night at a roadside inn,
+      crossed a river, dined off cold pie and roast mutton, and eventually
+      arrived at the county town. To the lad the streets presented a spectacle
+      of unwonted brilliancy, and he gaped with amazement. Turning into a side
+      alley wherein the mire necessitated both the most strenuous exertions on
+      the soroka’s part and the most vigorous castigation on the part of the
+      driver and the barin, the conveyance eventually reached the gates of a
+      courtyard which, combined with a small fruit garden containing various
+      bushes, a couple of apple-trees in blossom, and a mean, dirty little shed,
+      constituted the premises attached to an antiquated-looking villa. Here
+      there lived a relative of the Chichikovs, a wizened old lady who went to
+      market in person and dried her stockings at the samovar. On seeing the
+      boy, she patted his cheek and expressed satisfaction at his physique;
+      whereupon the fact became disclosed that here he was to abide for a while,
+      for the purpose of attending a local school. After a night’s rest his
+      father prepared to betake himself homeward again; but no tears marked the
+      parting between him and his son, he merely gave the lad a copper or two
+      and (a far more important thing) the following injunctions. “See here, my
+      boy. Do your lessons well, do not idle or play the fool, and above all
+      things, see that you please your teachers. So long as you observe these
+      rules you will make progress, and surpass your fellows, even if God shall
+      have denied you brains, and you should fail in your studies. Also, do not
+      consort overmuch with your comrades, for they will do you no good; but,
+      should you do so, then make friends with the richer of them, since one day
+      they may be useful to you. Also, never entertain or treat any one, but see
+      that every one entertains and treats YOU. Lastly, and above all else, keep
+      and save your every kopeck. To save money is the most important thing in
+      life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail you, and be the first to
+      desert you in a time of adversity; but never will a KOPECK fail you,
+      whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the world cannot be done, cannot
+      be attained, with the aid of money.” These injunctions given, the father
+      embraced his son, and set forth on his return; and though the son never
+      again beheld his parent, the latter’s words and precepts sank deep into
+      the little Chichikov’s soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day young Pavlushka made his first attendance at school. But no
+      special aptitude in any branch of learning did he display. Rather, his
+      distinguishing characteristics were diligence and neatness. On the other
+      hand, he developed great intelligence as regards the PRACTICAL aspect of
+      life. In a trice he divined and comprehended how things ought to be
+      worked, and, from that time forth, bore himself towards his school-fellows
+      in such a way that, though they frequently gave him presents, he not only
+      never returned the compliment, but even on occasions pocketed the gifts
+      for the mere purpose of selling them again. Also, boy though he was, he
+      acquired the art of self-denial. Of the trifle which his father had given
+      him on parting he spent not a kopeck, but, the same year, actually added
+      to his little store by fashioning a bullfinch of wax, painting it, and
+      selling the same at a handsome profit. Next, as time went on, he engaged
+      in other speculations&mdash;in particular, in the scheme of buying up
+      eatables, taking his seat in class beside boys who had plenty of
+      pocket-money, and, as soon as such opulent individuals showed signs of
+      failing attention (and, therefore, of growing appetite), tendering them,
+      from beneath the desk, a roll of pudding or a piece of gingerbread, and
+      charging according to degree of appetite and size of portion. He also
+      spent a couple of months in training a mouse, which he kept confined in a
+      little wooden cage in his bedroom. At length, when the training had
+      reached the point that, at the several words of command, the mouse would
+      stand upon its hind legs, lie down, and get up again, he sold the creature
+      for a respectable sum. Thus, in time, his gains attained the amount of
+      five roubles; whereupon he made himself a purse and then started to fill a
+      second receptacle of the kind. Still more studied was his attitude towards
+      the authorities. No one could sit more quietly in his place on the bench
+      than he. In the same connection it may be remarked that his teacher was a
+      man who, above all things, loved peace and good behaviour, and simply
+      could not abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at
+      him. Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master’s attention
+      with a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place,
+      or unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to
+      burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and to
+      visit him with unmerciful punishment. “Ah, my fine fellow,” he would say,
+      “I’LL cure you of your impudence and want of respect! I know you through
+      and through far better than you know yourself, and will take good care
+      that you have to go down upon your knees and curb your appetite.”
+       Whereupon the wretched lad would, for no cause of which he was aware, be
+      forced to wear out his breeches on the floor and go hungry for days.
+      “Talents and gifts,” the schoolmaster would declare, “are so much rubbish.
+      I respect only good behaviour, and shall award full marks to those who
+      conduct themselves properly, even if they fail to learn a single letter of
+      their alphabet: whereas to those in whom I may perceive a tendency to
+      jocularity I shall award nothing, even though they should outdo Solon
+      himself.” For the same reason he had no great love of the author Krylov,
+      in that the latter says in one of his Fables: “In my opinion, the more one
+      sings, the better one works;” and often the pedagogue would relate how, in
+      a former school of his, the silence had been such that a fly could be
+      heard buzzing on the wing, and for the space of a whole year not a single
+      pupil sneezed or coughed in class, and so complete was the absence of all
+      sound that no one could have told that there was a soul in the place. Of
+      this mentor young Chichikov speedily appraised the mentality; wherefore he
+      fashioned his behaviour to correspond with it. Not an eyelid, not an
+      eyebrow, would he stir during school hours, howsoever many pinches he
+      might receive from behind; and only when the bell rang would he run to
+      anticipate his fellows in handing the master the three-cornered cap which
+      that dignitary customarily sported, and then to be the first to leave the
+      class-room, and contrive to meet the master not less than two or three
+      times as the latter walked homeward, in order that, on each occasion, he
+      might doff his cap. And the scheme proved entirely successful. Throughout
+      the period of his attendance at school he was held in high favour, and, on
+      leaving the establishment, received full marks for every subject, as well
+      as a diploma and a book inscribed (in gilt letters) “For Exemplary
+      Diligence and the Perfection of Good Conduct.” By this time he had grown
+      into a fairly good-looking youth of the age when the chin first calls for
+      a razor; and at about the same period his father died, leaving behind him,
+      as his estate, four waistcoats completely worn out, two ancient
+      frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had been skilled only
+      in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks&mdash;not in ACTUALLY PRACTISING the
+      art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its little parcel of land
+      for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his one serf and the serf’s
+      family, to the capital, where he set about organising a new establishment
+      and entering the Civil Service. Simultaneously with his doing so, his old
+      schoolmaster lost (through stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over
+      which he had hitherto presided, and in which he had set so much store by
+      silence and good behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was
+      left, even for that purpose, he retired&mdash;ill, helpless, and starving&mdash;into
+      a broken-down, cheerless hovel. But certain of his former pupils&mdash;the
+      same clever, witty lads whom he had once been wont to accuse of
+      impertinence and evil conduct generally&mdash;heard of his pitiable
+      plight, and collected for him what money they could, even to the point of
+      selling their own necessaries. Only Chichikov, when appealed to, pleaded
+      inability, and compromised with a contribution of a single piatak <a
+      href="#linknote-38" id="linknoteref-38"><small>38</small></a>:
+      which his old schoolfellows straightway returned him&mdash;full in the
+      face, and accompanied with a shout of “Oh, you skinflint!” As for the poor
+      schoolmaster, when he heard what his former pupils had done, he buried his
+      face in his hands, and the tears gushed from his failing eyes as from
+      those of a helpless infant. “God has brought you but to weep over my
+      death-bed,” he murmured feebly; and added with a profound sigh, on hearing
+      of Chichikov’s conduct: “Ah, Pavlushka, how a human being may become
+      changed! Once you were a good lad, and gave me no trouble; but now you are
+      become proud indeed!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet let it not be inferred from this that our hero’s character had grown
+      so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude his
+      experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of fact, he
+      was capable both of the one and the other, and would have been glad to
+      assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or had he not been
+      called upon to touch the fund which he had decided should remain intact.
+      In other words, the father’s injunction, “Guard and save every kopeck,”
+       had become a hard and fast rule of the son’s. Yet the youth had no
+      particular attachment to money for money’s sake; he was not possessed with
+      the true instinct for hoarding and niggardliness. Rather, before his eyes
+      there floated ever a vision of life and its amenities and advantages&mdash;a
+      vision of carriages and an elegantly furnished house and recherche
+      dinners; and it was in the hope that some day he might attain these things
+      that he saved every kopeck and, meanwhile, stinted both himself and
+      others. Whenever a rich man passed him by in a splendid drozhki drawn by
+      swift and handsomely-caparisoned horses, he would halt as though deep in
+      thought, and say to himself, like a man awakening from a long sleep: “That
+      gentleman must have been a financier, he has so little hair on his brow.”
+       In short, everything connected with wealth and plenty produced upon him an
+      ineffaceable impression. Even when he left school he took no holiday, so
+      strong in him was the desire to get to work and enter the Civil Service.
+      Yet, for all the encomiums contained in his diploma, he had much ado to
+      procure a nomination to a Government Department; and only after a long
+      time was a minor post found for him, at a salary of thirty or forty
+      roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched though this appointment was, he
+      determined, by strict attention to business, to overcome all obstacles,
+      and to win success. And, indeed, the self-denial, the patience, and the
+      economy which he displayed were remarkable. From early morn until late at
+      night he would, with indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed
+      in his sordid task of copying official documents&mdash;never going home,
+      snatching what sleep he could on tables in the building, and dining with
+      the watchman on duty. Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and
+      neat, to preserve a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to
+      cultivate a certain elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked
+      that his fellow tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some
+      of them having faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding
+      chins, and cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was
+      handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of sullenness,
+      as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and by their
+      frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there remains in
+      the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the Director’s
+      room itself they would invade while still licking their lips, and since
+      their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room grew not
+      over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man like
+      Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in
+      everything&mdash;in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and in
+      complete neglect of the use of strong potions&mdash;he was the absolute
+      antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread,
+      for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief
+      Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia. Always
+      the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in his life
+      have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance’s health. Nor had any
+      one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his own home from
+      what he was in the office, or showing the least interest in anything
+      whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in his cups, or
+      indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when intoxicated, even a
+      burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was there in him. Nor, for
+      that matter, was there in him a particle of anything at all, whether good
+      or bad: which complete negativeness of character produced rather a strange
+      effect. In the same way, his wizened, marble-like features reminded one of
+      nothing in particular, so primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous
+      pockmarks and dimples with which they were pitted placed him among the
+      number of those over whose faces, to quote the popular saying, “The Devil
+      has walked by night to grind peas.” In short, it would seem that no human
+      agency could have approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet
+      Chichikov made the effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the
+      other’s convenience in all manner of insignificant trifles&mdash;to
+      cleaning his pens carefully, and, when they had been prepared exactly to
+      the Chief Clerk’s liking, laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and
+      sweeping from his table all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to procuring
+      a new mat for his inkstand; to looking for his hat&mdash;the
+      meanest-looking hat that ever the world beheld&mdash;and having it ready
+      for him at the exact moment when business came to an end; to brushing his
+      back if it happened to become smeared with whitewash from a wall. Yet all
+      this passed as unnoticed as though it had never been done. Finally,
+      Chichikov sniffed into his superior’s family and domestic life, and learnt
+      that he possessed a grown-up daughter on whose face also there had taken
+      place a nocturnal, diabolical grinding of peas. HERE was a quarter whence
+      a fresh attack might be delivered! After ascertaining what church the
+      daughter attended on Sundays, our hero took to contriving to meet her in a
+      neat suit and a well-starched dickey: and soon the scheme began to work.
+      The surly Chief Clerk wavered for a while; then ended by inviting
+      Chichikov to tea. Nor could any man in the office have told you how it
+      came about that before long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk’s
+      house, and become a person necessary&mdash;indeed indispensable&mdash;to
+      the household, seeing that he bought the flour and the sugar, treated the
+      daughter as his betrothed, called the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” and
+      occasionally kissed “Papenka’s” hand. In fact, every one at the office
+      supposed that, at the end of February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent)
+      there would take place a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to
+      agitate with the authorities on Chichikov’s behalf, and so enabled our
+      hero, on a vacancy occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk.
+      Apparently this marked the consummation of Chichikov’s relations with his
+      host, for he hastened stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day,
+      figured in a fresh lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk
+      “Papenka,” or to kiss his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as
+      abrupt a termination as though it had never been mooted. Yet also he never
+      failed to press his late host’s hand, whenever he met him, and to invite
+      him to tea; while, on the other hand, for all his immobility and dry
+      indifference, the Chief Clerk never failed to shake his head with a
+      muttered, “Ah, my fine fellow, you have grown too proud, you have grown
+      too proud.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foregoing constituted the most difficult step that our hero had to
+      negotiate. Thereafter things came with greater ease and swifter success.
+      Everywhere he attracted notice, for he developed within himself everything
+      necessary for this world&mdash;namely, charm of manner and bearing, and
+      great diligence in business matters. Armed with these resources, he next
+      obtained promotion to what is known as “a fat post,” and used it to the
+      best advantage; and even though, at that period, strict inquiry had begun
+      to be made into the whole subject of bribes, such inquiry failed to alarm
+      him&mdash;nay, he actually turned it to account and thereby manifested the
+      Russian resourcefulness which never fails to attain its zenith where
+      extortion is concerned. His method of working was the following. As soon
+      as a petitioner or a suitor put his hand into his pocket, to extract
+      thence the necessary letters of recommendation for signature, Chichikov
+      would smilingly exclaim as he detained his interlocutor’s hand: “No, no!
+      Surely you do not think that I&mdash;? But no, no! It is our duty, it is
+      our obligation, and we do not require rewards for doing our work properly.
+      So far as YOUR matter is concerned, you may rest easy. Everything shall be
+      carried through to-morrow. But may I have your address? There is no need
+      to trouble yourself, seeing that the documents can easily be brought to
+      you at your residence.” Upon which the delighted suitor would return home
+      in raptures, thinking: “Here, at long last, is the sort of man so badly
+      needed. A man of that kind is a jewel beyond price.” Yet for a day, for
+      two days&mdash;nay, even for three&mdash;the suitor would wait in vain so
+      far as any messengers with documents were concerned. Then he would repair
+      to the office&mdash;to find that his business had not so much as been
+      entered upon! Lastly, he would confront the “jewel beyond price.” “Oh,
+      pardon me, pardon me!” Chichikov would exclaim in the politest of tones as
+      he seized and grasped the visitor’s hands. “The truth is that we have SUCH
+      a quantity of business on hand! But the matter shall be put through
+      to-morrow, and in the meanwhile I am most sorry about it.” And with this
+      would go the most fascinating of gestures. Yet neither on the morrow, nor
+      on the day following, nor on the third would documents arrive at the
+      suitor’s abode. Upon that he would take thought as to whether something
+      more ought not to have been done; and, sure enough, on his making inquiry,
+      he would be informed that “something will have to be given to the
+      copyists.” “Well, there can be no harm in that,” he would reply. “As a
+      matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak <a href="#linknote-39"
+       id="linknoteref-39"><small>39</small></a> or two.”
+       “Oh, no, no,” the answer would come. “Not a tchetvertak per copyist, but a
+      rouble, is the fee.” “What? A rouble per copyist?” “Certainly. What is
+      there to grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a
+      tchetvertak apiece, and the rest will go to the Government.” Upon that the
+      disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought
+      about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks and
+      their uppish, insolent behaviour. “Once upon a time,” would the suitor
+      lament, “one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the Director a
+      bank-note, one’s affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But now one has to
+      pay a rouble per copyist after waiting a week because otherwise it was
+      impossible to guess how the wind might set! The devil fly away with all
+      ‘disinterested’ and ‘trustworthy’ tchinovniks!” And certainly the
+      aggrieved suitor had reason to grumble, seeing that, now that bribe-takers
+      had ceased to exist, and Directors had uniformly become men of honour and
+      integrity, secretaries and clerks ought not with impunity to have
+      continued their thievish ways. In time there opened out to Chichikov a
+      still wider field, for a Commission was appointed to supervise the
+      erection of a Government building, and, on his being nominated to that
+      body, he proved himself one of its most active members. The Commission got
+      to work without delay, but for a space of six years had some trouble with
+      the building in question. Either the climate hindered operations or the
+      materials used were of the kind which prevents official edifices from ever
+      rising higher than the basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the
+      town saw arise, for each member of the Commission, a handsome house of the
+      NON-official style of architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the
+      soil of those parts was better than that where the Government building was
+      still engaged in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission
+      began to look exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family life;
+      and, for the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also departed
+      from the iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and inexorable
+      self-denial, and so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism as to show
+      himself a man not averse to those amenities which, during his youth, he
+      had been capable of renouncing. That is to say, certain superfluities
+      began to make their appearance in his establishment. He engaged a good
+      cook, took to wearing linen shirts, bought for himself cloth of a pattern
+      worn by no one else in the province, figured in checks shot with the
+      brightest of reds and browns, fitted himself out with two splendid horses
+      (which he drove with a single pair of reins, added to a ring attachment
+      for the trace horse), developed a habit of washing with a sponge dipped in
+      eau-de-Cologne, and invested in soaps of the most expensive quality, in
+      order to communicate to his skin a more elegant polish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director&mdash;a military
+      man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and anything
+      which might be called irregular. On the very day after his arrival he
+      struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts, discovering hosts
+      of deficits and missing sums, and directing his attention to the aforesaid
+      fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon that there ensued a complete
+      reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired wholesale, and the houses were
+      sequestrated to the Government, or else converted into various pious
+      institutions and schools for soldiers’ children. Thus the whole fabric,
+      and especially Chichikov, came crashing to the ground. Particularly did
+      our hero’s agreeable face displease the new Director. Why that was so it
+      is impossible to say, but frequently, in cases of the kind, no reason
+      exists. However, the Director conceived a mortal dislike to him, and also
+      extended that enmity to the whole of Chichikov’s colleagues. But inasmuch
+      as the said Director was a military man, he was not fully acquainted with
+      the myriad subtleties of the civilian mind; wherefore it was not long
+      before, by dint of maintaining a discreet exterior, added to a faculty for
+      humouring all and sundry, a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in
+      restoring him to mildness, and the General found himself in the hands of
+      greater thieves than before, but thieves whom he did not even suspect,
+      seeing that he believed himself to have selected men fit and proper, and
+      even ventured to boast of possessing a keen eye for talent. In a trice the
+      tchinovniks concerned appraised his spirit and character; with the result
+      that the entire sphere over which he ruled became an agency for the
+      detection of irregularities. Everywhere, and in every case, were those
+      irregularities pursued as a fisherman pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff;
+      and to such an extent did the sport prove successful that almost in no
+      time each participator in the hunt was seen to be in possession of several
+      thousand roubles of capital. Upon that a large number of the former band
+      of tchinovniks also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were
+      allowed to re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could
+      Chichikov worm his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry items
+      of paper currency, the General’s first secretary and principal bear leader
+      did all he could on our hero’s behalf. It seemed that the General was the
+      kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided it was done
+      without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head than it stuck
+      there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted; and all that the
+      wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing up of a certain
+      dirty fragment of paper&mdash;even that being effected only by an appeal
+      to the General’s compassion, on the score of the unhappy fate which,
+      otherwise, would befall Chichikov’s wife and children (who, luckily, had
+      no existence in fact).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well,” said Chichikov to himself, “I have done my best, and now
+      everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won’t help me, but only
+      action.” And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once more
+      to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The better to
+      effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town. Yet somehow, for
+      a while, things miscarried. More than once he found himself forced to
+      exchange one post for another, and at the briefest of notice; and all of
+      them were posts of the meanest, the most wretched, order. Yet, being a man
+      of the utmost nicety of feeling, the fact that he found himself rubbing
+      shoulders with anything but nice companions did not prevent him from
+      preserving intact his innate love of what was decent and seemly, or from
+      cherishing the instinct which led him to hanker after office fittings of
+      lacquered wood, with neatness and orderliness everywhere. Nor did he at
+      any time permit a foul word to creep into his speech, and would feel hurt
+      even if in the speech of others there occurred a scornful reference to
+      anything which pertained to rank and dignity. Also, the reader will be
+      pleased to know that our hero changed his linen every other day, and in
+      summer, when the weather was very hot, EVERY day, seeing that the very
+      faintest suspicion of an unpleasant odour offended his fastidiousness. For
+      the same reason it was his custom, before being valeted by Petrushka,
+      always to plug his nostrils with a couple of cloves. In short, there were
+      many occasions when his nerves suffered rackings as cruel as a young
+      girl’s, and so helped to increase his disgust at having once more to
+      associate with men who set no store by the decencies of life. Yet, though
+      he braced himself to the task, this period of adversity told upon his
+      health, and he even grew a trifle shabby. More than once, on happening to
+      catch sight of himself in the mirror, he could not forbear exclaiming:
+      “Holy Mother of God, but what a nasty-looking brute I have become!” and
+      for a long while afterwards could not with anything like sang-froid
+      contemplate his reflection. Yet throughout he bore up stoutly and
+      patiently&mdash;and ended by being transferred to the Customs Department.
+      It may be said that the department had long constituted the secret goal of
+      his ambition, for he had noted the foreign elegancies with which its
+      officials always contrived to provide themselves, and had also observed
+      that invariably they were able to send presents of china and cambric to
+      their sisters and aunts&mdash;well, to their lady friends generally. Yes,
+      more than once he had said to himself with a sigh: “THAT is the department
+      to which I ought to belong, for, given a town near the frontier, and a
+      sensible set of colleagues, I might be able to fit myself out with
+      excellent linen shirts.” Also, it may be said that most frequently of all
+      had his thoughts turned towards a certain quality of French soap which
+      imparted a peculiar whiteness to the skin and a peerless freshness to the
+      cheeks. Its name is known to God alone, but at least it was to be procured
+      only in the immediate neighbourhood of the frontier. So, as I say,
+      Chichikov had long felt a leaning towards the Customs, but for a time had
+      been restrained from applying for the same by the various current
+      advantages of the Building Commission; since rightly he had adjudged the
+      latter to constitute a bird in the hand, and the former to constitute only
+      a bird in the bush. But now he decided that, come what might, into the
+      Customs he must make his way. And that way he made, and then applied
+      himself to his new duties with a zeal born of the fact that he realised
+      that fortune had specially marked him out for a Customs officer. Indeed,
+      such activity, perspicuity, and ubiquity as his had never been seen or
+      thought of. Within four weeks at the most he had so thoroughly got his
+      hand in that he was conversant with Customs procedure in every detail. Not
+      only could he weigh and measure, but also he could divine from an invoice
+      how many arshins of cloth or other material a given piece contained, and
+      then, taking a roll of the latter in his hand, could specify at once the
+      number of pounds at which it would tip the scale. As for searchings, well,
+      even his colleagues had to admit that he possessed the nose of a veritable
+      bloodhound, and that it was impossible not to marvel at the patience
+      wherewith he would try every button of the suspected person, yet preserve,
+      throughout, a deadly politeness and an icy sang-froid which surpass
+      belief. And while the searched were raging, and foaming at the mouth, and
+      feeling that they would give worlds to alter his smiling exterior with a
+      good, resounding slap, he would move not a muscle of his face, nor abate
+      by a jot the urbanity of his demeanour, as he murmured, “Do you mind so
+      far incommoding yourself as to stand up?” or “Pray step into the next
+      room, madam, where the wife of one of our staff will attend you,” or “Pray
+      allow me to slip this penknife of mine into the lining of your coat”
+       (after which he would extract thence shawls and towels with as much
+      nonchalance as he would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his
+      superiors acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human
+      being, so perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels,
+      carriage-poles, horses’ ears, and places whither an author ought not to
+      penetrate even in thought&mdash;places whither only a Customs official is
+      permitted to go. The result was that the wretched traveller who had just
+      crossed the frontier would, within a few minutes, become wholly at sea,
+      and, wiping away the perspiration, and breaking out into body flushes,
+      would be reduced to crossing himself and muttering, “Well, well, well!” In
+      fact, such a traveller would feel in the position of a schoolboy who,
+      having been summoned to the presence of the headmaster for the ostensible
+      purpose of being given an order, has found that he receives, instead, a
+      sound flogging. In short, for some time Chichikov made it impossible for
+      smugglers to earn a living. In particular, he reduced Polish Jewry almost
+      to despair, so invincible, so almost unnatural, was the rectitude, the
+      incorruptibility which led him to refrain from converting himself into a
+      small capitalist with the aid of confiscated goods and articles which, “to
+      save excessive clerical labour,” had failed to be handed over to the
+      Government. Also, without saying it goes that such phenomenally zealous
+      and disinterested service attracted general astonishment, and, eventually,
+      the notice of the authorities; whereupon he received promotion, and
+      followed that up by mooting a scheme for the infallible detection of
+      contrabandists, provided that he could be furnished with the necessary
+      authority for carrying out the same. At once such authority was accorded
+      him, as also unlimited power to conduct every species of search and
+      investigation. And that was all he wanted. It happened that previously
+      there had been formed a well-found association for smuggling on regular,
+      carefully prepared lines, and that this daring scheme seemed to promise
+      profit to the extent of some millions of money: yet, though he had long
+      had knowledge of it, Chichikov had said to the association’s emissaries,
+      when sent to buy him over, “The time is not yet.” But now that he had got
+      all the reins into his hands, he sent word of the fact to the gang, and
+      with it the remark, “The time is NOW.” Nor was he wrong in his
+      calculations, for, within the space of a year, he had acquired what he
+      could not have made during twenty years of non-fraudulent service. With
+      similar sagacity he had, during his early days in the department, declined
+      altogether to enter into relations with the association, for the reason
+      that he had then been a mere cipher, and would have come in for nothing
+      large in the way of takings; but now&mdash;well, now it was another matter
+      altogether, and he could dictate what terms he liked. Moreover, that the
+      affair might progress the more smoothly, he suborned a fellow tchinovnik
+      of the type which, in spite of grey hairs, stands powerless against
+      temptation; and, the contract concluded, the association duly proceeded to
+      business. Certainly business began brilliantly. But probably most of my
+      readers are familiar with the oft-repeated story of the passage of Spanish
+      sheep across the frontier in double fleeces which carried between their
+      outer layers and their inner enough lace of Brabant to sell to the tune of
+      millions of roubles; wherefore I will not recount the story again beyond
+      saying that those journeys took place just when Chichikov had become head
+      of the Customs, and that, had he not a hand in the enterprise, not all the
+      Jews in the world could have brought it to success. By the time that three
+      or four of these ovine invasions had taken place, Chichikov and his
+      accomplice had come to be the possessors of four hundred thousand roubles
+      apiece; while some even aver that the former’s gains totalled half a
+      million, owing to the greater industry which he had displayed in the
+      matter. Nor can any one but God say to what a figure the fortunes of the
+      pair might not eventually have attained, had not an awkward contretemps
+      cut right across their arrangements. That is to say, for some reason or
+      another the devil so far deprived these tchinovnik-conspirators of sense
+      as to make them come to words with one another, and then to engage in a
+      quarrel. Beginning with a heated argument, this quarrel reached the point
+      of Chichikov&mdash;who was, possibly, a trifle tipsy&mdash;calling his
+      colleague a priest’s son; and though that description of the person so
+      addressed was perfectly accurate, he chose to take offence, and to answer
+      Chichikov with the words (loudly and incisively uttered), “It is YOU who
+      have a priest for your father,” and to add to that (the more to incense
+      his companion), “Yes, mark you! THAT is how it is.” Yet, though he had
+      thus turned the tables upon Chichikov with a tu quoque, and then capped
+      that exploit with the words last quoted, the offended tchinovnik could not
+      remain satisfied, but went on to send in an anonymous document to the
+      authorities. On the other hand, some aver that it was over a woman that
+      the pair fell out&mdash;over a woman who, to quote the phrase then current
+      among the staff of the Customs Department, was “as fresh and as strong as
+      the pulp of a turnip,” and that night-birds were hired to assault our hero
+      in a dark alley, and that the scheme miscarried, and that in any case both
+      Chichikov and his friend had been deceived, seeing that the person to whom
+      the lady had really accorded her favours was a certain staff-captain named
+      Shamsharev. However, only God knows the truth of the matter. Let the
+      inquisitive reader ferret it out for himself. The fact remains that a
+      complete exposure of the dealings with the contrabandists followed, and
+      that the two tchinovniks were put to the question, deprived of their
+      property, and made to formulate in writing all that they had done. Against
+      this thunderbolt of fortune the State Councillor could make no headway,
+      and in some retired spot or another sank into oblivion; but Chichikov put
+      a brave face upon the matter, for, in spite of the authorities’ best
+      efforts to smell out his gains, he had contrived to conceal a portion of
+      them, and also resorted to every subtle trick of intellect which could
+      possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has a wide
+      knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness
+      of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the
+      occasional insertion of a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the
+      result that he was retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and
+      escaped actual trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all
+      his capital, stripped of his imported effects, stripped of everything.
+      That is to say, all that remained to him consisted of ten thousand roubles
+      which he had stored against a rainy day, two dozen linen shirts, a small
+      britchka of the type used by bachelors, and two serving-men named Selifan
+      and Petrushka. Yes, and an impulse of kindness moved the tchinovniks of
+      the Customs also to set aside for him a few cakes of the soap which he had
+      found so excellent for the freshness of the cheeks. Thus once more our
+      hero found himself stranded. And what an accumulation of misfortunes had
+      descended upon his head!&mdash;though, true, he termed them “suffering in
+      the Service in the cause of Truth.” Certainly one would have thought that,
+      after these buffetings and trials and changes of fortune&mdash;after this
+      taste of the sorrows of life&mdash;he and his precious ten thousand
+      roubles would have withdrawn to some peaceful corner in a provincial town,
+      where, clad in a stuff dressing-gown, he could have sat and listened to
+      the peasants quarrelling on festival days, or (for the sake of a breath of
+      fresh air) have gone in person to the poulterer’s to finger chickens for
+      soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly useless, existence; but
+      nothing of the kind took place, and therein we must do justice to the
+      strength of his character. In other words, although he had undergone what,
+      to the majority of men, would have meant ruin and discouragement and a
+      shattering of ideals, he still preserved his energy. True, downcast and
+      angry, and full of resentment against the world in general, he felt
+      furious with the injustice of fate, and dissatisfied with the dealings of
+      men; yet he could not forbear courting additional experiences. In short,
+      the patience which he displayed was such as to make the wooden persistency
+      of the German&mdash;a persistency merely due to the slow, lethargic
+      circulation of the Teuton’s blood&mdash;seem nothing at all, seeing that
+      by nature Chichikov’s blood flowed strongly, and that he had to employ
+      much force of will to curb within himself those elements which longed to
+      burst forth and revel in freedom. He thought things over, and, as he did
+      so, a certain spice of reason appeared in his reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How have I come to be what I am?” he said to himself. “Why has misfortune
+      overtaken me in this way? Never have I wronged a poor person, or robbed a
+      widow, or turned any one out of doors: I have always been careful only to
+      take advantage of those who possess more than their share. Moreover, I
+      have never gleaned anywhere but where every one else was gleaning; and,
+      had I not done so, others would have gleaned in my place. Why, then,
+      should those others be prospering, and I be sunk as low as a worm? What am
+      I? What am I good for? How can I, in future, hope to look any honest
+      father of a family in the face? How shall I escape being tortured with the
+      thought that I am cumbering the ground? What, in the years to come, will
+      my children say, save that ‘our father was a brute, for he left us nothing
+      to live upon?’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here I may remark that we have seen how much thought Chichikov devoted to
+      his future descendants. Indeed, had not there been constantly recurring to
+      his mind the insistent question, “What will my children say?” he might not
+      have plunged into the affair so deeply. Nevertheless, like a wary cat
+      which glances hither and thither to see whether its mistress be not coming
+      before it can make off with whatsoever first falls to its paw (butter,
+      fat, lard, a duck, or anything else), so our future founder of a family
+      continued, though weeping and bewailing his lot, to let not a single
+      detail escape his eye. That is to say, he retained his wits ever in a
+      state of activity, and kept his brain constantly working. All that he
+      required was a plan. Once more he pulled himself together, once more he
+      embarked upon a life of toil, once more he stinted himself in everything,
+      once more he left clean and decent surroundings for a dirty, mean
+      existence. In other words, until something better should turn up, he
+      embraced the calling of an ordinary attorney&mdash;a calling which, not
+      then possessed of a civic status, was jostled on very side, enjoyed little
+      respect at the hands of the minor legal fry (or, indeed, at its own), and
+      perforce met with universal slights and rudeness. But sheer necessity
+      compelled Chichikov to face these things. Among commissions entrusted to
+      him was that of placing in the hands of the Public Trustee several hundred
+      peasants who belonged to a ruined estate. The estate had reached its
+      parlous condition through cattle disease, through rascally bailiffs,
+      through failures of the harvest, through such epidemic diseases that had
+      killed off the best workmen, and, last, but not least, through the
+      senseless conduct of the owner himself, who had furnished a house in
+      Moscow in the latest style, and then squandered his every kopeck, so that
+      nothing was left for his further maintenance, and it became necessary to
+      mortgage the remains&mdash;including the peasants&mdash;of the estate. In
+      those days mortgage to the Treasury was an innovation looked upon with
+      reserve, and, as attorney in the matter, Chichikov had first of all to
+      “entertain” every official concerned (we know that, unless that be
+      previously done, unless a whole bottle of madeira first be emptied down
+      each clerical throat, not the smallest legal affair can be carried
+      through), and to explain, for the barring of future attachments, that half
+      of the peasants were dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And are they entered on the revision lists?” asked the secretary. “Yes,”
+       replied Chichikov. “Then what are you boggling at?” continued the
+      Secretary. “Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time grow up
+      to take the first one’s place.” Upon that there dawned on our hero one of
+      the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human brain. “What a
+      simpleton I am!” he thought to himself. “Here am I looking about for my
+      mittens when all the time I have got them tucked into my belt. Why, were I
+      myself to buy up a few souls which are dead&mdash;to buy them before a new
+      revision list shall have been made, the Council of Public Trust might pay
+      me two hundred roubles apiece for them, and I might find myself with, say,
+      a capital of two hundred thousand roubles! The present moment is
+      particularly propitious, since in various parts of the country there has
+      been an epidemic, and, glory be to God, a large number of souls have died
+      of it. Nowadays landowners have taken to card-playing and junketting and
+      wasting their money, or to joining the Civil Service in St. Petersburg;
+      consequently their estates are going to rack and ruin, and being managed
+      in any sort of fashion, and succeeding in paying their dues with greater
+      difficulty each year. That being so, not a man of the lot but would gladly
+      surrender to me his dead souls rather than continue paying the poll-tax;
+      and in this fashion I might make&mdash;well, not a few kopecks. Of course
+      there are difficulties, and, to avoid creating a scandal, I should need to
+      employ plenty of finesse; but man was given his brain to USE, not to
+      neglect. One good point about the scheme is that it will seem so
+      improbable that in case of an accident, no one in the world will believe
+      in it. True, it is illegal to buy or mortgage peasants without land, but I
+      can easily pretend to be buying them only for transferment elsewhere. Land
+      is to be acquired in the provinces of Taurida and Kherson almost for
+      nothing, provided that one undertakes subsequently to colonise it; so to
+      Kherson I will ‘transfer’ them, and long may they live there! And the
+      removal of my dead souls shall be carried out in the strictest legal form;
+      and if the authorities should want confirmation by testimony, I shall
+      produce a letter signed by my own superintendent of the Khersonian rural
+      police&mdash;that is to say, by myself. Lastly, the supposed village in
+      Kherson shall be called Chichikovoe&mdash;better still Pavlovskoe,
+      according to my Christian name.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In this fashion there germinated in our hero’s brain that strange scheme
+      for which the reader may or may not be grateful, but for which the author
+      certainly is so, seeing that, had it never occurred to Chichikov, this
+      story would never have seen the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After crossing himself, according to the Russian custom, Chichikov set
+      about carrying out his enterprise. On pretence of selecting a place
+      wherein to settle, he started forth to inspect various corners of the
+      Russian Empire, but more especially those which had suffered from such
+      unfortunate accidents as failures of the harvest, a high rate of
+      mortality, or whatsoever else might enable him to purchase souls at the
+      lowest possible rate. But he did not tackle his landowners haphazard: he
+      rather selected such of them as seemed more particularly suited to his
+      taste, or with whom he might with the least possible trouble conclude
+      identical agreements; though, in the first instance, he always tried, by
+      getting on terms of acquaintanceship&mdash;better still, of friendship&mdash;with
+      them, to acquire the souls for nothing, and so to avoid purchase at all.
+      In passing, my readers must not blame me if the characters whom they have
+      encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their liking. The
+      fault is Chichikov’s rather than mine, for he is the master, and where he
+      leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me for a certain
+      dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters and actors, that
+      will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad tendency and the
+      general scope of a work become immediately apparent. Similarly does the
+      entry to every town&mdash;the entry even to the Capital itself&mdash;convey
+      to the traveller such an impression of vagueness that at first everything
+      looks grey and monotonous, and the lines of smoky factories and workshops
+      seem never to be coming to an end; but in time there will begin also to
+      stand out the outlines of six-storied mansions, and of shops and
+      balconies, and wide perspectives of streets, and a medley of steeples,
+      columns, statues, and turrets&mdash;the whole framed in rattle and roar
+      and the infinite wonders which the hand and the brain of men have
+      conceived. Of the manner in which Chichikov’s first purchases were made
+      the reader is aware. Subsequently he will see also how the affair
+      progressed, and with what success or failure our hero met, and how
+      Chichikov was called upon to decide and to overcome even more difficult
+      problems than the foregoing, and by what colossal forces the levers of his
+      far-flung tale are moved, and how eventually the horizon will become
+      extended until everything assumes a grandiose and a lyrical tendency. Yes,
+      many a verst of road remains to be travelled by a party made up of an
+      elderly gentleman, a britchka of the kind affected by bachelors, a valet
+      named Petrushka, a coachman named Selifan, and three horses which, from
+      the Assessor to the skewbald, are known to us individually by name. Again,
+      although I have given a full description of our hero’s exterior (such as
+      it is), I may yet be asked for an inclusive definition also of his moral
+      personality. That he is no hero compounded of virtues and perfections must
+      be already clear. Then WHAT is he? A villain? Why should we call him a
+      villain? Why should we be so hard upon a fellow man? In these days our
+      villains have ceased to exist. Rather it would be fairer to call him an
+      ACQUIRER. The love of acquisition, the love of gain, is a fault common to
+      many, and gives rise to many and many a transaction of the kind generally
+      known as “not strictly honourable.” True, such a character contains an
+      element of ugliness, and the same reader who, on his journey through life,
+      would sit at the board of a character of this kind, and spend a most
+      agreeable time with him, would be the first to look at him askance if he
+      should appear in the guise of the hero of a novel or a play. But wise is
+      the reader who, on meeting such a character, scans him carefully, and,
+      instead of shrinking from him with distaste, probes him to the springs of
+      his being. The human personality contains nothing which may not, in the
+      twinkling of an eye, become altogether changed&mdash;nothing in which,
+      before you can look round, there may not spring to birth some cankerous
+      worm which is destined to suck thence the essential juice. Yes, it is a
+      common thing to see not only an overmastering passion, but also a passion
+      of the most petty order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and
+      lead him both to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and to
+      see only in the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy. For human passions
+      are as numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his
+      most insistent of masters. Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from
+      among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will
+      that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by
+      hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his
+      soul. But there are passions of which a man cannot rid himself, seeing
+      that they are born with him at his birth, and he has no power to abjure
+      them. Higher powers govern those passions, and in them is something which
+      will call to him, and refuse to be silenced, to the end of his life. Yes,
+      whether in a guise of darkness, or whether in a guise which will become
+      converted into a light to lighten the world, they will and must attain
+      their consummation on life’s field: and in either case they have been
+      evoked for man’s good. In the same way may the passion which drew our
+      Chichikov onwards have been one that was independent of himself; in the
+      same way may there have lurked even in his cold essence something which
+      will one day cause men to humble themselves in the dust before the
+      infinite wisdom of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet that folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing. What
+      matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their approval
+      could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to say, had not
+      the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov’s soul, nor stirred up in its
+      depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light, nor disclosed those of
+      his hero’s thoughts which that hero would have not have disclosed even to
+      his most intimate friend; had the author, indeed, exhibited Chichikov just
+      as he exhibited himself to the townsmen of N. and Manilov and the rest;
+      well, then we may rest assured that every reader would have been delighted
+      with him, and have voted him a most interesting person. For it is not
+      nearly so necessary that Chichikov should figure before the reader as
+      though his form and person were actually present to the eye as that, on
+      concluding a perusal of this work, the reader should be able to return,
+      unharrowed in soul, to that cult of the card-table which is the solace and
+      delight of all good Russians. Yes, readers of this book, none of you
+      really care to see humanity revealed in its nakedness. “Why should we do
+      so?” you say. “What would be the use of it? Do we not know for ourselves
+      that human life contains much that is gross and contemptible? Do we not
+      with our own eyes have to look upon much that is anything but comforting?
+      Far better would it be if you would put before us what is comely and
+      attractive, so that we might forget ourselves a little.” In the same
+      fashion does a landowner say to his bailiff: “Why do you come and tell me
+      that the affairs of my estate are in a bad way? I know that without YOUR
+      help. Have you nothing else to tell me? Kindly allow me to forget the
+      fact, or else to remain in ignorance of it, and I shall be much obliged to
+      you.” Whereafter the said landowner probably proceeds to spend on his
+      diversion the money which ought to have gone towards the rehabilitation of
+      his affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Possibly the author may also incur censure at the hands of those so-called
+      “patriots” who sit quietly in corners, and become capitalists through
+      making fortunes at the expense of others. Yes, let but something which
+      they conceive to be derogatory to their country occur&mdash;for instance,
+      let there be published some book which voices the bitter truth&mdash;and
+      out they will come from their hiding-places like a spider which perceives
+      a fly to be caught in its web. “Is it well to proclaim this to the world,
+      and to set folk talking about it?” they will cry. “What you have described
+      touches US, is OUR affair. Is conduct of that kind right? What will
+      foreigners say? Does any one care calmly to sit by and hear himself
+      traduced? Why should you lead foreigners to suppose that all is not well
+      with us, and that we are not patriotic?” Well, to these sage remarks no
+      answer can really be returned, especially to such of the above as refer to
+      foreign opinion. But see here. There once lived in a remote corner of
+      Russia two natives of the region indicated. One of those natives was a
+      good man named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly disposition; a man who
+      went through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no heed to his household,
+      for the reason that his whole being was centred upon the province of
+      speculation, and that, in particular, he was preoccupied with a
+      philosophical problem usually stated by him thus: “A beast,” he would say,
+      “is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why should not a beast be born as
+      a bird is born&mdash;that is to say, through the process of being hatched
+      from an egg? Nature is beyond the understanding, however much one may
+      probe her.” This was the substance of Kifa Mokievitch’s reflections. But
+      herein is not the chief point. The other of the pair was a fellow named
+      Mofi Kifovitch, and son to the first named. He was what we Russians call a
+      “hero,” and while his father was pondering the parturition of beasts, his,
+      the son’s, lusty, twenty-year-old temperament was violently struggling for
+      development. Yet that son could tackle nothing without some accident
+      occurring. At one moment would he crack some one’s fingers in half, and at
+      another would he raise a bump on somebody’s nose; so that both at home and
+      abroad every one and everything&mdash;from the serving-maid to the
+      yard-dog&mdash;fled on his approach, and even the bed in his bedroom
+      became shattered to splinters. Such was Mofi Kifovitch; and with it all he
+      had a kindly soul. But herein is not the chief point. “Good sir, good Kifa
+      Mokievitch,” servants and neighbours would come and say to the father,
+      “what are you going to do about your Moki Kifovitch? We get no rest from
+      him, he is so above himself.” “That is only his play, that is only his
+      play,” the father would reply. “What else can you expect? It is too late
+      now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one would accuse me
+      of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but, were I to reprove him
+      in public, the whole thing would become common talk, and folk would begin
+      giving him a dog’s name. And if they did that, would not their opinion
+      touch me also, seeing that I am his father? Also, I am busy with
+      philosophy, and have no time for such things. Lastly, Moki Kifovitch is my
+      son, and very dear to my heart.” And, beating his breast, Kifa Mokievitch
+      again asserted that, even though his son should elect to continue his
+      pranks, it would not be for HIM, for the father, to proclaim the fact, or
+      to fall out with his offspring. And, this expression of paternal feeling
+      uttered, Kifa Mokievitch left Moki Kifovitch to his heroic exploits, and
+      himself returned to his beloved subject of speculation, which now included
+      also the problem, “Suppose elephants were to take to being hatched from
+      eggs, would not the shell of such eggs be of a thickness proof against
+      cannonballs, and necessitate the invention of some new type of firearm?”
+       Thus at the end of this little story we have these two denizens of a
+      peaceful corner of Russia looking thence, as from a window, in less terror
+      of doing what was scandalous than of having it SAID of them that they were
+      acting scandalously. Yes, the feeling animating our so-called “patriots”
+       is not true patriotism at all. Something else lies beneath it. Who, if not
+      an author, is to speak aloud the truth? Men like you, my pseudo-patriots,
+      stand in dread of the eye which is able to discern, yet shrink from using
+      your own, and prefer, rather, to glance at everything unheedingly. Yes,
+      after laughing heartily over Chichikov’s misadventures, and perhaps even
+      commending the author for his dexterity of observation and pretty turn of
+      wit, you will look at yourselves with redoubled pride and a self-satisfied
+      smile, and add: “Well, we agree that in certain parts of the provinces
+      there exists strange and ridiculous individuals, as well as unconscionable
+      rascals.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet which of you, when quiet, and alone, and engaged in solitary
+      self-communion, would not do well to probe YOUR OWN souls, and to put to
+      YOURSELVES the solemn question, “Is there not in ME an element of
+      Chichikov?” For how should there not be? Which of you is not liable at any
+      moment to be passed in the street by an acquaintance who, nudging his
+      neighbour, may say of you, with a barely suppressed sneer: “Look! there
+      goes Chichikov! That is Chichikov who has just gone by!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But here are we talking at the top of our voices whilst all the time our
+      hero lies slumbering in his britchka! Indeed, his name has been repeated
+      so often during the recital of his life’s history that he must almost have
+      heard us! And at any time he is an irritable, irascible fellow when spoken
+      of with disrespect. True, to the reader Chichikov’s displeasure cannot
+      matter a jot; but for the author it would mean ruin to quarrel with his
+      hero, seeing that, arm in arm, Chichikov and he have yet far to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tut, tut, tut!” came in a shout from Chichikov. “Hi, Selifan!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it?” came the reply, uttered with a drawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it? Why, how dare you drive like that? Come! Bestir yourself a
+      little!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and hands
+      which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save an
+      occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst Petrushka
+      had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head had come to
+      rest against Chichikov’s knees&mdash;a position which necessitated his
+      being awakened with a cuff. Selifan also roused himself, and apportioned
+      to the skewbald a few cuts across the back of a kind which at least had
+      the effect of inciting that animal to trot; and when, presently, the other
+      two horses followed their companion’s example, the light britchka moved
+      forwards like a piece of thistledown. Selifan flourished his whip and
+      shouted, “Hi, hi!” as the inequalities of the road jerked him vertically
+      on his seat; and meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions of the
+      vehicle’s interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the sensation
+      of driving fast. For what Russian does not love to drive fast? Which of us
+      does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and to let them go,
+      and to cry, “To the devil with the world!”? At such moments a great force
+      seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies, and everything else flies,
+      but contrariwise&mdash;both the verst stones, and traders riding on the
+      shafts of their waggons, and the forest with dark lines of spruce and fir
+      amid which may be heard the axe of the woodcutter and the croaking of the
+      raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote distance the road comes towards one, and
+      while nothing save the sky and the light clouds through which the moon is
+      cleaving her way seem halted, the brief glimpses wherein one can discern
+      nothing clearly have in them a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika,
+      troika, swift as a bird, who was it first invented you? Only among a hardy
+      race of folk can you have come to birth&mdash;only in a land which, though
+      poor and rough, lies spread over half the world, and spans versts the
+      counting whereof would leave one with aching eyes. Nor are you a
+      modishly-fashioned vehicle of the road&mdash;a thing of clamps and iron.
+      Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen and fitted with the axe or chisel of
+      some handy peasant of Yaroslav. Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed
+      in German livery, but by a man bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts,
+      and flourishes his whip, and breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the
+      wind go the horses, and the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent
+      circles, and the road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with
+      a cry of astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies,
+      flies on its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon&mdash;a
+      speck amid a cloud of dust!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And you, Russia of mine&mdash;are not you also speeding like a troika
+      which nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels,
+      and the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in
+      the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder
+      whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that
+      awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force which
+      lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves must abide
+      in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an ear stretched to
+      catch the celestial message which bids them, with iron-girded breasts, and
+      hooves which barely touch the earth as they gallop, fly forward on a
+      mission of God? Whither, then, are you speeding, O Russia of mine?
+      Whither? Answer me! But no answer comes&mdash;only the weird sound of your
+      collar-bells. Rent into a thousand shreds, the air roars past you, for you
+      are overtaking the whole world, and shall one day force all nations, all
+      empires to stand aside, to give you way!
+    </p>
+<p class="right">
+                                                                 1841.
+</p>    <p>
+      <a id="link2H_PART2">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Why do I so persistently paint the poverty, the imperfections of Russian
+      life, and delve into the remotest depths, the most retired holes and
+      corners, of our Empire for my subjects? The answer is that there is
+      nothing else to be done when an author’s idiosyncrasy happens to incline
+      him that way. So again we find ourselves in a retired spot. But what a
+      spot!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with
+      embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards the
+      heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse of
+      plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone cliffs. Here
+      and there those cliffs are seamed with water-courses and gullies, while at
+      other points they are rounded off into spurs of green&mdash;spurs now
+      coated with fleece-like tufts of young undergrowth, now studded with the
+      stumps of felled trees, now covered with timber which has, by some
+      miracle, escaped the woodman’s axe. Also, a river winds awhile between its
+      banks, then leaves the meadow land, divides into runlets (all flashing in
+      the sun like fire), plunges, re-united, into the midst of a thicket of
+      elder, birch, and pine, and, lastly, speeds triumphantly past bridges and
+      mills and weirs which seem to be lying in wait for it at every turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one particular spot the steep flank of the mountain range is covered
+      with billowy verdure of denser growth than the rest; and here the aid of
+      skilful planting, added to the shelter afforded by a rugged ravine, has
+      enabled the flora of north and south so to be brought together that,
+      twined about with sinuous hop-tendrils, the oak, the spruce fir, the wild
+      pear, the maple, the cherry, the thorn, and the mountain ash either assist
+      or check one another’s growth, and everywhere cover the declivity with
+      their straggling profusion. Also, at the edge of the summit there can be
+      seen mingling with the green of the trees the red roofs of a manorial
+      homestead, while behind the upper stories of the mansion proper and its
+      carved balcony and a great semi-circular window there gleam the tiles and
+      gables of some peasants’ huts. Lastly, over this combination of trees and
+      roofs there rises&mdash;overtopping everything with its gilded, sparkling
+      steeple&mdash;an old village church. On each of its pinnacles a cross of
+      carved gilt is stayed with supports of similar gilding and design; with
+      the result that from a distance the gilded portions have the effect of
+      hanging without visible agency in the air. And the whole&mdash;the three
+      successive tiers of woodland, roofs, and crosses whole&mdash;lies
+      exquisitely mirrored in the river below, where hollow willows, grotesquely
+      shaped (some of them rooted on the river’s banks, and some in the water
+      itself, and all drooping their branches until their leaves have formed a
+      tangle with the water lilies which float on the surface), seem to be
+      gazing at the marvellous reflection at their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the view from below is beautiful indeed. But the view from above is
+      even better. No guest, no visitor, could stand on the balcony of the
+      mansion and remain indifferent. So boundless is the panorama revealed that
+      surprise would cause him to catch at his breath, and exclaim: “Lord of
+      Heaven, but what a prospect!” Beyond meadows studded with spinneys and
+      water-mills lie forests belted with green; while beyond, again, there can
+      be seen showing through the slightly misty air strips of yellow heath,
+      and, again, wide-rolling forests (as blue as the sea or a cloud), and more
+      heath, paler than the first, but still yellow. Finally, on the far horizon
+      a range of chalk-topped hills gleams white, even in dull weather, as
+      though it were lightened with perpetual sunshine; and here and there on
+      the dazzling whiteness of its lower slopes some plaster-like, nebulous
+      patches represent far-off villages which lie too remote for the eye to
+      discern their details. Indeed, only when the sunlight touches a steeple to
+      gold does one realise that each such patch is a human settlement. Finally,
+      all is wrapped in an immensity of silence which even the far, faint echoes
+      of persons singing in the void of the plain cannot shatter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the
+      visitor would still find nothing to say, save: “Lord of Heaven, but what a
+      prospect!” Then who is the dweller in, the proprietor of, this manor&mdash;a
+      manor to which, as to an impregnable fortress, entrance cannot be gained
+      from the side where we have been standing, but only from the other
+      approach, where a few scattered oaks offer hospitable welcome to the
+      visitor, and then, spreading above him their spacious branches (as in
+      friendly embrace), accompany him to the facade of the mansion whose top we
+      have been regarding from the reverse aspect, but which now stands
+      frontwise on to us, and has, on one side of it, a row of peasants’ huts
+      with red tiles and carved gables, and, on the other, the village church,
+      with those glittering golden crosses and gilded open-work charms which
+      seem to hang suspended in the air? Yes, indeed!&mdash;to what fortunate
+      individual does this corner of the world belong? It belongs to Andrei
+      Ivanovitch Tientietnikov, landowner of the canton of Tremalakhan, and,
+      withal, a bachelor of about thirty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Should my lady readers ask of me what manner of man is Tientietnikov, and
+      what are his attributes and peculiarities, I should refer them to his
+      neighbours. Of these, a member of the almost extinct tribe of intelligent
+      staff officers on the retired list once summed up Tientietnikov in the
+      phrase, “He is an absolute blockhead;” while a General who resided ten
+      versts away was heard to remark that “he is a young man who, though not
+      exactly a fool, has at least too much crowded into his head. I myself
+      might have been of use to him, for not only do I maintain certain
+      connections with St. Petersburg, but also&mdash;” And the General left his
+      sentence unfinished. Thirdly, a captain-superintendent of rural police
+      happened to remark in the course of conversation: “To-morrow I must go and
+      see Tientietnikov about his arrears.” Lastly, a peasant of Tientietnikov’s
+      own village, when asked what his barin was like, returned no answer at
+      all. All of which would appear to show that Tientietnikov was not exactly
+      looked upon with favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To speak dispassionately, however, he was not a bad sort of fellow&mdash;merely
+      a star-gazer; and since the world contains many watchers of the skies, why
+      should Tientietnikov not have been one of them? However, let me describe
+      in detail a specimen day of his existence&mdash;one that will closely
+      resemble the rest, and then the reader will be enabled to judge of
+      Tientietnikov’s character, and how far his life corresponded to the
+      beauties of nature with which he lived surrounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the specimen day in question he awoke very late, and,
+      raising himself to a sitting posture, rubbed his eyes. And since those
+      eyes were small, the process of rubbing them occupied a very long time,
+      and throughout its continuance there stood waiting by the door his valet,
+      Mikhailo, armed with a towel and basin. For one hour, for two hours, did
+      poor Mikhailo stand there: then he departed to the kitchen, and returned
+      to find his master still rubbing his eyes as he sat on the bed. At length,
+      however, Tientietnikov rose, washed himself, donned a dressing-gown, and
+      moved into the drawing-room for morning tea, coffee, cocoa, and warm milk;
+      of all of which he partook but sparingly, while munching a piece of bread,
+      and scattering tobacco ash with complete insouciance. Two hours did he sit
+      over this meal, then poured himself out another cup of the rapidly cooling
+      tea, and walked to the window. This faced the courtyard, and outside it,
+      as usual, there took place the following daily altercation between a serf
+      named Grigory (who purported to act as butler) and the housekeeper,
+      Perfilievna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grigory. Ah, you nuisance, you good-for-nothing, you had better hold your
+      stupid tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perfilievna. Yes; and don’t you wish that I would?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grigory. What? You so thick with that bailiff of yours, you housekeeping
+      jade!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perfilievna. Nay, he is as big a thief as you are. Do you think the barin
+      doesn’t know you? And there he is! He must have heard everything!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grigory. Where?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perfilievna. There&mdash;sitting by the window, and looking at us!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next, to complete the hubbub, a serf child which had been clouted by its
+      mother broke out into a bawl, while a borzoi puppy which had happened to
+      get splashed with boiling water by the cook fell to yelping vociferously.
+      In short, the place soon became a babel of shouts and squeals, and, after
+      watching and listening for a time, the barin found it so impossible to
+      concentrate his mind upon anything that he sent out word that the noise
+      would have to be abated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next item was that, a couple of hours before luncheon time, he
+      withdrew to his study, to set about employing himself upon a weighty work
+      which was to consider Russia from every point of view: from the political,
+      from the philosophical, and from the religious, as well as to resolve
+      various problems which had arisen to confront the Empire, and to define
+      clearly the great future to which the country stood ordained. In short, it
+      was to be the species of compilation in which the man of the day so much
+      delights. Yet the colossal undertaking had progressed but little beyond
+      the sphere of projection, since, after a pen had been gnawed awhile, and a
+      few strokes had been committed to paper, the whole would be laid aside in
+      favour of the reading of some book; and that reading would continue also
+      during luncheon and be followed by the lighting of a pipe, the playing of
+      a solitary game of chess, and the doing of more or less nothing for the
+      rest of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foregoing will give the reader a pretty clear idea of the manner in
+      which it was possible for this man of thirty-three to waste his time. Clad
+      constantly in slippers and a dressing-gown, Tientietnikov never went out,
+      never indulged in any form of dissipation, and never walked upstairs.
+      Nothing did he care for fresh air, and would bestow not a passing glance
+      upon all those beauties of the countryside which moved visitors to such
+      ecstatic admiration. From this the reader will see that Andrei Ivanovitch
+      Tientietnikov belonged to that band of sluggards whom we always have with
+      us, and who, whatever be their present appellation, used to be known by
+      the nicknames of “lollopers,” “bed pressers,” and “marmots.” Whether the
+      type is a type originating at birth, or a type resulting from untoward
+      circumstances in later life, it is impossible to say. A better course than
+      to attempt to answer that question would be to recount the story of
+      Tientietnikov’s boyhood and upbringing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything connected with the latter seemed to promise success, for at
+      twelve years of age the boy&mdash;keen-witted, but dreamy of temperament,
+      and inclined to delicacy&mdash;was sent to an educational establishment
+      presided over by an exceptional type of master. The idol of his pupils,
+      and the admiration of his assistants, Alexander Petrovitch was gifted with
+      an extraordinary measure of good sense. How thoroughly he knew the
+      peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he understood boys! How
+      capable he was of drawing them out! Not a practical joker in the school
+      but, after perpetrating a prank, would voluntarily approach his preceptor
+      and make to him free confession. True, the preceptor would put a stern
+      face upon the matter, yet the culprit would depart with head held higher,
+      not lower, than before, since in Alexander Petrovitch there was something
+      which heartened&mdash;something which seemed to say to a delinquent:
+      “Forward you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have fallen!” Not
+      lectures on good behaviour was it, therefore, that fell from his lips, but
+      rather the injunction, “I want to see intelligence, and nothing else. The
+      boy who devotes his attention to becoming clever will never play the fool,
+      for under such circumstances, folly disappears of itself.” And so folly
+      did, for the boy who failed to strive in the desired direction incurred
+      the contempt of all his comrades, and even dunces and fools of senior
+      standing did not dare to raise a finger when saluted by their juniors with
+      opprobrious epithets. Yet “This is too much,” certain folk would say to
+      Alexander. “The result will be that your students will turn out prigs.”
+       “But no,” he would reply. “Not at all. You see, I make it my principle to
+      keep the incapables for a single term only, since that is enough for them;
+      but to the clever ones I allot a double course of instruction.” And, true
+      enough, any lad of brains was retained for this finishing course. Yet he
+      did not repress all boyish playfulness, since he declared it to be as
+      necessary as a rash to a doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to diagnose
+      what lay hidden within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Consequently, how the boys loved him! Never was there such an attachment
+      between master and pupils. And even later, during the foolish years, when
+      foolish things attract, the measure of affection which Alexander
+      Petrovitch retained was extraordinary. In fact, to the day of his death,
+      every former pupil would celebrate the birthday of his late master by
+      raising his glass in gratitude to the mentor dead and buried&mdash;then
+      close his eyelids upon the tears which would come trickling through them.
+      Even the slightest word of encouragement from Alexander Petrovitch could
+      throw a lad into a transport of tremulous joy, and arouse in him an
+      honourable emulation of his fellows. Boys of small capacity he did not
+      long retain in his establishment; whereas those who possessed exceptional
+      talent he put through an extra course of schooling. This senior class&mdash;a
+      class composed of specially-selected pupils&mdash;was a very different
+      affair from what usually obtains in other colleges. Only when a boy had
+      attained its ranks did Alexander demand of him what other masters
+      indiscreetly require of mere infants&mdash;namely the superior frame of
+      mind which, while never indulging in mockery, can itself bear ridicule,
+      and disregard the fool, and keep its temper, and repress itself, and
+      eschew revenge, and calmly, proudly retain its tranquillity of soul. In
+      short, whatever avails to form a boy into a man of assured character, that
+      did Alexander Petrovitch employ during the pupil’s youth, as well as
+      constantly put him to the test. How well he understood the art of life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of assistant tutors he kept but few, since most of the necessary
+      instruction he imparted in person, and, without pedantic terminology and
+      inflated diction and views, could so transmit to his listeners the inmost
+      spirit of a lesson that even the youngest present absorbed its essential
+      elements. Also, of studies he selected none but those which may help a boy
+      to become a good citizen; and therefore most of the lectures which he
+      delivered consisted of discourses on what may be awaiting a youth, as well
+      as of such demarcations of life’s field that the pupil, though seated, as
+      yet, only at the desk, could beforehand bear his part in that field both
+      in thought and spirit. Nor did the master CONCEAL anything. That is to
+      say, without mincing words, he invariably set before his hearers the
+      sorrows and the difficulties which may confront a man, the trials and the
+      temptations which may beset him. And this he did in terms as though, in
+      every possible calling and capacity, he himself had experienced the same.
+      Consequently, either the vigorous development of self-respect or the
+      constant stimulus of the master’s eye (which seemed to say to the pupil,
+      “Forward!”&mdash;that word which has become so familiar to the
+      contemporary Russian, that word which has worked such wonders upon his
+      sensitive temperament); one or the other, I repeat, would from the first
+      cause the pupil to tackle difficulties, and only difficulties, and to
+      hunger for prowess only where the path was arduous, and obstacles were
+      many, and it was necessary to display the utmost strength of mind. Indeed,
+      few completed the course of which I have spoken without issuing therefrom
+      reliable, seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most
+      embarrassing of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men,
+      distracted with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything
+      or, grown slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and
+      the rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered
+      from the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the
+      weapons of prudence, exerted a powerful influence upon wrongdoers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time past the ardent young Tientietnikov’s excitable heart had
+      also beat at the thought that one day he might attain the senior class
+      described. And, indeed, what better teacher could he have had befall him
+      than its preceptor? Yet just at the moment when he had been transferred
+      thereto, just at the moment when he had reached the coveted position, did
+      his instructor come suddenly by his death! This was indeed a blow for the
+      boy&mdash;indeed a terrible initial loss! In his eyes everything connected
+      with the school seemed to undergo a change&mdash;the chief reason being
+      the fact that to the place of the deceased headmaster there succeeded a
+      certain Thedor Ivanovitch, who at once began to insist upon certain
+      external rules, and to demand of the boys what ought rightly to have been
+      demanded only of adults. That is to say, since the lads’ frank and open
+      demeanour savoured to him only of lack of discipline, he announced (as
+      though in deliberate spite of his predecessor) that he cared nothing for
+      progress and intellect, but that heed was to be paid only to good
+      behaviour. Yet, curiously enough, good behaviour was just what he never
+      obtained, for every kind of secret prank became the rule; and while, by
+      day, there reigned restraint and conspiracy, by night there began to take
+      place chambering and wantonness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Also, certain changes in the curriculum of studies came about, for there
+      were engaged new teachers who held new views and opinions, and confused
+      their hearers with a multitude of new terms and phrases, and displayed in
+      their exposition of things both logical sequence and a zest for modern
+      discovery and much warmth of individual bias. Yet their instruction, alas!
+      contained no LIFE&mdash;in the mouths of those teachers a dead language
+      savoured merely of carrion. Thus everything connected with the school
+      underwent a radical alteration, and respect for authority and the
+      authorities waned, and tutors and ushers came to be dubbed “Old Thedor,”
+       “Crusty,” and the like. And sundry other things began to take place&mdash;things
+      which necessitated many a penalty and expulsion; until, within a couple of
+      years, no one who had known the school in former days would now have
+      recognised it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless Tientietnikov, a youth of retiring disposition, experienced
+      no leanings towards the nocturnal orgies of his companions, orgies during
+      which the latter used to flirt with damsels before the very windows of the
+      headmaster’s rooms, nor yet towards their mockery of all that was sacred,
+      simply because fate had cast in their way an injudicious priest. No,
+      despite its dreaminess, his soul ever remembered its celestial origin, and
+      could not be diverted from the path of virtue. Yet still he hung his head,
+      for, while his ambition had come to life, it could find no sort of outlet.
+      Truly ‘twere well if it had NOT come to life, for throughout the time that
+      he was listening to professors who gesticulated on their chairs he could
+      not help remembering the old preceptor who, invariably cool and calm, had
+      yet known how to make himself understood. To what subjects, to what
+      lectures, did the boy not have to listen!&mdash;to lectures on medicine,
+      and on philosophy, and on law, and on a version of general history so
+      enlarged that even three years failed to enable the professor to do more
+      than finish the introduction thereto, and also the account of the
+      development of some self-governing towns in Germany. None of the stuff
+      remained fixed in Tientietnikov’s brain save as shapeless clots; for
+      though his native intellect could not tell him how instruction ought to be
+      imparted, it at least told him that THIS was not the way. And frequently,
+      at such moments he would recall Alexander Petrovitch, and give way to such
+      grief that scarcely did he know what he was doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But youth is fortunate in the fact that always before it there lies a
+      future; and in proportion as the time for his leaving school drew nigh,
+      Tientietnikov’s heart began to beat higher and higher, and he said to
+      himself: “This is not life, but only a preparation for life. True life is
+      to be found in the Public Service. There at least will there be scope for
+      activity.” So, bestowing not a glance upon that beautiful corner of the
+      world which never failed to strike the guest or chance visitor with
+      amazement, and reverencing not a whit the dust of his ancestors, he
+      followed the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to
+      St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia
+      from every quarter gravitates&mdash;there to enter the Public Service, to
+      shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks of
+      that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But the
+      real starting-point of Tientietnikov’s ambition was the moment when his
+      uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into him the
+      maxim that the only means to success in the Service lay in good
+      handwriting, and that, without that accomplishment, no one could ever hope
+      to become a Minister or Statesman. Thus, with great difficulty, and also
+      with the help of his uncle’s influence, young Tientietnikov at length
+      succeeded in being posted to a Department. On the day that he was
+      conducted into a splendid, shining hall&mdash;a hall fitted with inlaid
+      floors and lacquered desks as fine as though this were actually the place
+      where the great ones of the Empire met for discussion of the fortunes of
+      the State; on the day that he saw legions of handsome gentlemen of the
+      quill-driving profession making loud scratchings with pens, and cocking
+      their heads to one side; lastly on the day that he saw himself also
+      allotted a desk, and requested to copy a document which appeared purposely
+      to be one of the pettiest possible order (as a matter of fact it related
+      to a sum of three roubles, and had taken half a year to produce)&mdash;well,
+      at that moment a curious, an unwonted sensation seized upon the
+      inexperienced youth, for the gentlemen around him appeared so exactly like
+      a lot of college students. And, the further to complete the resemblance,
+      some of them were engaged in reading trashy translated novels, which they
+      kept hurriedly thrusting between the sheets of their apportioned work
+      whenever the Director appeared, as though to convey the impression that it
+      was to that work alone that they were applying themselves. In short, the
+      scene seemed to Tientietnikov strange, and his former pursuits more
+      important than his present, and his preparation for the Service preferable
+      to the Service itself. Yes, suddenly he felt a longing for his old school;
+      and as suddenly, and with all the vividness of life, there appeared before
+      his vision the figure of Alexander Petrovitch. He almost burst into tears
+      as he beheld his old master, and the room seemed to swim before his eyes,
+      and the tchinovniks and the desks to become a blur, and his sight to grow
+      dim. Then he thought to himself with an effort: “No, no! I WILL apply
+      myself to my work, however petty it be at first.” And hardening his heart
+      and recovering his spirit, he determined then and there to perform his
+      duties in such a manner as should be an example to the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But where are compensations to be found? Even in St. Petersburg, despite
+      its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though thirty degrees
+      of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and the family of the
+      North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch have heaped high the
+      pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and fur collars
+      and the shaggy manes of horses&mdash;even THEN there will be shining
+      hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window where, in
+      a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, and to the hiss of the
+      samovar, there will be in progress a discussion which warms the heart and
+      soul, or else a reading aloud of a brilliant page of one of those inspired
+      Russian poets with whom God has dowered us, while the breast of each
+      member of the company is heaving with a rapture unknown under a noontide
+      sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually, therefore, Tientietnikov grew more at home in the Service. Yet
+      never did it become, for him, the main pursuit, the main object in life,
+      which he had expected. No, it remained but one of a secondary kind. That
+      is to say, it served merely to divide up his time, and enable him the more
+      to value his hours of leisure. Nevertheless, just when his uncle was
+      beginning to flatter himself that his nephew was destined to succeed in
+      the profession, the said nephew elected to ruin his every hope. Thus it
+      befell. Tientietnikov’s friends (he had many) included among their number
+      a couple of fellows of the species known as “embittered.” That is to say,
+      though good-natured souls of that curiously restless type which cannot
+      endure injustice, nor anything which it conceives to be such, they were
+      thoroughly unbalanced of conduct themselves, and, while demanding general
+      agreement with their views, treated those of others with the scantiest of
+      ceremony. Nevertheless these two associates exercised upon Tientietnikov&mdash;both
+      by the fire of their eloquence and by the form of their noble
+      dissatisfaction with society&mdash;a very strong influence; with the
+      result that, through arousing in him an innate tendency to nervous
+      resentment, they led him also to notice trifles which before had escaped
+      his attention. An instance of this is seen in the fact that he conceived
+      against Thedor Thedorovitch Lienitsin, Director of one of the Departments
+      which was quartered in the splendid range of offices before mentioned, a
+      dislike which proved the cause of his discerning in the man a host of
+      hitherto unmarked imperfections. Above all things did Tientietnikov take
+      it into his head that, when conversing with his superiors, Lienitsin
+      became, of the moment, a stick of luscious sweetmeat, but that, when
+      conversing with his inferiors, he approximated more to a vinegar cruet.
+      Certain it is that, like all petty-minded individuals, Lienitsin made a
+      note of any one who failed to offer him a greeting on festival days, and
+      that he revenged himself upon any one whose visiting-card had not been
+      handed to his butler. Eventually the youth’s aversion almost attained the
+      point of hysteria; until he felt that, come what might, he MUST insult the
+      fellow in some fashion. To that task he applied himself con amore; and so
+      thoroughly that he met with complete success. That is to say, he seized on
+      an occasion to address Lienitsin in such fashion that the delinquent
+      received notice either to apologise or to leave the Service; and when of
+      these alternatives he chose the latter his uncle came to him, and made a
+      terrified appeal. “For God’s sake remember what you are doing!” he cried.
+      “To think that, after beginning your career so well, you should abandon it
+      merely for the reason that you have not fallen in with the sort of
+      Director whom you prefer! What do you mean by it, what do you mean by it?
+      Were others to regard things in the same way, the Service would find
+      itself without a single individual. Reconsider your conduct&mdash;forego
+      your pride and conceit, and make Lienitsin amends.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But, dear Uncle,” the nephew replied, “that is not the point. The point
+      is, not that I should find an apology difficult to offer, seeing that,
+      since Lienitsin is my superior, and I ought not to have addressed him as I
+      did, I am clearly in the wrong. Rather, the point is the following. To my
+      charge there has been committed the performance of another kind of
+      service. That is to say, I am the owner of three hundred peasant souls, a
+      badly administered estate, and a fool of a bailiff. That being so, whereas
+      the State will lose little by having to fill my stool with another
+      copyist, it will lose very much by causing three hundred peasant souls to
+      fail in the payment of their taxes. As I say (how am I to put it?), I am a
+      landowner who has preferred to enter the Public Service. Now, should I
+      employ myself henceforth in conserving, restoring, and improving the
+      fortunes of the souls whom God has entrusted to my care, and thereby
+      provide the State with three hundred law-abiding, sober, hard-working
+      taxpayers, how will that service of mine rank as inferior to the service
+      of a department-directing fool like Lienitsin?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On hearing this speech, the State Councillor could only gape, for he had
+      not expected Tientietnikov’s torrent of words. He reflected a few moments,
+      and then murmured:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but, but&mdash;but how can a man like you retire to rustication in
+      the country? What society will you get there? Here one meets at least a
+      general or a prince sometimes; indeed, no matter whom you pass in the
+      street, that person represents gas lamps and European civilisation; but in
+      the country, no matter what part of it you are in, not a soul is to be
+      encountered save muzhiks and their women. Why should you go and condemn
+      yourself to a state of vegetation like that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless the uncle’s expostulations fell upon deaf ears, for already
+      the nephew was beginning to think of his estate as a retreat of a type
+      more likely to nourish the intellectual faculties and afford the only
+      profitable field of activity. After unearthing one or two modern works on
+      agriculture, therefore, he, two weeks later, found himself in the
+      neighbourhood of the home where his boyhood had been spent, and
+      approaching the spot which never failed to enthral the visitor or guest.
+      And in the young man’s breast there was beginning to palpitate a new
+      feeling&mdash;in the young man’s soul there were reawakening old,
+      long-concealed impressions; with the result that many a spot which had
+      long been faded from his memory now filled him with interest, and the
+      beautiful views on the estate found him gazing at them like a newcomer,
+      and with a beating heart. Yes, as the road wound through a narrow ravine,
+      and became engulfed in a forest where, both above and below, he saw
+      three-centuries-old oaks which three men could not have spanned, and where
+      Siberian firs and elms overtopped even the poplars, and as he asked the
+      peasants to tell him to whom the forest belonged, and they replied, “To
+      Tientietnikov,” and he issued from the forest, and proceeded on his way
+      through meadows, and past spinneys of elder, and of old and young willows,
+      and arrived in sight of the distant range of hills, and, crossing by two
+      different bridges the winding river (which he left successively to right
+      and to left of him as he did so), he again questioned some peasants
+      concerning the ownership of the meadows and the flooded lands, and was
+      again informed that they all belonged to Tientietnikov, and then,
+      ascending a rise, reached a tableland where, on one side, lay ungarnered
+      fields of wheat and rye and barley, and, on the other, the country already
+      traversed (but which now showed in shortened perspective), and then
+      plunged into the shade of some forked, umbrageous trees which stood
+      scattered over turf and extended to the manor-house itself, and caught
+      glimpses of the carved huts of the peasants, and of the red roofs of the
+      stone manorial outbuildings, and of the glittering pinnacles of the
+      church, and felt his heart beating, and knew, without being told by any
+      one, whither he had at length arrived&mdash;well, then the feeling which
+      had been growing within his soul burst forth, and he cried in ecstasy:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why have I been a fool so long? Why, seeing that fate has appointed me to
+      be ruler of an earthly paradise, did I prefer to bind myself in servitude
+      as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I had been
+      nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge necessary for the
+      diffusion of good among those under me, and for the improvement of my
+      domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold duties of a landowner who
+      is at once judge, administrator, and constable of his people, I should
+      have entrusted my estate to an ignorant bailiff, and sought to maintain an
+      absentee guardianship over the affairs of serfs whom I have never met, and
+      of whose capabilities and characters I am yet ignorant! To think that I
+      should have deemed true estate-management inferior to a documentary,
+      fantastical management of provinces which lie a thousand versts away, and
+      which my foot has never trod, and where I could never have effected aught
+      but blunders and irregularities!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile another spectacle was being prepared for him. On learning that
+      the barin was approaching the mansion, the muzhiks collected on the
+      verandah in very variety of picturesque dress and tonsure; and when these
+      good folk surrounded him, and there arose a resounding shout of “Here is
+      our Foster Father! He has remembered us!” and, in spite of themselves,
+      some of the older men and women began weeping as they recalled his
+      grandfather and great-grandfather, he himself could not restrain his
+      tears, but reflected: “How much affection! And in return for what? In
+      return for my never having come to see them&mdash;in return for my never
+      having taken the least interest in their affairs!” And then and there he
+      registered a mental vow to share their every task and occupation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he applied himself to supervising and administering. He reduced the
+      amount of the barstchina <a href="#linknote-40" id="linknoteref-40"><small>40</small></a>, he decreased the number of
+      working-days for the owner, and he augmented the sum of the peasants’
+      leisure-time. He also dismissed the fool of a bailiff, and took to bearing
+      a personal hand in everything&mdash;to being present in the fields, at the
+      threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of barges
+      and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore even the lazy
+      hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last long. The peasant
+      is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov’s muzhiks soon scented the
+      fact that, though energetic and desirous of doing much, the barin had no
+      notion how to do it, nor even how to set about it&mdash;that, in short, he
+      spoke by the book rather than out of his personal knowledge. Consequently
+      things resulted, not in master and men failing to understand one another,
+      but in their not singing together, in their not producing the very same
+      note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on the
+      manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the
+      peasants’. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up well,
+      and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that Tientietnikov,
+      who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of vodka to be served
+      out as a reward for the excellence of the labour performed. Yet the rye on
+      the peasants’ land had formed into ear, and the oats had begun to shoot
+      their grain, and the millet had filled before, on the manorial lands, the
+      corn had so much as grown to stalk, or the ears had sprouted in embryo. In
+      short, gradually the barin realised that, in spite of favours conferred,
+      the peasants were playing the rogue with him. Next he resorted to
+      remonstrance, but was met with the reply, “How could we not do our best
+      for our barin? You yourself saw how well we laboured at the ploughing and
+      the sowing, for you gave us mugs of vodka for our pains.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why have things turned out so badly?” the barin persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who can say? It must be that a grub has eaten the crop from below.
+      Besides, what a summer has it been&mdash;never a drop of rain!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the barin noted that no grub had eaten the PEASANTS’ crops,
+      as well as that the rain had fallen in the most curious fashion&mdash;namely,
+      in patches. It had obliged the muzhiks, but had shed a mere sprinkling for
+      the barin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still more difficult did he find it to deal with the peasant women. Ever
+      and anon they would beg to be excused from work, or start making
+      complaints of the severity of the barstchina. Indeed, they were terrible
+      folk! However, Tientietnikov abolished the majority of the tithes of
+      linen, hedge fruit, mushrooms, and nuts, and also reduced by one-half
+      other tasks proper to the women, in the hope that they would devote their
+      spare time to their own domestic concerns&mdash;namely, to sewing and
+      mending, and to making clothes for their husbands, and to increasing the
+      area of their kitchen gardens. Yet no such result came about. On the
+      contrary, such a pitch did the idleness, the quarrelsomeness, and the
+      intriguing and caballing of the fair sex attain that their helpmeets were
+      for ever coming to the barin with a request that he would rid one or
+      another of his wife, since she had become a nuisance, and to live with her
+      was impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next, hardening his heart, the barin attempted severity. But of what avail
+      was severity? The peasant woman remained always the peasant woman, and
+      would come and whine that she was sick and ailing, and keep pitifully
+      hugging to herself the mean and filthy rags which she had donned for the
+      occasion. And when poor Tientietnikov found himself unable to say more to
+      her than just, “Get out of my sight, and may the Lord go with you!” the
+      next item in the comedy would be that he would see her, even as she was
+      leaving his gates, fall to contending with a neighbour for, say, the
+      possession of a turnip, and dealing out slaps in the face such as even a
+      strong, healthy man could scarcely have compassed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, amongst other things, Tientietnikov conceived the idea of
+      establishing a school for his people; but the scheme resulted in a farce
+      which left him in sackcloth and ashes. In the same way he found that, when
+      it came to a question of dispensing justice and of adjusting disputes, the
+      host of juridical subtleties with which the professors had provided him
+      proved absolutely useless. That is to say, the one party lied, and the
+      other party lied, and only the devil could have decided between them.
+      Consequently he himself perceived that a knowledge of mankind would have
+      availed him more than all the legal refinements and philosophical maxims
+      in the world could do. He lacked something; and though he could not divine
+      what it was, the situation brought about was the common one of the barin
+      failing to understand the peasant, and the peasant failing to understand
+      the barin, and both becoming disaffected. In the end, these difficulties
+      so chilled Tientietnikov’s enthusiasm that he took to supervising the
+      labours of the field with greatly diminished attention. That is to say, no
+      matter whether the scythes were softly swishing through the grass, or
+      ricks were being built, or rafts were being loaded, he would allow his
+      eyes to wander from his men, and to fall to gazing at, say, a red-billed,
+      red-legged heron which, after strutting along the bank of a stream, would
+      have caught a fish in its beak, and be holding it awhile, as though in
+      doubt whether to swallow it. Next he would glance towards the spot where a
+      similar bird, but one not yet in possession of a fish, was engaged in
+      watching the doings of its mate. Lastly, with eyebrows knitted, and face
+      turned to scan the zenith, he would drink in the smell of the fields, and
+      fall to listening to the winged population of the air as from earth and
+      sky alike the manifold music of winged creatures combined in a single
+      harmonious chorus. In the rye the quail would be calling, and, in the
+      grass, the corncrake, and over them would be wheeling flocks of twittering
+      linnets. Also, the jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark
+      executing its roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and
+      cranes sending forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards
+      the zenith in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood would
+      seem to have become converted into one great concert of melody. O Creator,
+      how fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart
+      from cities and from highways!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased
+      altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up in his
+      rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that functionary
+      called with his reports. Again, although, until now, he had to a certain
+      extent associated with a retired colonel of hussars&mdash;a man saturated
+      with tobacco smoke&mdash;and also with a student of pronounced, but
+      immature, opinions who culled the bulk of his wisdom from contemporary
+      newspapers and pamphlets, he found, as time went on, that these companions
+      proved as tedious as the rest, and came to think their conversation
+      superficial, and their European method of comporting themselves&mdash;that
+      is to say, the method of conversing with much slapping of knees and a
+      great deal of bowing and gesticulation&mdash;too direct and unadorned. So
+      these and every one else he decided to “drop,” and carried this resolution
+      into effect with a certain amount of rudeness. On the next occasion that
+      Varvar Nikolaievitch Vishnepokromov called to indulge in a free-and-easy
+      symposium on politics, philosophy, literature, morals, and the state of
+      financial affairs in England (he was, in all matters which admit of
+      superficial discussion, the pleasantest fellow alive, seeing that he was a
+      typical representative both of the retired fire-eater and of the school of
+      thought which is now becoming the rage)&mdash;when, I say, this next
+      happened, Tientietnikov merely sent out to say that he was not at home,
+      and then carefully showed himself at the window. Host and guest exchanged
+      glances, and, while the one muttered through his teeth “The cur!” the
+      other relieved his feelings with a remark or two on swine. Thus the
+      acquaintance came to an abrupt end, and from that time forth no visitor
+      called at the mansion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tientietnikov in no way regretted this, for he could now devote himself
+      wholly to the projection of a great work on Russia. Of the scale on which
+      this composition was conceived the reader is already aware. The reader
+      also knows how strange, how unsystematic, was the system employed in it.
+      Yet to say that Tientietnikov never awoke from his lethargy would not be
+      altogether true. On the contrary, when the post brought him newspapers and
+      reviews, and he saw in their printed pages, perhaps, the well-known name
+      of some former comrade who had succeeded in the great field of Public
+      Service, or had conferred upon science and the world’s work some notable
+      contribution, he would succumb to secret and suppressed grief, and
+      involuntarily there would burst from his soul an expression of aching,
+      voiceless regret that he himself had done so little. And at these times
+      his existence would seem to him odious and repellent; at these times there
+      would uprise before him the memory of his school days, and the figure of
+      Alexander Petrovitch, as vivid as in life. And, slowly welling, the tears
+      would course over Tientietnikov’s cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What meant these repinings? Was there not disclosed in them the secret of
+      his galling spiritual pain&mdash;the fact that he had failed to order his
+      life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started his
+      course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he had
+      failed to attain the better and the higher state, and there to strengthen
+      himself for the overcoming of hindrances and obstacles; the fact that,
+      dissolving like overheated metal, his bounteous store of superior
+      instincts had failed to take the final tempering; the fact that the tutor
+      of his boyhood, a man in a thousand, had prematurely died, and left to
+      Tientietnikov no one who could restore to him the moral strength shattered
+      by vacillation and the will power weakened by want of virility&mdash;no
+      one, in short, who could cry hearteningly to his soul “Forward!”&mdash;the
+      word for which the Russian of every degree, of every class, of every
+      occupation, of every school of thought, is for ever hungering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, WHERE is the man who can cry aloud for any of us, in the Russian
+      tongue dear to our soul, the all-compelling command “Forward!”? Who is
+      there who, knowing the strength and the nature and the inmost depths of
+      the Russian genius, can by a single magic incantation divert our ideals to
+      the higher life? Were there such a man, with what tears, with what
+      affection, would not the grateful sons of Russia repay him! Yet age
+      succeeds to age, and our callow youth still lies wrapped in shameful
+      sloth, or strives and struggles to no purpose. God has not yet given us
+      the man able to sound the call.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One circumstance which almost aroused Tientietnikov, which almost brought
+      about a revolution in his character, was the fact that he came very near
+      to falling in love. Yet even this resulted in nothing. Ten versts away
+      there lived the general whom we have heard expressing himself in highly
+      uncomplimentary terms concerning Tientietnikov. He maintained a
+      General-like establishment, dispensed hospitality (that is to say, was
+      glad when his neighbours came to pay him their respects, though he himself
+      never went out), spoke always in a hoarse voice, read a certain number of
+      books, and had a daughter&mdash;a curious, unfamiliar type, but full of
+      life as life itself. This maiden’s name was Ulinka, and she had been
+      strangely brought up, for, losing her mother in early childhood, she had
+      subsequently received instruction at the hands of an English governess who
+      knew not a single word of Russian. Moreover her father, though excessively
+      fond of her, treated her always as a toy; with the result that, as she
+      grew to years of discretion, she became wholly wayward and spoilt. Indeed,
+      had any one seen the sudden rage which would gather on her beautiful young
+      forehead when she was engaged in a heated dispute with her father, he
+      would have thought her one of the most capricious beings in the world. Yet
+      that rage gathered only when she had heard of injustice or harsh
+      treatment, and never because she desired to argue on her own behalf, or to
+      attempt to justify her own conduct. Also, that anger would disappear as
+      soon as ever she saw any one whom she had formerly disliked fall upon evil
+      times, and, at his first request for alms would, without consideration or
+      subsequent regret, hand him her purse and its whole contents. Yes, her
+      every act was strenuous, and when she spoke her whole personality seemed
+      to be following hot-foot upon her thought&mdash;both her expression of
+      face and her diction and the movements of her hands. Nay, the very folds
+      of her frock had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have
+      thought that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she
+      know reticence: before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force
+      could compel her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also, her
+      enchanting, peculiar gait&mdash;a gait which belonged to her alone&mdash;was
+      so absolutely free and unfettered that every one involuntarily gave her
+      way. Lastly, in her presence churls seemed to become confused and fall to
+      silence, and even the roughest and most outspoken would lose their heads,
+      and have not a word to say; whereas the shy man would find himself able to
+      converse as never in his life before, and would feel, from the first, as
+      though he had seen her and known her at some previous period&mdash;during
+      the days of some unremembered childhood, when he was at home, and spending
+      a merry evening among a crowd of romping children. And for long afterwards
+      he would feel as though his man’s intellect and estate were a burden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was what now befell Tientietnikov; and as it did so a new feeling
+      entered into his soul, and his dreamy life lightened for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the General used to receive him with hospitable civility, but
+      permanent concord between them proved impossible; their conversation
+      always merged into dissension and soreness, seeing that, while the General
+      could not bear to be contradicted or worsted in an argument, Tientietnikov
+      was a man of extreme sensitiveness. True, for the daughter’s sake, the
+      father was for a while deferred to, and thus peace was maintained; but
+      this lasted only until the time when there arrived, on a visit to the
+      General, two kinswomen of his&mdash;the Countess Bordirev and the Princess
+      Uziakin, retired Court dames, but ladies who still kept up a certain
+      connection with Court circles, and therefore were much fawned upon by
+      their host. No sooner had they appeared on the scene than (so it seemed to
+      Tientietnikov) the General’s attitude towards the young man became colder&mdash;either
+      he ceased to notice him at all or he spoke to him familiarly, and as to a
+      person having no standing in society. This offended Tientietnikov deeply,
+      and though, when at length he spoke out on the subject, he retained
+      sufficient presence of mind to compress his lips, and to preserve a gentle
+      and courteous tone, his face flushed and his inner man was boiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “General,” he said, “I thank you for your condescension. By addressing me
+      in the second person singular, you have admitted me to the circle of your
+      most intimate friends. Indeed, were it not that a difference of years
+      forbids any familiarity on my part, I should answer you in similar
+      fashion.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The General sat aghast. At length, rallying his tongue and his faculties,
+      he replied that, though he had spoken with a lack of ceremony, he had used
+      the term “thou” merely as an elderly man naturally employs it towards a
+      junior (he made no reference to difference of rank).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the acquaintance broke off here, and with it any possibility
+      of love-making. The light which had shed a momentary gleam before
+      Tientietnikov’s eyes had become extinguished for ever, and upon it there
+      followed a darkness denser than before. Henceforth everything conduced to
+      evolve the regime which the reader has noted&mdash;that regime of sloth
+      and inaction which converted Tientietnikov’s residence into a place of
+      dirt and neglect. For days at a time would a broom and a heap of dust be
+      left lying in the middle of a room, and trousers tossing about the salon,
+      and pairs of worn-out braces adorning the what-not near the sofa. In
+      short, so mean and untidy did Tientietnikov’s mode of life become, that
+      not only his servants, but even his very poultry ceased to treat him with
+      respect. Taking up a pen, he would spend hours in idly sketching houses,
+      huts, waggons, troikas, and flourishes on a piece of paper; while at other
+      times, when he had sunk into a reverie, the pen would, all unknowingly,
+      sketch a small head which had delicate features, a pair of quick,
+      penetrating eyes, and a raised coiffure. Then suddenly the dreamer would
+      perceive, to his surprise, that the pen had executed the portrait of a
+      maiden whose picture no artist could adequately have painted; and
+      therewith his despondency would become greater than ever, and, believing
+      that happiness did not exist on earth, he would relapse into increased
+      ennui, increased neglect of his responsibilities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one morning he noticed, on moving to the window after breakfast, that
+      not a word was proceeding either from the butler or the housekeeper, but
+      that, on the contrary, the courtyard seemed to smack of a certain bustle
+      and excitement. This was because through the entrance gates (which the
+      kitchen maid and the scullion had run to open) there were appearing the
+      noses of three horses&mdash;one to the right, one in the middle, and one
+      to the left, after the fashion of triumphal groups of statuary. Above
+      them, on the box seat, were seated a coachman and a valet, while behind,
+      again, there could be discerned a gentleman in a scarf and a fur cap. Only
+      when the equipage had entered the courtyard did it stand revealed as a
+      light spring britchka. And as it came to a halt, there leapt on to the
+      verandah of the mansion an individual of respectable exterior, and
+      possessed of the art of moving with the neatness and alertness of a
+      military man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this Tientietnikov’s heart stood still. He was unused to receiving
+      visitors, and for the moment conceived the new arrival to be a Government
+      official, sent to question him concerning an abortive society to which he
+      had formerly belonged. (Here the author may interpolate the fact that, in
+      Tientietnikov’s early days, the young man had become mixed up in a very
+      absurd affair. That is to say, a couple of philosophers belonging to a
+      regiment of hussars had, together with an aesthete who had not yet
+      completed his student’s course and a gambler who had squandered his all,
+      formed a secret society of philanthropic aims under the presidency of a
+      certain old rascal of a freemason and the ruined gambler aforesaid. The
+      scope of the society’s work was to be extensive: it was to bring lasting
+      happiness to humanity at large, from the banks of the Thames to the shores
+      of Kamtchatka. But for this much money was needed: wherefore from the
+      noble-minded members of the society generous contributions were demanded,
+      and then forwarded to a destination known only to the supreme authorities
+      of the concern. As for Tientietnikov’s adhesion, it was brought about by
+      the two friends already alluded to as “embittered”&mdash;good-hearted
+      souls whom the wear and tear of their efforts on behalf of science,
+      civilisation, and the future emancipation of mankind had ended by
+      converting into confirmed drunkards. Perhaps it need hardly be said that
+      Tientietnikov soon discovered how things stood, and withdrew from the
+      association; but, meanwhile, the latter had had the misfortune so to have
+      engaged in dealings not wholly creditable to gentlemen of noble origin as
+      likewise to have become entangled in dealings with the police.
+      Consequently, it is not to be wondered at that, though Tientietnikov had
+      long severed his connection with the society and its policy, he still
+      remained uneasy in his mind as to what might even yet be the result.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, his fears vanished the instant that the guest saluted him with
+      marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of the head,
+      and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time past he (the
+      newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business and in the
+      pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects of interest&mdash;not
+      to mention a plenitude of manufactures and a great diversity of soil, and
+      that, in spite of the fact that he was greatly struck with the amenities
+      of his host’s domain, he would certainly not have presumed to intrude at
+      such an inconvenient hour but for the circumstance that the inclement
+      spring weather, added to the state of the roads, had necessitated sundry
+      repairs to his carriage at the hands of wheelwrights and blacksmiths.
+      Finally he declared that, even if this last had NOT happened, he would
+      still have felt unable to deny himself the pleasure of offering to his
+      host that meed of homage which was the latter’s due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech&mdash;a speech of fascinating bonhomie&mdash;delivered, the
+      guest executed a sort of shuffle with a half-boot of patent leather
+      studded with buttons of mother-of-pearl, and followed that up by (in spite
+      of his pronounced rotundity of figure) stepping backwards with all the
+      elan of an india-rubber ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this the somewhat reassured Tientietnikov concluded that his visitor
+      must be a literary, knowledge-seeking professor who was engaged in roaming
+      the country in search of botanical specimens and fossils; wherefore he
+      hastened to express both his readiness to further the visitor’s objects
+      (whatever they might be) and his personal willingness to provide him with
+      the requisite wheelwrights and blacksmiths. Meanwhile he begged his guest
+      to consider himself at home, and, after seating him in an armchair, made
+      preparations to listen to the newcomer’s discourse on natural history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the newcomer applied himself, rather, to phenomena of the internal
+      world, saying that his life might be likened to a barque tossed on the
+      crests of perfidious billows, that in his time he had been fated to play
+      many parts, and that on more than one occasion his life had stood in
+      danger at the hands of foes. At the same time, these tidings were
+      communicated in a manner calculated to show that the speaker was also a
+      man of PRACTICAL capabilities. In conclusion, the visitor took out a
+      cambric pocket-handkerchief, and sneezed into it with a vehemence wholly
+      new to Tientietnikov’s experience. In fact, the sneeze rather resembled
+      the note which, at times, the trombone of an orchestra appears to utter
+      not so much from its proper place on the platform as from the immediate
+      neighbourhood of the listener’s ear. And as the echoes of the drowsy
+      mansion resounded to the report of the explosion there followed upon the
+      same a wave of perfume, skilfully wafted abroad with a flourish of the
+      eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none other
+      than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov. Naturally,
+      time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms; wherefore his
+      exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his frockcoat had taken
+      on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka, coachman, valet, horses, and
+      harness alike had about them a sort of second-hand, worse-for-wear effect.
+      Evidently the Chichikovian finances were not in the most flourishing of
+      conditions. Nevertheless, the old expression of face, the old air of
+      breeding and refinement, remained unimpaired, and our hero had even
+      improved in the art of walking and turning with grace, and of dexterously
+      crossing one leg over the other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of
+      diction, his discreet moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if
+      anything, increased measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused
+      his tactfulness to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these
+      accomplishments had their effect further heightened by a snowy
+      immaculateness of collar and dickey, and an absence of dust from his
+      frockcoat, as complete as though he had just arrived to attend a nameday
+      festival. Lastly, his cheeks and chin were of such neat clean-shavenness
+      that no one but a blind man could have failed to admire their rounded
+      contours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov’s
+      establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
+      cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
+      Chichikov, while one other apartment&mdash;a little front chamber opening
+      into the hall&mdash;became permeated with Petrushka’s own peculiar smell.
+      But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
+      transferred to the servants’ quarters, a course which ought to have been
+      adopted in the first instance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the initial days of Chichikov’s sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
+      rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his guest
+      might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the established
+      routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless, for Paul
+      Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for accommodating himself
+      to his new position. To begin with, he encouraged his host in his
+      philosophical inertia by saying that the latter would help Tientietnikov
+      to become a centenarian. Next, in the matter of a life of isolation, he
+      hit things off exactly by remarking that such a life bred in a man a
+      capacity for high thinking. Lastly, as he inspected the library and
+      dilated on books in general, he contrived an opportunity to observe that
+      literature safeguarded a man from a tendency to waste his time. In short,
+      the few words of which he delivered himself were brief, but invariably to
+      the point. And this discretion of speech was outdone by his discretion of
+      conduct. That is to say, whether entering or leaving the room, he never
+      wearied his host with a question if Tientietnikov had the air of being
+      disinclined to talk; and with equal satisfaction the guest could either
+      play chess or hold his tongue. Consequently Tientietnikov said to himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the first time in my life I have met with a man with whom it is
+      possible to live. In general, not many of the type exist in Russia, and,
+      though clever, good-humoured, well-educated men abound, one would be hard
+      put to it to find an individual of equable temperament with whom one could
+      share a roof for centuries without a quarrel arising. Anyway, Chichikov is
+      the first of his sort that I have met.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For his part, Chichikov was only too delighted to reside with a person so
+      quiet and agreeable as his host. Of a wandering life he was temporarily
+      weary, and to rest, even for a month, in such a beautiful spot, and in
+      sight of green fields and the slow flowering of spring, was likely to
+      benefit him also from the hygienic point of view. And, indeed, a more
+      delightful retreat in which to recuperate could not possibly have been
+      found. The spring, long retarded by previous cold, had now begun in all
+      its comeliness, and life was rampant. Already, over the first emerald of
+      the grass, the dandelion was showing yellow, and the red-pink anemone was
+      hanging its tender head; while the surface of every pond was a swarm of
+      dancing gnats and midges, and the water-spider was being joined in their
+      pursuit by birds which gathered from every quarter to the vantage-ground
+      of the dry reeds. Every species of creature also seemed to be assembling
+      in concourse, and taking stock of one another. Suddenly the earth became
+      populous, the forest had opened its eyes, and the meadows were lifting up
+      their voice in song. In the same way had choral dances begun to be weaved
+      in the village, and everywhere that the eye turned there was merriment.
+      What brightness in the green of nature, what freshness in the air, what
+      singing of birds in the gardens of the mansion, what general joy and
+      rapture and exaltation! Particularly in the village might the shouting and
+      singing have been in honour of a wedding!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere&mdash;a pursuit for which
+      there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his steps
+      along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths below,
+      where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of winter, and
+      where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless boughs; while at
+      another time he would plunge into the thicket and ravine country, where
+      nests of birds weighted branches almost to the ground, and the sky was
+      darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing rooks. Again, the drier
+      portions of the meadows could be crossed to the river wharves, whence the
+      first barges were just beginning to set forth with pea-meal and barley and
+      wheat, while at the same time one’s ear would be caught with the sound of
+      some mill resuming its functions as once more the water turned the wheel.
+      Chichikov would also walk afield to watch the early tillage operations of
+      the season, and observe how the blackness of a new furrow would make its
+      way across the expanse of green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking
+      his hand against the pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his
+      fistfuls of seed with equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too
+      much to one side or to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with the
+      bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into the
+      manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how an
+      estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what species
+      of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was the name of
+      each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had bought his cow,
+      and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made inquiry concerning the
+      number of peasants who had lately died: but of these there appeared to be
+      few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned that Tientietnikov’s estate was
+      not being worked as it might have been&mdash;that much neglect and
+      listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness was abroad; and on perceiving
+      this, he thought to himself: “What a fool is that Tientietnikov! To think
+      of letting a property like this decay when he might be drawing from it an
+      income of fifty thousand roubles a year!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Also, more than once, while taking these walks, our hero pondered the idea
+      of himself becoming a landowner&mdash;not now, of course, but later, when
+      his chief aim should have been achieved, and he had got into his hands the
+      necessary means for living the quiet life of the proprietor of an estate.
+      Yes, and at these times there would include itself in his castle-building
+      the figure of a young, fresh, fair-faced maiden of the mercantile or other
+      rich grade of society, a woman who could both play and sing. He also
+      dreamed of little descendants who should perpetuate the name of Chichikov;
+      perhaps a frolicsome little boy and a fair young daughter, or possibly,
+      two boys and quite two or three daughters; so that all should know that he
+      had really lived and had his being, that he had not merely roamed the
+      world like a spectre or a shadow; so that for him and his the country
+      should never be put to shame. And from that he would go on to fancy that a
+      title appended to his rank would not be a bad thing&mdash;the title of
+      State Councillor, for instance, which was deserving of all honour and
+      respect. Ah, it is a common thing for a man who is taking a solitary walk
+      so to detach himself from the irksome realities of the present that he is
+      able to stir and to excite and to provoke his imagination to the
+      conception of things he knows can never really come to pass!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like
+      their master, speedily made themselves at home in it. In particular did
+      Petrushka make friends with Grigory the butler, although at first the pair
+      showed a tendency to outbrag one another&mdash;Petrushka beginning by
+      throwing dust in Grigory’s eyes on the score of his (Petrushka’s) travels,
+      and Grigory taking him down a peg or two by referring to St. Petersburg (a
+      city which Petrushka had never visited), and Petrushka seeking to recover
+      lost ground by dilating on towns which he HAD visited, and Grigory capping
+      this by naming some town which is not to be found on any map in existence,
+      and then estimating the journey thither as at least thirty thousand versts&mdash;a
+      statement which would so completely flabbergast the henchman of
+      Chichikov’s suite that he would be left staring open-mouthed, amid the
+      general laughter of the domestic staff. However, as I say, the pair ended
+      by swearing eternal friendship with one another, and making a practice of
+      resorting to the village tavern in company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Selifan, however, the place had a charm of a different kind. That is
+      to say, each evening there would take place in the village a singing of
+      songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and buxom were the
+      maidens&mdash;maidens of a type hard to find in our present-day villages
+      on large estates&mdash;that he would stand for hours wondering which of
+      them was the best. White-necked and white-bosomed, all had great roving
+      eyes, the gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to the waist. And as, with
+      his hands clasping theirs, he glided hither and thither in the dance, or
+      retired backwards towards a wall with a row of other young fellows, and
+      then, with them, returned to meet the damsels&mdash;all singing in chorus
+      (and laughing as they sang it), “Boyars, show me my bridegroom!” and dusk
+      was falling gently, and from the other side of the river there kept coming
+      far, faint, plaintive echoes of the melody&mdash;well, then our Selifan
+      hardly knew whether he were standing upon his head or his heels. Later,
+      when sleeping and when waking, both at noon and at twilight, he would seem
+      still to be holding a pair of white hands, and moving in the dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s horses also found nothing of which to disapprove. Yes, both
+      the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at
+      Tientietnikov’s a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats excellent,
+      and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True, on this
+      occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking over the
+      intervening partition, it was possible always to see one’s fellows, and,
+      should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a neigh, to answer it at
+      once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the errand which had hitherto led Chichikov to travel about Russia,
+      he had now decided to move very cautiously and secretly in the matter. In
+      fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for reading and
+      for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself, “No&mdash;I had
+      better begin at the other end,” and proceeded first to feel his way among
+      the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt several things,
+      and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go and call upon a
+      certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the General possessed a
+      daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had an affair of some sort,
+      but that the pair had subsequently parted, and gone their several ways.
+      For that matter, Chichikov himself had noticed that Tientietnikov was in
+      the habit of drawing heads of which each representation exactly resembled
+      the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, as he sat tapping his silver snuff-box after luncheon, Chichikov
+      remarked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “One thing you lack, and only one, Andrei Ivanovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is that?” asked his host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A female friend or two,” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily to
+      an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for
+      supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to
+      interject:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the
+      subject seemed to have annoyed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the third time&mdash;it was after supper&mdash;Chichikov returned to
+      the charge by remarking:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To-day, as I was walking round your property, I could not help thinking
+      that marriage would do you a great deal of good. Otherwise you will
+      develop into a hypochondriac.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether Chichikov’s words now voiced sufficiently the note of persuasion,
+      or whether Tientietnikov happened, at the moment, to be unusually disposed
+      to frankness, at all events the young landowner sighed, and then responded
+      as he expelled a puff of tobacco smoke:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To attain anything, Paul Ivanovitch, one needs to have been born under a
+      lucky star.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he related to his guest the whole history of his acquaintanceship and
+      subsequent rupture with the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Chichikov listened to the recital, and gradually realised that the
+      affair had arisen merely out of a chance word on the General’s part, he
+      was astounded beyond measure, and gazed at Tientietnikov without knowing
+      what to make of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Andrei Ivanovitch,” he said at length, “what was there to take offence
+      at?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing, as regards the actual words spoken,” replied the other. “The
+      offence lay, rather, in the insult conveyed in the General’s tone.”
+       Tientietnikov was a kindly and peaceable man, yet his eyes flashed as he
+      said this, and his voice vibrated with wounded feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet, even then, need you have taken it so much amiss?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Could I have gone on visiting him as before?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly. No great harm had been done?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I disagree with you. Had he been an old man in a humble station of life,
+      instead of a proud and swaggering officer, I should not have minded so
+      much. But, as it was, I could not, and would not, brook his words.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A curious fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A curious fellow, this Chichikov!” was Tientietnikov’s inward reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I tell you what,” resumed Chichikov. “To-morrow I myself will go and see
+      the General.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To what purpose?” asked Tientietnikov, with astonishment and distrust in
+      his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To offer him an assurance of my personal respect.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A strange fellow, this Chichikov!” reflected Tientietnikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A strange fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov, and then added
+      aloud: “Yes, I will go and see him at ten o’clock to-morrow; but since my
+      britchka is not yet altogether in travelling order, would you be so good
+      as to lend me your koliaska for the purpose?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Tientietnikov’s good horses covered the ten versts to the General’s house
+      in a little over half an hour. Descending from the koliaska with features
+      attuned to deference, Chichikov inquired for the master of the house, and
+      was at once ushered into his presence. Bowing with head held respectfully
+      on one side and hands extended like those of a waiter carrying a trayful
+      of teacups, the visitor inclined his whole body forward, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have deemed it my duty to present myself to your Excellency. I have
+      deemed it my duty because in my heart I cherish a most profound respect
+      for the valiant men who, on the field of battle, have proved the saviours
+      of their country.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That this preliminary attack did not wholly displease the General was
+      proved by the fact that, responding with a gracious inclination of the
+      head, he replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am glad to make your acquaintance. Pray be so good as to take a seat.
+      In what capacity or capacities have you yourself seen service?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of my service,” said Chichikov, depositing his form, not exactly in the
+      centre of the chair, but rather on one side of it, and resting a hand upon
+      one of its arms, “&mdash;of my service the scene was laid, in the first
+      instance, in the Treasury; while its further course bore me successively
+      into the employ of the Public Buildings Commission, of the Customs Board,
+      and of other Government Offices. But, throughout, my life has resembled a
+      barque tossed on the crests of perfidious billows. In suffering I have
+      been swathed and wrapped until I have come to be, as it were, suffering
+      personified; while of the extent to which my life has been sought by foes,
+      no words, no colouring, no (if I may so express it?) painter’s brush could
+      ever convey to you an adequate idea. And now, at length, in my declining
+      years, I am seeking a corner in which to eke out the remainder of my
+      miserable existence, while at the present moment I am enjoying the
+      hospitality of a neighbour of your acquaintance.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And who is that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your neighbour Tientietnikov, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that the General frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Led me add,” put in Chichikov hastily, “that he greatly regrets that on a
+      former occasion he should have failed to show a proper respect for&mdash;for&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For what?” asked the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the services to the public which your Excellency has rendered.
+      Indeed, he cannot find words to express his sorrow, but keeps repeating to
+      himself: ‘Would that I had valued at their true worth the men who have
+      saved our fatherland!’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why should he say that?” asked the mollified General. “I bear him no
+      grudge. In fact, I have never cherished aught but a sincere liking for
+      him, a sincere esteem, and do not doubt but that, in time, he may become a
+      useful member of society.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In the words which you have been good enough to utter,” said Chichikov
+      with a bow, “there is embodied much justice. Yes, Tientietnikov is in very
+      truth a man of worth. Not only does he possess the gift of eloquence, but
+      also he is a master of the pen.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, yes; he DOES write rubbish of some sort, doesn’t he? Verses, or
+      something of the kind?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Not rubbish, your Excellency, but practical stuff. In short, he is
+      inditing a history.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A HISTORY? But a history of what?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A history of, of&mdash;” For a moment or two Chichikov hesitated. Then,
+      whether because it was a General that was seated in front of him, or
+      because he desired to impart greater importance to the subject which he
+      was about to invent, he concluded: “A history of Generals, your
+      Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of Generals? Of WHAT Generals?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of Generals generally&mdash;of Generals at large. That is to say, and to
+      be more precise, a history of the Generals of our fatherland.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time Chichikov was floundering badly. Mentally he spat upon
+      himself and reflected: “Gracious heavens! What rubbish I am talking!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me,” went on his interlocutor, “but I do not quite understand you.
+      Is Tientietnikov producing a history of a given period, or only a history
+      made up of a series of biographies? Also, is he including ALL our
+      Generals, or only those who took part in the campaign of 1812?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The latter, your Excellency&mdash;only the Generals of 1812,” replied
+      Chichikov. Then he added beneath his breath: “Were I to be killed for it,
+      I could not say what that may be supposed to mean.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why should he not come and see me in person?” went on his host.
+      “Possibly I might be able to furnish him with much interesting material?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is afraid to come, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nonsense! Just because of a hasty word or two! I am not that sort of man
+      at all. In fact, I should be very happy to call upon HIM.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never would he permit that, your Excellency. He would greatly prefer to
+      be the first to make advances.” And Chichikov added to himself: “What a
+      stroke of luck those Generals were! Otherwise, the Lord knows where my
+      tongue might have landed me!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the door into the adjoining room opened, and there appeared
+      in the doorway a girl as fair as a ray of the sun&mdash;so fair, indeed,
+      that Chichikov stared at her in amazement. Apparently she had come to
+      speak to her father for a moment, but had stopped short on perceiving that
+      there was some one with him. The only fault to be found in her appearance
+      was the fact that she was too thin and fragile-looking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “May I introduce you to my little pet?” said the General to Chichikov. “To
+      tell you the truth, I do not know your name.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That you should be unacquainted with the name of one who has never
+      distinguished himself in the manner of which you yourself can boast is
+      scarcely to be wondered at.” And Chichikov executed one of his sidelong,
+      deferential bows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, I should be delighted to know it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, your Excellency.” With that went the
+      easy bow of a military man and the agile backward movement of an
+      india-rubber ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ulinka, this is Paul Ivanovitch,” said the General, turning to his
+      daughter. “He has just told me some interesting news&mdash;namely, that
+      our neighbour Tientietnikov is not altogether the fool we had at first
+      thought him. On the contrary, he is engaged upon a very important work&mdash;upon
+      a history of the Russian Generals of 1812.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But who ever supposed him to be a fool?” asked the girl quickly. “What
+      happened was that you took Vishnepokromov’s word&mdash;the word of a man
+      who is himself both a fool and a good-for-nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, well,” said the father after further good-natured dispute on the
+      subject of Vishnepokromov. “Do you now run away, for I wish to dress for
+      luncheon. And you, sir,” he added to Chichikov, “will you not join us at
+      table?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov bowed so low and so long that, by the time that his eyes had
+      ceased to see nothing but his own boots, the General’s daughter had
+      disappeared, and in her place was standing a bewhiskered butler, armed
+      with a silver soap-dish and a hand-basin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you mind if I wash in your presence?” asked the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “By no means,” replied Chichikov. “Pray do whatsoever you please in that
+      respect.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that the General fell to scrubbing himself&mdash;incidentally, to
+      sending soapsuds flying in every direction. Meanwhile he seemed so
+      favourably disposed that Chichikov decided to sound him then and there,
+      more especially since the butler had left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “May I put to you a problem?” he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly,” replied the General. “What is it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is this, your Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns three
+      hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property. Also,
+      except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although his
+      infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his property in
+      person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the reason for his
+      conduct&mdash;his very strange conduct&mdash;he states as follows: ‘I do
+      not know my nephew, and very likely he is a spendthrift. If he wishes to
+      show me that he is good for anything, let him go and acquire as many souls
+      as <i>I</i> have acquired; and when he has done that I will transfer to
+      him my three hundred souls as well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The man must be an absolute fool,” commented the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Possibly. And were that all, things would not be as bad as they are. But,
+      unfortunately, my uncle has gone and taken up with his housekeeper, and
+      has had children by her. Consequently, everything will now pass to THEM.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The old man must have taken leave of his senses,” remarked the General.
+      “Yet how <i>I</i> can help you I fail to see.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, I have thought of a plan. If you will hand me over all the dead
+      souls on your estate&mdash;hand them over to me exactly as though they
+      were still alive, and were purchasable property&mdash;I will offer them to
+      the old man, and then he will leave me his fortune.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point the General burst into a roar of laughter such as few can
+      ever have heard. Half-dressed, he subsided into a chair, threw back his
+      head, and guffawed until he came near to choking. In fact, the house shook
+      with his merriment, so much so that the butler and his daughter came
+      running into the room in alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long before he could produce a single articulate word; and even
+      when he did so (to reassure his daughter and the butler) he kept
+      momentarily relapsing into spluttering chuckles which made the house ring
+      and ring again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov was greatly taken aback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, that uncle!” bellowed the General in paroxysms of mirth. “Oh, that
+      blessed uncle! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha! Dead souls offered him
+      instead of live ones! Oh, my goodness!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I suppose I’ve put my foot in it again,” ruefully reflected Chichikov.
+      “But, good Lord, what a man the fellow is to laugh! Heaven send that he
+      doesn’t burst of it!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ha, ha, ha!” broke out the General afresh. “WHAT a donkey the old man
+      must be! To think of his saying to you: ‘You go and fit yourself out with
+      three hundred souls, and I’ll cap them with my own lot’! My word! What a
+      jackass!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A jackass, your Excellency?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, indeed! And to think of the jest of putting him off with dead souls!
+      Ha, ha, ha! WHAT wouldn’t I give to see you handing him the title deeds?
+      Who is he? What is he like? Is he very old?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is eighty, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But still brisk and able to move about, eh? Surely he must be pretty
+      strong to go on living with his housekeeper like that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. But what does such strength mean? Sand runs away, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The old fool! But is he really such a fool?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And does he go out at all? Does he see company? Can he still hold himself
+      upright?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but with great difficulty.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And has he any teeth left?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No more than two at the most.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The old jackass! Don’t be angry with me, but I must say that, though your
+      uncle, he is also a jackass.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, your Excellency. And though it grieves ME to have to confess
+      that he is my uncle, what am I to do with him?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet this was not altogether the truth. What would have been a far harder
+      thing for Chichikov to have confessed was the fact that he possessed no
+      uncles at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I beg of you, your Excellency,” he went on, “to hand me over those, those&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Those dead souls, eh? Why, in return for the jest I will give you some
+      land as well. Yes, you can take the whole graveyard if you like. Ha, ha,
+      ha! The old man! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And once more the General’s guffaws went ringing through the house.
+    </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+       [At this point there is a long hiatus in the original.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      “If Colonel Koshkarev should turn out to be as mad as the last one it is a
+      bad look-out,” said Chichikov to himself on opening his eyes amid fields
+      and open country&mdash;everything else having disappeared save the vault
+      of heaven and a couple of low-lying clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Selifan,” he went on, “did you ask how to get to Colonel Koshkarev’s?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Paul Ivanovitch. At least, there was such a clatter around the
+      koliaska that I could not; but Petrushka asked the coachman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You fool! How often have I told you not to rely on Petrushka? Petrushka
+      is a blockhead, an idiot. Besides, at the present moment I believe him to
+      be drunk.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, you are wrong, barin,” put in the person referred to, turning his
+      head with a sidelong glance. “After we get down the next hill we shall
+      need but to keep bending round it. That is all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and I suppose you’ll tell me that sivnkha is the only thing that has
+      passed your lips? Well, the view at least is beautiful. In fact, when one
+      has seen this place one may say that one has seen one of the beauty spots
+      of Europe.” This said, Chichikov added to himself, smoothing his chin:
+      “What a difference between the features of a civilised man of the world
+      and those of a common lacquey!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the koliaska quickened its pace, and Chichikov once more caught
+      sight of Tientietnikov’s aspen-studded meadows. Undulating gently on
+      elastic springs, the vehicle cautiously descended the steep incline, and
+      then proceeded past water-mills, rumbled over a bridge or two, and jolted
+      easily along the rough-set road which traversed the flats. Not a molehill,
+      not a mound jarred the spine. The vehicle was comfort itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Swiftly there flew by clumps of osiers, slender elder trees, and
+      silver-leaved poplars, their branches brushing against Selifan and
+      Petrushka, and at intervals depriving the valet of his cap. Each time that
+      this happened, the sullen-faced servitor fell to cursing both the tree
+      responsible for the occurrence and the landowner responsible for the tree
+      being in existence; yet nothing would induce him thereafter either to tie
+      on the cap or to steady it with his hand, so complete was his assurance
+      that the accident would never be repeated. Soon to the foregoing trees
+      there became added an occasional birch or spruce fir, while in the dense
+      undergrowth around their roots could be seen the blue iris and the yellow
+      wood-tulip. Gradually the forest grew darker, as though eventually the
+      obscurity would become complete. Then through the trunks and the boughs
+      there began to gleam points of light like glittering mirrors, and as the
+      number of trees lessened, these points grew larger, until the travellers
+      debouched upon the shore of a lake four versts or so in circumference, and
+      having on its further margin the grey, scattered log huts of a peasant
+      village. In the water a great commotion was in progress. In the first
+      place, some twenty men, immersed to the knee, to the breast, or to the
+      neck, were dragging a large fishing-net inshore, while, in the second
+      place, there was entangled in the same, in addition to some fish, a stout
+      man shaped precisely like a melon or a hogshead. Greatly excited, he was
+      shouting at the top of his voice: “Let Kosma manage it, you lout of a
+      Denis! Kosma, take the end of the rope from Denis! Don’t bear so hard on
+      it, Thoma Bolshoy <a href="#linknote-41" id="linknoteref-41"><small>41</small></a>! Go where
+      Thoma Menshov <a href="#linknote-42" id="linknoteref-42"><small>42</small></a>
+      is! Damn it, bring the net to land, will you!” From this it became clear
+      that it was not on his own account that the stout man was worrying.
+      Indeed, he had no need to do so, since his fat would in any case have
+      prevented him from sinking. Yes, even if he had turned head over heels in
+      an effort to dive, the water would persistently have borne him up; and the
+      same if, say, a couple of men had jumped on his back&mdash;the only result
+      would have been that he would have become a trifle deeper submerged, and
+      forced to draw breath by spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the cause
+      of his agitation was lest the net should break, and the fish escape:
+      wherefore he was urging some additional peasants who were standing on the
+      bank to lay hold of and to pull at, an extra rope or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That must be the barin&mdash;Colonel Koshkarev,” said Selifan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has the
+      respectable paunch of a gentleman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the barin;
+      until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright position,
+      and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with Chichikov seated
+      therein, descending the declivity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you dined yet?” shouted the barin as, still entangled in the net, he
+      approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one hand shading
+      his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he looked, in point
+      of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her bath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of bows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then thank God for that,” rejoined the gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why?” asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his cap
+      over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that
+      sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a
+      veritable monster of a fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Isn’t it a beauty&mdash;a sturgeon fresh run from the river?” exclaimed
+      the stout barin. “And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take the
+      lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma Bolshoy,
+      and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house, and I myself
+      shall be along presently.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt, ran
+      ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had hanging
+      in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every inhabitant of
+      the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a large vegetable
+      enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a square near a wooden
+      church, with, showing beyond the latter, the roofs of the manorial
+      homestead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!” said Chichikov to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, whatever I may be, at least I’m here,” said a voice by his side.
+      Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile, the barin
+      had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair of yellow
+      trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck was as
+      guiltless of a collar as Cupid’s. Also, as he sat sideways in his drozhki,
+      his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle. Chichikov was
+      about to make some remark or another when the stout gentleman disappeared;
+      and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view at the spot where the fish
+      had been drawn to land, and his voice could be heard reiterating
+      exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov reached the verandah of the
+      house he found, to his intense surprise, the stout gentleman waiting to
+      welcome the visitor. How he had contrived to convey himself thither passed
+      Chichikov’s comprehension. Host and guest embraced three times, according
+      to a bygone custom of Russia. Evidently the barin was one of the old
+      school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I bring you,” said Chichikov, “a greeting from his Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “From whom?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?”
+       exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I do not,” replied the gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s surprise grew to absolute astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How comes that about?” he ejaculated. “I hope that I have the honour of
+      addressing Colonel Koshkarev?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have come;
+      and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh&mdash;yes, Peter Petrovitch Pietukh.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “I told you to drive to the house of
+      Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter Petrovitch
+      Pietukh.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “All the same, your fellows have done quite right,” put in the gentleman
+      referred to. “Do you” (this to Selifan and Petrushka) “go to the kitchen,
+      where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then put up the
+      horses, and be off to the servants’ quarters.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I regret the mistake extremely,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have in
+      store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I beg of
+      you.” And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him within,
+      where they were met by a couple of youths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the Gymnasium
+      <a href="#linknote-43" id="linknoteref-43"><small>43</small></a>,”
+       said Pietukh. “Nikolasha, come and entertain our good visitor, while you,
+      Aleksasha, follow me.” And with that the host disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
+      town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no good
+      was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he and his
+      brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the provinces not
+      being worth living in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I quite understand,” Chichikov thought to himself. “The end of the
+      chapter will be confectioners’ assistants and the boulevards.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tell me,” he added aloud, “how does your father’s property at present
+      stand?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is all mortgaged,” put in the father himself as he re-entered the
+      room. “Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a pity!” thought Chichikov. “At this rate it will not be long before
+      this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my departure.” Aloud he
+      said with an air of sympathy: “That you have mortgaged the estate seems to
+      me a matter of regret.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, not at all,” replied Pietukh. “In fact, they tell me that it is a
+      good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I act
+      differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of living
+      here, and should like to try Moscow&mdash;more especially since my sons
+      are always begging me to give them a metropolitan education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, the fool, the fool!” reflected Chichikov. “He is for throwing up
+      everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice
+      property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and that
+      the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon as ever
+      these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres, the devil
+      will away with every stick of their substance. For my own part, I could
+      desire nothing better than this quiet life in the country.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let me guess what is in your mind,” said Pietukh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, then?” asked Chichikov, rather taken aback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are thinking to yourself: ‘That fool of a Pietukh has asked me to
+      dinner, yet not a bite of dinner do I see.’ But wait a little. It will be
+      ready presently, for it is being cooked as fast as a maiden who has had
+      her hair cut off plaits herself a new set of tresses.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Here comes Platon Mikhalitch, father!” exclaimed Aleksasha, who had been
+      peeping out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and on a grey horse,” added his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is Platon Mikhalitch?” inquired Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A neighbour of ours, and an excellent fellow.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next moment Platon Mikhalitch himself entered the room, accompanied by
+      a sporting dog named Yarb. He was a tall, handsome man, with extremely red
+      hair. As for his companion, it was of the keen-muzzled species used for
+      shooting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you dined yet?” asked the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? What do you mean by coming here to laugh at us all? Do I ever go
+      to YOUR place after dinner?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer smiled. “Well, if it can bring you any comfort,” he said,
+      “let me tell you that I ate nothing at the meal, for I had no appetite.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you should see what I have caught&mdash;what sort of a sturgeon fate
+      has brought my way! Yes, and what crucians and carp!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really it tires one to hear you. How come you always to be so cheerful?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how come YOU always to be so gloomy?” retorted the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How, you ask? Simply because I am so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The truth is you don’t eat enough. Try the plan of making a good dinner.
+      Weariness of everything is a modern invention. Once upon a time one never
+      heard of it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, boast away, but have you yourself never been tired of things?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never in my life. I do not so much as know whether I should find time to
+      be tired. In the morning, when one awakes, the cook is waiting, and the
+      dinner has to be ordered. Then one drinks one’s morning tea, and then the
+      bailiff arrives for HIS orders, and then there is fishing to be done, and
+      then one’s dinner has to be eaten. Next, before one has even had a chance
+      to utter a snore, there enters once again the cook, and one has to order
+      supper; and when she has departed, behold, back she comes with a request
+      for the following day’s dinner! What time does THAT leave one to be weary
+      of things?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Throughout this conversation, Chichikov had been taking stock of the
+      newcomer, who astonished him with his good looks, his upright, picturesque
+      figure, his appearance of fresh, unwasted youthfulness, and the boyish
+      purity, innocence, and clarity of his features. Neither passion nor care
+      nor aught of the nature of agitation or anxiety of mind had ventured to
+      touch his unsullied face, or to lay a single wrinkle thereon. Yet the
+      touch of life which those emotions might have imparted was wanting. The
+      face was, as it were, dreaming, even though from time to time an ironical
+      smile disturbed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I, too, cannot understand,” remarked Chichikov, “how a man of your
+      appearance can find things wearisome. Of course, if a man is hard pressed
+      for money, or if he has enemies who are lying in wait for his life (as
+      have certain folk of whom I know), well, then&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Believe me when I say,” interrupted the handsome guest, “that, for the
+      sake of a diversion, I should be glad of ANY sort of an anxiety. Would
+      that some enemy would conceive a grudge against me! But no one does so.
+      Everything remains eternally dull.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But perhaps you lack a sufficiency of land or souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Not at all. I and my brother own ten thousand desiatins <a
+      href="#linknote-44" id="linknoteref-44"><small>44</small></a>
+      of land, and over a thousand souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Curious! I do not understand it. But perhaps the harvest has failed, or
+      you have sickness about, and many of your male peasants have died of it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the contrary, everything is in splendid order, for my brother is the
+      best of managers.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then to find things wearisome!” exclaimed Chichikov. “It passes my
+      comprehension.” And he shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, we will soon put weariness to flight,” interrupted the host.
+      “Aleksasha, do you run helter-skelter to the kitchen, and there tell the
+      cook to serve the fish pasties. Yes, and where have that gawk of an
+      Emelian and that thief of an Antoshka got to? Why have they not handed
+      round the zakuski?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the door opened, and the “gawk” and the “thief” in question
+      made their appearance with napkins and a tray&mdash;the latter bearing six
+      decanters of variously-coloured beverages. These they placed upon the
+      table, and then ringed them about with glasses and platefuls of every
+      conceivable kind of appetiser. That done, the servants applied themselves
+      to bringing in various comestibles under covers, through which could be
+      heard the hissing of hot roast viands. In particular did the “gawk” and
+      the “thief” work hard at their tasks. As a matter of fact, their
+      appellations had been given them merely to spur them to greater activity,
+      for, in general, the barin was no lover of abuse, but, rather, a
+      kind-hearted man who, like most Russians, could not get on without a sharp
+      word or two. That is to say, he needed them for his tongue as he need a
+      glass of vodka for his digestion. What else could you expect? It was his
+      nature to care for nothing mild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the zakuski succeeded the meal itself, and the host became a perfect
+      glutton on his guests’ behalf. Should he notice that a guest had taken but
+      a single piece of a comestible, he added thereto another one, saying:
+      “Without a mate, neither man nor bird can live in this world.” Should any
+      one take two pieces, he added thereto a third, saying: “What is the good
+      of the number 2? God loves a trinity.” Should any one take three pieces,
+      he would say: “Where do you see a waggon with three wheels? Who builds a
+      three-cornered hut?” Lastly, should any one take four pieces, he would cap
+      them with a fifth, and add thereto the punning quip, “Na piat opiat <a
+      href="#linknote-45" id="linknoteref-45"><small>45</small></a>”.
+      After devouring at least twelve steaks of sturgeon, Chichikov ventured to
+      think to himself, “My host cannot possibly add to THEM,” but found that he
+      was mistaken, for, without a word, Pietukh heaped upon his plate an
+      enormous portion of spit-roasted veal, and also some kidneys. And what
+      veal it was!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That calf was fed two years on milk,” he explained. “I cared for it like
+      my own son.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless I can eat no more,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you try the veal before you say that you can eat no more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I could not get it down my throat. There is no room left.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “If there be no room in a church for a newcomer, the beadle is sent for,
+      and room is very soon made&mdash;yes, even though before there was such a
+      crush that an apple couldn’t have been dropped between the people. Do you
+      try the veal, I say. That piece is the titbit of all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Chichikov made the attempt; and in very truth the veal was beyond all
+      praise, and room was found for it, even though one would have supposed the
+      feat impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fancy this good fellow removing to St. Petersburg or Moscow!” said the
+      guest to himself. “Why, with a scale of living like this, he would be
+      ruined in three years.” For that matter, Pietukh might well have been
+      ruined already, for hospitality can dissipate a fortune in three months as
+      easily as it can in three years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The host also dispensed the wine with a lavish hand, and what the guests
+      did not drink he gave to his sons, who thus swallowed glass after glass.
+      Indeed, even before coming to table, it was possible to discern to what
+      department of human accomplishment their bent was turned. When the meal
+      was over, however, the guests had no mind for further drinking. Indeed, it
+      was all that they could do to drag themselves on to the balcony, and there
+      to relapse into easy chairs. Indeed, the moment that the host subsided
+      into his seat&mdash;it was large enough for four&mdash;he fell asleep, and
+      his portly presence, converting itself into a sort of blacksmith’s
+      bellows, started to vent, through open mouth and distended nostrils, such
+      sounds as can have greeted the reader’s ear but seldom&mdash;sounds as of
+      a drum being beaten in combination with the whistling of a flute and the
+      strident howling of a dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen to him!” said Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Naturally, on such dinners as that,” continued the other, “our host does
+      NOT find the time dull. And as soon as dinner is ended there can ensue
+      sleep.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but, pardon me, I still fail to understand why you should find life
+      wearisome. There are so many resources against ennui!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As for instance?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For a young man, dancing, the playing of one or another musical
+      instrument, and&mdash;well, yes, marriage.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Marriage to whom?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To some maiden who is both charming and rich. Are there none in these
+      parts?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then, were I you, I should travel, and seek a maiden elsewhere.” And a
+      brilliant idea therewith entered Chichikov’s head. “This last resource,”
+       he added, “is the best of all resources against ennui.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What resource are you speaking of?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of travel.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But whither?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, should it so please you, you might join me as my companion.” This
+      said, the speaker added to himself as he eyed Platon: “Yes, that would
+      suit me exactly, for then I should have half my expenses paid, and could
+      charge him also with the cost of mending the koliaska.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And whither should we go?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In that respect I am not wholly my own master, as I have business to do
+      for others as well as for myself. For instance, General Betristchev&mdash;an
+      intimate friend and, I might add, a generous benefactor of mine&mdash;has
+      charged me with commissions to certain of his relatives. However, though
+      relatives are relatives, I am travelling likewise on my own account, since
+      I wish to see the world and the whirligig of humanity&mdash;which, in
+      spite of what people may say, is as good as a living book or a second
+      education.” As a matter of fact, Chichikov was reflecting, “Yes, the plan
+      is an excellent one. I might even contrive that he should have to bear the
+      whole of our expenses, and that his horses should be used while my own
+      should be put out to graze on his farm.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, why should I not adopt the suggestion?” was Platon’s thought.
+      “There is nothing for me to do at home, since the management of the estate
+      is in my brother’s hands, and my going would cause him no inconvenience.
+      Yes, why should I not do as Chichikov has suggested?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he added aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you come and stay with my brother for a couple of days? Otherwise
+      he might refuse me his consent.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “With great pleasure,” said Chichikov. “Or even for three days.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then here is my hand on it. Let us be off at once.” Platon seemed
+      suddenly to have come to life again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where are you off to?” put in their host unexpectedly as he roused
+      himself and stared in astonishment at the pair. “No, no, my good sirs. I
+      have had the wheels removed from your koliaska, Monsieur Chichikov, and
+      have sent your horse, Platon Mikhalitch, to a grazing ground fifteen
+      versts away. Consequently you must spend the night here, and depart
+      to-morrow morning after breakfast.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What could be done with a man like Pietukh? There was no help for it but
+      to remain. In return, the guests were rewarded with a beautiful spring
+      evening, for, to spend the time, the host organised a boating expedition
+      on the river, and a dozen rowers, with a dozen pairs of oars, conveyed the
+      party (to the accompaniment of song) across the smooth surface of the lake
+      and up a great river with towering banks. From time to time the boat would
+      pass under ropes, stretched across for purposes of fishing, and at each
+      turn of the rippling current new vistas unfolded themselves as tier upon
+      tier of woodland delighted the eye with a diversity of timber and foliage.
+      In unison did the rowers ply their sculls, yet it was though of itself
+      that the skiff shot forward, bird-like, over the glassy surface of the
+      water; while at intervals the broad-shouldered young oarsman who was
+      seated third from the bow would raise, as from a nightingale’s throat, the
+      opening staves of a boat song, and then be joined by five or six more,
+      until the melody had come to pour forth in a volume as free and boundless
+      as Russia herself. And Pietukh, too, would give himself a shake, and help
+      lustily to support the chorus; and even Chichikov felt acutely conscious
+      of the fact that he was a Russian. Only Platon reflected: “What is there
+      so splendid in these melancholy songs? They do but increase one’s
+      depression of spirits.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The journey homeward was made in the gathering dusk. Rhythmically the oars
+      smote a surface which no longer reflected the sky, and darkness had fallen
+      when they reached the shore, along which lights were twinkling where the
+      fisherfolk were boiling live eels for soup. Everything had now wended its
+      way homeward for the night; the cattle and poultry had been housed, and
+      the herdsmen, standing at the gates of the village cattle-pens, amid the
+      trailing dust lately raised by their charges, were awaiting the milk-pails
+      and a summons to partake of the eel-broth. Through the dusk came the hum
+      of humankind, and the barking of dogs in other and more distant villages;
+      while, over all, the moon was rising, and the darkened countryside was
+      beginning to glimmer to light again under her beams. What a glorious
+      picture! Yet no one thought of admiring it. Instead of galloping over the
+      countryside on frisky cobs, Nikolasha and Aleksasha were engaged in
+      dreaming of Moscow, with its confectioners’ shops and the theatres of
+      which a cadet, newly arrived on a visit from the capital, had just been
+      telling them; while their father had his mind full of how best to stuff
+      his guests with yet more food, and Platon was given up to yawning. Only in
+      Chichikov was a spice of animation visible. “Yes,” he reflected, “some day
+      I, too, will become lord of such a country place.” And before his mind’s
+      eye there arose also a helpmeet and some little Chichikovs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time that supper was finished the party had again over-eaten
+      themselves, and when Chichikov entered the room allotted him for the
+      night, he lay down upon the bed, and prodded his stomach. “It is as tight
+      as a drum,” he said to himself. “Not another titbit of veal could now get
+      into it.” Also, circumstances had so brought it about that next door to
+      him there was situated his host’s apartment; and since the intervening
+      wall was thin, Chichikov could hear every word that was said there. At the
+      present moment the master of the house was engaged in giving the cook
+      orders for what, under the guise of an early breakfast, promised to
+      constitute a veritable dinner. You should have heard Pietukh’s behests!
+      They would have excited the appetite of a corpse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” he said, sucking his lips, and drawing a deep breath, “in the first
+      place, make a pasty in four divisions. Into one of the divisions put the
+      sturgeon’s cheeks and some viaziga <a href="#linknote-46"
+       id="linknoteref-46"><small>46</small></a>, and into
+      another division some buckwheat porridge, young mushrooms and onions,
+      sweet milk, calves’ brains, and anything else that you may find suitable&mdash;anything
+      else that you may have got handy. Also, bake the pastry to a nice brown on
+      one side, and but lightly on the other. Yes, and, as to the under side,
+      bake it so that it will be all juicy and flaky, so that it shall not
+      crumble into bits, but melt in the mouth like the softest snow that ever
+      you heard of.” And as he said this Pietukh fairly smacked his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil take him!” muttered Chichikov, thrusting his head beneath the
+      bedclothes to avoid hearing more. “The fellow won’t give one a chance to
+      sleep.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless he heard through the blankets:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And garnish the sturgeon with beetroot, smelts, peppered mushrooms, young
+      radishes, carrots, beans, and anything else you like, so as to have plenty
+      of trimmings. Yes, and put a lump of ice into the pig’s bladder, so as to
+      swell it up.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Many other dishes did Pietukh order, and nothing was to be heard but his
+      talk of boiling, roasting, and stewing. Finally, just as mention was being
+      made of a turkey cock, Chichikov fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning the guest’s state of repletion had reached the point of
+      Platon being unable to mount his horse; wherefore the latter was
+      dispatched homeward with one of Pietukh’s grooms, and the two guests
+      entered Chichikov’s koliaska. Even the dog trotted lazily in the rear; for
+      he, too, had over-eaten himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It has been rather too much of a good thing,” remarked Chichikov as the
+      vehicle issued from the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and it vexes me to see the fellow never tire of it,” replied Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah,” thought Chichikov to himself, “if <i>I</i> had an income of seventy
+      thousand roubles, as you have, I’d very soon give tiredness one in the
+      eye! Take Murazov, the tax-farmer&mdash;he, again, must be worth ten
+      millions. What a fortune!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you mind where we drive?” asked Platon. “I should like first to go and
+      take leave of my sister and my brother-in-law.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “With pleasure,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My brother-in-law is the leading landowner hereabouts. At the present
+      moment he is drawing an income of two hundred thousand roubles from a
+      property which, eight years ago, was producing a bare twenty thousand.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Truly a man worthy of the utmost respect! I shall be most interested to
+      make his acquaintance. To think of it! And what may his family name be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Kostanzhoglo.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And his Christian name and patronymic?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine Thedorovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine Thedorovitch Kostanzhoglo. Yes, it will be a most interesting
+      event to make his acquaintance. To know such a man must be a whole
+      education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Platon set himself to give Selifan some directions as to the way, a
+      necessary proceeding in view of the fact that Selifan could hardly
+      maintain his seat on the box. Twice Petrushka, too, had fallen headlong,
+      and this necessitated being tied to his perch with a piece of rope. “What
+      a clown!” had been Chichikov’s only comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is where my brother-in-law’s land begins,” said Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “They give one a change of view.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, indeed, from this point the countryside became planted with timber;
+      the rows of trees running as straight as pistol-shots, and having beyond
+      them, and on higher ground, a second expanse of forest, newly planted like
+      the first; while beyond it, again, loomed a third plantation of older
+      trees. Next there succeeded a flat piece of the same nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “All this timber,” said Platon, “has grown up within eight or ten years at
+      the most; whereas on another man’s land it would have taken twenty to
+      attain the same growth.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how has your brother-in-law effected this?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You must ask him yourself. He is so excellent a husbandman that nothing
+      ever fails with him. You see, he knows the soil, and also knows what ought
+      to be planted beside what, and what kinds of timber are the best
+      neighbourhood for grain. Again, everything on his estate is made to
+      perform at least three or four different functions. For instance, he makes
+      his timber not only serve as timber, but also serve as a provider of
+      moisture and shade to a given stretch of land, and then as a fertiliser
+      with its fallen leaves. Consequently, when everywhere else there is
+      drought, he still has water, and when everywhere else there has been a
+      failure of the harvest, on his lands it will have proved a success. But it
+      is a pity that I know so little about it all as to be unable to explain to
+      you his many expedients. Folk call him a wizard, for he produces so much.
+      Nevertheless, personally I find what he does uninteresting.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Truly an astonishing fellow!” reflected Chichikov with a glance at his
+      companion. “It is sad indeed to see a man so superficial as to be unable
+      to explain matters of this kind.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the manor appeared in sight&mdash;an establishment looking
+      almost like a town, so numerous were the huts where they stood arranged in
+      three tiers, crowned with three churches, and surrounded with huge ricks
+      and barns. “Yes,” thought Chichikov to himself, “one can see what a jewel
+      of a landowner lives here.” The huts in question were stoutly built and
+      the intervening alleys well laid-out; while, wherever a waggon was
+      visible, it looked serviceable and more or less new. Also, the local
+      peasants bore an intelligent look on their faces, the cattle were of the
+      best possible breed, and even the peasants’ pigs belonged to the porcine
+      aristocracy. Clearly there dwelt here peasants who, to quote the song,
+      were accustomed to “pick up silver by the shovelful.” Nor were
+      Englishified gardens and parterres and other conceits in evidence, but, on
+      the contrary, there ran an open view from the manor house to the farm
+      buildings and the workmen’s cots, so that, after the old Russian fashion,
+      the barin should be able to keep an eye upon all that was going on around
+      him. For the same purpose, the mansion was topped with a tall lantern and
+      a superstructure&mdash;a device designed, not for ornament, nor for a
+      vantage-spot for the contemplation of the view, but for supervision of the
+      labourers engaged in distant fields. Lastly, the brisk, active servants
+      who received the visitors on the verandah were very different menials from
+      the drunken Petrushka, even though they did not wear swallow-tailed coats,
+      but only Cossack tchekmenu <a href="#linknote-47" id="linknoteref-47"><small>47</small></a> of blue homespun cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady of the house also issued on to the verandah. With her face of the
+      freshness of “blood and milk” and the brightness of God’s daylight, she as
+      nearly resembled Platon as one pea resembles another, save that, whereas
+      he was languid, she was cheerful and full of talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good day, brother!” she cried. “How glad I am to see you! Constantine is
+      not at home, but will be back presently.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where is he?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Doing business in the village with a party of factors,” replied the lady
+      as she conducted her guests to the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With no little curiosity did Chichikov gaze at the interior of the mansion
+      inhabited by the man who received an annual income of two hundred thousand
+      roubles; for he thought to discern therefrom the nature of its proprietor,
+      even as from a shell one may deduce the species of oyster or snail which
+      has been its tenant, and has left therein its impression. But no such
+      conclusions were to be drawn. The rooms were simple, and even bare. Not a
+      fresco nor a picture nor a bronze nor a flower nor a china what-not nor a
+      book was there to be seen. In short, everything appeared to show that the
+      proprietor of this abode spent the greater part of his time, not between
+      four walls, but in the field, and that he thought out his plans, not in
+      sybaritic fashion by the fireside, nor in an easy chair beside the stove,
+      but on the spot where work was actually in progress&mdash;that, in a word,
+      where those plans were conceived, there they were put into execution. Nor
+      in these rooms could Chichikov detect the least trace of a feminine hand,
+      beyond the fact that certain tables and chairs bore drying-boards whereon
+      were arranged some sprinklings of flower petals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is all this rubbish for?” asked Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is not rubbish,” replied the lady of the house. “On the contrary, it
+      is the best possible remedy for fever. Last year we cured every one of our
+      sick peasants with it. Some of the petals I am going to make into an
+      ointment, and some into an infusion. You may laugh as much as you like at
+      my potting and preserving, yet you yourself will be glad of things of the
+      kind when you set out on your travels.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon moved to the piano, and began to pick out a note or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good Lord, what an ancient instrument!” he exclaimed. “Are you not
+      ashamed of it, sister?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, the truth is that I get no time to practice my music. You see,” she
+      added to Chichikov, “I have an eight-year-old daughter to educate; and to
+      hand her over to a foreign governess in order that I may have leisure for
+      my own piano-playing&mdash;well, that is a thing which I could never bring
+      myself to do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You have become a wearisome sort of person,” commented Platon, and walked
+      away to the window. “Ah, here comes Constantine,” presently he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the verandah
+      a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad in a rough
+      cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of those who care
+      little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded, there came a
+      couple of men of a somewhat lower station in life, and all three were
+      engaged in an animated discussion. One of the barin’s two companions was a
+      plain peasant, and the other (clad in a blue Siberian smock) a travelling
+      factor. The fact that the party halted awhile by the entrance steps made
+      it possible to overhear a portion of their conversation from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is what you peasants had better do,” the barin was saying. “Purchase
+      your release from your present master. I will lend you the necessary
+      money, and afterwards you can work for me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the peasant. “Why should we do
+      that? Remove us just as we are. You will know how to arrange it, for a
+      cleverer gentleman than you is nowhere to be found. The misfortune of us
+      muzhiks is that we cannot protect ourselves properly. The tavern-keepers
+      sell us such liquor that, before a man knows where he is, a glassful of it
+      has eaten a hole through his stomach, and made him feel as though he could
+      drink a pail of water. Yes, it knocks a man over before he can look
+      around. Everywhere temptation lies in wait for the peasant, and he needs
+      to be cunning if he is to get through the world at all. In fact, things
+      seem to be contrived for nothing but to make us peasants lose our wits,
+      even to the tobacco which they sell us. What are folk like ourselves to
+      do, Constantine Thedorovitch? I tell you it is terribly difficult for a
+      muzhik to look after himself.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen to me. This is how things are done here. When I take on a serf, I
+      fit him out with a cow and a horse. On the other hand, I demand of him
+      thereafter more than is demanded of a peasant anywhere else. That is to
+      say, first and foremost I make him work. Whether a peasant be working for
+      himself or for me, never do I let him waste time. I myself toil like a
+      bullock, and I force my peasants to do the same, for experience has taught
+      me that that is the only way to get through life. All the mischief in the
+      world comes through lack of employment. Now, do you go and consider the
+      matter, and talk it over with your mir <a href="#linknote-48"
+       id="linknoteref-48"><small>48</small></a>.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “We have done that already, Constantine Thedorovitch, and our elders’
+      opinion is: ‘There is no need for further talk. Every peasant belonging to
+      Constantine Thedorovitch is well off, and hasn’t to work for nothing. The
+      priests of his village, too, are men of good heart, whereas ours have been
+      taken away, and there is no one to bury us.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, do you go and talk the matter over again.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “We will, barin.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the factor who had been walking on the barin’s other side put in a
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine Thedorovitch,” he said, “I beg of you to do as I have
+      requested.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have told you before,” replied the barin, “that I do not care to play
+      the huckster. I am not one of those landowners whom fellows of your sort
+      visit on the very day that the interest on a mortgage is due. Ah, I know
+      your fraternity thoroughly, and know that you keep lists of all who have
+      mortgages to repay. But what is there so clever about that? Any man, if
+      you pinch him sufficiently, will surrender you a mortgage at half-price,&mdash;any
+      man, that is to say, except myself, who care nothing for your money. Were
+      a loan of mine to remain out three years, I should never demand a kopeck
+      of interest on it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the factor. “But I am asking
+      this of you more for the purpose of establishing us on a business footing
+      than because I desire to win your favour. Prey, therefore, accept this
+      earnest money of three thousand roubles.” And the man drew from his breast
+      pocket a dirty roll of bank-notes, which, carelessly receiving,
+      Kostanzhoglo thrust, uncounted, into the back pocket of his overcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hm!” thought Chichikov. “For all he cares, the notes might have been a
+      handkerchief.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Kostanzhoglo appeared at closer quarters&mdash;that is to say, in the
+      doorway of the drawing-room&mdash;he struck Chichikov more than ever with
+      the swarthiness of his complexion, the dishevelment of his black, slightly
+      grizzled locks, the alertness of his eye, and the impression of fiery
+      southern origin which his whole personality diffused. For he was not
+      wholly a Russian, nor could he himself say precisely who his forefathers
+      had been. Yet, inasmuch as he accounted genealogical research no part of
+      the science of estate-management, but a mere superfluity, he looked upon
+      himself as, to all intents and purposes, a native of Russia, and the more
+      so since the Russian language was the only tongue he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon presented Chichikov, and the pair exchanged greetings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To get rid of my depression, Constantine,” continued Platon, “I am
+      thinking of accompanying our guest on a tour through a few of the
+      provinces.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “An excellent idea,” said Kostanzhoglo. “But precisely whither?” he added,
+      turning hospitably to Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To tell you the truth,” replied that personage with an affable
+      inclination of the head as he smoothed the arm of his chair with his hand,
+      “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of others.
+      That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and, I might add,
+      a generous benefactor, of mine, has charged me with commissions to some of
+      his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are relatives, I may say
+      that I am travelling on my own account as well, in that, in addition to
+      possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the world and the whirligig
+      of humanity, which constitute, so to speak, a living book, a second course
+      of education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, there is no harm in looking at other corners of the world besides
+      one’s own.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You speak truly. There IS no harm in such a proceeding. Thereby one may
+      see things which one has not before encountered, one may meet men with
+      whom one has not before come in contact. And with some men of that kind a
+      conversation is as precious a benefit as has been conferred upon me by the
+      present occasion. I come to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch, for
+      instruction, and again for instruction, and beg of you to assuage my
+      thirst with an exposition of the truth as it is. I hunger for the favour
+      of your words as for manna.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how so? What can <i>I</i> teach you?” exclaimed Kostanzhoglo in
+      confusion. “I myself was given but the plainest of educations.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay, most worthy sir, you possess wisdom, and again wisdom. Wisdom only
+      can direct the management of a great estate, that can derive a sound
+      income from the same, that can acquire wealth of a real, not a fictitious,
+      order while also fulfilling the duties of a citizen and thereby earning
+      the respect of the Russian public. All this I pray you to teach me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I tell you what,” said Kostanzhoglo, looking meditatively at his guest.
+      “You had better stay with me for a few days, and during that time I can
+      show you how things are managed here, and explain to you everything. Then
+      you will see for yourself that no great wisdom is required for the
+      purpose.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, certainly you must stay here,” put in the lady of the house. Then,
+      turning to her brother, she added: “And you too must stay. Why should you
+      be in such a hurry?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” he replied. “But what say YOU, Paul Ivanovitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I say the same as you, and with much pleasure,” replied Chichikov. “But
+      also I ought to tell you this: that there is a relative of General
+      Betristchev’s, a certain Colonel Koshkarev&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, we know him; but he is quite mad.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As you say, he is mad, and I should not have been intending to visit him,
+      were it not that General Betristchev is an intimate friend of mine, as
+      well as, I might add, my most generous benefactor.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then,” said Kostanzhoglo, “do you go and see Colonel Koshkarev NOW. He
+      lives less than ten versts from here, and I have a gig already harnessed.
+      Go to him at once, and return here for tea.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “An excellent idea!” cried Chichikov, and with that he seized his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour’s drive sufficed to bring him to the Colonel’s establishment.
+      The village attached to the manor was in a state of utter confusion, since
+      in every direction building and repairing operations were in progress, and
+      the alleys were choked with heaps of lime, bricks, and beams of wood.
+      Also, some of the huts were arranged to resemble offices, and superscribed
+      in gilt letters “Depot for Agricultural Implements,” “Chief Office of
+      Accounts,” “Estate Works Committee,” “Normal School for the Education of
+      Colonists,” and so forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov found the Colonel posted behind a desk and holding a pen between
+      his teeth. Without an instant’s delay the master of the establishment&mdash;who
+      seemed a kindly, approachable man, and accorded to his visitor a very
+      civil welcome&mdash;plunged into a recital of the labour which it had cost
+      him to bring the property to its present condition of affluence. Then he
+      went on to lament the fact that he could not make his peasantry understand
+      the incentives to labour which the riches of science and art provide; for
+      instance, he had failed to induce his female serfs to wear corsets,
+      whereas in Germany, where he had resided for fourteen years, every humble
+      miller’s daughter could play the piano. None the less, he said, he meant
+      to peg away until every peasant on the estate should, as he walked behind
+      the plough, indulge in a regular course of reading Franklin’s Notes on
+      Electricity, Virgil’s Georgics, or some work on the chemical properties of
+      soil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good gracious!” mentally exclaimed Chichikov. “Why, I myself have not had
+      time to finish that book by the Duchesse de la Valliere!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Much else the Colonel said. In particular did he aver that, provided the
+      Russian peasant could be induced to array himself in German costume,
+      science would progress, trade increase, and the Golden Age dawn in Russia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a while Chichikov listened with distended eyes. Then he felt
+      constrained to intimate that with all that he had nothing to do, seeing
+      that his business was merely to acquire a few souls, and thereafter to
+      have their purchase confirmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “If I understand you aright,” said the Colonel, “you wish to present a
+      Statement of Plea?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, that is so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then kindly put it into writing, and it shall be forwarded to the Office
+      for the Reception of Reports and Returns. Thereafter that Office will
+      consider it, and return it to me, who will, in turn, dispatch it to the
+      Estate Works Committee, who will, in turn, revise it, and present it to
+      the Administrator, who, jointly with the Secretary, will&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me,” expostulated Chichikov, “but that procedure will take up a
+      great deal of time. Why need I put the matter into writing at all? It is
+      simply this. I want a few souls which are&mdash;well, which are, so to
+      speak, dead.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very good,” commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your Statement
+      of Plea that the souls which you desire are, ‘so to speak, dead.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what would be the use of my doing so? Though the souls are dead, my
+      purpose requires that they should be represented as alive.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very good,” again commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your
+      Statement that ‘it is necessary’ (or, should you prefer an alternative
+      phrase, ‘it is requested,’ or ‘it is desiderated,’ or ‘it is prayed,’)
+      ‘that the souls be represented as alive.’ At all events, WITHOUT
+      documentary process of that kind, the matter cannot possibly be carried
+      through. Also, I will appoint a Commissioner to guide you round the
+      various Offices.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he sounded a bell; whereupon there presented himself a man whom,
+      addressing as “Secretary,” the Colonel instructed to summon the
+      “Commissioner.” The latter, on appearing, was seen to have the air, half
+      of a peasant, half of an official.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This man,” the Colonel said to Chichikov, “will act as your escort.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What could be done with a lunatic like Koshkarev? In the end, curiosity
+      moved Chichikov to accompany the Commissioner. The Committee for the
+      Reception of Reports and Returns was discovered to have put up its
+      shutters, and to have locked its doors, for the reason that the Director
+      of the Committee had been transferred to the newly-formed Committee of
+      Estate Management, and his successor had been annexed by the same
+      Committee. Next, Chichikov and his escort rapped at the doors of the
+      Department of Estate Affairs; but that Department’s quarters happened to
+      be in a state of repair, and no one could be made to answer the summons
+      save a drunken peasant from whom not a word of sense was to be extracted.
+      At length the escort felt himself moved to remark:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “There is a deal of foolishness going on here. Fellows like that drunkard
+      lead the barin by the nose, and everything is ruled by the Committee of
+      Management, which takes men from their proper work, and sets them to do
+      any other it likes. Indeed, only through the Committee does ANYTHING get
+      done.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time Chichikov felt that he had seen enough; wherefore he returned
+      to the Colonel, and informed him that the Office for the Reception of
+      Reports and Returns had ceased to exist. At once the Colonel flamed to
+      noble rage. Pressing Chichikov’s hand in token of gratitude for the
+      information which the guest had furnished, he took paper and pen, and
+      noted eight searching questions under three separate headings: (1) “Why
+      has the Committee of Management presumed to issue orders to officials not
+      under its jurisdiction?” (2) “Why has the Chief Manager permitted his
+      predecessor, though still in retention of his post, to follow him to
+      another Department?” and (3) “Why has the Committee of Estate Affairs
+      suffered the Office for the Reception of Reports and Returns to lapse?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Now for a row!” thought Chichikov to himself, and turned to depart; but
+      his host stopped him, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I cannot let you go, for, in addition to my honour having become
+      involved, it behoves me to show my people how the regular, the organised,
+      administration of an estate may be conducted. Herewith I will hand over
+      the conduct of your affair to a man who is worth all the rest of the staff
+      put together, and has had a university education. Also, the better to lose
+      no time, may I humbly beg you to step into my library, where you will find
+      notebooks, paper, pens, and everything else that you may require. Of these
+      articles pray make full use, for you are a gentleman of letters, and it is
+      your and my joint duty to bring enlightenment to all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he ushered his guest into a large room lined from floor to
+      ceiling with books and stuffed specimens. The books in question were
+      divided into sections&mdash;a section on forestry, a section on
+      cattle-breeding, a section on the raising of swine, and a section on
+      horticulture, together with special journals of the type circulated merely
+      for the purposes of reference, and not for general reading. Perceiving
+      that these works were scarcely of a kind calculated to while away an idle
+      hour, Chichikov turned to a second bookcase. But to do so was to fall out
+      of the frying-pan into the fire, for the contents of the second bookcase
+      proved to be works on philosophy, while, in particular, six huge volumes
+      confronted him under a label inscribed “A Preparatory Course to the
+      Province of Thought, with the Theory of Community of Effort, Co-operation,
+      and Subsistence, in its Application to a Right Understanding of the
+      Organic Principles of a Mutual Division of Social Productivity.” Indeed,
+      wheresoever Chichikov looked, every page presented to his vision some such
+      words as “phenomenon,” “development,” “abstract,” “contents,” and
+      “synopsis.” “This is not the sort of thing for me,” he murmured, and
+      turned his attention to a third bookcase, which contained books on the
+      Arts. Extracting a huge tome in which some by no means reticent
+      mythological illustrations were contained, he set himself to examine these
+      pictures. They were of the kind which pleases mostly middle-aged bachelors
+      and old men who are accustomed to seek in the ballet and similar
+      frivolities a further spur to their waning passions. Having concluded his
+      examination, Chichikov had just extracted another volume of the same
+      species when Colonel Koshkarev returned with a document of some sort and a
+      radiant countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Everything has been carried through in due form!” he cried. “The man whom
+      I mentioned is a genius indeed, and I intend not only to promote him over
+      the rest, but also to create for him a special Department. Herewith shall
+      you hear what a splendid intellect is his, and how in a few minutes he has
+      put the whole affair in order.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “May the Lord be thanked for that!” thought Chichikov. Then he settled
+      himself while the Colonel read aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘After giving full consideration to the Reference which your Excellency
+      has entrusted to me, I have the honour to report as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘(1) In the Statement of Plea presented by one Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov,
+      Gentleman, Chevalier, and Collegiate Councillor, there lurks an error, in
+      that an oversight has led the Petitioner to apply to Revisional Souls the
+      term “Dead.” Now, from the context it would appear that by this term the
+      Petitioner desires to signify Souls Approaching Death rather than Souls
+      Actually Deceased: wherefore the term employed betrays such an empirical
+      instruction in letters as must, beyond doubt, have been confined to the
+      Village School, seeing that in truth the Soul is Deathless.’
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The rascal!” Koshkarev broke off to exclaim delightedly. “He has got you
+      there, Monsieur Chichikov. And you will admit that he has a sufficiently
+      incisive pen?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘(2) On this Estate there exist no Unmortgaged Souls whatsoever, whether
+      Approaching Death or Otherwise; for the reason that all Souls thereon have
+      been pledged not only under a First Deed of Mortgage, but also (for the
+      sum of One Hundred and Fifty Roubles per Soul) under a Second,&mdash;the
+      village of Gurmailovka alone excepted, in that, in consequence of a Suit
+      having been brought against Landowner Priadistchev, and of a caveat having
+      been pronounced by the Land Court, and of such caveat having been
+      published in No. 42 of the Gazette of Moscow, the said Village has come
+      within the Jurisdiction of the Court Above-Mentioned.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why did you not tell me all this before?” cried Chichikov furiously. “Why
+      you have kept me dancing about for nothing?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because it was absolutely necessary that you should view the matter
+      through forms of documentary process. This is no jest on my part. The
+      inexperienced may see things subconsciously, yet it is imperative that he
+      should also see them CONSCIOUSLY.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But to Chichikov’s patience an end had come. Seizing his cap, and casting
+      all ceremony to the winds, he fled from the house, and rushed through the
+      courtyard. As it happened, the man who had driven him thither had, warned
+      by experience, not troubled even to take out the horses, since he knew
+      that such a proceeding would have entailed not only the presentation of a
+      Statement of Plea for fodder, but also a delay of twenty-four hours until
+      the Resolution granting the same should have been passed. Nevertheless the
+      Colonel pursued his guest to the gates, and pressed his hand warmly as he
+      thanked him for having enabled him (the Colonel) thus to exhibit in
+      operation the proper management of an estate. Also, he begged to state
+      that, under the circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to keep things
+      moving and circulating, since, otherwise, slackness was apt to supervene,
+      and the working of the machine to grow rusty and feeble; but that, in
+      spite of all, the present occasion had inspired him with a happy idea&mdash;namely,
+      the idea of instituting a Committee which should be entitled “The
+      Committee of Supervision of the Committee of Management,” and which should
+      have for its function the detection of backsliders among the body first
+      mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late when, tired and dissatisfied, Chichikov regained
+      Kostanzhoglo’s mansion. Indeed, the candles had long been lit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What has delayed you?” asked the master of the house as Chichikov entered
+      the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, what has kept you and the Colonel so long in conversation together?”
+       added Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This&mdash;the fact that never in my life have I come across such an
+      imbecile,” was Chichikov’s reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind,” said Kostanzhoglo. “Koshkarev is a most reassuring
+      phenomenon. He is necessary in that in him we see expressed in caricature
+      all the more crying follies of our intellectuals&mdash;of the
+      intellectuals who, without first troubling to make themselves acquainted
+      with their own country, borrow silliness from abroad. Yet that is how
+      certain of our landowners are now carrying on. They have set up ‘offices’
+      and factories and schools and ‘commissions,’ and the devil knows what else
+      besides. A fine lot of wiseacres! After the French War in 1812 they had to
+      reconstruct their affairs: and see how they have done it! Yet so much
+      worse have they done it than a Frenchman would have done that any fool of
+      a Peter Petrovitch Pietukh now ranks as a good landowner!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But he has mortgaged the whole of his estate?” remarked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, nowadays everything is being mortgaged, or is going to be.” This
+      said, Kostanzhoglo’s temper rose still further. “Out upon your factories
+      of hats and candles!” he cried. “Out upon procuring candle-makers from
+      London, and then turning landowners into hucksters! To think of a Russian
+      pomiestchik <a href="#linknote-49" id="linknoteref-49"><small>49</small></a>, a member of the noblest of
+      callings, conducting workshops and cotton mills! Why, it is for the
+      wenches of towns to handle looms for muslin and lace.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you yourself maintain workshops?” remarked Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
+      instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
+      began to weave it into cloth&mdash;but, mark you, only into good, plain
+      cloth of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and
+      which is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on end
+      did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the river;
+      wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I took to
+      boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by the process.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself as he stared at his host. “What
+      a fist this man has for making money!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Another reason why I started those factories,” continued Kostanzhoglo,
+      “is that they might give employment to many peasants who would otherwise
+      have starved. You see, the year happened to have been a lean one&mdash;thanks
+      to those same industry-mongering landowners, in that they had neglected to
+      sow their crops; and now my factories keep growing at the rate of a
+      factory a year, owing to the circumstance that such quantities of remnants
+      and cuttings become so accumulated that, if a man looks carefully to his
+      management, he will find every sort of rubbish to be capable of bringing
+      in a return&mdash;yes, to the point of his having to reject money on the
+      plea that he has no need of it. Yet I do not find that to do all this I
+      require to build a mansion with facades and pillars!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Marvellous!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Beyond all things does it surprise me
+      that refuse can be so utilised.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays every
+      one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an instrument
+      instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England. Yes, THAT is
+      the thing to do. What folly!” Kostanzhoglo spat and added: “Yet when he
+      returns from abroad he is a hundred times more ignorant than when he
+      went.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Constantine,” put in his wife anxiously, “you know how bad for you it
+      is to talk like this.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too
+      closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character should
+      be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort of
+      Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man get a
+      little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote, and
+      establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would never have
+      dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who is good for
+      nothing, whether in the country or in the town&mdash;a fellow who drinks
+      and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our landowners keep
+      taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into philanthropic
+      knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless hospitals and
+      institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning their families adrift.
+      Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s business had nothing to do with the spread of enlightenment,
+      he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further concerning the
+      putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo would not let him
+      get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow of sarcastic comment
+      pour from the speaker’s lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” went on Kostanzhoglo, “folk are always scheming to educate the
+      peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will
+      educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown stupid
+      to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our present-day
+      scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and at once you
+      will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will you find folk
+      saying: ‘The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought to be
+      familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above his
+      station.’ And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant will
+      become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only knows what
+      diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of eighteen who
+      will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and found himself left
+      with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate. Yes, that is what will
+      come of infecting the peasant with such rubbish. But, thank God, there is
+      still one healthy class left to us&mdash;a class which has never taken up
+      with the ‘advantages’ of which I speak. For that we ought to be grateful.
+      And since, even yet, the Russian agriculturist remains the most
+      respect-worthy man in the land, why should he be touched? Would to God
+      every one were an agriculturist!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of occupations?”
+       said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The best, at all events&mdash;if not the most profitable. ‘In the sweat
+      of thy brow shalt thou till the land.’ To quote that requires no great
+      wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the agricultural
+      calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure, more noble than in
+      any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no other calling ought to
+      be practised: simply that the calling in question lies at the root of all
+      the rest. However much factories may be established privately or by the
+      law, there will still lie ready to man’s hand all that he needs&mdash;he
+      will still require none of those amenities which are sapping the vitality
+      of our present-day folk, nor any of those industrial establishments which
+      make their profit, and keep themselves going, by causing foolish measures
+      to be adopted which, in the end, are bound to deprave and corrupt our
+      unfortunate masses. I myself am determined never to establish any
+      manufacture, however profitable, which will give rise to a demand for
+      ‘higher things,’ such as sugar and tobacco&mdash;no not if I lose a
+      million by my refusing to do so. If corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it
+      shall not be through my hands. And I think that God will justify me in my
+      resolve. Twenty years have I lived among the common folk, and I know what
+      will inevitably come of such things.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what surprises me most,” persisted Chichikov, “is that from refuse it
+      should be possible, with good management, to make such an immensity of
+      profit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And as for political economy,” continued Kostanzhoglo, without noticing
+      him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, “&mdash;as for
+      political economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool sitting on
+      another fool’s back, and flogging him along, even though the rider can see
+      no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle will that fool climb&mdash;spectacles
+      and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of such things!” And the speaker spat
+      derisively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That may be true,” said his wife. “Yet you must not get angry about it.
+      Surely one can speak on such subjects without losing one’s temper?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As I listen to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch,” Chichikov
+      hastened to remark, “it becomes plain to me that you have penetrated into
+      the meaning of life, and laid your finger upon the essential root of the
+      matter. Yet supposing, for a moment, we leave the affairs of humanity in
+      general, and turn our attention to a purely individual affair, might I ask
+      you how, in the case of a man becoming a landowner, and having a mind to
+      grow wealthy as quickly as possible (in order that he may fulfil his
+      bounden obligations as a citizen), he can best set about it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How he can best set about growing wealthy?” repeated Kostanzhoglo. “Why,&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let us go to supper,” interrupted the lady of the house, rising from her
+      chair, and moving towards the centre of the room, where she wrapped her
+      shivering young form in a shawl. Chichikov sprang up with the alacrity of
+      a military man, offered her his arm, and escorted her, as on parade, to
+      the dining-room, where awaiting them there was the soup-toureen. From it
+      the lid had just been removed, and the room was redolent of the fragrant
+      odour of early spring roots and herbs. The company took their seats, and
+      at once the servants placed the remainder of the dishes (under covers)
+      upon the table and withdrew, for Kostanzhoglo hated to have servants
+      listening to their employers’ conversation, and objected still more to
+      their staring at him all the while that he was eating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the soup had been consumed, and glasses of an excellent vintage
+      resembling Hungarian wine had been poured out, Chichikov said to his host:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Most worthy sir, allow me once more to direct your attention to the
+      subject of which we were speaking at the point when the conversation
+      became interrupted. You will remember that I was asking you how best a man
+      can set about, proceed in, the matter of growing...”
+     </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+           [Here from the original two pages are missing.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      ... “A property for which, had he asked forty thousand, I should still
+      have demanded a reduction.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hm!” thought Chichikov; then added aloud: “But why do you not purchase it
+      yourself?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because to everything there must be assigned a limit. Already my property
+      keeps me sufficiently employed. Moreover, I should cause our local
+      dvoriane to begin crying out in chorus that I am exploiting their
+      extremities, their ruined position, for the purpose of acquiring land for
+      under its value. Of that I am weary.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How readily folk speak evil!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and the amount of evil-speaking in our province surpasses belief.
+      Never will you hear my name mentioned without my being called also a miser
+      and a usurer of the worst possible sort; whereas my accusers justify
+      themselves in everything, and say that, ‘though we have wasted our money,
+      we have started a demand for the higher amenities of life, and therefore
+      encouraged industry with our wastefulness, a far better way of doing
+      things than that practised by Kostanzhoglo, who lives like a pig.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would <i>I</i> could live in your ‘piggish’ fashion!” ejaculated
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And so forth, and so forth. Yet what are the ‘higher amenities of life’?
+      What good can they do to any one? Even if a landowner of the day sets up a
+      library, he never looks at a single book in it, but soon relapses into
+      card-playing&mdash;the usual pursuit. Yet folk call me names simply
+      because I do not waste my means upon the giving of dinners! One reason why
+      I do not give such dinners is that they weary me; and another reason is
+      that I am not used to them. But come you to my house for the purpose of
+      taking pot luck, and I shall be delighted to see you. Also, folk foolishly
+      say that I lend money on interest; whereas the truth is that if you should
+      come to me when you are really in need, and should explain to me openly
+      how you propose to employ my money, and I should perceive that you are
+      purposing to use that money wisely, and that you are really likely to
+      profit thereby&mdash;well, in that case you would find me ready to lend
+      you all that you might ask without interest at all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That is a thing which it is well to know,” reflected Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” repeated Kostanzhoglo, “under those circumstances I should never
+      refuse you my assistance. But I do object to throwing my money to the
+      winds. Pardon me for expressing myself so plainly. To think of lending
+      money to a man who is merely devising a dinner for his mistress, or
+      planning to furnish his house like a lunatic, or thinking of taking his
+      paramour to a masked ball or a jubilee in honour of some one who had
+      better never have been born!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, spitting, he came near to venting some expression which would
+      scarcely have been becoming in the presence of his wife. Over his face the
+      dark shadow of hypochondria had cast a cloud, and furrows had formed on
+      his brow and temples, and his every gesture bespoke the influence of a
+      hot, nervous rancour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But allow me once more to direct your attention to the subject of our
+      recently interrupted conversation,” persisted Chichikov as he sipped a
+      glass of excellent raspberry wine. “That is to say, supposing I were to
+      acquire the property which you have been good enough to bring to my
+      notice, how long would it take me to grow rich?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That would depend on yourself,” replied Kostanzhoglo with grim abruptness
+      and evident ill-humour. “You might either grow rich quickly or you might
+      never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow rich, sooner or
+      later you would find yourself a wealthy man.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” ejaculated Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied Kostanzhoglo, as sharply as though he were angry with
+      Chichikov. “You would merely need to be fond of work: otherwise you would
+      effect nothing. The main thing is to like looking after your property.
+      Believe me, you would never grow weary of doing so. People would have it
+      that life in the country is dull; whereas, if I were to spend a single day
+      as it is spent by some folk, with their stupid clubs and their restaurants
+      and their theatres, I should die of ennui. The fools, the idiots, the
+      generations of blind dullards! But a landowner never finds the days
+      wearisome&mdash;he has not the time. In his life not a moment remains
+      unoccupied; it is full to the brim. And with it all goes an endless
+      variety of occupations. And what occupations! Occupations which genuinely
+      uplift the soul, seeing that the landowner walks with nature and the
+      seasons of the year, and takes part in, and is intimate with, everything
+      which is evolved by creation. For let us look at the round of the year’s
+      labours. Even before spring has arrived there will have begun a general
+      watching and a waiting for it, and a preparing for sowing, and an
+      apportioning of crops, and a measuring of seed grain by byres, and drying
+      of seed, and a dividing of the workers into teams. For everything needs to
+      be examined beforehand, and calculations must be made at the very start.
+      And as soon as ever the ice shall have melted, and the rivers be flowing,
+      and the land have dried sufficiently to be workable, the spade will begin
+      its task in kitchen and flower garden, and the plough and the harrow their
+      tasks in the field; until everywhere there will be tilling and sowing and
+      planting. And do you understand what the sum of that labour will mean? It
+      will mean that the harvest is being sown, that the welfare of the world is
+      being sown, that the food of millions is being put into the earth. And
+      thereafter will come summer, the season of reaping, endless reaping; for
+      suddenly the crops will have ripened, and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped
+      upon rye-sheaf, with, elsewhere, stocks of barley, and of oats, and of
+      wheat. And everything will be teeming with life, and not a moment will
+      there need to be lost, seeing that, had you even twenty eyes, you would
+      have need for them all. And after the harvest festivities there will be
+      grain to be carted to byre or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared
+      for the winter, and storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned
+      for the same purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the
+      totals of everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of
+      what has been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every
+      threshing-floor the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed,
+      will need to be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be
+      seen to, and the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen’s huts
+      to be visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is faring
+      (for, given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one, am only
+      too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering to me is
+      labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which everything is
+      moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are everywhere
+      multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more fruit to
+      one’s profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes place in a man’s
+      soul. And that, not because of the growth in his wealth&mdash;money is
+      money and no more&mdash;but because he will feel that everything is the
+      work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause of everything, and
+      its creator, and that from him, as from a magician, there has flowed
+      bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will you find such
+      delights in prospect?” As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised his face, and it
+      became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and that, like the Tsar
+      on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo’s whole form was diffusing
+      light, and his features had in them a gentle radiance. “In all the world,”
+       he repeated, “you will find no joys like these, for herein man imitates
+      the God who projected creation as the supreme happiness, and now demands
+      of man that he, too, should act as the creator of prosperity. Yet there
+      are folk who call such functions tedious!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kostanzhoglo’s mellifluous periods fell upon Chichikov’s ear like the
+      notes of a bird of paradise. From time to time he gulped, and his softened
+      eyes expressed the pleasure which it gave him to listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine, it is time to leave the table,” said the lady of the house,
+      rising from her seat. Every one followed her example, and Chichikov once
+      again acted as his hostess’s escort&mdash;although with less dexterity of
+      deportment than before, owing to the fact that this time his thoughts were
+      occupied with more essential matters of procedure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “In spite of what you say,” remarked Platon as he walked behind the pair,
+      “I, for my part, find these things wearisome.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the master of the house paid no attention to his remark, for he was
+      reflecting that his guest was no fool, but a man of serious thought and
+      speech who did not take things lightly. And, with the thought,
+      Kostanzhoglo grew lighter in soul, as though he had warmed himself with
+      his own words, and were exulting in the fact that he had found some one
+      capable of listening to good advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had settled themselves in the cosy, candle-lighted drawing-room,
+      with its balcony and the glass door opening out into the garden&mdash;a
+      door through which the stars could be seen glittering amid the slumbering
+      tops of the trees&mdash;Chichikov felt more comfortable than he had done
+      for many a day past. It was as though, after long journeying, his own
+      roof-tree had received him once more&mdash;had received him when his quest
+      had been accomplished, when all that he wished for had been gained, when
+      his travelling-staff had been laid aside with the words “It is finished.”
+       And of this seductive frame of mind the true source had been the eloquent
+      discourse of his hospitable host. Yes, for every man there exist certain
+      things which, instantly that they are said, seem to touch him more
+      closely, more intimately, than anything has done before. Nor is it an
+      uncommon occurrence that in the most unexpected fashion, and in the most
+      retired of retreats, one will suddenly come face to face with a man whose
+      burning periods will lead one to forget oneself and the tracklessness of
+      the route and the discomfort of one’s nightly halting-places, and the
+      futility of crazes and the falseness of tricks by which one human being
+      deceives another. And at once there will become engraven upon one’s memory&mdash;vividly,
+      and for all time&mdash;the evening thus spent. And of that evening one’s
+      remembrance will hold true, both as to who was present, and where each
+      such person sat, and what he or she was wearing, and what the walls and
+      the stove and other trifling features of the room looked like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same way did Chichikov note each detail that evening&mdash;both the
+      appointments of the agreeable, but not luxuriously furnished, room, and
+      the good-humoured expression which reigned on the face of the thoughtful
+      host, and the design of the curtains, and the amber-mounted pipe smoked by
+      Platon, and the way in which he kept puffing smoke into the fat jowl of
+      the dog Yarb, and the sneeze which, on each such occasion, Yarb vented,
+      and the laughter of the pleasant-faced hostess (though always followed by
+      the words “Pray do not tease him any more”) and the cheerful candle-light,
+      and the cricket chirping in a corner, and the glass door, and the spring
+      night which, laying its elbows upon the tree-tops, and spangled with
+      stars, and vocal with the nightingales which were pouring forth warbled
+      ditties from the recesses of the foliage, kept glancing through the door,
+      and regarding the company within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How it delights me to hear your words, good Constantine Thedorovitch!”
+       said Chichikov. “Indeed, nowhere in Russia have I met with a man of equal
+      intellect.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kostanzhoglo smiled, while realising that the compliment was scarcely
+      deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “If you want a man of GENUINE intellect,” he said, “I can tell you of one.
+      He is a man whose boot soles are worth more than my whole body.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who may he be?” asked Chichikov in astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Murazov, our local Commissioner of Taxes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! I have heard of him before,” remarked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is a man who, were he not the director of an estate, might well be a
+      director of the Empire. And were the Empire under my direction, I should
+      at once appoint him my Minister of Finance.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have heard tales beyond belief concerning him&mdash;for instance, that
+      he has acquired ten million roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ten? More than forty. Soon half Russia will be in his hands.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You don’t say so?” cried Chichikov in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, certainly. The man who has only a hundred thousand roubles to work
+      with grows rich but slowly, whereas he who has millions at his disposal
+      can operate over a greater radius, and so back whatsoever he undertakes
+      with twice or thrice the money which can be brought against him.
+      Consequently his field becomes so spacious that he ends by having no
+      rivals. Yes, no one can compete with him, and, whatsoever price he may fix
+      for a given commodity, at that price it will have to remain, nor will any
+      man be able to outbid it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My God!” muttered Chichikov, crossing himself, and staring at
+      Kostanzhoglo with his breath catching in his throat. “The mind cannot
+      grasp it&mdash;it petrifies one’s thoughts with awe. You see folk
+      marvelling at what Science has achieved in the matter of investigating the
+      habits of cowbugs, but to me it is a far more marvellous thing that in the
+      hands of a single mortal there can become accumulated such gigantic sums
+      of money. But may I ask whether the great fortune of which you speak has
+      been acquired through honest means?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; through means of the most irreproachable kind&mdash;through the most
+      honourable of methods.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet so improbable does it seem that I can scarcely believe it. Thousands
+      I could understand, but millions&mdash;!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the contrary, to make thousands honestly is a far more difficult
+      matter than to make millions. Millions are easily come by, for a
+      millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways; the way lies straight
+      before him, and he needs but to annex whatsoever he comes across. No rival
+      will spring up to oppose him, for no rival will be sufficiently strong,
+      and since the millionaire can operate over an extensive radius, he can
+      bring (as I have said) two or three roubles to bear upon any one else’s
+      one. Consequently, what interest will he derive from a thousand roubles?
+      Why, ten or twenty per cent. at the least.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And it is beyond measure marvellous that the whole should have started
+      from a single kopeck.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Had it started otherwise, the thing could never have been done at all.
+      Such is the normal course. He who is born with thousands, and is brought
+      up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for he will have
+      been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and so never come to
+      stand in need of anything. It is necessary to begin from the beginning
+      rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather than from a rouble; from
+      the bottom rather than from the top. For only thus will a man get to know
+      the men and conditions among which his career will have to be carved. That
+      is to say, through encountering the rough and the tumble of life, and
+      through learning that every kopeck has to be beaten out with a
+      three-kopeck nail, and through worsting knave after knave, he will acquire
+      such a degree of perspicuity and wariness that he will err in nothing
+      which he may tackle, and never come to ruin. Believe me, it is so. The
+      beginning, and not the middle, is the right starting point. No one who
+      comes to me and says, ‘Give me a hundred thousand roubles, and I will grow
+      rich in no time,’ do I believe, for he is likely to meet with failure
+      rather than with the success of which he is so assured. ’Tis with a
+      kopeck, and with a kopeck only, that a man must begin.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “If that is so, <i>I</i> shall grow rich,” said Chichikov, involuntarily
+      remembering the dead souls. “For of a surety <i>I</i> began with nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine, pray allow Paul Ivanovitch to retire to rest,” put in the
+      lady of the house. “It is high time, and I am sure you have talked
+      enough.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, beyond a doubt you will grow rich,” continued Kostanzhoglo, without
+      heeding his wife. “For towards you there will run rivers and rivers of
+      gold, until you will not know what to do with all your gains.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though spellbound, Chichikov sat in an aureate world of ever-growing
+      dreams and fantasies. All his thoughts were in a whirl, and on a carpet of
+      future wealth his tumultuous imagination was weaving golden patterns,
+      while ever in his ears were ringing the words, “towards you there will run
+      rivers and rivers of gold.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really, Constantine, DO allow Paul Ivanovitch to go to bed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What on earth is the matter?” retorted the master of the household
+      testily. “Pray go yourself if you wish to.” Then he stopped short, for the
+      snoring of Platon was filling the whole room, and also&mdash;outrivalling
+      it&mdash;that of the dog Yarb. This caused Kostanzhoglo to realise that
+      bedtime really had arrived; wherefore, after he had shaken Platon out of
+      his slumbers, and bidden Chichikov good night, all dispersed to their
+      several chambers, and became plunged in sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All, that is to say, except Chichikov, whose thoughts remained wakeful,
+      and who kept wondering and wondering how best he could become the owner,
+      not of a fictitious, but of a real, estate. The conversation with his host
+      had made everything clear, had made the possibility of his acquiring
+      riches manifest, had made the difficult art of estate management at once
+      easy and understandable; until it would seem as though particularly was
+      his nature adapted for mastering the art in question. All that he would
+      need to do would be to mortgage the dead souls, and then to set up a
+      genuine establishment. Already he saw himself acting and administering as
+      Kostanzhoglo had advised him&mdash;energetically, and through personal
+      oversight, and undertaking nothing new until the old had been thoroughly
+      learned, and viewing everything with his own eyes, and making himself
+      familiar with each member of his peasantry, and abjuring all
+      superfluities, and giving himself up to hard work and husbandry. Yes,
+      already could he taste the pleasure which would be his when he had built
+      up a complete industrial organisation, and the springs of the industrial
+      machine were in vigorous working order, and each had become able to
+      reinforce the other. Labour should be kept in active operation, and, even
+      as, in a mill, flour comes flowing from grain, so should cash, and yet
+      more cash, come flowing from every atom of refuse and remnant. And all the
+      while he could see before him the landowner who was one of the leading men
+      in Russia, and for whom he had conceived such an unbounded respect.
+      Hitherto only for rank or for opulence had Chichikov respected a man&mdash;never
+      for mere intellectual power; but now he made a first exception in favour
+      of Kostanzhoglo, seeing that he felt that nothing undertaken by his host
+      could possibly come to naught. And another project which was occupying
+      Chichikov’s mind was the project of purchasing the estate of a certain
+      landowner named Khlobuev. Already Chichikov had at his disposal ten
+      thousand roubles, and a further fifteen thousand he would try and borrow
+      of Kostanzhoglo (seeing that the latter had himself said that he was
+      prepared to help any one who really desired to grow rich); while, as for
+      the remainder, he would either raise the sum by mortgaging the estate or
+      force Khlobuev to wait for it&mdash;just to tell him to resort to the
+      courts if such might be his pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long did our hero ponder the scheme; until at length the slumber which
+      had, these four hours past, been holding the rest of the household in its
+      embraces enfolded also Chichikov, and he sank into oblivion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Next day, with Platon and Constantine, Chichikov set forth to interview
+      Khlobuev, the owner whose estate Constantine had consented to help
+      Chichikov to purchase with a non-interest-bearing, uncovenanted loan of
+      ten thousand roubles. Naturally, our hero was in the highest of spirits.
+      For the first fifteen versts or so the road led through forest land and
+      tillage belonging to Platon and his brother-in-law; but directly the limit
+      of these domains was reached, forest land began to be replaced with swamp,
+      and tillage with waste. Also, the village in Khlobuev’s estate had about
+      it a deserted air, and as for the proprietor himself, he was discovered in
+      a state of drowsy dishevelment, having not long left his bed. A man of
+      about forty, he had his cravat crooked, his frockcoat adorned with a large
+      stain, and one of his boots worn through. Nevertheless he seemed delighted
+      to see his visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What?” he exclaimed. “Constantine Thedorovitch and Platon Mikhalitch?
+      Really I must rub my eyes! Never again in this world did I look to see
+      callers arriving. As a rule, folk avoid me like the devil, for they cannot
+      disabuse their minds of the idea that I am going to ask them for a loan.
+      Yes, it is my own fault, I know, but what would you? To the end will swine
+      cheat swine. Pray excuse my costume. You will observe that my boots are in
+      holes. But how can I afford to get them mended?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind,” said Constantine. “We have come on business only. May I
+      present to you a possible purchaser of your estate, in the person of Paul
+      Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am indeed glad to meet you!” was Khlobuev’s response. “Pray shake hands
+      with me, Paul Ivanovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov offered one hand, but not both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I can show you a property worth your attention,” went on the master of
+      the estate. “May I ask if you have yet dined?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, we have,” put in Constantine, desirous of escaping as soon as
+      possible. “To save you further trouble, let us go and view the estate at
+      once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” replied Khlobuev. “Pray come and inspect my irregularities
+      and futilities. You have done well to dine beforehand, for not so much as
+      a fowl is left in the place, so dire are the extremities to which you see
+      me reduced.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sighing deeply, he took Platon by the arm (it was clear that he did not
+      look for any sympathy from Constantine) and walked ahead, while
+      Constantine and Chichikov followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Things are going hard with me, Platon Mikhalitch,” continued Khlobuev.
+      “How hard you cannot imagine. No money have I, no food, no boots. Were I
+      still young and a bachelor, it would have come easy to me to live on bread
+      and cheese; but when a man is growing old, and has got a wife and five
+      children, such trials press heavily upon him, and, in spite of himself,
+      his spirits sink.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But, should you succeed in selling the estate, that would help to put you
+      right, would it not?” said Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How could it do so?” replied Khlobuev with a despairing gesture. “What I
+      might get for the property would have to go towards discharging my debts,
+      and I should find myself left with less than a thousand roubles besides.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then what do you intend to do?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “God knows.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But is there NOTHING to which you could set your hand in order to clear
+      yourself of your difficulties?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How could there be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, you might accept a Government post.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Become a provincial secretary, you mean? How could I obtain such a post?
+      They would not offer me one of the meanest possible kind. Even supposing
+      that they did, how could I live on a salary of five hundred roubles&mdash;I
+      who have a wife and five children?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then try and obtain a bailiff’s post.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who would entrust their property to a man who has squandered his own
+      estate?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, when death and destitution threaten, a man must either do
+      something or starve. Shall I ask my brother to use his influence to
+      procure you a post?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, Platon Mikhalitch,” sighed Khlobuev, gripping the other’s hand.
+      “I am no longer serviceable&mdash;I am grown old before my time, and find
+      that liver and rheumatism are paying me for the sins of my youth. Why
+      should the Government be put to a loss on my account?&mdash;not to speak
+      of the fact that for every salaried post there are countless numbers of
+      applicants. God forbid that, in order to provide me with a livelihood
+      further burdens should be imposed upon an impoverished public!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Such are the results of improvident management!” thought Platon to
+      himself. “The disease is even worse than my slothfulness.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Kostanzhoglo, walking by Chichikov’s side, was almost taking
+      leave of his senses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Look at it!” he cried with a wave of his hand. “See to what wretchedness
+      the peasant has become reduced! Should cattle disease come, Khlobuev will
+      have nothing to fall back upon, but will be forced to sell his all&mdash;to
+      leave the peasant without a horse, and therefore without the means to
+      labour, even though the loss of a single day’s work may take years of
+      labour to rectify. Meanwhile it is plain that the local peasant has become
+      a mere dissolute, lazy drunkard. Give a muzhik enough to live upon for
+      twelve months without working, and you will corrupt him for ever, so
+      inured to rags and vagrancy will he grow. And what is the good of that
+      piece of pasture there&mdash;of that piece on the further side of those
+      huts? It is a mere flooded tract. Were it mine, I should put it under
+      flax, and clear five thousand roubles, or else sow it with turnips, and
+      clear, perhaps, four thousand. And see how the rye is drooping, and nearly
+      laid. As for wheat, I am pretty sure that he has not sown any. Look, too,
+      at those ravines! Were they mine, they would be standing under timber
+      which even a rook could not top. To think of wasting such quantities of
+      land! Where land wouldn’t bear corn, I should dig it up, and plant it with
+      vegetables. What ought to be done is that Khlobuev ought to take a spade
+      into his own hands, and to set his wife and children and servants to do
+      the same; and even if they died of the exertion, they would at least die
+      doing their duty, and not through guzzling at the dinner table.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This said, Kostanzhoglo spat, and his brow flushed with grim indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently they reached an elevation whence the distant flashing of a
+      river, with its flood waters and subsidiary streams, caught the eye,
+      while, further off, a portion of General Betristchev’s homestead could be
+      discerned among the trees, and, over it, a blue, densely wooded hill which
+      Chichikov guessed to be the spot where Tientietnikov’s mansion was
+      situated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is where I should plant timber,” said Chichikov. “And, regarded as a
+      site for a manor house, the situation could scarcely be beaten for beauty
+      of view.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You seem to get great store upon views and beauty,” remarked Kostanzhoglo
+      with reproof in his tone. “Should you pay too much attention to those
+      things, you might find yourself without crops or view. Utility should be
+      placed first, not beauty. Beauty will come of itself. Take, for example,
+      towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns are those which have built
+      themselves&mdash;those in which each man has built to suit his own
+      exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which men have
+      constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than collections
+      of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only to what is NECESSARY.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but to me it would always be irksome to have to wait. All the time
+      that I was doing so I should be hungering to see in front of me the
+      sort of prospect which I prefer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! Are you a man of twenty-five&mdash;you who have served as a
+      tchinovnik in St. Petersburg? Have patience, have patience. For six years
+      work, and work hard. Plant, sow, and dig the earth without taking a
+      moment’s rest. It will be difficult, I know&mdash;yes, difficult indeed;
+      but at the end of that time, if you have thoroughly stirred the soil, the
+      land will begin to help you as nothing else can do. That is to say, over
+      and above your seventy or so pairs of hands, there will begin to assist in
+      the work seven hundred pairs of hands which you cannot see. Thus
+      everything will be multiplied tenfold. I myself have ceased even to have
+      to lift a finger, for whatsoever needs to be done gets done of itself.
+      Nature loves patience: always remember that. It is a law given her of God
+      Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To hear your words is to be both encouraged and strengthened,” said
+      Chichikov. To this Kostanzhoglo made no reply, but presently went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And see how that piece of land has been ploughed! To stay here longer is
+      more than I can do. For me, to have to look upon such want of orderliness
+      and foresight is death. Finish your business with Khlobuev without me, and
+      whatsoever you do, get this treasure out of that fool’s hands as quickly
+      as possible, for he is dishonouring God’s gifts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Kostanzhoglo, his face dark with the rage that was seething in his
+      excitable soul, left Chichikov, and caught up the owner of the
+      establishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, Constantine Thedorovitch?” cried Khlobuev in astonishment. “Just
+      arrived, you are going already?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; I cannot help it; urgent business requires me at home.” And entering
+      his gig, Kostanzhoglo drove rapidly away. Somehow Khlobuev seemed to
+      divine the cause of his sudden departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It was too much for him,” he remarked. “An agriculturist of that kind
+      does not like to have to look upon the results of such feckless management
+      as mine. Would you believe it, Paul Ivanovitch, but this year I have been
+      unable to sow any wheat! Am I not a fine husbandman? There was no seed for
+      the purpose, nor yet anything with which to prepare the ground. No, I am
+      not like Constantine Thedorovitch, who, I hear, is a perfect Napoleon in
+      his particular line. Again and again the thought occurs to me, ‘Why has so
+      much intellect been put into that head, and only a drop or two into my own
+      dull pate?’ Take care of that puddle, gentlemen. I have told my peasants
+      to lay down planks for the spring, but they have not done so. Nevertheless
+      my heart aches for the poor fellows, for they need a good example, and
+      what sort of an example am I? How am <i>I</i> to give them orders? Pray
+      take them under your charge, Paul Ivanovitch, for I cannot teach them
+      orderliness and method when I myself lack both. As a matter of fact, I
+      should have given them their freedom long ago, had there been any use in
+      my doing so; for even I can see that peasants must first be afforded the
+      means of earning a livelihood before they can live. What they need is a
+      stern, yet just, master who shall live with them, day in, day out, and set
+      them an example of tireless energy. The present-day Russian&mdash;I know
+      of it myself&mdash;is helpless without a driver. Without one he falls
+      asleep, and the mould grows over him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet I cannot understand WHY he should fall asleep and grow mouldy in that
+      fashion,” said Platon. “Why should he need continual surveillance to keep
+      him from degenerating into a drunkard and a good-for-nothing?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The cause is lack of enlightenment,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Possibly&mdash;only God knows. Yet enlightenment has reached us right
+      enough. Do we not attend university lectures and everything else that is
+      befitting? Take my own education. I learnt not only the usual things, but
+      also the art of spending money upon the latest refinement, the latest
+      amenity&mdash;the art of familiarising oneself with whatsoever money can
+      buy. How, then, can it be said that I was educated foolishly? And my
+      comrades’ education was the same. A few of them succeeded in annexing the
+      cream of things, for the reason that they had the wit to do so, and the
+      rest spent their time in doing their best to ruin their health and
+      squander their money. Often I think there is no hope for the present-day
+      Russian. While desiring to do everything, he accomplishes nothing. One day
+      he will scheme to begin a new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet before
+      evening he will have so over-eaten himself as to be unable to speak or do
+      aught but sit staring like an owl. The same with every one.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so,” agreed Chichikov with a smile. “’Tis everywhere the same
+      story.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To tell the truth, we are not born to common sense. I doubt whether
+      Russia has ever produced a really sensible man. For my own part, if I see
+      my neighbour living a regular life, and making money, and saving it, I
+      begin to distrust him, and to feel certain that in old age, if not before,
+      he too will be led astray by the devil&mdash;led astray in a moment. Yes,
+      whether or not we be educated, there is something we lack. But what that
+      something is passes my understanding.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the return journey the prospect was the same as before. Everywhere the
+      same slovenliness, the same disorder, was displaying itself unadorned: the
+      only difference being that a fresh puddle had formed in the middle of the
+      village street. This want and neglect was noticeable in the peasants’
+      quarters equally with the quarters of the barin. In the village a furious
+      woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor young wench within an ace of
+      her life, and at the same time devoting some third person to the care of
+      all the devils in hell; further away a couple of peasants were stoically
+      contemplating the virago&mdash;one scratching his rump as he did so, and
+      the other yawning. The same yawn was discernible in the buildings, for not
+      a roof was there but had a gaping hole in it. As he gazed at the scene
+      Platon himself yawned. Patch was superimposed upon patch, and, in place of
+      a roof, one hut had a piece of wooden fencing, while its crumbling
+      window-frames were stayed with sticks purloined from the barin’s barn.
+      Evidently the system of upkeep in vogue was the system employed in the
+      case of Trishkin’s coat&mdash;the system of cutting up the cuffs and the
+      collar into mendings for the elbows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I do not admire your way of doing things,” was Chichikov’s unspoken
+      comment when the inspection had been concluded and the party had
+      re-entered the house. Everywhere in the latter the visitors were struck
+      with the way in which poverty went with glittering, fashionable profusion.
+      On a writing-table lay a volume of Shakespeare, and, on an occasional
+      table, a carved ivory back-scratcher. The hostess, too, was elegantly and
+      fashionably attired, and devoted her whole conversation to the town and
+      the local theatre. Lastly, the children&mdash;bright, merry little things&mdash;were
+      well-dressed both as regards boys and girls. Yet far better would it have
+      been for them if they had been clad in plain striped smocks, and running
+      about the courtyard like peasant children. Presently a visitor arrived in
+      the shape of a chattering, gossiping woman; whereupon the hostess carried
+      her off to her own portion of the house, and, the children following them,
+      the men found themselves alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How much do you want for the property?” asked Chichikov of Khlobuev. “I
+      am afraid I must request you to name the lowest possible sum, since I find
+      the estate in a far worse condition than I had expected to do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, it IS in a terrible state,” agreed Khlobuev. “Nor is that the whole
+      of the story. That is to say, I will not conceal from you the fact that,
+      out of a hundred souls registered at the last revision, only fifty
+      survive, so terrible have been the ravages of cholera. And of these,
+      again, some have absconded; wherefore they too must be reckoned as dead,
+      seeing that, were one to enter process against them, the costs would end
+      in the property having to pass en bloc to the legal authorities. For these
+      reasons I am asking only thirty-five thousand roubles for the estate.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov (it need hardly be said) started to haggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Thirty-five thousand?” he cried. “Come, come! Surely you will accept
+      TWENTY-five thousand?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was too much for Platon’s conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Now, now, Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed. “Take the property at the price
+      named, and have done with it. The estate is worth at least that amount&mdash;so
+      much so that, should you not be willing to give it, my brother-in-law and
+      I will club together to effect the purchase.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That being so,” said Chichikov, taken aback, “I beg to agree to the price
+      in question. At the same time, I must ask you to allow me to defer payment
+      of one-half of the purchase money until a year from now.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, Paul Ivanovitch. Under no circumstances could I do that. Pay me
+      half now, and the rest in... <a href="#linknote-50" id="linknoteref-50"><small>50</small></a> You see, I need the money for
+      the redemption of the mortgage.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That places me in a difficulty,” remarked Chichikov. “Ten thousand
+      roubles is all that at the moment I have available.” As a matter of fact,
+      this was not true, seeing that, counting also the money which he had
+      borrowed of Kostanzhoglo, he had at his disposal TWENTY thousand. His real
+      reason for hesitating was that he disliked the idea of making so large a
+      payment in a lump sum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I must repeat my request, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Khlobuev, “&mdash;namely,
+      that you pay me at least fifteen thousand immediately.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The odd five thousand <i>I</i> will lend you,” put in Platon to
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” exclaimed Chichikov as he reflected: “So he also lends money!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end Chichikov’s dispatch-box was brought from the koliaska, and
+      Khlobuev received thence ten thousand roubles, together with a promise
+      that the remaining five thousand should be forthcoming on the morrow;
+      though the promise was given only after Chichikov had first proposed that
+      THREE thousand should be brought on the day named, and the rest be left
+      over for two or three days longer, if not for a still more protracted
+      period. The truth was that Paul Ivanovitch hated parting with money. No
+      matter how urgent a situation might have been, he would still have
+      preferred to pay a sum to-morrow rather than to-day. In other words, he
+      acted as we all do, for we all like keeping a petitioner waiting. “Let him
+      rub his back in the hall for a while,” we say. “Surely he can bide his
+      time a little?” Yet of the fact that every hour may be precious to the
+      poor wretch, and that his business may suffer from the delay, we take no
+      account. “Good sir,” we say, “pray come again to-morrow. To-day I have no
+      time to spare you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where do you intend henceforth to live?” inquired Platon. “Have you any
+      other property to which you can retire?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” replied Khlobuev. “I shall remove to the town, where I possess a
+      small villa. That would have been necessary, in any case, for the
+      children’s sake. You see, they must have instruction in God’s word, and
+      also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can these
+      things be procured in the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing to eat, yet dancing lessons for his children!” reflected
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “An extraordinary man!” was Platon’s unspoken comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “However, we must contrive to wet our bargain somehow,” continued
+      Khlobuev. “Hi, Kirushka! Bring that bottle of champagne.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing to eat, yet champagne to drink!” reflected Chichikov. As for
+      Platon, he did not know WHAT to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Khlobuev’s eyes it was de rigueur that he should provide a guest with
+      champagne; but, though he had sent to the town for some, he had been met
+      with a blank refusal to forward even a bottle of kvass on credit. Only the
+      discovery of a French dealer who had recently transferred his business
+      from St. Petersburg, and opened a connection on a system of general
+      credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev under the obligation of
+      patronising him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful. In
+      particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and friendliness,
+      and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left. What knowledge of
+      men and the world did his utterances display! How well and accurately
+      could he divine things! With what appositeness did he sketch the
+      neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their faults and failings!
+      How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined gentry&mdash;the story
+      of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen upon evil days! With
+      what comic originality could he describe their little habits and customs!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and felt
+      inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What most surprises me,” said Chichikov, “is how, in view of your
+      ability, you come to be so destitute of means or resources.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I have plenty of both,” said Khlobuev, and with that went on to
+      deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects
+      proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge
+      of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and
+      mentally exclaim: “Good Lord! What a difference between worldly wisdom and
+      the capacity to use it!” In every case the projects in question were based
+      upon the imperative necessity of at once procuring from somewhere two
+      hundred&mdash;or at least one hundred&mdash;thousand roubles. That done
+      (so Khlobuev averred), everything would fall into its proper place, the
+      holes in his pockets would become stopped, his income would be quadrupled,
+      and he would find himself in a position to liquidate his debts in full.
+      Nevertheless he ended by saying: “What would you advise me to do? I fear
+      that the philanthropist who would lend me two hundred thousand roubles or
+      even a hundred thousand, does not exist. It is not God’s will that he
+      should.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good gracious!” inwardly ejaculated Chichikov. “To suppose that God would
+      send such a fool two hundred thousand roubles!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “However,” went on Khlobuev, “I possess an aunt worth three millions&mdash;a
+      pious old woman who gives freely to churches and monasteries, but finds a
+      difficulty in helping her neighbour. At the same time, she is a lady of
+      the old school, and worth having a peep at. Her canaries alone number four
+      hundred, and, in addition, there is an army of pug-dogs, hangers-on, and
+      servants. Even the youngest of the servants is sixty, but she calls them
+      all ‘young fellows,’ and if a guest happens to offend her during dinner,
+      she orders them to leave him out when handing out the dishes. THERE’S a
+      woman for you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what may her family name be?” asked Chichikov. “And where does she
+      live?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “She lives in the county town, and her name is Alexandra Ivanovna
+      Khanasarov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why do you not apply to her?” asked Platon earnestly. “It seems to
+      me that, once she realised the position of your family, she could not
+      possibly refuse you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Alas! nothing is to be looked for from that quarter,” replied Khlobuev.
+      “My aunt is of a very stubborn disposition&mdash;a perfect stone of a
+      woman. Moreover, she has around her a sufficient band of favourites
+      already. In particular is there a fellow who is aiming for a Governorship,
+      and to that end has managed to insinuate himself into the circle of her
+      kinsfolk. By the way,” the speaker added, turning to Platon, “would you do
+      me a favour? Next week I am giving a dinner to the associated guilds of
+      the town.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon stared. He had been unaware that both in our capitals and in our
+      provincial towns there exists a class of men whose lives are an enigma&mdash;men
+      who, though they will seem to have exhausted their substance, and to have
+      become enmeshed in debt, will suddenly be reported as in funds, and on the
+      point of giving a dinner! And though, at this dinner, the guests will
+      declare that the festival is bound to be their host’s last fling, and that
+      for a certainty he will be haled to prison on the morrow, ten years or
+      more will elapse, and the rascal will still be at liberty, even though, in
+      the meanwhile, his debts will have increased!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same way did the conduct of Khlobuev’s menage afford a curious
+      phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te Deum,
+      performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play performed
+      by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again, one day would
+      see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day a banquet and
+      generous largesse given to a party of artists and sculptors. During these
+      seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to have led any one but Khlobuev
+      to seek suicide by hanging or shooting), the master of the house would be
+      preserved from rash action by his strongly religious disposition, which,
+      contriving in some curious way to conform with his irregular mode of life,
+      enabled him to fall back upon reading the lives of saints, ascetics, and
+      others of the type which has risen superior to its misfortunes. And at
+      such times his spirit would become softened, his thoughts full of
+      gentleness, and his eyes wet with tears; he would fall to saying his
+      prayers, and invariably some strange coincidence would bring an answer
+      thereto in the shape of an unexpected measure of assistance. That is to
+      say, some former friend of his would remember him, and send him a trifle
+      in the way of money; or else some female visitor would be moved by his
+      story to let her impulsive, generous heart proffer him a handsome gift; or
+      else a suit whereof tidings had never even reached his ears would end by
+      being decided in his favour. And when that happened he would reverently
+      acknowledge the immensity of the mercy of Providence, gratefully tender
+      thanksgiving for the same, and betake himself again to his irregular mode
+      of existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Somehow I feel sorry for the man,” said Platon when he and Chichikov had
+      taken leave of their host, and left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Perhaps so, but he is a hopeless prodigal,” replied the other.
+      “Personally I find it impossible to compassionate such fellows.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that the pair ceased to devote another thought to Khlobuev. In
+      the case of Platon, this was because he contemplated the fortunes of his
+      fellows with the lethargic, half-somnolent eye which he turned upon all
+      the rest of the world; for though the sight of distress of others would
+      cause his heart to contract and feel full of sympathy, the impression thus
+      produced never sank into the depths of his being. Accordingly, before many
+      minutes were over he had ceased to bestow a single thought upon his late
+      host. With Chichikov, however, things were different. Whereas Platon had
+      ceased to think of Khlobuev no more than he had ceased to think of
+      himself, Chichikov’s mind had strayed elsewhere, for the reason that it
+      had become taken up with grave meditation on the subject of the purchase
+      just made. Suddenly finding himself no longer a fictitious proprietor, but
+      the owner of a real, an actually existing, estate, he became
+      contemplative, and his plans and ideas assumed such a serious vein as
+      imparted to his features an unconsciously important air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Patience and hard work!” he muttered to himself. “The thing will not be
+      difficult, for with those two requisites I have been familiar from the
+      days of my swaddling clothes. Yes, no novelty will they be to me. Yet, in
+      middle age, shall I be able to compass the patience whereof I was capable
+      in my youth?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, no matter how he regarded the future, and no matter from what
+      point of view he considered his recent acquisition, he could see nothing
+      but advantage likely to accrue from the bargain. For one thing, he might
+      be able to proceed so that, first the whole of the estate should be
+      mortgaged, and then the better portions of land sold outright. Or he might
+      so contrive matters as to manage the property for a while (and thus become
+      a landowner like Kostanzhoglo, whose advice, as his neighbour and his
+      benefactor, he intended always to follow), and then to dispose of the
+      property by private treaty (provided he did not wish to continue his
+      ownership), and still to retain in his hands the dead and abandoned souls.
+      And another possible coup occurred to his mind. That is to say, he might
+      contrive to withdraw from the district without having repaid Kostanzhoglo
+      at all! Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair to say that the idea
+      was not one of Chichikov’s own conception. Rather, it had presented itself&mdash;mocking,
+      laughing, and winking&mdash;unbidden. Yet the impudent, the wanton thing!
+      Who is the procreator of suddenly born ideas of the kind? The thought that
+      he was now a real, an actual, proprietor instead of a fictitious&mdash;that
+      he was now a proprietor of real land, real rights of timber and pasture,
+      and real serfs who existed not only in the imagination, but also in
+      veritable actuality&mdash;greatly elated our hero. So he took to dancing
+      up and down in his seat, to rubbing his hands together, to winking at
+      himself, to holding his fist, trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making
+      believe to execute a march), and even to uttering aloud such encouraging
+      nicknames and phrases as “bulldog” and “little fat capon.” Then suddenly
+      recollecting that he was not alone, he hastened to moderate his behaviour
+      and endeavoured to stifle the endless flow of his good spirits; with the
+      result that when Platon, mistaking certain sounds for utterances addressed
+      to himself, inquired what his companion had said, the latter retained the
+      presence of mind to reply “Nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, as Chichikov gazed about him, he saw that for some time past
+      the koliaska had been skirting a beautiful wood, and that on either side
+      the road was bordered with an edging of birch trees, the tenderly-green,
+      recently-opened leaves of which caused their tall, slender trunks to show
+      up with the whiteness of a snowdrift. Likewise nightingales were warbling
+      from the recesses of the foliage, and some wood tulips were glowing yellow
+      in the grass. Next (and almost before Chichikov had realised how he came
+      to be in such a beautiful spot when, but a moment before, there had been
+      visible only open fields) there glimmered among the trees the stony
+      whiteness of a church, with, on the further side of it, the intermittent,
+      foliage-buried line of a fence; while from the upper end of a village
+      street there was advancing to meet the vehicle a gentleman with a cap on
+      his head, a knotted cudgel in his hands, and a slender-limbed English dog
+      by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is my brother,” said Platon. “Stop, coachman.” And he descended from
+      the koliaska, while Chichikov followed his example. Yarb and the strange
+      dog saluted one another, and then the active, thin-legged, slender-tongued
+      Azor relinquished his licking of Yarb’s blunt jowl, licked Platon’s hands
+      instead, and, leaping upon Chichikov, slobbered right into his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two brothers embraced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really, Platon,” said the gentleman (whose name was Vassili), “what do
+      you mean by treating me like this?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How so?” said Platon indifferently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? For three days past I have seen and heard nothing of you! A groom
+      from Pietukh’s brought your cob home, and told me you had departed on an
+      expedition with some barin. At least you might have sent me word as to
+      your destination and the probable length of your absence. What made you
+      act so? God knows what I have not been wondering!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Does it matter?” rejoined Platon. “I forgot to send you word, and we have
+      been no further than Constantine’s (who, with our sister, sends you his
+      greeting). By the way, may I introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pair shook hands with one another. Then, doffing their caps, they
+      embraced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What sort of man is this Chichikov?” thought Vassili. “As a rule my
+      brother Platon is not over-nice in his choice of acquaintances.” And,
+      eyeing our hero as narrowly as civility permitted, he saw that his
+      appearance was that of a perfectly respectable individual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov returned Vassili’s scrutiny with a similar observance of the
+      dictates of civility, and perceived that he was shorter than Platon, that
+      his hair was of a darker shade, and that his features, though less
+      handsome, contained far more life, animation, and kindliness than did his
+      brother’s. Clearly he indulged in less dreaming, though that was an aspect
+      which Chichikov little regarded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have made up my mind to go touring our Holy Russia with Paul
+      Ivanovitch,” said Platon. “Perhaps it will rid me of my melancholy.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What has made you come to such a sudden decision?” asked the perplexed
+      Vassili (very nearly he added: “Fancy going travelling with a man whose
+      acquaintance you have just made, and who may turn out to be a rascal or
+      the devil knows what!” But, in spite of his distrust, he contented himself
+      with another covert scrutiny of Chichikov, and this time came to the
+      conclusion that there was no fault to be found with his exterior).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The party turned to the right, and entered the gates of an ancient
+      courtyard attached to an old-fashioned house of a type no longer built&mdash;the
+      type which has huge gables supporting a high-pitched roof. In the centre
+      of the courtyard two great lime trees covered half the surrounding space
+      with shade, while beneath them were ranged a number of wooden benches, and
+      the whole was encircled with a ring of blossoming lilacs and cherry trees
+      which, like a beaded necklace, reinforced the wooden fence, and almost
+      buried it beneath their clusters of leaves and flowers. The house, too,
+      stood almost concealed by this greenery, except that the front door and
+      the windows peered pleasantly through the foliage, and that here and there
+      between the stems of the trees there could be caught glimpses of the
+      kitchen regions, the storehouses, and the cellar. Lastly, around the whole
+      stood a grove, from the recesses of which came the echoing songs of
+      nightingales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Involuntarily the place communicated to the soul a sort of quiet, restful
+      feeling, so eloquently did it speak of that care-free period when every
+      one lived on good terms with his neighbour, and all was simple and
+      unsophisticated. Vassili invited Chichikov to seat himself, and the party
+      approached, for that purpose, the benches under the lime trees; after
+      which a youth of about seventeen, and clad in a red shirt, brought
+      decanters containing various kinds of kvass (some of them as thick as
+      syrup, and others hissing like aerated lemonade), deposited the same upon
+      the table, and, taking up a spade which he had left leaning against a
+      tree, moved away towards the garden. The reason of this was that in the
+      brothers’ household, as in that of Kostanzhoglo, no servants were kept,
+      since the whole staff were rated as gardeners, and performed that duty in
+      rotation&mdash;Vassili holding that domestic service was not a specialised
+      calling, but one to which any one might contribute a hand, and therefore
+      one which did not require special menials to be kept for the purpose.
+      Moreover, he held that the average Russian peasant remains active and
+      willing (rather than lazy) only so long as he wears a shirt and a
+      peasant’s smock; but that as soon as ever he finds himself put into a
+      German tailcoat, he becomes awkward, sluggish, indolent, disinclined to
+      change his vest or take a bath, fond of sleeping in his clothes, and
+      certain to breed fleas and bugs under the German apparel. And it may be
+      that Vassili was right. At all events, the brothers’ peasantry were
+      exceedingly well clad&mdash;the women, in particular, having their
+      head-dresses spangled with gold, and the sleeves of their blouses
+      embroidered after the fashion of a Turkish shawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You see here the species of kvass for which our house has long been
+      famous,” said Vassili to Chichikov. The latter poured himself out a
+      glassful from the first decanter which he lighted upon, and found the
+      contents to be linden honey of a kind never tasted by him even in Poland,
+      seeing that it had a sparkle like that of champagne, and also an
+      effervescence which sent a pleasant spray from the mouth into the nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nectar!” he proclaimed. Then he took some from a second decanter. It
+      proved to be even better than the first. “A beverage of beverages!” he
+      exclaimed. “At your respected brother-in-law’s I tasted the finest syrup
+      which has ever come my way, but here I have tasted the very finest kvass.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet the recipe for the syrup also came from here,” said Vassili, “seeing
+      that my sister took it with her. By the way, to what part of the country,
+      and to what places, are you thinking of travelling?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To tell the truth,” replied Chichikov, rocking himself to and fro on the
+      bench, and smoothing his knee with his hand, and gently inclining his
+      head, “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+      others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and, I
+      might add, a generous benefactor of mine, has charged me with commissions
+      to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are relatives, I
+      may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in that, in
+      addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the world and
+      the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, to so speak, a living book, a
+      second course of education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vassili took thought. “The man speaks floridly,” he reflected, “yet his
+      words contain a certain element of truth.” After a moment’s silence he
+      added to Platon: “I am beginning to think that the tour might help you to
+      bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition of mental slumber. You
+      have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness or satiety, as through a
+      lack of vivid perceptions and impressions. For myself, I am your complete
+      antithesis. I should be only too glad if I could feel less acutely, if I
+      could take things less to heart.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Emotion has become a disease with you,” said Platon. “You seek your own
+      troubles, and make your own anxieties.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How can you say that when ready-made anxieties greet one at every step?”
+       exclaimed Vassili. “For example, have you heard of the trick which
+      Lienitsin has just played us&mdash;of his seizing the piece of vacant land
+      whither our peasants resort for their sports? That piece I would not sell
+      for all the money in the world. It has long been our peasants’
+      play-ground, and all the traditions of our village are bound up with it.
+      Moreover, for me, old custom is a sacred thing for which I would gladly
+      sacrifice everything else.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Lienitsin cannot have known of this, or he would not have seized the
+      land,” said Platon. “He is a newcomer, just arrived from St. Petersburg. A
+      few words of explanation ought to meet the case.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But he DOES know of what I have stated; he DOES know of it. Purposely I
+      sent him word to that affect, yet he has returned me the rudest of
+      answers.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then go yourself and explain matters to him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I will not do that; he has tried to carry off things with too high a
+      hand. But YOU can go if you like.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I would certainly go were it not that I scarcely like to interfere. Also,
+      I am a man whom he could easily hoodwink and outwit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would it help you if <i>I</i> were to go?” put in Chichikov. “Pray
+      enlighten me as to the matter.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vassili glanced at the speaker, and thought to himself: “What a passion
+      the man has for travelling!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, pray give me an idea of the kind of fellow,” repeated Chichikov,
+      “and also outline to me the affair.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should be ashamed to trouble you with such an unpleasant commission,”
+       replied Vassili. “He is a man whom I take to be an utter rascal.
+      Originally a member of a family of plain dvoriane in this province, he
+      entered the Civil Service in St. Petersburg, then married some one’s
+      natural daughter in that city, and has returned to lord it with a high
+      hand. I cannot bear the tone he adopts. Our folk are by no means fools.
+      They do not look upon the current fashion as the Tsar’s ukaz any more than
+      they look upon St. Petersburg as the Church.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Naturally,” said Chichikov. “But tell me more of the particulars of the
+      quarrel.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are these. He needs additional land and, had he not acted as he has
+      done, I would have given him some land elsewhere for nothing; but, as it
+      is, the pestilent fellow has taken it into his head to&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think I had better go and have a talk with him. That might settle the
+      affair. Several times have people charged me with similar commissions, and
+      never have they repented of it. General Betristchev is an example.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless I am ashamed that you should be put to the annoyance of
+      having to converse with such a fellow.”
+     </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+             [At this point there occurs a long hiatus.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      “And above all things, such a transaction would need to be carried through
+      in secret,” said Chichikov. “True, the law does not forbid such things,
+      but there is always the risk of a scandal.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, quite so,” said Lienitsin with head bent down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then we agree!” exclaimed Chichikov. “How charming! As I say, my business
+      is both legal and illegal. Though needing to effect a mortgage, I desire
+      to put no one to the risk of having to pay the two roubles on each living
+      soul; wherefore I have conceived the idea of relieving landowners of that
+      distasteful obligation by acquiring dead and absconded souls who have
+      failed to disappear from the revision list. This enables me at once to
+      perform an act of Christian charity and to remove from the shoulders of
+      our more impoverished proprietors the burden of tax-payment upon souls of
+      the kind specified. Should you yourself care to do business with me, we
+      will draw up a formal purchase agreement as though the souls in question
+      were still alive.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it would be such a curious arrangement,” muttered Lienitsin, moving
+      his chair and himself a little further away. “It would be an arrangement
+      which, er&mdash;er&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would involve you in no scandal whatever, seeing that the affair would be
+      carried through in secret. Moreover, between friends who are well-disposed
+      towards one another&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov adopted a firmer and more decided tone. “I repeat that there
+      would be no scandal,” he said. “The transaction would take place as
+      between good friends, and as between friends of mature age, and as between
+      friends of good status, and as between friends who know how to keep their
+      own counsel.” And, so saying, he looked his interlocutor frankly and
+      generously in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless Lienitsin’s resourcefulness and acumen in business matters
+      failed to relieve his mind of a certain perplexity&mdash;and the less so
+      since he had contrived to become caught in his own net. Yet, in general,
+      he possessed neither a love for nor a talent for underhand dealings, and,
+      had not fate and circumstances favoured Chichikov by causing Lienitsin’s
+      wife to enter the room at that moment, things might have turned out very
+      differently from what they did. Madame was a pale, thin,
+      insignificant-looking young lady, but none the less a lady who wore her
+      clothes a la St. Petersburg, and cultivated the society of persons who
+      were unimpeachably comme il faut. Behind her, borne in a nurse’s arms,
+      came the first fruits of the love of husband and wife. Adopting his most
+      telling method of approach (the method accompanied with a sidelong
+      inclination of the head and a sort of hop), Chichikov hastened to greet
+      the lady from the metropolis, and then the baby. At first the latter
+      started to bellow disapproval, but the words “Agoo, agoo, my pet!” added
+      to a little cracking of the fingers and a sight of a beautiful seal on a
+      watch chain, enabled Chichikov to weedle the infant into his arms; after
+      which he fell to swinging it up and down until he had contrived to raise a
+      smile on its face&mdash;a circumstance which greatly delighted the
+      parents, and finally inclined the father in his visitor’s favour.
+      Suddenly, however&mdash;whether from pleasure or from some other cause&mdash;the
+      infant misbehaved itself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My God!” cried Madame. “He has gone and spoilt your frockcoat!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      True enough, on glancing downwards, Chichikov saw that the sleeve of his
+      brand-new garment had indeed suffered a hurt. “If I could catch you alone,
+      you little devil,” he muttered to himself, “I’d shoot you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Host, hostess and nurse all ran for eau-de-Cologne, and from three sides
+      set themselves to rub the spot affected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind, never mind; it is nothing,” said Chichikov as he strove to
+      communicate to his features as cheerful an expression as possible. “What
+      does it matter what a child may spoil during the golden age of its
+      infancy?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To himself he remarked: “The little brute! Would it could be devoured by
+      wolves. It has made only too good a shot, the cussed young ragamuffin!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How, after this&mdash;after the guest had shown such innocent affection
+      for the little one, and magnanimously paid for his so doing with a
+      brand-new suit&mdash;could the father remain obdurate? Nevertheless, to
+      avoid setting a bad example to the countryside, he and Chichikov agreed to
+      carry through the transaction PRIVATELY, lest, otherwise, a scandal should
+      arise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “In return,” said Chichikov, “would you mind doing me the following
+      favour? I desire to mediate in the matter of your difference with the
+      Brothers Platonov. I believe that you wish to acquire some additional
+      land? Is not that so?”
+     </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+            [Here there occurs a hiatus in the original.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov’s tour in search of
+      a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little money passed
+      into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he did not steal, he
+      merely used. And every one of us at times does the same: one man with
+      regard to Government timber, and another with regard to a sum belonging to
+      his employer, while a third defrauds his children for the sake of an
+      actress, and a fourth robs his peasantry for the sake of smart furniture
+      or a carriage. What can one do when one is surrounded on every side with
+      roguery, and everywhere there are insanely expensive restaurants, masked
+      balls, and dances to the music of gipsy bands? To abstain when every one
+      else is indulging in these things, and fashion commands, is difficult
+      indeed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov was for setting forth again, but the roads had now got into a
+      bad state, and, in addition, there was in preparation a second fair&mdash;one
+      for the dvoriane only. The former fair had been held for the sale of
+      horses, cattle, cheese, and other peasant produce, and the buyers had been
+      merely cattle-jobbers and kulaks; but this time the function was to be one
+      for the sale of manorial produce which had been bought up by wholesale
+      dealers at Nizhni Novgorod, and then transferred hither. To the fair, of
+      course, came those ravishers of the Russian purse who, in the shape of
+      Frenchmen with pomades and Frenchwomen with hats, make away with money
+      earned by blood and hard work, and, like the locusts of Egypt (to use
+      Kostanzhoglo’s term) not only devour their prey, but also dig holes in the
+      ground and leave behind their eggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although, unfortunately, the occurrence of a bad harvest retained many
+      landowners at their country houses, the local tchinovniks (whom the
+      failure of the harvest did NOT touch) proceeded to let themselves go&mdash;as
+      also, to their undoing, did their wives. The reading of books of the type
+      diffused, in these modern days, for the inoculation of humanity with a
+      craving for new and superior amenities of life had caused every one to
+      conceive a passion for experimenting with the latest luxury; and to meet
+      this want the French wine merchant opened a new establishment in the shape
+      of a restaurant as had never before been heard of in the province&mdash;a
+      restaurant where supper could be procured on credit as regarded one-half,
+      and for an unprecedentedly low sum as regarded the other. This exactly
+      suited both heads of boards and clerks who were living in hope of being
+      able some day to resume their bribes-taking from suitors. There also
+      developed a tendency to compete in the matter of horses and liveried
+      flunkeys; with the result that despite the damp and snowy weather
+      exceedingly elegant turnouts took to parading backwards and forwards.
+      Whence these equipages had come God only knows, but at least they would
+      not have disgraced St. Petersburg. From within them merchants and
+      attorneys doffed their caps to ladies, and inquired after their health,
+      and likewise it became a rare sight to see a bearded man in a rough fur
+      cap, since every one now went about clean-shaven and with dirty teeth,
+      after the European fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Sir, I beg of you to inspect my goods,” said a tradesman as Chichikov was
+      passing his establishment. “Within my doors you will find a large variety
+      of clothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you a cloth of bilberry-coloured check?” inquired the person
+      addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have cloths of the finest kind,” replied the tradesman, raising his cap
+      with one hand, and pointing to his shop with the other. Chichikov entered,
+      and in a trice the proprietor had dived beneath the counter, and appeared
+      on the other side of it, with his back to his wares and his face towards
+      the customer. Leaning forward on the tips of his fingers, and indicating
+      his merchandise with just the suspicion of a nod, he requested the
+      gentleman to specify exactly the species of cloth which he required.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A cloth with an olive-coloured or a bottle-tinted spot in its pattern&mdash;anything
+      in the nature of bilberry,” explained Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That being so, sir, I may say that I am about to show you clothes of a
+      quality which even our illustrious capitals could not surpass. Hi, boy!
+      Reach down that roll up there&mdash;number 34. No, NOT that one, fool!
+      Such fellows as you are always too good for your job. There&mdash;hand it
+      to me. This is indeed a nice pattern!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfolding the garment, the tradesman thrust it close to Chichikov’s nose
+      in order that he might not only handle, but also smell it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Excellent, but not what I want,” pronounced Chichikov. “Formerly I was in
+      the Custom’s Department, and therefore wear none but cloth of the latest
+      make. What I want is of a ruddier pattern than this&mdash;not exactly a
+      bottle-tinted pattern, but something approaching bilberry.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I understand, sir. Of course you require only the very newest thing. A
+      cloth of that kind I DO possess, sir, and though excessive in price, it is
+      of a quality to match.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carrying the roll of stuff to the light&mdash;even stepping into the
+      street for the purpose&mdash;the shopman unfolded his prize with the
+      words, “A truly beautiful shade! A cloth of smoked grey, shot with flame
+      colour!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The material met with the customer’s approval, a price was agreed upon,
+      and with incredible celerity the vendor made up the purchase into a
+      brown-paper parcel, and stowed it away in Chichikov’s koliaska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a voice asked to be shown a black frockcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil take me if it isn’t Khlobuev!” muttered our hero, turning his
+      back upon the newcomer. Unfortunately the other had seen him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come, Paul Ivanovitch!” he expostulated. “Surely you do not intend
+      to overlook me? I have been searching for you everywhere, for I have
+      something important to say to you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My dear sir, my very dear sir,” said Chichikov as he pressed Khlobuev’s
+      hand, “I can assure you that, had I the necessary leisure, I should at all
+      times be charmed to converse with you.” And mentally he added: “Would that
+      the Evil One would fly away with you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same time Murazov, the great landowner, entered the shop. As
+      he did so our hero hastened to exclaim: “Why, it is Athanasi
+      Vassilievitch! How ARE you, my very dear sir?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well enough,” replied Murazov, removing his cap (Khlobuev and the shopman
+      had already done the same). “How, may I ask, are YOU?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But poorly,” replied Chichikov, “for of late I have been troubled with
+      indigestion, and my sleep is bad. I do not get sufficient exercise.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, instead of probing deeper into the subject of Chichikov’s
+      ailments, Murazov turned to Khlobuev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I saw you enter the shop,” he said, “and therefore followed you, for I
+      have something important for your ear. Could you spare me a minute or
+      two?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly, certainly,” said Khlobuev, and the pair left the shop
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I wonder what is afoot between them,” said Chichikov to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A wise and noble gentleman, Athanasi Vassilievitch!” remarked the
+      tradesman. Chichikov made no reply save a gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch, I have been looking for you everywhere,” Lienitsin’s
+      voice said from behind him, while again the tradesman hastened to remove
+      his cap. “Pray come home with me, for I have something to say to you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov scanned the speaker’s face, but could make nothing of it. Paying
+      the tradesman for the cloth, he left the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Murazov had conveyed Khlobuev to his rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tell me,” he said to his guest, “exactly how your affairs stand. I take
+      it that, after all, your aunt left you something?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It would be difficult to say whether or not my affairs are improved,”
+       replied Khlobuev. “True, fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles came to
+      me from Madame Khanasarova, but I had to pay them away to satisfy my
+      debts. Consequently I am once more destitute. But the important point is
+      that there was trickery connected with the legacy, and shameful trickery
+      at that. Yes, though it may surprise you, it is a fact that that fellow
+      Chichikov&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Semen Semenovitch, but, before you go on to speak of Chichikov, pray
+      tell me something about yourself, and how much, in your opinion, would be
+      sufficient to clear you of your difficulties?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My difficulties are grievous,” replied Khlobuev. “To rid myself of them,
+      and also to have enough to go on with, I should need to acquire at least a
+      hundred thousand roubles, if not more. In short, things are becoming
+      impossible for me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And, had you the money, what should you do with it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should rent a tenement, and devote myself to the education of my
+      children. Not a thought should I give to myself, for my career is over,
+      seeing that it is impossible for me to re-enter the Civil Service and I am
+      good for nothing else.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, when a man is leading an idle life he is apt to incur
+      temptations which shun his better-employed brother.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but beyond question I am good for nothing, so broken is my health,
+      and such a martyr I am to dyspepsia.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how do you propose to live without working? How can a man like you
+      exist without a post or a position of any kind? Look around you at the
+      works of God. Everything has its proper function, and pursues its proper
+      course. Even a stone can be used for one purpose or another. How, then,
+      can it be right for a man who is a thinking being to remain a drone?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I should not be a drone, for I should employ myself with the
+      education of my children.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Semen Semenovitch&mdash;no: THAT you would find the hardest task of
+      all. For how can a man educate his children who has never even educated
+      himself? Instruction can be imparted to children only through the medium
+      of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a profitable
+      example&mdash;a life which has been spent in idleness and the playing of
+      cards? No, Semen Semenovitch. You had far better hand your children over
+      to me. Otherwise they will be ruined. Do not think that I am jesting.
+      Idleness has wrecked your life, and you must flee from it. Can a man live
+      with nothing to keep him in place? Even a journeyman labourer who earns
+      the barest pittance may take an interest in his occupation.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Athanasi Vassilievitch, I have tried to overcome myself, but what further
+      resource lies open to me? Can I who am old and incapable re-enter the
+      Civil Service and spend year after year at a desk with youths who are just
+      starting their careers? Moreover, I have lost the trick of taking bribes;
+      I should only hinder both myself and others; while, as you know, it is a
+      department which has an established caste of its own. Therefore, though I
+      have considered, and even attempted to obtain, every conceivable post, I
+      find myself incompetent for them all. Only in a monastery should I&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay, nay. Monasteries, again, are only for those who have worked. To
+      those who have spent their youth in dissipation such havens say what the
+      ant said to the dragonfly&mdash;namely, ‘Go you away, and return to your
+      dancing.’ Yes, even in a monastery do folk toil and toil&mdash;they do not
+      sit playing whist.” Murazov looked at Khlobuev, and added: “Semen
+      Semenovitch, you are deceiving both yourself and me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Khlobuev could not utter a word in reply, and Murazov began to feel
+      sorry for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen, Semen Semenovitch,” he went on. “I know that you say your
+      prayers, and that you go to church, and that you observe both Matins and
+      Vespers, and that, though averse to early rising, you leave your bed at
+      four o’clock in the morning before the household fires have been lit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said Khlobuev, “that is another matter
+      altogether. That I do, not for man’s sake, but for the sake of Him who has
+      ordered all things here on earth. Yes, I believe that He at least can feel
+      compassion for me, that He at least, though I be foul and lowly, will
+      pardon me and receive me when all men have cast me out, and my best friend
+      has betrayed me and boasted that he has done it for a good end.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Khlobuev’s face was glowing with emotion, and from the older man’s eyes
+      also a tear had started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You will do well to hearken unto Him who is merciful,” he said. “But
+      remember also that, in the eyes of the All-Merciful, honest toil is of
+      equal merit with a prayer. Therefore take unto yourself whatsoever task
+      you may, and do it as though you were doing it, not unto man, but unto
+      God. Even though to your lot there should fall but the cleaning of a
+      floor, clean that floor as though it were being cleaned for Him alone. And
+      thence at least this good you will reap: that there will remain to you no
+      time for what is evil&mdash;for card playing, for feasting, for all the
+      life of this gay world. Are you acquainted with Ivan Potapitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, not only am I acquainted with him, but I also greatly respect him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Time was when Ivan Potapitch was a merchant worth half a million roubles.
+      In everything did he look but for gain, and his affairs prospered
+      exceedingly, so much so that he was able to send his son to be educated in
+      France, and to marry his daughter to a General. And whether in his office
+      or at the Exchange, he would stop any friend whom he encountered and carry
+      him off to a tavern to drink, and spend whole days thus employed. But at
+      last he became bankrupt, and God sent him other misfortunes also. His son!
+      Ah, well! Ivan Potapitch is now my steward, for he had to begin life over
+      again. Yet once more his affairs are in order, and, had it been his wish,
+      he could have restarted in business with a capital of half a million
+      roubles. ‘But no,’ he said. ‘A steward am I, and a steward will I remain
+      to the end; for, from being full-stomached and heavy with dropsy, I have
+      become strong and well.’ Not a drop of liquor passes his lips, but only
+      cabbage soup and gruel. And he prays as none of the rest of us pray, and
+      he helps the poor as none of the rest of us help them; and to this he
+      would add yet further charity if his means permitted him to do so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Khlobuev remained silent, as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder man took his two hands in his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Semen Semenovitch,” he said, “you cannot think how much I pity you, or
+      how much I have had you in my thoughts. Listen to me. In the monastery
+      there is a recluse who never looks upon a human face. Of all men whom I
+      know he has the broadest mind, and he breaks not his silence save to give
+      advice. To him I went and said that I had a friend (though I did not
+      actually mention your name) who was in great trouble of soul. Suddenly the
+      recluse interrupted me with the words: ‘God’s work first, and our own
+      last. There is need for a church to be built, but no money wherewith to
+      build it. Money must be collected to that end.’ Then he shut to the
+      wicket. I wondered to myself what this could mean, and concluded that the
+      recluse had been unwilling to accord me his counsel. Next I repaired to
+      the Archimandrite, and had scarce reached his door when he inquired of me
+      whether I could commend to him a man meet to be entrusted with the
+      collection of alms for a church&mdash;a man who should belong to the
+      dvoriane or to the more lettered merchants, but who would guard the trust
+      as he would guard the salvation of his soul. On the instant thought I to
+      myself: ‘Why should not the Holy Father appoint my friend Semen
+      Semenovitch? For the way of suffering would benefit him greatly; and as he
+      passed with his ledger from landowner to peasant, and from peasant to
+      townsman, he would learn where folk dwell, and who stands in need of
+      aught, and thus would become better acquainted with the countryside than
+      folk who dwell in cities. And, thus become, he would find that his
+      services were always in demand.’ Only of late did the Governor-General say
+      to me that, could he but be furnished with the name of a secretary who
+      should know his work not only by the book but also by experience, he would
+      give him a great sum, since nothing is to be learned by the former means,
+      and, through it, much confusion arises.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You confound me, you overwhelm me!” said Khlobuev, staring at his
+      companion in open-eyed astonishment. “I can scarcely believe that your
+      words are true, seeing that for such a trust an active, indefatigable man
+      would be necessary. Moreover, how could I leave my wife and children
+      unprovided for?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have no fear,” said Murazov, “I myself will take them under my care, as
+      well as procure for the children a tutor. Far better and nobler were it
+      for you to be travelling with a wallet, and asking alms on behalf of God,
+      then to be remaining here and asking alms for yourself alone. Likewise, I
+      will furnish you with a tilt-waggon, so that you may be saved some of the
+      hardships of the journey, and thus be preserved in good health. Also, I
+      will give you some money for the journey, in order that, as you pass on
+      your way, you may give to those who stand in greater need than their
+      fellows. Thus, if, before giving, you assure yourself that the recipient
+      of the alms is worthy of the same, you will do much good; and as you
+      travel you will become acquainted with all men and sundry, and they will
+      treat you, not as a tchinovnik to be feared, but as one to whom, as a
+      petitioner on behalf of the Church, they may unloose their tongues without
+      peril.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my part
+      in it were it not likely to exceed my strength.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is there that does NOT exceed your strength?” said Murazov. “Nothing
+      is wholly proportionate to it&mdash;everything surpasses it. Help from
+      above is necessary: otherwise we are all powerless. Strength comes of
+      prayer, and of prayer alone. When a man crosses himself, and cries, ‘Lord,
+      have mercy upon me!’ he soon stems the current and wins to the shore. Nor
+      need you take any prolonged thought concerning this matter. All that you
+      need do is to accept it as a commission sent of God. The tilt-waggon can
+      be prepared for you immediately; and then, as soon as you have been to the
+      Archimandrite for your book of accounts and his blessing, you will be free
+      to start on your journey.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I submit myself to you, and accept the commission as a divine trust.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And even as Khlobuev spoke he felt renewed vigour and confidence arise in
+      his soul, and his mind begin to awake to a sense of hopefulness of
+      eventually being able to put to flight his troubles. And even as it was,
+      the world seemed to be growing dim to his eyes....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, plea after plea had been presented to the legal authorities,
+      and daily were relatives whom no one had before heard of putting in an
+      appearance. Yes, like vultures to a corpse did these good folk come
+      flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov had left behind
+      her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov, rumours with regard
+      to the validity of the second will, rumours with regard to will number
+      one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of funds. Also, there came to
+      hand information with regard both to Chichikov’s purchase of dead souls
+      and to his conniving at contraband goods during his service in the Customs
+      Department. In short, every possible item of evidence was exhumed, and the
+      whole of his previous history investigated. How the authorities had come
+      to suspect and to ascertain all this God only knows, but the fact remains
+      that there had fallen into the hands of those authorities information
+      concerning matters of which Chichikov had believed only himself and the
+      four walls to be aware. True, for a time these matters remained within the
+      cognisance of none but the functionaries concerned, and failed to reach
+      Chichikov’s ears; but at length a letter from a confidential friend gave
+      him reason to think that the fat was about to fall into the fire. Said the
+      letter briefly: “Dear sir, I beg to advise you that possibly legal trouble
+      is pending, but that you have no cause for uneasiness, seeing that
+      everything will be attended to by yours very truly.” Yet, in spite of its
+      tenor, the epistle reassured its recipient. “What a genius the fellow is!”
+       thought Chichikov to himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his
+      tailor arrived with the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a
+      certain sense of pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey
+      shot with flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then
+      try on the breeches&mdash;the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite
+      concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves
+      (though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a
+      drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight
+      tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined
+      that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. “Sir,” he said
+      triumphantly, “you may rest assured that the work has been executed
+      exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St.
+      Petersburg, could have done it better.” As a matter of fact, the tailor
+      himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his signboard
+      “Foreign Costumier from London and Paris”&mdash;the truth being that by
+      the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to mere
+      “Karlsruhe” and “Copenhagen” he designed to acquire business and cut out
+      his local rivals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov graciously settled the man’s account, and, as soon as he had
+      gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an artist
+      of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to look better
+      than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a still more
+      interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while his white
+      collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened the effect of
+      the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie, the rich satin
+      waistcoat emphasised the dickey, and the
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, shining like silk,
+      splendidly rounded off the whole. When he turned to the right he looked
+      well: when he turned to the left he looked even better. In short, it was a
+      costume worthy of a Lord Chamberlain or the species of dandy who shrinks
+      from swearing in the Russian language, but amply relieves his feelings in
+      the language of France. Next, inclining his head slightly to one side, our
+      hero endeavoured to pose as though he were addressing a middle-aged lady
+      of exquisite refinement; and the result of these efforts was a picture
+      which any artist might have yearned to portray. Next, his delight led him
+      gracefully to execute a hop in ballet fashion, so that the wardrobe
+      trembled and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne came crashing to the floor. Yet
+      even this contretemps did not upset him; he merely called the offending
+      bottle a fool, and then debated whom first he should visit in his
+      attractive guise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels, and
+      then the voice of a gendarme saying: “You are commanded to present
+      yourself before the Governor-General!” Turning round, Chichikov stared in
+      horror at the spectacle presented; for in the doorway there was standing
+      an apparition wearing a huge moustache, a helmet surmounted with a
+      horsehair plume, a pair of crossed shoulder-belts, and a gigantic sword! A
+      whole army might have been combined into a single individual! And when
+      Chichikov opened his mouth to speak the apparition repeated, “You are
+      commanded to present yourself before the Governor-General,” and at the
+      same moment our hero caught sight both of a second apparition outside the
+      door and of a coach waiting beneath the window. What was to be done?
+      Nothing whatever was possible. Just as he stood&mdash;in his
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour suit&mdash;he had then and there to
+      enter the vehicle, and, shaking in every limb, and with a gendarme seated
+      by his side, to start for the residence of the Governor-General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even in the hall of that establishment no time was given him to pull
+      himself together, for at once an aide-de-camp said: “Go inside
+      immediately, for the Prince is awaiting you.” And as in a dream did our
+      hero see a vestibule where couriers were being handed dispatches, and then
+      a salon which he crossed with the thought, “I suppose I am not to be
+      allowed a trial, but shall be sent straight to Siberia!” And at the
+      thought his heart started beating in a manner which the most jealous of
+      lovers could not have rivalled. At length there opened a door, and before
+      him he saw a study full of portfolios, ledgers, and dispatch-boxes, with,
+      standing behind them, the gravely menacing figure of the Prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “There stands my executioner,” thought Chichikov to himself. “He is about
+      to tear me to pieces as a wolf tears a lamb.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, the Prince’s lips were simply quivering with rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Once before did I spare you,” he said, “and allow you to remain in the
+      town when you ought to have been in prison: yet your only return for my
+      clemency has been to revert to a career of fraud&mdash;and of fraud as
+      dishonourable as ever a man engaged in.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To what dishonourable fraud do you refer, your Highness?” asked
+      Chichikov, trembling from head to foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince approached, and looked him straight in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let me tell you,” he said, “that the woman whom you induced to witness a
+      certain will has been arrested, and that you will be confronted with her.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The world seemed suddenly to grow dim before Chichikov’s sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” he gasped, “I will tell you the whole truth, and nothing
+      but the truth. I am guilty&mdash;yes, I am guilty; but I am not so guilty
+      as you think, for I was led away by rascals.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That any one can have led you away is impossible,” retorted the Prince.
+      “Recorded against your name there stand more felonies than even the most
+      hardened liar could have invented. I believe that never in your life have
+      you done a deed not innately dishonourable&mdash;that not a kopeck have
+      you ever obtained by aught but shameful methods of trickery and theft, the
+      penalty for which is Siberia and the knut. But enough of this! From this
+      room you will be conveyed to prison, where, with other rogues and thieves,
+      you will be confined until your trial may come on. And this is lenient
+      treatment on my part, for you are worse, far worse, than the felons who
+      will be your companions. THEY are but poor men in smocks and sheepskins,
+      whereas YOU&mdash;” Without concluding his words, the Prince shot a glance
+      at Chichikov’s smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour apparel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he touched a bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” cried Chichikov, “have mercy upon me! You are the father
+      of a family! Spare me for the sake of my aged mother!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish!” exclaimed the Prince. “Even as before you besought me for the
+      sake of a wife and children whom you did not even possess, so now you
+      would speak to me of an aged mother!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” protested Chichikov, “though I am a wretch and the lowest
+      of rascals, and though it is true that I lied when I told you that I
+      possessed a wife and children, I swear that, as God is my witness, it has
+      always been my DESIRE to possess a wife, and to fulfil all the duties of a
+      man and a citizen, and to earn the respect of my fellows and the
+      authorities. But what could be done against the force of circumstances? By
+      hook or by crook I have ever been forced to win a living, though
+      confronted at every step by wiles and temptations and traitorous enemies
+      and despoilers. So much has this been so that my life has, throughout,
+      resembled a barque tossed by tempestuous waves, a barque driven at the
+      mercy of the winds. Ah, I am only a man, your Highness!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in a moment the tears had gushed in torrents from his eyes, and he had
+      fallen forward at the Prince’s feet&mdash;fallen forward just as he was,
+      in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, his velvet waistcoat,
+      his satin tie, and his exquisitely fitting breeches, while from his neatly
+      brushed pate, as again and again he struck his hand against his forehead,
+      there came an odorous whiff of best-quality eau-de-Cologne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Away with him!” exclaimed the Prince to the gendarme who had just
+      entered. “Summon the escort to remove him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness!” Chichikov cried again as he clasped the Prince’s knees;
+      but, shuddering all over, and struggling to free himself, the Prince
+      repeated his order for the prisoner’s removal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, I say that I will not leave this room until you have
+      accorded me mercy!” cried Chichikov as he clung to the Prince’s leg with
+      such tenacity that, frockcoat and all, he began to be dragged along the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Away with him, I say!” once more the Prince exclaimed with the sort of
+      indefinable aversion which one feels at the sight of a repulsive insect
+      which he cannot summon up the courage to crush with his boot. So
+      convulsively did the Prince shudder that Chichikov, clinging to his leg,
+      received a kick on the nose. Yet still the prisoner retained his hold;
+      until at length a couple of burly gendarmes tore him away and, grasping
+      his arms, hurried him&mdash;pale, dishevelled, and in that strange,
+      half-conscious condition into which a man sinks when he sees before him
+      only the dark, terrible figure of death, the phantom which is so abhorrent
+      to all our natures&mdash;from the building. But on the threshold the party
+      came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov’s heart the circumstance
+      revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with almost supernatural strength
+      from the grasp of the escorting gendarmes, he threw himself at the feet of
+      the horror-stricken old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” Murazov exclaimed, “what has happened to you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Save me!” gasped Chichikov. “They are taking me away to prison and
+      death!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet almost as he spoke the gendarmes seized him again, and hurried him
+      away so swiftly that Murazov’s reply escaped his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A damp, mouldy cell which reeked of soldiers’ boots and leggings, an
+      unvarnished table, two sorry chairs, a window closed with a grating, a
+      crazy stove which, while letting the smoke emerge through its cracks, gave
+      out no heat&mdash;such was the den to which the man who had just begun to
+      taste the sweets of life, and to attract the attention of his fellows with
+      his new suit of smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour, now found himself
+      consigned. Not even necessaries had he been allowed to bring away with
+      him, nor his dispatch-box which contained all his booty. No, with the
+      indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands of a
+      tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled about the
+      floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and gnaw at his
+      heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that heart so
+      defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind that, should he
+      have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery, there would no
+      longer be a Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over every one, there
+      hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his arrival at the
+      prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Compared with poor Chichikov’s sense of relief when the old man entered
+      his cell, even the pleasure experienced by a thirsty, dusty traveller when
+      he is given a drink of clear spring water to cool his dry, parched throat
+      fades into insignificance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, my deliverer!” he cried as he rose from the floor, where he had been
+      grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old man’s hand,
+      he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting into tears, he
+      added: “God Himself will reward you for having come to visit an
+      unfortunate wretch!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Murazov looked at him sorrowfully, and said no more than “Ah, Paul
+      Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch! What has happened?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What has happened?” cried Chichikov. “I have been ruined by an accursed
+      woman. That was because I could not do things in moderation&mdash;I was
+      powerless to stop myself in time, Satan tempted me, and drove me from my
+      senses, and bereft me of human prudence. Yes, truly I have sinned, I have
+      sinned! Yet how came I so to sin? To think that a dvorianin&mdash;yes, a
+      dvorianin&mdash;should be thrown into prison without process or trial! I
+      repeat, a dvorianin! Why was I not given time to go home and collect my
+      effects? Whereas now they are left with no one to look after them! My
+      dispatch-box, my dispatch-box! It contained my whole property, all that my
+      heart’s blood and years of toil and want have been needed to acquire. And
+      now everything will be stolen, Athanasi Vassilievitch&mdash;everything
+      will be taken from me! My God!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, unable to stand against the torrent of grief which came rushing over
+      his heart once more, he sobbed aloud in tones which penetrated even the
+      thickness of the prison walls, and made dull echoes awake behind them.
+      Then, tearing off his satin tie, and seizing by the collar, the
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, he stripped the latter from
+      his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Paul Ivanovitch,” said the old man, “how even now the property which
+      you have acquired is blinding your eyes, and causing you to fail to
+      realise your terrible position!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, my good friend and benefactor,” wailed poor Chichikov despairingly,
+      and clasping Murazov by the knees. “Yet save me if you can! The Prince is
+      fond of you, and would do anything for your sake.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Paul Ivanovitch; however much I might wish to save you, and however
+      much I might try to do so, I could not help you as you desire; for it is
+      to the power of an inexorable law, and not to the authority of any one
+      man, that you have rendered yourself subject.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Satan tempted me, and has ended by making of me an outcast from the human
+      race!” Chichikov beat his head against the wall and struck the table with
+      his fist until the blood spurted from his hand. Yet neither his head nor
+      his hand seemed to be conscious of the least pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Calm yourself, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov. “Calm yourself, and
+      consider how best you can make your peace with God. Think of your
+      miserable soul, and not of the judgment of man.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I will, Athanasi Vassilievitch, I will. But what a fate is mine! Did ever
+      such a fate befall a man? To think of all the patience with which I have
+      gathered my kopecks, of all the toil and trouble which I have endured! Yet
+      what I have done has not been done with the intention of robbing any one,
+      nor of cheating the Treasury. Why, then, did I gather those kopecks? I
+      gathered them to the end that one day I might be able to live in plenty,
+      and also to have something to leave to the wife and children whom, for the
+      benefit and welfare of my country, I hoped eventually to win and maintain.
+      That was why I gathered those kopecks. True, I worked by devious methods&mdash;that
+      I fully admit; but what else could I do? And even devious methods I
+      employed only when I saw that the straight road would not serve my purpose
+      so well as a crooked. Moreover, as I toiled, the appetite for those
+      methods grew upon me. Yet what I took I took only from the rich; whereas
+      villains exist who, while drawing thousands a year from the Treasury,
+      despoil the poor, and take from the man with nothing even that which he
+      has. Is it not the cruelty of fate, therefore, that, just when I was
+      beginning to reap the harvest of my toil&mdash;to touch it, so to speak,
+      with the tip of one finger&mdash;there should have arisen a sudden storm
+      which has sent my barque to pieces on a rock? My capital had nearly
+      reached the sum of three hundred thousand roubles, and a three-storied
+      house was as good as mine, and twice over I could have bought a country
+      estate. Why, then, should such a tempest have burst upon me? Why should I
+      have sustained such a blow? Was not my life already like a barque tossed
+      to and fro by the billows? Where is Heaven’s justice&mdash;where is the
+      reward for all my patience, for my boundless perseverance? Three times did
+      I have to begin life afresh, and each time that I lost my all I began with
+      a single kopeck at a moment when other men would have given themselves up
+      to despair and drink. How much did I not have to overcome. How much did I
+      not have to bear! Every kopeck which I gained I had to make with my whole
+      strength; for though, to others, wealth may come easily, every coin of
+      mine had to be ‘forged with a nail worth three kopecks’ as the proverb has
+      it. With such a nail&mdash;with the nail of an iron, unwearying
+      perseverance&mdash;did <i>I</i> forge my kopecks.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Convulsively sobbing with a grief which he could not repress, Chichikov
+      sank upon a chair, tore from his shoulders the last ragged, trailing
+      remnants of his frockcoat, and hurled them from him. Then, thrusting his
+      fingers into the hair which he had once been so careful to preserve, he
+      pulled it out by handfuls at a time, as though he hoped through physical
+      pain to deaden the mental agony which he was suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Murazov sat gazing in silence at the unwonted spectacle of a man
+      who had lately been mincing with the gait of a worldling or a military fop
+      now writhing in dishevelment and despair as he poured out upon the hostile
+      forces by which human ingenuity so often finds itself outwitted a flood of
+      invective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch,” at length said Murazov, “what could
+      not each of us rise to be did we but devote to good ends the same measure
+      of energy and of patience which we bestow upon unworthy objects! How much
+      good would not you yourself have effected! Yet I do not grieve so much for
+      the fact that you have sinned against your fellow as I grieve for the fact
+      that you have sinned against yourself and the rich store of gifts and
+      opportunities which has been committed to your care. Though originally
+      destined to rise, you have wandered from the path and fallen.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” cried poor Chichikov, clasping his friend’s
+      hands, “I swear to you that, if you would but restore me my freedom, and
+      recover for me my lost property, I would lead a different life from this
+      time forth. Save me, you who alone can work my deliverance! Save me!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How can I do that? So to do I should need to procure the setting aside of
+      a law. Again, even if I were to make the attempt, the Prince is a strict
+      administrator, and would refuse on any consideration to release you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but for you all things are possible. It is not the law that troubles
+      me: with that I could find a means to deal. It is the fact that for no
+      offence at all I have been cast into prison, and treated like a dog, and
+      deprived of my papers and dispatch-box and all my property. Save me if you
+      can.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again clasping the old man’s knees, he bedewed them with his tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov, shaking his head, “how that property of
+      yours still seals your eyes and ears, so that you cannot so much as listen
+      to the promptings of your own soul!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, I will think of my soul, too, if only you will save me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man began again, and then stopped. For a little
+      while there was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” at length he went on, “to save you does not lie within
+      my power. Surely you yourself see that? But, so far as I can, I will
+      endeavour to, at all events, lighten your lot and procure your eventual
+      release. Whether or not I shall succeed I do not know; but I will make the
+      attempt. And should I, contrary to my expectations, prove successful, I
+      beg of you, in return for these my efforts, to renounce all thought of
+      benefit from the property which you have acquired. Sincerely do I assure
+      you that, were I myself to be deprived of my property (and my property
+      greatly exceeds yours in magnitude), I should not shed a single tear. It
+      is not the property of which men can deprive us that matters, but the
+      property of which no one on earth can deprive or despoil us. You are a man
+      who has seen something of life&mdash;to use your own words, you have been
+      a barque tossed hither and thither by tempestuous waves: yet still will
+      there be left to you a remnant of substance on which to live, and
+      therefore I beseech you to settle down in some quiet nook where there is a
+      church, and where none but plain, good-hearted folk abide. Or, should you
+      feel a yearning to leave behind you posterity, take in marriage a good
+      woman who shall bring you, not money, but an aptitude for simple, modest
+      domestic life. But this life&mdash;the life of turmoil, with its longings
+      and its temptations&mdash;forget, and let it forget YOU; for there is no
+      peace in it. See for yourself how, at every step, it brings one but hatred
+      and treachery and deceit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed, yes!” agreed the repentant Chichikov. “Gladly will I do as you
+      wish, since for many a day past have I been longing to amend my life, and
+      to engage in husbandry, and to reorder my affairs. A demon, the tempter
+      Satan himself, has beguiled me and led me from the right path.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly there had recurred to Chichikov long-unknown, long-unfamiliar
+      feelings. Something seemed to be striving to come to life again in him&mdash;something
+      dim and remote, something which had been crushed out of his boyhood by the
+      dreary, deadening education of his youthful days, by his desolate home, by
+      his subsequent lack of family ties, by the poverty and niggardliness of
+      his early impressions, by the grim eye of fate&mdash;an eye which had
+      always seemed to be regarding him as through a misty, mournful,
+      frost-encrusted window-pane, and to be mocking at his struggles for
+      freedom. And as these feelings came back to the penitent a groan burst
+      from his lips, and, covering his face with his hands, he moaned: “It is
+      all true, it is all true!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of little avail are knowledge of the world and experience of men unless
+      based upon a secure foundation,” observed Murazov. “Though you have
+      fallen, Paul Ivanovitch, awake to better things, for as yet there is
+      time.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no!” groaned Chichikov in a voice which made Murazov’s heart bleed.
+      “It is too late, too late. More and more is the conviction gaining upon me
+      that I am powerless, that I have strayed too far ever to be able to do as
+      you bid me. The fact that I have become what I am is due to my early
+      schooling; for, though my father taught me moral lessons, and beat me, and
+      set me to copy maxims into a book, he himself stole land from his
+      neighbours, and forced me to help him. I have even known him to bring an
+      unjust suit, and defraud the orphan whose guardian he was! Consequently I
+      know and feel that, though my life has been different from his, I do not
+      hate roguery as I ought to hate it, and that my nature is coarse, and that
+      in me there is no real love for what is good, no real spark of that
+      beautiful instinct for well-doing which becomes a second nature, a settled
+      habit. Also, never do I yearn to strive for what is right as I yearn to
+      acquire property. This is no more than the truth. What else could I do but
+      confess it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “I know that you possess will-power, and that
+      you possess also perseverance. A medicine may be bitter, yet the patient
+      will gladly take it when assured that only by its means can he recover.
+      Therefore, if it really be that you have no genuine love for doing good,
+      do good by FORCING yourself to do so. Thus you will benefit yourself even
+      more than you will benefit him for whose sake the act is performed. Only
+      force yourself to do good just once and again, and, behold, you will
+      suddenly conceive the TRUE love for well-doing. That is so, believe me. ‘A
+      kingdom is to be won only by striving,’ says the proverb. That is to say,
+      things are to be attained only by putting forth one’s whole strength,
+      since nothing short of one’s whole strength will bring one to the desired
+      goal. Paul Ivanovitch, within you there is a source of strength denied to
+      many another man. I refer to the strength of an iron perseverance. Cannot
+      THAT help you to overcome? Most men are weak and lack will-power, whereas
+      I believe that you possess the power to act a hero’s part.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sinking deep into Chichikov’s heart, these words would seem to have
+      aroused in it a faint stirring of ambition, so much so that, if it was not
+      fortitude which shone in his eyes, at all events it was something virile,
+      and of much the same nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Athanasi Vassilievitch,” he said firmly, “if you will but petition for my
+      release, as well as for permission for me to leave here with a portion of
+      my property, I swear to you on my word of honour that I will begin a new
+      life, and buy a country estate, and become the head of a household, and
+      save money, not for myself, but for others, and do good everywhere, and to
+      the best of my ability, and forget alike myself and the feasting and
+      debauchery of town life, and lead, instead, a plain, sober existence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In that resolve may God strengthen you!” cried the old man with unbounded
+      joy. “And I, for my part, will do my utmost to procure your release. And
+      though God alone knows whether my efforts will be successful, at all
+      events I hope to bring about a mitigation of your sentence. Come, let me
+      embrace you! How you have filled my heart with gladness! With God’s help,
+      I will now go to the Prince.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next moment Chichikov found himself alone. His whole nature felt
+      shaken and softened, even as, when the bellows have fanned the furnace to
+      a sufficient heat, a plate compounded even of the hardest and most
+      fire-resisting metal dissolves, glows, and turns to the liquefied state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I myself can feel but little,” he reflected, “but I intend to use my
+      every faculty to help others to feel. I myself am but bad and worthless,
+      but I intend to do my utmost to set others on the right road. I myself am
+      but an indifferent Christian, but I intend to strive never to yield to
+      temptation, but to work hard, and to till my land with the sweat of my
+      brow, and to engage only in honourable pursuits, and to influence my
+      fellows in the same direction. For, after all, am I so very useless? At
+      least I could maintain a household, for I am frugal and active and
+      intelligent and steadfast. The only thing is to make up my mind to it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Chichikov pondered; and as he did so his half-awakened energies of
+      soul touched upon something. That is to say, dimly his instinct divined
+      that every man has a duty to perform, and that that duty may be performed
+      here, there, and everywhere, and no matter what the circumstances and the
+      emotions and the difficulties which compass a man about. And with such
+      clearness did Chichikov mentally picture to himself the life of grateful
+      toil which lies removed from the bustle of towns and the temptations which
+      man, forgetful of the obligation of labour, has invented to beguile an
+      hour of idleness that almost our hero forgot his unpleasant position, and
+      even felt ready to thank Providence for the calamity which had befallen
+      him, provided that it should end in his being released, and in his
+      receiving back a portion of his property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the massive door of the cell opened to admit a tchinovnik named
+      Samosvitov, a robust, sensual individual who was reputed by his comrades
+      to be something of a rake. Had he served in the army, he would have done
+      wonders, for he would have stormed any point, however dangerous and
+      inaccessible, and captured cannon under the very noses of the foe; but, as
+      it was, the lack of a more warlike field for his energies caused him to
+      devote the latter principally to dissipation. Nevertheless he enjoyed
+      great popularity, for he was loyal to the point that, once his word had
+      been given, nothing would ever make him break it. At the same time, some
+      reason or another led him to regard his superiors in the light of a
+      hostile battery which, come what might, he must breach at any weak or
+      unguarded spot or gap which might be capable of being utilised for the
+      purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “We have all heard of your plight,” he began as soon as the door had been
+      safely closed behind him. “Yes, every one has heard of it. But never mind.
+      Things will yet come right. We will do our very best for you, and act as
+      your humble servants in everything. Thirty thousand roubles is our price&mdash;no
+      more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” said Chichikov. “And, for that, shall I be completely
+      exonerated?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, completely, and also given some compensation for your loss of time.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how much am I to pay in return, you say?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Thirty thousand roubles, to be divided among ourselves, the
+      Governor-General’s staff, and the Governor-General’s secretary.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how is even that to be managed, for all my effects, including my
+      dispatch-box, will have been sealed up and taken away for examination?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In an hour’s time they will be within your hands again,” said Samosvitov.
+      “Shall we shake hands over the bargain?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov did so with a beating heart, for he could scarcely believe his
+      ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the present, then, farewell,” concluded Samosvitov. “I have
+      instructed a certain mutual friend that the important points are silence
+      and presence of mind.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hm!” thought Chichikov. “It is to my lawyer that he is referring.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Even when Samosvitov had departed the prisoner found it difficult to
+      credit all that had been said. Yet not an hour had elapsed before a
+      messenger arrived with his dispatch-box and the papers and money therein
+      practically undisturbed and intact! Later it came out that Samosvitov had
+      assumed complete authority in the matter. First, he had rebuked the
+      gendarmes guarding Chichikov’s effects for lack of vigilance, and then
+      sent word to the Superintendent that additional men were required for the
+      purpose; after which he had taken the dispatch-box into his own charge,
+      removed from it every paper which could possibly compromise Chichikov,
+      sealed up the rest in a packet, and ordered a gendarme to convey the whole
+      to their owner on the pretence of forwarding him sundry garments necessary
+      for the night. In the result Chichikov received not only his papers, but
+      also some warm clothing for his hypersensitive limbs. Such a swift
+      recovery of his treasures delighted him beyond expression, and, gathering
+      new hope, he began once more to dream of such allurements as theatre-going
+      and the ballet girl after whom he had for some time past been dangling.
+      Gradually did the country estate and the simple life begin to recede into
+      the distance: gradually did the town house and the life of gaiety begin to
+      loom larger and larger in the foreground. Oh, life, life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile in Government offices and chancellories there had been set on
+      foot a boundless volume of work. Clerical pens slaved, and brains skilled
+      in legal casus toiled; for each official had the artist’s liking for the
+      curved line in preference to the straight. And all the while, like a
+      hidden magician, Chichikov’s lawyer imparted driving power to that machine
+      which caught up a man into its mechanism before he could even look round.
+      And the complexity of it increased and increased, for Samosvitov surpassed
+      himself in importance and daring. On learning of the place of confinement
+      of the woman who had been arrested, he presented himself at the doors, and
+      passed so well for a smart young officer of gendarmery that the sentry
+      saluted and sprang to attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you been on duty long?” asked Samosvitov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Since this morning, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And shall you soon be relieved?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In three hours from now, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Presently I shall want you, so I will instruct your officer to have you
+      relieved at once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very good, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hastening home, thereafter, at top speed, and donning the uniform of a
+      gendarme, with a false moustache and a pair of false whiskers&mdash;an
+      ensemble in which the devil himself would not have known him, Samosvitov
+      then made for the gaol where Chichikov was confined, and, en route,
+      impressed into the service the first street woman whom he encountered, and
+      handed her over to the care of two young fellows of like sort with
+      himself. The next step was to hurry back to the prison where the original
+      woman had been interned, and there to intimate to the sentry that he,
+      Samosvitov (with whiskers and rifle complete), had been sent to relieve
+      the said sentry at his post&mdash;a proceeding which, of course, enabled
+      the newly-arrived relief to ensure, while performing his self-assumed turn
+      of duty, that for the woman lying under arrest there should be substituted
+      the woman recently recruited to the plot, and that the former should then
+      be conveyed to a place of concealment where she was highly unlikely to be
+      discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Samosvitov’s feats in the military sphere were being rivalled
+      by the wonders worked by Chichikov’s lawyer in the civilian field of
+      action. As a first step, the lawyer caused it to be intimated to the local
+      Governor that the Public Prosecutor was engaged in drawing up a report to
+      his, the local Governor’s, detriment; whereafter the lawyer caused it to
+      be intimated also to the Chief of Gendarmery that a certain confidential
+      official was engaged in doing the same by HIM; whereafter, again, the
+      lawyer confided to the confidential official in question that, owing to
+      the documentary exertions of an official of a still more confidential
+      nature than the first, he (the confidential official first-mentioned) was
+      in a fair way to find himself in the same boat as both the local Governor
+      and the Chief of Gendarmery: with the result that the whole trio were
+      reduced to a frame of mind in which they were only too glad to turn to him
+      (Samosvitov) for advice. The ultimate and farcical upshot was that report
+      came crowding upon report, and that such alleged doings were brought to
+      light as the sun had never before beheld. In fact, the documents in
+      question employed anything and everything as material, even to announcing
+      that such and such an individual had an illegitimate son, that such and
+      such another kept a paid mistress, and that such and such a third was
+      troubled with a gadabout wife; whereby there became interwoven with and
+      welded into Chichikov’s past history and the story of the dead souls such
+      a crop of scandals and innuendoes that by no manner of means could any
+      mortal decide to which of these rubbishy romances to award the palm, since
+      all of them presented an equal claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at
+      length, the dossier reached the Governor-General himself it simply
+      flabbergasted the poor man; and even the exceptionally clever and
+      energetic secretary to whom he deputed the making of an abstract of the
+      same very nearly lost his reason with the strain of attempting to lay hold
+      of the tangled end of the skein. It happened that just at that time the
+      Prince had several other important affairs on hand, and affairs of a very
+      unpleasant nature. That is to say, famine had made its appearance in one
+      portion of the province, and the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to
+      the people had done their work badly; in another portion of the province
+      certain Raskolniki <a href="#linknote-51" id="linknoteref-51"><small>51</small></a> were in a state of ferment,
+      owing to the spreading of a report than an Antichrist had arisen who would
+      not even let the dead rest, but was purchasing them wholesale&mdash;wherefore
+      the said Raskolniki were summoning folk to prayer and repentance, and,
+      under cover of capturing the Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning
+      non-Antichrists in batches; lastly, the peasants of a third portion of the
+      province had risen against the local landowners and superintendents of
+      police, for the reason that certain rascals had started a rumour that the
+      time was come when the peasants themselves were to become landowners, and
+      to wear frockcoats, while the landowners in being were about to revert to
+      the peasant state, and to take their own wares to market; wherefore one of
+      the local volosts<a href="#linknote-52" id="linknoteref-52"><small>52</small></a>, oblivious of the fact that an
+      order of things of that kind would lead to a superfluity alike of
+      landowners and of superintendents of police, had refused to pay its taxes,
+      and necessitated recourse to forcible measures. Hence it was in a mood of
+      the greatest possible despondency that the poor Prince was sitting plunged
+      when word was brought to him that the old man who had gone bail for
+      Chichikov was waiting to see him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Show him in,” said the Prince; and the old man entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A fine fellow your Chichikov!” began the Prince angrily. “You defended
+      him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to business which
+      even the lowest thief would not have touched!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are referring.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought to
+      have been given a public flogging for it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention, might I ask you
+      whether you do not think the case is non-proven? At all events, sufficient
+      evidence against him is still lacking.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? We have as chief witness the woman who personated the deceased, and
+      I will have her interrogated in your presence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Touching a bell, the Prince ordered her to be sent for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is a most disgraceful affair,” he went on; “and, ashamed though I am
+      to have to say it, some of our leading tchinovniks, including the local
+      Governor himself, have become implicated in the matter. Yet you tell me
+      that this Chichikov ought not to be confined among thieves and rascals!”
+       Clearly the Governor-General’s wrath was very great indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” said Murazov, “the Governor of the town is one of the
+      heirs under the will: wherefore he has a certain right to intervene. Also,
+      the fact that extraneous persons have meddled in the matter is only what
+      is to be expected from human nature. A rich woman dies, and no exact,
+      regular disposition of her property is made. Hence there comes flocking
+      from every side a cloud of fortune hunters. What else could one expect?
+      Such is human nature.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but why should such persons go and commit fraud?” asked the Prince
+      irritably. “I feel as though not a single honest tchinovnik were available&mdash;as
+      though every one of them were a rogue.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, which of us is altogether beyond reproach? The tchinovniks
+      of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them are men of worth,
+      and nearly all of them men skilled in business&mdash;though also,
+      unfortunately, largely inter-related.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said the Prince, “for you are
+      about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in you
+      such a penchant for defending rascals?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “This,” replied Murazov. “Take any man you like of the persons whom you
+      thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being. That
+      being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one knows
+      that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and stupidity?
+      Each of us commits faults with every step that we take; each of us entails
+      unhappiness upon others with every breath that we draw&mdash;and that
+      although we may have no evil intention whatever in our minds. Your
+      Highness himself has, before now, committed an injustice of the gravest
+      nature.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “<i>I</i> have?” cried the Prince, taken aback by this unexpected turn
+      given to the conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating something
+      in his thoughts. Then he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case of
+      the lad Dierpiennikov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the
+      Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am not seeking to justify him; I am only asking you whether you think
+      it right that an inexperienced youth who had been tempted and led away by
+      others should have received the same sentence as the man who had taken the
+      chief part in the affair. That is to say, although Dierpiennikov and the
+      man Voron-Drianni received an equal measure of punishment, their
+      CRIMINALITY was not equal.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “If,” exclaimed the Prince excitedly, “you know anything further
+      concerning the case, for God’s sake tell it me at once. Only the other day
+      did I forward a recommendation that St. Petersburg should remit a portion
+      of the sentence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” replied Murazov, “I do not mean that I know of anything
+      which does not lie also within your own cognisance, though one
+      circumstance there was which might have told in the lad’s favour had he
+      not refused to admit it, lest another should suffer injury. All that I
+      have in my mind is this. On that occasion were you not a little over-hasty
+      in coming to a conclusion? You will understand, of course, that I am
+      judging only according to my own poor lights, and for the reason that on
+      more than one occasion you have urged me to be frank. In the days when I
+      myself acted as a chief of gendarmery I came in contact with a great
+      number of accused&mdash;some of them bad, some of them good; and in each
+      case I found it well also to consider a man’s past career, for the reason
+      that, unless one views things calmly, instead of at once decrying a man,
+      he is apt to take alarm, and to make it impossible thereafter to get any
+      real confession from him. If, on the other hand, you question a man as
+      friend might question friend, the result will be that straightway he will
+      tell you everything, nor ask for mitigation of his penalty, nor bear you
+      the least malice, in that he will understand that it is not you who have
+      punished him, but the law.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince relapsed into thought; until presently there entered a young
+      tchinovnik. Portfolio in hand, this official stood waiting respectfully.
+      Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia upon his fresh
+      young face; for evidently he had not been in the Service for nothing. As a
+      matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and
+      successfully to unravel it.
+    </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+        [At this point a long hiatus occurs in the original.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      “I will send corn to the localities where famine is worst,” said Murazov,
+      “for I understand that sort of work better than do the tchinovniks, and
+      will personally see to the needs of each person. Also, if you will allow
+      me, your Highness, I will go and have a talk with the Raskolniki. They are
+      more likely to listen to a plain man than to an official. God knows
+      whether I shall succeed in calming them, but at least no tchinovnik could
+      do so, for officials of the kind merely draw up reports and lose their way
+      among their own documents&mdash;with the result that nothing comes of it.
+      Nor will I accept from you any money for these purposes, since I am
+      ashamed to devote as much as a thought to my own pocket at a time when men
+      are dying of hunger. I have a large stock of grain lying in my granaries;
+      in addition to which, I have sent orders to Siberia that a new consignment
+      shall be forwarded me before the coming summer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of a surety will God reward you for your services, Athanasi
+      Vassilievitch! Not another word will I say to you on the subject, for you
+      yourself feel that any words from me would be inadequate. Yet tell me one
+      thing: I refer to the case of which you know. Have I the right to pass
+      over the case? Also, would it be just and honourable on my part to let the
+      offending tchinovniks go unpunished?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, it is impossible to return a definite answer to those two
+      questions: and the more so because many rascals are at heart men of
+      rectitude. Human problems are difficult things to solve. Sometimes a man
+      may be drawn into a vicious circle, so that, having once entered it, he
+      ceases to be himself.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what would the tchinovniks say if I allowed the case to be passed
+      over? Would not some of them turn up their noses at me, and declare that
+      they have effected my intimidation? Surely they would be the last persons
+      in the world to respect me for my action?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, I think this: that your best course would be to call them
+      together, and to inform them that you know everything, and to explain to
+      them your personal attitude (exactly as you have explained it to me), and
+      to end by at once requesting their advice and asking them what each of
+      them would have done had he been placed in similar circumstances.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You think that those tchinovniks would be so accessible to lofty
+      motives that they would cease thereafter to be venal and meticulous? I
+      should be laughed at for my pains.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think not, your Highness. Even the baser section of humanity possesses
+      a certain sense of equity. Your wisest plan, your Highness, would be to
+      conceal nothing and to speak to them as you have just spoken to me. If, at
+      present, they imagine you to be ambitious and proud and unapproachable and
+      self-assured, your action would afford them an opportunity of seeing how
+      the case really stands. Why should you hesitate? You would but be
+      exercising your undoubted right. Speak to them as though delivering not a
+      message of your own, but a message from God.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I will think it over,” the Prince said musingly, “and meanwhile I thank
+      you from my heart for your good advice.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Also, I should order Chichikov to leave the town,” suggested Murazov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I will do so. Tell him from me that he is to depart hence as quickly
+      as possible, and that the further he should remove himself, the better it
+      will be for him. Also, tell him that it is only owing to your efforts that
+      he has received a pardon at my hands.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Murazov bowed, and proceeded from the Prince’s presence to that of
+      Chichikov. He found the prisoner cheerfully enjoying a hearty dinner
+      which, under hot covers, had been brought him from an exceedingly
+      excellent kitchen. But almost the first words which he uttered showed
+      Murazov that the prisoner had been having dealings with the army of
+      bribe-takers; as also that in those transactions his lawyer had played the
+      principal part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen, Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man said. “I bring you your freedom,
+      but only on this condition&mdash;that you depart out of the town
+      forthwith. Therefore gather together your effects, and waste not a moment,
+      lest worse befall you. Also, of all that a certain person has contrived to
+      do on your behalf I am aware; wherefore let me tell you, as between
+      ourselves, that should the conspiracy come to light, nothing on earth can
+      save him, and in his fall he will involve others rather then be left
+      unaccompanied in the lurch, and not see the guilt shared. How is it that
+      when I left you recently you were in a better frame of mind than you are
+      now? I beg of you not to trifle with the matter. Ah me! what boots that
+      wealth for which men dispute and cut one another’s throats? Do they think
+      that it is possible to prosper in this world without thinking of the world
+      to come? Believe me when I say that, until a man shall have renounced all
+      that leads humanity to contend without giving a thought to the ordering of
+      spiritual wealth, he will never set his temporal goods either upon a
+      satisfactory foundation. Yes, even as times of want and scarcity may come
+      upon nations, so may they come upon individuals. No matter what may be
+      said to the contrary, the body can never dispense with the soul. Why,
+      then, will you not try to walk in the right way, and, by thinking no
+      longer of dead souls, but only of your only living one, regain, with God’s
+      help, the better road? I too am leaving the town to-morrow. Hasten,
+      therefore, lest, bereft of my assistance, you meet with some dire
+      misfortune.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the old man departed, leaving Chichikov plunged in thought. Once more
+      had the gravity of life begun to loom large before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Murazov was right,” he said to himself. “It is time that I were
+      moving.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving the prison&mdash;a warder carrying his effects in his wake&mdash;he
+      found Selifan and Petrushka overjoyed at seeing their master once more at
+      liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, good fellows?” he said kindly. “And now we must pack and be off.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “True, true, Paul Ivanovitch,” agreed Selifan. “And by this time the roads
+      will have become firmer, for much snow has fallen. Yes, high time is it
+      that we were clear of the town. So weary of it am I that the sight of it
+      hurts my eyes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Go to the coachbuilder’s,” commanded Chichikov, “and have sledge-runners
+      fitted to the koliaska.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov then made his way into the town&mdash;though not with the object
+      of paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have given
+      rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an unobtrusive
+      call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his latest suit.
+      There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with the
+      intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
+      previous costume; and by promising double remuneration he induced the
+      tailor in question so to hasten the cutting out of the garments that,
+      through sitting up all night over the work, the man might have the whole
+      ready by break of day. True, the goods were delivered a trifle after the
+      appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and breeches
+      completed; and while the horses were being put to, Chichikov tried on the
+      clothes, and found them equal to the previous creation, even though during
+      the process he caught sight of a bald patch on his head, and was led
+      mournfully to reflect: “Alas! Why did I give way to such despair? Surely I
+      need not have torn my hair out so freely?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, when the tailor had been paid, our hero left the town. But no longer
+      was he the old Chichikov&mdash;he was only a ruin of what he had been, and
+      his frame of mind might have been compared to a building recently pulled
+      down to make room for a new one, while the new one had not yet been
+      erected owing to the non-receipt of the plans from the architect. Murazov,
+      too, had departed, but at an earlier hour, and in a tilt-waggon with Ivan
+      Potapitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later the Governor-General issued to all and sundry officials a
+      notice that, on the occasion of his departure for St. Petersburg, he would
+      be glad to see the corps of tchinovniks at a private meeting. Accordingly
+      all ranks and grades of officialdom repaired to his residence, and there
+      awaited&mdash;not without a certain measure of trepidation and of
+      searching of heart&mdash;the Governor-General’s entry. When that took
+      place he looked neither clear nor dull. Yet his bearing was proud, and his
+      step assured. The tchinovniks bowed&mdash;some of them to the waist, and
+      he answered their salutations with a slight inclination of the head. Then
+      he spoke as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Since I am about to pay a visit to St. Petersburg, I have thought it
+      right to meet you, and to explain to you privately my reasons for doing
+      so. An affair of a most scandalous character has taken place in our midst.
+      To what affair I am referring I think most of those present will guess.
+      Now, an automatic process has led to that affair bringing about the
+      discovery of other matters. Those matters are no less dishonourable than
+      the primary one; and to that I regret to have to add that there stand
+      involved in them certain persons whom I had hitherto believed to be
+      honourable. Of the object aimed at by those who have complicated matters
+      to the point of making their resolution almost impossible by ordinary
+      methods I am aware; as also I am aware of the identity of the ringleader,
+      despite the skill with which he has sought to conceal his share in the
+      scandal. But the principal point is, that I propose to decide these
+      matters, not by formal documentary process, but by the more summary
+      process of court-martial, and that I hope, when the circumstances have
+      been laid before his Imperial Majesty, to receive from him authority to
+      adopt the course which I have mentioned. For I conceive that when it has
+      become impossible to resolve a case by civil means, and some of the
+      necessary documents have been burnt, and attempts have been made (both
+      through the adduction of an excess of false and extraneous evidence and
+      through the framing of fictitious reports) to cloud an already
+      sufficiently obscure investigation with an added measure of complexity,&mdash;when
+      all these circumstances have arisen, I conceive that the only possible
+      tribunal to deal with them is a military tribunal. But on that point I
+      should like your opinion.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince paused for a moment or two, as though awaiting a reply; but
+      none came, seeing that every man had his eyes bent upon the floor, and
+      many of the audience had turned white in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then,” he went on, “I may say that I am aware also of a matter which
+      those who have carried it through believe to lie only within the
+      cognisance of themselves. The particulars of that matter will not be set
+      forth in documentary form, but only through process of myself acting as
+      plaintiff and petitioner, and producing none but ocular evidence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the throng of tchinovniks some one gave a start, and thereby caused
+      others of the more apprehensive sort to fall to trembling in their shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Without saying does it go that the prime conspirators ought to undergo
+      deprivation of rank and property, and that the remainder ought to be
+      dismissed from their posts; for though that course would cause a certain
+      proportion of the innocent to suffer with the guilty, there would seem to
+      be no other course available, seeing that the affair is one of the most
+      disgraceful nature, and calls aloud for justice. Therefore, although I
+      know that to some my action will fail to serve as a lesson, since it will
+      lead to their succeeding to the posts of dismissed officials, as well as
+      that others hitherto considered honourable will lose their reputation, and
+      others entrusted with new responsibilities will continue to cheat and
+      betray their trust,&mdash;although all this is known to me, I still have
+      no choice but to satisfy the claims of justice by proceeding to take stern
+      measures. I am also aware that I shall be accused of undue severity; but,
+      lastly, I am aware that it is my duty to put aside all personal feeling,
+      and to act as the unconscious instrument of that retribution which justice
+      demands.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Over every face there passed a shudder. Yet the Prince had spoken calmly,
+      and not a trace of anger or any other kind of emotion had been visible on
+      his features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless,” he went on, “the very man in whose hands the fate of so
+      many now lies, the very man whom no prayer for mercy could ever have
+      influenced, himself desires to make a request of you. Should you grant
+      that request, all will be forgotten and blotted out and pardoned, for I
+      myself will intercede with the Throne on your behalf. That request is
+      this. I know that by no manner of means, by no preventive measures, and by
+      no penalties will dishonesty ever be completely extirpated from our midst,
+      for the reason that its roots have struck too deep, and that the
+      dishonourable traffic in bribes has become a necessity to, even the
+      mainstay of, some whose nature is not innately venal. Also, I know that,
+      to many men, it is an impossibility to swim against the stream. Yet now,
+      at this solemn and critical juncture, when the country is calling aloud
+      for saviours, and it is the duty of every citizen to contribute and to
+      sacrifice his all, I feel that I cannot but issue an appeal to every man
+      in whom a Russian heart and a spark of what we understand by the word
+      ‘nobility’ exist. For, after all, which of us is more guilty than his
+      fellow? It may be to ME the greatest culpability should be assigned, in
+      that at first I may have adopted towards you too reserved an attitude,
+      that I may have been over-hasty in repelling those who desired but to
+      serve me, even though of their services I did not actually stand in need.
+      Yet, had they really loved justice and the good of their country, I think
+      that they would have been less prone to take offence at the coldness of my
+      attitude, but would have sacrificed their feelings and their personality
+      to their superior convictions. For hardly can it be that I failed to note
+      their overtures and the loftiness of their motives, or that I would not
+      have accepted any wise and useful advice proffered. At the same time, it
+      is for a subordinate to adapt himself to the tone of his superior, rather
+      than for a superior to adapt himself to the tone of his subordinate. Such
+      a course is at once more regular and more smooth of working, since a corps
+      of subordinates has but one director, whereas a director may have a
+      hundred subordinates. But let us put aside the question of comparative
+      culpability. The important point is, that before us all lies the duty of
+      rescuing our fatherland. Our fatherland is suffering, not from the
+      incursion of a score of alien tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in
+      addition to the lawful administration, there has grown up a second
+      administration possessed of infinitely greater powers than the system
+      established by law. And that second administration has established its
+      conditions, fixed its tariff of prices, and published that tariff abroad;
+      nor could any ruler, even though the wisest of legislators and
+      administrators, do more to correct the evil than limit it in the conduct
+      of his more venal tchinovniks by setting over them, as their supervisors,
+      men of superior rectitude. No, until each of us shall come to feel that,
+      just as arms were taken up during the period of the upheaval of nations,
+      so now each of us must make a stand against dishonesty, all remedies will
+      end in failure. As a Russian, therefore&mdash;as one bound to you by
+      consanguinity and identity of blood&mdash;I make to you my appeal. I make
+      it to those of you who understand wherein lies nobility of thought. I
+      invite those men to remember the duty which confronts us, whatsoever our
+      respective stations; I invite them to observe more closely their duty, and
+      to keep more constantly in mind their obligations of holding true to their
+      country, in that before us the future looms dark, and that we can
+      scarcely....”
+     </p>
+    <hr>
+<p class="center p2">
+   [Here the manuscript of the original comes abruptly to an end.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="link2H_FOOT">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      FOOTNOTES:
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-1">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br> [ Essays on Russian
+      Novelists. Macmillan.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-2">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      2 (<a href="#linknoteref-2">return</a>)<br> [ Ideals and Realities in
+      Russian Literature. Duckworth and Co.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-3">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      3 (<a href="#linknoteref-3">return</a>)<br> [ This is generally referred
+      to in the Russian criticisms of Gogol as a quotation from Jeremiah. It
+      appears upon investigation, however, that it actually occurs only in the
+      Slavonic version from the Greek, and not in the Russian translation made
+      direct from the Hebrew.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-4">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      4 (<a href="#linknoteref-4">return</a>)<br> [ An urn for brewing honey
+      tea.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-5">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      5 (<a href="#linknoteref-5">return</a>)<br> [ An urn for brewing ordinary
+      tea.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-6">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      6 (<a href="#linknoteref-6">return</a>)<br> [ A German dramatist
+      (1761-1819) who also filled sundry posts in the service of the Russian
+      Government.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-7">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      7 (<a href="#linknoteref-7">return</a>)<br> [ Priest’s wife.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-8">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      8 (<a href="#linknoteref-8">return</a>)<br> [ In this case the term
+      General refers to a civil grade equivalent to the military rank of the
+      same title.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-9">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      9 (<a href="#linknoteref-9">return</a>)<br> [ An annual tax upon
+      peasants, payment of which secured to the payer the right of removal.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-10">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      10 (<a href="#linknoteref-10">return</a>)<br> [ Cabbage soup.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-11">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      11 (<a href="#linknoteref-11">return</a>)<br> [ Three horses harnessed
+      abreast.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-12">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      12 (<a href="#linknoteref-12">return</a>)<br> [ A member of the gentry
+      class.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-13">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      13 (<a href="#linknoteref-13">return</a>)<br> [ Pieces equal in value to
+      twenty-five kopecks (a quarter of a rouble).]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-14">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      14 (<a href="#linknoteref-14">return</a>)<br> [ A Russian general who, in
+      1812, stoutly opposed Napoleon at the battle of Borodino.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-15">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      15 (<a href="#linknoteref-15">return</a>)<br> [ The late eighteenth
+      century.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-16">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      16 (<a href="#linknoteref-16">return</a>)<br> [ Forty Russian pounds.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-17">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      17 (<a href="#linknoteref-17">return</a>)<br> [ To serve as
+      blotting-paper.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-18">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      18 (<a href="#linknoteref-18">return</a>)<br> [ A liquor distilled from
+      fermented bread crusts or sour fruit.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-19">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      19 (<a href="#linknoteref-19">return</a>)<br> [ That is to say, a
+      distinctively Russian name.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-20">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      20 (<a href="#linknoteref-20">return</a>)<br> [ A jeering appellation
+      which owes its origin to the fact that certain Russians cherish a
+      prejudice against the initial character of the word&mdash;namely, the
+      Greek theta, or TH.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-21">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      21 (<a href="#linknoteref-21">return</a>)<br> [ The great Russian general
+      who, after winning fame in the Seven Years’ War, met with disaster when
+      attempting to assist the Austrians against the French in 1799.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-22">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      22 (<a href="#linknoteref-22">return</a>)<br> [ A kind of large gnat.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-23">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      23 (<a href="#linknoteref-23">return</a>)<br> [ A copper coin worth five
+      kopecks.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-24">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      24 (<a href="#linknoteref-24">return</a>)<br> [ A Russian general who
+      fought against Napoleon, and was mortally wounded at Borodino.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-25">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      25 (<a href="#linknoteref-25">return</a>)<br> [ Literally, “nursemaid.”]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-26">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      26 (<a href="#linknoteref-26">return</a>)<br> [ Village factor or
+      usurer.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-27">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      27 (<a href="#linknoteref-27">return</a>)<br> [ Subordinate government
+      officials.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-28">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      28 (<a href="#linknoteref-28">return</a>)<br> [ Nevertheless Chichikov
+      would appear to have erred, since most people would make the sum amount to
+      twenty-three roubles, forty kopecks. If so, Chichikov cheated himself of
+      one rouble, fifty-six kopecks.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-29">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      29 (<a href="#linknoteref-29">return</a>)<br> [ The names Kariakin and
+      Volokita might, perhaps, be translated as “Gallant” and “Loafer.”]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-30">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      30 (<a href="#linknoteref-30">return</a>)<br> [ Tradesman or citizen.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-31">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      31 (<a href="#linknoteref-31">return</a>)<br> [ The game of
+      knucklebones.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-32">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      32 (<a href="#linknoteref-32">return</a>)<br> [ A sort of low,
+      four-wheeled carriage.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-33">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      33 (<a href="#linknoteref-33">return</a>)<br> [ The system by which, in
+      annual rotation, two-thirds of a given area are cultivated, while the
+      remaining third is left fallow.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-34">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      34 (<a href="#linknoteref-34">return</a>)<br> [ Public Prosecutor.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-35">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      35 (<a href="#linknoteref-35">return</a>)<br> [ To reproduce this story
+      with a raciness worthy of the Russian original is practically impossible.
+      The translator has not attempted the task.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-36">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      36 (<a href="#linknoteref-36">return</a>)<br> [ One of the mistresses of
+      Louis XIV. of France. In 1680 she wrote a book called Reflexions sur la
+      Misericorde de Dieu, par une Dame Penitente.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-37">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      37 (<a href="#linknoteref-37">return</a>)<br> [ Four-wheeled open
+      carriage.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-38">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      38 (<a href="#linknoteref-38">return</a>)<br> [ Silver five kopeck
+      piece.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-39">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      39 (<a href="#linknoteref-39">return</a>)<br> [ A silver quarter rouble.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-40">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      40 (<a href="#linknoteref-40">return</a>)<br> [ In the days of serfdom,
+      the rate of forced labour&mdash;so many hours or so many days per week&mdash;which
+      the serf had to perform for his proprietor.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-41">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      41 (<a href="#linknoteref-41">return</a>)<br> [ The Elder.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-42">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      42 (<a href="#linknoteref-42">return</a>)<br> [ The Younger.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-43">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      43 (<a href="#linknoteref-43">return</a>)<br> [ Secondary School.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-44">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      44 (<a href="#linknoteref-44">return</a>)<br> [ The desiatin = 2.86
+      English acres.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-45">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      45 (<a href="#linknoteref-45">return</a>)<br> [ “One more makes five.”]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-46">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      46 (<a href="#linknoteref-46">return</a>)<br> [ Dried spinal marrow of
+      the sturgeon.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-47">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      47 (<a href="#linknoteref-47">return</a>)<br> [ Long, belted Tartar
+      blouses.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-48">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      48 (<a href="#linknoteref-48">return</a>)<br> [ Village commune.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-49">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      49 (<a href="#linknoteref-49">return</a>)<br> [ Landowner.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-50">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      50 (<a href="#linknoteref-50">return</a>)<br> [ Here, in the original, a
+      word is missing.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-51">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      51 (<a href="#linknoteref-51">return</a>)<br> [ Dissenters or Old
+      Believers: i.e. members of the sect which refused to accept the revised
+      version of the Church Service Books promulgated by the Patriarch Nikon in
+      1665.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a id="linknote-52">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      52 (<a href="#linknoteref-52">return</a>)<br> [ Fiscal districts.]
+    </p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1081 ***</div>
+  </body>
+</html>
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dead Souls, by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Dead Souls
+
+Author: Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
+
+Commentator: John Cournos
+
+Translator: D. J. Hogarth
+
+Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #1081]
+Release Date: October, 1997
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAD SOULS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+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 rigeur
+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 act, 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
+the bed, and then set to work to cram into it, pell-mell, socks, shirts,
+collars (both clean and dirty), boot trees, a calendar, and a variety of
+other articles. Everything went into the receptacle just as it came
+to hand, since his one object was to obviate any possible delay in
+the morning's departure. Meanwhile the reluctant Selifan slowly, very
+slowly, left the room, as slowly descended the staircase (on each
+separate step of which he left a muddy foot-print), and, finally, halted
+to scratch his head. What that scratching may have meant no one could
+say; for, with the Russian populace, such a scratching may mean any one
+of a hundred things.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Nevertheless events did not turn out as Chichikov had intended they
+should. In the first place, he overslept himself. That was check number
+one. In the second place, on his rising and inquiring whether the
+britchka had been harnessed and everything got ready, he was informed
+that neither of those two things had been done. That was check number
+two. Beside himself with rage, he prepared to give Selifan the wigging
+of his life, and, meanwhile, waited impatiently to hear what the
+delinquent had got to say in his defence. It goes without saying that
+when Selifan made his appearance in the doorway he had only the usual
+excuses to offer--the sort of excuses usually offered by servants when a
+hasty departure has become imperatively necessary.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," he said, "the horses require shoeing."
+
+"Blockhead!" exclaimed Chichikov. "Why did you not tell me of that
+before, you damned fool? Was there not time enough for them to be shod?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose there was," agreed Selifan. "Also one of the wheels is
+in want of a new tyre, for the roads are so rough that the old tyre is
+worn through. Also, the body of the britchka is so rickety that probably
+it will not last more than a couple of stages."
+
+"Rascal!" shouted Chichikov, clenching his fists and approaching Selifan
+in such a manner that, fearing to receive a blow, the man backed and
+dodged aside. "Do you mean to ruin me, and to break all our bones on the
+road, you cursed idiot? For these three weeks past you have been doing
+nothing at all; yet now, at the last moment, you come here stammering
+and playing the fool! Do you think I keep you just to eat and to drive
+yourself about? You must have known of this before? Did you, or did you
+not, know it? Answer me at once."
+
+"Yes, I did know it," replied Selifan, hanging his head.
+
+"Then why didn't you tell me about it?"
+
+Selifan had no reply immediately ready, so continued to hang his head
+while quietly saying to himself: "See how well I have managed things! I
+knew what was the matter, yet I did not say."
+
+"And now," continued Chichikov, "go you at once and fetch a blacksmith.
+Tell him that everything must be put right within two hours at the most.
+Do you hear? If that should not be done, I, I--I will give you the best
+flogging that ever you had in your life." Truly Chichikov was almost
+beside himself with fury.
+
+Turning towards the door, as though for the purpose of going and
+carrying out his orders, Selifan halted and added:
+
+"That skewbald, barin--you might think it well to sell him, seeing that
+he is nothing but a rascal? A horse like that is more of a hindrance
+than a help."
+
+"What? Do you expect me to go NOW to the market-place and sell him?"
+
+"Well, Paul Ivanovitch, he is good for nothing but show, since by nature
+he is a most cunning beast. Never in my life have I seen such a horse."
+
+"Fool! Whenever I may wish to sell him I SHALL sell him. Meanwhile,
+don't you trouble your head about what doesn't concern you, but go and
+fetch a blacksmith, and see that everything is put right within two
+hours. Otherwise I will take the very hair off your head, and beat you
+till you haven't a face left. Be off! Hurry!"
+
+Selifan departed, and Chichikov, his ill-humour vented, threw down
+upon the floor the poignard which he always took with him as a means of
+instilling respect into whomsoever it might concern, and spent the next
+quarter of an hour in disputing with a couple of blacksmiths--men who,
+as usual, were rascals of the type which, on perceiving that something
+is wanted in a hurry, at once multiplies its terms for providing the
+same. Indeed, for all Chichikov's storming and raging as he dubbed
+the fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could make no
+impression upon the pair, since, true to their character, they declined
+to abate their prices, and, even when they had begun their work, spent
+upon it, not two hours, but five and a half. Meanwhile he had the
+satisfaction of experiencing that delightful time with which all
+travellers are familiar--namely, the time during which one sits in a
+room where, except for a litter of string, waste paper, and so forth,
+everything else has been packed. But to all things there comes an end,
+and there arrived also the long-awaited moment when the britchka had
+received the luggage, the faulty wheel had been fitted with a new tyre,
+the horses had been re-shod, and the predatory blacksmiths had departed
+with their gains. "Thank God!" thought Chichikov as the britchka rolled
+out of the gates of the inn, and the vehicle began to jolt over the
+cobblestones. Yet a feeling which he could not altogether have defined
+filled his breast as he gazed upon the houses and the streets and the
+garden walls which he might never see again. Presently, on turning a
+corner, the britchka was brought to a halt through the fact that along
+the street there was filing a seemingly endless funeral procession.
+Leaning forward in his britchka, Chichikov asked Petrushka whose
+obsequies the procession represented, and was told that they represented
+those of the Public Prosecutor. Disagreeably shocked, our hero hastened
+to raise the hood of the vehicle, to draw the curtains across the
+windows, and to lean back into a corner. While the britchka remained
+thus halted Selifan and Petrushka, their caps doffed, sat watching the
+progress of the cortege, after they had received strict instructions not
+to greet any fellow-servant whom they might recognise. Behind the hearse
+walked the whole body of tchinovniks, bare-headed; and though, for a
+moment or two, Chichikov feared that some of their number might discern
+him in his britchka, he need not have disturbed himself, since their
+attention was otherwise engaged. In fact, they were not even exchanging
+the small talk customary among members of such processions, but
+thinking exclusively of their own affairs, of the advent of the new
+Governor-General, and of the probable manner in which he would take up
+the reins of administration. Next came a number of carriages, from
+the windows of which peered the ladies in mourning toilets. Yet the
+movements of their hands and lips made it evident that they were
+indulging in animated conversation--probably about the Governor-General,
+the balls which he might be expected to give, and their own eternal
+fripperies and gewgaws. Lastly came a few empty drozhkis. As soon as the
+latter had passed, our hero was able to continue on his way. Throwing
+back the hood of the britchka, he said to himself:
+
+"Ah, good friend, you have lived your life, and now it is over! In the
+newspapers they will say of you that you died regretted not only by
+your subordinates, but also by humanity at large, as well as that, a
+respected citizen, a kind father, and a husband beyond reproach, you
+went to your grave amid the tears of your widow and orphans. Yet, should
+those journals be put to it to name any particular circumstance which
+justified this eulogy of you, they would be forced to fall back upon the
+fact that you grew a pair of exceptionally thick eyebrows!"
+
+With that Chichikov bid Selifan quicken his pace, and concluded: "After
+all, it is as well that I encountered the procession, for they say that
+to meet a funeral is lucky."
+
+Presently the britchka turned into some less frequented streets, lines
+of wooden fencing of the kind which mark the outskirts of a town began
+to file by, the cobblestones came to an end, the macadam of the highroad
+succeeded to them, and once more there began on either side of the
+turnpike a procession of verst stones, road menders, and grey villages;
+inns with samovars and peasant women and landlords who came running out
+of yards with seivefuls of oats; pedestrians in worn shoes which, it
+might be, had covered eight hundred versts; little towns, bright with
+booths for the sale of flour in barrels, boots, small loaves, and other
+trifles; heaps of slag; much repaired bridges; expanses of field to
+right and to left; stout landowners; a mounted soldier bearing a green,
+iron-clamped box inscribed: "The --th Battery of Artillery"; long strips
+of freshly-tilled earth which gleamed green, yellow, and black on the
+face of the countryside. With it mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of
+elm-tops amid mist, the far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks,
+and the illimitable line of the horizon.
+
+Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still
+see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you
+the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which
+a yet more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities
+with lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque
+trees, no ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and
+roar, no beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony
+immensity, no vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and
+ageless lines of blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear,
+silvery background of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your
+towns project like points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and
+nothing whatsoever enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what
+invincible force draws me to you? Why does there ceaselessly echo and
+re-echo in my ears the sad song which hovers throughout the length and
+the breadth of your borders? What is the burden of that song? Why does
+it wail and sob and catch at my heart? What say the notes which
+thus painfully caress and embrace my soul, and flit, uttering their
+lamentations, around me? What is it you seek of me, O Russia? What is
+the hidden bond which subsists between us? Why do you regard me as you
+do? Why does everything within you turn upon me eyes full of
+yearning? Even at this moment, as I stand dumbly, fixedly, perplexedly
+contemplating your vastness, a menacing cloud, charged with gathering
+rain, seems to overshadow my head. What is it that your boundless
+expanses presage? Do they not presage that one day there will arise in
+you ideas as boundless as yourself? Do they not presage that one day you
+too will know no limits? Do they not presage that one day, when again
+you shall have room for their exploits, there will spring to life
+the heroes of old? How the power of your immensity enfolds me, and
+reverberates through all my being with a wild, strange spell, and
+flashes in my eyes with an almost supernatural radiance! Yes, a strange,
+brilliant, unearthly vista indeed do you disclose, O Russia, country of
+mine!
+
+"Stop, stop, you fool!" shouted Chichikov to Selifan; and even as he
+spoke a troika, bound on Government business, came chattering by, and
+disappeared in a cloud of dust. To Chichikov's curses at Selifan for not
+having drawn out of the way with more alacrity a rural constable with
+moustaches of the length of an arshin added his quota.
+
+What a curious and attractive, yet also what an unreal, fascination
+the term "highway" connotes! And how interesting for its own sake is
+a highway! Should the day be a fine one (though chilly) in mellowing
+autumn, press closer your travelling cloak, and draw down your cap over
+your ears, and snuggle cosily, comfortably into a corner of the britchka
+before a last shiver shall course through your limbs, and the ensuing
+warmth shall put to flight the autumnal cold and damp. As the horses
+gallop on their way, how delightfully will drowsiness come stealing upon
+you, and make your eyelids droop! For a while, through your somnolence,
+you will continue to hear the hard breathing of the team and the
+rumbling of the wheels; but at length, sinking back into your corner,
+you will relapse into the stage of snoring. And when you awake--behold!
+you will find that five stages have slipped away, and that the moon is
+shining, and that you have reached a strange town of churches and old
+wooden cupolas and blackened spires and white, half-timbered houses! And
+as the moonlight glints hither and thither, almost you will believe that
+the walls and the streets and the pavements of the place are spread with
+sheets--sheets shot with coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs
+look all the brighter under the slanting beams of the pale luminary.
+Nowhere is a soul to be seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet
+no. In a solitary window a light is flickering where some good burgher
+is mending his boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night
+and powers of heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite
+vault--how lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies
+spread in an intangible, yet audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling
+breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into
+snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as
+he begins to be conscious of your weight. Then again you awake, but
+this time to find yourself confronted with only fields and steppes.
+Everywhere in the ascendant is the desolation of space. But suddenly the
+ciphers on a verst stone leap to the eye! Morning is rising, and on the
+chill, gradually paling line of the horizon you can see gleaming a faint
+gold streak. The wind freshens and grows keener, and you snuggle closer
+in your cloak; yet how glorious is that freshness, and how marvellous
+the sleep in which once again you become enfolded! A jolt!--and for the
+last time you return to consciousness. By now the sun is high in the
+heavens, and you hear a voice cry "gently, gently!" as a farm waggon
+issues from a by-road. Below, enclosed within an ample dike, stretches
+a sheet of water which glistens like copper in the sunlight. Beyond, on
+the side of a slope, lie some scattered peasants' huts, a manor house,
+and, flanking the latter, a village church with its cross flashing
+like a star. There also comes wafted to your ear the sound of peasants'
+laughter, while in your inner man you are becoming conscious of an
+appetite which is not to be withstood.
+
+Oh long-drawn highway, how excellent you are! How often have I in
+weariness and despondency set forth upon your length, and found in you
+salvation and rest! How often, as I followed your leading, have I been
+visited with wonderful thoughts and poetic dreams and curious, wild
+impressions!
+
+At this moment our friend Chichikov also was experiencing visions of a
+not wholly prosaic nature. Let us peep into his soul and share them.
+At first he remained unconscious of anything whatsoever, for he was too
+much engaged in making sure that he was really clear of the town; but
+as soon as he saw that it had completely disappeared, with its mills and
+factories and other urban appurtenances, and that even the steeples
+of the white stone churches had sunk below the horizon, he turned his
+attention to the road, and the town of N. vanished from his thoughts as
+completely as though he had not seen it since childhood. Again, in its
+turn, the road ceased to interest him, and he began to close his eyes
+and to loll his head against the cushions. Of this let the author
+take advantage, in order to speak at length concerning his hero; since
+hitherto he (the author) has been prevented from so doing by Nozdrev and
+balls and ladies and local intrigues--by those thousand trifles which
+seem trifles only when they are introduced into a book, but which, in
+life, figure as affairs of importance. Let us lay them aside, and betake
+ourselves to business.
+
+Whether the character whom I have selected for my hero has pleased my
+readers is, of course, exceedingly doubtful. At all events the ladies
+will have failed to approve him for the fair sex demands in a hero
+perfection, and, should there be the least mental or physical stain
+on him--well, woe betide! Yes, no matter how profoundly the author may
+probe that hero's soul, no matter how clearly he may portray his figure
+as in a mirror, he will be given no credit for the achievement. Indeed,
+Chichikov's very stoutness and plenitude of years may have militated
+against him, for never is a hero pardoned for the former, and the
+majority of ladies will, in such case, turn away, and mutter to
+themselves: "Phew! What a beast!" Yes, the author is well aware of this.
+Yet, though he could not, to save his life, take a person of virtue for
+his principal character, it may be that this story contains themes
+never before selected, and that in it there projects the whole boundless
+wealth of Russian psychology; that it portrays, as well as Chichikov,
+the peasant who is gifted with the virtues which God has sent him, and
+the marvellous maiden of Russia who has not her like in all the world
+for her beautiful feminine spirituality, the roots of which lie buried
+in noble aspirations and boundless self-denial. In fact, compared with
+these types, the virtuous of other races seem lifeless, as does an
+inanimate volume when compared with the living word. Yes, each time that
+there arises in Russia a movement of thought, it becomes clear that the
+movement sinks deep into the Slavonic nature where it would but have
+skimmed the surface of other nations.--But why am I talking like this?
+Whither am I tending? It is indeed shameful that an author who long
+ago reached man's estate, and was brought up to a course of severe
+introspection and sober, solitary self-enlightenment, should give way to
+such jejune wandering from the point. To everything its proper time
+and place and turn. As I was saying, it does not lie in me to take a
+virtuous character for my hero: and I will tell you why. It is because
+it is high time that a rest were given to the "poor, but virtuous"
+individual; it is because the phrase "a man of worth" has grown into a
+by-word; it is because the "man of worth" has become converted into a
+horse, and there is not a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out
+of season; it is because the "man of worth" has been starved until he
+has not a shred of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is
+but the ribs and the hide; it is because the "man of worth" is for ever
+being smuggled upon the scene; it is because the "man of worth" has at
+length forfeited every one's respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm
+that it is high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that
+rascal.
+
+Our hero's beginnings were both modest and obscure. True, his parents
+were dvoriane, but he in no way resembled them. At all events, a short,
+squab female relative who was present at his birth exclaimed as she
+lifted up the baby: "He is altogether different from what I had expected
+him to be. He ought to have taken after his maternal grandmother,
+whereas he has been born, as the proverb has it, 'like not father nor
+mother, but like a chance passer-by.'" Thus from the first life
+regarded the little Chichikov with sour distaste, and as through a dim,
+frost-encrusted window. A tiny room with diminutive casements which were
+never opened, summer or winter; an invalid father in a dressing-gown
+lined with lambskin, and with an ailing foot swathed in bandages--a man
+who was continually drawing deep breaths, and walking up and down the
+room, and spitting into a sandbox; a period of perpetually sitting on
+a bench with pen in hand and ink on lips and fingers; a period of being
+eternally confronted with the copy-book maxim, "Never tell a lie, but
+obey your superiors, and cherish virtue in your heart;" an everlasting
+scraping and shuffling of slippers up and down the room; a period of
+continually hearing a well-known, strident voice exclaim: "So you have
+been playing the fool again!" at times when the child, weary of the
+mortal monotony of his task, had added a superfluous embellishment
+to his copy; a period of experiencing the ever-familiar, but
+ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those words as the boy's
+ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent backwards at
+the tips--such is the miserable picture of that youth of which, in later
+life, Chichikov preserved but the faintest of memories! But in this
+world everything is liable to swift and sudden change; and, one day in
+early spring, when the rivers had melted, the father set forth with
+his little son in a teliezshka [37] drawn by a sorrel steed of the kind
+known to horsy folk as a soroka, and having as coachman the diminutive
+hunchback who, father of the only serf family belonging to the elder
+Chichikov, served as general factotum in the Chichikov establishment.
+For a day and a half the soroka conveyed them on their way; during which
+time they spent the night at a roadside inn, crossed a river, dined off
+cold pie and roast mutton, and eventually arrived at the county town. To
+the lad the streets presented a spectacle of unwonted brilliancy, and
+he gaped with amazement. Turning into a side alley wherein the mire
+necessitated both the most strenuous exertions on the soroka's part and
+the most vigorous castigation on the part of the driver and the barin,
+the conveyance eventually reached the gates of a courtyard which,
+combined with a small fruit garden containing various bushes, a couple
+of apple-trees in blossom, and a mean, dirty little shed, constituted
+the premises attached to an antiquated-looking villa. Here there lived
+a relative of the Chichikovs, a wizened old lady who went to market in
+person and dried her stockings at the samovar. On seeing the boy, she
+patted his cheek and expressed satisfaction at his physique; whereupon
+the fact became disclosed that here he was to abide for a while, for
+the purpose of attending a local school. After a night's rest his father
+prepared to betake himself homeward again; but no tears marked the
+parting between him and his son, he merely gave the lad a copper or two
+and (a far more important thing) the following injunctions. "See here,
+my boy. Do your lessons well, do not idle or play the fool, and above
+all things, see that you please your teachers. So long as you observe
+these rules you will make progress, and surpass your fellows, even if
+God shall have denied you brains, and you should fail in your studies.
+Also, do not consort overmuch with your comrades, for they will do you
+no good; but, should you do so, then make friends with the richer of
+them, since one day they may be useful to you. Also, never entertain or
+treat any one, but see that every one entertains and treats YOU. Lastly,
+and above all else, keep and save your every kopeck. To save money is
+the most important thing in life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail
+you, and be the first to desert you in a time of adversity; but never
+will a KOPECK fail you, whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the
+world cannot be done, cannot be attained, with the aid of money." These
+injunctions given, the father embraced his son, and set forth on his
+return; and though the son never again beheld his parent, the latter's
+words and precepts sank deep into the little Chichikov's soul.
+
+The next day young Pavlushka made his first attendance at school. But no
+special aptitude in any branch of learning did he display. Rather, his
+distinguishing characteristics were diligence and neatness. On the other
+hand, he developed great intelligence as regards the PRACTICAL aspect
+of life. In a trice he divined and comprehended how things ought to
+be worked, and, from that time forth, bore himself towards his
+school-fellows in such a way that, though they frequently gave him
+presents, he not only never returned the compliment, but even on
+occasions pocketed the gifts for the mere purpose of selling them again.
+Also, boy though he was, he acquired the art of self-denial. Of the
+trifle which his father had given him on parting he spent not a kopeck,
+but, the same year, actually added to his little store by fashioning
+a bullfinch of wax, painting it, and selling the same at a handsome
+profit. Next, as time went on, he engaged in other speculations--in
+particular, in the scheme of buying up eatables, taking his seat in
+class beside boys who had plenty of pocket-money, and, as soon as such
+opulent individuals showed signs of failing attention (and, therefore,
+of growing appetite), tendering them, from beneath the desk, a roll of
+pudding or a piece of gingerbread, and charging according to degree
+of appetite and size of portion. He also spent a couple of months in
+training a mouse, which he kept confined in a little wooden cage in his
+bedroom. At length, when the training had reached the point that, at the
+several words of command, the mouse would stand upon its hind legs,
+lie down, and get up again, he sold the creature for a respectable sum.
+Thus, in time, his gains attained the amount of five roubles; whereupon
+he made himself a purse and then started to fill a second receptacle of
+the kind. Still more studied was his attitude towards the authorities.
+No one could sit more quietly in his place on the bench than he. In the
+same connection it may be remarked that his teacher was a man who, above
+all things, loved peace and good behaviour, and simply could not
+abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him.
+Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master's attention with
+a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or
+unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to
+burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and
+to visit him with unmerciful punishment. "Ah, my fine fellow," he would
+say, "I'LL cure you of your impudence and want of respect! I know you
+through and through far better than you know yourself, and will take
+good care that you have to go down upon your knees and curb your
+appetite." Whereupon the wretched lad would, for no cause of which he
+was aware, be forced to wear out his breeches on the floor and go hungry
+for days. "Talents and gifts," the schoolmaster would declare, "are so
+much rubbish. I respect only good behaviour, and shall award full marks
+to those who conduct themselves properly, even if they fail to learn a
+single letter of their alphabet: whereas to those in whom I may perceive
+a tendency to jocularity I shall award nothing, even though they should
+outdo Solon himself." For the same reason he had no great love of the
+author Krylov, in that the latter says in one of his Fables: "In my
+opinion, the more one sings, the better one works;" and often the
+pedagogue would relate how, in a former school of his, the silence had
+been such that a fly could be heard buzzing on the wing, and for the
+space of a whole year not a single pupil sneezed or coughed in class,
+and so complete was the absence of all sound that no one could have
+told that there was a soul in the place. Of this mentor young Chichikov
+speedily appraised the mentality; wherefore he fashioned his behaviour
+to correspond with it. Not an eyelid, not an eyebrow, would he stir
+during school hours, howsoever many pinches he might receive from
+behind; and only when the bell rang would he run to anticipate his
+fellows in handing the master the three-cornered cap which that
+dignitary customarily sported, and then to be the first to leave the
+class-room, and contrive to meet the master not less than two or three
+times as the latter walked homeward, in order that, on each occasion,
+he might doff his cap. And the scheme proved entirely successful.
+Throughout the period of his attendance at school he was held in high
+favour, and, on leaving the establishment, received full marks for every
+subject, as well as a diploma and a book inscribed (in gilt letters)
+"For Exemplary Diligence and the Perfection of Good Conduct." By this
+time he had grown into a fairly good-looking youth of the age when the
+chin first calls for a razor; and at about the same period his father
+died, leaving behind him, as his estate, four waistcoats completely worn
+out, two ancient frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had
+been skilled only in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks--not in ACTUALLY
+PRACTISING the art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its
+little parcel of land for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his
+one serf and the serf's family, to the capital, where he set about
+organising a new establishment and entering the Civil Service.
+Simultaneously with his doing so, his old schoolmaster lost (through
+stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over which he had hitherto
+presided, and in which he had set so much store by silence and good
+behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was left, even
+for that purpose, he retired--ill, helpless, and starving--into a
+broken-down, cheerless hovel. But certain of his former pupils--the same
+clever, witty lads whom he had once been wont to accuse of impertinence
+and evil conduct generally--heard of his pitiable plight, and collected
+for him what money they could, even to the point of selling their own
+necessaries. Only Chichikov, when appealed to, pleaded inability, and
+compromised with a contribution of a single piatak [38]: which his
+old schoolfellows straightway returned him--full in the face, and
+accompanied with a shout of "Oh, you skinflint!" As for the poor
+schoolmaster, when he heard what his former pupils had done, he buried
+his face in his hands, and the tears gushed from his failing eyes as
+from those of a helpless infant. "God has brought you but to weep over
+my death-bed," he murmured feebly; and added with a profound sigh, on
+hearing of Chichikov's conduct: "Ah, Pavlushka, how a human being may
+become changed! Once you were a good lad, and gave me no trouble; but
+now you are become proud indeed!"
+
+Yet let it not be inferred from this that our hero's character had grown
+so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude his
+experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of fact,
+he was capable both of the one and the other, and would have been glad
+to assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or had he not
+been called upon to touch the fund which he had decided should remain
+intact. In other words, the father's injunction, "Guard and save every
+kopeck," had become a hard and fast rule of the son's. Yet the youth had
+no particular attachment to money for money's sake; he was not possessed
+with the true instinct for hoarding and niggardliness. Rather, before
+his eyes there floated ever a vision of life and its amenities and
+advantages--a vision of carriages and an elegantly furnished house and
+recherche dinners; and it was in the hope that some day he might attain
+these things that he saved every kopeck and, meanwhile, stinted both
+himself and others. Whenever a rich man passed him by in a splendid
+drozhki drawn by swift and handsomely-caparisoned horses, he would halt
+as though deep in thought, and say to himself, like a man awakening
+from a long sleep: "That gentleman must have been a financier, he has so
+little hair on his brow." In short, everything connected with wealth and
+plenty produced upon him an ineffaceable impression. Even when he left
+school he took no holiday, so strong in him was the desire to get to
+work and enter the Civil Service. Yet, for all the encomiums contained
+in his diploma, he had much ado to procure a nomination to a Government
+Department; and only after a long time was a minor post found for him,
+at a salary of thirty or forty roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched
+though this appointment was, he determined, by strict attention to
+business, to overcome all obstacles, and to win success. And, indeed,
+the self-denial, the patience, and the economy which he displayed
+were remarkable. From early morn until late at night he would, with
+indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed in his sordid task
+of copying official documents--never going home, snatching what sleep he
+could on tables in the building, and dining with the watchman on duty.
+Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and neat, to preserve
+a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to cultivate a certain
+elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked that his fellow
+tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some of them having
+faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding chins, and
+cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was
+handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of
+sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and
+by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there
+remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the
+Director's room itself they would invade while still licking their lips,
+and since their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room
+grew not over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man
+like Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in
+everything--in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and
+in complete neglect of the use of strong potions--he was the absolute
+antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread,
+for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief
+Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia.
+Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in
+his life have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance's health.
+Nor had any one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his
+own home from what he was in the office, or showing the least interest
+in anything whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in
+his cups, or indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when
+intoxicated, even a burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was
+there in him. Nor, for that matter, was there in him a particle of
+anything at all, whether good or bad: which complete negativeness
+of character produced rather a strange effect. In the same way, his
+wizened, marble-like features reminded one of nothing in particular, so
+primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous pockmarks and dimples
+with which they were pitted placed him among the number of those over
+whose faces, to quote the popular saying, "The Devil has walked by night
+to grind peas." In short, it would seem that no human agency could have
+approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet Chichikov made the
+effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the other's convenience
+in all manner of insignificant trifles--to cleaning his pens carefully,
+and, when they had been prepared exactly to the Chief Clerk's liking,
+laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and sweeping from his table
+all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to procuring a new mat for his
+inkstand; to looking for his hat--the meanest-looking hat that ever
+the world beheld--and having it ready for him at the exact moment when
+business came to an end; to brushing his back if it happened to become
+smeared with whitewash from a wall. Yet all this passed as unnoticed
+as though it had never been done. Finally, Chichikov sniffed into his
+superior's family and domestic life, and learnt that he possessed a
+grown-up daughter on whose face also there had taken place a nocturnal,
+diabolical grinding of peas. HERE was a quarter whence a fresh attack
+might be delivered! After ascertaining what church the daughter attended
+on Sundays, our hero took to contriving to meet her in a neat suit and a
+well-starched dickey: and soon the scheme began to work. The surly Chief
+Clerk wavered for a while; then ended by inviting Chichikov to tea. Nor
+could any man in the office have told you how it came about that before
+long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk's house, and become a
+person necessary--indeed indispensable--to the household, seeing that he
+bought the flour and the sugar, treated the daughter as his betrothed,
+called the Chief Clerk "Papenka," and occasionally kissed "Papenka's"
+hand. In fact, every one at the office supposed that, at the end of
+February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent) there would take place
+a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to agitate with the
+authorities on Chichikov's behalf, and so enabled our hero, on a vacancy
+occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk. Apparently this marked
+the consummation of Chichikov's relations with his host, for he hastened
+stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day, figured in a fresh
+lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk "Papenka," or to kiss
+his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as abrupt a termination
+as though it had never been mooted. Yet also he never failed to press
+his late host's hand, whenever he met him, and to invite him to tea;
+while, on the other hand, for all his immobility and dry indifference,
+the Chief Clerk never failed to shake his head with a muttered, "Ah, my
+fine fellow, you have grown too proud, you have grown too proud."
+
+The foregoing constituted the most difficult step that our hero had to
+negotiate. Thereafter things came with greater ease and swifter
+success. Everywhere he attracted notice, for he developed within
+himself everything necessary for this world--namely, charm of manner
+and bearing, and great diligence in business matters. Armed with these
+resources, he next obtained promotion to what is known as "a fat post,"
+and used it to the best advantage; and even though, at that period,
+strict inquiry had begun to be made into the whole subject of bribes,
+such inquiry failed to alarm him--nay, he actually turned it to account
+and thereby manifested the Russian resourcefulness which never fails to
+attain its zenith where extortion is concerned. His method of working
+was the following. As soon as a petitioner or a suitor put his hand into
+his pocket, to extract thence the necessary letters of recommendation
+for signature, Chichikov would smilingly exclaim as he detained his
+interlocutor's hand: "No, no! Surely you do not think that I--? But no,
+no! It is our duty, it is our obligation, and we do not require rewards
+for doing our work properly. So far as YOUR matter is concerned, you may
+rest easy. Everything shall be carried through to-morrow. But may I
+have your address? There is no need to trouble yourself, seeing that the
+documents can easily be brought to you at your residence." Upon which
+the delighted suitor would return home in raptures, thinking: "Here, at
+long last, is the sort of man so badly needed. A man of that kind is
+a jewel beyond price." Yet for a day, for two days--nay, even for
+three--the suitor would wait in vain so far as any messengers with
+documents were concerned. Then he would repair to the office--to find
+that his business had not so much as been entered upon! Lastly, he would
+confront the "jewel beyond price." "Oh, pardon me, pardon me!" Chichikov
+would exclaim in the politest of tones as he seized and grasped the
+visitor's hands. "The truth is that we have SUCH a quantity of business
+on hand! But the matter shall be put through to-morrow, and in the
+meanwhile I am most sorry about it." And with this would go the most
+fascinating of gestures. Yet neither on the morrow, nor on the day
+following, nor on the third would documents arrive at the suitor's
+abode. Upon that he would take thought as to whether something more
+ought not to have been done; and, sure enough, on his making inquiry,
+he would be informed that "something will have to be given to the
+copyists." "Well, there can be no harm in that," he would reply. "As a
+matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak [39] or two." "Oh, no, no,"
+the answer would come. "Not a tchetvertak per copyist, but a rouble,
+is the fee." "What? A rouble per copyist?" "Certainly. What is there to
+grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a tchetvertak
+apiece, and the rest will go to the Government." Upon that the
+disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought
+about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks
+and their uppish, insolent behaviour. "Once upon a time," would the
+suitor lament, "one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the
+Director a bank-note, one's affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But
+now one has to pay a rouble per copyist after waiting a week because
+otherwise it was impossible to guess how the wind might set! The devil
+fly away with all 'disinterested' and 'trustworthy' tchinovniks!" And
+certainly the aggrieved suitor had reason to grumble, seeing that,
+now that bribe-takers had ceased to exist, and Directors had uniformly
+become men of honour and integrity, secretaries and clerks ought not
+with impunity to have continued their thievish ways. In time there
+opened out to Chichikov a still wider field, for a Commission was
+appointed to supervise the erection of a Government building, and, on
+his being nominated to that body, he proved himself one of its most
+active members. The Commission got to work without delay, but for a
+space of six years had some trouble with the building in question.
+Either the climate hindered operations or the materials used were of the
+kind which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the
+basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for each
+member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official style of
+architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the soil of those parts
+was better than that where the Government building was still engaged
+in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission began to look
+exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family life; and, for
+the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also departed from the
+iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and inexorable self-denial, and
+so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism as to show himself a man not
+averse to those amenities which, during his youth, he had been capable
+of renouncing. That is to say, certain superfluities began to make their
+appearance in his establishment. He engaged a good cook, took to wearing
+linen shirts, bought for himself cloth of a pattern worn by no one else
+in the province, figured in checks shot with the brightest of reds and
+browns, fitted himself out with two splendid horses (which he drove with
+a single pair of reins, added to a ring attachment for the trace horse),
+developed a habit of washing with a sponge dipped in eau-de-Cologne, and
+invested in soaps of the most expensive quality, in order to communicate
+to his skin a more elegant polish.
+
+But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director--a military
+man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and
+anything which might be called irregular. On the very day after his
+arrival he struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts,
+discovering hosts of deficits and missing sums, and directing his
+attention to the aforesaid fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon
+that there ensued a complete reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired
+wholesale, and the houses were sequestrated to the Government, or else
+converted into various pious institutions and schools for soldiers'
+children. Thus the whole fabric, and especially Chichikov, came crashing
+to the ground. Particularly did our hero's agreeable face displease the
+new Director. Why that was so it is impossible to say, but frequently,
+in cases of the kind, no reason exists. However, the Director conceived
+a mortal dislike to him, and also extended that enmity to the whole of
+Chichikov's colleagues. But inasmuch as the said Director was a military
+man, he was not fully acquainted with the myriad subtleties of the
+civilian mind; wherefore it was not long before, by dint of maintaining
+a discreet exterior, added to a faculty for humouring all and sundry,
+a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in restoring him to mildness, and
+the General found himself in the hands of greater thieves than before,
+but thieves whom he did not even suspect, seeing that he believed
+himself to have selected men fit and proper, and even ventured to
+boast of possessing a keen eye for talent. In a trice the tchinovniks
+concerned appraised his spirit and character; with the result that the
+entire sphere over which he ruled became an agency for the detection of
+irregularities. Everywhere, and in every case, were those irregularities
+pursued as a fisherman pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff; and to such
+an extent did the sport prove successful that almost in no time each
+participator in the hunt was seen to be in possession of several
+thousand roubles of capital. Upon that a large number of the former band
+of tchinovniks also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were
+allowed to re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could
+Chichikov worm his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry
+items of paper currency, the General's first secretary and principal
+bear leader did all he could on our hero's behalf. It seemed that the
+General was the kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided
+it was done without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head
+than it stuck there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted;
+and all that the wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing
+up of a certain dirty fragment of paper--even that being effected only
+by an appeal to the General's compassion, on the score of the unhappy
+fate which, otherwise, would befall Chichikov's wife and children (who,
+luckily, had no existence in fact).
+
+"Well," said Chichikov to himself, "I have done my best, and now
+everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won't help me, but only
+action." And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once
+more to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The
+better to effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town. Yet
+somehow, for a while, things miscarried. More than once he found himself
+forced to exchange one post for another, and at the briefest of notice;
+and all of them were posts of the meanest, the most wretched, order.
+Yet, being a man of the utmost nicety of feeling, the fact that he found
+himself rubbing shoulders with anything but nice companions did not
+prevent him from preserving intact his innate love of what was decent
+and seemly, or from cherishing the instinct which led him to hanker
+after office fittings of lacquered wood, with neatness and orderliness
+everywhere. Nor did he at any time permit a foul word to creep into
+his speech, and would feel hurt even if in the speech of others there
+occurred a scornful reference to anything which pertained to rank and
+dignity. Also, the reader will be pleased to know that our hero changed
+his linen every other day, and in summer, when the weather was very
+hot, EVERY day, seeing that the very faintest suspicion of an unpleasant
+odour offended his fastidiousness. For the same reason it was his
+custom, before being valeted by Petrushka, always to plug his nostrils
+with a couple of cloves. In short, there were many occasions when his
+nerves suffered rackings as cruel as a young girl's, and so helped to
+increase his disgust at having once more to associate with men who set
+no store by the decencies of life. Yet, though he braced himself to the
+task, this period of adversity told upon his health, and he even grew a
+trifle shabby. More than once, on happening to catch sight of himself
+in the mirror, he could not forbear exclaiming: "Holy Mother of God,
+but what a nasty-looking brute I have become!" and for a long while
+afterwards could not with anything like sang-froid contemplate his
+reflection. Yet throughout he bore up stoutly and patiently--and ended
+by being transferred to the Customs Department. It may be said that the
+department had long constituted the secret goal of his ambition, for
+he had noted the foreign elegancies with which its officials always
+contrived to provide themselves, and had also observed that invariably
+they were able to send presents of china and cambric to their sisters
+and aunts--well, to their lady friends generally. Yes, more than once
+he had said to himself with a sigh: "THAT is the department to which I
+ought to belong, for, given a town near the frontier, and a sensible set
+of colleagues, I might be able to fit myself out with excellent linen
+shirts." Also, it may be said that most frequently of all had his
+thoughts turned towards a certain quality of French soap which imparted
+a peculiar whiteness to the skin and a peerless freshness to the cheeks.
+Its name is known to God alone, but at least it was to be procured only
+in the immediate neighbourhood of the frontier. So, as I say, Chichikov
+had long felt a leaning towards the Customs, but for a time had been
+restrained from applying for the same by the various current advantages
+of the Building Commission; since rightly he had adjudged the latter to
+constitute a bird in the hand, and the former to constitute only a bird
+in the bush. But now he decided that, come what might, into the Customs
+he must make his way. And that way he made, and then applied himself
+to his new duties with a zeal born of the fact that he realised that
+fortune had specially marked him out for a Customs officer. Indeed,
+such activity, perspicuity, and ubiquity as his had never been seen or
+thought of. Within four weeks at the most he had so thoroughly got his
+hand in that he was conversant with Customs procedure in every detail.
+Not only could he weigh and measure, but also he could divine from
+an invoice how many arshins of cloth or other material a given piece
+contained, and then, taking a roll of the latter in his hand, could
+specify at once the number of pounds at which it would tip the scale. As
+for searchings, well, even his colleagues had to admit that he possessed
+the nose of a veritable bloodhound, and that it was impossible not
+to marvel at the patience wherewith he would try every button of the
+suspected person, yet preserve, throughout, a deadly politeness and an
+icy sang-froid which surpass belief. And while the searched were raging,
+and foaming at the mouth, and feeling that they would give worlds to
+alter his smiling exterior with a good, resounding slap, he would
+move not a muscle of his face, nor abate by a jot the urbanity of his
+demeanour, as he murmured, "Do you mind so far incommoding yourself as
+to stand up?" or "Pray step into the next room, madam, where the wife
+of one of our staff will attend you," or "Pray allow me to slip this
+penknife of mine into the lining of your coat" (after which he would
+extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he
+would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors
+acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so
+perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles,
+horses' ears, and places whither an author ought not to penetrate even
+in thought--places whither only a Customs official is permitted to go.
+The result was that the wretched traveller who had just crossed the
+frontier would, within a few minutes, become wholly at sea, and, wiping
+away the perspiration, and breaking out into body flushes, would be
+reduced to crossing himself and muttering, "Well, well, well!" In fact,
+such a traveller would feel in the position of a schoolboy who, having
+been summoned to the presence of the headmaster for the ostensible
+purpose of being given an order, has found that he receives, instead, a
+sound flogging. In short, for some time Chichikov made it impossible
+for smugglers to earn a living. In particular, he reduced Polish
+Jewry almost to despair, so invincible, so almost unnatural, was the
+rectitude, the incorruptibility which led him to refrain from converting
+himself into a small capitalist with the aid of confiscated goods and
+articles which, "to save excessive clerical labour," had failed to be
+handed over to the Government. Also, without saying it goes that
+such phenomenally zealous and disinterested service attracted general
+astonishment, and, eventually, the notice of the authorities; whereupon
+he received promotion, and followed that up by mooting a scheme for
+the infallible detection of contrabandists, provided that he could be
+furnished with the necessary authority for carrying out the same. At
+once such authority was accorded him, as also unlimited power to conduct
+every species of search and investigation. And that was all he
+wanted. It happened that previously there had been formed a well-found
+association for smuggling on regular, carefully prepared lines, and
+that this daring scheme seemed to promise profit to the extent of
+some millions of money: yet, though he had long had knowledge of it,
+Chichikov had said to the association's emissaries, when sent to buy him
+over, "The time is not yet." But now that he had got all the reins into
+his hands, he sent word of the fact to the gang, and with it the remark,
+"The time is NOW." Nor was he wrong in his calculations, for, within
+the space of a year, he had acquired what he could not have made during
+twenty years of non-fraudulent service. With similar sagacity he had,
+during his early days in the department, declined altogether to enter
+into relations with the association, for the reason that he had then
+been a mere cipher, and would have come in for nothing large in the way
+of takings; but now--well, now it was another matter altogether, and
+he could dictate what terms he liked. Moreover, that the affair might
+progress the more smoothly, he suborned a fellow tchinovnik of the type
+which, in spite of grey hairs, stands powerless against temptation;
+and, the contract concluded, the association duly proceeded to business.
+Certainly business began brilliantly. But probably most of my readers
+are familiar with the oft-repeated story of the passage of Spanish sheep
+across the frontier in double fleeces which carried between their outer
+layers and their inner enough lace of Brabant to sell to the tune of
+millions of roubles; wherefore I will not recount the story again beyond
+saying that those journeys took place just when Chichikov had become
+head of the Customs, and that, had he not a hand in the enterprise, not
+all the Jews in the world could have brought it to success. By the time
+that three or four of these ovine invasions had taken place, Chichikov
+and his accomplice had come to be the possessors of four hundred
+thousand roubles apiece; while some even aver that the former's gains
+totalled half a million, owing to the greater industry which he had
+displayed in the matter. Nor can any one but God say to what a figure
+the fortunes of the pair might not eventually have attained, had not an
+awkward contretemps cut right across their arrangements. That is to
+say, for some reason or another the devil so far deprived these
+tchinovnik-conspirators of sense as to make them come to words with
+one another, and then to engage in a quarrel. Beginning with a heated
+argument, this quarrel reached the point of Chichikov--who was,
+possibly, a trifle tipsy--calling his colleague a priest's son; and
+though that description of the person so addressed was perfectly
+accurate, he chose to take offence, and to answer Chichikov with the
+words (loudly and incisively uttered), "It is YOU who have a priest for
+your father," and to add to that (the more to incense his companion),
+"Yes, mark you! THAT is how it is." Yet, though he had thus turned the
+tables upon Chichikov with a tu quoque, and then capped that exploit
+with the words last quoted, the offended tchinovnik could not remain
+satisfied, but went on to send in an anonymous document to the
+authorities. On the other hand, some aver that it was over a woman that
+the pair fell out--over a woman who, to quote the phrase then current
+among the staff of the Customs Department, was "as fresh and as strong
+as the pulp of a turnip," and that night-birds were hired to assault our
+hero in a dark alley, and that the scheme miscarried, and that in any
+case both Chichikov and his friend had been deceived, seeing that the
+person to whom the lady had really accorded her favours was a certain
+staff-captain named Shamsharev. However, only God knows the truth of the
+matter. Let the inquisitive reader ferret it out for himself. The fact
+remains that a complete exposure of the dealings with the contrabandists
+followed, and that the two tchinovniks were put to the question,
+deprived of their property, and made to formulate in writing all that
+they had done. Against this thunderbolt of fortune the State Councillor
+could make no headway, and in some retired spot or another sank into
+oblivion; but Chichikov put a brave face upon the matter, for, in
+spite of the authorities' best efforts to smell out his gains, he had
+contrived to conceal a portion of them, and also resorted to every
+subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an
+experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows.
+Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving
+oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of
+a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was
+retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual
+trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all his capital,
+stripped of his imported effects, stripped of everything. That is to
+say, all that remained to him consisted of ten thousand roubles which he
+had stored against a rainy day, two dozen linen shirts, a small britchka
+of the type used by bachelors, and two serving-men named Selifan and
+Petrushka. Yes, and an impulse of kindness moved the tchinovniks of the
+Customs also to set aside for him a few cakes of the soap which he had
+found so excellent for the freshness of the cheeks. Thus once more our
+hero found himself stranded. And what an accumulation of misfortunes had
+descended upon his head!--though, true, he termed them "suffering in the
+Service in the cause of Truth." Certainly one would have thought that,
+after these buffetings and trials and changes of fortune--after this
+taste of the sorrows of life--he and his precious ten thousand roubles
+would have withdrawn to some peaceful corner in a provincial town,
+where, clad in a stuff dressing-gown, he could have sat and listened to
+the peasants quarrelling on festival days, or (for the sake of a breath
+of fresh air) have gone in person to the poulterer's to finger chickens
+for soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly useless, existence;
+but nothing of the kind took place, and therein we must do justice to
+the strength of his character. In other words, although he had undergone
+what, to the majority of men, would have meant ruin and discouragement
+and a shattering of ideals, he still preserved his energy. True,
+downcast and angry, and full of resentment against the world in general,
+he felt furious with the injustice of fate, and dissatisfied with
+the dealings of men; yet he could not forbear courting additional
+experiences. In short, the patience which he displayed was such as to
+make the wooden persistency of the German--a persistency merely due to
+the slow, lethargic circulation of the Teuton's blood--seem nothing at
+all, seeing that by nature Chichikov's blood flowed strongly, and
+that he had to employ much force of will to curb within himself those
+elements which longed to burst forth and revel in freedom. He thought
+things over, and, as he did so, a certain spice of reason appeared in
+his reflections.
+
+"How have I come to be what I am?" he said to himself. "Why has
+misfortune overtaken me in this way? Never have I wronged a poor person,
+or robbed a widow, or turned any one out of doors: I have always been
+careful only to take advantage of those who possess more than their
+share. Moreover, I have never gleaned anywhere but where every one else
+was gleaning; and, had I not done so, others would have gleaned in my
+place. Why, then, should those others be prospering, and I be sunk as
+low as a worm? What am I? What am I good for? How can I, in future, hope
+to look any honest father of a family in the face? How shall I escape
+being tortured with the thought that I am cumbering the ground? What,
+in the years to come, will my children say, save that 'our father was a
+brute, for he left us nothing to live upon?'"
+
+Here I may remark that we have seen how much thought Chichikov devoted
+to his future descendants. Indeed, had not there been constantly
+recurring to his mind the insistent question, "What will my children
+say?" he might not have plunged into the affair so deeply. Nevertheless,
+like a wary cat which glances hither and thither to see whether its
+mistress be not coming before it can make off with whatsoever first
+falls to its paw (butter, fat, lard, a duck, or anything else), so our
+future founder of a family continued, though weeping and bewailing
+his lot, to let not a single detail escape his eye. That is to say,
+he retained his wits ever in a state of activity, and kept his brain
+constantly working. All that he required was a plan. Once more he pulled
+himself together, once more he embarked upon a life of toil, once more
+he stinted himself in everything, once more he left clean and decent
+surroundings for a dirty, mean existence. In other words, until
+something better should turn up, he embraced the calling of an ordinary
+attorney--a calling which, not then possessed of a civic status, was
+jostled on very side, enjoyed little respect at the hands of the minor
+legal fry (or, indeed, at its own), and perforce met with universal
+slights and rudeness. But sheer necessity compelled Chichikov to face
+these things. Among commissions entrusted to him was that of placing in
+the hands of the Public Trustee several hundred peasants who belonged
+to a ruined estate. The estate had reached its parlous condition through
+cattle disease, through rascally bailiffs, through failures of the
+harvest, through such epidemic diseases that had killed off the best
+workmen, and, last, but not least, through the senseless conduct of the
+owner himself, who had furnished a house in Moscow in the latest style,
+and then squandered his every kopeck, so that nothing was left for
+his further maintenance, and it became necessary to mortgage the
+remains--including the peasants--of the estate. In those days mortgage
+to the Treasury was an innovation looked upon with reserve, and, as
+attorney in the matter, Chichikov had first of all to "entertain" every
+official concerned (we know that, unless that be previously done, unless
+a whole bottle of madeira first be emptied down each clerical throat,
+not the smallest legal affair can be carried through), and to explain,
+for the barring of future attachments, that half of the peasants were
+dead.
+
+"And are they entered on the revision lists?" asked the secretary.
+"Yes," replied Chichikov. "Then what are you boggling at?" continued the
+Secretary. "Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time grow
+up to take the first one's place." Upon that there dawned on our hero
+one of the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human brain. "What
+a simpleton I am!" he thought to himself. "Here am I looking about for
+my mittens when all the time I have got them tucked into my belt. Why,
+were I myself to buy up a few souls which are dead--to buy them before
+a new revision list shall have been made, the Council of Public Trust
+might pay me two hundred roubles apiece for them, and I might find
+myself with, say, a capital of two hundred thousand roubles! The present
+moment is particularly propitious, since in various parts of the country
+there has been an epidemic, and, glory be to God, a large number of
+souls have died of it. Nowadays landowners have taken to card-playing
+and junketting and wasting their money, or to joining the Civil Service
+in St. Petersburg; consequently their estates are going to rack and
+ruin, and being managed in any sort of fashion, and succeeding in paying
+their dues with greater difficulty each year. That being so, not a man
+of the lot but would gladly surrender to me his dead souls rather than
+continue paying the poll-tax; and in this fashion I might make--well,
+not a few kopecks. Of course there are difficulties, and, to avoid
+creating a scandal, I should need to employ plenty of finesse; but man
+was given his brain to USE, not to neglect. One good point about the
+scheme is that it will seem so improbable that in case of an accident,
+no one in the world will believe in it. True, it is illegal to buy or
+mortgage peasants without land, but I can easily pretend to be buying
+them only for transferment elsewhere. Land is to be acquired in the
+provinces of Taurida and Kherson almost for nothing, provided that one
+undertakes subsequently to colonise it; so to Kherson I will 'transfer'
+them, and long may they live there! And the removal of my dead souls
+shall be carried out in the strictest legal form; and if the authorities
+should want confirmation by testimony, I shall produce a letter signed
+by my own superintendent of the Khersonian rural police--that is to
+say, by myself. Lastly, the supposed village in Kherson shall be called
+Chichikovoe--better still Pavlovskoe, according to my Christian name."
+
+In this fashion there germinated in our hero's brain that strange scheme
+for which the reader may or may not be grateful, but for which the
+author certainly is so, seeing that, had it never occurred to Chichikov,
+this story would never have seen the light.
+
+After crossing himself, according to the Russian custom, Chichikov set
+about carrying out his enterprise. On pretence of selecting a place
+wherein to settle, he started forth to inspect various corners of the
+Russian Empire, but more especially those which had suffered from
+such unfortunate accidents as failures of the harvest, a high rate of
+mortality, or whatsoever else might enable him to purchase souls at the
+lowest possible rate. But he did not tackle his landowners haphazard: he
+rather selected such of them as seemed more particularly suited to his
+taste, or with whom he might with the least possible trouble conclude
+identical agreements; though, in the first instance, he always tried, by
+getting on terms of acquaintanceship--better still, of friendship--with
+them, to acquire the souls for nothing, and so to avoid purchase at all.
+In passing, my readers must not blame me if the characters whom they
+have encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their
+liking. The fault is Chichikov's rather than mine, for he is the master,
+and where he leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me
+for a certain dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters
+and actors, that will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad
+tendency and the general scope of a work become immediately apparent.
+Similarly does the entry to every town--the entry even to the Capital
+itself--convey to the traveller such an impression of vagueness that
+at first everything looks grey and monotonous, and the lines of smoky
+factories and workshops seem never to be coming to an end; but in time
+there will begin also to stand out the outlines of six-storied mansions,
+and of shops and balconies, and wide perspectives of streets, and a
+medley of steeples, columns, statues, and turrets--the whole framed in
+rattle and roar and the infinite wonders which the hand and the brain of
+men have conceived. Of the manner in which Chichikov's first purchases
+were made the reader is aware. Subsequently he will see also how the
+affair progressed, and with what success or failure our hero met,
+and how Chichikov was called upon to decide and to overcome even more
+difficult problems than the foregoing, and by what colossal forces the
+levers of his far-flung tale are moved, and how eventually the horizon
+will become extended until everything assumes a grandiose and a lyrical
+tendency. Yes, many a verst of road remains to be travelled by a party
+made up of an elderly gentleman, a britchka of the kind affected by
+bachelors, a valet named Petrushka, a coachman named Selifan, and
+three horses which, from the Assessor to the skewbald, are known to us
+individually by name. Again, although I have given a full description of
+our hero's exterior (such as it is), I may yet be asked for an inclusive
+definition also of his moral personality. That he is no hero compounded
+of virtues and perfections must be already clear. Then WHAT is he? A
+villain? Why should we call him a villain? Why should we be so hard upon
+a fellow man? In these days our villains have ceased to exist. Rather
+it would be fairer to call him an ACQUIRER. The love of acquisition, the
+love of gain, is a fault common to many, and gives rise to many and many
+a transaction of the kind generally known as "not strictly honourable."
+True, such a character contains an element of ugliness, and the same
+reader who, on his journey through life, would sit at the board of a
+character of this kind, and spend a most agreeable time with him, would
+be the first to look at him askance if he should appear in the guise of
+the hero of a novel or a play. But wise is the reader who, on meeting
+such a character, scans him carefully, and, instead of shrinking from
+him with distaste, probes him to the springs of his being. The human
+personality contains nothing which may not, in the twinkling of an eye,
+become altogether changed--nothing in which, before you can look round,
+there may not spring to birth some cankerous worm which is destined to
+suck thence the essential juice. Yes, it is a common thing to see not
+only an overmastering passion, but also a passion of the most petty
+order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and lead him both
+to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and to see only in
+the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy. For human passions are as
+numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his most
+insistent of masters. Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from
+among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will
+that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by
+hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his
+soul. But there are passions of which a man cannot rid himself, seeing
+that they are born with him at his birth, and he has no power to abjure
+them. Higher powers govern those passions, and in them is something
+which will call to him, and refuse to be silenced, to the end of his
+life. Yes, whether in a guise of darkness, or whether in a guise which
+will become converted into a light to lighten the world, they will and
+must attain their consummation on life's field: and in either case they
+have been evoked for man's good. In the same way may the passion
+which drew our Chichikov onwards have been one that was independent of
+himself; in the same way may there have lurked even in his cold essence
+something which will one day cause men to humble themselves in the dust
+before the infinite wisdom of God.
+
+Yet that folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing. What
+matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their approval
+could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to say, had not
+the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov's soul, nor stirred up in
+its depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light, nor disclosed
+those of his hero's thoughts which that hero would have not have
+disclosed even to his most intimate friend; had the author, indeed,
+exhibited Chichikov just as he exhibited himself to the townsmen of
+N. and Manilov and the rest; well, then we may rest assured that every
+reader would have been delighted with him, and have voted him a most
+interesting person. For it is not nearly so necessary that Chichikov
+should figure before the reader as though his form and person were
+actually present to the eye as that, on concluding a perusal of this
+work, the reader should be able to return, unharrowed in soul, to that
+cult of the card-table which is the solace and delight of all good
+Russians. Yes, readers of this book, none of you really care to see
+humanity revealed in its nakedness. "Why should we do so?" you say.
+"What would be the use of it? Do we not know for ourselves that human
+life contains much that is gross and contemptible? Do we not with our
+own eyes have to look upon much that is anything but comforting?
+Far better would it be if you would put before us what is comely and
+attractive, so that we might forget ourselves a little." In the same
+fashion does a landowner say to his bailiff: "Why do you come and tell
+me that the affairs of my estate are in a bad way? I know that without
+YOUR help. Have you nothing else to tell me? Kindly allow me to forget
+the fact, or else to remain in ignorance of it, and I shall be much
+obliged to you." Whereafter the said landowner probably proceeds to
+spend on his diversion the money which ought to have gone towards the
+rehabilitation of his affairs.
+
+Possibly the author may also incur censure at the hands of those
+so-called "patriots" who sit quietly in corners, and become capitalists
+through making fortunes at the expense of others. Yes, let but something
+which they conceive to be derogatory to their country occur--for
+instance, let there be published some book which voices the bitter
+truth--and out they will come from their hiding-places like a spider
+which perceives a fly to be caught in its web. "Is it well to proclaim
+this to the world, and to set folk talking about it?" they will cry.
+"What you have described touches US, is OUR affair. Is conduct of that
+kind right? What will foreigners say? Does any one care calmly to sit
+by and hear himself traduced? Why should you lead foreigners to suppose
+that all is not well with us, and that we are not patriotic?" Well, to
+these sage remarks no answer can really be returned, especially to such
+of the above as refer to foreign opinion. But see here. There once lived
+in a remote corner of Russia two natives of the region indicated. One of
+those natives was a good man named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly
+disposition; a man who went through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no
+heed to his household, for the reason that his whole being was centred
+upon the province of speculation, and that, in particular, he was
+preoccupied with a philosophical problem usually stated by him thus:
+"A beast," he would say, "is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why
+should not a beast be born as a bird is born--that is to say, through
+the process of being hatched from an egg? Nature is beyond the
+understanding, however much one may probe her." This was the substance
+of Kifa Mokievitch's reflections. But herein is not the chief point.
+The other of the pair was a fellow named Mofi Kifovitch, and son to the
+first named. He was what we Russians call a "hero," and while his
+father was pondering the parturition of beasts, his, the son's, lusty,
+twenty-year-old temperament was violently struggling for development.
+Yet that son could tackle nothing without some accident occurring. At
+one moment would he crack some one's fingers in half, and at another
+would he raise a bump on somebody's nose; so that both at home
+and abroad every one and everything--from the serving-maid to the
+yard-dog--fled on his approach, and even the bed in his bedroom became
+shattered to splinters. Such was Mofi Kifovitch; and with it all he had
+a kindly soul. But herein is not the chief point. "Good sir, good Kifa
+Mokievitch," servants and neighbours would come and say to the father,
+"what are you going to do about your Moki Kifovitch? We get no rest from
+him, he is so above himself." "That is only his play, that is only his
+play," the father would reply. "What else can you expect? It is too late
+now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one would accuse
+me of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but, were I to reprove
+him in public, the whole thing would become common talk, and folk would
+begin giving him a dog's name. And if they did that, would not their
+opinion touch me also, seeing that I am his father? Also, I am busy with
+philosophy, and have no time for such things. Lastly, Moki Kifovitch
+is my son, and very dear to my heart." And, beating his breast, Kifa
+Mokievitch again asserted that, even though his son should elect
+to continue his pranks, it would not be for HIM, for the father,
+to proclaim the fact, or to fall out with his offspring. And, this
+expression of paternal feeling uttered, Kifa Mokievitch left Moki
+Kifovitch to his heroic exploits, and himself returned to his beloved
+subject of speculation, which now included also the problem, "Suppose
+elephants were to take to being hatched from eggs, would not the
+shell of such eggs be of a thickness proof against cannonballs, and
+necessitate the invention of some new type of firearm?" Thus at the end
+of this little story we have these two denizens of a peaceful corner of
+Russia looking thence, as from a window, in less terror of doing what
+was scandalous than of having it SAID of them that they were acting
+scandalously. Yes, the feeling animating our so-called "patriots" is not
+true patriotism at all. Something else lies beneath it. Who, if not an
+author, is to speak aloud the truth? Men like you, my pseudo-patriots,
+stand in dread of the eye which is able to discern, yet shrink from
+using your own, and prefer, rather, to glance at everything unheedingly.
+Yes, after laughing heartily over Chichikov's misadventures, and perhaps
+even commending the author for his dexterity of observation and pretty
+turn of wit, you will look at yourselves with redoubled pride and a
+self-satisfied smile, and add: "Well, we agree that in certain parts of
+the provinces there exists strange and ridiculous individuals, as well
+as unconscionable rascals."
+
+Yet which of you, when quiet, and alone, and engaged in solitary
+self-communion, would not do well to probe YOUR OWN souls, and to put
+to YOURSELVES the solemn question, "Is there not in ME an element of
+Chichikov?" For how should there not be? Which of you is not liable at
+any moment to be passed in the street by an acquaintance who, nudging
+his neighbour, may say of you, with a barely suppressed sneer: "Look!
+there goes Chichikov! That is Chichikov who has just gone by!"
+
+But here are we talking at the top of our voices whilst all the time our
+hero lies slumbering in his britchka! Indeed, his name has been repeated
+so often during the recital of his life's history that he must almost
+have heard us! And at any time he is an irritable, irascible fellow when
+spoken of with disrespect. True, to the reader Chichikov's displeasure
+cannot matter a jot; but for the author it would mean ruin to quarrel
+with his hero, seeing that, arm in arm, Chichikov and he have yet far to
+go.
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!" came in a shout from Chichikov. "Hi, Selifan!"
+
+"What is it?" came the reply, uttered with a drawl.
+
+"What is it? Why, how dare you drive like that? Come! Bestir yourself a
+little!"
+
+And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and
+hands which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save an
+occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst Petrushka
+had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head had come to
+rest against Chichikov's knees--a position which necessitated his being
+awakened with a cuff. Selifan also roused himself, and apportioned to
+the skewbald a few cuts across the back of a kind which at least had the
+effect of inciting that animal to trot; and when, presently, the other
+two horses followed their companion's example, the light britchka moved
+forwards like a piece of thistledown. Selifan flourished his whip and
+shouted, "Hi, hi!" as the inequalities of the road jerked him vertically
+on his seat; and meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions
+of the vehicle's interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the
+sensation of driving fast. For what Russian does not love to drive fast?
+Which of us does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and
+to let them go, and to cry, "To the devil with the world!"? At such
+moments a great force seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies,
+and everything else flies, but contrariwise--both the verst stones, and
+traders riding on the shafts of their waggons, and the forest with
+dark lines of spruce and fir amid which may be heard the axe of the
+woodcutter and the croaking of the raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote
+distance the road comes towards one, and while nothing save the sky and
+the light clouds through which the moon is cleaving her way seem halted,
+the brief glimpses wherein one can discern nothing clearly have in them
+a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika, troika, swift as a bird, who
+was it first invented you? Only among a hardy race of folk can you have
+come to birth--only in a land which, though poor and rough, lies spread
+over half the world, and spans versts the counting whereof would leave
+one with aching eyes. Nor are you a modishly-fashioned vehicle of the
+road--a thing of clamps and iron. Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen
+and fitted with the axe or chisel of some handy peasant of Yaroslav.
+Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed in German livery, but by a man
+bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts, and flourishes his whip, and
+breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the wind go the horses, and
+the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent circles, and the
+road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of
+astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on
+its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon--a speck amid a
+cloud of dust!
+
+And you, Russia of mine--are not you also speeding like a troika which
+nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and
+the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in
+the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder
+whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that
+awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force
+which lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves
+must abide in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an
+ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids them, with
+iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the earth as
+they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? Whither, then, are
+you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer
+comes--only the weird sound of your collar-bells. Rent into a thousand
+shreds, the air roars past you, for you are overtaking the whole world,
+and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside, to give
+you way!
+
+                                                                 1841.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Why do I so persistently paint the poverty, the imperfections of Russian
+life, and delve into the remotest depths, the most retired holes and
+corners, of our Empire for my subjects? The answer is that there is
+nothing else to be done when an author's idiosyncrasy happens to incline
+him that way. So again we find ourselves in a retired spot. But what a
+spot!
+
+Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with
+embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards
+the heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse
+of plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone cliffs.
+Here and there those cliffs are seamed with water-courses and gullies,
+while at other points they are rounded off into spurs of green--spurs
+now coated with fleece-like tufts of young undergrowth, now studded with
+the stumps of felled trees, now covered with timber which has, by some
+miracle, escaped the woodman's axe. Also, a river winds awhile between
+its banks, then leaves the meadow land, divides into runlets (all
+flashing in the sun like fire), plunges, re-united, into the midst of a
+thicket of elder, birch, and pine, and, lastly, speeds triumphantly past
+bridges and mills and weirs which seem to be lying in wait for it at
+every turn.
+
+At one particular spot the steep flank of the mountain range is covered
+with billowy verdure of denser growth than the rest; and here the aid of
+skilful planting, added to the shelter afforded by a rugged ravine, has
+enabled the flora of north and south so to be brought together that,
+twined about with sinuous hop-tendrils, the oak, the spruce fir, the
+wild pear, the maple, the cherry, the thorn, and the mountain ash either
+assist or check one another's growth, and everywhere cover the declivity
+with their straggling profusion. Also, at the edge of the summit there
+can be seen mingling with the green of the trees the red roofs of a
+manorial homestead, while behind the upper stories of the mansion proper
+and its carved balcony and a great semi-circular window there gleam the
+tiles and gables of some peasants' huts. Lastly, over this combination
+of trees and roofs there rises--overtopping everything with its gilded,
+sparkling steeple--an old village church. On each of its pinnacles a
+cross of carved gilt is stayed with supports of similar gilding and
+design; with the result that from a distance the gilded portions
+have the effect of hanging without visible agency in the air. And
+the whole--the three successive tiers of woodland, roofs, and crosses
+whole--lies exquisitely mirrored in the river below, where hollow
+willows, grotesquely shaped (some of them rooted on the river's banks,
+and some in the water itself, and all drooping their branches until
+their leaves have formed a tangle with the water lilies which float on
+the surface), seem to be gazing at the marvellous reflection at their
+feet.
+
+Thus the view from below is beautiful indeed. But the view from above
+is even better. No guest, no visitor, could stand on the balcony of the
+mansion and remain indifferent. So boundless is the panorama revealed
+that surprise would cause him to catch at his breath, and exclaim: "Lord
+of Heaven, but what a prospect!" Beyond meadows studded with spinneys
+and water-mills lie forests belted with green; while beyond, again,
+there can be seen showing through the slightly misty air strips of
+yellow heath, and, again, wide-rolling forests (as blue as the sea or a
+cloud), and more heath, paler than the first, but still yellow. Finally,
+on the far horizon a range of chalk-topped hills gleams white, even in
+dull weather, as though it were lightened with perpetual sunshine;
+and here and there on the dazzling whiteness of its lower slopes some
+plaster-like, nebulous patches represent far-off villages which lie
+too remote for the eye to discern their details. Indeed, only when the
+sunlight touches a steeple to gold does one realise that each such
+patch is a human settlement. Finally, all is wrapped in an immensity of
+silence which even the far, faint echoes of persons singing in the void
+of the plain cannot shatter.
+
+Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the
+visitor would still find nothing to say, save: "Lord of Heaven, but
+what a prospect!" Then who is the dweller in, the proprietor of, this
+manor--a manor to which, as to an impregnable fortress, entrance cannot
+be gained from the side where we have been standing, but only from the
+other approach, where a few scattered oaks offer hospitable welcome to
+the visitor, and then, spreading above him their spacious branches (as
+in friendly embrace), accompany him to the facade of the mansion whose
+top we have been regarding from the reverse aspect, but which now stands
+frontwise on to us, and has, on one side of it, a row of peasants' huts
+with red tiles and carved gables, and, on the other, the village church,
+with those glittering golden crosses and gilded open-work charms which
+seem to hang suspended in the air? Yes, indeed!--to what fortunate
+individual does this corner of the world belong? It belongs to Andrei
+Ivanovitch Tientietnikov, landowner of the canton of Tremalakhan, and,
+withal, a bachelor of about thirty.
+
+Should my lady readers ask of me what manner of man is Tientietnikov,
+and what are his attributes and peculiarities, I should refer them
+to his neighbours. Of these, a member of the almost extinct tribe
+of intelligent staff officers on the retired list once summed up
+Tientietnikov in the phrase, "He is an absolute blockhead;" while a
+General who resided ten versts away was heard to remark that "he is a
+young man who, though not exactly a fool, has at least too much crowded
+into his head. I myself might have been of use to him, for not only do
+I maintain certain connections with St. Petersburg, but also--" And the
+General left his sentence unfinished. Thirdly, a captain-superintendent
+of rural police happened to remark in the course of conversation:
+"To-morrow I must go and see Tientietnikov about his arrears." Lastly,
+a peasant of Tientietnikov's own village, when asked what his barin was
+like, returned no answer at all. All of which would appear to show that
+Tientietnikov was not exactly looked upon with favour.
+
+To speak dispassionately, however, he was not a bad sort of
+fellow--merely a star-gazer; and since the world contains many watchers
+of the skies, why should Tientietnikov not have been one of them?
+However, let me describe in detail a specimen day of his existence--one
+that will closely resemble the rest, and then the reader will be enabled
+to judge of Tientietnikov's character, and how far his life corresponded
+to the beauties of nature with which he lived surrounded.
+
+On the morning of the specimen day in question he awoke very late, and,
+raising himself to a sitting posture, rubbed his eyes. And since those
+eyes were small, the process of rubbing them occupied a very long time,
+and throughout its continuance there stood waiting by the door his
+valet, Mikhailo, armed with a towel and basin. For one hour, for two
+hours, did poor Mikhailo stand there: then he departed to the kitchen,
+and returned to find his master still rubbing his eyes as he sat on the
+bed. At length, however, Tientietnikov rose, washed himself, donned a
+dressing-gown, and moved into the drawing-room for morning tea, coffee,
+cocoa, and warm milk; of all of which he partook but sparingly, while
+munching a piece of bread, and scattering tobacco ash with complete
+insouciance. Two hours did he sit over this meal, then poured himself
+out another cup of the rapidly cooling tea, and walked to the window.
+This faced the courtyard, and outside it, as usual, there took place the
+following daily altercation between a serf named Grigory (who purported
+to act as butler) and the housekeeper, Perfilievna.
+
+Grigory. Ah, you nuisance, you good-for-nothing, you had better hold
+your stupid tongue.
+
+Perfilievna. Yes; and don't you wish that I would?
+
+Grigory. What? You so thick with that bailiff of yours, you housekeeping
+jade!
+
+Perfilievna. Nay, he is as big a thief as you are. Do you think the
+barin doesn't know you? And there he is! He must have heard everything!
+
+Grigory. Where?
+
+Perfilievna. There--sitting by the window, and looking at us!
+
+Next, to complete the hubbub, a serf child which had been clouted by its
+mother broke out into a bawl, while a borzoi puppy which had happened
+to get splashed with boiling water by the cook fell to yelping
+vociferously. In short, the place soon became a babel of shouts and
+squeals, and, after watching and listening for a time, the barin found
+it so impossible to concentrate his mind upon anything that he sent out
+word that the noise would have to be abated.
+
+The next item was that, a couple of hours before luncheon time, he
+withdrew to his study, to set about employing himself upon a weighty
+work which was to consider Russia from every point of view: from the
+political, from the philosophical, and from the religious, as well as to
+resolve various problems which had arisen to confront the Empire, and to
+define clearly the great future to which the country stood ordained. In
+short, it was to be the species of compilation in which the man of the
+day so much delights. Yet the colossal undertaking had progressed but
+little beyond the sphere of projection, since, after a pen had been
+gnawed awhile, and a few strokes had been committed to paper, the whole
+would be laid aside in favour of the reading of some book; and that
+reading would continue also during luncheon and be followed by the
+lighting of a pipe, the playing of a solitary game of chess, and the
+doing of more or less nothing for the rest of the day.
+
+The foregoing will give the reader a pretty clear idea of the manner in
+which it was possible for this man of thirty-three to waste his time.
+Clad constantly in slippers and a dressing-gown, Tientietnikov never
+went out, never indulged in any form of dissipation, and never walked
+upstairs. Nothing did he care for fresh air, and would bestow not a
+passing glance upon all those beauties of the countryside which moved
+visitors to such ecstatic admiration. From this the reader will see that
+Andrei Ivanovitch Tientietnikov belonged to that band of sluggards whom
+we always have with us, and who, whatever be their present appellation,
+used to be known by the nicknames of "lollopers," "bed pressers," and
+"marmots." Whether the type is a type originating at birth, or a type
+resulting from untoward circumstances in later life, it is impossible to
+say. A better course than to attempt to answer that question would be to
+recount the story of Tientietnikov's boyhood and upbringing.
+
+Everything connected with the latter seemed to promise success, for at
+twelve years of age the boy--keen-witted, but dreamy of temperament, and
+inclined to delicacy--was sent to an educational establishment presided
+over by an exceptional type of master. The idol of his pupils, and the
+admiration of his assistants, Alexander Petrovitch was gifted with
+an extraordinary measure of good sense. How thoroughly he knew the
+peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he understood boys!
+How capable he was of drawing them out! Not a practical joker in the
+school but, after perpetrating a prank, would voluntarily approach his
+preceptor and make to him free confession. True, the preceptor would
+put a stern face upon the matter, yet the culprit would depart with head
+held higher, not lower, than before, since in Alexander Petrovitch
+there was something which heartened--something which seemed to say to a
+delinquent: "Forward you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have
+fallen!" Not lectures on good behaviour was it, therefore, that fell
+from his lips, but rather the injunction, "I want to see intelligence,
+and nothing else. The boy who devotes his attention to becoming clever
+will never play the fool, for under such circumstances, folly disappears
+of itself." And so folly did, for the boy who failed to strive in the
+desired direction incurred the contempt of all his comrades, and even
+dunces and fools of senior standing did not dare to raise a finger when
+saluted by their juniors with opprobrious epithets. Yet "This is too
+much," certain folk would say to Alexander. "The result will be that
+your students will turn out prigs." "But no," he would reply. "Not at
+all. You see, I make it my principle to keep the incapables for a single
+term only, since that is enough for them; but to the clever ones I allot
+a double course of instruction." And, true enough, any lad of brains was
+retained for this finishing course. Yet he did not repress all boyish
+playfulness, since he declared it to be as necessary as a rash to a
+doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to diagnose what lay hidden within.
+
+Consequently, how the boys loved him! Never was there such an attachment
+between master and pupils. And even later, during the foolish years,
+when foolish things attract, the measure of affection which Alexander
+Petrovitch retained was extraordinary. In fact, to the day of his death,
+every former pupil would celebrate the birthday of his late master by
+raising his glass in gratitude to the mentor dead and buried--then close
+his eyelids upon the tears which would come trickling through them.
+Even the slightest word of encouragement from Alexander Petrovitch could
+throw a lad into a transport of tremulous joy, and arouse in him an
+honourable emulation of his fellows. Boys of small capacity he did
+not long retain in his establishment; whereas those who possessed
+exceptional talent he put through an extra course of schooling. This
+senior class--a class composed of specially-selected pupils--was a very
+different affair from what usually obtains in other colleges. Only when
+a boy had attained its ranks did Alexander demand of him what other
+masters indiscreetly require of mere infants--namely the superior
+frame of mind which, while never indulging in mockery, can itself bear
+ridicule, and disregard the fool, and keep its temper, and repress
+itself, and eschew revenge, and calmly, proudly retain its tranquillity
+of soul. In short, whatever avails to form a boy into a man of assured
+character, that did Alexander Petrovitch employ during the pupil's
+youth, as well as constantly put him to the test. How well he understood
+the art of life!
+
+Of assistant tutors he kept but few, since most of the necessary
+instruction he imparted in person, and, without pedantic terminology
+and inflated diction and views, could so transmit to his listeners the
+inmost spirit of a lesson that even the youngest present absorbed its
+essential elements. Also, of studies he selected none but those which
+may help a boy to become a good citizen; and therefore most of the
+lectures which he delivered consisted of discourses on what may be
+awaiting a youth, as well as of such demarcations of life's field that
+the pupil, though seated, as yet, only at the desk, could beforehand
+bear his part in that field both in thought and spirit. Nor did the
+master CONCEAL anything. That is to say, without mincing words, he
+invariably set before his hearers the sorrows and the difficulties which
+may confront a man, the trials and the temptations which may beset
+him. And this he did in terms as though, in every possible calling and
+capacity, he himself had experienced the same. Consequently, either the
+vigorous development of self-respect or the constant stimulus of the
+master's eye (which seemed to say to the pupil, "Forward!"--that word
+which has become so familiar to the contemporary Russian, that word
+which has worked such wonders upon his sensitive temperament); one or
+the other, I repeat, would from the first cause the pupil to tackle
+difficulties, and only difficulties, and to hunger for prowess only
+where the path was arduous, and obstacles were many, and it was
+necessary to display the utmost strength of mind. Indeed, few completed
+the course of which I have spoken without issuing therefrom reliable,
+seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most embarrassing
+of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men, distracted
+with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything or, grown
+slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and the
+rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered from
+the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the
+weapons of prudence, exerted a powerful influence upon wrongdoers.
+
+For a long time past the ardent young Tientietnikov's excitable heart
+had also beat at the thought that one day he might attain the senior
+class described. And, indeed, what better teacher could he have had
+befall him than its preceptor? Yet just at the moment when he had been
+transferred thereto, just at the moment when he had reached the coveted
+position, did his instructor come suddenly by his death! This was
+indeed a blow for the boy--indeed a terrible initial loss! In his eyes
+everything connected with the school seemed to undergo a change--the
+chief reason being the fact that to the place of the deceased headmaster
+there succeeded a certain Thedor Ivanovitch, who at once began to
+insist upon certain external rules, and to demand of the boys what ought
+rightly to have been demanded only of adults. That is to say, since
+the lads' frank and open demeanour savoured to him only of lack
+of discipline, he announced (as though in deliberate spite of his
+predecessor) that he cared nothing for progress and intellect, but that
+heed was to be paid only to good behaviour. Yet, curiously enough, good
+behaviour was just what he never obtained, for every kind of secret
+prank became the rule; and while, by day, there reigned restraint
+and conspiracy, by night there began to take place chambering and
+wantonness.
+
+Also, certain changes in the curriculum of studies came about, for there
+were engaged new teachers who held new views and opinions, and confused
+their hearers with a multitude of new terms and phrases, and displayed
+in their exposition of things both logical sequence and a zest
+for modern discovery and much warmth of individual bias. Yet their
+instruction, alas! contained no LIFE--in the mouths of those teachers a
+dead language savoured merely of carrion. Thus everything connected with
+the school underwent a radical alteration, and respect for authority
+and the authorities waned, and tutors and ushers came to be dubbed "Old
+Thedor," "Crusty," and the like. And sundry other things began to take
+place--things which necessitated many a penalty and expulsion; until,
+within a couple of years, no one who had known the school in former days
+would now have recognised it.
+
+Nevertheless Tientietnikov, a youth of retiring disposition, experienced
+no leanings towards the nocturnal orgies of his companions, orgies
+during which the latter used to flirt with damsels before the very
+windows of the headmaster's rooms, nor yet towards their mockery of
+all that was sacred, simply because fate had cast in their way an
+injudicious priest. No, despite its dreaminess, his soul ever remembered
+its celestial origin, and could not be diverted from the path of virtue.
+Yet still he hung his head, for, while his ambition had come to life,
+it could find no sort of outlet. Truly 'twere well if it had NOT come
+to life, for throughout the time that he was listening to professors
+who gesticulated on their chairs he could not help remembering the
+old preceptor who, invariably cool and calm, had yet known how to make
+himself understood. To what subjects, to what lectures, did the boy not
+have to listen!--to lectures on medicine, and on philosophy, and on law,
+and on a version of general history so enlarged that even three years
+failed to enable the professor to do more than finish the introduction
+thereto, and also the account of the development of some self-governing
+towns in Germany. None of the stuff remained fixed in Tientietnikov's
+brain save as shapeless clots; for though his native intellect could not
+tell him how instruction ought to be imparted, it at least told him that
+THIS was not the way. And frequently, at such moments he would recall
+Alexander Petrovitch, and give way to such grief that scarcely did he
+know what he was doing.
+
+But youth is fortunate in the fact that always before it there lies a
+future; and in proportion as the time for his leaving school drew nigh,
+Tientietnikov's heart began to beat higher and higher, and he said to
+himself: "This is not life, but only a preparation for life. True life
+is to be found in the Public Service. There at least will there be scope
+for activity." So, bestowing not a glance upon that beautiful corner of
+the world which never failed to strike the guest or chance visitor with
+amazement, and reverencing not a whit the dust of his ancestors, he
+followed the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to
+St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia
+from every quarter gravitates--there to enter the Public Service, to
+shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks
+of that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But
+the real starting-point of Tientietnikov's ambition was the moment when
+his uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into him
+the maxim that the only means to success in the Service lay in good
+handwriting, and that, without that accomplishment, no one could ever
+hope to become a Minister or Statesman. Thus, with great difficulty,
+and also with the help of his uncle's influence, young Tientietnikov at
+length succeeded in being posted to a Department. On the day that he
+was conducted into a splendid, shining hall--a hall fitted with inlaid
+floors and lacquered desks as fine as though this were actually the
+place where the great ones of the Empire met for discussion of the
+fortunes of the State; on the day that he saw legions of handsome
+gentlemen of the quill-driving profession making loud scratchings with
+pens, and cocking their heads to one side; lastly on the day that he
+saw himself also allotted a desk, and requested to copy a document which
+appeared purposely to be one of the pettiest possible order (as a matter
+of fact it related to a sum of three roubles, and had taken half a
+year to produce)--well, at that moment a curious, an unwonted sensation
+seized upon the inexperienced youth, for the gentlemen around him
+appeared so exactly like a lot of college students. And, the further to
+complete the resemblance, some of them were engaged in reading trashy
+translated novels, which they kept hurriedly thrusting between the
+sheets of their apportioned work whenever the Director appeared, as
+though to convey the impression that it was to that work alone that they
+were applying themselves. In short, the scene seemed to Tientietnikov
+strange, and his former pursuits more important than his present, and
+his preparation for the Service preferable to the Service itself. Yes,
+suddenly he felt a longing for his old school; and as suddenly, and with
+all the vividness of life, there appeared before his vision the figure
+of Alexander Petrovitch. He almost burst into tears as he beheld his old
+master, and the room seemed to swim before his eyes, and the tchinovniks
+and the desks to become a blur, and his sight to grow dim. Then he
+thought to himself with an effort: "No, no! I WILL apply myself to
+my work, however petty it be at first." And hardening his heart and
+recovering his spirit, he determined then and there to perform his
+duties in such a manner as should be an example to the rest.
+
+But where are compensations to be found? Even in St. Petersburg, despite
+its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though thirty degrees
+of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and the family of
+the North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch have heaped
+high the pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and
+fur collars and the shaggy manes of horses--even THEN there will be
+shining hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window
+where, in a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, and to the
+hiss of the samovar, there will be in progress a discussion which warms
+the heart and soul, or else a reading aloud of a brilliant page of one
+of those inspired Russian poets with whom God has dowered us, while the
+breast of each member of the company is heaving with a rapture unknown
+under a noontide sky.
+
+Gradually, therefore, Tientietnikov grew more at home in the Service.
+Yet never did it become, for him, the main pursuit, the main object
+in life, which he had expected. No, it remained but one of a secondary
+kind. That is to say, it served merely to divide up his time, and enable
+him the more to value his hours of leisure. Nevertheless, just when his
+uncle was beginning to flatter himself that his nephew was destined to
+succeed in the profession, the said nephew elected to ruin his every
+hope. Thus it befell. Tientietnikov's friends (he had many) included
+among their number a couple of fellows of the species known as
+"embittered." That is to say, though good-natured souls of that
+curiously restless type which cannot endure injustice, nor anything
+which it conceives to be such, they were thoroughly unbalanced of
+conduct themselves, and, while demanding general agreement with
+their views, treated those of others with the scantiest of ceremony.
+Nevertheless these two associates exercised upon Tientietnikov--both
+by the fire of their eloquence and by the form of their noble
+dissatisfaction with society--a very strong influence; with the result
+that, through arousing in him an innate tendency to nervous resentment,
+they led him also to notice trifles which before had escaped his
+attention. An instance of this is seen in the fact that he conceived
+against Thedor Thedorovitch Lienitsin, Director of one of the
+Departments which was quartered in the splendid range of offices before
+mentioned, a dislike which proved the cause of his discerning in the
+man a host of hitherto unmarked imperfections. Above all things did
+Tientietnikov take it into his head that, when conversing with his
+superiors, Lienitsin became, of the moment, a stick of luscious
+sweetmeat, but that, when conversing with his inferiors, he approximated
+more to a vinegar cruet. Certain it is that, like all petty-minded
+individuals, Lienitsin made a note of any one who failed to offer him
+a greeting on festival days, and that he revenged himself upon any one
+whose visiting-card had not been handed to his butler. Eventually the
+youth's aversion almost attained the point of hysteria; until he felt
+that, come what might, he MUST insult the fellow in some fashion. To
+that task he applied himself con amore; and so thoroughly that he met
+with complete success. That is to say, he seized on an occasion to
+address Lienitsin in such fashion that the delinquent received
+notice either to apologise or to leave the Service; and when of these
+alternatives he chose the latter his uncle came to him, and made a
+terrified appeal. "For God's sake remember what you are doing!" he
+cried. "To think that, after beginning your career so well, you should
+abandon it merely for the reason that you have not fallen in with the
+sort of Director whom you prefer! What do you mean by it, what do you
+mean by it? Were others to regard things in the same way, the Service
+would find itself without a single individual. Reconsider your
+conduct--forego your pride and conceit, and make Lienitsin amends."
+
+"But, dear Uncle," the nephew replied, "that is not the point. The point
+is, not that I should find an apology difficult to offer, seeing that,
+since Lienitsin is my superior, and I ought not to have addressed him as
+I did, I am clearly in the wrong. Rather, the point is the following.
+To my charge there has been committed the performance of another kind of
+service. That is to say, I am the owner of three hundred peasant souls,
+a badly administered estate, and a fool of a bailiff. That being so,
+whereas the State will lose little by having to fill my stool with
+another copyist, it will lose very much by causing three hundred peasant
+souls to fail in the payment of their taxes. As I say (how am I to put
+it?), I am a landowner who has preferred to enter the Public Service.
+Now, should I employ myself henceforth in conserving, restoring, and
+improving the fortunes of the souls whom God has entrusted to my care,
+and thereby provide the State with three hundred law-abiding, sober,
+hard-working taxpayers, how will that service of mine rank as inferior
+to the service of a department-directing fool like Lienitsin?"
+
+On hearing this speech, the State Councillor could only gape, for he
+had not expected Tientietnikov's torrent of words. He reflected a few
+moments, and then murmured:
+
+"Yes, but, but--but how can a man like you retire to rustication in
+the country? What society will you get there? Here one meets at least
+a general or a prince sometimes; indeed, no matter whom you pass in the
+street, that person represents gas lamps and European civilisation; but
+in the country, no matter what part of it you are in, not a soul is
+to be encountered save muzhiks and their women. Why should you go and
+condemn yourself to a state of vegetation like that?"
+
+Nevertheless the uncle's expostulations fell upon deaf ears, for already
+the nephew was beginning to think of his estate as a retreat of a type
+more likely to nourish the intellectual faculties and afford the only
+profitable field of activity. After unearthing one or two modern works
+on agriculture, therefore, he, two weeks later, found himself in
+the neighbourhood of the home where his boyhood had been spent, and
+approaching the spot which never failed to enthral the visitor or guest.
+And in the young man's breast there was beginning to palpitate a
+new feeling--in the young man's soul there were reawakening old,
+long-concealed impressions; with the result that many a spot which had
+long been faded from his memory now filled him with interest, and the
+beautiful views on the estate found him gazing at them like a newcomer,
+and with a beating heart. Yes, as the road wound through a narrow
+ravine, and became engulfed in a forest where, both above and below, he
+saw three-centuries-old oaks which three men could not have spanned,
+and where Siberian firs and elms overtopped even the poplars, and as
+he asked the peasants to tell him to whom the forest belonged, and
+they replied, "To Tientietnikov," and he issued from the forest, and
+proceeded on his way through meadows, and past spinneys of elder, and
+of old and young willows, and arrived in sight of the distant range of
+hills, and, crossing by two different bridges the winding river (which
+he left successively to right and to left of him as he did so), he again
+questioned some peasants concerning the ownership of the meadows and
+the flooded lands, and was again informed that they all belonged to
+Tientietnikov, and then, ascending a rise, reached a tableland where, on
+one side, lay ungarnered fields of wheat and rye and barley, and, on the
+other, the country already traversed (but which now showed in shortened
+perspective), and then plunged into the shade of some forked, umbrageous
+trees which stood scattered over turf and extended to the manor-house
+itself, and caught glimpses of the carved huts of the peasants, and of
+the red roofs of the stone manorial outbuildings, and of the glittering
+pinnacles of the church, and felt his heart beating, and knew, without
+being told by any one, whither he had at length arrived--well, then the
+feeling which had been growing within his soul burst forth, and he cried
+in ecstasy:
+
+"Why have I been a fool so long? Why, seeing that fate has appointed
+me to be ruler of an earthly paradise, did I prefer to bind myself in
+servitude as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I had
+been nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge necessary
+for the diffusion of good among those under me, and for the improvement
+of my domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold duties of a
+landowner who is at once judge, administrator, and constable of his
+people, I should have entrusted my estate to an ignorant bailiff, and
+sought to maintain an absentee guardianship over the affairs of serfs
+whom I have never met, and of whose capabilities and characters I am
+yet ignorant! To think that I should have deemed true estate-management
+inferior to a documentary, fantastical management of provinces which lie
+a thousand versts away, and which my foot has never trod, and where I
+could never have effected aught but blunders and irregularities!"
+
+Meanwhile another spectacle was being prepared for him. On learning
+that the barin was approaching the mansion, the muzhiks collected on
+the verandah in very variety of picturesque dress and tonsure; and when
+these good folk surrounded him, and there arose a resounding shout of
+"Here is our Foster Father! He has remembered us!" and, in spite of
+themselves, some of the older men and women began weeping as they
+recalled his grandfather and great-grandfather, he himself could not
+restrain his tears, but reflected: "How much affection! And in return
+for what? In return for my never having come to see them--in return for
+my never having taken the least interest in their affairs!" And then
+and there he registered a mental vow to share their every task and
+occupation.
+
+So he applied himself to supervising and administering. He reduced the
+amount of the barstchina [40], he decreased the number of working-days
+for the owner, and he augmented the sum of the peasants' leisure-time.
+He also dismissed the fool of a bailiff, and took to bearing a
+personal hand in everything--to being present in the fields, at the
+threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of barges
+and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore even the
+lazy hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last long. The
+peasant is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov's muzhiks soon
+scented the fact that, though energetic and desirous of doing much, the
+barin had no notion how to do it, nor even how to set about it--that, in
+short, he spoke by the book rather than out of his personal knowledge.
+Consequently things resulted, not in master and men failing to
+understand one another, but in their not singing together, in their not
+producing the very same note.
+
+That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on
+the manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the
+peasants'. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up well,
+and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that Tientietnikov,
+who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of vodka to be served
+out as a reward for the excellence of the labour performed. Yet the rye
+on the peasants' land had formed into ear, and the oats had begun to
+shoot their grain, and the millet had filled before, on the manorial
+lands, the corn had so much as grown to stalk, or the ears had sprouted
+in embryo. In short, gradually the barin realised that, in spite of
+favours conferred, the peasants were playing the rogue with him. Next he
+resorted to remonstrance, but was met with the reply, "How could we not
+do our best for our barin? You yourself saw how well we laboured at the
+ploughing and the sowing, for you gave us mugs of vodka for our pains."
+
+"Then why have things turned out so badly?" the barin persisted.
+
+"Who can say? It must be that a grub has eaten the crop from below.
+Besides, what a summer has it been--never a drop of rain!"
+
+Nevertheless, the barin noted that no grub had eaten the PEASANTS'
+crops, as well as that the rain had fallen in the most curious
+fashion--namely, in patches. It had obliged the muzhiks, but had shed a
+mere sprinkling for the barin.
+
+Still more difficult did he find it to deal with the peasant women.
+Ever and anon they would beg to be excused from work, or start making
+complaints of the severity of the barstchina. Indeed, they were terrible
+folk! However, Tientietnikov abolished the majority of the tithes of
+linen, hedge fruit, mushrooms, and nuts, and also reduced by one-half
+other tasks proper to the women, in the hope that they would devote
+their spare time to their own domestic concerns--namely, to sewing and
+mending, and to making clothes for their husbands, and to increasing
+the area of their kitchen gardens. Yet no such result came about. On the
+contrary, such a pitch did the idleness, the quarrelsomeness, and the
+intriguing and caballing of the fair sex attain that their helpmeets
+were for ever coming to the barin with a request that he would rid one
+or another of his wife, since she had become a nuisance, and to live
+with her was impossible.
+
+Next, hardening his heart, the barin attempted severity. But of what
+avail was severity? The peasant woman remained always the peasant
+woman, and would come and whine that she was sick and ailing, and keep
+pitifully hugging to herself the mean and filthy rags which she had
+donned for the occasion. And when poor Tientietnikov found himself
+unable to say more to her than just, "Get out of my sight, and may the
+Lord go with you!" the next item in the comedy would be that he would
+see her, even as she was leaving his gates, fall to contending with a
+neighbour for, say, the possession of a turnip, and dealing out slaps
+in the face such as even a strong, healthy man could scarcely have
+compassed!
+
+Again, amongst other things, Tientietnikov conceived the idea of
+establishing a school for his people; but the scheme resulted in a farce
+which left him in sackcloth and ashes. In the same way he found that,
+when it came to a question of dispensing justice and of adjusting
+disputes, the host of juridical subtleties with which the professors had
+provided him proved absolutely useless. That is to say, the one party
+lied, and the other party lied, and only the devil could have decided
+between them. Consequently he himself perceived that a knowledge of
+mankind would have availed him more than all the legal refinements and
+philosophical maxims in the world could do. He lacked something; and
+though he could not divine what it was, the situation brought about was
+the common one of the barin failing to understand the peasant, and the
+peasant failing to understand the barin, and both becoming disaffected.
+In the end, these difficulties so chilled Tientietnikov's enthusiasm
+that he took to supervising the labours of the field with greatly
+diminished attention. That is to say, no matter whether the scythes were
+softly swishing through the grass, or ricks were being built, or rafts
+were being loaded, he would allow his eyes to wander from his men, and
+to fall to gazing at, say, a red-billed, red-legged heron which, after
+strutting along the bank of a stream, would have caught a fish in its
+beak, and be holding it awhile, as though in doubt whether to swallow
+it. Next he would glance towards the spot where a similar bird, but one
+not yet in possession of a fish, was engaged in watching the doings of
+its mate. Lastly, with eyebrows knitted, and face turned to scan the
+zenith, he would drink in the smell of the fields, and fall to listening
+to the winged population of the air as from earth and sky alike the
+manifold music of winged creatures combined in a single harmonious
+chorus. In the rye the quail would be calling, and, in the grass, the
+corncrake, and over them would be wheeling flocks of twittering linnets.
+Also, the jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark executing
+its roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and cranes
+sending forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards the
+zenith in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood would seem
+to have become converted into one great concert of melody. O Creator,
+how fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart
+from cities and from highways!
+
+But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased
+altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up
+in his rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that
+functionary called with his reports. Again, although, until now, he had
+to a certain extent associated with a retired colonel of hussars--a man
+saturated with tobacco smoke--and also with a student of pronounced, but
+immature, opinions who culled the bulk of his wisdom from contemporary
+newspapers and pamphlets, he found, as time went on, that these
+companions proved as tedious as the rest, and came to think their
+conversation superficial, and their European method of comporting
+themselves--that is to say, the method of conversing with much slapping
+of knees and a great deal of bowing and gesticulation--too direct and
+unadorned. So these and every one else he decided to "drop," and carried
+this resolution into effect with a certain amount of rudeness. On the
+next occasion that Varvar Nikolaievitch Vishnepokromov called to indulge
+in a free-and-easy symposium on politics, philosophy, literature,
+morals, and the state of financial affairs in England (he was, in all
+matters which admit of superficial discussion, the pleasantest fellow
+alive, seeing that he was a typical representative both of the retired
+fire-eater and of the school of thought which is now becoming the
+rage)--when, I say, this next happened, Tientietnikov merely sent out
+to say that he was not at home, and then carefully showed himself at the
+window. Host and guest exchanged glances, and, while the one muttered
+through his teeth "The cur!" the other relieved his feelings with a
+remark or two on swine. Thus the acquaintance came to an abrupt end, and
+from that time forth no visitor called at the mansion.
+
+Tientietnikov in no way regretted this, for he could now devote himself
+wholly to the projection of a great work on Russia. Of the scale on
+which this composition was conceived the reader is already aware. The
+reader also knows how strange, how unsystematic, was the system employed
+in it. Yet to say that Tientietnikov never awoke from his lethargy
+would not be altogether true. On the contrary, when the post brought him
+newspapers and reviews, and he saw in their printed pages, perhaps, the
+well-known name of some former comrade who had succeeded in the great
+field of Public Service, or had conferred upon science and the
+world's work some notable contribution, he would succumb to secret and
+suppressed grief, and involuntarily there would burst from his soul
+an expression of aching, voiceless regret that he himself had done so
+little. And at these times his existence would seem to him odious and
+repellent; at these times there would uprise before him the memory of
+his school days, and the figure of Alexander Petrovitch, as vivid as in
+life. And, slowly welling, the tears would course over Tientietnikov's
+cheeks.
+
+What meant these repinings? Was there not disclosed in them the secret
+of his galling spiritual pain--the fact that he had failed to order his
+life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started his
+course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he
+had failed to attain the better and the higher state, and there to
+strengthen himself for the overcoming of hindrances and obstacles; the
+fact that, dissolving like overheated metal, his bounteous store of
+superior instincts had failed to take the final tempering; the fact that
+the tutor of his boyhood, a man in a thousand, had prematurely died, and
+left to Tientietnikov no one who could restore to him the moral
+strength shattered by vacillation and the will power weakened by want
+of virility--no one, in short, who could cry hearteningly to his soul
+"Forward!"--the word for which the Russian of every degree, of every
+class, of every occupation, of every school of thought, is for ever
+hungering.
+
+Indeed, WHERE is the man who can cry aloud for any of us, in the Russian
+tongue dear to our soul, the all-compelling command "Forward!"? Who is
+there who, knowing the strength and the nature and the inmost depths of
+the Russian genius, can by a single magic incantation divert our ideals
+to the higher life? Were there such a man, with what tears, with what
+affection, would not the grateful sons of Russia repay him! Yet age
+succeeds to age, and our callow youth still lies wrapped in shameful
+sloth, or strives and struggles to no purpose. God has not yet given us
+the man able to sound the call.
+
+One circumstance which almost aroused Tientietnikov, which almost
+brought about a revolution in his character, was the fact that he came
+very near to falling in love. Yet even this resulted in nothing. Ten
+versts away there lived the general whom we have heard expressing
+himself in highly uncomplimentary terms concerning Tientietnikov. He
+maintained a General-like establishment, dispensed hospitality (that
+is to say, was glad when his neighbours came to pay him their respects,
+though he himself never went out), spoke always in a hoarse voice, read
+a certain number of books, and had a daughter--a curious, unfamiliar
+type, but full of life as life itself. This maiden's name was Ulinka,
+and she had been strangely brought up, for, losing her mother in early
+childhood, she had subsequently received instruction at the hands of an
+English governess who knew not a single word of Russian. Moreover her
+father, though excessively fond of her, treated her always as a toy;
+with the result that, as she grew to years of discretion, she became
+wholly wayward and spoilt. Indeed, had any one seen the sudden rage
+which would gather on her beautiful young forehead when she was engaged
+in a heated dispute with her father, he would have thought her one of
+the most capricious beings in the world. Yet that rage gathered only
+when she had heard of injustice or harsh treatment, and never because
+she desired to argue on her own behalf, or to attempt to justify her own
+conduct. Also, that anger would disappear as soon as ever she saw any
+one whom she had formerly disliked fall upon evil times, and, at his
+first request for alms would, without consideration or subsequent
+regret, hand him her purse and its whole contents. Yes, her every act
+was strenuous, and when she spoke her whole personality seemed to be
+following hot-foot upon her thought--both her expression of face and her
+diction and the movements of her hands. Nay, the very folds of her frock
+had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have thought
+that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she know
+reticence: before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force
+could compel her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also,
+her enchanting, peculiar gait--a gait which belonged to her alone--was
+so absolutely free and unfettered that every one involuntarily gave her
+way. Lastly, in her presence churls seemed to become confused and fall
+to silence, and even the roughest and most outspoken would lose their
+heads, and have not a word to say; whereas the shy man would find
+himself able to converse as never in his life before, and would feel,
+from the first, as though he had seen her and known her at some previous
+period--during the days of some unremembered childhood, when he was at
+home, and spending a merry evening among a crowd of romping children.
+And for long afterwards he would feel as though his man's intellect and
+estate were a burden.
+
+This was what now befell Tientietnikov; and as it did so a new feeling
+entered into his soul, and his dreamy life lightened for a moment.
+
+At first the General used to receive him with hospitable civility, but
+permanent concord between them proved impossible; their conversation
+always merged into dissension and soreness, seeing that, while the
+General could not bear to be contradicted or worsted in an argument,
+Tientietnikov was a man of extreme sensitiveness. True, for the
+daughter's sake, the father was for a while deferred to, and thus peace
+was maintained; but this lasted only until the time when there arrived,
+on a visit to the General, two kinswomen of his--the Countess Bordirev
+and the Princess Uziakin, retired Court dames, but ladies who still
+kept up a certain connection with Court circles, and therefore were much
+fawned upon by their host. No sooner had they appeared on the scene than
+(so it seemed to Tientietnikov) the General's attitude towards the young
+man became colder--either he ceased to notice him at all or he spoke to
+him familiarly, and as to a person having no standing in society. This
+offended Tientietnikov deeply, and though, when at length he spoke out
+on the subject, he retained sufficient presence of mind to compress his
+lips, and to preserve a gentle and courteous tone, his face flushed and
+his inner man was boiling.
+
+"General," he said, "I thank you for your condescension. By addressing
+me in the second person singular, you have admitted me to the circle
+of your most intimate friends. Indeed, were it not that a difference of
+years forbids any familiarity on my part, I should answer you in similar
+fashion."
+
+The General sat aghast. At length, rallying his tongue and his
+faculties, he replied that, though he had spoken with a lack of
+ceremony, he had used the term "thou" merely as an elderly man naturally
+employs it towards a junior (he made no reference to difference of
+rank).
+
+Nevertheless, the acquaintance broke off here, and with it any
+possibility of love-making. The light which had shed a momentary gleam
+before Tientietnikov's eyes had become extinguished for ever, and upon
+it there followed a darkness denser than before. Henceforth everything
+conduced to evolve the regime which the reader has noted--that regime
+of sloth and inaction which converted Tientietnikov's residence into a
+place of dirt and neglect. For days at a time would a broom and a heap
+of dust be left lying in the middle of a room, and trousers tossing
+about the salon, and pairs of worn-out braces adorning the what-not near
+the sofa. In short, so mean and untidy did Tientietnikov's mode of life
+become, that not only his servants, but even his very poultry ceased to
+treat him with respect. Taking up a pen, he would spend hours in idly
+sketching houses, huts, waggons, troikas, and flourishes on a piece of
+paper; while at other times, when he had sunk into a reverie, the pen
+would, all unknowingly, sketch a small head which had delicate features,
+a pair of quick, penetrating eyes, and a raised coiffure. Then suddenly
+the dreamer would perceive, to his surprise, that the pen had executed
+the portrait of a maiden whose picture no artist could adequately have
+painted; and therewith his despondency would become greater than ever,
+and, believing that happiness did not exist on earth, he would relapse
+into increased ennui, increased neglect of his responsibilities.
+
+But one morning he noticed, on moving to the window after breakfast,
+that not a word was proceeding either from the butler or the
+housekeeper, but that, on the contrary, the courtyard seemed to smack of
+a certain bustle and excitement. This was because through the entrance
+gates (which the kitchen maid and the scullion had run to open) there
+were appearing the noses of three horses--one to the right, one in the
+middle, and one to the left, after the fashion of triumphal groups of
+statuary. Above them, on the box seat, were seated a coachman and a
+valet, while behind, again, there could be discerned a gentleman in a
+scarf and a fur cap. Only when the equipage had entered the courtyard
+did it stand revealed as a light spring britchka. And as it came to a
+halt, there leapt on to the verandah of the mansion an individual
+of respectable exterior, and possessed of the art of moving with the
+neatness and alertness of a military man.
+
+Upon this Tientietnikov's heart stood still. He was unused to receiving
+visitors, and for the moment conceived the new arrival to be a
+Government official, sent to question him concerning an abortive society
+to which he had formerly belonged. (Here the author may interpolate the
+fact that, in Tientietnikov's early days, the young man had become mixed
+up in a very absurd affair. That is to say, a couple of philosophers
+belonging to a regiment of hussars had, together with an aesthete
+who had not yet completed his student's course and a gambler who had
+squandered his all, formed a secret society of philanthropic aims under
+the presidency of a certain old rascal of a freemason and the ruined
+gambler aforesaid. The scope of the society's work was to be extensive:
+it was to bring lasting happiness to humanity at large, from the banks
+of the Thames to the shores of Kamtchatka. But for this much money was
+needed: wherefore from the noble-minded members of the society generous
+contributions were demanded, and then forwarded to a destination known
+only to the supreme authorities of the concern. As for Tientietnikov's
+adhesion, it was brought about by the two friends already alluded to as
+"embittered"--good-hearted souls whom the wear and tear of their efforts
+on behalf of science, civilisation, and the future emancipation of
+mankind had ended by converting into confirmed drunkards. Perhaps it
+need hardly be said that Tientietnikov soon discovered how things stood,
+and withdrew from the association; but, meanwhile, the latter had had
+the misfortune so to have engaged in dealings not wholly creditable
+to gentlemen of noble origin as likewise to have become entangled in
+dealings with the police. Consequently, it is not to be wondered at
+that, though Tientietnikov had long severed his connection with the
+society and its policy, he still remained uneasy in his mind as to what
+might even yet be the result.)
+
+However, his fears vanished the instant that the guest saluted him with
+marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of the
+head, and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time past
+he (the newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business and
+in the pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects
+of interest--not to mention a plenitude of manufactures and a great
+diversity of soil, and that, in spite of the fact that he was greatly
+struck with the amenities of his host's domain, he would certainly
+not have presumed to intrude at such an inconvenient hour but for the
+circumstance that the inclement spring weather, added to the state of
+the roads, had necessitated sundry repairs to his carriage at the hands
+of wheelwrights and blacksmiths. Finally he declared that, even if this
+last had NOT happened, he would still have felt unable to deny himself
+the pleasure of offering to his host that meed of homage which was the
+latter's due.
+
+This speech--a speech of fascinating bonhomie--delivered, the guest
+executed a sort of shuffle with a half-boot of patent leather studded
+with buttons of mother-of-pearl, and followed that up by (in spite of
+his pronounced rotundity of figure) stepping backwards with all the elan
+of an india-rubber ball.
+
+From this the somewhat reassured Tientietnikov concluded that his
+visitor must be a literary, knowledge-seeking professor who was engaged
+in roaming the country in search of botanical specimens and fossils;
+wherefore he hastened to express both his readiness to further the
+visitor's objects (whatever they might be) and his personal willingness
+to provide him with the requisite wheelwrights and blacksmiths.
+Meanwhile he begged his guest to consider himself at home, and,
+after seating him in an armchair, made preparations to listen to the
+newcomer's discourse on natural history.
+
+But the newcomer applied himself, rather, to phenomena of the internal
+world, saying that his life might be likened to a barque tossed on the
+crests of perfidious billows, that in his time he had been fated to play
+many parts, and that on more than one occasion his life had stood
+in danger at the hands of foes. At the same time, these tidings were
+communicated in a manner calculated to show that the speaker was also
+a man of PRACTICAL capabilities. In conclusion, the visitor took out a
+cambric pocket-handkerchief, and sneezed into it with a vehemence wholly
+new to Tientietnikov's experience. In fact, the sneeze rather resembled
+the note which, at times, the trombone of an orchestra appears to utter
+not so much from its proper place on the platform as from the immediate
+neighbourhood of the listener's ear. And as the echoes of the drowsy
+mansion resounded to the report of the explosion there followed upon the
+same a wave of perfume, skilfully wafted abroad with a flourish of the
+eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.
+
+By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none
+other than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov.
+Naturally, time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms;
+wherefore his exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his
+frockcoat had taken on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka,
+coachman, valet, horses, and harness alike had about them a sort of
+second-hand, worse-for-wear effect. Evidently the Chichikovian finances
+were not in the most flourishing of conditions. Nevertheless, the old
+expression of face, the old air of breeding and refinement, remained
+unimpaired, and our hero had even improved in the art of walking and
+turning with grace, and of dexterously crossing one leg over the
+other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of diction, his discreet
+moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if anything, increased
+measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused his tactfulness
+to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these accomplishments
+had their effect further heightened by a snowy immaculateness of collar
+and dickey, and an absence of dust from his frockcoat, as complete as
+though he had just arrived to attend a nameday festival. Lastly, his
+cheeks and chin were of such neat clean-shavenness that no one but a
+blind man could have failed to admire their rounded contours.
+
+From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov's
+establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
+cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
+Chichikov, while one other apartment--a little front chamber opening
+into the hall--became permeated with Petrushka's own peculiar smell.
+But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
+transferred to the servants' quarters, a course which ought to have been
+adopted in the first instance.
+
+During the initial days of Chichikov's sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
+rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his
+guest might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the
+established routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless, for
+Paul Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for accommodating
+himself to his new position. To begin with, he encouraged his host
+in his philosophical inertia by saying that the latter would help
+Tientietnikov to become a centenarian. Next, in the matter of a life of
+isolation, he hit things off exactly by remarking that such a life
+bred in a man a capacity for high thinking. Lastly, as he inspected the
+library and dilated on books in general, he contrived an opportunity to
+observe that literature safeguarded a man from a tendency to waste his
+time. In short, the few words of which he delivered himself were brief,
+but invariably to the point. And this discretion of speech was outdone
+by his discretion of conduct. That is to say, whether entering
+or leaving the room, he never wearied his host with a question if
+Tientietnikov had the air of being disinclined to talk; and with equal
+satisfaction the guest could either play chess or hold his tongue.
+Consequently Tientietnikov said to himself:
+
+"For the first time in my life I have met with a man with whom it is
+possible to live. In general, not many of the type exist in Russia, and,
+though clever, good-humoured, well-educated men abound, one would be
+hard put to it to find an individual of equable temperament with whom
+one could share a roof for centuries without a quarrel arising. Anyway,
+Chichikov is the first of his sort that I have met."
+
+For his part, Chichikov was only too delighted to reside with a
+person so quiet and agreeable as his host. Of a wandering life he was
+temporarily weary, and to rest, even for a month, in such a beautiful
+spot, and in sight of green fields and the slow flowering of spring, was
+likely to benefit him also from the hygienic point of view. And, indeed,
+a more delightful retreat in which to recuperate could not possibly have
+been found. The spring, long retarded by previous cold, had now begun
+in all its comeliness, and life was rampant. Already, over the first
+emerald of the grass, the dandelion was showing yellow, and the red-pink
+anemone was hanging its tender head; while the surface of every pond
+was a swarm of dancing gnats and midges, and the water-spider was being
+joined in their pursuit by birds which gathered from every quarter to
+the vantage-ground of the dry reeds. Every species of creature also
+seemed to be assembling in concourse, and taking stock of one another.
+Suddenly the earth became populous, the forest had opened its eyes, and
+the meadows were lifting up their voice in song. In the same way had
+choral dances begun to be weaved in the village, and everywhere that the
+eye turned there was merriment. What brightness in the green of nature,
+what freshness in the air, what singing of birds in the gardens of the
+mansion, what general joy and rapture and exaltation! Particularly in
+the village might the shouting and singing have been in honour of a
+wedding!
+
+Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere--a pursuit for which
+there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his
+steps along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths
+below, where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of
+winter, and where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless
+boughs; while at another time he would plunge into the thicket and
+ravine country, where nests of birds weighted branches almost to the
+ground, and the sky was darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing
+rooks. Again, the drier portions of the meadows could be crossed to the
+river wharves, whence the first barges were just beginning to set forth
+with pea-meal and barley and wheat, while at the same time one's ear
+would be caught with the sound of some mill resuming its functions as
+once more the water turned the wheel. Chichikov would also walk afield
+to watch the early tillage operations of the season, and observe how
+the blackness of a new furrow would make its way across the expanse of
+green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking his hand against the
+pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his fistfuls of seed with
+equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too much to one side or to
+the other.
+
+In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with the
+bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into the
+manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how an
+estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what species
+of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was the name
+of each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had bought his
+cow, and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made inquiry concerning
+the number of peasants who had lately died: but of these there appeared
+to be few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned that Tientietnikov's
+estate was not being worked as it might have been--that much neglect and
+listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness was abroad; and on perceiving
+this, he thought to himself: "What a fool is that Tientietnikov! To
+think of letting a property like this decay when he might be drawing
+from it an income of fifty thousand roubles a year!"
+
+Also, more than once, while taking these walks, our hero pondered the
+idea of himself becoming a landowner--not now, of course, but later,
+when his chief aim should have been achieved, and he had got into his
+hands the necessary means for living the quiet life of the proprietor
+of an estate. Yes, and at these times there would include itself in his
+castle-building the figure of a young, fresh, fair-faced maiden of the
+mercantile or other rich grade of society, a woman who could both play
+and sing. He also dreamed of little descendants who should perpetuate
+the name of Chichikov; perhaps a frolicsome little boy and a fair young
+daughter, or possibly, two boys and quite two or three daughters; so
+that all should know that he had really lived and had his being, that he
+had not merely roamed the world like a spectre or a shadow; so that for
+him and his the country should never be put to shame. And from that he
+would go on to fancy that a title appended to his rank would not be
+a bad thing--the title of State Councillor, for instance, which was
+deserving of all honour and respect. Ah, it is a common thing for a
+man who is taking a solitary walk so to detach himself from the irksome
+realities of the present that he is able to stir and to excite and to
+provoke his imagination to the conception of things he knows can never
+really come to pass!
+
+Chichikov's servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like
+their master, speedily made themselves at home in it. In particular did
+Petrushka make friends with Grigory the butler, although at first the
+pair showed a tendency to outbrag one another--Petrushka beginning
+by throwing dust in Grigory's eyes on the score of his (Petrushka's)
+travels, and Grigory taking him down a peg or two by referring to St.
+Petersburg (a city which Petrushka had never visited), and Petrushka
+seeking to recover lost ground by dilating on towns which he HAD
+visited, and Grigory capping this by naming some town which is not to be
+found on any map in existence, and then estimating the journey
+thither as at least thirty thousand versts--a statement which would so
+completely flabbergast the henchman of Chichikov's suite that he would
+be left staring open-mouthed, amid the general laughter of the domestic
+staff. However, as I say, the pair ended by swearing eternal friendship
+with one another, and making a practice of resorting to the village
+tavern in company.
+
+For Selifan, however, the place had a charm of a different kind. That is
+to say, each evening there would take place in the village a singing of
+songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and buxom were the
+maidens--maidens of a type hard to find in our present-day villages on
+large estates--that he would stand for hours wondering which of them was
+the best. White-necked and white-bosomed, all had great roving eyes, the
+gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to the waist. And as, with his hands
+clasping theirs, he glided hither and thither in the dance, or retired
+backwards towards a wall with a row of other young fellows, and then,
+with them, returned to meet the damsels--all singing in chorus (and
+laughing as they sang it), "Boyars, show me my bridegroom!" and dusk was
+falling gently, and from the other side of the river there kept coming
+far, faint, plaintive echoes of the melody--well, then our Selifan
+hardly knew whether he were standing upon his head or his heels. Later,
+when sleeping and when waking, both at noon and at twilight, he would
+seem still to be holding a pair of white hands, and moving in the dance.
+
+Chichikov's horses also found nothing of which to disapprove. Yes,
+both the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at
+Tientietnikov's a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats excellent,
+and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True, on this
+occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking over the
+intervening partition, it was possible always to see one's fellows, and,
+should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a neigh, to answer it
+at once.
+
+As for the errand which had hitherto led Chichikov to travel about
+Russia, he had now decided to move very cautiously and secretly in the
+matter. In fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for
+reading and for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself, "No--I
+had better begin at the other end," and proceeded first to feel his way
+among the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt several
+things, and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go and
+call upon a certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the General
+possessed a daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had an affair
+of some sort, but that the pair had subsequently parted, and gone
+their several ways. For that matter, Chichikov himself had noticed
+that Tientietnikov was in the habit of drawing heads of which each
+representation exactly resembled the rest.
+
+Once, as he sat tapping his silver snuff-box after luncheon, Chichikov
+remarked:
+
+"One thing you lack, and only one, Andrei Ivanovitch."
+
+"What is that?" asked his host.
+
+"A female friend or two," replied Chichikov.
+
+Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily
+to an end.
+
+But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for
+supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to
+interject:
+
+"Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry."
+
+As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the
+subject seemed to have annoyed him.
+
+For the third time--it was after supper--Chichikov returned to the
+charge by remarking:
+
+"To-day, as I was walking round your property, I could not help thinking
+that marriage would do you a great deal of good. Otherwise you will
+develop into a hypochondriac."
+
+Whether Chichikov's words now voiced sufficiently the note of
+persuasion, or whether Tientietnikov happened, at the moment, to be
+unusually disposed to frankness, at all events the young landowner
+sighed, and then responded as he expelled a puff of tobacco smoke:
+
+"To attain anything, Paul Ivanovitch, one needs to have been born under
+a lucky star."
+
+And he related to his guest the whole history of his acquaintanceship
+and subsequent rupture with the General.
+
+As Chichikov listened to the recital, and gradually realised that the
+affair had arisen merely out of a chance word on the General's part, he
+was astounded beyond measure, and gazed at Tientietnikov without knowing
+what to make of him.
+
+"Andrei Ivanovitch," he said at length, "what was there to take offence
+at?"
+
+"Nothing, as regards the actual words spoken," replied the other. "The
+offence lay, rather, in the insult conveyed in the General's tone."
+Tientietnikov was a kindly and peaceable man, yet his eyes flashed as he
+said this, and his voice vibrated with wounded feeling.
+
+"Yet, even then, need you have taken it so much amiss?"
+
+"What? Could I have gone on visiting him as before?"
+
+"Certainly. No great harm had been done?"
+
+"I disagree with you. Had he been an old man in a humble station of
+life, instead of a proud and swaggering officer, I should not have
+minded so much. But, as it was, I could not, and would not, brook his
+words."
+
+"A curious fellow, this Tientietnikov!" thought Chichikov to himself.
+
+"A curious fellow, this Chichikov!" was Tientietnikov's inward
+reflection.
+
+"I tell you what," resumed Chichikov. "To-morrow I myself will go and
+see the General."
+
+"To what purpose?" asked Tientietnikov, with astonishment and distrust
+in his eyes.
+
+"To offer him an assurance of my personal respect."
+
+"A strange fellow, this Chichikov!" reflected Tientietnikov.
+
+"A strange fellow, this Tientietnikov!" thought Chichikov, and then
+added aloud: "Yes, I will go and see him at ten o'clock to-morrow; but
+since my britchka is not yet altogether in travelling order, would you
+be so good as to lend me your koliaska for the purpose?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Tientietnikov's good horses covered the ten versts to the General's
+house in a little over half an hour. Descending from the koliaska with
+features attuned to deference, Chichikov inquired for the master of the
+house, and was at once ushered into his presence. Bowing with head
+held respectfully on one side and hands extended like those of a waiter
+carrying a trayful of teacups, the visitor inclined his whole body
+forward, and said:
+
+"I have deemed it my duty to present myself to your Excellency. I have
+deemed it my duty because in my heart I cherish a most profound respect
+for the valiant men who, on the field of battle, have proved the
+saviours of their country."
+
+That this preliminary attack did not wholly displease the General was
+proved by the fact that, responding with a gracious inclination of the
+head, he replied:
+
+"I am glad to make your acquaintance. Pray be so good as to take a seat.
+In what capacity or capacities have you yourself seen service?"
+
+"Of my service," said Chichikov, depositing his form, not exactly in the
+centre of the chair, but rather on one side of it, and resting a hand
+upon one of its arms, "--of my service the scene was laid, in the first
+instance, in the Treasury; while its further course bore me successively
+into the employ of the Public Buildings Commission, of the Customs
+Board, and of other Government Offices. But, throughout, my life has
+resembled a barque tossed on the crests of perfidious billows. In
+suffering I have been swathed and wrapped until I have come to be, as
+it were, suffering personified; while of the extent to which my life
+has been sought by foes, no words, no colouring, no (if I may so express
+it?) painter's brush could ever convey to you an adequate idea. And now,
+at length, in my declining years, I am seeking a corner in which to eke
+out the remainder of my miserable existence, while at the present moment
+I am enjoying the hospitality of a neighbour of your acquaintance."
+
+"And who is that?"
+
+"Your neighbour Tientietnikov, your Excellency."
+
+Upon that the General frowned.
+
+"Led me add," put in Chichikov hastily, "that he greatly regrets that
+on a former occasion he should have failed to show a proper respect
+for--for--"
+
+"For what?" asked the General.
+
+"For the services to the public which your Excellency has rendered.
+Indeed, he cannot find words to express his sorrow, but keeps repeating
+to himself: 'Would that I had valued at their true worth the men who
+have saved our fatherland!'"
+
+"And why should he say that?" asked the mollified General. "I bear him
+no grudge. In fact, I have never cherished aught but a sincere liking
+for him, a sincere esteem, and do not doubt but that, in time, he may
+become a useful member of society."
+
+"In the words which you have been good enough to utter," said Chichikov
+with a bow, "there is embodied much justice. Yes, Tientietnikov is
+in very truth a man of worth. Not only does he possess the gift of
+eloquence, but also he is a master of the pen."
+
+"Ah, yes; he DOES write rubbish of some sort, doesn't he? Verses, or
+something of the kind?"
+
+"Not rubbish, your Excellency, but practical stuff. In short, he is
+inditing a history."
+
+"A HISTORY? But a history of what?"
+
+"A history of, of--" For a moment or two Chichikov hesitated. Then,
+whether because it was a General that was seated in front of him, or
+because he desired to impart greater importance to the subject which
+he was about to invent, he concluded: "A history of Generals, your
+Excellency."
+
+"Of Generals? Of WHAT Generals?"
+
+"Of Generals generally--of Generals at large. That is to say, and to be
+more precise, a history of the Generals of our fatherland."
+
+By this time Chichikov was floundering badly. Mentally he spat upon
+himself and reflected: "Gracious heavens! What rubbish I am talking!"
+
+"Pardon me," went on his interlocutor, "but I do not quite understand
+you. Is Tientietnikov producing a history of a given period, or only a
+history made up of a series of biographies? Also, is he including ALL
+our Generals, or only those who took part in the campaign of 1812?"
+
+"The latter, your Excellency--only the Generals of 1812," replied
+Chichikov. Then he added beneath his breath: "Were I to be killed for
+it, I could not say what that may be supposed to mean."
+
+"Then why should he not come and see me in person?" went on his
+host. "Possibly I might be able to furnish him with much interesting
+material?"
+
+"He is afraid to come, your Excellency."
+
+"Nonsense! Just because of a hasty word or two! I am not that sort of
+man at all. In fact, I should be very happy to call upon HIM."
+
+"Never would he permit that, your Excellency. He would greatly prefer to
+be the first to make advances." And Chichikov added to himself: "What a
+stroke of luck those Generals were! Otherwise, the Lord knows where my
+tongue might have landed me!"
+
+At this moment the door into the adjoining room opened, and there
+appeared in the doorway a girl as fair as a ray of the sun--so fair,
+indeed, that Chichikov stared at her in amazement. Apparently she had
+come to speak to her father for a moment, but had stopped short on
+perceiving that there was some one with him. The only fault to be
+found in her appearance was the fact that she was too thin and
+fragile-looking.
+
+"May I introduce you to my little pet?" said the General to Chichikov.
+"To tell you the truth, I do not know your name."
+
+"That you should be unacquainted with the name of one who has never
+distinguished himself in the manner of which you yourself can boast is
+scarcely to be wondered at." And Chichikov executed one of his sidelong,
+deferential bows.
+
+"Well, I should be delighted to know it."
+
+"It is Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, your Excellency." With that went
+the easy bow of a military man and the agile backward movement of an
+india-rubber ball.
+
+"Ulinka, this is Paul Ivanovitch," said the General, turning to his
+daughter. "He has just told me some interesting news--namely, that
+our neighbour Tientietnikov is not altogether the fool we had at first
+thought him. On the contrary, he is engaged upon a very important
+work--upon a history of the Russian Generals of 1812."
+
+"But who ever supposed him to be a fool?" asked the girl quickly. "What
+happened was that you took Vishnepokromov's word--the word of a man who
+is himself both a fool and a good-for-nothing."
+
+"Well, well," said the father after further good-natured dispute on the
+subject of Vishnepokromov. "Do you now run away, for I wish to dress for
+luncheon. And you, sir," he added to Chichikov, "will you not join us at
+table?"
+
+Chichikov bowed so low and so long that, by the time that his eyes had
+ceased to see nothing but his own boots, the General's daughter had
+disappeared, and in her place was standing a bewhiskered butler, armed
+with a silver soap-dish and a hand-basin.
+
+"Do you mind if I wash in your presence?" asked the host.
+
+"By no means," replied Chichikov. "Pray do whatsoever you please in that
+respect."
+
+Upon that the General fell to scrubbing himself--incidentally, to
+sending soapsuds flying in every direction. Meanwhile he seemed so
+favourably disposed that Chichikov decided to sound him then and there,
+more especially since the butler had left the room.
+
+"May I put to you a problem?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly," replied the General. "What is it?"
+
+"It is this, your Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns three
+hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property. Also,
+except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although his
+infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his property in
+person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the reason for his
+conduct--his very strange conduct--he states as follows: 'I do not know
+my nephew, and very likely he is a spendthrift. If he wishes to show me
+that he is good for anything, let him go and acquire as many souls as
+_I_ have acquired; and when he has done that I will transfer to him my
+three hundred souls as well."
+
+"The man must be an absolute fool," commented the General.
+
+"Possibly. And were that all, things would not be as bad as they are.
+But, unfortunately, my uncle has gone and taken up with his housekeeper,
+and has had children by her. Consequently, everything will now pass to
+THEM."
+
+"The old man must have taken leave of his senses," remarked the General.
+"Yet how _I_ can help you I fail to see."
+
+"Well, I have thought of a plan. If you will hand me over all the dead
+souls on your estate--hand them over to me exactly as though they were
+still alive, and were purchasable property--I will offer them to the old
+man, and then he will leave me his fortune."
+
+At this point the General burst into a roar of laughter such as few can
+ever have heard. Half-dressed, he subsided into a chair, threw back his
+head, and guffawed until he came near to choking. In fact, the house
+shook with his merriment, so much so that the butler and his daughter
+came running into the room in alarm.
+
+It was long before he could produce a single articulate word; and
+even when he did so (to reassure his daughter and the butler) he kept
+momentarily relapsing into spluttering chuckles which made the house
+ring and ring again.
+
+Chichikov was greatly taken aback.
+
+"Oh, that uncle!" bellowed the General in paroxysms of mirth. "Oh, that
+blessed uncle! WHAT a fool he'll look! Ha, ha, ha! Dead souls offered
+him instead of live ones! Oh, my goodness!"
+
+"I suppose I've put my foot in it again," ruefully reflected Chichikov.
+"But, good Lord, what a man the fellow is to laugh! Heaven send that he
+doesn't burst of it!"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" broke out the General afresh. "WHAT a donkey the old man
+must be! To think of his saying to you: 'You go and fit yourself out
+with three hundred souls, and I'll cap them with my own lot'! My word!
+What a jackass!"
+
+"A jackass, your Excellency?"
+
+"Yes, indeed! And to think of the jest of putting him off with dead
+souls! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT wouldn't I give to see you handing him the title
+deeds? Who is he? What is he like? Is he very old?"
+
+"He is eighty, your Excellency."
+
+"But still brisk and able to move about, eh? Surely he must be pretty
+strong to go on living with his housekeeper like that?"
+
+"Yes. But what does such strength mean? Sand runs away, your
+Excellency."
+
+"The old fool! But is he really such a fool?"
+
+"Yes, your Excellency."
+
+"And does he go out at all? Does he see company? Can he still hold
+himself upright?"
+
+"Yes, but with great difficulty."
+
+"And has he any teeth left?"
+
+"No more than two at the most."
+
+"The old jackass! Don't be angry with me, but I must say that, though
+your uncle, he is also a jackass."
+
+"Quite so, your Excellency. And though it grieves ME to have to confess
+that he is my uncle, what am I to do with him?"
+
+Yet this was not altogether the truth. What would have been a far harder
+thing for Chichikov to have confessed was the fact that he possessed no
+uncles at all.
+
+"I beg of you, your Excellency," he went on, "to hand me over those,
+those--"
+
+"Those dead souls, eh? Why, in return for the jest I will give you some
+land as well. Yes, you can take the whole graveyard if you like. Ha, ha,
+ha! The old man! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT a fool he'll look! Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+And once more the General's guffaws went ringing through the house.
+
+
+       [At this point there is a long hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"If Colonel Koshkarev should turn out to be as mad as the last one it
+is a bad look-out," said Chichikov to himself on opening his eyes amid
+fields and open country--everything else having disappeared save the
+vault of heaven and a couple of low-lying clouds.
+
+"Selifan," he went on, "did you ask how to get to Colonel Koshkarev's?"
+
+"Yes, Paul Ivanovitch. At least, there was such a clatter around the
+koliaska that I could not; but Petrushka asked the coachman."
+
+"You fool! How often have I told you not to rely on Petrushka? Petrushka
+is a blockhead, an idiot. Besides, at the present moment I believe him
+to be drunk."
+
+"No, you are wrong, barin," put in the person referred to, turning his
+head with a sidelong glance. "After we get down the next hill we shall
+need but to keep bending round it. That is all."
+
+"Yes, and I suppose you'll tell me that sivnkha is the only thing that
+has passed your lips? Well, the view at least is beautiful. In fact,
+when one has seen this place one may say that one has seen one of
+the beauty spots of Europe." This said, Chichikov added to himself,
+smoothing his chin: "What a difference between the features of a
+civilised man of the world and those of a common lacquey!"
+
+Meanwhile the koliaska quickened its pace, and Chichikov once more
+caught sight of Tientietnikov's aspen-studded meadows. Undulating gently
+on elastic springs, the vehicle cautiously descended the steep incline,
+and then proceeded past water-mills, rumbled over a bridge or two, and
+jolted easily along the rough-set road which traversed the flats. Not a
+molehill, not a mound jarred the spine. The vehicle was comfort itself.
+
+Swiftly there flew by clumps of osiers, slender elder trees, and
+silver-leaved poplars, their branches brushing against Selifan and
+Petrushka, and at intervals depriving the valet of his cap. Each time
+that this happened, the sullen-faced servitor fell to cursing both the
+tree responsible for the occurrence and the landowner responsible for
+the tree being in existence; yet nothing would induce him thereafter
+either to tie on the cap or to steady it with his hand, so complete was
+his assurance that the accident would never be repeated. Soon to the
+foregoing trees there became added an occasional birch or spruce fir,
+while in the dense undergrowth around their roots could be seen the blue
+iris and the yellow wood-tulip. Gradually the forest grew darker, as
+though eventually the obscurity would become complete. Then through
+the trunks and the boughs there began to gleam points of light like
+glittering mirrors, and as the number of trees lessened, these points
+grew larger, until the travellers debouched upon the shore of a lake
+four versts or so in circumference, and having on its further margin
+the grey, scattered log huts of a peasant village. In the water a great
+commotion was in progress. In the first place, some twenty men, immersed
+to the knee, to the breast, or to the neck, were dragging a large
+fishing-net inshore, while, in the second place, there was entangled in
+the same, in addition to some fish, a stout man shaped precisely like a
+melon or a hogshead. Greatly excited, he was shouting at the top of his
+voice: "Let Kosma manage it, you lout of a Denis! Kosma, take the end
+of the rope from Denis! Don't bear so hard on it, Thoma Bolshoy [41]! Go
+where Thoma Menshov [42] is! Damn it, bring the net to land, will you!"
+From this it became clear that it was not on his own account that the
+stout man was worrying. Indeed, he had no need to do so, since his fat
+would in any case have prevented him from sinking. Yes, even if he
+had turned head over heels in an effort to dive, the water would
+persistently have borne him up; and the same if, say, a couple of men
+had jumped on his back--the only result would have been that he would
+have become a trifle deeper submerged, and forced to draw breath by
+spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the cause of his agitation was
+lest the net should break, and the fish escape: wherefore he was urging
+some additional peasants who were standing on the bank to lay hold of
+and to pull at, an extra rope or two.
+
+"That must be the barin--Colonel Koshkarev," said Selifan.
+
+"Why?" asked Chichikov.
+
+"Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has
+the respectable paunch of a gentleman."
+
+Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the barin;
+until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright position,
+and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with Chichikov
+seated therein, descending the declivity.
+
+"Have you dined yet?" shouted the barin as, still entangled in the net,
+he approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one hand
+shading his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he
+looked, in point of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her bath.
+
+"No," replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of
+bows.
+
+"Then thank God for that," rejoined the gentleman.
+
+"Why?" asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his
+cap over his head.
+
+"Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that
+sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma."
+
+With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a
+veritable monster of a fish.
+
+"Isn't it a beauty--a sturgeon fresh run from the river?" exclaimed the
+stout barin. "And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take the
+lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma Bolshoy,
+and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house, and I myself
+shall be along presently."
+
+Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt,
+ran ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had
+hanging in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every
+inhabitant of the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a
+large vegetable enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a square
+near a wooden church, with, showing beyond the latter, the roofs of the
+manorial homestead.
+
+"A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!" said Chichikov to himself.
+
+"Well, whatever I may be, at least I'm here," said a voice by his side.
+Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile, the barin
+had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair of yellow
+trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck was as
+guiltless of a collar as Cupid's. Also, as he sat sideways in his
+drozhki, his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle.
+Chichikov was about to make some remark or another when the stout
+gentleman disappeared; and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view at
+the spot where the fish had been drawn to land, and his voice could be
+heard reiterating exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov reached
+the verandah of the house he found, to his intense surprise, the stout
+gentleman waiting to welcome the visitor. How he had contrived to
+convey himself thither passed Chichikov's comprehension. Host and guest
+embraced three times, according to a bygone custom of Russia. Evidently
+the barin was one of the old school.
+
+"I bring you," said Chichikov, "a greeting from his Excellency."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch."
+
+"Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?"
+
+"What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?"
+exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.
+
+"No, I do not," replied the gentleman.
+
+Chichikov's surprise grew to absolute astonishment.
+
+"How comes that about?" he ejaculated. "I hope that I have the honour of
+addressing Colonel Koshkarev?"
+
+"Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have come;
+and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh--yes, Peter Petrovitch Pietukh."
+
+Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.
+
+"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I told you to drive to the house
+of Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter
+Petrovitch Pietukh."
+
+"All the same, your fellows have done quite right," put in the gentleman
+referred to. "Do you" (this to Selifan and Petrushka) "go to the
+kitchen, where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then put
+up the horses, and be off to the servants' quarters."
+
+"I regret the mistake extremely," said Chichikov.
+
+"But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have in
+store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I beg of
+you." And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him within,
+where they were met by a couple of youths.
+
+"Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the
+Gymnasium [43]," said Pietukh. "Nikolasha, come and entertain our
+good visitor, while you, Aleksasha, follow me." And with that the host
+disappeared.
+
+Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
+town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no
+good was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he and
+his brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the provinces
+not being worth living in.
+
+"I quite understand," Chichikov thought to himself. "The end of the
+chapter will be confectioners' assistants and the boulevards."
+
+"Tell me," he added aloud, "how does your father's property at present
+stand?"
+
+"It is all mortgaged," put in the father himself as he re-entered the
+room. "Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it."
+
+"What a pity!" thought Chichikov. "At this rate it will not be long
+before this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my departure."
+Aloud he said with an air of sympathy: "That you have mortgaged the
+estate seems to me a matter of regret."
+
+"No, not at all," replied Pietukh. "In fact, they tell me that it is a
+good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I act
+differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of living
+here, and should like to try Moscow--more especially since my sons are
+always begging me to give them a metropolitan education."
+
+"Oh, the fool, the fool!" reflected Chichikov. "He is for throwing
+up everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice
+property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and
+that the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon as
+ever these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres, the
+devil will away with every stick of their substance. For my own part, I
+could desire nothing better than this quiet life in the country."
+
+"Let me guess what is in your mind," said Pietukh.
+
+"What, then?" asked Chichikov, rather taken aback.
+
+"You are thinking to yourself: 'That fool of a Pietukh has asked me to
+dinner, yet not a bite of dinner do I see.' But wait a little. It will
+be ready presently, for it is being cooked as fast as a maiden who has
+had her hair cut off plaits herself a new set of tresses."
+
+"Here comes Platon Mikhalitch, father!" exclaimed Aleksasha, who had
+been peeping out of the window.
+
+"Yes, and on a grey horse," added his brother.
+
+"Who is Platon Mikhalitch?" inquired Chichikov.
+
+"A neighbour of ours, and an excellent fellow."
+
+The next moment Platon Mikhalitch himself entered the room, accompanied
+by a sporting dog named Yarb. He was a tall, handsome man, with
+extremely red hair. As for his companion, it was of the keen-muzzled
+species used for shooting.
+
+"Have you dined yet?" asked the host.
+
+"Yes," replied Platon.
+
+"Indeed! What do you mean by coming here to laugh at us all? Do I ever
+go to YOUR place after dinner?"
+
+The newcomer smiled. "Well, if it can bring you any comfort," he said,
+"let me tell you that I ate nothing at the meal, for I had no appetite."
+
+"But you should see what I have caught--what sort of a sturgeon fate has
+brought my way! Yes, and what crucians and carp!"
+
+"Really it tires one to hear you. How come you always to be so
+cheerful?"
+
+"And how come YOU always to be so gloomy?" retorted the host.
+
+"How, you ask? Simply because I am so."
+
+"The truth is you don't eat enough. Try the plan of making a good
+dinner. Weariness of everything is a modern invention. Once upon a time
+one never heard of it."
+
+"Well, boast away, but have you yourself never been tired of things?"
+
+"Never in my life. I do not so much as know whether I should find time
+to be tired. In the morning, when one awakes, the cook is waiting, and
+the dinner has to be ordered. Then one drinks one's morning tea, and
+then the bailiff arrives for HIS orders, and then there is fishing to be
+done, and then one's dinner has to be eaten. Next, before one has even
+had a chance to utter a snore, there enters once again the cook, and one
+has to order supper; and when she has departed, behold, back she comes
+with a request for the following day's dinner! What time does THAT leave
+one to be weary of things?"
+
+Throughout this conversation, Chichikov had been taking stock of
+the newcomer, who astonished him with his good looks, his upright,
+picturesque figure, his appearance of fresh, unwasted youthfulness,
+and the boyish purity, innocence, and clarity of his features. Neither
+passion nor care nor aught of the nature of agitation or anxiety of mind
+had ventured to touch his unsullied face, or to lay a single wrinkle
+thereon. Yet the touch of life which those emotions might have imparted
+was wanting. The face was, as it were, dreaming, even though from time
+to time an ironical smile disturbed it.
+
+"I, too, cannot understand," remarked Chichikov, "how a man of your
+appearance can find things wearisome. Of course, if a man is hard
+pressed for money, or if he has enemies who are lying in wait for his
+life (as have certain folk of whom I know), well, then--"
+
+"Believe me when I say," interrupted the handsome guest, "that, for the
+sake of a diversion, I should be glad of ANY sort of an anxiety. Would
+that some enemy would conceive a grudge against me! But no one does so.
+Everything remains eternally dull."
+
+"But perhaps you lack a sufficiency of land or souls?"
+
+"Not at all. I and my brother own ten thousand desiatins [44] of land,
+and over a thousand souls."
+
+"Curious! I do not understand it. But perhaps the harvest has failed,
+or you have sickness about, and many of your male peasants have died of
+it?"
+
+"On the contrary, everything is in splendid order, for my brother is the
+best of managers."
+
+"Then to find things wearisome!" exclaimed Chichikov. "It passes my
+comprehension." And he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, we will soon put weariness to flight," interrupted the host.
+"Aleksasha, do you run helter-skelter to the kitchen, and there tell
+the cook to serve the fish pasties. Yes, and where have that gawk of an
+Emelian and that thief of an Antoshka got to? Why have they not handed
+round the zakuski?"
+
+At this moment the door opened, and the "gawk" and the "thief" in
+question made their appearance with napkins and a tray--the latter
+bearing six decanters of variously-coloured beverages. These they placed
+upon the table, and then ringed them about with glasses and platefuls
+of every conceivable kind of appetiser. That done, the servants applied
+themselves to bringing in various comestibles under covers, through
+which could be heard the hissing of hot roast viands. In particular
+did the "gawk" and the "thief" work hard at their tasks. As a matter
+of fact, their appellations had been given them merely to spur them to
+greater activity, for, in general, the barin was no lover of abuse, but,
+rather, a kind-hearted man who, like most Russians, could not get on
+without a sharp word or two. That is to say, he needed them for his
+tongue as he need a glass of vodka for his digestion. What else could
+you expect? It was his nature to care for nothing mild.
+
+To the zakuski succeeded the meal itself, and the host became a perfect
+glutton on his guests' behalf. Should he notice that a guest had taken
+but a single piece of a comestible, he added thereto another one,
+saying: "Without a mate, neither man nor bird can live in this world."
+Should any one take two pieces, he added thereto a third, saying: "What
+is the good of the number 2? God loves a trinity." Should any one
+take three pieces, he would say: "Where do you see a waggon with three
+wheels? Who builds a three-cornered hut?" Lastly, should any one take
+four pieces, he would cap them with a fifth, and add thereto the punning
+quip, "Na piat opiat [45]". After devouring at least twelve steaks
+of sturgeon, Chichikov ventured to think to himself, "My host cannot
+possibly add to THEM," but found that he was mistaken, for, without a
+word, Pietukh heaped upon his plate an enormous portion of spit-roasted
+veal, and also some kidneys. And what veal it was!
+
+"That calf was fed two years on milk," he explained. "I cared for it
+like my own son."
+
+"Nevertheless I can eat no more," said Chichikov.
+
+"Do you try the veal before you say that you can eat no more."
+
+"But I could not get it down my throat. There is no room left."
+
+"If there be no room in a church for a newcomer, the beadle is sent for,
+and room is very soon made--yes, even though before there was such a
+crush that an apple couldn't have been dropped between the people. Do
+you try the veal, I say. That piece is the titbit of all."
+
+So Chichikov made the attempt; and in very truth the veal was beyond all
+praise, and room was found for it, even though one would have supposed
+the feat impossible.
+
+"Fancy this good fellow removing to St. Petersburg or Moscow!" said the
+guest to himself. "Why, with a scale of living like this, he would be
+ruined in three years." For that matter, Pietukh might well have been
+ruined already, for hospitality can dissipate a fortune in three months
+as easily as it can in three years.
+
+The host also dispensed the wine with a lavish hand, and what the guests
+did not drink he gave to his sons, who thus swallowed glass after glass.
+Indeed, even before coming to table, it was possible to discern to what
+department of human accomplishment their bent was turned. When the meal
+was over, however, the guests had no mind for further drinking. Indeed,
+it was all that they could do to drag themselves on to the balcony,
+and there to relapse into easy chairs. Indeed, the moment that the host
+subsided into his seat--it was large enough for four--he fell asleep,
+and his portly presence, converting itself into a sort of blacksmith's
+bellows, started to vent, through open mouth and distended nostrils,
+such sounds as can have greeted the reader's ear but seldom--sounds as
+of a drum being beaten in combination with the whistling of a flute and
+the strident howling of a dog.
+
+"Listen to him!" said Platon.
+
+Chichikov smiled.
+
+"Naturally, on such dinners as that," continued the other, "our host
+does NOT find the time dull. And as soon as dinner is ended there can
+ensue sleep."
+
+"Yes, but, pardon me, I still fail to understand why you should find
+life wearisome. There are so many resources against ennui!"
+
+"As for instance?"
+
+"For a young man, dancing, the playing of one or another musical
+instrument, and--well, yes, marriage."
+
+"Marriage to whom?"
+
+"To some maiden who is both charming and rich. Are there none in these
+parts?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, were I you, I should travel, and seek a maiden elsewhere." And a
+brilliant idea therewith entered Chichikov's head. "This last resource,"
+he added, "is the best of all resources against ennui."
+
+"What resource are you speaking of?"
+
+"Of travel."
+
+"But whither?"
+
+"Well, should it so please you, you might join me as my companion." This
+said, the speaker added to himself as he eyed Platon: "Yes, that would
+suit me exactly, for then I should have half my expenses paid, and could
+charge him also with the cost of mending the koliaska."
+
+"And whither should we go?"
+
+"In that respect I am not wholly my own master, as I have business to do
+for others as well as for myself. For instance, General Betristchev--an
+intimate friend and, I might add, a generous benefactor of mine--has
+charged me with commissions to certain of his relatives. However, though
+relatives are relatives, I am travelling likewise on my own account,
+since I wish to see the world and the whirligig of humanity--which, in
+spite of what people may say, is as good as a living book or a second
+education." As a matter of fact, Chichikov was reflecting, "Yes, the
+plan is an excellent one. I might even contrive that he should have to
+bear the whole of our expenses, and that his horses should be used while
+my own should be put out to graze on his farm."
+
+"Well, why should I not adopt the suggestion?" was Platon's thought.
+"There is nothing for me to do at home, since the management of the
+estate is in my brother's hands, and my going would cause him no
+inconvenience. Yes, why should I not do as Chichikov has suggested?"
+
+Then he added aloud:
+
+"Would you come and stay with my brother for a couple of days? Otherwise
+he might refuse me his consent."
+
+"With great pleasure," said Chichikov. "Or even for three days."
+
+"Then here is my hand on it. Let us be off at once." Platon seemed
+suddenly to have come to life again.
+
+"Where are you off to?" put in their host unexpectedly as he roused
+himself and stared in astonishment at the pair. "No, no, my good sirs. I
+have had the wheels removed from your koliaska, Monsieur Chichikov, and
+have sent your horse, Platon Mikhalitch, to a grazing ground fifteen
+versts away. Consequently you must spend the night here, and depart
+to-morrow morning after breakfast."
+
+What could be done with a man like Pietukh? There was no help for it but
+to remain. In return, the guests were rewarded with a beautiful spring
+evening, for, to spend the time, the host organised a boating expedition
+on the river, and a dozen rowers, with a dozen pairs of oars, conveyed
+the party (to the accompaniment of song) across the smooth surface of
+the lake and up a great river with towering banks. From time to time the
+boat would pass under ropes, stretched across for purposes of fishing,
+and at each turn of the rippling current new vistas unfolded themselves
+as tier upon tier of woodland delighted the eye with a diversity of
+timber and foliage. In unison did the rowers ply their sculls, yet it
+was though of itself that the skiff shot forward, bird-like, over the
+glassy surface of the water; while at intervals the broad-shouldered
+young oarsman who was seated third from the bow would raise, as from
+a nightingale's throat, the opening staves of a boat song, and then be
+joined by five or six more, until the melody had come to pour forth in a
+volume as free and boundless as Russia herself. And Pietukh, too, would
+give himself a shake, and help lustily to support the chorus; and even
+Chichikov felt acutely conscious of the fact that he was a Russian. Only
+Platon reflected: "What is there so splendid in these melancholy songs?
+They do but increase one's depression of spirits."
+
+The journey homeward was made in the gathering dusk. Rhythmically the
+oars smote a surface which no longer reflected the sky, and darkness had
+fallen when they reached the shore, along which lights were twinkling
+where the fisherfolk were boiling live eels for soup. Everything had now
+wended its way homeward for the night; the cattle and poultry had
+been housed, and the herdsmen, standing at the gates of the village
+cattle-pens, amid the trailing dust lately raised by their charges,
+were awaiting the milk-pails and a summons to partake of the eel-broth.
+Through the dusk came the hum of humankind, and the barking of dogs in
+other and more distant villages; while, over all, the moon was rising,
+and the darkened countryside was beginning to glimmer to light again
+under her beams. What a glorious picture! Yet no one thought of admiring
+it. Instead of galloping over the countryside on frisky cobs,
+Nikolasha and Aleksasha were engaged in dreaming of Moscow, with its
+confectioners' shops and the theatres of which a cadet, newly arrived on
+a visit from the capital, had just been telling them; while their father
+had his mind full of how best to stuff his guests with yet more food,
+and Platon was given up to yawning. Only in Chichikov was a spice of
+animation visible. "Yes," he reflected, "some day I, too, will become
+lord of such a country place." And before his mind's eye there arose
+also a helpmeet and some little Chichikovs.
+
+By the time that supper was finished the party had again over-eaten
+themselves, and when Chichikov entered the room allotted him for the
+night, he lay down upon the bed, and prodded his stomach. "It is as
+tight as a drum," he said to himself. "Not another titbit of veal could
+now get into it." Also, circumstances had so brought it about that
+next door to him there was situated his host's apartment; and since the
+intervening wall was thin, Chichikov could hear every word that was
+said there. At the present moment the master of the house was engaged in
+giving the cook orders for what, under the guise of an early breakfast,
+promised to constitute a veritable dinner. You should have heard
+Pietukh's behests! They would have excited the appetite of a corpse.
+
+"Yes," he said, sucking his lips, and drawing a deep breath, "in the
+first place, make a pasty in four divisions. Into one of the divisions
+put the sturgeon's cheeks and some viaziga [46], and into another
+division some buckwheat porridge, young mushrooms and onions,
+sweet milk, calves' brains, and anything else that you may find
+suitable--anything else that you may have got handy. Also, bake the
+pastry to a nice brown on one side, and but lightly on the other. Yes,
+and, as to the under side, bake it so that it will be all juicy and
+flaky, so that it shall not crumble into bits, but melt in the mouth
+like the softest snow that ever you heard of." And as he said this
+Pietukh fairly smacked his lips.
+
+"The devil take him!" muttered Chichikov, thrusting his head beneath the
+bedclothes to avoid hearing more. "The fellow won't give one a chance to
+sleep."
+
+Nevertheless he heard through the blankets:
+
+"And garnish the sturgeon with beetroot, smelts, peppered mushrooms,
+young radishes, carrots, beans, and anything else you like, so as to
+have plenty of trimmings. Yes, and put a lump of ice into the pig's
+bladder, so as to swell it up."
+
+Many other dishes did Pietukh order, and nothing was to be heard but
+his talk of boiling, roasting, and stewing. Finally, just as mention was
+being made of a turkey cock, Chichikov fell asleep.
+
+Next morning the guest's state of repletion had reached the point
+of Platon being unable to mount his horse; wherefore the latter was
+dispatched homeward with one of Pietukh's grooms, and the two guests
+entered Chichikov's koliaska. Even the dog trotted lazily in the rear;
+for he, too, had over-eaten himself.
+
+"It has been rather too much of a good thing," remarked Chichikov as the
+vehicle issued from the courtyard.
+
+"Yes, and it vexes me to see the fellow never tire of it," replied
+Platon.
+
+"Ah," thought Chichikov to himself, "if _I_ had an income of seventy
+thousand roubles, as you have, I'd very soon give tiredness one in
+the eye! Take Murazov, the tax-farmer--he, again, must be worth ten
+millions. What a fortune!"
+
+"Do you mind where we drive?" asked Platon. "I should like first to go
+and take leave of my sister and my brother-in-law."
+
+"With pleasure," said Chichikov.
+
+"My brother-in-law is the leading landowner hereabouts. At the present
+moment he is drawing an income of two hundred thousand roubles from a
+property which, eight years ago, was producing a bare twenty thousand."
+
+"Truly a man worthy of the utmost respect! I shall be most interested to
+make his acquaintance. To think of it! And what may his family name be?"
+
+"Kostanzhoglo."
+
+"And his Christian name and patronymic?"
+
+"Constantine Thedorovitch."
+
+"Constantine Thedorovitch Kostanzhoglo. Yes, it will be a most
+interesting event to make his acquaintance. To know such a man must be a
+whole education."
+
+Here Platon set himself to give Selifan some directions as to the way,
+a necessary proceeding in view of the fact that Selifan could hardly
+maintain his seat on the box. Twice Petrushka, too, had fallen headlong,
+and this necessitated being tied to his perch with a piece of rope.
+"What a clown!" had been Chichikov's only comment.
+
+"This is where my brother-in-law's land begins," said Platon.
+
+"They give one a change of view."
+
+And, indeed, from this point the countryside became planted with timber;
+the rows of trees running as straight as pistol-shots, and having beyond
+them, and on higher ground, a second expanse of forest, newly planted
+like the first; while beyond it, again, loomed a third plantation of
+older trees. Next there succeeded a flat piece of the same nature.
+
+"All this timber," said Platon, "has grown up within eight or ten years
+at the most; whereas on another man's land it would have taken twenty to
+attain the same growth."
+
+"And how has your brother-in-law effected this?"
+
+"You must ask him yourself. He is so excellent a husbandman that nothing
+ever fails with him. You see, he knows the soil, and also knows what
+ought to be planted beside what, and what kinds of timber are the best
+neighbourhood for grain. Again, everything on his estate is made to
+perform at least three or four different functions. For instance, he
+makes his timber not only serve as timber, but also serve as a provider
+of moisture and shade to a given stretch of land, and then as a
+fertiliser with its fallen leaves. Consequently, when everywhere else
+there is drought, he still has water, and when everywhere else there
+has been a failure of the harvest, on his lands it will have proved a
+success. But it is a pity that I know so little about it all as to be
+unable to explain to you his many expedients. Folk call him a wizard,
+for he produces so much. Nevertheless, personally I find what he does
+uninteresting."
+
+"Truly an astonishing fellow!" reflected Chichikov with a glance at his
+companion. "It is sad indeed to see a man so superficial as to be unable
+to explain matters of this kind."
+
+At length the manor appeared in sight--an establishment looking almost
+like a town, so numerous were the huts where they stood arranged in
+three tiers, crowned with three churches, and surrounded with huge ricks
+and barns. "Yes," thought Chichikov to himself, "one can see what a
+jewel of a landowner lives here." The huts in question were stoutly
+built and the intervening alleys well laid-out; while, wherever a waggon
+was visible, it looked serviceable and more or less new. Also, the local
+peasants bore an intelligent look on their faces, the cattle were of the
+best possible breed, and even the peasants' pigs belonged to the porcine
+aristocracy. Clearly there dwelt here peasants who, to quote the
+song, were accustomed to "pick up silver by the shovelful." Nor were
+Englishified gardens and parterres and other conceits in evidence, but,
+on the contrary, there ran an open view from the manor house to the
+farm buildings and the workmen's cots, so that, after the old Russian
+fashion, the barin should be able to keep an eye upon all that was going
+on around him. For the same purpose, the mansion was topped with a tall
+lantern and a superstructure--a device designed, not for ornament,
+nor for a vantage-spot for the contemplation of the view, but for
+supervision of the labourers engaged in distant fields. Lastly, the
+brisk, active servants who received the visitors on the verandah were
+very different menials from the drunken Petrushka, even though they did
+not wear swallow-tailed coats, but only Cossack tchekmenu [47] of blue
+homespun cloth.
+
+The lady of the house also issued on to the verandah. With her face of
+the freshness of "blood and milk" and the brightness of God's daylight,
+she as nearly resembled Platon as one pea resembles another, save that,
+whereas he was languid, she was cheerful and full of talk.
+
+"Good day, brother!" she cried. "How glad I am to see you! Constantine
+is not at home, but will be back presently."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Doing business in the village with a party of factors," replied the
+lady as she conducted her guests to the drawing-room.
+
+With no little curiosity did Chichikov gaze at the interior of the
+mansion inhabited by the man who received an annual income of two
+hundred thousand roubles; for he thought to discern therefrom the nature
+of its proprietor, even as from a shell one may deduce the species of
+oyster or snail which has been its tenant, and has left therein its
+impression. But no such conclusions were to be drawn. The rooms were
+simple, and even bare. Not a fresco nor a picture nor a bronze nor a
+flower nor a china what-not nor a book was there to be seen. In short,
+everything appeared to show that the proprietor of this abode spent the
+greater part of his time, not between four walls, but in the field, and
+that he thought out his plans, not in sybaritic fashion by the fireside,
+nor in an easy chair beside the stove, but on the spot where work was
+actually in progress--that, in a word, where those plans were conceived,
+there they were put into execution. Nor in these rooms could Chichikov
+detect the least trace of a feminine hand, beyond the fact that
+certain tables and chairs bore drying-boards whereon were arranged some
+sprinklings of flower petals.
+
+"What is all this rubbish for?" asked Platon.
+
+"It is not rubbish," replied the lady of the house. "On the contrary, it
+is the best possible remedy for fever. Last year we cured every one of
+our sick peasants with it. Some of the petals I am going to make into an
+ointment, and some into an infusion. You may laugh as much as you like
+at my potting and preserving, yet you yourself will be glad of things of
+the kind when you set out on your travels."
+
+Platon moved to the piano, and began to pick out a note or two.
+
+"Good Lord, what an ancient instrument!" he exclaimed. "Are you not
+ashamed of it, sister?"
+
+"Well, the truth is that I get no time to practice my music. You see,"
+she added to Chichikov, "I have an eight-year-old daughter to educate;
+and to hand her over to a foreign governess in order that I may have
+leisure for my own piano-playing--well, that is a thing which I could
+never bring myself to do."
+
+"You have become a wearisome sort of person," commented Platon, and
+walked away to the window. "Ah, here comes Constantine," presently he
+added.
+
+Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the
+verandah a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad in
+a rough cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of those
+who care little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded, there
+came a couple of men of a somewhat lower station in life, and all
+three were engaged in an animated discussion. One of the barin's two
+companions was a plain peasant, and the other (clad in a blue Siberian
+smock) a travelling factor. The fact that the party halted awhile by
+the entrance steps made it possible to overhear a portion of their
+conversation from within.
+
+"This is what you peasants had better do," the barin was saying.
+"Purchase your release from your present master. I will lend you the
+necessary money, and afterwards you can work for me."
+
+"No, Constantine Thedorovitch," replied the peasant. "Why should we do
+that? Remove us just as we are. You will know how to arrange it, for a
+cleverer gentleman than you is nowhere to be found. The misfortune of us
+muzhiks is that we cannot protect ourselves properly. The tavern-keepers
+sell us such liquor that, before a man knows where he is, a glassful of
+it has eaten a hole through his stomach, and made him feel as though
+he could drink a pail of water. Yes, it knocks a man over before he can
+look around. Everywhere temptation lies in wait for the peasant, and he
+needs to be cunning if he is to get through the world at all. In fact,
+things seem to be contrived for nothing but to make us peasants lose
+our wits, even to the tobacco which they sell us. What are folk like
+ourselves to do, Constantine Thedorovitch? I tell you it is terribly
+difficult for a muzhik to look after himself."
+
+"Listen to me. This is how things are done here. When I take on a serf,
+I fit him out with a cow and a horse. On the other hand, I demand of him
+thereafter more than is demanded of a peasant anywhere else. That is to
+say, first and foremost I make him work. Whether a peasant be working
+for himself or for me, never do I let him waste time. I myself toil like
+a bullock, and I force my peasants to do the same, for experience
+has taught me that that is the only way to get through life. All the
+mischief in the world comes through lack of employment. Now, do you go
+and consider the matter, and talk it over with your mir [48]."
+
+"We have done that already, Constantine Thedorovitch, and our elders'
+opinion is: 'There is no need for further talk. Every peasant belonging
+to Constantine Thedorovitch is well off, and hasn't to work for nothing.
+The priests of his village, too, are men of good heart, whereas ours
+have been taken away, and there is no one to bury us.'"
+
+"Nevertheless, do you go and talk the matter over again."
+
+"We will, barin."
+
+Here the factor who had been walking on the barin's other side put in a
+word.
+
+"Constantine Thedorovitch," he said, "I beg of you to do as I have
+requested."
+
+"I have told you before," replied the barin, "that I do not care to play
+the huckster. I am not one of those landowners whom fellows of your sort
+visit on the very day that the interest on a mortgage is due. Ah, I know
+your fraternity thoroughly, and know that you keep lists of all who have
+mortgages to repay. But what is there so clever about that? Any man,
+if you pinch him sufficiently, will surrender you a mortgage at
+half-price,--any man, that is to say, except myself, who care nothing
+for your money. Were a loan of mine to remain out three years, I should
+never demand a kopeck of interest on it."
+
+"Quite so, Constantine Thedorovitch," replied the factor. "But I am
+asking this of you more for the purpose of establishing us on a business
+footing than because I desire to win your favour. Prey, therefore,
+accept this earnest money of three thousand roubles." And the man drew
+from his breast pocket a dirty roll of bank-notes, which, carelessly
+receiving, Kostanzhoglo thrust, uncounted, into the back pocket of his
+overcoat.
+
+"Hm!" thought Chichikov. "For all he cares, the notes might have been a
+handkerchief."
+
+When Kostanzhoglo appeared at closer quarters--that is to say, in the
+doorway of the drawing-room--he struck Chichikov more than ever with the
+swarthiness of his complexion, the dishevelment of his black, slightly
+grizzled locks, the alertness of his eye, and the impression of fiery
+southern origin which his whole personality diffused. For he was not
+wholly a Russian, nor could he himself say precisely who his forefathers
+had been. Yet, inasmuch as he accounted genealogical research no part of
+the science of estate-management, but a mere superfluity, he looked upon
+himself as, to all intents and purposes, a native of Russia, and the
+more so since the Russian language was the only tongue he knew.
+
+Platon presented Chichikov, and the pair exchanged greetings.
+
+"To get rid of my depression, Constantine," continued Platon, "I am
+thinking of accompanying our guest on a tour through a few of the
+provinces."
+
+"An excellent idea," said Kostanzhoglo. "But precisely whither?" he
+added, turning hospitably to Chichikov.
+
+"To tell you the truth," replied that personage with an affable
+inclination of the head as he smoothed the arm of his chair with his
+hand, "I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and,
+I might add, a generous benefactor, of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are
+relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in
+that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the
+world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, so to speak, a
+living book, a second course of education."
+
+"Yes, there is no harm in looking at other corners of the world besides
+one's own."
+
+"You speak truly. There IS no harm in such a proceeding. Thereby one may
+see things which one has not before encountered, one may meet men with
+whom one has not before come in contact. And with some men of that kind
+a conversation is as precious a benefit as has been conferred upon me
+by the present occasion. I come to you, most worthy Constantine
+Thedorovitch, for instruction, and again for instruction, and beg of you
+to assuage my thirst with an exposition of the truth as it is. I hunger
+for the favour of your words as for manna."
+
+"But how so? What can _I_ teach you?" exclaimed Kostanzhoglo in
+confusion. "I myself was given but the plainest of educations."
+
+"Nay, most worthy sir, you possess wisdom, and again wisdom. Wisdom only
+can direct the management of a great estate, that can derive a
+sound income from the same, that can acquire wealth of a real, not a
+fictitious, order while also fulfilling the duties of a citizen and
+thereby earning the respect of the Russian public. All this I pray you
+to teach me."
+
+"I tell you what," said Kostanzhoglo, looking meditatively at his guest.
+"You had better stay with me for a few days, and during that time I can
+show you how things are managed here, and explain to you everything.
+Then you will see for yourself that no great wisdom is required for the
+purpose."
+
+"Yes, certainly you must stay here," put in the lady of the house. Then,
+turning to her brother, she added: "And you too must stay. Why should
+you be in such a hurry?"
+
+"Very well," he replied. "But what say YOU, Paul Ivanovitch?"
+
+"I say the same as you, and with much pleasure," replied Chichikov.
+"But also I ought to tell you this: that there is a relative of General
+Betristchev's, a certain Colonel Koshkarev--"
+
+"Yes, we know him; but he is quite mad."
+
+"As you say, he is mad, and I should not have been intending to visit
+him, were it not that General Betristchev is an intimate friend of mine,
+as well as, I might add, my most generous benefactor."
+
+"Then," said Kostanzhoglo, "do you go and see Colonel Koshkarev NOW.
+He lives less than ten versts from here, and I have a gig already
+harnessed. Go to him at once, and return here for tea."
+
+"An excellent idea!" cried Chichikov, and with that he seized his cap.
+
+Half an hour's drive sufficed to bring him to the Colonel's
+establishment. The village attached to the manor was in a state of utter
+confusion, since in every direction building and repairing operations
+were in progress, and the alleys were choked with heaps of lime, bricks,
+and beams of wood. Also, some of the huts were arranged to resemble
+offices, and superscribed in gilt letters "Depot for Agricultural
+Implements," "Chief Office of Accounts," "Estate Works Committee,"
+"Normal School for the Education of Colonists," and so forth.
+
+Chichikov found the Colonel posted behind a desk and holding a pen
+between his teeth. Without an instant's delay the master of the
+establishment--who seemed a kindly, approachable man, and accorded to
+his visitor a very civil welcome--plunged into a recital of the labour
+which it had cost him to bring the property to its present condition of
+affluence. Then he went on to lament the fact that he could not make
+his peasantry understand the incentives to labour which the riches
+of science and art provide; for instance, he had failed to induce his
+female serfs to wear corsets, whereas in Germany, where he had resided
+for fourteen years, every humble miller's daughter could play the piano.
+None the less, he said, he meant to peg away until every peasant on
+the estate should, as he walked behind the plough, indulge in a regular
+course of reading Franklin's Notes on Electricity, Virgil's Georgics, or
+some work on the chemical properties of soil.
+
+"Good gracious!" mentally exclaimed Chichikov. "Why, I myself have not
+had time to finish that book by the Duchesse de la Valliere!"
+
+Much else the Colonel said. In particular did he aver that, provided
+the Russian peasant could be induced to array himself in German costume,
+science would progress, trade increase, and the Golden Age dawn in
+Russia.
+
+For a while Chichikov listened with distended eyes. Then he felt
+constrained to intimate that with all that he had nothing to do, seeing
+that his business was merely to acquire a few souls, and thereafter to
+have their purchase confirmed.
+
+"If I understand you aright," said the Colonel, "you wish to present a
+Statement of Plea?"
+
+"Yes, that is so."
+
+"Then kindly put it into writing, and it shall be forwarded to the
+Office for the Reception of Reports and Returns. Thereafter that Office
+will consider it, and return it to me, who will, in turn, dispatch it to
+the Estate Works Committee, who will, in turn, revise it, and present it
+to the Administrator, who, jointly with the Secretary, will--"
+
+"Pardon me," expostulated Chichikov, "but that procedure will take up a
+great deal of time. Why need I put the matter into writing at all? It is
+simply this. I want a few souls which are--well, which are, so to speak,
+dead."
+
+"Very good," commented the Colonel. "Do you write down in your Statement
+of Plea that the souls which you desire are, 'so to speak, dead.'"
+
+"But what would be the use of my doing so? Though the souls are dead, my
+purpose requires that they should be represented as alive."
+
+"Very good," again commented the Colonel. "Do you write down in your
+Statement that 'it is necessary' (or, should you prefer an alternative
+phrase, 'it is requested,' or 'it is desiderated,' or 'it is prayed,')
+'that the souls be represented as alive.' At all events, WITHOUT
+documentary process of that kind, the matter cannot possibly be carried
+through. Also, I will appoint a Commissioner to guide you round the
+various Offices."
+
+And he sounded a bell; whereupon there presented himself a man whom,
+addressing as "Secretary," the Colonel instructed to summon the
+"Commissioner." The latter, on appearing, was seen to have the air, half
+of a peasant, half of an official.
+
+"This man," the Colonel said to Chichikov, "will act as your escort."
+
+What could be done with a lunatic like Koshkarev? In the end, curiosity
+moved Chichikov to accompany the Commissioner. The Committee for the
+Reception of Reports and Returns was discovered to have put up its
+shutters, and to have locked its doors, for the reason that the Director
+of the Committee had been transferred to the newly-formed Committee
+of Estate Management, and his successor had been annexed by the same
+Committee. Next, Chichikov and his escort rapped at the doors of the
+Department of Estate Affairs; but that Department's quarters happened to
+be in a state of repair, and no one could be made to answer the
+summons save a drunken peasant from whom not a word of sense was to be
+extracted. At length the escort felt himself moved to remark:
+
+"There is a deal of foolishness going on here. Fellows like that
+drunkard lead the barin by the nose, and everything is ruled by the
+Committee of Management, which takes men from their proper work, and
+sets them to do any other it likes. Indeed, only through the Committee
+does ANYTHING get done."
+
+By this time Chichikov felt that he had seen enough; wherefore he
+returned to the Colonel, and informed him that the Office for the
+Reception of Reports and Returns had ceased to exist. At once the
+Colonel flamed to noble rage. Pressing Chichikov's hand in token of
+gratitude for the information which the guest had furnished, he took
+paper and pen, and noted eight searching questions under three separate
+headings: (1) "Why has the Committee of Management presumed to issue
+orders to officials not under its jurisdiction?" (2) "Why has the Chief
+Manager permitted his predecessor, though still in retention of his
+post, to follow him to another Department?" and (3) "Why has the
+Committee of Estate Affairs suffered the Office for the Reception of
+Reports and Returns to lapse?"
+
+"Now for a row!" thought Chichikov to himself, and turned to depart; but
+his host stopped him, saying:
+
+"I cannot let you go, for, in addition to my honour having become
+involved, it behoves me to show my people how the regular, the
+organised, administration of an estate may be conducted. Herewith I will
+hand over the conduct of your affair to a man who is worth all the rest
+of the staff put together, and has had a university education. Also, the
+better to lose no time, may I humbly beg you to step into my library,
+where you will find notebooks, paper, pens, and everything else that
+you may require. Of these articles pray make full use, for you are
+a gentleman of letters, and it is your and my joint duty to bring
+enlightenment to all."
+
+So saying, he ushered his guest into a large room lined from floor to
+ceiling with books and stuffed specimens. The books in question
+were divided into sections--a section on forestry, a section on
+cattle-breeding, a section on the raising of swine, and a section on
+horticulture, together with special journals of the type circulated
+merely for the purposes of reference, and not for general reading.
+Perceiving that these works were scarcely of a kind calculated to while
+away an idle hour, Chichikov turned to a second bookcase. But to do so
+was to fall out of the frying-pan into the fire, for the contents of the
+second bookcase proved to be works on philosophy, while, in particular,
+six huge volumes confronted him under a label inscribed "A Preparatory
+Course to the Province of Thought, with the Theory of Community of
+Effort, Co-operation, and Subsistence, in its Application to a Right
+Understanding of the Organic Principles of a Mutual Division of
+Social Productivity." Indeed, wheresoever Chichikov looked, every page
+presented to his vision some such words as "phenomenon," "development,"
+"abstract," "contents," and "synopsis." "This is not the sort of thing
+for me," he murmured, and turned his attention to a third bookcase,
+which contained books on the Arts. Extracting a huge tome in which some
+by no means reticent mythological illustrations were contained, he set
+himself to examine these pictures. They were of the kind which pleases
+mostly middle-aged bachelors and old men who are accustomed to seek
+in the ballet and similar frivolities a further spur to their waning
+passions. Having concluded his examination, Chichikov had just extracted
+another volume of the same species when Colonel Koshkarev returned with
+a document of some sort and a radiant countenance.
+
+"Everything has been carried through in due form!" he cried. "The man
+whom I mentioned is a genius indeed, and I intend not only to promote
+him over the rest, but also to create for him a special Department.
+Herewith shall you hear what a splendid intellect is his, and how in a
+few minutes he has put the whole affair in order."
+
+"May the Lord be thanked for that!" thought Chichikov. Then he settled
+himself while the Colonel read aloud:
+
+"'After giving full consideration to the Reference which your Excellency
+has entrusted to me, I have the honour to report as follows:
+
+"'(1) In the Statement of Plea presented by one Paul Ivanovitch
+Chichikov, Gentleman, Chevalier, and Collegiate Councillor, there
+lurks an error, in that an oversight has led the Petitioner to apply to
+Revisional Souls the term "Dead." Now, from the context it would appear
+that by this term the Petitioner desires to signify Souls Approaching
+Death rather than Souls Actually Deceased: wherefore the term employed
+betrays such an empirical instruction in letters as must, beyond doubt,
+have been confined to the Village School, seeing that in truth the Soul
+is Deathless.'
+
+"The rascal!" Koshkarev broke off to exclaim delightedly. "He has
+got you there, Monsieur Chichikov. And you will admit that he has a
+sufficiently incisive pen?
+
+"'(2) On this Estate there exist no Unmortgaged Souls whatsoever,
+whether Approaching Death or Otherwise; for the reason that all Souls
+thereon have been pledged not only under a First Deed of Mortgage, but
+also (for the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Roubles per Soul) under
+a Second,--the village of Gurmailovka alone excepted, in that,
+in consequence of a Suit having been brought against Landowner
+Priadistchev, and of a caveat having been pronounced by the Land Court,
+and of such caveat having been published in No. 42 of the Gazette of
+Moscow, the said Village has come within the Jurisdiction of the Court
+Above-Mentioned."
+
+"Why did you not tell me all this before?" cried Chichikov furiously.
+"Why you have kept me dancing about for nothing?"
+
+"Because it was absolutely necessary that you should view the matter
+through forms of documentary process. This is no jest on my part. The
+inexperienced may see things subconsciously, yet it is imperative that
+he should also see them CONSCIOUSLY."
+
+But to Chichikov's patience an end had come. Seizing his cap, and
+casting all ceremony to the winds, he fled from the house, and rushed
+through the courtyard. As it happened, the man who had driven him
+thither had, warned by experience, not troubled even to take out the
+horses, since he knew that such a proceeding would have entailed not
+only the presentation of a Statement of Plea for fodder, but also a
+delay of twenty-four hours until the Resolution granting the same should
+have been passed. Nevertheless the Colonel pursued his guest to the
+gates, and pressed his hand warmly as he thanked him for having enabled
+him (the Colonel) thus to exhibit in operation the proper management of
+an estate. Also, he begged to state that, under the circumstances, it
+was absolutely necessary to keep things moving and circulating, since,
+otherwise, slackness was apt to supervene, and the working of the
+machine to grow rusty and feeble; but that, in spite of all, the
+present occasion had inspired him with a happy idea--namely, the idea
+of instituting a Committee which should be entitled "The Committee of
+Supervision of the Committee of Management," and which should have
+for its function the detection of backsliders among the body first
+mentioned.
+
+It was late when, tired and dissatisfied, Chichikov regained
+Kostanzhoglo's mansion. Indeed, the candles had long been lit.
+
+"What has delayed you?" asked the master of the house as Chichikov
+entered the drawing-room.
+
+"Yes, what has kept you and the Colonel so long in conversation
+together?" added Platon.
+
+"This--the fact that never in my life have I come across such an
+imbecile," was Chichikov's reply.
+
+"Never mind," said Kostanzhoglo. "Koshkarev is a most reassuring
+phenomenon. He is necessary in that in him we see expressed in
+caricature all the more crying follies of our intellectuals--of the
+intellectuals who, without first troubling to make themselves acquainted
+with their own country, borrow silliness from abroad. Yet that is
+how certain of our landowners are now carrying on. They have set up
+'offices' and factories and schools and 'commissions,' and the devil
+knows what else besides. A fine lot of wiseacres! After the French War
+in 1812 they had to reconstruct their affairs: and see how they have
+done it! Yet so much worse have they done it than a Frenchman would have
+done that any fool of a Peter Petrovitch Pietukh now ranks as a good
+landowner!"
+
+"But he has mortgaged the whole of his estate?" remarked Chichikov.
+
+"Yes, nowadays everything is being mortgaged, or is going to be." This
+said, Kostanzhoglo's temper rose still further. "Out upon your factories
+of hats and candles!" he cried. "Out upon procuring candle-makers
+from London, and then turning landowners into hucksters! To think of
+a Russian pomiestchik [49], a member of the noblest of callings,
+conducting workshops and cotton mills! Why, it is for the wenches of
+towns to handle looms for muslin and lace."
+
+"But you yourself maintain workshops?" remarked Platon.
+
+"I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
+instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
+began to weave it into cloth--but, mark you, only into good, plain cloth
+of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and which
+is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on end
+did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the river;
+wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I took
+to boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by the
+process."
+
+"The devil!" thought Chichikov to himself as he stared at his host.
+"What a fist this man has for making money!"
+
+"Another reason why I started those factories," continued Kostanzhoglo,
+"is that they might give employment to many peasants who would otherwise
+have starved. You see, the year happened to have been a lean one--thanks
+to those same industry-mongering landowners, in that they had neglected
+to sow their crops; and now my factories keep growing at the rate of
+a factory a year, owing to the circumstance that such quantities
+of remnants and cuttings become so accumulated that, if a man looks
+carefully to his management, he will find every sort of rubbish to be
+capable of bringing in a return--yes, to the point of his having to
+reject money on the plea that he has no need of it. Yet I do not find
+that to do all this I require to build a mansion with facades and
+pillars!"
+
+"Marvellous!" exclaimed Chichikov. "Beyond all things does it surprise
+me that refuse can be so utilised."
+
+"Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays every
+one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an instrument
+instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England. Yes, THAT is
+the thing to do. What folly!" Kostanzhoglo spat and added: "Yet when
+he returns from abroad he is a hundred times more ignorant than when he
+went."
+
+"Ah, Constantine," put in his wife anxiously, "you know how bad for you
+it is to talk like this."
+
+"Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too
+closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character
+should be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort of
+Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man get
+a little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote, and
+establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would never have
+dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who is good for
+nothing, whether in the country or in the town--a fellow who drinks
+and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our landowners keep
+taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into philanthropic
+knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless hospitals and
+institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning their families
+adrift. Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy."
+
+Chichikov's business had nothing to do with the spread of enlightenment,
+he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further concerning the
+putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo would not let
+him get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow of sarcastic
+comment pour from the speaker's lips.
+
+"Yes," went on Kostanzhoglo, "folk are always scheming to educate the
+peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will
+educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown
+stupid to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our present-day
+scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and at once you
+will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will you find
+folk saying: 'The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought to be
+familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above his
+station.' And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant will
+become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only knows
+what diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of eighteen
+who will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and found himself
+left with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate. Yes, that is
+what will come of infecting the peasant with such rubbish. But, thank
+God, there is still one healthy class left to us--a class which has
+never taken up with the 'advantages' of which I speak. For that we ought
+to be grateful. And since, even yet, the Russian agriculturist remains
+the most respect-worthy man in the land, why should he be touched? Would
+to God every one were an agriculturist!"
+
+"Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of occupations?"
+said Chichikov.
+
+"The best, at all events--if not the most profitable. 'In the sweat
+of thy brow shalt thou till the land.' To quote that requires no
+great wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the
+agricultural calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure, more
+noble than in any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no other
+calling ought to be practised: simply that the calling in question lies
+at the root of all the rest. However much factories may be established
+privately or by the law, there will still lie ready to man's hand all
+that he needs--he will still require none of those amenities which
+are sapping the vitality of our present-day folk, nor any of those
+industrial establishments which make their profit, and keep themselves
+going, by causing foolish measures to be adopted which, in the end,
+are bound to deprave and corrupt our unfortunate masses. I myself am
+determined never to establish any manufacture, however profitable,
+which will give rise to a demand for 'higher things,' such as sugar
+and tobacco--no not if I lose a million by my refusing to do so. If
+corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it shall not be through my hands.
+And I think that God will justify me in my resolve. Twenty years have
+I lived among the common folk, and I know what will inevitably come of
+such things."
+
+"But what surprises me most," persisted Chichikov, "is that from refuse
+it should be possible, with good management, to make such an immensity
+of profit."
+
+"And as for political economy," continued Kostanzhoglo, without noticing
+him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, "--as for political
+economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool sitting on another
+fool's back, and flogging him along, even though the rider can see
+no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle will that fool
+climb--spectacles and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of such things!" And
+the speaker spat derisively.
+
+"That may be true," said his wife. "Yet you must not get angry about it.
+Surely one can speak on such subjects without losing one's temper?"
+
+"As I listen to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch," Chichikov
+hastened to remark, "it becomes plain to me that you have penetrated
+into the meaning of life, and laid your finger upon the essential root
+of the matter. Yet supposing, for a moment, we leave the affairs of
+humanity in general, and turn our attention to a purely individual
+affair, might I ask you how, in the case of a man becoming a landowner,
+and having a mind to grow wealthy as quickly as possible (in order that
+he may fulfil his bounden obligations as a citizen), he can best set
+about it?"
+
+"How he can best set about growing wealthy?" repeated Kostanzhoglo.
+"Why,--"
+
+"Let us go to supper," interrupted the lady of the house, rising from
+her chair, and moving towards the centre of the room, where she wrapped
+her shivering young form in a shawl. Chichikov sprang up with the
+alacrity of a military man, offered her his arm, and escorted her, as
+on parade, to the dining-room, where awaiting them there was the
+soup-toureen. From it the lid had just been removed, and the room was
+redolent of the fragrant odour of early spring roots and herbs. The
+company took their seats, and at once the servants placed the
+remainder of the dishes (under covers) upon the table and withdrew,
+for Kostanzhoglo hated to have servants listening to their employers'
+conversation, and objected still more to their staring at him all the
+while that he was eating.
+
+When the soup had been consumed, and glasses of an excellent vintage
+resembling Hungarian wine had been poured out, Chichikov said to his
+host:
+
+"Most worthy sir, allow me once more to direct your attention to the
+subject of which we were speaking at the point when the conversation
+became interrupted. You will remember that I was asking you how best a
+man can set about, proceed in, the matter of growing..."
+
+
+           [Here from the original two pages are missing.]
+
+
+... "A property for which, had he asked forty thousand, I should still
+have demanded a reduction."
+
+"Hm!" thought Chichikov; then added aloud: "But why do you not purchase
+it yourself?"
+
+"Because to everything there must be assigned a limit. Already my
+property keeps me sufficiently employed. Moreover, I should cause our
+local dvoriane to begin crying out in chorus that I am exploiting their
+extremities, their ruined position, for the purpose of acquiring land
+for under its value. Of that I am weary."
+
+"How readily folk speak evil!" exclaimed Chichikov.
+
+"Yes, and the amount of evil-speaking in our province surpasses belief.
+Never will you hear my name mentioned without my being called also
+a miser and a usurer of the worst possible sort; whereas my accusers
+justify themselves in everything, and say that, 'though we have wasted
+our money, we have started a demand for the higher amenities of life,
+and therefore encouraged industry with our wastefulness, a far better
+way of doing things than that practised by Kostanzhoglo, who lives like
+a pig.'"
+
+"Would _I_ could live in your 'piggish' fashion!" ejaculated Chichikov.
+
+"And so forth, and so forth. Yet what are the 'higher amenities of
+life'? What good can they do to any one? Even if a landowner of the
+day sets up a library, he never looks at a single book in it, but soon
+relapses into card-playing--the usual pursuit. Yet folk call me names
+simply because I do not waste my means upon the giving of dinners! One
+reason why I do not give such dinners is that they weary me; and another
+reason is that I am not used to them. But come you to my house for the
+purpose of taking pot luck, and I shall be delighted to see you. Also,
+folk foolishly say that I lend money on interest; whereas the truth is
+that if you should come to me when you are really in need, and should
+explain to me openly how you propose to employ my money, and I should
+perceive that you are purposing to use that money wisely, and that you
+are really likely to profit thereby--well, in that case you would find
+me ready to lend you all that you might ask without interest at all."
+
+"That is a thing which it is well to know," reflected Chichikov.
+
+"Yes," repeated Kostanzhoglo, "under those circumstances I should never
+refuse you my assistance. But I do object to throwing my money to the
+winds. Pardon me for expressing myself so plainly. To think of lending
+money to a man who is merely devising a dinner for his mistress, or
+planning to furnish his house like a lunatic, or thinking of taking his
+paramour to a masked ball or a jubilee in honour of some one who had
+better never have been born!"
+
+And, spitting, he came near to venting some expression which would
+scarcely have been becoming in the presence of his wife. Over his face
+the dark shadow of hypochondria had cast a cloud, and furrows had formed
+on his brow and temples, and his every gesture bespoke the influence of
+a hot, nervous rancour.
+
+"But allow me once more to direct your attention to the subject of our
+recently interrupted conversation," persisted Chichikov as he sipped a
+glass of excellent raspberry wine. "That is to say, supposing I were
+to acquire the property which you have been good enough to bring to my
+notice, how long would it take me to grow rich?"
+
+"That would depend on yourself," replied Kostanzhoglo with grim
+abruptness and evident ill-humour. "You might either grow rich quickly
+or you might never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow
+rich, sooner or later you would find yourself a wealthy man."
+
+"Indeed!" ejaculated Chichikov.
+
+"Yes," replied Kostanzhoglo, as sharply as though he were angry with
+Chichikov. "You would merely need to be fond of work: otherwise you
+would effect nothing. The main thing is to like looking after your
+property. Believe me, you would never grow weary of doing so. People
+would have it that life in the country is dull; whereas, if I were to
+spend a single day as it is spent by some folk, with their stupid clubs
+and their restaurants and their theatres, I should die of ennui. The
+fools, the idiots, the generations of blind dullards! But a landowner
+never finds the days wearisome--he has not the time. In his life not a
+moment remains unoccupied; it is full to the brim. And with it all goes
+an endless variety of occupations. And what occupations! Occupations
+which genuinely uplift the soul, seeing that the landowner walks with
+nature and the seasons of the year, and takes part in, and is intimate
+with, everything which is evolved by creation. For let us look at the
+round of the year's labours. Even before spring has arrived there will
+have begun a general watching and a waiting for it, and a preparing for
+sowing, and an apportioning of crops, and a measuring of seed grain by
+byres, and drying of seed, and a dividing of the workers into teams.
+For everything needs to be examined beforehand, and calculations must be
+made at the very start. And as soon as ever the ice shall have melted,
+and the rivers be flowing, and the land have dried sufficiently to be
+workable, the spade will begin its task in kitchen and flower garden,
+and the plough and the harrow their tasks in the field; until everywhere
+there will be tilling and sowing and planting. And do you understand
+what the sum of that labour will mean? It will mean that the harvest is
+being sown, that the welfare of the world is being sown, that the
+food of millions is being put into the earth. And thereafter will come
+summer, the season of reaping, endless reaping; for suddenly the crops
+will have ripened, and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped upon rye-sheaf,
+with, elsewhere, stocks of barley, and of oats, and of wheat. And
+everything will be teeming with life, and not a moment will there need
+to be lost, seeing that, had you even twenty eyes, you would have need
+for them all. And after the harvest festivities there will be grain to
+be carted to byre or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared for the
+winter, and storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned for the
+same purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the totals
+of everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of
+what has been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every
+threshing-floor the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed,
+will need to be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be
+seen to, and the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen's
+huts to be visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is
+faring (for, given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one,
+am only too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering
+to me is labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which
+everything is moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are
+everywhere multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more
+fruit to one's profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes
+place in a man's soul. And that, not because of the growth in his
+wealth--money is money and no more--but because he will feel that
+everything is the work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause
+of everything, and its creator, and that from him, as from a magician,
+there has flowed bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will
+you find such delights in prospect?" As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised
+his face, and it became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and
+that, like the Tsar on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo's
+whole form was diffusing light, and his features had in them a gentle
+radiance. "In all the world," he repeated, "you will find no joys like
+these, for herein man imitates the God who projected creation as the
+supreme happiness, and now demands of man that he, too, should act as
+the creator of prosperity. Yet there are folk who call such functions
+tedious!"
+
+Kostanzhoglo's mellifluous periods fell upon Chichikov's ear like
+the notes of a bird of paradise. From time to time he gulped, and his
+softened eyes expressed the pleasure which it gave him to listen.
+
+"Constantine, it is time to leave the table," said the lady of the
+house, rising from her seat. Every one followed her example, and
+Chichikov once again acted as his hostess's escort--although with less
+dexterity of deportment than before, owing to the fact that this time
+his thoughts were occupied with more essential matters of procedure.
+
+"In spite of what you say," remarked Platon as he walked behind the
+pair, "I, for my part, find these things wearisome."
+
+But the master of the house paid no attention to his remark, for he was
+reflecting that his guest was no fool, but a man of serious thought
+and speech who did not take things lightly. And, with the thought,
+Kostanzhoglo grew lighter in soul, as though he had warmed himself with
+his own words, and were exulting in the fact that he had found some one
+capable of listening to good advice.
+
+When they had settled themselves in the cosy, candle-lighted
+drawing-room, with its balcony and the glass door opening out into the
+garden--a door through which the stars could be seen glittering amid the
+slumbering tops of the trees--Chichikov felt more comfortable than he
+had done for many a day past. It was as though, after long journeying,
+his own roof-tree had received him once more--had received him when
+his quest had been accomplished, when all that he wished for had been
+gained, when his travelling-staff had been laid aside with the words "It
+is finished." And of this seductive frame of mind the true source had
+been the eloquent discourse of his hospitable host. Yes, for every man
+there exist certain things which, instantly that they are said, seem to
+touch him more closely, more intimately, than anything has done before.
+Nor is it an uncommon occurrence that in the most unexpected fashion,
+and in the most retired of retreats, one will suddenly come face to face
+with a man whose burning periods will lead one to forget oneself and
+the tracklessness of the route and the discomfort of one's nightly
+halting-places, and the futility of crazes and the falseness of tricks
+by which one human being deceives another. And at once there will become
+engraven upon one's memory--vividly, and for all time--the evening thus
+spent. And of that evening one's remembrance will hold true, both as to
+who was present, and where each such person sat, and what he or she was
+wearing, and what the walls and the stove and other trifling features of
+the room looked like.
+
+In the same way did Chichikov note each detail that evening--both the
+appointments of the agreeable, but not luxuriously furnished, room, and
+the good-humoured expression which reigned on the face of the thoughtful
+host, and the design of the curtains, and the amber-mounted pipe smoked
+by Platon, and the way in which he kept puffing smoke into the fat
+jowl of the dog Yarb, and the sneeze which, on each such occasion, Yarb
+vented, and the laughter of the pleasant-faced hostess (though always
+followed by the words "Pray do not tease him any more") and the cheerful
+candle-light, and the cricket chirping in a corner, and the glass door,
+and the spring night which, laying its elbows upon the tree-tops, and
+spangled with stars, and vocal with the nightingales which were pouring
+forth warbled ditties from the recesses of the foliage, kept glancing
+through the door, and regarding the company within.
+
+"How it delights me to hear your words, good Constantine Thedorovitch!"
+said Chichikov. "Indeed, nowhere in Russia have I met with a man of
+equal intellect."
+
+Kostanzhoglo smiled, while realising that the compliment was scarcely
+deserved.
+
+"If you want a man of GENUINE intellect," he said, "I can tell you of
+one. He is a man whose boot soles are worth more than my whole body."
+
+"Who may he be?" asked Chichikov in astonishment.
+
+"Murazov, our local Commissioner of Taxes."
+
+"Ah! I have heard of him before," remarked Chichikov.
+
+"He is a man who, were he not the director of an estate, might well be a
+director of the Empire. And were the Empire under my direction, I should
+at once appoint him my Minister of Finance."
+
+"I have heard tales beyond belief concerning him--for instance, that he
+has acquired ten million roubles."
+
+"Ten? More than forty. Soon half Russia will be in his hands."
+
+"You don't say so?" cried Chichikov in amazement.
+
+"Yes, certainly. The man who has only a hundred thousand roubles to work
+with grows rich but slowly, whereas he who has millions at his disposal
+can operate over a greater radius, and so back whatsoever he undertakes
+with twice or thrice the money which can be brought against him.
+Consequently his field becomes so spacious that he ends by having no
+rivals. Yes, no one can compete with him, and, whatsoever price he may
+fix for a given commodity, at that price it will have to remain, nor
+will any man be able to outbid it."
+
+"My God!" muttered Chichikov, crossing himself, and staring at
+Kostanzhoglo with his breath catching in his throat. "The mind cannot
+grasp it--it petrifies one's thoughts with awe. You see folk marvelling
+at what Science has achieved in the matter of investigating the habits
+of cowbugs, but to me it is a far more marvellous thing that in the
+hands of a single mortal there can become accumulated such gigantic sums
+of money. But may I ask whether the great fortune of which you speak has
+been acquired through honest means?"
+
+"Yes; through means of the most irreproachable kind--through the most
+honourable of methods."
+
+"Yet so improbable does it seem that I can scarcely believe it.
+Thousands I could understand, but millions--!"
+
+"On the contrary, to make thousands honestly is a far more difficult
+matter than to make millions. Millions are easily come by, for a
+millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways; the way lies straight
+before him, and he needs but to annex whatsoever he comes across. No
+rival will spring up to oppose him, for no rival will be sufficiently
+strong, and since the millionaire can operate over an extensive radius,
+he can bring (as I have said) two or three roubles to bear upon any one
+else's one. Consequently, what interest will he derive from a thousand
+roubles? Why, ten or twenty per cent. at the least."
+
+"And it is beyond measure marvellous that the whole should have started
+from a single kopeck."
+
+"Had it started otherwise, the thing could never have been done at all.
+Such is the normal course. He who is born with thousands, and is brought
+up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for he will
+have been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and so never
+come to stand in need of anything. It is necessary to begin from the
+beginning rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather than from a
+rouble; from the bottom rather than from the top. For only thus will a
+man get to know the men and conditions among which his career will have
+to be carved. That is to say, through encountering the rough and the
+tumble of life, and through learning that every kopeck has to be beaten
+out with a three-kopeck nail, and through worsting knave after knave, he
+will acquire such a degree of perspicuity and wariness that he will err
+in nothing which he may tackle, and never come to ruin. Believe me, it
+is so. The beginning, and not the middle, is the right starting point.
+No one who comes to me and says, 'Give me a hundred thousand roubles,
+and I will grow rich in no time,' do I believe, for he is likely to meet
+with failure rather than with the success of which he is so assured.
+'Tis with a kopeck, and with a kopeck only, that a man must begin."
+
+"If that is so, _I_ shall grow rich," said Chichikov, involuntarily
+remembering the dead souls. "For of a surety _I_ began with nothing."
+
+"Constantine, pray allow Paul Ivanovitch to retire to rest," put in
+the lady of the house. "It is high time, and I am sure you have talked
+enough."
+
+"Yes, beyond a doubt you will grow rich," continued Kostanzhoglo,
+without heeding his wife. "For towards you there will run rivers and
+rivers of gold, until you will not know what to do with all your gains."
+
+As though spellbound, Chichikov sat in an aureate world of ever-growing
+dreams and fantasies. All his thoughts were in a whirl, and on a carpet
+of future wealth his tumultuous imagination was weaving golden patterns,
+while ever in his ears were ringing the words, "towards you there will
+run rivers and rivers of gold."
+
+"Really, Constantine, DO allow Paul Ivanovitch to go to bed."
+
+"What on earth is the matter?" retorted the master of the household
+testily. "Pray go yourself if you wish to." Then he stopped short, for
+the snoring of Platon was filling the whole room, and also--outrivalling
+it--that of the dog Yarb. This caused Kostanzhoglo to realise that
+bedtime really had arrived; wherefore, after he had shaken Platon out
+of his slumbers, and bidden Chichikov good night, all dispersed to their
+several chambers, and became plunged in sleep.
+
+All, that is to say, except Chichikov, whose thoughts remained wakeful,
+and who kept wondering and wondering how best he could become the owner,
+not of a fictitious, but of a real, estate. The conversation with
+his host had made everything clear, had made the possibility of
+his acquiring riches manifest, had made the difficult art of estate
+management at once easy and understandable; until it would seem as
+though particularly was his nature adapted for mastering the art in
+question. All that he would need to do would be to mortgage the dead
+souls, and then to set up a genuine establishment. Already he
+saw himself acting and administering as Kostanzhoglo had advised
+him--energetically, and through personal oversight, and undertaking
+nothing new until the old had been thoroughly learned, and viewing
+everything with his own eyes, and making himself familiar with each
+member of his peasantry, and abjuring all superfluities, and giving
+himself up to hard work and husbandry. Yes, already could he taste the
+pleasure which would be his when he had built up a complete industrial
+organisation, and the springs of the industrial machine were in vigorous
+working order, and each had become able to reinforce the other. Labour
+should be kept in active operation, and, even as, in a mill, flour comes
+flowing from grain, so should cash, and yet more cash, come flowing from
+every atom of refuse and remnant. And all the while he could see before
+him the landowner who was one of the leading men in Russia, and for whom
+he had conceived such an unbounded respect. Hitherto only for rank or
+for opulence had Chichikov respected a man--never for mere intellectual
+power; but now he made a first exception in favour of Kostanzhoglo,
+seeing that he felt that nothing undertaken by his host could possibly
+come to naught. And another project which was occupying Chichikov's mind
+was the project of purchasing the estate of a certain landowner named
+Khlobuev. Already Chichikov had at his disposal ten thousand roubles,
+and a further fifteen thousand he would try and borrow of Kostanzhoglo
+(seeing that the latter had himself said that he was prepared to help
+any one who really desired to grow rich); while, as for the remainder,
+he would either raise the sum by mortgaging the estate or force Khlobuev
+to wait for it--just to tell him to resort to the courts if such might
+be his pleasure.
+
+Long did our hero ponder the scheme; until at length the slumber which
+had, these four hours past, been holding the rest of the household in
+its embraces enfolded also Chichikov, and he sank into oblivion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Next day, with Platon and Constantine, Chichikov set forth to interview
+Khlobuev, the owner whose estate Constantine had consented to help
+Chichikov to purchase with a non-interest-bearing, uncovenanted loan of
+ten thousand roubles. Naturally, our hero was in the highest of spirits.
+For the first fifteen versts or so the road led through forest land and
+tillage belonging to Platon and his brother-in-law; but directly the
+limit of these domains was reached, forest land began to be replaced
+with swamp, and tillage with waste. Also, the village in Khlobuev's
+estate had about it a deserted air, and as for the proprietor himself,
+he was discovered in a state of drowsy dishevelment, having not long
+left his bed. A man of about forty, he had his cravat crooked, his
+frockcoat adorned with a large stain, and one of his boots worn through.
+Nevertheless he seemed delighted to see his visitors.
+
+"What?" he exclaimed. "Constantine Thedorovitch and Platon Mikhalitch?
+Really I must rub my eyes! Never again in this world did I look to see
+callers arriving. As a rule, folk avoid me like the devil, for they
+cannot disabuse their minds of the idea that I am going to ask them for
+a loan. Yes, it is my own fault, I know, but what would you? To the end
+will swine cheat swine. Pray excuse my costume. You will observe that my
+boots are in holes. But how can I afford to get them mended?"
+
+"Never mind," said Constantine. "We have come on business only. May I
+present to you a possible purchaser of your estate, in the person of
+Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?"
+
+"I am indeed glad to meet you!" was Khlobuev's response. "Pray shake
+hands with me, Paul Ivanovitch."
+
+Chichikov offered one hand, but not both.
+
+"I can show you a property worth your attention," went on the master of
+the estate. "May I ask if you have yet dined?"
+
+"Yes, we have," put in Constantine, desirous of escaping as soon as
+possible. "To save you further trouble, let us go and view the estate at
+once."
+
+"Very well," replied Khlobuev. "Pray come and inspect my irregularities
+and futilities. You have done well to dine beforehand, for not so much
+as a fowl is left in the place, so dire are the extremities to which you
+see me reduced."
+
+Sighing deeply, he took Platon by the arm (it was clear that he did
+not look for any sympathy from Constantine) and walked ahead, while
+Constantine and Chichikov followed.
+
+"Things are going hard with me, Platon Mikhalitch," continued Khlobuev.
+"How hard you cannot imagine. No money have I, no food, no boots. Were
+I still young and a bachelor, it would have come easy to me to live on
+bread and cheese; but when a man is growing old, and has got a wife
+and five children, such trials press heavily upon him, and, in spite of
+himself, his spirits sink."
+
+"But, should you succeed in selling the estate, that would help to put
+you right, would it not?" said Platon.
+
+"How could it do so?" replied Khlobuev with a despairing gesture. "What
+I might get for the property would have to go towards discharging my
+debts, and I should find myself left with less than a thousand roubles
+besides."
+
+"Then what do you intend to do?"
+
+"God knows."
+
+"But is there NOTHING to which you could set your hand in order to clear
+yourself of your difficulties?"
+
+"How could there be?"
+
+"Well, you might accept a Government post."
+
+"Become a provincial secretary, you mean? How could I obtain such a
+post? They would not offer me one of the meanest possible kind. Even
+supposing that they did, how could I live on a salary of five hundred
+roubles--I who have a wife and five children?"
+
+"Then try and obtain a bailiff's post."
+
+"Who would entrust their property to a man who has squandered his own
+estate?"
+
+"Nevertheless, when death and destitution threaten, a man must either
+do something or starve. Shall I ask my brother to use his influence to
+procure you a post?"
+
+"No, no, Platon Mikhalitch," sighed Khlobuev, gripping the other's hand.
+"I am no longer serviceable--I am grown old before my time, and find
+that liver and rheumatism are paying me for the sins of my youth. Why
+should the Government be put to a loss on my account?--not to speak of
+the fact that for every salaried post there are countless numbers of
+applicants. God forbid that, in order to provide me with a livelihood
+further burdens should be imposed upon an impoverished public!"
+
+"Such are the results of improvident management!" thought Platon to
+himself. "The disease is even worse than my slothfulness."
+
+Meanwhile Kostanzhoglo, walking by Chichikov's side, was almost taking
+leave of his senses.
+
+"Look at it!" he cried with a wave of his hand. "See to what
+wretchedness the peasant has become reduced! Should cattle disease come,
+Khlobuev will have nothing to fall back upon, but will be forced to sell
+his all--to leave the peasant without a horse, and therefore without the
+means to labour, even though the loss of a single day's work may take
+years of labour to rectify. Meanwhile it is plain that the local peasant
+has become a mere dissolute, lazy drunkard. Give a muzhik enough to live
+upon for twelve months without working, and you will corrupt him for
+ever, so inured to rags and vagrancy will he grow. And what is the good
+of that piece of pasture there--of that piece on the further side of
+those huts? It is a mere flooded tract. Were it mine, I should put
+it under flax, and clear five thousand roubles, or else sow it with
+turnips, and clear, perhaps, four thousand. And see how the rye is
+drooping, and nearly laid. As for wheat, I am pretty sure that he has
+not sown any. Look, too, at those ravines! Were they mine, they would
+be standing under timber which even a rook could not top. To think of
+wasting such quantities of land! Where land wouldn't bear corn, I should
+dig it up, and plant it with vegetables. What ought to be done is that
+Khlobuev ought to take a spade into his own hands, and to set his wife
+and children and servants to do the same; and even if they died of the
+exertion, they would at least die doing their duty, and not through
+guzzling at the dinner table."
+
+This said, Kostanzhoglo spat, and his brow flushed with grim
+indignation.
+
+Presently they reached an elevation whence the distant flashing of a
+river, with its flood waters and subsidiary streams, caught the eye,
+while, further off, a portion of General Betristchev's homestead could
+be discerned among the trees, and, over it, a blue, densely wooded hill
+which Chichikov guessed to be the spot where Tientietnikov's mansion was
+situated.
+
+"This is where I should plant timber," said Chichikov. "And, regarded
+as a site for a manor house, the situation could scarcely be beaten for
+beauty of view."
+
+"You seem to get great store upon views and beauty," remarked
+Kostanzhoglo with reproof in his tone. "Should you pay too much
+attention to those things, you might find yourself without crops or
+view. Utility should be placed first, not beauty. Beauty will come of
+itself. Take, for example, towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns
+are those which have built themselves--those in which each man has built
+to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which
+men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than
+collections of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only to what is
+NECESSARY."
+
+"Yes, but to me it would always be irksome to have to wait. All the time
+that I was doing so I should be hungering to see in front of me the
+sort of prospect which I prefer."
+
+"Come, come! Are you a man of twenty-five--you who have served as a
+tchinovnik in St. Petersburg? Have patience, have patience. For six
+years work, and work hard. Plant, sow, and dig the earth without taking
+a moment's rest. It will be difficult, I know--yes, difficult indeed;
+but at the end of that time, if you have thoroughly stirred the soil,
+the land will begin to help you as nothing else can do. That is to say,
+over and above your seventy or so pairs of hands, there will begin to
+assist in the work seven hundred pairs of hands which you cannot see.
+Thus everything will be multiplied tenfold. I myself have ceased even
+to have to lift a finger, for whatsoever needs to be done gets done of
+itself. Nature loves patience: always remember that. It is a law given
+her of God Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure."
+
+"To hear your words is to be both encouraged and strengthened," said
+Chichikov. To this Kostanzhoglo made no reply, but presently went on:
+
+"And see how that piece of land has been ploughed! To stay here longer
+is more than I can do. For me, to have to look upon such want of
+orderliness and foresight is death. Finish your business with Khlobuev
+without me, and whatsoever you do, get this treasure out of that fool's
+hands as quickly as possible, for he is dishonouring God's gifts."
+
+And Kostanzhoglo, his face dark with the rage that was seething in
+his excitable soul, left Chichikov, and caught up the owner of the
+establishment.
+
+"What, Constantine Thedorovitch?" cried Khlobuev in astonishment. "Just
+arrived, you are going already?"
+
+"Yes; I cannot help it; urgent business requires me at home." And
+entering his gig, Kostanzhoglo drove rapidly away. Somehow Khlobuev
+seemed to divine the cause of his sudden departure.
+
+"It was too much for him," he remarked. "An agriculturist of that
+kind does not like to have to look upon the results of such feckless
+management as mine. Would you believe it, Paul Ivanovitch, but this year
+I have been unable to sow any wheat! Am I not a fine husbandman? There
+was no seed for the purpose, nor yet anything with which to prepare the
+ground. No, I am not like Constantine Thedorovitch, who, I hear, is a
+perfect Napoleon in his particular line. Again and again the thought
+occurs to me, 'Why has so much intellect been put into that head, and
+only a drop or two into my own dull pate?' Take care of that puddle,
+gentlemen. I have told my peasants to lay down planks for the spring,
+but they have not done so. Nevertheless my heart aches for the poor
+fellows, for they need a good example, and what sort of an example am I?
+How am _I_ to give them orders? Pray take them under your charge, Paul
+Ivanovitch, for I cannot teach them orderliness and method when I myself
+lack both. As a matter of fact, I should have given them their freedom
+long ago, had there been any use in my doing so; for even I can see that
+peasants must first be afforded the means of earning a livelihood before
+they can live. What they need is a stern, yet just, master who shall
+live with them, day in, day out, and set them an example of tireless
+energy. The present-day Russian--I know of it myself--is helpless
+without a driver. Without one he falls asleep, and the mould grows over
+him."
+
+"Yet I cannot understand WHY he should fall asleep and grow mouldy in
+that fashion," said Platon. "Why should he need continual surveillance
+to keep him from degenerating into a drunkard and a good-for-nothing?"
+
+"The cause is lack of enlightenment," said Chichikov.
+
+"Possibly--only God knows. Yet enlightenment has reached us right
+enough. Do we not attend university lectures and everything else that
+is befitting? Take my own education. I learnt not only the usual things,
+but also the art of spending money upon the latest refinement, the
+latest amenity--the art of familiarising oneself with whatsoever money
+can buy. How, then, can it be said that I was educated foolishly? And
+my comrades' education was the same. A few of them succeeded in annexing
+the cream of things, for the reason that they had the wit to do so, and
+the rest spent their time in doing their best to ruin their health and
+squander their money. Often I think there is no hope for the present-day
+Russian. While desiring to do everything, he accomplishes nothing. One
+day he will scheme to begin a new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet
+before evening he will have so over-eaten himself as to be unable to
+speak or do aught but sit staring like an owl. The same with every one."
+
+"Quite so," agreed Chichikov with a smile. "'Tis everywhere the same
+story."
+
+"To tell the truth, we are not born to common sense. I doubt whether
+Russia has ever produced a really sensible man. For my own part, if I
+see my neighbour living a regular life, and making money, and saving
+it, I begin to distrust him, and to feel certain that in old age, if not
+before, he too will be led astray by the devil--led astray in a moment.
+Yes, whether or not we be educated, there is something we lack. But what
+that something is passes my understanding."
+
+On the return journey the prospect was the same as before. Everywhere
+the same slovenliness, the same disorder, was displaying itself
+unadorned: the only difference being that a fresh puddle had formed in
+the middle of the village street. This want and neglect was noticeable
+in the peasants' quarters equally with the quarters of the barin. In
+the village a furious woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor young
+wench within an ace of her life, and at the same time devoting some
+third person to the care of all the devils in hell; further away
+a couple of peasants were stoically contemplating the virago--one
+scratching his rump as he did so, and the other yawning. The same yawn
+was discernible in the buildings, for not a roof was there but had a
+gaping hole in it. As he gazed at the scene Platon himself yawned. Patch
+was superimposed upon patch, and, in place of a roof, one hut had a
+piece of wooden fencing, while its crumbling window-frames were stayed
+with sticks purloined from the barin's barn. Evidently the system
+of upkeep in vogue was the system employed in the case of Trishkin's
+coat--the system of cutting up the cuffs and the collar into mendings
+for the elbows.
+
+"No, I do not admire your way of doing things," was Chichikov's unspoken
+comment when the inspection had been concluded and the party had
+re-entered the house. Everywhere in the latter the visitors were
+struck with the way in which poverty went with glittering, fashionable
+profusion. On a writing-table lay a volume of Shakespeare, and, on an
+occasional table, a carved ivory back-scratcher. The hostess, too, was
+elegantly and fashionably attired, and devoted her whole conversation
+to the town and the local theatre. Lastly, the children--bright, merry
+little things--were well-dressed both as regards boys and girls. Yet
+far better would it have been for them if they had been clad in plain
+striped smocks, and running about the courtyard like peasant children.
+Presently a visitor arrived in the shape of a chattering, gossiping
+woman; whereupon the hostess carried her off to her own portion of the
+house, and, the children following them, the men found themselves alone.
+
+"How much do you want for the property?" asked Chichikov of Khlobuev.
+"I am afraid I must request you to name the lowest possible sum, since I
+find the estate in a far worse condition than I had expected to do."
+
+"Yes, it IS in a terrible state," agreed Khlobuev. "Nor is that the
+whole of the story. That is to say, I will not conceal from you the fact
+that, out of a hundred souls registered at the last revision, only fifty
+survive, so terrible have been the ravages of cholera. And of these,
+again, some have absconded; wherefore they too must be reckoned as dead,
+seeing that, were one to enter process against them, the costs would
+end in the property having to pass en bloc to the legal authorities.
+For these reasons I am asking only thirty-five thousand roubles for the
+estate."
+
+Chichikov (it need hardly be said) started to haggle.
+
+"Thirty-five thousand?" he cried. "Come, come! Surely you will accept
+TWENTY-five thousand?"
+
+This was too much for Platon's conscience.
+
+"Now, now, Paul Ivanovitch!" he exclaimed. "Take the property at the
+price named, and have done with it. The estate is worth at least that
+amount--so much so that, should you not be willing to give it, my
+brother-in-law and I will club together to effect the purchase."
+
+"That being so," said Chichikov, taken aback, "I beg to agree to the
+price in question. At the same time, I must ask you to allow me to defer
+payment of one-half of the purchase money until a year from now."
+
+"No, no, Paul Ivanovitch. Under no circumstances could I do that. Pay
+me half now, and the rest in... [50] You see, I need the money for the
+redemption of the mortgage."
+
+"That places me in a difficulty," remarked Chichikov. "Ten thousand
+roubles is all that at the moment I have available." As a matter of
+fact, this was not true, seeing that, counting also the money which he
+had borrowed of Kostanzhoglo, he had at his disposal TWENTY thousand.
+His real reason for hesitating was that he disliked the idea of making
+so large a payment in a lump sum.
+
+"I must repeat my request, Paul Ivanovitch," said Khlobuev, "--namely,
+that you pay me at least fifteen thousand immediately."
+
+"The odd five thousand _I_ will lend you," put in Platon to Chichikov.
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Chichikov as he reflected: "So he also lends money!"
+
+In the end Chichikov's dispatch-box was brought from the koliaska, and
+Khlobuev received thence ten thousand roubles, together with a promise
+that the remaining five thousand should be forthcoming on the morrow;
+though the promise was given only after Chichikov had first proposed
+that THREE thousand should be brought on the day named, and the rest
+be left over for two or three days longer, if not for a still more
+protracted period. The truth was that Paul Ivanovitch hated parting with
+money. No matter how urgent a situation might have been, he would still
+have preferred to pay a sum to-morrow rather than to-day. In other
+words, he acted as we all do, for we all like keeping a petitioner
+waiting. "Let him rub his back in the hall for a while," we say. "Surely
+he can bide his time a little?" Yet of the fact that every hour may be
+precious to the poor wretch, and that his business may suffer from
+the delay, we take no account. "Good sir," we say, "pray come again
+to-morrow. To-day I have no time to spare you."
+
+"Where do you intend henceforth to live?" inquired Platon. "Have you any
+other property to which you can retire?"
+
+"No," replied Khlobuev. "I shall remove to the town, where I possess
+a small villa. That would have been necessary, in any case, for the
+children's sake. You see, they must have instruction in God's word, and
+also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can these
+things be procured in the country.
+
+"Nothing to eat, yet dancing lessons for his children!" reflected
+Chichikov.
+
+"An extraordinary man!" was Platon's unspoken comment.
+
+"However, we must contrive to wet our bargain somehow," continued
+Khlobuev. "Hi, Kirushka! Bring that bottle of champagne."
+
+"Nothing to eat, yet champagne to drink!" reflected Chichikov. As for
+Platon, he did not know WHAT to think.
+
+In Khlobuev's eyes it was de rigueur that he should provide a guest with
+champagne; but, though he had sent to the town for some, he had been met
+with a blank refusal to forward even a bottle of kvass on credit.
+Only the discovery of a French dealer who had recently transferred his
+business from St. Petersburg, and opened a connection on a system
+of general credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev under the
+obligation of patronising him.
+
+The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful.
+In particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and
+friendliness, and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left.
+What knowledge of men and the world did his utterances display! How well
+and accurately could he divine things! With what appositeness did he
+sketch the neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their
+faults and failings! How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined
+gentry--the story of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen
+upon evil days! With what comic originality could he describe their
+little habits and customs!
+
+In short, his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and
+felt inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect.
+
+"What most surprises me," said Chichikov, "is how, in view of your
+ability, you come to be so destitute of means or resources."
+
+"But I have plenty of both," said Khlobuev, and with that went on to
+deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects
+proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge
+of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and
+mentally exclaim: "Good Lord! What a difference between worldly wisdom
+and the capacity to use it!" In every case the projects in question were
+based upon the imperative necessity of at once procuring from somewhere
+two hundred--or at least one hundred--thousand roubles. That done (so
+Khlobuev averred), everything would fall into its proper place,
+the holes in his pockets would become stopped, his income would be
+quadrupled, and he would find himself in a position to liquidate his
+debts in full. Nevertheless he ended by saying: "What would you advise
+me to do? I fear that the philanthropist who would lend me two hundred
+thousand roubles or even a hundred thousand, does not exist. It is not
+God's will that he should."
+
+"Good gracious!" inwardly ejaculated Chichikov. "To suppose that God
+would send such a fool two hundred thousand roubles!"
+
+"However," went on Khlobuev, "I possess an aunt worth three millions--a
+pious old woman who gives freely to churches and monasteries, but finds
+a difficulty in helping her neighbour. At the same time, she is a lady
+of the old school, and worth having a peep at. Her canaries alone
+number four hundred, and, in addition, there is an army of pug-dogs,
+hangers-on, and servants. Even the youngest of the servants is sixty,
+but she calls them all 'young fellows,' and if a guest happens to offend
+her during dinner, she orders them to leave him out when handing out the
+dishes. THERE'S a woman for you!"
+
+Platon laughed.
+
+"And what may her family name be?" asked Chichikov. "And where does she
+live?"
+
+"She lives in the county town, and her name is Alexandra Ivanovna
+Khanasarov."
+
+"Then why do you not apply to her?" asked Platon earnestly. "It seems
+to me that, once she realised the position of your family, she could not
+possibly refuse you."
+
+"Alas! nothing is to be looked for from that quarter," replied Khlobuev.
+"My aunt is of a very stubborn disposition--a perfect stone of a woman.
+Moreover, she has around her a sufficient band of favourites already.
+In particular is there a fellow who is aiming for a Governorship, and
+to that end has managed to insinuate himself into the circle of her
+kinsfolk. By the way," the speaker added, turning to Platon, "would you
+do me a favour? Next week I am giving a dinner to the associated guilds
+of the town."
+
+Platon stared. He had been unaware that both in our capitals and in
+our provincial towns there exists a class of men whose lives are
+an enigma--men who, though they will seem to have exhausted their
+substance, and to have become enmeshed in debt, will suddenly be
+reported as in funds, and on the point of giving a dinner! And though,
+at this dinner, the guests will declare that the festival is bound to
+be their host's last fling, and that for a certainty he will be haled to
+prison on the morrow, ten years or more will elapse, and the rascal will
+still be at liberty, even though, in the meanwhile, his debts will have
+increased!
+
+In the same way did the conduct of Khlobuev's menage afford a curious
+phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te
+Deum, performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play
+performed by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again,
+one day would see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day a
+banquet and generous largesse given to a party of artists and sculptors.
+During these seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to have led any
+one but Khlobuev to seek suicide by hanging or shooting), the master of
+the house would be preserved from rash action by his strongly religious
+disposition, which, contriving in some curious way to conform with his
+irregular mode of life, enabled him to fall back upon reading the lives
+of saints, ascetics, and others of the type which has risen superior to
+its misfortunes. And at such times his spirit would become softened, his
+thoughts full of gentleness, and his eyes wet with tears; he would fall
+to saying his prayers, and invariably some strange coincidence would
+bring an answer thereto in the shape of an unexpected measure of
+assistance. That is to say, some former friend of his would remember
+him, and send him a trifle in the way of money; or else some female
+visitor would be moved by his story to let her impulsive, generous heart
+proffer him a handsome gift; or else a suit whereof tidings had never
+even reached his ears would end by being decided in his favour. And when
+that happened he would reverently acknowledge the immensity of the mercy
+of Providence, gratefully tender thanksgiving for the same, and betake
+himself again to his irregular mode of existence.
+
+"Somehow I feel sorry for the man," said Platon when he and Chichikov
+had taken leave of their host, and left the house.
+
+"Perhaps so, but he is a hopeless prodigal," replied the other.
+"Personally I find it impossible to compassionate such fellows."
+
+And with that the pair ceased to devote another thought to Khlobuev. In
+the case of Platon, this was because he contemplated the fortunes of his
+fellows with the lethargic, half-somnolent eye which he turned upon all
+the rest of the world; for though the sight of distress of others would
+cause his heart to contract and feel full of sympathy, the impression
+thus produced never sank into the depths of his being. Accordingly,
+before many minutes were over he had ceased to bestow a single thought
+upon his late host. With Chichikov, however, things were different.
+Whereas Platon had ceased to think of Khlobuev no more than he had
+ceased to think of himself, Chichikov's mind had strayed elsewhere,
+for the reason that it had become taken up with grave meditation on the
+subject of the purchase just made. Suddenly finding himself no longer
+a fictitious proprietor, but the owner of a real, an actually existing,
+estate, he became contemplative, and his plans and ideas assumed such a
+serious vein as imparted to his features an unconsciously important air.
+
+"Patience and hard work!" he muttered to himself. "The thing will not be
+difficult, for with those two requisites I have been familiar from the
+days of my swaddling clothes. Yes, no novelty will they be to me. Yet,
+in middle age, shall I be able to compass the patience whereof I was
+capable in my youth?"
+
+However, no matter how he regarded the future, and no matter from what
+point of view he considered his recent acquisition, he could see nothing
+but advantage likely to accrue from the bargain. For one thing, he might
+be able to proceed so that, first the whole of the estate should be
+mortgaged, and then the better portions of land sold outright. Or he
+might so contrive matters as to manage the property for a while
+(and thus become a landowner like Kostanzhoglo, whose advice, as his
+neighbour and his benefactor, he intended always to follow), and then to
+dispose of the property by private treaty (provided he did not wish to
+continue his ownership), and still to retain in his hands the dead and
+abandoned souls. And another possible coup occurred to his mind. That is
+to say, he might contrive to withdraw from the district without having
+repaid Kostanzhoglo at all! Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair
+to say that the idea was not one of Chichikov's own conception. Rather,
+it had presented itself--mocking, laughing, and winking--unbidden. Yet
+the impudent, the wanton thing! Who is the procreator of suddenly
+born ideas of the kind? The thought that he was now a real, an actual,
+proprietor instead of a fictitious--that he was now a proprietor of real
+land, real rights of timber and pasture, and real serfs who existed not
+only in the imagination, but also in veritable actuality--greatly elated
+our hero. So he took to dancing up and down in his seat, to rubbing
+his hands together, to winking at himself, to holding his fist,
+trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making believe to execute a march),
+and even to uttering aloud such encouraging nicknames and phrases as
+"bulldog" and "little fat capon." Then suddenly recollecting that he
+was not alone, he hastened to moderate his behaviour and endeavoured to
+stifle the endless flow of his good spirits; with the result that when
+Platon, mistaking certain sounds for utterances addressed to himself,
+inquired what his companion had said, the latter retained the presence
+of mind to reply "Nothing."
+
+Presently, as Chichikov gazed about him, he saw that for some time past
+the koliaska had been skirting a beautiful wood, and that on either side
+the road was bordered with an edging of birch trees, the tenderly-green,
+recently-opened leaves of which caused their tall, slender trunks to
+show up with the whiteness of a snowdrift. Likewise nightingales were
+warbling from the recesses of the foliage, and some wood tulips were
+glowing yellow in the grass. Next (and almost before Chichikov had
+realised how he came to be in such a beautiful spot when, but a moment
+before, there had been visible only open fields) there glimmered among
+the trees the stony whiteness of a church, with, on the further side
+of it, the intermittent, foliage-buried line of a fence; while from the
+upper end of a village street there was advancing to meet the vehicle a
+gentleman with a cap on his head, a knotted cudgel in his hands, and a
+slender-limbed English dog by his side.
+
+"This is my brother," said Platon. "Stop, coachman." And he descended
+from the koliaska, while Chichikov followed his example. Yarb and the
+strange dog saluted one another, and then the active, thin-legged,
+slender-tongued Azor relinquished his licking of Yarb's blunt jowl,
+licked Platon's hands instead, and, leaping upon Chichikov, slobbered
+right into his ear.
+
+The two brothers embraced.
+
+"Really, Platon," said the gentleman (whose name was Vassili), "what do
+you mean by treating me like this?"
+
+"How so?" said Platon indifferently.
+
+"What? For three days past I have seen and heard nothing of you! A groom
+from Pietukh's brought your cob home, and told me you had departed on an
+expedition with some barin. At least you might have sent me word as to
+your destination and the probable length of your absence. What made you
+act so? God knows what I have not been wondering!"
+
+"Does it matter?" rejoined Platon. "I forgot to send you word, and we
+have been no further than Constantine's (who, with our sister, sends you
+his greeting). By the way, may I introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?"
+
+The pair shook hands with one another. Then, doffing their caps, they
+embraced.
+
+"What sort of man is this Chichikov?" thought Vassili. "As a rule my
+brother Platon is not over-nice in his choice of acquaintances." And,
+eyeing our hero as narrowly as civility permitted, he saw that his
+appearance was that of a perfectly respectable individual.
+
+Chichikov returned Vassili's scrutiny with a similar observance of the
+dictates of civility, and perceived that he was shorter than Platon,
+that his hair was of a darker shade, and that his features, though less
+handsome, contained far more life, animation, and kindliness than did
+his brother's. Clearly he indulged in less dreaming, though that was an
+aspect which Chichikov little regarded.
+
+"I have made up my mind to go touring our Holy Russia with Paul
+Ivanovitch," said Platon. "Perhaps it will rid me of my melancholy."
+
+"What has made you come to such a sudden decision?" asked the perplexed
+Vassili (very nearly he added: "Fancy going travelling with a man whose
+acquaintance you have just made, and who may turn out to be a rascal
+or the devil knows what!" But, in spite of his distrust, he contented
+himself with another covert scrutiny of Chichikov, and this time came to
+the conclusion that there was no fault to be found with his exterior).
+
+The party turned to the right, and entered the gates of an ancient
+courtyard attached to an old-fashioned house of a type no longer
+built--the type which has huge gables supporting a high-pitched roof.
+In the centre of the courtyard two great lime trees covered half the
+surrounding space with shade, while beneath them were ranged a number
+of wooden benches, and the whole was encircled with a ring of blossoming
+lilacs and cherry trees which, like a beaded necklace, reinforced the
+wooden fence, and almost buried it beneath their clusters of leaves and
+flowers. The house, too, stood almost concealed by this greenery,
+except that the front door and the windows peered pleasantly through the
+foliage, and that here and there between the stems of the trees there
+could be caught glimpses of the kitchen regions, the storehouses, and
+the cellar. Lastly, around the whole stood a grove, from the recesses of
+which came the echoing songs of nightingales.
+
+Involuntarily the place communicated to the soul a sort of quiet,
+restful feeling, so eloquently did it speak of that care-free period
+when every one lived on good terms with his neighbour, and all was
+simple and unsophisticated. Vassili invited Chichikov to seat himself,
+and the party approached, for that purpose, the benches under the lime
+trees; after which a youth of about seventeen, and clad in a red shirt,
+brought decanters containing various kinds of kvass (some of them as
+thick as syrup, and others hissing like aerated lemonade), deposited the
+same upon the table, and, taking up a spade which he had left leaning
+against a tree, moved away towards the garden. The reason of this was
+that in the brothers' household, as in that of Kostanzhoglo, no servants
+were kept, since the whole staff were rated as gardeners, and performed
+that duty in rotation--Vassili holding that domestic service was not a
+specialised calling, but one to which any one might contribute a hand,
+and therefore one which did not require special menials to be kept for
+the purpose. Moreover, he held that the average Russian peasant remains
+active and willing (rather than lazy) only so long as he wears a shirt
+and a peasant's smock; but that as soon as ever he finds himself
+put into a German tailcoat, he becomes awkward, sluggish, indolent,
+disinclined to change his vest or take a bath, fond of sleeping in his
+clothes, and certain to breed fleas and bugs under the German apparel.
+And it may be that Vassili was right. At all events, the brothers'
+peasantry were exceedingly well clad--the women, in particular, having
+their head-dresses spangled with gold, and the sleeves of their blouses
+embroidered after the fashion of a Turkish shawl.
+
+"You see here the species of kvass for which our house has long been
+famous," said Vassili to Chichikov. The latter poured himself out a
+glassful from the first decanter which he lighted upon, and found
+the contents to be linden honey of a kind never tasted by him even in
+Poland, seeing that it had a sparkle like that of champagne, and also an
+effervescence which sent a pleasant spray from the mouth into the nose.
+
+"Nectar!" he proclaimed. Then he took some from a second decanter. It
+proved to be even better than the first. "A beverage of beverages!" he
+exclaimed. "At your respected brother-in-law's I tasted the finest
+syrup which has ever come my way, but here I have tasted the very finest
+kvass."
+
+"Yet the recipe for the syrup also came from here," said Vassili,
+"seeing that my sister took it with her. By the way, to what part of the
+country, and to what places, are you thinking of travelling?"
+
+"To tell the truth," replied Chichikov, rocking himself to and fro on
+the bench, and smoothing his knee with his hand, and gently inclining
+his head, "I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and,
+I might add, a generous benefactor of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are
+relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in
+that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the
+world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, to so speak, a
+living book, a second course of education."
+
+Vassili took thought. "The man speaks floridly," he reflected, "yet his
+words contain a certain element of truth." After a moment's silence he
+added to Platon: "I am beginning to think that the tour might help you
+to bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition of mental slumber.
+You have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness or satiety, as
+through a lack of vivid perceptions and impressions. For myself, I am
+your complete antithesis. I should be only too glad if I could feel less
+acutely, if I could take things less to heart."
+
+"Emotion has become a disease with you," said Platon. "You seek your own
+troubles, and make your own anxieties."
+
+"How can you say that when ready-made anxieties greet one at every
+step?" exclaimed Vassili. "For example, have you heard of the trick
+which Lienitsin has just played us--of his seizing the piece of vacant
+land whither our peasants resort for their sports? That piece I would
+not sell for all the money in the world. It has long been our peasants'
+play-ground, and all the traditions of our village are bound up with it.
+Moreover, for me, old custom is a sacred thing for which I would gladly
+sacrifice everything else."
+
+"Lienitsin cannot have known of this, or he would not have seized the
+land," said Platon. "He is a newcomer, just arrived from St. Petersburg.
+A few words of explanation ought to meet the case."
+
+"But he DOES know of what I have stated; he DOES know of it. Purposely
+I sent him word to that affect, yet he has returned me the rudest of
+answers."
+
+"Then go yourself and explain matters to him."
+
+"No, I will not do that; he has tried to carry off things with too high
+a hand. But YOU can go if you like."
+
+"I would certainly go were it not that I scarcely like to interfere.
+Also, I am a man whom he could easily hoodwink and outwit."
+
+"Would it help you if _I_ were to go?" put in Chichikov. "Pray enlighten
+me as to the matter."
+
+Vassili glanced at the speaker, and thought to himself: "What a passion
+the man has for travelling!"
+
+"Yes, pray give me an idea of the kind of fellow," repeated Chichikov,
+"and also outline to me the affair."
+
+"I should be ashamed to trouble you with such an unpleasant commission,"
+replied Vassili. "He is a man whom I take to be an utter rascal.
+Originally a member of a family of plain dvoriane in this province, he
+entered the Civil Service in St. Petersburg, then married some one's
+natural daughter in that city, and has returned to lord it with a high
+hand. I cannot bear the tone he adopts. Our folk are by no means fools.
+They do not look upon the current fashion as the Tsar's ukaz any more
+than they look upon St. Petersburg as the Church."
+
+"Naturally," said Chichikov. "But tell me more of the particulars of the
+quarrel."
+
+"They are these. He needs additional land and, had he not acted as he
+has done, I would have given him some land elsewhere for nothing; but,
+as it is, the pestilent fellow has taken it into his head to--"
+
+"I think I had better go and have a talk with him. That might settle the
+affair. Several times have people charged me with similar commissions,
+and never have they repented of it. General Betristchev is an example."
+
+"Nevertheless I am ashamed that you should be put to the annoyance of
+having to converse with such a fellow."
+
+
+             [At this point there occurs a long hiatus.]
+
+
+"And above all things, such a transaction would need to be carried
+through in secret," said Chichikov. "True, the law does not forbid such
+things, but there is always the risk of a scandal."
+
+"Quite so, quite so," said Lienitsin with head bent down.
+
+"Then we agree!" exclaimed Chichikov. "How charming! As I say, my
+business is both legal and illegal. Though needing to effect a mortgage,
+I desire to put no one to the risk of having to pay the two roubles
+on each living soul; wherefore I have conceived the idea of relieving
+landowners of that distasteful obligation by acquiring dead and
+absconded souls who have failed to disappear from the revision list.
+This enables me at once to perform an act of Christian charity and
+to remove from the shoulders of our more impoverished proprietors the
+burden of tax-payment upon souls of the kind specified. Should you
+yourself care to do business with me, we will draw up a formal purchase
+agreement as though the souls in question were still alive."
+
+"But it would be such a curious arrangement," muttered Lienitsin, moving
+his chair and himself a little further away. "It would be an arrangement
+which, er--er--"
+
+"Would involve you in no scandal whatever, seeing that the affair
+would be carried through in secret. Moreover, between friends who are
+well-disposed towards one another--"
+
+"Nevertheless--"
+
+Chichikov adopted a firmer and more decided tone. "I repeat that there
+would be no scandal," he said. "The transaction would take place as
+between good friends, and as between friends of mature age, and as
+between friends of good status, and as between friends who know how
+to keep their own counsel." And, so saying, he looked his interlocutor
+frankly and generously in the eyes.
+
+Nevertheless Lienitsin's resourcefulness and acumen in business matters
+failed to relieve his mind of a certain perplexity--and the less so
+since he had contrived to become caught in his own net. Yet, in general,
+he possessed neither a love for nor a talent for underhand dealings,
+and, had not fate and circumstances favoured Chichikov by causing
+Lienitsin's wife to enter the room at that moment, things might have
+turned out very differently from what they did. Madame was a pale, thin,
+insignificant-looking young lady, but none the less a lady who wore her
+clothes a la St. Petersburg, and cultivated the society of persons who
+were unimpeachably comme il faut. Behind her, borne in a nurse's arms,
+came the first fruits of the love of husband and wife. Adopting his
+most telling method of approach (the method accompanied with a sidelong
+inclination of the head and a sort of hop), Chichikov hastened to greet
+the lady from the metropolis, and then the baby. At first the latter
+started to bellow disapproval, but the words "Agoo, agoo, my pet!" added
+to a little cracking of the fingers and a sight of a beautiful seal on a
+watch chain, enabled Chichikov to weedle the infant into his arms; after
+which he fell to swinging it up and down until he had contrived to raise
+a smile on its face--a circumstance which greatly delighted the parents,
+and finally inclined the father in his visitor's favour. Suddenly,
+however--whether from pleasure or from some other cause--the infant
+misbehaved itself!
+
+"My God!" cried Madame. "He has gone and spoilt your frockcoat!"
+
+True enough, on glancing downwards, Chichikov saw that the sleeve of
+his brand-new garment had indeed suffered a hurt. "If I could catch you
+alone, you little devil," he muttered to himself, "I'd shoot you!"
+
+Host, hostess and nurse all ran for eau-de-Cologne, and from three sides
+set themselves to rub the spot affected.
+
+"Never mind, never mind; it is nothing," said Chichikov as he strove to
+communicate to his features as cheerful an expression as possible.
+"What does it matter what a child may spoil during the golden age of its
+infancy?"
+
+To himself he remarked: "The little brute! Would it could be devoured by
+wolves. It has made only too good a shot, the cussed young ragamuffin!"
+
+How, after this--after the guest had shown such innocent affection for
+the little one, and magnanimously paid for his so doing with a brand-new
+suit--could the father remain obdurate? Nevertheless, to avoid setting a
+bad example to the countryside, he and Chichikov agreed to carry through
+the transaction PRIVATELY, lest, otherwise, a scandal should arise.
+
+"In return," said Chichikov, "would you mind doing me the following
+favour? I desire to mediate in the matter of your difference with the
+Brothers Platonov. I believe that you wish to acquire some additional
+land? Is not that so?"
+
+
+            [Here there occurs a hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov's tour in search
+of a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little money
+passed into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he did not
+steal, he merely used. And every one of us at times does the same: one
+man with regard to Government timber, and another with regard to a sum
+belonging to his employer, while a third defrauds his children for the
+sake of an actress, and a fourth robs his peasantry for the sake of
+smart furniture or a carriage. What can one do when one is surrounded
+on every side with roguery, and everywhere there are insanely expensive
+restaurants, masked balls, and dances to the music of gipsy bands? To
+abstain when every one else is indulging in these things, and fashion
+commands, is difficult indeed!
+
+Chichikov was for setting forth again, but the roads had now got into a
+bad state, and, in addition, there was in preparation a second fair--one
+for the dvoriane only. The former fair had been held for the sale of
+horses, cattle, cheese, and other peasant produce, and the buyers had
+been merely cattle-jobbers and kulaks; but this time the function was
+to be one for the sale of manorial produce which had been bought up by
+wholesale dealers at Nizhni Novgorod, and then transferred hither. To
+the fair, of course, came those ravishers of the Russian purse who, in
+the shape of Frenchmen with pomades and Frenchwomen with hats, make away
+with money earned by blood and hard work, and, like the locusts of Egypt
+(to use Kostanzhoglo's term) not only devour their prey, but also dig
+holes in the ground and leave behind their eggs.
+
+Although, unfortunately, the occurrence of a bad harvest retained many
+landowners at their country houses, the local tchinovniks (whom the
+failure of the harvest did NOT touch) proceeded to let themselves go--as
+also, to their undoing, did their wives. The reading of books of the
+type diffused, in these modern days, for the inoculation of humanity
+with a craving for new and superior amenities of life had caused every
+one to conceive a passion for experimenting with the latest luxury; and
+to meet this want the French wine merchant opened a new establishment
+in the shape of a restaurant as had never before been heard of in the
+province--a restaurant where supper could be procured on credit as
+regarded one-half, and for an unprecedentedly low sum as regarded the
+other. This exactly suited both heads of boards and clerks who were
+living in hope of being able some day to resume their bribes-taking from
+suitors. There also developed a tendency to compete in the matter of
+horses and liveried flunkeys; with the result that despite the damp and
+snowy weather exceedingly elegant turnouts took to parading backwards
+and forwards. Whence these equipages had come God only knows, but at
+least they would not have disgraced St. Petersburg. From within them
+merchants and attorneys doffed their caps to ladies, and inquired after
+their health, and likewise it became a rare sight to see a bearded man
+in a rough fur cap, since every one now went about clean-shaven and with
+dirty teeth, after the European fashion.
+
+"Sir, I beg of you to inspect my goods," said a tradesman as Chichikov
+was passing his establishment. "Within my doors you will find a large
+variety of clothing."
+
+"Have you a cloth of bilberry-coloured check?" inquired the person
+addressed.
+
+"I have cloths of the finest kind," replied the tradesman, raising his
+cap with one hand, and pointing to his shop with the other. Chichikov
+entered, and in a trice the proprietor had dived beneath the counter,
+and appeared on the other side of it, with his back to his wares and his
+face towards the customer. Leaning forward on the tips of his fingers,
+and indicating his merchandise with just the suspicion of a nod, he
+requested the gentleman to specify exactly the species of cloth which he
+required.
+
+"A cloth with an olive-coloured or a bottle-tinted spot in its
+pattern--anything in the nature of bilberry," explained Chichikov.
+
+"That being so, sir, I may say that I am about to show you clothes of a
+quality which even our illustrious capitals could not surpass. Hi, boy!
+Reach down that roll up there--number 34. No, NOT that one, fool! Such
+fellows as you are always too good for your job. There--hand it to me.
+This is indeed a nice pattern!"
+
+Unfolding the garment, the tradesman thrust it close to Chichikov's nose
+in order that he might not only handle, but also smell it.
+
+"Excellent, but not what I want," pronounced Chichikov. "Formerly I was
+in the Custom's Department, and therefore wear none but cloth of the
+latest make. What I want is of a ruddier pattern than this--not exactly
+a bottle-tinted pattern, but something approaching bilberry."
+
+"I understand, sir. Of course you require only the very newest thing. A
+cloth of that kind I DO possess, sir, and though excessive in price, it
+is of a quality to match."
+
+Carrying the roll of stuff to the light--even stepping into the street
+for the purpose--the shopman unfolded his prize with the words, "A truly
+beautiful shade! A cloth of smoked grey, shot with flame colour!"
+
+The material met with the customer's approval, a price was agreed upon,
+and with incredible celerity the vendor made up the purchase into a
+brown-paper parcel, and stowed it away in Chichikov's koliaska.
+
+At this moment a voice asked to be shown a black frockcoat.
+
+"The devil take me if it isn't Khlobuev!" muttered our hero, turning his
+back upon the newcomer. Unfortunately the other had seen him.
+
+"Come, come, Paul Ivanovitch!" he expostulated. "Surely you do not
+intend to overlook me? I have been searching for you everywhere, for I
+have something important to say to you."
+
+"My dear sir, my very dear sir," said Chichikov as he pressed Khlobuev's
+hand, "I can assure you that, had I the necessary leisure, I should
+at all times be charmed to converse with you." And mentally he added:
+"Would that the Evil One would fly away with you!"
+
+Almost at the same time Murazov, the great landowner, entered the
+shop. As he did so our hero hastened to exclaim: "Why, it is Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! How ARE you, my very dear sir?"
+
+"Well enough," replied Murazov, removing his cap (Khlobuev and the
+shopman had already done the same). "How, may I ask, are YOU?"
+
+"But poorly," replied Chichikov, "for of late I have been troubled with
+indigestion, and my sleep is bad. I do not get sufficient exercise."
+
+However, instead of probing deeper into the subject of Chichikov's
+ailments, Murazov turned to Khlobuev.
+
+"I saw you enter the shop," he said, "and therefore followed you, for
+I have something important for your ear. Could you spare me a minute or
+two?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said Khlobuev, and the pair left the shop
+together.
+
+"I wonder what is afoot between them," said Chichikov to himself.
+
+"A wise and noble gentleman, Athanasi Vassilievitch!" remarked the
+tradesman. Chichikov made no reply save a gesture.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch, I have been looking for you everywhere," Lienitsin's
+voice said from behind him, while again the tradesman hastened to remove
+his cap. "Pray come home with me, for I have something to say to you."
+
+Chichikov scanned the speaker's face, but could make nothing of it.
+Paying the tradesman for the cloth, he left the shop.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov had conveyed Khlobuev to his rooms.
+
+"Tell me," he said to his guest, "exactly how your affairs stand. I take
+it that, after all, your aunt left you something?"
+
+"It would be difficult to say whether or not my affairs are improved,"
+replied Khlobuev. "True, fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles came
+to me from Madame Khanasarova, but I had to pay them away to satisfy my
+debts. Consequently I am once more destitute. But the important point is
+that there was trickery connected with the legacy, and shameful trickery
+at that. Yes, though it may surprise you, it is a fact that that fellow
+Chichikov--"
+
+"Yes, Semen Semenovitch, but, before you go on to speak of Chichikov,
+pray tell me something about yourself, and how much, in your opinion,
+would be sufficient to clear you of your difficulties?"
+
+"My difficulties are grievous," replied Khlobuev. "To rid myself of
+them, and also to have enough to go on with, I should need to acquire
+at least a hundred thousand roubles, if not more. In short, things are
+becoming impossible for me."
+
+"And, had you the money, what should you do with it?"
+
+"I should rent a tenement, and devote myself to the education of my
+children. Not a thought should I give to myself, for my career is over,
+seeing that it is impossible for me to re-enter the Civil Service and I
+am good for nothing else."
+
+"Nevertheless, when a man is leading an idle life he is apt to incur
+temptations which shun his better-employed brother."
+
+"Yes, but beyond question I am good for nothing, so broken is my health,
+and such a martyr I am to dyspepsia."
+
+"But how do you propose to live without working? How can a man like you
+exist without a post or a position of any kind? Look around you at the
+works of God. Everything has its proper function, and pursues its proper
+course. Even a stone can be used for one purpose or another. How, then,
+can it be right for a man who is a thinking being to remain a drone?"
+
+"But I should not be a drone, for I should employ myself with the
+education of my children."
+
+"No, Semen Semenovitch--no: THAT you would find the hardest task of
+all. For how can a man educate his children who has never even educated
+himself? Instruction can be imparted to children only through the medium
+of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a profitable
+example--a life which has been spent in idleness and the playing of
+cards? No, Semen Semenovitch. You had far better hand your children over
+to me. Otherwise they will be ruined. Do not think that I am jesting.
+Idleness has wrecked your life, and you must flee from it. Can a man
+live with nothing to keep him in place? Even a journeyman labourer who
+earns the barest pittance may take an interest in his occupation."
+
+"Athanasi Vassilievitch, I have tried to overcome myself, but what
+further resource lies open to me? Can I who am old and incapable
+re-enter the Civil Service and spend year after year at a desk with
+youths who are just starting their careers? Moreover, I have lost the
+trick of taking bribes; I should only hinder both myself and others;
+while, as you know, it is a department which has an established caste
+of its own. Therefore, though I have considered, and even attempted to
+obtain, every conceivable post, I find myself incompetent for them all.
+Only in a monastery should I--"
+
+"Nay, nay. Monasteries, again, are only for those who have worked. To
+those who have spent their youth in dissipation such havens say what
+the ant said to the dragonfly--namely, 'Go you away, and return to your
+dancing.' Yes, even in a monastery do folk toil and toil--they do
+not sit playing whist." Murazov looked at Khlobuev, and added: "Semen
+Semenovitch, you are deceiving both yourself and me."
+
+Poor Khlobuev could not utter a word in reply, and Murazov began to feel
+sorry for him.
+
+"Listen, Semen Semenovitch," he went on. "I know that you say your
+prayers, and that you go to church, and that you observe both Matins and
+Vespers, and that, though averse to early rising, you leave your bed at
+four o'clock in the morning before the household fires have been lit."
+
+"Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch," said Khlobuev, "that is another matter
+altogether. That I do, not for man's sake, but for the sake of Him who
+has ordered all things here on earth. Yes, I believe that He at least
+can feel compassion for me, that He at least, though I be foul and
+lowly, will pardon me and receive me when all men have cast me out, and
+my best friend has betrayed me and boasted that he has done it for a
+good end."
+
+Khlobuev's face was glowing with emotion, and from the older man's eyes
+also a tear had started.
+
+"You will do well to hearken unto Him who is merciful," he said. "But
+remember also that, in the eyes of the All-Merciful, honest toil is of
+equal merit with a prayer. Therefore take unto yourself whatsoever task
+you may, and do it as though you were doing it, not unto man, but unto
+God. Even though to your lot there should fall but the cleaning of a
+floor, clean that floor as though it were being cleaned for Him alone.
+And thence at least this good you will reap: that there will remain to
+you no time for what is evil--for card playing, for feasting, for all
+the life of this gay world. Are you acquainted with Ivan Potapitch?"
+
+"Yes, not only am I acquainted with him, but I also greatly respect
+him."
+
+"Time was when Ivan Potapitch was a merchant worth half a million
+roubles. In everything did he look but for gain, and his affairs
+prospered exceedingly, so much so that he was able to send his son to be
+educated in France, and to marry his daughter to a General. And whether
+in his office or at the Exchange, he would stop any friend whom he
+encountered and carry him off to a tavern to drink, and spend whole days
+thus employed. But at last he became bankrupt, and God sent him other
+misfortunes also. His son! Ah, well! Ivan Potapitch is now my steward,
+for he had to begin life over again. Yet once more his affairs are in
+order, and, had it been his wish, he could have restarted in business
+with a capital of half a million roubles. 'But no,' he said. 'A
+steward am I, and a steward will I remain to the end; for, from being
+full-stomached and heavy with dropsy, I have become strong and well.'
+Not a drop of liquor passes his lips, but only cabbage soup and gruel.
+And he prays as none of the rest of us pray, and he helps the poor as
+none of the rest of us help them; and to this he would add yet further
+charity if his means permitted him to do so."
+
+Poor Khlobuev remained silent, as before.
+
+The elder man took his two hands in his.
+
+"Semen Semenovitch," he said, "you cannot think how much I pity you, or
+how much I have had you in my thoughts. Listen to me. In the monastery
+there is a recluse who never looks upon a human face. Of all men whom
+I know he has the broadest mind, and he breaks not his silence save to
+give advice. To him I went and said that I had a friend (though I
+did not actually mention your name) who was in great trouble of soul.
+Suddenly the recluse interrupted me with the words: 'God's work first,
+and our own last. There is need for a church to be built, but no money
+wherewith to build it. Money must be collected to that end.' Then he
+shut to the wicket. I wondered to myself what this could mean, and
+concluded that the recluse had been unwilling to accord me his counsel.
+Next I repaired to the Archimandrite, and had scarce reached his door
+when he inquired of me whether I could commend to him a man meet to be
+entrusted with the collection of alms for a church--a man who should
+belong to the dvoriane or to the more lettered merchants, but who would
+guard the trust as he would guard the salvation of his soul. On the
+instant thought I to myself: 'Why should not the Holy Father appoint
+my friend Semen Semenovitch? For the way of suffering would benefit him
+greatly; and as he passed with his ledger from landowner to peasant,
+and from peasant to townsman, he would learn where folk dwell, and who
+stands in need of aught, and thus would become better acquainted with
+the countryside than folk who dwell in cities. And, thus become, he
+would find that his services were always in demand.' Only of late did
+the Governor-General say to me that, could he but be furnished with the
+name of a secretary who should know his work not only by the book but
+also by experience, he would give him a great sum, since nothing is to
+be learned by the former means, and, through it, much confusion arises."
+
+"You confound me, you overwhelm me!" said Khlobuev, staring at his
+companion in open-eyed astonishment. "I can scarcely believe that your
+words are true, seeing that for such a trust an active, indefatigable
+man would be necessary. Moreover, how could I leave my wife and children
+unprovided for?"
+
+"Have no fear," said Murazov, "I myself will take them under my care, as
+well as procure for the children a tutor. Far better and nobler were
+it for you to be travelling with a wallet, and asking alms on behalf
+of God, then to be remaining here and asking alms for yourself alone.
+Likewise, I will furnish you with a tilt-waggon, so that you may be
+saved some of the hardships of the journey, and thus be preserved in
+good health. Also, I will give you some money for the journey, in
+order that, as you pass on your way, you may give to those who stand
+in greater need than their fellows. Thus, if, before giving, you assure
+yourself that the recipient of the alms is worthy of the same, you will
+do much good; and as you travel you will become acquainted with all men
+and sundry, and they will treat you, not as a tchinovnik to be feared,
+but as one to whom, as a petitioner on behalf of the Church, they may
+unloose their tongues without peril."
+
+"I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my part
+in it were it not likely to exceed my strength."
+
+"What is there that does NOT exceed your strength?" said Murazov.
+"Nothing is wholly proportionate to it--everything surpasses it. Help
+from above is necessary: otherwise we are all powerless. Strength comes
+of prayer, and of prayer alone. When a man crosses himself, and cries,
+'Lord, have mercy upon me!' he soon stems the current and wins to the
+shore. Nor need you take any prolonged thought concerning this matter.
+All that you need do is to accept it as a commission sent of God. The
+tilt-waggon can be prepared for you immediately; and then, as soon as
+you have been to the Archimandrite for your book of accounts and his
+blessing, you will be free to start on your journey."
+
+"I submit myself to you, and accept the commission as a divine trust."
+
+And even as Khlobuev spoke he felt renewed vigour and confidence arise
+in his soul, and his mind begin to awake to a sense of hopefulness of
+eventually being able to put to flight his troubles. And even as it was,
+the world seemed to be growing dim to his eyes....
+
+Meanwhile, plea after plea had been presented to the legal authorities,
+and daily were relatives whom no one had before heard of putting in
+an appearance. Yes, like vultures to a corpse did these good folk come
+flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov had left behind
+her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov, rumours with
+regard to the validity of the second will, rumours with regard to will
+number one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of funds. Also, there
+came to hand information with regard both to Chichikov's purchase of
+dead souls and to his conniving at contraband goods during his service
+in the Customs Department. In short, every possible item of evidence
+was exhumed, and the whole of his previous history investigated. How
+the authorities had come to suspect and to ascertain all this God only
+knows, but the fact remains that there had fallen into the hands of
+those authorities information concerning matters of which Chichikov had
+believed only himself and the four walls to be aware. True, for a
+time these matters remained within the cognisance of none but the
+functionaries concerned, and failed to reach Chichikov's ears; but at
+length a letter from a confidential friend gave him reason to think that
+the fat was about to fall into the fire. Said the letter briefly: "Dear
+sir, I beg to advise you that possibly legal trouble is pending, but
+that you have no cause for uneasiness, seeing that everything will
+be attended to by yours very truly." Yet, in spite of its tenor, the
+epistle reassured its recipient. "What a genius the fellow is!" thought
+Chichikov to himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his tailor
+arrived with the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a certain
+sense of pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey shot
+with flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then
+try on the breeches--the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite
+concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves
+(though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a
+drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight
+tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined
+that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. "Sir," he said
+triumphantly, "you may rest assured that the work has been executed
+exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St.
+Petersburg, could have done it better." As a matter of fact, the tailor
+himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his signboard
+"Foreign Costumier from London and Paris"--the truth being that by
+the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to mere
+"Karlsruhe" and "Copenhagen" he designed to acquire business and cut out
+his local rivals.
+
+Chichikov graciously settled the man's account, and, as soon as he had
+gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an
+artist of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to look
+better than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a still
+more interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while his
+white collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened the
+effect of the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie,
+the rich satin waistcoat emphasised the dickey, and the
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, shining like silk,
+splendidly rounded off the whole. When he turned to the right he looked
+well: when he turned to the left he looked even better. In short, it
+was a costume worthy of a Lord Chamberlain or the species of dandy who
+shrinks from swearing in the Russian language, but amply relieves his
+feelings in the language of France. Next, inclining his head slightly
+to one side, our hero endeavoured to pose as though he were addressing
+a middle-aged lady of exquisite refinement; and the result of these
+efforts was a picture which any artist might have yearned to portray.
+Next, his delight led him gracefully to execute a hop in ballet fashion,
+so that the wardrobe trembled and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne came
+crashing to the floor. Yet even this contretemps did not upset him; he
+merely called the offending bottle a fool, and then debated whom first
+he should visit in his attractive guise.
+
+Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels,
+and then the voice of a gendarme saying: "You are commanded to present
+yourself before the Governor-General!" Turning round, Chichikov stared
+in horror at the spectacle presented; for in the doorway there was
+standing an apparition wearing a huge moustache, a helmet surmounted
+with a horsehair plume, a pair of crossed shoulder-belts, and a gigantic
+sword! A whole army might have been combined into a single individual!
+And when Chichikov opened his mouth to speak the apparition repeated,
+"You are commanded to present yourself before the Governor-General,"
+and at the same moment our hero caught sight both of a second apparition
+outside the door and of a coach waiting beneath the window. What was
+to be done? Nothing whatever was possible. Just as he stood--in his
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour suit--he had then and there to enter
+the vehicle, and, shaking in every limb, and with a gendarme seated by
+his side, to start for the residence of the Governor-General.
+
+And even in the hall of that establishment no time was given him to
+pull himself together, for at once an aide-de-camp said: "Go inside
+immediately, for the Prince is awaiting you." And as in a dream did our
+hero see a vestibule where couriers were being handed dispatches, and
+then a salon which he crossed with the thought, "I suppose I am not to
+be allowed a trial, but shall be sent straight to Siberia!" And at the
+thought his heart started beating in a manner which the most jealous
+of lovers could not have rivalled. At length there opened a door,
+and before him he saw a study full of portfolios, ledgers, and
+dispatch-boxes, with, standing behind them, the gravely menacing figure
+of the Prince.
+
+"There stands my executioner," thought Chichikov to himself. "He is
+about to tear me to pieces as a wolf tears a lamb."
+
+Indeed, the Prince's lips were simply quivering with rage.
+
+"Once before did I spare you," he said, "and allow you to remain in the
+town when you ought to have been in prison: yet your only return for
+my clemency has been to revert to a career of fraud--and of fraud as
+dishonourable as ever a man engaged in."
+
+"To what dishonourable fraud do you refer, your Highness?" asked
+Chichikov, trembling from head to foot.
+
+The Prince approached, and looked him straight in the eyes.
+
+"Let me tell you," he said, "that the woman whom you induced to witness
+a certain will has been arrested, and that you will be confronted with
+her."
+
+The world seemed suddenly to grow dim before Chichikov's sight.
+
+"Your Highness," he gasped, "I will tell you the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth. I am guilty--yes, I am guilty; but I am not so
+guilty as you think, for I was led away by rascals."
+
+"That any one can have led you away is impossible," retorted the Prince.
+"Recorded against your name there stand more felonies than even the most
+hardened liar could have invented. I believe that never in your life
+have you done a deed not innately dishonourable--that not a kopeck have
+you ever obtained by aught but shameful methods of trickery and theft,
+the penalty for which is Siberia and the knut. But enough of this! From
+this room you will be conveyed to prison, where, with other rogues and
+thieves, you will be confined until your trial may come on. And this
+is lenient treatment on my part, for you are worse, far worse, than the
+felons who will be your companions. THEY are but poor men in smocks and
+sheepskins, whereas YOU--" Without concluding his words, the Prince shot
+a glance at Chichikov's smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour apparel.
+
+Then he touched a bell.
+
+"Your Highness," cried Chichikov, "have mercy upon me! You are the
+father of a family! Spare me for the sake of my aged mother!"
+
+"Rubbish!" exclaimed the Prince. "Even as before you besought me for the
+sake of a wife and children whom you did not even possess, so now you
+would speak to me of an aged mother!"
+
+"Your Highness," protested Chichikov, "though I am a wretch and the
+lowest of rascals, and though it is true that I lied when I told
+you that I possessed a wife and children, I swear that, as God is my
+witness, it has always been my DESIRE to possess a wife, and to fulfil
+all the duties of a man and a citizen, and to earn the respect of my
+fellows and the authorities. But what could be done against the force
+of circumstances? By hook or by crook I have ever been forced to win
+a living, though confronted at every step by wiles and temptations and
+traitorous enemies and despoilers. So much has this been so that my
+life has, throughout, resembled a barque tossed by tempestuous waves,
+a barque driven at the mercy of the winds. Ah, I am only a man, your
+Highness!"
+
+And in a moment the tears had gushed in torrents from his eyes, and he
+had fallen forward at the Prince's feet--fallen forward just as he
+was, in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, his velvet
+waistcoat, his satin tie, and his exquisitely fitting breeches, while
+from his neatly brushed pate, as again and again he struck his hand
+against his forehead, there came an odorous whiff of best-quality
+eau-de-Cologne.
+
+"Away with him!" exclaimed the Prince to the gendarme who had just
+entered. "Summon the escort to remove him."
+
+"Your Highness!" Chichikov cried again as he clasped the Prince's knees;
+but, shuddering all over, and struggling to free himself, the Prince
+repeated his order for the prisoner's removal.
+
+"Your Highness, I say that I will not leave this room until you have
+accorded me mercy!" cried Chichikov as he clung to the Prince's leg with
+such tenacity that, frockcoat and all, he began to be dragged along the
+floor.
+
+"Away with him, I say!" once more the Prince exclaimed with the sort of
+indefinable aversion which one feels at the sight of a repulsive
+insect which he cannot summon up the courage to crush with his boot. So
+convulsively did the Prince shudder that Chichikov, clinging to his leg,
+received a kick on the nose. Yet still the prisoner retained his hold;
+until at length a couple of burly gendarmes tore him away and,
+grasping his arms, hurried him--pale, dishevelled, and in that strange,
+half-conscious condition into which a man sinks when he sees before
+him only the dark, terrible figure of death, the phantom which is so
+abhorrent to all our natures--from the building. But on the threshold
+the party came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov's heart
+the circumstance revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with almost
+supernatural strength from the grasp of the escorting gendarmes, he
+threw himself at the feet of the horror-stricken old man.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," Murazov exclaimed, "what has happened to you?"
+
+"Save me!" gasped Chichikov. "They are taking me away to prison and
+death!"
+
+Yet almost as he spoke the gendarmes seized him again, and hurried him
+away so swiftly that Murazov's reply escaped his ears.
+
+A damp, mouldy cell which reeked of soldiers' boots and leggings, an
+unvarnished table, two sorry chairs, a window closed with a grating, a
+crazy stove which, while letting the smoke emerge through its cracks,
+gave out no heat--such was the den to which the man who had just begun
+to taste the sweets of life, and to attract the attention of his fellows
+with his new suit of smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour, now found
+himself consigned. Not even necessaries had he been allowed to bring
+away with him, nor his dispatch-box which contained all his booty. No,
+with the indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands
+of a tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled
+about the floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and
+gnaw at his heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that
+heart so defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind
+that, should he have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery,
+there would no longer be a Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over
+every one, there hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his
+arrival at the prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.
+
+Compared with poor Chichikov's sense of relief when the old man entered
+his cell, even the pleasure experienced by a thirsty, dusty traveller
+when he is given a drink of clear spring water to cool his dry, parched
+throat fades into insignificance.
+
+"Ah, my deliverer!" he cried as he rose from the floor, where he had
+been grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old
+man's hand, he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting
+into tears, he added: "God Himself will reward you for having come to
+visit an unfortunate wretch!"
+
+Murazov looked at him sorrowfully, and said no more than "Ah, Paul
+Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch! What has happened?"
+
+"What has happened?" cried Chichikov. "I have been ruined by an accursed
+woman. That was because I could not do things in moderation--I was
+powerless to stop myself in time, Satan tempted me, and drove me from
+my senses, and bereft me of human prudence. Yes, truly I have sinned, I
+have sinned! Yet how came I so to sin? To think that a dvorianin--yes,
+a dvorianin--should be thrown into prison without process or trial! I
+repeat, a dvorianin! Why was I not given time to go home and collect my
+effects? Whereas now they are left with no one to look after them! My
+dispatch-box, my dispatch-box! It contained my whole property, all that
+my heart's blood and years of toil and want have been needed to acquire.
+And now everything will be stolen, Athanasi Vassilievitch--everything
+will be taken from me! My God!"
+
+And, unable to stand against the torrent of grief which came rushing
+over his heart once more, he sobbed aloud in tones which penetrated even
+the thickness of the prison walls, and made dull echoes awake behind
+them. Then, tearing off his satin tie, and seizing by the collar, the
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, he stripped the latter
+from his shoulders.
+
+"Ah, Paul Ivanovitch," said the old man, "how even now the property
+which you have acquired is blinding your eyes, and causing you to fail
+to realise your terrible position!"
+
+"Yes, my good friend and benefactor," wailed poor Chichikov
+despairingly, and clasping Murazov by the knees. "Yet save me if you
+can! The Prince is fond of you, and would do anything for your sake."
+
+"No, Paul Ivanovitch; however much I might wish to save you, and however
+much I might try to do so, I could not help you as you desire; for it is
+to the power of an inexorable law, and not to the authority of any one
+man, that you have rendered yourself subject."
+
+"Satan tempted me, and has ended by making of me an outcast from the
+human race!" Chichikov beat his head against the wall and struck the
+table with his fist until the blood spurted from his hand. Yet neither
+his head nor his hand seemed to be conscious of the least pain.
+
+"Calm yourself, Paul Ivanovitch," said Murazov. "Calm yourself, and
+consider how best you can make your peace with God. Think of your
+miserable soul, and not of the judgment of man."
+
+"I will, Athanasi Vassilievitch, I will. But what a fate is mine! Did
+ever such a fate befall a man? To think of all the patience with which
+I have gathered my kopecks, of all the toil and trouble which I have
+endured! Yet what I have done has not been done with the intention of
+robbing any one, nor of cheating the Treasury. Why, then, did I gather
+those kopecks? I gathered them to the end that one day I might be able
+to live in plenty, and also to have something to leave to the wife
+and children whom, for the benefit and welfare of my country, I hoped
+eventually to win and maintain. That was why I gathered those kopecks.
+True, I worked by devious methods--that I fully admit; but what else
+could I do? And even devious methods I employed only when I saw that the
+straight road would not serve my purpose so well as a crooked. Moreover,
+as I toiled, the appetite for those methods grew upon me. Yet what
+I took I took only from the rich; whereas villains exist who, while
+drawing thousands a year from the Treasury, despoil the poor, and take
+from the man with nothing even that which he has. Is it not the cruelty
+of fate, therefore, that, just when I was beginning to reap the harvest
+of my toil--to touch it, so to speak, with the tip of one finger--there
+should have arisen a sudden storm which has sent my barque to pieces on
+a rock? My capital had nearly reached the sum of three hundred thousand
+roubles, and a three-storied house was as good as mine, and twice over
+I could have bought a country estate. Why, then, should such a tempest
+have burst upon me? Why should I have sustained such a blow? Was not my
+life already like a barque tossed to and fro by the billows? Where
+is Heaven's justice--where is the reward for all my patience, for my
+boundless perseverance? Three times did I have to begin life afresh, and
+each time that I lost my all I began with a single kopeck at a moment
+when other men would have given themselves up to despair and drink. How
+much did I not have to overcome. How much did I not have to bear! Every
+kopeck which I gained I had to make with my whole strength; for though,
+to others, wealth may come easily, every coin of mine had to be 'forged
+with a nail worth three kopecks' as the proverb has it. With such a
+nail--with the nail of an iron, unwearying perseverance--did _I_ forge
+my kopecks."
+
+Convulsively sobbing with a grief which he could not repress, Chichikov
+sank upon a chair, tore from his shoulders the last ragged, trailing
+remnants of his frockcoat, and hurled them from him. Then, thrusting his
+fingers into the hair which he had once been so careful to preserve, he
+pulled it out by handfuls at a time, as though he hoped through physical
+pain to deaden the mental agony which he was suffering.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov sat gazing in silence at the unwonted spectacle of
+a man who had lately been mincing with the gait of a worldling or a
+military fop now writhing in dishevelment and despair as he poured out
+upon the hostile forces by which human ingenuity so often finds itself
+outwitted a flood of invective.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch," at length said Murazov, "what
+could not each of us rise to be did we but devote to good ends the same
+measure of energy and of patience which we bestow upon unworthy objects!
+How much good would not you yourself have effected! Yet I do not grieve
+so much for the fact that you have sinned against your fellow as I
+grieve for the fact that you have sinned against yourself and the rich
+store of gifts and opportunities which has been committed to your care.
+Though originally destined to rise, you have wandered from the path and
+fallen."
+
+"Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch," cried poor Chichikov, clasping his friend�s
+hands, "I swear to you that, if you would but restore me my freedom, and
+recover for me my lost property, I would lead a different life from this
+time forth. Save me, you who alone can work my deliverance! Save me!"
+
+"How can I do that? So to do I should need to procure the setting aside
+of a law. Again, even if I were to make the attempt, the Prince is a
+strict administrator, and would refuse on any consideration to release
+you."
+
+"Yes, but for you all things are possible. It is not the law that
+troubles me: with that I could find a means to deal. It is the fact that
+for no offence at all I have been cast into prison, and treated like
+a dog, and deprived of my papers and dispatch-box and all my property.
+Save me if you can."
+
+Again clasping the old man's knees, he bedewed them with his tears.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," said Murazov, shaking his head, "how that property
+of yours still seals your eyes and ears, so that you cannot so much as
+listen to the promptings of your own soul!"
+
+"Ah, I will think of my soul, too, if only you will save me."
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," the old man began again, and then stopped. For a
+little while there was a pause.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," at length he went on, "to save you does not lie
+within my power. Surely you yourself see that? But, so far as I can,
+I will endeavour to, at all events, lighten your lot and procure your
+eventual release. Whether or not I shall succeed I do not know; but I
+will make the attempt. And should I, contrary to my expectations, prove
+successful, I beg of you, in return for these my efforts, to renounce
+all thought of benefit from the property which you have acquired.
+Sincerely do I assure you that, were I myself to be deprived of my
+property (and my property greatly exceeds yours in magnitude), I should
+not shed a single tear. It is not the property of which men can deprive
+us that matters, but the property of which no one on earth can deprive
+or despoil us. You are a man who has seen something of life--to use
+your own words, you have been a barque tossed hither and thither by
+tempestuous waves: yet still will there be left to you a remnant of
+substance on which to live, and therefore I beseech you to settle down
+in some quiet nook where there is a church, and where none but plain,
+good-hearted folk abide. Or, should you feel a yearning to leave behind
+you posterity, take in marriage a good woman who shall bring you,
+not money, but an aptitude for simple, modest domestic life. But
+this life--the life of turmoil, with its longings and its
+temptations--forget, and let it forget YOU; for there is no peace in
+it. See for yourself how, at every step, it brings one but hatred and
+treachery and deceit."
+
+"Indeed, yes!" agreed the repentant Chichikov. "Gladly will I do as you
+wish, since for many a day past have I been longing to amend my life,
+and to engage in husbandry, and to reorder my affairs. A demon, the
+tempter Satan himself, has beguiled me and led me from the right path."
+
+Suddenly there had recurred to Chichikov long-unknown, long-unfamiliar
+feelings. Something seemed to be striving to come to life again in
+him--something dim and remote, something which had been crushed out of
+his boyhood by the dreary, deadening education of his youthful days, by
+his desolate home, by his subsequent lack of family ties, by the poverty
+and niggardliness of his early impressions, by the grim eye of fate--an
+eye which had always seemed to be regarding him as through a misty,
+mournful, frost-encrusted window-pane, and to be mocking at his
+struggles for freedom. And as these feelings came back to the penitent
+a groan burst from his lips, and, covering his face with his hands, he
+moaned: "It is all true, it is all true!"
+
+"Of little avail are knowledge of the world and experience of men unless
+based upon a secure foundation," observed Murazov. "Though you have
+fallen, Paul Ivanovitch, awake to better things, for as yet there is
+time."
+
+"No, no!" groaned Chichikov in a voice which made Murazov's heart bleed.
+"It is too late, too late. More and more is the conviction gaining upon
+me that I am powerless, that I have strayed too far ever to be able to
+do as you bid me. The fact that I have become what I am is due to my
+early schooling; for, though my father taught me moral lessons, and beat
+me, and set me to copy maxims into a book, he himself stole land from
+his neighbours, and forced me to help him. I have even known him to
+bring an unjust suit, and defraud the orphan whose guardian he was!
+Consequently I know and feel that, though my life has been different
+from his, I do not hate roguery as I ought to hate it, and that my
+nature is coarse, and that in me there is no real love for what is good,
+no real spark of that beautiful instinct for well-doing which becomes
+a second nature, a settled habit. Also, never do I yearn to strive for
+what is right as I yearn to acquire property. This is no more than the
+truth. What else could I do but confess it?"
+
+The old man sighed.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," he said, "I know that you possess will-power, and
+that you possess also perseverance. A medicine may be bitter, yet the
+patient will gladly take it when assured that only by its means can he
+recover. Therefore, if it really be that you have no genuine love for
+doing good, do good by FORCING yourself to do so. Thus you will benefit
+yourself even more than you will benefit him for whose sake the act
+is performed. Only force yourself to do good just once and again, and,
+behold, you will suddenly conceive the TRUE love for well-doing. That
+is so, believe me. 'A kingdom is to be won only by striving,' says the
+proverb. That is to say, things are to be attained only by putting forth
+one's whole strength, since nothing short of one's whole strength will
+bring one to the desired goal. Paul Ivanovitch, within you there is a
+source of strength denied to many another man. I refer to the strength
+of an iron perseverance. Cannot THAT help you to overcome? Most men are
+weak and lack will-power, whereas I believe that you possess the power
+to act a hero's part."
+
+Sinking deep into Chichikov's heart, these words would seem to have
+aroused in it a faint stirring of ambition, so much so that, if it was
+not fortitude which shone in his eyes, at all events it was something
+virile, and of much the same nature.
+
+"Athanasi Vassilievitch," he said firmly, "if you will but petition
+for my release, as well as for permission for me to leave here with a
+portion of my property, I swear to you on my word of honour that I will
+begin a new life, and buy a country estate, and become the head of a
+household, and save money, not for myself, but for others, and do good
+everywhere, and to the best of my ability, and forget alike myself and
+the feasting and debauchery of town life, and lead, instead, a plain,
+sober existence."
+
+"In that resolve may God strengthen you!" cried the old man with
+unbounded joy. "And I, for my part, will do my utmost to procure
+your release. And though God alone knows whether my efforts will be
+successful, at all events I hope to bring about a mitigation of your
+sentence. Come, let me embrace you! How you have filled my heart with
+gladness! With God's help, I will now go to the Prince."
+
+And the next moment Chichikov found himself alone. His whole nature felt
+shaken and softened, even as, when the bellows have fanned the furnace
+to a sufficient heat, a plate compounded even of the hardest and most
+fire-resisting metal dissolves, glows, and turns to the liquefied state.
+
+"I myself can feel but little," he reflected, "but I intend to use my
+every faculty to help others to feel. I myself am but bad and worthless,
+but I intend to do my utmost to set others on the right road. I myself
+am but an indifferent Christian, but I intend to strive never to yield
+to temptation, but to work hard, and to till my land with the sweat of
+my brow, and to engage only in honourable pursuits, and to influence my
+fellows in the same direction. For, after all, am I so very useless?
+At least I could maintain a household, for I am frugal and active and
+intelligent and steadfast. The only thing is to make up my mind to it."
+
+Thus Chichikov pondered; and as he did so his half-awakened energies of
+soul touched upon something. That is to say, dimly his instinct
+divined that every man has a duty to perform, and that that duty may
+be performed here, there, and everywhere, and no matter what the
+circumstances and the emotions and the difficulties which compass a man
+about. And with such clearness did Chichikov mentally picture to himself
+the life of grateful toil which lies removed from the bustle of towns
+and the temptations which man, forgetful of the obligation of labour,
+has invented to beguile an hour of idleness that almost our hero forgot
+his unpleasant position, and even felt ready to thank Providence for
+the calamity which had befallen him, provided that it should end in his
+being released, and in his receiving back a portion of his property.
+
+Presently the massive door of the cell opened to admit a tchinovnik
+named Samosvitov, a robust, sensual individual who was reputed by his
+comrades to be something of a rake. Had he served in the army, he
+would have done wonders, for he would have stormed any point, however
+dangerous and inaccessible, and captured cannon under the very noses
+of the foe; but, as it was, the lack of a more warlike field for his
+energies caused him to devote the latter principally to dissipation.
+Nevertheless he enjoyed great popularity, for he was loyal to the point
+that, once his word had been given, nothing would ever make him break
+it. At the same time, some reason or another led him to regard his
+superiors in the light of a hostile battery which, come what might, he
+must breach at any weak or unguarded spot or gap which might be capable
+of being utilised for the purpose.
+
+"We have all heard of your plight," he began as soon as the door had
+been safely closed behind him. "Yes, every one has heard of it. But
+never mind. Things will yet come right. We will do our very best for
+you, and act as your humble servants in everything. Thirty thousand
+roubles is our price--no more."
+
+"Indeed!" said Chichikov. "And, for that, shall I be completely
+exonerated?"
+
+"Yes, completely, and also given some compensation for your loss of
+time."
+
+"And how much am I to pay in return, you say?"
+
+"Thirty thousand roubles, to be divided among ourselves, the
+Governor-General's staff, and the Governor-General's secretary."
+
+"But how is even that to be managed, for all my effects, including my
+dispatch-box, will have been sealed up and taken away for examination?"
+
+"In an hour's time they will be within your hands again," said
+Samosvitov. "Shall we shake hands over the bargain?"
+
+Chichikov did so with a beating heart, for he could scarcely believe his
+ears.
+
+"For the present, then, farewell," concluded Samosvitov. "I have
+instructed a certain mutual friend that the important points are silence
+and presence of mind."
+
+"Hm!" thought Chichikov. "It is to my lawyer that he is referring."
+
+Even when Samosvitov had departed the prisoner found it difficult to
+credit all that had been said. Yet not an hour had elapsed before a
+messenger arrived with his dispatch-box and the papers and money therein
+practically undisturbed and intact! Later it came out that Samosvitov
+had assumed complete authority in the matter. First, he had rebuked the
+gendarmes guarding Chichikov's effects for lack of vigilance, and then
+sent word to the Superintendent that additional men were required for
+the purpose; after which he had taken the dispatch-box into his own
+charge, removed from it every paper which could possibly compromise
+Chichikov, sealed up the rest in a packet, and ordered a gendarme to
+convey the whole to their owner on the pretence of forwarding him sundry
+garments necessary for the night. In the result Chichikov received not
+only his papers, but also some warm clothing for his hypersensitive
+limbs. Such a swift recovery of his treasures delighted him beyond
+expression, and, gathering new hope, he began once more to dream of such
+allurements as theatre-going and the ballet girl after whom he had for
+some time past been dangling. Gradually did the country estate and the
+simple life begin to recede into the distance: gradually did the town
+house and the life of gaiety begin to loom larger and larger in the
+foreground. Oh, life, life!
+
+Meanwhile in Government offices and chancellories there had been set
+on foot a boundless volume of work. Clerical pens slaved, and brains
+skilled in legal casus toiled; for each official had the artist's liking
+for the curved line in preference to the straight. And all the while,
+like a hidden magician, Chichikov's lawyer imparted driving power to
+that machine which caught up a man into its mechanism before he could
+even look round. And the complexity of it increased and increased, for
+Samosvitov surpassed himself in importance and daring. On learning
+of the place of confinement of the woman who had been arrested, he
+presented himself at the doors, and passed so well for a smart young
+officer of gendarmery that the sentry saluted and sprang to attention.
+
+"Have you been on duty long?" asked Samosvitov.
+
+"Since this morning, your Excellency."
+
+"And shall you soon be relieved?"
+
+"In three hours from now, your Excellency."
+
+"Presently I shall want you, so I will instruct your officer to have you
+relieved at once."
+
+"Very good, your Excellency."
+
+Hastening home, thereafter, at top speed, and donning the uniform of
+a gendarme, with a false moustache and a pair of false whiskers--an
+ensemble in which the devil himself would not have known him, Samosvitov
+then made for the gaol where Chichikov was confined, and, en route,
+impressed into the service the first street woman whom he encountered,
+and handed her over to the care of two young fellows of like sort
+with himself. The next step was to hurry back to the prison where the
+original woman had been interned, and there to intimate to the sentry
+that he, Samosvitov (with whiskers and rifle complete), had been sent
+to relieve the said sentry at his post--a proceeding which, of course,
+enabled the newly-arrived relief to ensure, while performing his
+self-assumed turn of duty, that for the woman lying under arrest there
+should be substituted the woman recently recruited to the plot, and that
+the former should then be conveyed to a place of concealment where she
+was highly unlikely to be discovered.
+
+Meanwhile, Samosvitov's feats in the military sphere were being rivalled
+by the wonders worked by Chichikov's lawyer in the civilian field of
+action. As a first step, the lawyer caused it to be intimated to the
+local Governor that the Public Prosecutor was engaged in drawing up a
+report to his, the local Governor's, detriment; whereafter the lawyer
+caused it to be intimated also to the Chief of Gendarmery that a certain
+confidential official was engaged in doing the same by HIM; whereafter,
+again, the lawyer confided to the confidential official in question
+that, owing to the documentary exertions of an official of a still
+more confidential nature than the first, he (the confidential official
+first-mentioned) was in a fair way to find himself in the same boat as
+both the local Governor and the Chief of Gendarmery: with the result
+that the whole trio were reduced to a frame of mind in which they were
+only too glad to turn to him (Samosvitov) for advice. The ultimate and
+farcical upshot was that report came crowding upon report, and that such
+alleged doings were brought to light as the sun had never before beheld.
+In fact, the documents in question employed anything and everything as
+material, even to announcing that such and such an individual had an
+illegitimate son, that such and such another kept a paid mistress, and
+that such and such a third was troubled with a gadabout wife; whereby
+there became interwoven with and welded into Chichikov's past history
+and the story of the dead souls such a crop of scandals and innuendoes
+that by no manner of means could any mortal decide to which of these
+rubbishy romances to award the palm, since all of them presented an equal
+claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at length, the dossier reached
+the Governor-General himself it simply flabbergasted the poor man; and
+even the exceptionally clever and energetic secretary to whom he deputed
+the making of an abstract of the same very nearly lost his reason with
+the strain of attempting to lay hold of the tangled end of the skein. It
+happened that just at that time the Prince had several other important
+affairs on hand, and affairs of a very unpleasant nature. That is to
+say, famine had made its appearance in one portion of the province, and
+the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to the people had done their
+work badly; in another portion of the province certain Raskolniki [51]
+were in a state of ferment, owing to the spreading of a report than
+an Antichrist had arisen who would not even let the dead rest, but was
+purchasing them wholesale--wherefore the said Raskolniki were summoning
+folk to prayer and repentance, and, under cover of capturing the
+Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning non-Antichrists in batches;
+lastly, the peasants of a third portion of the province had risen
+against the local landowners and superintendents of police, for the
+reason that certain rascals had started a rumour that the time was come
+when the peasants themselves were to become landowners, and to wear
+frockcoats, while the landowners in being were about to revert to the
+peasant state, and to take their own wares to market; wherefore one of
+the local volosts[52], oblivious of the fact that an order of things
+of that kind would lead to a superfluity alike of landowners and
+of superintendents of police, had refused to pay its taxes, and
+necessitated recourse to forcible measures. Hence it was in a mood
+of the greatest possible despondency that the poor Prince was sitting
+plunged when word was brought to him that the old man who had gone bail
+for Chichikov was waiting to see him.
+
+"Show him in," said the Prince; and the old man entered.
+
+"A fine fellow your Chichikov!" began the Prince angrily. "You defended
+him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to business which
+even the lowest thief would not have touched!"
+
+"Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are
+referring."
+
+"I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought
+to have been given a public flogging for it."
+
+"Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention, might I ask
+you whether you do not think the case is non-proven? At all events,
+sufficient evidence against him is still lacking."
+
+"What? We have as chief witness the woman who personated the deceased,
+and I will have her interrogated in your presence."
+
+Touching a bell, the Prince ordered her to be sent for.
+
+"It is a most disgraceful affair," he went on; "and, ashamed though I am
+to have to say it, some of our leading tchinovniks, including the local
+Governor himself, have become implicated in the matter. Yet you tell me
+that this Chichikov ought not to be confined among thieves and rascals!"
+Clearly the Governor-General's wrath was very great indeed.
+
+"Your Highness," said Murazov, "the Governor of the town is one of the
+heirs under the will: wherefore he has a certain right to intervene.
+Also, the fact that extraneous persons have meddled in the matter is
+only what is to be expected from human nature. A rich woman dies, and
+no exact, regular disposition of her property is made. Hence there comes
+flocking from every side a cloud of fortune hunters. What else could one
+expect? Such is human nature."
+
+"Yes, but why should such persons go and commit fraud?" asked the
+Prince irritably. "I feel as though not a single honest tchinovnik were
+available--as though every one of them were a rogue."
+
+"Your Highness, which of us is altogether beyond reproach? The
+tchinovniks of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them are
+men of worth, and nearly all of them men skilled in business--though
+also, unfortunately, largely inter-related."
+
+"Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch," said the Prince, "for you
+are about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in
+you such a penchant for defending rascals?"
+
+"This," replied Murazov. "Take any man you like of the persons whom you
+thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being. That
+being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one
+knows that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and
+stupidity? Each of us commits faults with every step that we take;
+each of us entails unhappiness upon others with every breath that we
+draw--and that although we may have no evil intention whatever in our
+minds. Your Highness himself has, before now, committed an injustice of
+the gravest nature."
+
+"_I_ have?" cried the Prince, taken aback by this unexpected turn given
+to the conversation.
+
+Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating
+something in his thoughts. Then he said:
+
+"Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case of
+the lad Dierpiennikov."
+
+"What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the
+Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!"
+
+"I am not seeking to justify him; I am only asking you whether you think
+it right that an inexperienced youth who had been tempted and led away
+by others should have received the same sentence as the man who
+had taken the chief part in the affair. That is to say, although
+Dierpiennikov and the man Voron-Drianni received an equal measure of
+punishment, their CRIMINALITY was not equal."
+
+"If," exclaimed the Prince excitedly, "you know anything further
+concerning the case, for God's sake tell it me at once. Only the other
+day did I forward a recommendation that St. Petersburg should remit a
+portion of the sentence."
+
+"Your Highness," replied Murazov, "I do not mean that I know of
+anything which does not lie also within your own cognisance, though one
+circumstance there was which might have told in the lad's favour had he
+not refused to admit it, lest another should suffer injury. All that
+I have in my mind is this. On that occasion were you not a little
+over-hasty in coming to a conclusion? You will understand, of course,
+that I am judging only according to my own poor lights, and for the
+reason that on more than one occasion you have urged me to be frank. In
+the days when I myself acted as a chief of gendarmery I came in contact
+with a great number of accused--some of them bad, some of them good; and
+in each case I found it well also to consider a man's past career, for
+the reason that, unless one views things calmly, instead of at once
+decrying a man, he is apt to take alarm, and to make it impossible
+thereafter to get any real confession from him. If, on the other hand,
+you question a man as friend might question friend, the result will be
+that straightway he will tell you everything, nor ask for mitigation of
+his penalty, nor bear you the least malice, in that he will understand
+that it is not you who have punished him, but the law."
+
+The Prince relapsed into thought; until presently there entered a young
+tchinovnik. Portfolio in hand, this official stood waiting respectfully.
+Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia upon his fresh
+young face; for evidently he had not been in the Service for nothing. As
+a matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and
+successfully to unravel it.
+
+
+        [At this point a long hiatus occurs in the original.]
+
+
+"I will send corn to the localities where famine is worst," said
+Murazov, "for I understand that sort of work better than do the
+tchinovniks, and will personally see to the needs of each person. Also,
+if you will allow me, your Highness, I will go and have a talk with the
+Raskolniki. They are more likely to listen to a plain man than to an
+official. God knows whether I shall succeed in calming them, but at
+least no tchinovnik could do so, for officials of the kind merely draw
+up reports and lose their way among their own documents--with the result
+that nothing comes of it. Nor will I accept from you any money for these
+purposes, since I am ashamed to devote as much as a thought to my own
+pocket at a time when men are dying of hunger. I have a large stock of
+grain lying in my granaries; in addition to which, I have sent orders to
+Siberia that a new consignment shall be forwarded me before the coming
+summer."
+
+"Of a surety will God reward you for your services, Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! Not another word will I say to you on the subject, for
+you yourself feel that any words from me would be inadequate. Yet tell
+me one thing: I refer to the case of which you know. Have I the right to
+pass over the case? Also, would it be just and honourable on my part to
+let the offending tchinovniks go unpunished?"
+
+"Your Highness, it is impossible to return a definite answer to those
+two questions: and the more so because many rascals are at heart men of
+rectitude. Human problems are difficult things to solve. Sometimes a man
+may be drawn into a vicious circle, so that, having once entered it, he
+ceases to be himself."
+
+"But what would the tchinovniks say if I allowed the case to be passed
+over? Would not some of them turn up their noses at me, and declare
+that they have effected my intimidation? Surely they would be the last
+persons in the world to respect me for my action?"
+
+"Your Highness, I think this: that your best course would be to call
+them together, and to inform them that you know everything, and to
+explain to them your personal attitude (exactly as you have explained
+it to me), and to end by at once requesting their advice and asking
+them what each of them would have done had he been placed in similar
+circumstances."
+
+"What? You think that those tchinovniks would be so accessible to lofty
+motives that they would cease thereafter to be venal and meticulous? I
+should be laughed at for my pains."
+
+"I think not, your Highness. Even the baser section of humanity
+possesses a certain sense of equity. Your wisest plan, your Highness,
+would be to conceal nothing and to speak to them as you have just spoken
+to me. If, at present, they imagine you to be ambitious and proud
+and unapproachable and self-assured, your action would afford them
+an opportunity of seeing how the case really stands. Why should you
+hesitate? You would but be exercising your undoubted right. Speak to
+them as though delivering not a message of your own, but a message from
+God."
+
+"I will think it over," the Prince said musingly, "and meanwhile I thank
+you from my heart for your good advice."
+
+"Also, I should order Chichikov to leave the town," suggested Murazov.
+
+"Yes, I will do so. Tell him from me that he is to depart hence as
+quickly as possible, and that the further he should remove himself, the
+better it will be for him. Also, tell him that it is only owing to your
+efforts that he has received a pardon at my hands."
+
+Murazov bowed, and proceeded from the Prince's presence to that of
+Chichikov. He found the prisoner cheerfully enjoying a hearty dinner
+which, under hot covers, had been brought him from an exceedingly
+excellent kitchen. But almost the first words which he uttered showed
+Murazov that the prisoner had been having dealings with the army of
+bribe-takers; as also that in those transactions his lawyer had played
+the principal part.
+
+"Listen, Paul Ivanovitch," the old man said. "I bring you your freedom,
+but only on this condition--that you depart out of the town forthwith.
+Therefore gather together your effects, and waste not a moment, lest
+worse befall you. Also, of all that a certain person has contrived to
+do on your behalf I am aware; wherefore let me tell you, as between
+ourselves, that should the conspiracy come to light, nothing on earth
+can save him, and in his fall he will involve others rather then be left
+unaccompanied in the lurch, and not see the guilt shared. How is it that
+when I left you recently you were in a better frame of mind than you are
+now? I beg of you not to trifle with the matter. Ah me! what boots that
+wealth for which men dispute and cut one another's throats? Do they
+think that it is possible to prosper in this world without thinking of
+the world to come? Believe me when I say that, until a man shall have
+renounced all that leads humanity to contend without giving a thought to
+the ordering of spiritual wealth, he will never set his temporal goods
+either upon a satisfactory foundation. Yes, even as times of want and
+scarcity may come upon nations, so may they come upon individuals. No
+matter what may be said to the contrary, the body can never dispense
+with the soul. Why, then, will you not try to walk in the right way,
+and, by thinking no longer of dead souls, but only of your only living
+one, regain, with God's help, the better road? I too am leaving the town
+to-morrow. Hasten, therefore, lest, bereft of my assistance, you meet
+with some dire misfortune."
+
+And the old man departed, leaving Chichikov plunged in thought. Once
+more had the gravity of life begun to loom large before him.
+
+"Yes, Murazov was right," he said to himself. "It is time that I were
+moving."
+
+Leaving the prison--a warder carrying his effects in his wake--he found
+Selifan and Petrushka overjoyed at seeing their master once more at
+liberty.
+
+"Well, good fellows?" he said kindly. "And now we must pack and be off."
+
+"True, true, Paul Ivanovitch," agreed Selifan. "And by this time the
+roads will have become firmer, for much snow has fallen. Yes, high time
+is it that we were clear of the town. So weary of it am I that the sight
+of it hurts my eyes."
+
+"Go to the coachbuilder's," commanded Chichikov, "and have
+sledge-runners fitted to the koliaska."
+
+Chichikov then made his way into the town--though not with the object of
+paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have given
+rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an unobtrusive
+call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his latest
+suit. There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with
+the intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
+previous costume; and by promising double remuneration he induced the
+tailor in question so to hasten the cutting out of the garments that,
+through sitting up all night over the work, the man might have the whole
+ready by break of day. True, the goods were delivered a trifle after
+the appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and breeches
+completed; and while the horses were being put to, Chichikov tried on
+the clothes, and found them equal to the previous creation, even though
+during the process he caught sight of a bald patch on his head, and was
+led mournfully to reflect: "Alas! Why did I give way to such despair?
+Surely I need not have torn my hair out so freely?"
+
+Then, when the tailor had been paid, our hero left the town. But no
+longer was he the old Chichikov--he was only a ruin of what he had been,
+and his frame of mind might have been compared to a building recently
+pulled down to make room for a new one, while the new one had not yet
+been erected owing to the non-receipt of the plans from the architect.
+Murazov, too, had departed, but at an earlier hour, and in a tilt-waggon
+with Ivan Potapitch.
+
+An hour later the Governor-General issued to all and sundry officials
+a notice that, on the occasion of his departure for St. Petersburg,
+he would be glad to see the corps of tchinovniks at a private meeting.
+Accordingly all ranks and grades of officialdom repaired to his
+residence, and there awaited--not without a certain measure of
+trepidation and of searching of heart--the Governor-General's entry.
+When that took place he looked neither clear nor dull. Yet his bearing
+was proud, and his step assured. The tchinovniks bowed--some of them to
+the waist, and he answered their salutations with a slight inclination
+of the head. Then he spoke as follows:
+
+"Since I am about to pay a visit to St. Petersburg, I have thought it
+right to meet you, and to explain to you privately my reasons for doing
+so. An affair of a most scandalous character has taken place in our
+midst. To what affair I am referring I think most of those present will
+guess. Now, an automatic process has led to that affair bringing about
+the discovery of other matters. Those matters are no less dishonourable
+than the primary one; and to that I regret to have to add that there
+stand involved in them certain persons whom I had hitherto believed
+to be honourable. Of the object aimed at by those who have complicated
+matters to the point of making their resolution almost impossible by
+ordinary methods I am aware; as also I am aware of the identity of the
+ringleader, despite the skill with which he has sought to conceal his
+share in the scandal. But the principal point is, that I propose to
+decide these matters, not by formal documentary process, but by the
+more summary process of court-martial, and that I hope, when the
+circumstances have been laid before his Imperial Majesty, to receive
+from him authority to adopt the course which I have mentioned. For I
+conceive that when it has become impossible to resolve a case by civil
+means, and some of the necessary documents have been burnt, and attempts
+have been made (both through the adduction of an excess of false and
+extraneous evidence and through the framing of fictitious reports)
+to cloud an already sufficiently obscure investigation with an added
+measure of complexity,--when all these circumstances have arisen, I
+conceive that the only possible tribunal to deal with them is a military
+tribunal. But on that point I should like your opinion."
+
+The Prince paused for a moment or two, as though awaiting a reply; but
+none came, seeing that every man had his eyes bent upon the floor, and
+many of the audience had turned white in the face.
+
+"Then," he went on, "I may say that I am aware also of a matter which
+those who have carried it through believe to lie only within the
+cognisance of themselves. The particulars of that matter will not be set
+forth in documentary form, but only through process of myself acting as
+plaintiff and petitioner, and producing none but ocular evidence."
+
+Among the throng of tchinovniks some one gave a start, and thereby
+caused others of the more apprehensive sort to fall to trembling in
+their shoes.
+
+"Without saying does it go that the prime conspirators ought to undergo
+deprivation of rank and property, and that the remainder ought to be
+dismissed from their posts; for though that course would cause a certain
+proportion of the innocent to suffer with the guilty, there would seem
+to be no other course available, seeing that the affair is one of
+the most disgraceful nature, and calls aloud for justice. Therefore,
+although I know that to some my action will fail to serve as a lesson,
+since it will lead to their succeeding to the posts of dismissed
+officials, as well as that others hitherto considered honourable will
+lose their reputation, and others entrusted with new responsibilities
+will continue to cheat and betray their trust,--although all this is
+known to me, I still have no choice but to satisfy the claims of justice
+by proceeding to take stern measures. I am also aware that I shall be
+accused of undue severity; but, lastly, I am aware that it is my duty to
+put aside all personal feeling, and to act as the unconscious instrument
+of that retribution which justice demands."
+
+Over ever face there passed a shudder. Yet the Prince had spoken calmly,
+and not a trace of anger or any other kind of emotion had been visible
+on his features.
+
+"Nevertheless," he went on, "the very man in whose hands the fate of
+so many now lies, the very man whom no prayer for mercy could ever have
+influenced, himself desires to make a request of you. Should you grant
+that request, all will be forgotten and blotted out and pardoned, for
+I myself will intercede with the Throne on your behalf. That request is
+this. I know that by no manner of means, by no preventive measures, and
+by no penalties will dishonesty ever be completely extirpated from our
+midst, for the reason that its roots have struck too deep, and that
+the dishonourable traffic in bribes has become a necessity to, even the
+mainstay of, some whose nature is not innately venal. Also, I know that,
+to many men, it is an impossibility to swim against the stream. Yet now,
+at this solemn and critical juncture, when the country is calling aloud
+for saviours, and it is the duty of every citizen to contribute and to
+sacrifice his all, I feel that I cannot but issue an appeal to every man
+in whom a Russian heart and a spark of what we understand by the word
+'nobility' exist. For, after all, which of us is more guilty than his
+fellow? It may be to ME the greatest culpability should be assigned, in
+that at first I may have adopted towards you too reserved an attitude,
+that I may have been over-hasty in repelling those who desired but to
+serve me, even though of their services I did not actually stand in
+need. Yet, had they really loved justice and the good of their country,
+I think that they would have been less prone to take offence at the
+coldness of my attitude, but would have sacrificed their feelings and
+their personality to their superior convictions. For hardly can it
+be that I failed to note their overtures and the loftiness of their
+motives, or that I would not have accepted any wise and useful advice
+proffered. At the same time, it is for a subordinate to adapt himself to
+the tone of his superior, rather than for a superior to adapt himself to
+the tone of his subordinate. Such a course is at once more regular
+and more smooth of working, since a corps of subordinates has but one
+director, whereas a director may have a hundred subordinates. But let us
+put aside the question of comparative culpability. The important point
+is, that before us all lies the duty of rescuing our fatherland. Our
+fatherland is suffering, not from the incursion of a score of alien
+tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in addition to the lawful
+administration, there has grown up a second administration possessed of
+infinitely greater powers than the system established by law. And that
+second administration has established its conditions, fixed its tariff
+of prices, and published that tariff abroad; nor could any ruler, even
+though the wisest of legislators and administrators, do more to correct
+the evil than limit it in the conduct of his more venal tchinovniks by
+setting over them, as their supervisors, men of superior rectitude. No,
+until each of us shall come to feel that, just as arms were taken up
+during the period of the upheaval of nations, so now each of us must
+make a stand against dishonesty, all remedies will end in failure. As a
+Russian, therefore--as one bound to you by consanguinity and identity of
+blood--I make to you my appeal. I make it to those of you who understand
+wherein lies nobility of thought. I invite those men to remember the
+duty which confronts us, whatsoever our respective stations; I invite
+them to observe more closely their duty, and to keep more constantly in
+mind their obligations of holding true to their country, in that before
+us the future looms dark, and that we can scarcely...."
+
+                 *****
+
+   [Here the manuscript of the original comes abruptly to an end.]
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Essays on Russian Novelists. Macmillan.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature. Duckworth and Co.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This is generally referred to in the Russian criticisms of Gogol
+as a quotation from Jeremiah. It appears upon investigation, however,
+that it actually occurs only in the Slavonic version from the Greek, and
+not in the Russian translation made direct from the Hebrew.]
+
+[Footnote 4: An urn for brewing honey tea.]
+
+[Footnote 5: An urn for brewing ordinary tea.]
+
+[Footnote 6: A German dramatist (1761-1819) who also filled sundry posts in the
+service of the Russian Government.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Priest's wife.]
+
+[Footnote 8: In this case the term General refers to a civil grade equivalent
+to the military rank of the same title.]
+
+[Footnote 9: An annual tax upon peasants, payment of which secured to the payer
+the right of removal.]
+
+
+[Footnote 10: Cabbage soup.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Three horses harnessed abreast.]
+
+[Footnote 12: A member of the gentry class.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Pieces equal in value to twenty-five kopecks (a quarter of a
+rouble).]
+
+[Footnote 14: A Russian general who, in 1812, stoutly opposed Napoleon at the
+battle of Borodino.]
+
+[Footnote 15: The late eighteenth century.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Forty Russian pounds.]
+
+[Footnote 17: To serve as blotting-paper.]
+
+[Footnote 18: A liquor distilled from fermented bread crusts or sour fruit.]
+
+[Footnote 19: That is to say, a distinctively Russian name.]
+
+[Footnote 20: A jeering appellation which owes its origin to the fact that
+certain Russians cherish a prejudice against the initial character of
+the word--namely, the Greek theta, or TH.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The great Russian general who, after winning fame in the Seven
+Years' War, met with disaster when attempting to assist the Austrians
+against the French in 1799.]
+
+[Footnote 22: A kind of large gnat.]
+
+[Footnote 23: A copper coin worth five kopecks.]
+
+[Footnote 24: A Russian general who fought against Napoleon, and was mortally
+wounded at Borodino.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Literally, "nursemaid."]
+
+[Footnote 26: Village factor or usurer.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Subordinate government officials.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Nevertheless Chichikov would appear to have erred, since most
+people would make the sum amount to twenty-three roubles, forty kopecks.
+If so, Chichikov cheated himself of one rouble, fifty-six kopecks.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The names Kariakin and Volokita might, perhaps, be translated as
+"Gallant" and "Loafer."]
+
+[Footnote 30: Tradesman or citizen.]
+
+[Footnote 31: The game of knucklebones.]
+
+[Footnote 32: A sort of low, four-wheeled carriage.]
+
+[Footnote 33: The system by which, in annual rotation, two-thirds of a given
+area are cultivated, while the remaining third is left fallow.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Public Prosecutor.]
+
+[Footnote 35: To reproduce this story with a raciness worthy of the Russian
+original is practically impossible. The translator has not attempted the
+task.]
+
+[Footnote 36: One of the mistresses of Louis XIV. of France. In 1680 she wrote a
+book called Reflexions sur la Misericorde de Dieu, par une Dame
+Penitente.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Four-wheeled open carriage.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Silver five kopeck piece.]
+
+[Footnote 39: A silver quarter rouble.]
+
+[Footnote 40: In the days of serfdom, the rate of forced labour--so many hours
+or so many days per week--which the serf had to perform for his
+proprietor.]
+
+[Footnote 41: The Elder.]
+
+[Footnote 42: The Younger.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Secondary School.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The desiatin = 2.86 English acres.]
+
+[Footnote 45: "One more makes five."]
+
+[Footnote 46: Dried spinal marrow of the sturgeon.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Long, belted Tartar blouses.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Village commune.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Landowner.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Here, in the original, a word is missing.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Dissenters or Old Believers: i.e. members of the sect which
+refused to accept the revised version of the Church Service Books
+promulgated by the Patriarch Nikon in 1665.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Fiscal districts.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dead Souls, by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
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+*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Dead Souls, by Nikolai V. Gogol*
+#1 in our series by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
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+Dead Souls
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+
+
+DEAD SOULS
+By Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Trans. by D. J. Hogarth)
+
+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz.
+
+
+
+
+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."
+
+[1] Essays on Russian Novelists. Macmillan.
+
+[2] Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature. Duckworth and Co.
+
+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
+
+[3] This is generally referred to in the Russian criticisms of Gogol
+    as a quotation from Jeremiah. It appears upon investigation,
+    however, that it actually occurs only in the Slavonic version from
+    the Greek, and not in the Russian translation made direct from the
+    Hebrew.
+
+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[1], cheek by jowl with a samovar[2]--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.
+
+[1] An urn for brewing honey tea.
+
+[2] An urn for brewing ordinary tea.
+
+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 of 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[3] 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.
+
+[3] A German dramatist (1761-1819) who also filled sundry posts in the
+    service of the Russian Government.
+
+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-grandial 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[4]!" 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.
+
+[4] Priest's wife.
+
+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[1] 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.
+
+[1] In this case the term General refers to a civil grade equivalent
+    to the military rank of the same title.
+
+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[2]?" 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--
+
+[2] An annual tax upon peasants, payment of which secured to the payer
+    the right of removal.
+
+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[3],
+but we do so with a single heart. Come, I humbly beg of you."
+
+[3] Cabbage soup.
+
+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[1], 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.
+
+[1] Three horses harnessed abreast.
+
+"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[2], good mother."
+
+[2] A member of the gentry class.
+
+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[3],
+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.
+
+[3] Pieces equal in value to twenty-five kopecks (a quarter of a
+    rouble).
+
+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[4] 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[5]. 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.
+
+[4] A Russian general who, in 1812, stoutly opposed Napoleon at the
+    battle of Borodino.
+
+[5] The late eighteenth century.
+
+"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[6] or so."
+
+[6] Forty Russian pounds.
+
+"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[7] 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.
+
+[7] To serve as blotting-paper.
+
+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 rigeur 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[1].
+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."
+
+[1] A liquor distilled from fermented bread crusts or sour fruit.
+
+"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 act, 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 to 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 very 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[2], 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).
+
+[2] That is to say, a distinctively Russian name.
+
+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 dry 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[3]. Off you go to your wife and your woman's talk and may the
+devil go with you!"
+
+[3] A jeering appellation which owes its origin to the fact that
+    certain Russians cherish a prejudice against the initial character
+    of the word--namely, the Greek theta, or TH.
+
+"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 lot 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 her 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[4]. 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.
+
+[4] The great Russian general who, after winning fame in the Seven
+    Years' War, met with disaster when attempting to assist the
+    Austrians against the French in 1799.
+
+"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[1]." 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!
+
+[1] A kind of large gnat.
+
+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[2]. 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.
+
+[2] A copper coin worth five kopecks.
+
+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[3]--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 suspected 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.
+
+[3] A Russian general who fought against Napoleon, and was mortally
+    wounded at Borodino.
+
+"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[4]--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."
+
+[4] Literally, "nursemaid."
+
+"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 posses 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[5] 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[6]: 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."
+
+[5] Village factor or usurer.
+
+[6] Subordinate government officials.
+
+"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 were 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."
+
+Whit 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."[1]
+
+[1] Nevertheless Chichikov would appear to have erred, since most
+    people would make the sum amount to twenty-three roubles, forty
+    kopecks. If so, Chichikov cheated himself of one rouble, fifty-six
+    kopecks.
+
+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[1].
+'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[2] 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[3] there, and stretch one's legs, and see a little
+society.'"
+
+[1] The names Kariakin and Volokita might, perhaps, be translated as
+    "Gallant" and "Loafer."
+
+[2] Tradesman or citizen.
+
+[3] The game of knucklebones.
+
+"'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[4]. Only, only--well, lately didn't you tell me that he
+is dead?"
+
+[4] A sort of low, four-wheeled carriage.
+
+"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, 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[5], 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.
+
+[5] The system by which, in annual rotation, two-thirds of a given
+    area are cultivated, while the remaining third is left fallow.
+
+
+
+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 brought 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[1]?"
+
+[1] Public Prosecutor.
+
+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 could-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[1].
+
+[1] To reproduce this story with a raciness worthy of the Russian
+    original is practically impossible. The translator has not
+    attempted the task.
+
+"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[2], 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.
+
+[2] One of the mistresses of Louis XIV. of France. In 1680 she wrote a
+    book called Reflexions sur la Misericorde de Dieu, par une Dame
+    Penitente.
+
+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 the bed, and then set to work to cram into it, pell-mell,
+socks, shirts, collars (both clean and dirty), boot trees, a calendar,
+and a variety of other articles. Everything went into the receptacle
+just as it came to hand, since his one object was to obviate any
+possible delay in the morning's departure. Meanwhile the reluctant
+Selifan slowly, very slowly, left the room, as slowly descended the
+staircase (on each separate step of which he left a muddy foot-print),
+and, finally, halted to scratch his head. What that scratching may
+have meant no one could say; for, with the Russian populace, such a
+scratching may mean any one of a hundred things.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Nevertheless events did not turn out as Chichikov had intended they
+should. In the first place, he overslept himself. That was check
+number one. In the second place, on his rising and inquiring whether
+the britchka had been harnessed and everything got ready, he was
+informed that neither of those two things had been done. That was
+check number two. Beside himself with rage, he prepared to give
+Selifan the wigging of his life, and, meanwhile, waited impatiently to
+hear what the delinquent had got to say in his defence. It goes
+without saying that when Selifan made his appearance in the doorway he
+had only the usual excuses to offer--the sort of excuses usually
+offered by servants when a hasty departure has become imperatively
+necessary.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," he said, "the horses require shoeing."
+
+"Blockhead!" exclaimed Chichikov. "Why did you not tell me of that
+before, you damned fool? Was there not time enough for them to be
+shod?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose there was," agreed Selifan. "Also one of the wheels is
+in want of a new tyre, for the roads are so rough that the old tyre is
+worn through. Also, the body of the britchka is so rickety that
+probably it will not last more than a couple of stages."
+
+"Rascal!" shouted Chichikov, clenching his fists and approaching
+Selifan in such a manner that, fearing to receive a blow, the man
+backed and dodged aside. "Do you mean to ruin me, and to break all our
+bones on the road, you cursed idiot? For these three weeks past you
+have been doing nothing at all; yet now, at the last moment, you come
+here stammering and playing the fool! Do you think I keep you just to
+eat and to drive yourself about? You must have known of this before?
+Did you, or did you not, know it? Answer me at once."
+
+"Yes, I did know it," replied Selifan, hanging his head.
+
+"Then why didn't you tell me about it?"
+
+Selifan had no reply immediately ready, so continued to hang his head
+while quietly saying to himself: "See how well I have managed things!
+I knew what was the matter, yet I did not say."
+
+"And now," continued Chichikov, "go you at once and fetch a
+blacksmith. Tell him that everything must be put right within two
+hours at the most. Do you hear? If that should not be done, I, I--I
+will give you the best flogging that ever you had in your life." Truly
+Chichikov was almost beside himself with fury.
+
+Turning towards the door, as though for the purpose of going and
+carrying out his orders, Selifan halted and added:
+
+"That skewbald, barin--you might think it well to sell him, seeing
+that he is nothing but a rascal? A horse like that is more of a
+hindrance than a help."
+
+"What? Do you expect me to go NOW to the market-place and sell him?"
+
+"Well, Paul Ivanovitch, he is good for nothing but show, since by nature
+he is a most cunning beast. Never in my life have I seen such a horse."
+
+"Fool! Whenever I may wish to sell him I SHALL sell him. Meanwhile,
+don't you trouble your head about what doesn't concern you, but go and
+fetch a blacksmith, and see that everything is put right within two
+hours. Otherwise I will take the very hair off your head, and beat you
+till you haven't a face left. Be off! Hurry!"
+
+Selifan departed, and Chichikov, his ill-humour vented, threw down
+upon the floor the poignard which he always took with him as a means
+of instilling respect into whomsoever it might concern, and spent the
+next quarter of an hour in disputing with a couple of blacksmiths--men
+who, as usual, were rascals of the type which, on perceiving that
+something is wanted in a hurry, at once multiplies its terms for
+providing the same. Indeed, for all Chichikov's storming and raging as
+he dubbed the fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could
+make no impression upon the pair, since, true to their character, they
+declined to abate their prices, and, even when they had begun their
+work, spent upon it, not two hours, but five and a half. Meanwhile he
+had the satisfaction of experiencing that delightful time with which
+all travellers are familiar--namely, the time during which one sits in
+a room where, except for a litter of string, waste paper, and so
+forth, everything else has been packed. But to all things there comes
+an end, and there arrived also the long-awaited moment when the
+britchka had received the luggage, the faulty wheel had been fitted
+with a new tyre, the horses had been re-shod, and the predatory
+blacksmiths had departed with their gains. "Thank God!" thought
+Chichikov as the britchka rolled out of the gates of the inn, and the
+vehicle began to jolt over the cobblestones. Yet a feeling which he
+could not altogether have defined filled his breast as he gazed upon
+the houses and the streets and the garden walls which he might never
+see again. Presently, on turning a corner, the britchka was brought to
+a halt through the fact that along the street there was filing a
+seemingly endless funeral procession. Leaning forward in his britchka,
+Chichikov asked Petrushka whose obsequies the procession represented,
+and was told that they represented those of the Public Prosecutor.
+Disagreeably shocked, our hero hastened to raise the hood of the
+vehicle, to draw the curtains across the windows, and to lean back
+into a corner. While the britchka remained thus halted Selifan and
+Petrushka, their caps doffed, sat watching the progress of the
+cortege, after they had received strict instructions not to greet any
+fellow-servant whom they might recognise. Behind the hearse walked the
+whole body of tchinovniks, bare-headed; and though, for a moment or
+two, Chichikov feared that some of their number might discern him in
+his britchka, he need not have disturbed himself, since their
+attention was otherwise engaged. In fact, they were not even
+exchanging the small talk customary among members of such processions,
+but thinking exclusively of their own affairs, of the advent of the
+new Governor-General, and of the probable manner in which he would
+take up the reins of administration. Next came a number of carriages,
+from the windows of which peered the ladies in mourning toilets. Yet
+the movements of their hands and lips made it evident that they were
+indulging in animated conversation--probably about the
+Governor-General, the balls which he might be expected to give, and
+their own eternal fripperies and gewgaws. Lastly came a few empty
+drozhkis. As soon as the latter had passed, our hero was able to
+continue on his way. Throwing back the hood of the britchka, he said
+to himself:
+
+"Ah, good friend, you have lived your life, and now it is over! In the
+newspapers they will say of you that you died regretted not only by
+your subordinates, but also by humanity at large, as well as that, a
+respected citizen, a kind father, and a husband beyond reproach, you
+went to your grave amid the tears of your widow and orphans. Yet,
+should those journals be put to it to name any particular circumstance
+which justified this eulogy of you, they would be forced to fall back
+upon the fact that you grew a pair of exceptionally thick eyebrows!"
+
+With that Chichikov bid Selifan quicken his pace, and concluded:
+"After all, it is as well that I encountered the procession, for they
+say that to meet a funeral is lucky."
+
+Presently the britchka turned into some less frequented streets, lines
+of wooden fencing of the kind which mark the outskirts of a town began
+to file by, the cobblestones came to an end, the macadam of the
+highroad succeeded to them, and once more there began on either side
+of the turnpike a procession of verst stones, road menders, and grey
+villages; inns with samovars and peasant women and landlords who came
+running out of yards with seivefuls of oats; pedestrians in worn shoes
+which, it might be, had covered eight hundred versts; little towns,
+bright with booths for the sale of flour in barrels, boots, small
+loaves, and other trifles; heaps of slag; much repaired bridges;
+expanses of field to right and to left; stout landowners; a mounted
+soldier bearing a green, iron-clamped box inscribed: "The --th Battery
+of Artillery"; long strips of freshly-tilled earth which gleamed
+green, yellow, and black on the face of the countryside. With it
+mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of elm-tops amid mist, the
+far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks, and the illimitable
+line of the horizon.
+
+Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can
+still see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely;
+in you the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature
+which a yet more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no
+cities with lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no
+picturesque trees, no ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their
+everlasting spray and roar, no beetling precipices which confuse the
+brain with their stony immensity, no vistas of vines and ivy and
+millions of wild roses and ageless lines of blue hills which look
+almost unreal against the clear, silvery background of the sky. In you
+everything is flat and open; your towns project like points or signals
+from smooth levels of plain, and nothing whatsoever enchants or
+deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what invincible force draws me to
+you? Why does there ceaselessly echo and re-echo in my ears the sad
+song which hovers throughout the length and the breadth of your
+borders? What is the burden of that song? Why does it wail and sob and
+catch at my heart? What say the notes which thus painfully caress and
+embrace my soul, and flit, uttering their lamentations, around me?
+What is it you seek of me, O Russia? What is the hidden bond which
+subsists between us? Why do you regard me as you do? Why does
+everything within you turn upon me eyes full of yearning? Even at this
+moment, as I stand dumbly, fixedly, perplexedly contemplating your
+vastness, a menacing cloud, charged with gathering rain, seems to
+overshadow my head. What is it that your boundless expanses presage?
+Do they not presage that one day there will arise in you ideas as
+boundless as yourself? Do they not presage that one day you too will
+know no limits? Do they not presage that one day, when again you shall
+have room for their exploits, there will spring to life the heroes of
+old? How the power of your immensity enfolds me, and reverberates
+through all my being with a wild, strange spell, and flashes in my
+eyes with an almost supernatural radiance! Yes, a strange, brilliant,
+unearthly vista indeed do you disclose, O Russia, country of mine!
+
+"Stop, stop, you fool!" shouted Chichikov to Selifan; and even as he
+spoke a troika, bound on Government business, came chattering by, and
+disappeared in a cloud of dust. To Chichikov's curses at Selifan for
+not having drawn out of the way with more alacrity a rural constable
+with moustaches of the length of an arshin added his quota.
+
+What a curious and attractive, yet also what an unreal, fascination
+the term "highway" connotes! And how interesting for its own sake is a
+highway! Should the day be a fine one (though chilly) in mellowing
+autumn, press closer your travelling cloak, and draw down your cap
+over your ears, and snuggle cosily, comfortably into a corner of the
+britchka before a last shiver shall course through your limbs, and the
+ensuing warmth shall put to flight the autumnal cold and damp. As the
+horses gallop on their way, how delightfully will drowsiness come
+stealing upon you, and make your eyelids droop! For a while, through
+your somnolence, you will continue to hear the hard breathing of the
+team and the rumbling of the wheels; but at length, sinking back into
+your corner, you will relapse into the stage of snoring. And when you
+awake--behold! you will find that five stages have slipped away, and
+that the moon is shining, and that you have reached a strange town of
+churches and old wooden cupolas and blackened spires and white,
+half-timbered houses! And as the moonlight glints hither and thither,
+almost you will believe that the walls and the streets and the
+pavements of the place are spread with sheets--sheets shot with
+coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs look all the brighter
+under the slanting beams of the pale luminary. Nowhere is a soul to be
+seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet no. In a solitary
+window a light is flickering where some good burgher is mending his
+boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night and powers of
+heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite vault--how
+lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies spread in an
+intangible, yet audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling breath of
+night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into snoring
+oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as he
+begins to be conscious of your weight. Then again you awake, but this
+time to find yourself confronted with only fields and steppes.
+Everywhere in the ascendant is the desolation of space. But suddenly
+the ciphers on a verst stone leap to the eye! Morning is rising, and
+on the chill, gradually paling line of the horizon you can see
+gleaming a faint gold streak. The wind freshens and grows keener, and
+you snuggle closer in your cloak; yet how glorious is that freshness,
+and how marvellous the sleep in which once again you become enfolded!
+A jolt!--and for the last time you return to consciousness. By now the
+sun is high in the heavens, and you hear a voice cry "gently, gently!"
+as a farm waggon issues from a by-road. Below, enclosed within an
+ample dike, stretches a sheet of water which glistens like copper in
+the sunlight. Beyond, on the side of a slope, lie some scattered
+peasants' huts, a manor house, and, flanking the latter, a village
+church with its cross flashing like a star. There also comes wafted to
+your ear the sound of peasants' laughter, while in your inner man you
+are becoming conscious of an appetite which is not to be withstood.
+
+Oh long-drawn highway, how excellent you are! How often have I in
+weariness and despondency set forth upon your length, and found in you
+salvation and rest! How often, as I followed your leading, have I been
+visited with wonderful thoughts and poetic dreams and curious, wild
+impressions!
+
+At this moment our friend Chichikov also was experiencing visions of a
+not wholly prosaic nature. Let us peep into his soul and share them.
+At first he remained unconscious of anything whatsoever, for he was
+too much engaged in making sure that he was really clear of the town;
+but as soon as he saw that it had completely disappeared, with its
+mills and factories and other urban appurtenances, and that even the
+steeples of the white stone churches had sunk below the horizon, he
+turned his attention to the road, and the town of N. vanished from his
+thoughts as completely as though he had not seen it since childhood.
+Again, in its turn, the road ceased to interest him, and he began to
+close his eyes and to loll his head against the cushions. Of this let
+the author take advantage, in order to speak at length concerning his
+hero; since hitherto he (the author) has been prevented from so doing
+by Nozdrev and balls and ladies and local intrigues--by those thousand
+trifles which seem trifles only when they are introduced into a book,
+but which, in life, figure as affairs of importance. Let us lay them
+aside, and betake ourselves to business.
+
+Whether the character whom I have selected for my hero has pleased my
+readers is, of course, exceedingly doubtful. At all events the ladies
+will have failed to approve him for the fair sex demands in a hero
+perfection, and, should there be the least mental or physical stain on
+him--well, woe betide! Yes, no matter how profoundly the author may
+probe that hero's soul, no matter how clearly he may portray his
+figure as in a mirror, he will be given no credit for the achievement.
+Indeed, Chichikov's very stoutness and plenitude of years may have
+militated against him, for never is a hero pardoned for the former,
+and the majority of ladies will, in such case, turn away, and mutter
+to themselves: "Phew! What a beast!" Yes, the author is well aware of
+this. Yet, though he could not, to save his life, take a person of
+virtue for his principal character, it may be that this story contains
+themes never before selected, and that in it there projects the whole
+boundless wealth of Russian psychology; that it portrays, as well as
+Chichikov, the peasant who is gifted with the virtues which God has
+sent him, and the marvellous maiden of Russia who has not her like in
+all the world for her beautiful feminine spirituality, the roots of
+which lie buried in noble aspirations and boundless self-denial. In
+fact, compared with these types, the virtuous of other races seem
+lifeless, as does an inanimate volume when compared with the living
+word. Yes, each time that there arises in Russia a movement of
+thought, it becomes clear that the movement sinks deep into the
+Slavonic nature where it would but have skimmed the surface of other
+nations.--But why am I talking like this? Whither am I tending? It is
+indeed shameful that an author who long ago reached man's estate, and
+was brought up to a course of severe introspection and sober, solitary
+self-enlightenment, should give way to such jejune wandering from the
+point. To everything its proper time and place and turn. As I was
+saying, it does not lie in me to take a virtuous character for my
+hero: and I will tell you why. It is because it is high time that a
+rest were given to the "poor, but virtuous" individual; it is because
+the phrase "a man of worth" has grown into a by-word; it is because
+the "man of worth" has become converted into a horse, and there is not
+a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out of season; it is
+because the "man of worth" has been starved until he has not a shred
+of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is but the ribs
+and the hide; it is because the "man of worth" is for ever being
+smuggled upon the scene; it is because the "man of worth" has at
+length forfeited every one's respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm
+that it is high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that
+rascal.
+
+Our hero's beginnings were both modest and obscure. True, his parents
+were dvoriane, but he in no way resembled them. At all events, a
+short, squab female relative who was present at his birth exclaimed as
+she lifted up the baby: "He is altogether different from what I had
+expected him to be. He ought to have taken after his maternal
+grandmother, whereas he has been born, as the proverb has it, 'like
+not father nor mother, but like a chance passer-by.'" Thus from the
+first life regarded the little Chichikov with sour distaste, and as
+through a dim, frost-encrusted window. A tiny room with diminutive
+casements which were never opened, summer or winter; an invalid father
+in a dressing-gown lined with lambskin, and with an ailing foot
+swathed in bandages--a man who was continually drawing deep breaths,
+and walking up and down the room, and spitting into a sandbox; a
+period of perpetually sitting on a bench with pen in hand and ink on
+lips and fingers; a period of being eternally confronted with the
+copy-book maxim, "Never tell a lie, but obey your superiors, and
+cherish virtue in your heart;" an everlasting scraping and shuffling
+of slippers up and down the room; a period of continually hearing a
+well-known, strident voice exclaim: "So you have been playing the fool
+again!" at times when the child, weary of the mortal monotony of his
+task, had added a superfluous embellishment to his copy; a period of
+experiencing the ever-familiar, but ever-unpleasant, sensation which
+ensued upon those words as the boy's ear was painfully twisted between
+two long fingers bent backwards at the tips--such is the miserable
+picture of that youth of which, in later life, Chichikov preserved but
+the faintest of memories! But in this world everything is liable to
+swift and sudden change; and, one day in early spring, when the rivers
+had melted, the father set forth with his little son in a
+teliezshka[1] drawn by a sorrel steed of the kind known to horsy folk
+as a soroka, and having as coachman the diminutive hunchback who,
+father of the only serf family belonging to the elder Chichikov,
+served as general factotum in the Chichikov establishment. For a day
+and a half the soroka conveyed them on their way; during which time
+they spent the night at a roadside inn, crossed a river, dined off
+cold pie and roast mutton, and eventually arrived at the county town.
+To the lad the streets presented a spectacle of unwonted brilliancy,
+and he gaped with amazement. Turning into a side alley wherein the
+mire necessitated both the most strenuous exertions on the soroka's
+part and the most vigorous castigation on the part of the driver and
+the barin, the conveyance eventually reached the gates of a courtyard
+which, combined with a small fruit garden containing various bushes, a
+couple of apple-trees in blossom, and a mean, dirty little shed,
+constituted the premises attached to an antiquated-looking villa. Here
+there lived a relative of the Chichikovs, a wizened old lady who went
+to market in person and dried her stockings at the samovar. On seeing
+the boy, she patted his cheek and expressed satisfaction at his
+physique; whereupon the fact became disclosed that here he was to
+abide for a while, for the purpose of attending a local school. After
+a night's rest his father prepared to betake himself homeward again;
+but no tears marked the parting between him and his son, he merely
+gave the lad a copper or two and (a far more important thing) the
+following injunctions. "See here, my boy. Do your lessons well, do not
+idle or play the fool, and above all things, see that you please your
+teachers. So long as you observe these rules you will make progress,
+and surpass your fellows, even if God shall have denied you brains,
+and you should fail in your studies. Also, do not consort overmuch
+with your comrades, for they will do you no good; but, should you do
+so, then make friends with the richer of them, since one day they may
+be useful to you. Also, never entertain or treat any one, but see that
+every one entertains and treats YOU. Lastly, and above all else,
+keep and save your every kopeck. To save money is the most important
+thing in life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail you, and be the
+first to desert you in a time of adversity; but never will a KOPECK
+fail you, whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the world cannot be
+done, cannot be attained, with the aid of money." These injunctions
+given, the father embraced his son, and set forth on his return; and
+though the son never again beheld his parent, the latter's words and
+precepts sank deep into the little Chichikov's soul.
+
+[1] Four-wheeled open carriage.
+
+The next day young Pavlushka made his first attendance at school. But
+no special aptitude in any branch of learning did he display. Rather,
+his distinguishing characteristics were diligence and neatness. On the
+other hand, he developed great intelligence as regards the PRACTICAL
+aspect of life. In a trice he divined and comprehended how things
+ought to be worked, and, from that time forth, bore himself towards
+his school-fellows in such a way that, though they frequently gave him
+presents, he not only never returned the compliment, but even on
+occasions pocketed the gifts for the mere purpose of selling them
+again. Also, boy though he was, he acquired the art of self-denial. Of
+the trifle which his father had given him on parting he spent not a
+kopeck, but, the same year, actually added to his little store by
+fashioning a bullfinch of wax, painting it, and selling the same at a
+handsome profit. Next, as time went on, he engaged in other
+speculations--in particular, in the scheme of buying up eatables,
+taking his seat in class beside boys who had plenty of pocket-money,
+and, as soon as such opulent individuals showed signs of failing
+attention (and, therefore, of growing appetite), tendering them, from
+beneath the desk, a roll of pudding or a piece of gingerbread, and
+charging according to degree of appetite and size of portion. He also
+spent a couple of months in training a mouse, which he kept confined
+in a little wooden cage in his bedroom. At length, when the training
+had reached the point that, at the several words of command, the mouse
+would stand upon its hind legs, lie down, and get up again, he sold
+the creature for a respectable sum. Thus, in time, his gains attained
+the amount of five roubles; whereupon he made himself a purse and then
+started to fill a second receptacle of the kind. Still more studied
+was his attitude towards the authorities. No one could sit more
+quietly in his place on the bench than he. In the same connection it
+may be remarked that his teacher was a man who, above all things,
+loved peace and good behaviour, and simply could not abide clever,
+witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him. Consequently
+any lad who had once attracted the master's attention with a
+manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or
+unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to
+burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and
+to visit him with unmerciful punishment. "Ah, my fine fellow," he
+would say, "I'LL cure you of your impudence and want of respect! I
+know you through and through far better than you know yourself, and
+will take good care that you have to go down upon your knees and curb
+your appetite." Whereupon the wretched lad would, for no cause of
+which he was aware, be forced to wear out his breeches on the floor
+and go hungry for days. "Talents and gifts," the schoolmaster would
+declare, "are so much rubbish. I respect only good behaviour, and
+shall award full marks to those who conduct themselves properly, even
+if they fail to learn a single letter of their alphabet: whereas to
+those in whom I may perceive a tendency to jocularity I shall award
+nothing, even though they should outdo Solon himself." For the same
+reason he had no great love of the author Krylov, in that the latter
+says in one of his Fables: "In my opinion, the more one sings, the
+better one works;" and often the pedagogue would relate how, in a
+former school of his, the silence had been such that a fly could be
+heard buzzing on the wing, and for the space of a whole year not a
+single pupil sneezed or coughed in class, and so complete was the
+absence of all sound that no one could have told that there was a soul
+in the place. Of this mentor young Chichikov speedily appraised the
+mentality; wherefore he fashioned his behaviour to correspond with it.
+Not an eyelid, not an eyebrow, would he stir during school hours,
+howsoever many pinches he might receive from behind; and only when the
+bell rang would he run to anticipate his fellows in handing the master
+the three-cornered cap which that dignitary customarily sported, and
+then to be the first to leave the class-room, and contrive to meet the
+master not less than two or three times as the latter walked homeward,
+in order that, on each occasion, he might doff his cap. And the scheme
+proved entirely successful. Throughout the period of his attendance at
+school he was held in high favour, and, on leaving the establishment,
+received full marks for every subject, as well as a diploma and a book
+inscribed (in gilt letters) "For Exemplary Diligence and the
+Perfection of Good Conduct." By this time he had grown into a fairly
+good-looking youth of the age when the chin first calls for a razor;
+and at about the same period his father died, leaving behind him, as
+his estate, four waistcoats completely worn out, two ancient
+frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had been skilled
+only in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks--not in ACTUALLY
+PRACTISING the art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its
+little parcel of land for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his
+one serf and the serf's family, to the capital, where he set about
+organising a new establishment and entering the Civil Service.
+Simultaneously with his doing so, his old schoolmaster lost (through
+stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over which he had hitherto
+presided, and in which he had set so much store by silence and good
+behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was left, even
+for that purpose, he retired--ill, helpless, and starving--into a
+broken-down, cheerless hovel. But certain of his former pupils--the
+same clever, witty lads whom he had once been wont to accuse of
+impertinence and evil conduct generally--heard of his pitiable plight,
+and collected for him what money they could, even to the point of
+selling their own necessaries. Only Chichikov, when appealed to,
+pleaded inability, and compromised with a contribution of a single
+piatak[2]: which his old schoolfellows straightway returned him--full
+in the face, and accompanied with a shout of "Oh, you skinflint!" As
+for the poor schoolmaster, when he heard what his former pupils had
+done, he buried his face in his hands, and the tears gushed from his
+failing eyes as from those of a helpless infant. "God has brought you
+but to weep over my death-bed," he murmured feebly; and added with a
+profound sigh, on hearing of Chichikov's conduct: "Ah, Pavlushka, how
+a human being may become changed! Once you were a good lad, and gave
+me no trouble; but now you are become proud indeed!"
+
+[2] Silver five kopeck piece.
+
+Yet let it not be inferred from this that our hero's character had
+grown so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude
+his experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of
+fact, he was capable both of the one and the other, and would have
+been glad to assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or
+had he not been called upon to touch the fund which he had decided
+should remain intact. In other words, the father's injunction, "Guard
+and save every kopeck," had become a hard and fast rule of the son's.
+Yet the youth had no particular attachment to money for money's sake;
+he was not possessed with the true instinct for hoarding and
+niggardliness. Rather, before his eyes there floated ever a vision of
+life and its amenities and advantages--a vision of carriages and an
+elegantly furnished house and recherche dinners; and it was in the
+hope that some day he might attain these things that he saved every
+kopeck and, meanwhile, stinted both himself and others. Whenever a
+rich man passed him by in a splendid drozhki drawn by swift and
+handsomely-caparisoned horses, he would halt as though deep in
+thought, and say to himself, like a man awakening from a long sleep:
+"That gentleman must have been a financier, he has so little hair on
+his brow." In short, everything connected with wealth and plenty
+produced upon him an ineffaceable impression. Even when he left school
+he took no holiday, so strong in him was the desire to get to work and
+enter the Civil Service. Yet, for all the encomiums contained in his
+diploma, he had much ado to procure a nomination to a Government
+Department; and only after a long time was a minor post found for him,
+at a salary of thirty or fourty roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched
+though this appointment was, he determined, by strict attention to
+business, to overcome all obstacles, and to win success. And, indeed,
+the self-denial, the patience, and the economy which he displayed were
+remarkable. From early morn until late at night he would, with
+indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed in his sordid
+task of copying official documents--never going home, snatching what
+sleep he could on tables in the building, and dining with the watchman
+on duty. Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and neat, to
+preserve a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to cultivate a
+certain elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked that his
+fellow tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some of
+them having faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding
+chins, and cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them
+was handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of
+sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head;
+and by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet
+there remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism.
+Nay, the Director's room itself they would invade while still licking
+their lips, and since their breath was not over-aromatic, the
+atmosphere of the room grew not over-pleasant. Naturally, among such
+an official staff a man like Chichikov could not fail to attract
+attention and remark, since in everything--in cheerfulness of
+demeanour, in suavity of voice, and in complete neglect of the use of
+strong potions--he was the absolute antithesis of his companions. Yet
+his path was not an easy one to tread, for over him he had the
+misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief Clerk who was a graven
+image of elderly insensibility and inertia. Always the same, always
+unapproachable, this functionary could never in his life have smiled
+or asked civilly after an acquaintance's health. Nor had any one ever
+seen him a whit different in the street or at his own home from what
+he was in the office, or showing the least interest in anything
+whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in his cups, or
+indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when intoxicated, even
+a burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was there in him. Nor,
+for that matter, was there in him a particle of anything at all,
+whether good or bad: which complete negativeness of character produced
+rather a strange effect. In the same way, his wizened, marble-like
+features reminded one of nothing in particular, so primly proportioned
+were they. Only the numerous pockmarks and dimples with which they
+were pitted placed him among the number of those over whose faces, to
+quote the popular saying, "The Devil has walked by night to grind
+peas." In short, it would seem that no human agency could have
+approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet Chichikov made the
+effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the other's convenience
+in all manner of insignificant trifles--to cleaning his pens
+carefully, and, when they had been prepared exactly to the Chief
+Clerk's liking, laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and
+sweeping from his table all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to
+procuring a new mat for his inkstand; to looking for his hat--the
+meanest-looking hat that ever the world beheld--and having it ready
+for him at the exact moment when business came to an end; to brushing
+his back if it happened to become smeared with whitewash from a wall.
+Yet all this passed as unnoticed as though it had never been done.
+Finally, Chichikov sniffed into his superior's family and domestic
+life, and learnt that he possessed a grown-up daughter on whose face
+also there had taken place a nocturnal, diabolical grinding of peas.
+HERE was a quarter whence a fresh attack might be delivered! After
+ascertaining what church the daughter attended on Sundays, our hero
+took to contriving to meet her in a neat suit and a well-starched
+dickey: and soon the scheme began to work. The surly Chief Clerk
+wavered for a while; then ended by inviting Chichikov to tea. Nor
+could any man in the office have told you how it came about that
+before long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk's house, and
+become a person necessary--indeed indispensable--to the household,
+seeing that he bought the flour and the sugar, treated the daughter as
+his betrothed, called the Chief Clerk "Papenka," and occasionally
+kissed "Papenka's" hand. In fact, every one at the office supposed
+that, at the end of February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent) there
+would take place a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to
+agitate with the authorities on Chichikov's behalf, and so enabled our
+hero, on a vacancy occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk.
+Apparently this marked the consummation of Chichikov's relations with
+his host, for he hastened stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next
+day, figured in a fresh lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief
+Clerk "Papenka," or to kiss his hand; and the matter of the wedding
+came to as abrupt a termination as though it had never been mooted.
+Yet also he never failed to press his late host's hand, whenever he
+met him, and to invite him to tea; while, on the other hand, for all
+his immobility and dry indifference, the Chief Clerk never failed to
+shake his head with a muttered, "Ah, my fine fellow, you have grown
+too proud, you have grown too proud."
+
+The foregoing constituted the most difficult step that our hero had to
+negotiate. Thereafter things came with greater ease and swifter
+success. Everywhere he attracted notice, for he developed within
+himself everything necessary for this world--namely, charm of manner
+and bearing, and great diligence in business matters. Armed with these
+resources, he next obtained promotion to what is known as "a fat
+post," and used it to the best advantage; and even though, at that
+period, strict inquiry had begun to be made into the whole subject of
+bribes, such inquiry failed to alarm him--nay, he actually turned it
+to account and thereby manifested the Russian resourcefulness which
+never fails to attain its zenith where extortion is concerned. His
+method of working was the following. As soon as a petitioner or a
+suitor put his hand into his pocket, to extract thence the necessary
+letters of recommendation for signature, Chichikov would smilingly
+exclaim as he detained his interlocutor's hand: "No, no! Surely you do
+not think that I--? But no, no! It is our duty, it is our obligation,
+and we do not require rewards for doing our work properly. So far as
+YOUR matter is concerned, you may rest easy. Everything shall be
+carried through to-morrow. But may I have your address? There is no
+need to trouble yourself, seeing that the documents can easily be
+brought to you at your residence." Upon which the delighted suitor
+would return home in raptures, thinking: "Here, at long last, is the
+sort of man so badly needed. A man of that kind is a jewel beyond
+price." Yet for a day, for two days--nay, even for three--the suitor
+would wait in vain so far as any messengers with documents were
+concerned. Then he would repair to the office--to find that his
+business had not so much as been entered upon! Lastly, he would
+confront the "jewel beyond price." "Oh, pardon me, pardon me!"
+Chichikov would exclaim in the politest of tones as he seized and
+grasped the visitor's hands. "The truth is that we have SUCH a
+quantity of business on hand! But the matter shall be put through
+to-morrow, and in the meanwhile I am most sorry about it." And with
+this would go the most fascinating of gestures. Yet neither on the
+morrow, nor on the day following, nor on the third would documents
+arrive at the suitor's abode. Upon that he would take thought as to
+whether something more ought not to have been done; and, sure enough,
+on his making inquiry, he would be informed that "something will have
+to be given to the copyists." "Well, there can be no harm in that," he
+would reply. "As a matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak[3] or
+two." "Oh, no, no," the answer would come. "Not a tchetvertak per
+copyist, but a rouble, is the fee." "What? A rouble per copyist?"
+"Certainly. What is there to grumble at in that? Of the money the
+copyists will receive a tchetvertak apiece, and the rest will go to
+the Government." Upon that the disillusioned suitor would fly out upon
+the new order of things brought about by the inquiry into illicit
+fees, and curse both the tchinovniks and their uppish, insolent
+behaviour. "Once upon a time," would the suitor lament, "one DID
+know what to do. Once one had tipped the Director a bank-note, one's
+affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But now one has to pay a rouble
+per copyist after waiting a week because otherwise it was impossible
+to guess how the wind might set! The devil fly away with all
+'disinterested' and 'trustworthy' tchinovniks!" And certainly the
+aggrieved suitor had reason to grumble, seeing that, now that
+bribe-takers had ceased to exist, and Directors had uniformly become
+men of honour and integrity, secretaries and clerks ought not with
+impunity to have continued their thievish ways. In time there opened
+out to Chichikov a still wider field, for a Commission was appointed
+to supervise the erection of a Government building, and, on his being
+nominated to that body, he proved himself one of its most active
+members. The Commission got to work without delay, but for a space of
+six years had some trouble with the building in question. Either the
+climate hindered operations or the materials used were of the kind
+which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the
+basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for
+each member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official
+style of architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the soil of
+those parts was better than that where the Government building was
+still engaged in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission
+began to look exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family
+life; and, for the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also
+departed from the iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and
+inexorable self-denial, and so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism
+as to show himself a man not averse to those amenities which, during
+his youth, he had been capable of renouncing. That is to say, certain
+superfluities began to make their appearance in his establishment. He
+engaged a good cook, took to wearing linen shirts, bought for himself
+cloth of a pattern worn by no one else in the province, figured in
+checks shot with the brightest of reds and browns, fitted himself out
+with two splendid horses (which he drove with a single pair of reins,
+added to a ring attachment for the trace horse), developed a habit of
+washing with a sponge dipped in eau-de-Cologne, and invested in soaps
+of the most expensive quality, in order to communicate to his skin a
+more elegant polish.
+
+[3] A silver quarter rouble.
+
+But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director--a military
+man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and
+anything which might be called irregular. On the very day after his
+arrival he struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts,
+discovering hosts of deficits and missing sums, and directing his
+attention to the aforesaid fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon
+that there ensued a complete reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired
+wholesale, and the houses were sequestrated to the Government, or else
+converted into various pious institutions and schools for soldiers'
+children. Thus the whole fabric, and especially Chichikov, came
+crashing to the ground. Particularly did our hero's agreeable face
+displease the new Director. Why that was so it is impossible to say,
+but frequently, in cases of the kind, no reason exists. However, the
+Director conceived a mortal dislike to him, and also extended that
+enmity to the whole of Chichikov's colleagues. But inasmuch as the
+said Director was a military man, he was not fully acquainted with the
+myriad subtleties of the civilian mind; wherefore it was not long
+before, by dint of maintaining a discreet exterior, added to a faculty
+for humouring all and sundry, a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in
+restoring him to mildness, and the General found himself in the hands
+of greater thieves than before, but thieves whom he did not even
+suspect, seeing that he believed himself to have selected men fit and
+proper, and even ventured to boast of possessing a keen eye for
+talent. In a trice the tchinovniks concerned appraised his spirit and
+character; with the result that the entire sphere over which he ruled
+became an agency for the detection of irregularities. Everywhere, and
+in every case, were those irregularities pursued as a fisherman
+pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff; and to such an extent did the
+sport prove successful that almost in no time each participator in the
+hunt was seen to be in possession of several thousand roubles of
+capital. Upon that a large number of the former band of tchinovniks
+also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were allowed to
+re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could Chichikov worm
+his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry items of paper
+currency, the General's first secretary and principal bear leader did
+all he could on our hero's behalf. It seemed that the General was the
+kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided it was done
+without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head than it
+stuck there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted; and all
+that the wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing up of a
+certain dirty fragment of paper--even that being effected only by an
+appeal to the General's compassion, on the score of the unhappy fate
+which, otherwise, would befall Chichikov's wife and children (who,
+luckily, had no existence in fact).
+
+"Well," said Chichikov to himself, "I have done my best, and now
+everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won't help me, but only
+action." And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once
+more to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The
+better to effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town.
+Yet somehow, for a while, things miscarried. More than once he found
+himself forced to exchange one post for another, and at the briefest
+of notice; and all of them were posts of the meanest, the most
+wretched, order. Yet, being a man of the utmost nicety of feeling, the
+fact that he found himself rubbing shoulders with anything but nice
+companions did not prevent him from preserving intact his innate love
+of what was decent and seemly, or from cherishing the instinct which
+led him to hanker after office fittings of lacquered wood, with
+neatness and orderliness everywhere. Nor did he at any time permit a
+foul word to creep into his speech, and would feel hurt even if in the
+speech of others there occurred a scornful reference to anything which
+pertained to rank and dignity. Also, the reader will be pleased to
+know that our hero changed his linen every other day, and in summer,
+when the weather was very hot, EVERY day, seeing that the very
+faintest suspicion of an unpleasant odour offended his fastidiousness.
+For the same reason it was his custom, before being valeted by
+Petrushka, always to plug his nostrils with a couple of cloves. In
+short, there were many occasions when his nerves suffered rackings as
+cruel as a young girl's, and so helped to increase his disgust at
+having once more to associate with men who set no store by the
+decencies of life. Yet, though he braced himself to the task, this
+period of adversity told upon his health, and he even grew a trifle
+shabby. More than once, on happening to catch sight of himself in the
+mirror, he could not forbear exclaiming: "Holy Mother of God, but what
+a nasty-looking brute I have become!" and for a long while afterwards
+could not with anything like sang-froid contemplate his reflection.
+Yet throughout he bore up stoutly and patiently--and ended by being
+transferred to the Customs Department. It may be said that the
+department had long constituted the secret goal of his ambition, for
+he had noted the foreign elegancies with which its officials always
+contrived to provide themselves, and had also observed that invariably
+they were able to send presents of china and cambric to their sisters
+and aunts--well, to their lady friends generally. Yes, more than once
+he had said to himself with a sigh: "THAT is the department to which
+I ought to belong, for, given a town near the frontier, and a sensible
+set of colleagues, I might be able to fit myself out with excellent
+linen shirts." Also, it may be said that most frequently of all had
+his thoughts turned towards a certain quality of French soap which
+imparted a peculiar whiteness to the skin and a peerless freshness to
+the cheeks. Its name is known to God alone, but at least it was to be
+procured only in the immediate neighbourhood of the frontier. So, as I
+say, Chichikov had long felt a leaning towards the Customs, but for a
+time had been restrained from applying for the same by the various
+current advantages of the Building Commission; since rightly he had
+adjudged the latter to constitute a bird in the hand, and the former
+to constitute only a bird in the bush. But now he decided that, come
+what might, into the Customs he must make his way. And that way he
+made, and then applied himself to his new duties with a zeal born of
+the fact that he realised that fortune had specially marked him out
+for a Customs officer. Indeed, such activity, perspicuity, and
+ubiquity as his had never been seen or thought of. Within four weeks
+at the most he had so thoroughly got his hand in that he was
+conversant with Customs procedure in every detail. Not only could he
+weigh and measure, but also he could divine from an invoice how many
+arshins of cloth or other material a given piece contained, and then,
+taking a roll of the latter in his hand, could specify at once the
+number of pounds at which it would tip the scale. As for searchings,
+well, even his colleagues had to admit that he possessed the nose of a
+veritable bloodhound, and that it was impossible not to marvel at the
+patience wherewith he would try every button of the suspected person,
+yet preserve, throughout, a deadly politeness and an icy sang-froid
+which surpass belief. And while the searched were raging, and foaming
+at the mouth, and feeling that they would give worlds to alter his
+smiling exterior with a good, resounding slap, he would move not a
+muscle of his face, nor abate by a jot the urbanity of his demeanour,
+as he murmured, "Do you mind so far incommoding yourself as to stand
+up?" or "Pray step into the next room, madam, where the wife of one of
+our staff will attend you," or "Pray allow me to slip this penknife of
+mine into the lining of your coat" (after which he would extract
+thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he would have
+done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors acknowledged
+him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so perfect
+was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles, horses'
+ears, and places whither an author ought not to penetrate even in
+thought--places whither only a Customs official is permitted to go.
+The result was that the wretched traveller who had just crossed the
+frontier would, within a few minutes, become wholly at sea, and,
+wiping away the perspiration, and breaking out into body flushes,
+would be reduced to crossing himself and muttering, "Well, well,
+well!" In fact, such a traveller would feel in the position of a
+schoolboy who, having been summoned to the presence of the headmaster
+for the ostensible purpose of being give an order, has found that he
+receives, instead, a sound flogging. In short, for some time Chichikov
+made it impossible for smugglers to earn a living. In particular, he
+reduced Polish Jewry almost to despair, so invincible, so almost
+unnatural, was the rectitude, the incorruptibility which led him to
+refrain from converting himself into a small capitalist with the aid
+of confiscated goods and articles which, "to save excessive clerical
+labour," had failed to be handed over to the Government. Also, without
+saying it goes that such phenomenally zealous and disinterested
+service attracted general astonishment, and, eventually, the notice of
+the authorities; whereupon he received promotion, and followed that up
+by mooting a scheme for the infallible detection of contrabandists,
+provided that he could be furnished with the necessary authority for
+carrying out the same. At once such authority was accorded him, as
+also unlimited power to conduct every species of search and
+investigation. And that was all he wanted. It happened that previously
+there had been formed a well-found association for smuggling on
+regular, carefully prepared lines, and that this daring scheme seemed
+to promise profit to the extent of some millions of money: yet, though
+he had long had knowledge of it, Chichikov had said to the
+association's emissaries, when sent to buy him over, "The time is not
+yet." But now that he had got all the reins into his hands, he sent
+word of the fact to the gang, and with it the remark, "The time is
+NOW." Nor was he wrong in his calculations, for, within the space of
+a year, he had acquired what he could not have made during twenty
+years of non-fraudulent service. With similar sagacity he had, during
+his early days in the department, declined altogether to enter into
+relations with the association, for the reason that he had then been a
+mere cipher, and would have come in for nothing large in the way of
+takings; but now--well, now it was another matter altogether, and he
+could dictate what terms he liked. Moreover, that the affair might
+progress the more smoothly, he suborned a fellow tchinovnik of the
+type which, in spite of grey hairs, stands powerless against
+temptation; and, the contract concluded, the association duly
+proceeded to business. Certainly business began brilliantly. But
+probably most of my readers are familiar with the oft-repeated story
+of the passage of Spanish sheep across the frontier in double fleeces
+which carried between their outer layers and their inner enough lace
+of Brabant to sell to the tune of millions of roubles; wherefore I
+will not recount the story again beyond saying that those journeys
+took place just when Chichikov had become head of the Customs, and
+that, had he not a hand in the enterprise, not all the Jews in the
+world could have brought it to success. By the time that three or four
+of these ovine invasions had taken place, Chichikov and his accomplice
+had come to be the possessors of four hundred thousand roubles apiece;
+while some even aver that the former's gains totalled half a million,
+owing to the greater industry which he had displayed in the matter.
+Nor can any one but God say to what a figure the fortunes of the pair
+might not eventually have attained, had not an awkward contretemps cut
+right across their arrangements. That is to say, for some reason or
+another the devil so far deprived these tchinovnik-conspirators of
+sense as to make them come to words with one another, and then to
+engage in a quarrel. Beginning with a heated argument, this quarrel
+reached the point of Chichikov--who was, possibly, a trifle
+tipsy--calling his colleague a priest's son; and though that
+description of the person so addressed was perfectly accurate, he
+chose to take offence, and to answer Chichikov with the words (loudly
+and incisively uttered), "It is YOU who have a priest for your
+father," and to add to that (the more to incense his companion), "Yes,
+mark you! THAT is how it is." Yet, though he had thus turned the
+tables upon Chichikov with a tu quoque, and then capped that exploit
+with the words last quoted, the offended tchinovnik could not remain
+satisfied, but went on to send in an anonymous document to the
+authorities. On the other hand, some aver that it was over a woman
+that the pair fell out--over a woman who, to quote the phrase then
+current among the staff of the Customs Department, was "as fresh and
+as strong as the pulp of a turnip," and that night-birds were hired to
+assault our hero in a dark alley, and that the scheme miscarried, and
+that in any case both Chichikov and his friend had been deceived,
+seeing that the person to whom the lady had really accorded her
+favours was a certain staff-captain named Shamsharev. However, only
+God knows the truth of the matter. Let the inquisitive reader ferret
+it out for himself. The fact remains that a complete exposure of the
+dealings with the contrabandists followed, and that the two
+tchinovniks were put to the question, deprived of their property, and
+made to formulate in writing all that they had done. Against this
+thunderbolt of fortune the State Councillor could make no headway, and
+in some retired spot or another sank into oblivion; but Chichikov put
+a brave face upon the matter, for, in spite of the authorities' best
+efforts to smell out his gains, he had contrived to conceal a portion
+of them, and also resorted to every subtle trick of intellect which
+could possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has
+a wide knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by
+pleasantness of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery,
+and by the occasional insertion of a coin into a palm did he leave
+undone; with the result that he was retired with less ignominy than
+was his companion, and escaped actual trial on a criminal charge. Yet
+he issued stripped of all his capital, stripped of his imported
+effects, stripped of everything. That is to say, all that remained to
+him consisted of ten thousand roubles which he had stored against a
+rainy day, two dozen linen shirts, a small britchka of the type used
+by bachelors, and two serving-men named Selifan and Petrushka. Yes,
+and an impulse of kindness moved the tchinovniks of the Customs also
+to set aside for him a few cakes of the soap which he had found so
+excellent for the freshness of the cheeks. Thus once more our hero
+found himself stranded. And what an accumulation of misfortunes had
+descended upon his head!--though, true, he termed them "suffering in
+the Service in the cause of Truth." Certainly one would have thought
+that, after these buffetings and trials and changes of fortune--after
+this taste of the sorrows of life--he and his precious ten thousand
+roubles would have withdrawn to some peaceful corner in a provincial
+town, where, clad in a stuff dressing-gown, he could have sat and
+listened to the peasants quarrelling on festival days, or (for the
+sake of a breath of fresh air) have gone in person to the poulterer's
+to finger chickens for soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly
+useless, existence; but nothing of the kind took place, and therein we
+must do justice to the strength of his character. In other words,
+although he had undergone what, to the majority of men, would have
+meant ruin and discouragement and a shattering of ideals, he still
+preserved his energy. True, downcast and angry, and full of resentment
+against the world in general, he felt furious with the injustice of
+fate, and dissatisfied with the dealings of men; yet he could not
+forbear courting additional experiences. In short, the patience which
+he displayed was such as to make the wooden persistency of the
+German--a persistency merely due to the slow, lethargic circulation of
+the Teuton's blood--seem nothing at all, seeing that by nature
+Chichikov's blood flowed strongly, and that he had to employ much
+force of will to curb within himself those elements which longed to
+burst forth and revel in freedom. He thought things over, and, as he
+did so, a certain spice of reason appeared in his reflections.
+
+"How have I come to be what I am?" he said to himself. "Why has
+misfortune overtaken me in this way? Never have I wronged a poor
+person, or robbed a widow, or turned any one out of doors: I have
+always been careful only to take advantage of those who possess more
+than their share. Moreover, I have never gleaned anywhere but where
+every one else was gleaning; and, had I not done so, others would have
+gleaned in my place. Why, then, should those others be prospering, and
+I be sunk as low as a worm? What am I? What am I good for? How can I,
+in future, hope to look any honest father of a family in the face? How
+shall I escape being tortured with the thought that I am cumbering the
+ground? What, in the years to come, will my children say, save that
+'our father was a brute, for he left us nothing to live upon?'"
+
+Here I may remark that we have seen how much thought Chichikov devoted
+to his future descendants. Indeed, had not there been constantly
+recurring to his mind the insistent question, "What will my children
+say?" he might not have plunged into the affair so deeply.
+Nevertheless, like a wary cat which glances hither and thither to see
+whether its mistress be not coming before it can make off with
+whatsoever first falls to its paw (butter, fat, lard, a duck, or
+anything else), so our future founder of a family continued, though
+weeping and bewailing his lot, to let not a single detail escape his
+eye. That is to say, he retained his wits ever in a state of activity,
+and kept his brain constantly working. All that he required was a
+plan. Once more he pulled himself together, once more he embarked upon
+a life of toil, once more he stinted himself in everything, once more
+he left clean and decent surroundings for a dirty, mean existence. In
+other words, until something better should turn up, he embraced the
+calling of an ordinary attorney--a calling which, not then possessed
+of a civic status, was jostled on very side, enjoyed little respect
+at the hands of the minor legal fry (or, indeed, at its own), and
+perforce met with universal slights and rudeness. But sheer necessity
+compelled Chichikov to face these things. Among commissions entrusted
+to him was that of placing in the hands of the Public Trustee several
+hundred peasants who belonged to a ruined estate. The estate had
+reached its parlous condition through cattle disease, through rascally
+bailiffs, through failures of the harvest, through such epidemic
+diseases that had killed off the best workmen, and, last, but not
+least, through the senseless conduct of the owner himself, who had
+furnished a house in Moscow in the latest style, and then squandered
+his every kopeck, so that nothing was left for his further
+maintenance, and it became necessary to mortgage the
+remains--including the peasants--of the estate. In those days mortgage
+to the Treasury was an innovation looked upon with reserve, and, as
+attorney in the matter, Chichikov had first of all to "entertain"
+every official concerned (we know that, unless that be previously
+done, unless a whole bottle of madeira first be emptied down each
+clerical throat, not the smallest legal affair can be carried
+through), and to explain, for the barring of future attachments, that
+half of the peasants were dead.
+
+"And are they entered on the revision lists?" asked the secretary.
+"Yes," replied Chichikov. "Then what are you boggling at?" continued
+the Secretary. "Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time
+grow up to take the first one's place." Upon that there dawned on our
+hero one of the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human
+brain. "What a simpleton I am!" he thought to himself. "Here am I
+looking about for my mittens when all the time I have got them tucked
+into my belt. Why, were I myself to buy up a few souls which are
+dead--to buy them before a new revision list shall have been made, the
+Council of Public Trust might pay me two hundred roubles apiece for
+them, and I might find myself with, say, a capital of two hundred
+thousand roubles! The present moment is particularly propitious,
+since in various parts of the country there has been an epidemic, and,
+glory be to God, a large number of souls have died of it. Nowadays
+landowners have taken to card-playing and junketting and wasting their
+money, or to joining the Civil Service in St. Petersburg; consequently
+their estates are going to rack and ruin, and being managed in any
+sort of fashion, and succeeding in paying their dues with greater
+difficulty each year. That being so, not a man of the lot but would
+gladly surrender to me his dead souls rather than continue paying the
+poll-tax; and in this fashion I might make--well, not a few kopecks.
+Of course there are difficulties, and, to avoid creating a scandal, I
+should need to employ plenty of finesse; but man was given his brain
+to USE, not to neglect. One good point about the scheme is that it
+will seem so improbable that in case of an accident, no one in the
+world will believe in it. True, it is illegal to buy or mortgage
+peasants without land, but I can easily pretend to be buying them only
+for transferment elsewhere. Land is to be acquired in the provinces of
+Taurida and Kherson almost for nothing, provided that one undertakes
+subsequently to colonise it; so to Kherson I will 'transfer' them, and
+long may they live there! And the removal of my dead souls shall be
+carried out in the strictest legal form; and if the authorities should
+want confirmation by testimony, I shall produce a letter signed by my
+own superintendent of the Khersonian rural police--that is to say, by
+myself. Lastly, the supposed village in Kherson shall be called
+Chichikovoe--better still Pavlovskoe, according to my Christian name."
+
+In this fashion there germinated in our hero's brain that strange
+scheme for which the reader may or may not be grateful, but for which
+the author certainly is so, seeing that, had it never occurred to
+Chichikov, this story would never have seen the light.
+
+After crossing himself, according to the Russian custom, Chichikov set
+about carrying out his enterprise. On pretence of selecting a place
+wherein to settle, he started forth to inspect various corners of the
+Russian Empire, but more especially those which had suffered from such
+unfortunate accidents as failures of the harvest, a high rate of
+mortality, or whatsoever else might enable him to purchase souls at
+the lowest possible rate. But he did not tackle his landowners
+haphazard: he rather selected such of them as seemed more particularly
+suited to his taste, or with whom he might with the least possible
+trouble conclude identical agreements; though, in the first instance,
+he always tried, by getting on terms of acquaintanceship--better
+still, of friendship--with them, to acquire the souls for nothing, and
+so to avoid purchase at all. In passing, my readers must not blame me
+if the characters whom they have encountered in these pages have not
+been altogether to their liking. The fault is Chichikov's rather than
+mine, for he is the master, and where he leads we must follow. Also,
+should my readers gird at me for a certain dimness and want of clarity
+in my principal characters and actors, that will be tantamount to
+saying that never do the broad tendency and the general scope of a
+work become immediately apparent. Similarly does the entry to every
+town--the entry even to the Capital itself--convey to the traveller
+such an impression of vagueness that at first everything looks grey
+and monotonous, and the lines of smoky factories and workshops seem
+never to be coming to an end; but in time there will begin also to
+stand out the outlines of six-storied mansions, and of shops and
+balconies, and wide perspectives of streets, and a medley of steeples,
+columns, statues, and turrets--the whole framed in rattle and roar and
+the infinite wonders which the hand and the brain of men have
+conceived. Of the manner in which Chichikov's first purchases were
+made the reader is aware. Subsequently he will see also how the affair
+progressed, and with what success or failure our hero met, and how
+Chichikov was called upon to decide and to overcome even more
+difficult problems than the foregoing, and by what colossal forces the
+levers of his far-flung tale are moved, and how eventually the horizon
+will become extended until everything assumes a grandiose and a
+lyrical tendency. Yes, many a verst of road remains to be travelled by
+a party made up of an elderly gentleman, a britchka of the kind
+affected by bachelors, a valet named Petrushka, a coachman named
+Selifan, and three horses which, from the Assessor to the skewbald,
+are known to us individually by name. Again, although I have given a
+full description of our hero's exterior (such as it is), I may yet be
+asked for an inclusive definition also of his moral personality. That
+he is no hero compounded of virtues and perfections must be already
+clear. Then WHAT is he? A villain? Why should we call him a villain?
+Why should we be so hard upon a fellow man? In these days our villains
+have ceased to exist. Rather it would be fairer to call him an
+ACQUIRER. The love of acquisition, the love of gain, is a fault
+common to many, and gives rise to many and many a transaction of the
+kind generally known as "not strictly honourable." True, such a
+character contains an element of ugliness, and the same reader who, on
+his journey through life, would sit at the board of a character of
+this kind, and spend a most agreeable time with him, would be the
+first to look at him askance if he should appear in the guise of the
+hero of a novel or a play. But wise is the reader who, on meeting such
+a character, scans him carefully, and, instead of shrinking from him
+with distaste, probes him to the springs of his being. The human
+personality contains nothing which may not, in the twinkling of an
+eye, become altogether changed--nothing in which, before you can look
+round, there may not spring to birth some cankerous worm which is
+destined to suck thence the essential juice. Yes, it is a common thing
+to see not only an overmastering passion, but also a passion of the
+most petty order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and
+lead him both to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and
+to see only in the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy. For human
+passions are as numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on
+to become his most insistent of masters. Happy, therefore, the man who
+may choose from among the gamut of human passions one which is noble!
+Hour by hour will that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless
+beneficence; hour by hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the
+infinite paradise of his soul. But there are passions of which a man
+cannot rid himself, seeing that they are born with him at his birth,
+and he has no power to abjure them. Higher powers govern those
+passions, and in them is something which will call to him, and refuse
+to be silenced, to the end of his life. Yes, whether in a guise of
+darkness, or whether in a guise which will become converted into a
+light to lighten the world, they will and must attain their
+consummation on life's field: and in either case they have been evoked
+for man's good. In the same way may the passion which drew our
+Chichikov onwards have been one that was independent of himself; in
+the same way may there have lurked even in his cold essence something
+which will one day cause men to humble themselves in the dust before
+the infinite wisdom of God.
+
+Yet that folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing.
+What matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their
+approval could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to
+say, had not the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov's soul, nor
+stirred up in its depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light,
+nor disclosed those of his hero's thoughts which that hero would have
+not have disclosed even to his most intimate friend; had the author,
+indeed, exhibited Chichikov just as he exhibited himself to the
+townsmen of N. and Manilov and the rest; well, then we may rest
+assured that every reader would have been delighted with him, and have
+voted him a most interesting person. For it is not nearly so necessary
+that Chichikov should figure before the reader as though his form and
+person were actually present to the eye as that, on concluding a
+perusal of this work, the reader should be able to return, unharrowed
+in soul, to that cult of the card-table which is the solace and
+delight of all good Russians. Yes, readers of this book, none of you
+really care to see humanity revealed in its nakedness. "Why should we
+do so?" you say. "What would be the use of it? Do we not know for
+ourselves that human life contains much that is gross and
+contemptible? Do we not with our own eyes have to look upon much that
+is anything but comforting? Far better would it be if you would put
+before us what is comely and attractive, so that we might forget
+ourselves a little." In the same fashion does a landowner say to his
+bailiff: "Why do you come and tell me that the affairs of my estate
+are in a bad way? I know that without YOUR help. Have you nothing
+else to tell me? Kindly allow me to forget the fact, or else to remain
+in ignorance of it, and I shall be much obliged to you." Whereafter
+the said landowner probably proceeds to spend on his diversion the
+money which ought to have gone towards the rehabilitation of his affairs.
+
+Possibly the author may also incur censure at the hands of those
+so-called "patriots" who sit quietly in corners, and become
+capitalists through making fortunes at the expense of others. Yes, let
+but something which they conceive to be derogatory to their country
+occur--for instance, let there be published some book which voices the
+bitter truth--and out they will come from their hiding-places like a
+spider which perceives a fly to be caught in its web. "Is it well to
+proclaim this to the world, and to set folk talking about it?" they
+will cry. "What you have described touches US, is OUR affair. Is
+conduct of that kind right? What will foreigners say? Does any one
+care calmly to sit by and hear himself traduced? Why should you lead
+foreigners to suppose that all is not well with us, and that we are
+not patriotic?" Well, to these sage remarks no answer can really be
+returned, especially to such of the above as refer to foreign opinion.
+But see here. There once lived in a remote corner of Russia two
+natives of the region indicated. One of those natives was a good man
+named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly disposition; a man who went
+through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no heed to his household,
+for the reason that his whole being was centred upon the province of
+speculation, and that, in particular, he was preoccupied with a
+philosophical problem usually stated by him thus: "A beast," he would
+say, "is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why should not a beast
+be born as a bird is born--that is to say, through the process of
+being hatched from an egg? Nature is beyond the understanding, however
+much one may probe her." This was the substance of Kifa Mokievitch's
+reflections. But herein is not the chief point. The other of the pair
+was a fellow named Mofi Kifovitch, and son to the first named. He was
+what we Russians call a "hero," and while his father was pondering the
+parturition of beasts, his, the son's, lusty, twenty-year-old
+temperament was violently struggling for development. Yet that son
+could tackle nothing without some accident occurring. At one moment
+would he crack some one's fingers in half, and at another would he
+raise a bump on somebody's nose; so that both at home and abroad every
+one and everything--from the serving-maid to the yard-dog--fled on his
+approach, and even the bed in his bedroom became shattered to
+splinters. Such was Mofi Kifovitch; and with it all he had a kindly
+soul. But herein is not the chief point. "Good sir, good Kifa
+Mokievitch," servants and neighbours would come and say to the father,
+"what are you going to do about your Moki Kifovitch? We get no rest
+from him, he is so above himself." "That is only his play, that is
+only his play," the father would reply. "What else can you expect? It
+is too late now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one
+would accuse me of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but,
+were I to reprove him in public, the whole thing would become common
+talk, and folk would begin giving him a dog's name. And if they did
+that, would not their opinion touch me also, seeing that I am his
+father? Also, I am busy with philosophy, and have no time for such
+things. Lastly, Moki Kifovitch is my son, and very dear to my heart."
+And, beating his breast, Kifa Mokievitch again asserted that, even
+though his son should elect to continue his pranks, it would not be
+for HIM, for the father, to proclaim the fact, or to fall out with
+his offspring. And, this expression of paternal feeling uttered, Kifa
+Mokievitch left Moki Kifovitch to his heroic exploits, and himself
+returned to his beloved subject of speculation, which now included
+also the problem, "Suppose elephants were to take to being hatched
+from eggs, would not the shell of such eggs be of a thickness proof
+against cannonballs, and necessitate the invention of some new type of
+firearm?" Thus at the end of this little story we have these two
+denizens of a peaceful corner of Russia looking thence, as from a
+window, in less terror of doing what was scandalous than of having it
+SAID of them that they were acting scandalously. Yes, the feeling
+animating our so-called "patriots" is not true patriotism at all.
+Something else lies beneath it. Who, if not an author, is to speak
+aloud the truth? Men like you, my pseudo-patriots, stand in dread of
+the eye which is able to discern, yet shrink from using your own, and
+prefer, rather, to glance at everything unheedingly. Yes, after
+laughing heartily over Chichikov's misadventures, and perhaps even
+commending the author for his dexterity of observation and pretty turn
+of wit, you will look at yourselves with redoubled pride and a
+self-satisfied smile, and add: "Well, we agree that in certain parts
+of the provinces there exists strange and ridiculous individuals, as
+well as unconscionable rascals."
+
+Yet which of you, when quiet, and alone, and engaged in solitary
+self-communion, would not do well to probe YOUR OWN souls, and to
+put to YOURSELVES the solemn question, "Is there not in ME an
+element of Chichikov?" For how should there not be? Which of you is
+not liable at any moment to be passed in the street by an acquaintance
+who, nudging his neighbour, may say of you, with a barely suppressed
+sneer: "Look! there goes Chichikov! That is Chichikov who has just
+gone by!"
+
+But here are we talking at the top of our voices whilst all the time
+our hero lies slumbering in his britchka! Indeed, his name has been
+repeated so often during the recital of his life's history that he
+must almost have heard us! And at any time he is an irritable,
+irascible fellow when spoken of with disrespect. True, to the reader
+Chichikov's displeasure cannot matter a jot; but for the author it
+would mean ruin to quarrel with his hero, seeing that, arm in arm,
+Chichikov and he have yet far to go.
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!" came in a shout from Chichikov. "Hi, Selifan!"
+
+"What is it?" came the reply, uttered with a drawl.
+
+"What is it? Why, how dare you drive like that? Come! Bestir yourself
+a little!"
+
+And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and
+hands which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save
+an occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst
+Petrushka had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head
+had come to rest against Chichikov's knees--a position which
+necessitated his being awakened with a cuff. Selifan also roused
+himself, and apportioned to the skewbald a few cuts across the back of
+a kind which at least had the effect of inciting that animal to trot;
+and when, presently, the other two horses followed their companion's
+example, the light britchka moved forwards like a piece of
+thistledown. Selifan flourished his whip and shouted, "Hi, hi!" as the
+inequalities of the road jerked him vertically on his seat; and
+meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions of the vehicle's
+interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the sensation of
+driving fast. For what Russian does not love to drive fast? Which of
+us does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and to let
+them go, and to cry, "To the devil with the world!"? At such moments a
+great force seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies, and
+everything else flies, but contrariwise--both the verst stones, and
+traders riding on the shafts of their waggons, and the forest with
+dark lines of spruce and fir amid which may be heard the axe of the
+woodcutter and the croaking of the raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote
+distance the road comes towards one, and while nothing save the sky
+and the light clouds through which the moon is cleaving her way seem
+halted, the brief glimpses wherein one can discern nothing clearly
+have in them a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika, troika, swift
+as a bird, who was it first invented you? Only among a hardy race of
+folk can you have come to birth--only in a land which, though poor and
+rough, lies spread over half the world, and spans versts the counting
+whereof would leave one with aching eyes. Nor are you a
+modishly-fashioned vehicle of the road--a thing of clamps and iron.
+Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen and fitted with the axe or chisel
+of some handy peasant of Yaroslav. Nor are you driven by a coachman
+clothed in German livery, but by a man bearded and mittened. See him
+as he mounts, and flourishes his whip, and breaks into a long-drawn
+song! Away like the wind go the horses, and the wheels, with their
+spokes, become transparent circles, and the road seems to quiver
+beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of astonishment, halts to
+watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on its way until it
+becomes lost on the ultimate horizon--a speck amid a cloud of dust!
+
+And you, Russia of mine--are not you also speeding like a troika which
+nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and
+the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in
+the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to
+wonder whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What
+does that awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the
+unknown force which lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the
+winds themselves must abide in their manes, and every vein in their
+bodies be an ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids
+them, with iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the
+earth as they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? Whither, then,
+are you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer
+comes--only the weird sound of your collar-bells. Rent into a thousand
+shreds, the air roars past you, for you are overtaking the whole
+world, and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand
+aside, to give you way!
+
+                                                                 1841.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Why do I so persistently paint the poverty, the imperfections of
+Russian life, and delve into the remotest depths, the most retired
+holes and corners, of our Empire for my subjects? The answer is that
+there is nothing else to be done when an author's idiosyncrasy happens
+to incline him that way. So again we find ourselves in a retired spot.
+But what a spot!
+
+Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with
+embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards
+the heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse
+of plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone
+cliffs. Here and there those cliffs are seamed with water-courses and
+gullies, while at other points they are rounded off into spurs of
+green--spurs now coated with fleece-like tufts of young undergrowth,
+now studded with the stumps of felled trees, now covered with timber
+which has, by some miracle, escaped the woodman's axe. Also, a river
+winds awhile between its banks, then leaves the meadow land, divides
+into runlets (all flashing in the sun like fire), plunges, re-united,
+into the midst of a thicket of elder, birth, and pine, and, lastly,
+speeds triumphantly past bridges and mills and weirs which seem to be
+lying in wait for it at every turn.
+
+At one particular spot the steep flank of the mountain range is
+covered with billowy verdure of denser growth than the rest; and here
+the aid of skilful planting, added to the shelter afforded by a rugged
+ravine, has enabled the flora of north and south so to be brought
+together that, twined about with sinuous hop-tendrils, the oak, the
+spruce fir, the wild pear, the maple, the cherry, the thorn, and the
+mountain ash either assist or check one another's growth, and
+everywhere cover the declivity with their straggling profusion. Also,
+at the edge of the summit there can be seen mingling with the green of
+the trees the red roofs of a manorial homestead, while behind the
+upper stories of the mansion proper and its carved balcony and a great
+semi-circular window there gleam the tiles and gables of some
+peasants' huts. Lastly, over this combination of trees and roofs there
+rises--overtopping everything with its gilded, sparkling steeple--an
+old village church. On each of its pinnacles a cross of carved gilt is
+stayed with supports of similar gilding and design; with the result
+that from a distance the gilded portions have the effect of hanging
+without visible agency in the air. And the whole--the three successive
+tiers of woodland, roofs, and crosses whole--lies exquisitely mirrored
+in the river below, where hollow willows, grotesquely shaped (some of
+them rooted on the river's banks, and some in the water itself, and
+all drooping their branches until their leaves have formed a tangle
+with the water lilies which float on the surface), seem to be gazing
+at the marvellous reflection at their feet.
+
+Thus the view from below is beautiful indeed. But the view from above
+is even better. No guest, no visitor, could stand on the balcony of
+the mansion and remain indifferent. So boundless is the panorama
+revealed that surprise would cause him to catch at his breath, and
+exclaim: "Lord of Heaven, but what a prospect!" Beyond meadows studded
+with spinneys and water-mills lie forests belted with green; while
+beyond, again, there can be seen showing through the slightly misty
+air strips of yellow heath, and, again, wide-rolling forests (as blue
+as the sea or a cloud), and more heath, paler than the first, but
+still yellow. Finally, on the far horizon a range of chalk-topped
+hills gleams white, even in dull weather, as though it were lightened
+with perpetual sunshine; and here and there on the dazzling whiteness
+of its lower slopes some plaster-like, nebulous patches represent
+far-off villages which lie too remote for the eye to discern their
+details. Indeed, only when the sunlight touches a steeple to gold does
+one realise that each such patch is a human settlement. Finally, all
+is wrapped in an immensity of silence which even the far, faint echoes
+of persons singing in the void of the plain cannot shatter.
+
+Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the
+visitor would still find nothing to say, save: "Lord of Heaven, but
+what a prospect!" Then who is the dweller in, the proprietor of, this
+manor--a manor to which, as to an impregnable fortress, entrance
+cannot be gained from the side where we have been standing, but only
+from the other approach, where a few scattered oaks offer hospitable
+welcome to the visitor, and then, spreading above him their spacious
+branches (as in friendly embrace), accompany him to the facade of the
+mansion whose top we have been regarding from the reverse aspect, but
+which now stands frontwise on to us, and has, on one side of it, a row
+of peasants' huts with red tiles and carved gables, and, on the other,
+the village church, with those glittering golden crosses and gilded
+open-work charms which seem to hang suspended in the air? Yes,
+indeed!--to what fortunate individual does this corner of the world
+belong? It belongs to Andrei Ivanovitch Tientietnikov, landowner of
+the canton of Tremalakhan, and, withal, a bachelor of about thirty.
+
+Should my lady readers ask of me what manner of man is Tientietnikov,
+and what are his attributes and peculiarities, I should refer them to
+his neighbours. Of these, a member of the almost extinct tribe of
+intelligent staff officers on the retired list once summed up
+Tientietnikov in the phrase, "He is an absolute blockhead;" while a
+General who resided ten versts away was heard to remark that "he is a
+young man who, though not exactly a fool, has at least too much
+crowded into his head. I myself might have been of use to him, for not
+only do I maintain certain connections with St. Petersburg, but
+also--" And the General left his sentence unfinished. Thirdly, a
+captain-superintendent of rural police happened to remark in the
+course of conversation: "To-morrow I must go and see Tientietnikov
+about his arrears." Lastly, a peasant of Tientietnikov's own village,
+when asked what his barin was like, returned no answer at all. All of
+which would appear to show that Tientietnikov was not exactly looked
+upon with favour.
+
+To speak dispassionately, however, he was not a bad sort of
+fellow--merely a star-gazer; and since the world contains many
+watchers of the skies, why should Tientietnikov not have been one of
+them? However, let me describe in detail a specimen day of his
+existence--one that will closely resemble the rest, and then the
+reader will be enabled to judge of Tientietnikov's character, and how
+far his life corresponded to the beauties of nature with which he
+lived surrounded.
+
+On the morning of the specimen day in question he awoke very late,
+and, raising himself to a sitting posture, rubbed his eyes. And since
+those eyes were small, the process of rubbing them occupied a very
+long time, and throughout its continuance there stood waiting by the
+door his valet, Mikhailo, armed with a towel and basin. For one hour,
+for two hours, did poor Mikhailo stand there: then he departed to the
+kitchen, and returned to find his master still rubbing his eyes as he
+sat on the bed. At length, however, Tientietnikov rose, washed
+himself, donned a dressing-gown, and moved into the drawing-room for
+morning tea, coffee, cocoa, and warm milk; of all of which he partook
+but sparingly, while munching a piece of bread, and scattering tobacco
+ash with complete insouciance. Two hours did he sit over this meal,
+then poured himself out another cup of the rapidly cooling tea, and
+walked to the window. This faced the courtyard, and outside it, as
+usual, there took place the following daily altercation between a serf
+named Grigory (who purported to act as butler) and the housekeeper,
+Perfilievna.
+
+Grigory. Ah, you nuisance, you good-for-nothing, you had better hold
+your stupid tongue.
+
+Perfilievna. Yes; and don't you wish that I would?
+
+Grigory. What? You so thick with that bailiff of yours, you
+housekeeping jade!
+
+Perfilievna. Nay, he is as big a thief as you are. Do you think the
+barin doesn't know you? And there he is! He must have heard
+everything!
+
+Grigory. Where?
+
+Perfilievna. There--sitting by the window, and looking at us!
+
+Next, to complete the hubbub, a serf child which had been clouted by
+its mother broke out into a bawl, while a borzoi puppy which had
+happened to get splashed with boiling water by the cook fell to
+yelping vociferously. In short, the place soon became a babel of
+shouts and squeals, and, after watching and listening for a time, the
+barin found it so impossible to concentrate his mind upon anything
+that he sent out word that the noise would have to be abated.
+
+The next item was that, a couple of hours before luncheon time, he
+withdrew to his study, to set about employing himself upon a weighty
+work which was to consider Russia from every point of view: from the
+political, from the philosophical, and from the religious, as well as
+to resolve various problems which had arisen to confront the Empire,
+and to define clearly the great future to which the country stood
+ordained. In short, it was to be the species of compilation in which
+the man of the day so much delights. Yet the colossal undertaking had
+progressed but little beyond the sphere of projection, since, after a
+pen had been gnawed awhile, and a few strokes had been committed to
+paper, the whole would be laid aside in favour of the reading of some
+book; and that reading would continue also during luncheon and be
+followed by the lighting of a pipe, the playing of a solitary game of
+chess, and the doing of more or less nothing for the rest of the day.
+
+The foregoing will give the reader a pretty clear idea of the manner
+in which it was possible for this man of thirty-three to waste his
+time. Clad constantly in slippers and a dressing-gown, Tientietnikov
+never went out, never indulged in any form of dissipation, and never
+walked upstairs. Nothing did he care for fresh air, and would bestow
+not a passing glance upon all those beauties of the countryside which
+moved visitors to such ecstatic admiration. From this the reader will
+see that Andrei Ivanovitch Tientietnikov belonged to that band of
+sluggards whom we always have with us, and who, whatever be their
+present appellation, used to be known by the nicknames of "lollopers,"
+"bed pressers," and "marmots." Whether the type is a type originating
+at birth, or a type resulting from untoward circumstances in later
+life, it is impossible to say. A better course than to attempt to
+answer that question would be to recount the story of Tientietnikov's
+boyhood and upbringing.
+
+Everything connected with the latter seemed to promise success, for at
+twelve years of age the boy--keen-witted, but dreamy of temperament,
+and inclined to delicacy--was sent to an educational establishment
+presided over by an exceptional type of master. The idol of his
+pupils, and the admiration of his assistants, Alexander Petrovitch
+was gifted with an extraordinary measure of good sense. How thoroughly
+he knew the peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he
+understood boys! How capable he was of drawing them out! Not a
+practical joker in the school but, after perpetrating a prank, would
+voluntarily approach his preceptor and make to him free confession.
+True, the preceptor would put a stern face upon the matter, yet the
+culprit would depart with head held higher, not lower, than before,
+since in Alexander Petrovitch there was something which
+heartened--something which seemed to say to a delinquent: "Forward
+you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have fallen!" Not
+lectures on good behaviour was it, therefore, that fell from his lips,
+but rather the injunction, "I want to see intelligence, and nothing
+else. The boy who devotes his attention to becoming clever will never
+play the fool, for under such circumstances, folly disappears of
+itself." And so folly did, for the boy who failed to strive in the
+desired direction incurred the contempt of all his comrades, and even
+dunces and fools of senior standing did not dare to raise a finger
+when saluted by their juniors with opprobrious epithets. Yet "This is
+too much," certain folk would say to Alexander. "The result will be
+that your students will turn out prigs." "But no," he would reply.
+"Not at all. You see, I make it my principle to keep the incapables
+for a single term only, since that is enough for them; but to the
+clever ones I allot a double course of instruction." And, true enough,
+any lad of brains was retained for this finishing course. Yet he did
+not repress all boyish playfulness, since he declared it to be as
+necessary as a rash to a doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to
+diagnose what lay hidden within.
+
+Consequently, how the boys loved him! Never was there such an
+attachment between master and pupils. And even later, during the
+foolish years, when foolish things attract, the measure of affection
+which Alexander Petrovitch retained was extraordinary. In fact, to the
+day of his death, every former pupil would celebrate the birthday of
+his late master by raising his glass in gratitude to the mentor dead
+and buried--then close his eyelids upon the tears which would come
+trickling through them. Even the slightest word of encouragement from
+Alexander Petrovitch could throw a lad into a transport of tremulous
+joy, and arouse in him an honourable emulation of his fellows. Boys of
+small capacity he did not long retain in his establishment; whereas
+those who possessed exceptional talent he put through an extra course
+of schooling. This senior class--a class composed of
+specially-selected pupils--was a very different affair from what
+usually obtains in other colleges. Only when a boy had attained its
+ranks did Alexander demand of him what other masters indiscreetly
+require of mere infants--namely the superior frame of mind which,
+while never indulging in mockery, can itself bear ridicule, and
+disregard the fool, and keep its temper, and repress itself, and
+eschew revenge, and calmly, proudly retain its tranquillity of soul.
+In short, whatever avails to form a boy into a man of assured
+character, that did Alexander Petrovitch employ during the pupil's
+youth, as well as constantly put him to the test. How well he
+understood the art of life!
+
+Of assistant tutors he kept but few, since most of the necessary
+instruction he imparted in person, and, without pedantic terminology
+and inflated diction and views, could so transmit to his listeners the
+inmost spirit of a lesson that even the youngest present absorbed its
+essential elements. Also, of studies he selected none but those which
+may help a boy to become a good citizen; and therefore most of the
+lectures which he delivered consisted of discourses on what may be
+awaiting a youth, as well as of such demarcations of life's field that
+the pupil, though seated, as yet, only at the desk, could beforehand
+bear his part in that field both in thought and spirit. Nor did the
+master CONCEAL anything. That is to say, without mincing words, he
+invariably set before his hearers the sorrows and the difficulties
+which may confront a man, the trials and the temptations which may
+beset him. And this he did in terms as though, in every possible
+calling and capacity, he himself had experienced the same.
+Consequently, either the vigorous development of self-respect or the
+constant stimulus of the master's eye (which seemed to say to the
+pupil, "Forward!"--that word which has become so familiar to the
+contemporary Russian, that word which has worked such wonders upon his
+sensitive temperament); one or the other, I repeat, would from the
+first cause the pupil to tackle difficulties, and only difficulties,
+and to hunger for prowess only where the path was arduous, and
+obstacles were many, and it was necessary to display the utmost
+strength of mind. Indeed, few completed the course of which I have
+spoken without issuing therefrom reliable, seasoned fighters who could
+keep their heads in the most embarrassing of official positions, and
+at times when older and wiser men, distracted with the annoyances of
+life, had either abandoned everything or, grown slack and indifferent,
+had surrendered to the bribe-takers and the rascals. In short, no
+ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered from the right road,
+but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the weapons of
+prudence, exerted a powerful influence upon wrongdoers.
+
+For a long time past the ardent young Tientietnikov's excitable heart
+had also beat at the thought that one day he might attain the senior
+class described. And, indeed, what better teacher could he have had
+befall him than its preceptor? Yet just at the moment when he had been
+transferred thereto, just at the moment when he had reached the
+coveted position, did his instructor come suddenly by his death! This
+was indeed a blow for the boy--indeed a terrible initial loss! In his
+eyes everything connected with the school seemed to undergo a
+change--the chief reason being the fact that to the place of the
+deceased headmaster there succeeded a certain Thedor Ivanovitch, who
+at once began to insist upon certain external rules, and to demand of
+the boys what ought rightly to have been demanded only of adults. That
+is to say, since the lads' frank and open demeanour savoured to him
+only of lack of discipline, he announced (as though in deliberate
+spite of his predecessor) that he cared nothing for progress and
+intellect, but that heed was to be paid only to good behaviour. Yet,
+curiously enough, good behaviour was just what he never obtained, for
+every kind of secret prank became the rule; and while, by day, there
+reigned restraint and conspiracy, by night there began to take place
+chambering and wantonness.
+
+Also, certain changes in the curriculum of studies came about, for
+there were engaged new teachers who held new views and opinions, and
+confused their hearers with a multitude of new terms and phrases, and
+displayed in their exposition of things both logical sequence and a
+zest for modern discovery and much warmth of individual bias. Yet
+their instruction, alas! contained no LIFE--in the mouths of those
+teachers a dead language savoured merely of carrion. Thus everything
+connected with the school underwent a radical alteration, and respect
+for authority and the authorities waned, and tutors and ushers came to
+be dubbed "Old Thedor," "Crusty," and the like. And sundry other
+things began to take place--things which necessitated many a penalty
+and expulsion; until, within a couple of years, no one who had known
+the school in former days would now have recognised it.
+
+Nevertheless Tientietnikov, a youth of retiring disposition,
+experienced no leanings towards the nocturnal orgies of his
+companions, orgies during which the latter used to flirt with damsels
+before the very windows of the headmaster's rooms, nor yet towards
+their mockery of all that was sacred, simply because fate had cast in
+their way an injudicious priest. No, despite its dreaminess, his soul
+ever remembered its celestial origin, and could not be diverted from
+the path of virtue. Yet still he hung his head, for, while his
+ambition had come to life, it could find no sort of outlet. Truly
+'twere well if it had NOT come to life, for throughout the time that
+he was listening to professors who gesticulated on their chairs he
+could not help remembering the old preceptor who, invariably cool and
+calm, had yet known how to make himself understood. To what subjects,
+to what lectures, did the boy not have to listen!--to lectures on
+medicine, and on philosophy, and on law, and on a version of general
+history so enlarged that even three years failed to enable the
+professor to do more than finish the introduction thereto, and also
+the account of the development of some self-governing towns in
+Germany. None of the stuff remained fixed in Tientietnikov's brain
+save as shapeless clots; for though his native intellect could not
+tell him how instruction ought to be imparted, it at least told him
+that THIS was not the way. And frequently, at such moments he would
+recall Alexander Petrovitch, and give way to such grief that scarcely
+did he know what he was doing.
+
+But youth is fortunate in the fact that always before it there lies a
+future; and in proportion as the time for his leaving school drew
+nigh, Tientietnikov's heart began to beat higher and higher, and he
+said to himself: "This is not life, but only a preparation for life.
+True life is to be found in the Public Service. There at least will
+there be scope for activity." So, bestowing not a glance upon that
+beautiful corner of the world which never failed to strike the guest
+or chance visitor with amazement, and reverencing not a whit the dust
+of his ancestors, he followed the example of most ambitious men of his
+class by repairing to St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more
+spirited youth of Russia from every quarter gravitates--there to enter
+the Public Service, to shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to
+scale the topmost peaks of that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which
+is known as society). But the real starting-point of Tientietnikov's
+ambition was the moment when his uncle (one State Councillor Onifri
+Ivanovitch) instilled into him the maxim that the only means to
+success in the Service lay in good handwriting, and that, without that
+accomplishment, no one could ever hope to become a Minister or
+Statesman. Thus, with great difficulty, and also with the help of his
+uncle's influence, young Tientietnikov at length succeeded in being
+posted to a Department. On the day that he was conducted into a
+splendid, shining hall--a hall fitted with inlaid floors and lacquered
+desks as fine as though this were actually the place where the great
+ones of the Empire met for discussion of the fortunes of the State; on
+the day that he saw legions of handsome gentlemen of the quill-driving
+profession making loud scratchings with pens, and cocking their heads
+to one side; lastly on the day that he saw himself also allotted a
+desk, and requested to copy a document which appeared purposely to be
+one of the pettiest possible order (as a matter of fact it related to
+a sum of three roubles, and had taken half a year to produce)--well,
+at that moment a curious, an unwonted sensation seized upon the
+inexperienced youth, for the gentlemen around him appeared so exactly
+like a lot of college students. And, the further to complete the
+resemblance, some of them were engaged in reading trashy translated
+novels, which they kept hurriedly thrusting between the sheets of
+their apportioned work whenever the Director appeared, as though to
+convey the impression that it was to that work alone that they were
+applying themselves. In short, the scene seemed to Tientietnikov
+strange, and his former pursuits more important than his present, and
+his preparation for the Service preferable to the Service itself. Yes,
+suddenly he felt a longing for his old school; and as suddenly, and
+with all the vividness of life, there appeared before his vision the
+figure of Alexander Petrovitch. He almost burst into tears as he
+beheld his old master, and the room seemed to swim before his eyes,
+and the tchinovniks and the desks to become a blur, and his sight to
+grow dim. Then he thought to himself with an effort: "No, no! I WILL
+apply myself to my work, however petty it be at first." And hardening
+his heart and recovering his spirit, he determined then and there to
+perform his duties in such a manner as should be an example to the rest.
+
+But where are compensations to be found? Even in St. Petersburg,
+despite its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though
+thirty degrees of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and
+the family of the North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch
+have heaped high the pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and
+powdering beards and fur collars and the shaggy manes of horses--even
+THEN there will be shining hospitably through the swirling
+snowflakes a fourth-floor window where, in a cosy room, and by the
+light of modest candles, and to the hiss of the samovar, there will be
+in progress a discussion which warms the heart and soul, or else a
+reading aloud of a brilliant page of one of those inspired Russian
+poets with whom God has dowered us, while the breast of each member of
+the company is heaving with a rapture unknown under a noontide sky.
+
+Gradually, therefore, Tientietnikov grew more at home in the Service.
+Yet never did it become, for him, the main pursuit, the main object in
+life, which he had expected. No, it remained but one of a secondary
+kind. That is to say, it served merely to divide up his time, and
+enable him the more to value his hours of leisure. Nevertheless, just
+when his uncle was beginning to flatter himself that his nephew was
+destined to succeed in the profession, the said nephew elected to ruin
+his every hope. Thus it befell. Tientietnikov's friends (he had many)
+included among their number a couple of fellows of the species known
+as "embittered." That is to say, though good-natured souls of that
+curiously restless type which cannot endure injustice, nor anything
+which it conceives to be such, they were thoroughly unbalanced of
+conduct themselves, and, while demanding general agreement with their
+views, treated those of others with the scantiest of ceremony.
+Nevertheless these two associates exercised upon Tientietnikov--both
+by the fire of their eloquence and by the form of their noble
+dissatisfaction with society--a very strong influence; with the result
+that, through arousing in him an innate tendency to nervous
+resentment, they led him also to notice trifles which before had
+escaped his attention. An instance of this is seen in the fact that he
+conceived against Thedor Thedorovitch Lienitsin, Director of one of
+the Departments which was quartered in the splendid range of offices
+before mentioned, a dislike which proved the cause of his discerning n
+the man a host of hitherto unmarked imperfections. Above all things
+did Tientietnikov take it into his head that, when conversing with his
+superiors, Lienitsin became, of the moment, a stick of luscious
+sweetmeat, but that, when conversing with his inferiors, he
+approximated more to a vinegar cruet. Certain it is that, like all
+petty-minded individuals, Lienitsin made a note of any one who failed
+to offer him a greeting on festival days, and that he revenged himself
+upon any one whose visiting-card had not been handed to his butler.
+Eventually the youth's aversion almost attained the point of hysteria;
+until he felt that, come what might, he MUST insult the fellow in
+some fashion. To that task he applied himself con amore; and so
+thoroughly that he met with complete success. That is to say, he
+seized on an occasion to address Lienitsin in such fashion that the
+delinquent received notice either to apologies or to leave the
+Service; and when of these alternatives he chose the latter his uncle
+came to him, and made a terrified appeal. "For God's sake remember
+what you are doing!" he cried. "To think that, after beginning your
+career so well, you should abandon it merely for the reason that you
+have not fallen in with the sort of Director whom you prefer! What do
+you mean by it, what do you mean by it? Were others to regard things
+in the same way, the Service would find itself without a single
+individual. Reconsider your conduct--forego your pride and conceit,
+and make Lienitsin amends."
+
+"But, dear Uncle," the nephew replied, "that is not the point. The
+point is, not that I should find an apology difficult to offer, seeing
+that, since Lienitsin is my superior, and I ought not to have
+addressed him as I did, I am clearly in the wrong. Rather, the point
+is the following. To my charge there has been committed the
+performance of another kind of service. That is to say, I am the owner
+of three hundred peasant souls, a badly administered estate, and a
+fool of a bailiff. That being so, whereas the State will lose little
+by having to fill my stool with another copyist, it will lose very
+much by causing three hundred peasant souls to fail in the payment of
+their taxes. As I say (how am I to put it?), I am a landowner who has
+preferred to enter the Public Service. Now, should I employ myself
+henceforth in conserving, restoring, and improving the fortunes of the
+souls whom God has entrusted to my care, and thereby provide the State
+with three hundred law-abiding, sober, hard-working taxpayers, how
+will that service of mine rank as inferior to the service of a
+department-directing fool like Lienitsin?"
+
+On hearing this speech, the State Councillor could only gape, for he
+had not expected Tientietnikov's torrent of words. He reflected a few
+moments, and then murmured:
+
+"Yes, but, but--but how can a man like you retire to rustication in
+the country? What society will you get there? Here one meets at least
+a general or a prince sometimes; indeed, no matter whom you pass in
+the street, that person represents gas lamps and European
+civilisation; but in the country, no matter what part of it you are
+in, not a soul is to be encountered save muzhiks and their women. Why
+should you go and condemn yourself to a state of vegetation like
+that?"
+
+Nevertheless the uncle's expostulations fell upon deaf ears, for
+already the nephew was beginning to think of his estate as a retreat
+of a type more likely to nourish the intellectual faculties and afford
+the only profitable field of activity. After unearthing one or two
+modern works on agriculture, therefore, he, two weeks later, found
+himself in the neighbourhood of the home where his boyhood had been
+spent, and approaching the spot which never failed to enthral the
+visitor or guest. And in the young man's breast there was beginning to
+palpitate a new feeling--in the young man's soul there were
+reawakening old, long-concealed impressions; with the result that many
+a spot which had long been faded from his memory now filled him with
+interest, and the beautiful views on the estate found him gazing at
+them like a newcomer, and with a beating heart. Yes, as the road wound
+through a narrow ravine, and became engulfed in a forest where, both
+above and below, he saw three-centuries-old oaks which three men could
+not have spanned, and where Siberian firs and elms overtopped even the
+poplars, and as he asked the peasants to tell him to whom the forest
+belonged, and they replied, "To Tientietnikov," and he issued from the
+forest, and proceeded on his way through meadows, and past spinneys of
+elder, and of old and young willows, and arrived in sight of the
+distant range of hills, and, crossing by two different bridges the
+winding river (which he left successively to right and to left of him
+as he did so), he again questioned some peasants concerning the
+ownership of the meadows and the flooded lands, and was again informed
+that they all belonged to Tientietnikov, and then, ascending a rise,
+reached a tableland where, on one side, lay ungarnered fields of wheat
+and rye and barley, and, on the other, the country already traversed
+(but which now showed in shortened perspective), and then plunged
+into the shade of some forked, umbrageous trees which stood scattered
+over turf and extended to the manor-house itself, and caught glimpses
+of the carved huts of the peasants, and of the red roofs of the stone
+manorial outbuildings, and of the glittering pinnacles of the church,
+and felt his heart beating, and knew, without being told by any one,
+whither he had at length arrived--well, then the feeling which had
+been growing within his soul burst forth, and he cried in ecstasy:
+
+"Why have I been a fool so long? Why, seeing that fate has appointed
+me to be ruler of an earthly paradise, did I prefer to bind myself in
+servitude as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I
+had been nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge
+necessary for the diffusion of good among those under me, and for the
+improvement of my domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold
+duties of a landowner who is at once judge, administrator, and
+constable of his people, I should have entrusted my estate to an
+ignorant bailiff, and sought to maintain an absentee guardianship over
+the affairs of serfs whom I have never met, and of whose capabilities
+and characters I am yet ignorant! To think that I should have deemed
+true estate-management inferior to a documentary, fantastical
+management of provinces which lie a thousand versts away, and which my
+foot has never trod, and where I could never have effected aught but
+blunders and irregularities!"
+
+Meanwhile another spectacle was being prepared for him. On learning
+that the barin was approaching the mansion, the muzhiks collected on
+the verandah in very variety of picturesque dress and tonsure; and
+when these good folk surrounded him, and there arose a resounding
+shout of "Here is our Foster Father! He has remembered us!" and, in
+spite of themselves, some of the older men and women began weeping as
+they recalled his grandfather and great-grandfather, he himself could
+not restrain his tears, but reflected: "How much affection! And in
+return for what? In return for my never having come to see them--in
+return for my never having taken the least interest in their affairs!"
+And then and there he registered a mental vow to share their every
+task and occupation.
+
+So he applied himself to supervising and administering. He reduced the
+amount of the barstchina[1], he decreased the number of working-days
+for the owner, and he augmented the sum of the peasants' leisure-time.
+He also dismissed the fool of a bailiff, and took to bearing a
+personal hand in everything--to being present in the fields, at the
+threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of
+barges and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore
+even the lazy hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last
+long. The peasant is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov's
+muzhiks soon scented the fact that, though energetic and desirous of
+doing much, the barin had no notion how to do it, nor even how to set
+about it--that, in short, he spoke by the book rather than out of his
+personal knowledge. Consequently things resulted, not in master and
+men failing to understand one another, but in their not singing
+together, in their not producing the very same note.
+
+[1] In the days of serfdom, the rate of forced labour--so many hours
+    or so many days per week--which the serf had to perform for his
+    proprietor.
+
+That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on
+the manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the
+peasants'. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up
+well, and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that
+Tientietnikov, who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of
+vodka to be served out as a reward for the excellence of the labour
+performed. Yet the rye on the peasants' land had formed into ear, and
+the oats had begun to shoot their grain, and the millet had filled
+before, on the manorial lands, the corn had so much as grown to stalk,
+or the ears had sprouted in embryo. In short, gradually the barin
+realised that, in spite of favours conferred, the peasants were
+playing the rogue with him. Next he resorted to remonstrance, but was
+met with the reply, "How could we not do our best for our barin? You
+yourself saw how well we laboured at the ploughing and the sowing, for
+you gave us mugs of vodka for our pains."
+
+"Then why have things turned out so badly?" the barin persisted.
+
+"Who can say? It must be that a grub has eaten the crop from below.
+Besides, what a summer has it been--never a drop of rain!"
+
+Nevertheless, the barin noted that no grub had eaten the PEASANTS'
+crops, as well as that the rain had fallen in the most curious
+fashion--namely, in patches. It had obliged the muzhiks, but had shed
+a mere sprinkling for the barin.
+
+Still more difficult did he find it to deal with the peasant women.
+Ever and anon they would beg to be excused from work, or start making
+complaints of the severity of the barstchina. Indeed, they were
+terrible folk! However, Tientietnikov abolished the majority of the
+tithes of linen, hedge fruit, mushrooms, and nuts, and also reduced by
+one-half other tasks proper to the women, in the hope that they would
+devote their spare time to their own domestic concerns--namely, to
+sewing and mending, and to making clothes for their husbands, and to
+increasing the area of their kitchen gardens. Yet no such result came
+about. On the contrary, such a pitch did the idleness, the
+quarrelsomeness, and the intriguing and caballing of the fair sex
+attain that their helpmeets were for ever coming to the barin with a
+request that he would rid one or another of his wife, since she had
+become a nuisance, and to live with her was impossible.
+
+Next, hardening his heart, the barin attempted severity. But of what
+avail was severity? The peasant woman remained always the peasant
+woman, and would come and whine that she was sick and ailing, and keep
+pitifully hugging to herself the mean and filthy rags which she had
+donned for the occasion. And when poor Tientietnikov found himself
+unable to say more to her than just, "Get out of my sight, and may the
+Lord go with you!" the next item in the comedy would be that he would
+see her, even as she was leaving his gates, fall to contending with a
+neighbour for, say, the possession of a turnip, and dealing out slaps
+in the face such as even a strong, healthy man could scarcely have
+compassed!
+
+Again, amongst other things, Tientietnikov conceived the idea of
+establishing a school for his people; but the scheme resulted in a
+farce which left him in sackcloth and ashes. In the same way he found
+that, when it came to a question of dispensing justice and of
+adjusting disputes, the host of juridical subtleties with which the
+professors had provided him proved absolutely useless. That is to say,
+the one party lied, and the other party lied, and only the devil could
+have decided between them. Consequently he himself perceived that a
+knowledge of mankind would have availed him more than all the legal
+refinements and philosophical maxims in the world could do. He lacked
+something; and though he could not divine what it was, the situation
+brought about was the common one of the barin failing to understand
+the peasant, and the peasant failing to understand the barin, and both
+becoming disaffected. In the end, these difficulties so chilled
+Tientietnikov's enthusiasm that he took to supervising the labours of
+the field with greatly diminished attention. That is to say, no matter
+whether the scythes were softly swishing through the grass, or ricks
+were being built, or rafts were being loaded, he would allow his eyes
+to wander from his men, and to fall to gazing at, say, a red-billed,
+red-legged heron which, after strutting along the bank of a stream,
+would have caught a fish in its beak, and be holding it awhile, as
+though in doubt whether to swallow it. Next he would glance towards
+the spot where a similar bird, but one not yet in possession of a
+fish, was engaged in watching the doings of its mate. Lastly, with
+eyebrows knitted, and face turned to scan the zenith, he would drink
+in the smell of the fields, and fall to listening to the winged
+population of the air as from earth and sky alike the manifold music
+of winged creatures combined in a single harmonious chorus. In the rye
+the quail would be calling, and, in the grass, the corncrake, and over
+them would be wheeling flocks of twittering linnets. Also, the
+jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark executing its
+roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and cranes sending
+forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards the zenith
+in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood would seem to
+have become converted into one great concert of melody. O Creator, how
+fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart
+from cities and from highways!
+
+But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased
+altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up in
+his rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that
+functionary called with his reports. Again, although, until now, he
+had to a certain extent associated with a retired colonel of
+hussars--a man saturated with tobacco smoke--and also with a student
+of pronounced, but immature, opinions who culled the bulk of his
+wisdom from contemporary newspapers and pamphlets, he found, as time
+went on, that these companions proved as tedious as the rest, and came
+to think their conversation superficial, and their European method of
+comporting themselves--that is to say, the method of conversing with
+much slapping of knees and a great deal of bowing and
+gesticulation--too direct and unadorned. So these and every one else
+he decided to "drop," and carried this resolution into effect with a
+certain amount of rudeness. On the next occasion that Varvar
+Nikolaievitch Vishnepokromov called to indulge in a free-and-easy
+symposium on politics, philosophy, literature, morals, and the state
+of financial affairs in England (he was, in all matters which admit of
+superficial discussion, the pleasantest fellow alive, seeing that he
+was a typical representative both of the retired fire-eater and of the
+school of thought which is now becoming the rage)--when, I say, this
+next happened, Tientietnikov merely sent out to say that he was not at
+home, and then carefully showed himself at the window. Host and guest
+exchanged glances, and, while the one muttered through his teeth "The
+cur!" the other relieved his feelings with a remark or two on swine.
+Thus the acquaintance came to an abrupt end, and from that time forth
+no visitor called at the mansion.
+
+Tientietnikov in no way regretted this, for he could now devote
+himself wholly to the projection of a great work on Russia. Of the
+scale on which this composition was conceived the reader is already
+aware. The reader also knows how strange, how unsystematic, was the
+system employed in it. Yet to say that Tientietnikov never awoke from
+his lethargy would not be altogether true. On the contrary, when the
+post brought him newspapers and reviews, and he saw in their printed
+pages, perhaps, the well-known name of some former comrade who had
+succeeded in the great field of Public Service, or had conferred upon
+science and the world's work some notable contribution, he would
+succumb to secret and suppressed grief, and involuntarily there would
+burst from his soul an expression of aching, voiceless regret that he
+himself had done so little. And at these times his existence would
+seem to him odious and repellent; at these times there would uprise
+before him the memory of his school days, and the figure of Alexander
+Petrovitch, as vivid as in life. And, slowly welling, the tears would
+course over Tientietnikov's cheeks.
+
+What meant these repinings? Was there not disclosed in them the secret
+of his galling spiritual pain--the fact that he had failed to order
+his life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started
+his course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he
+had failed to attain the better and the higher state, and there to
+strengthen himself for the overcoming of hindrances and obstacles; the
+fact that, dissolving like overheated metal, his bounteous store of
+superior instincts had failed to take the final tempering; the fact
+that the tutor of his boyhood, a man in a thousand, had prematurely
+died, and left to Tientietnikov no one who could restore to him the
+moral strength shattered by vacillation and the will power weakened by
+want of virility--no one, in short, who could cry hearteningly to his
+soul "Forward!"--the word for which the Russian of every degree, of
+every class, of every occupation, of every school of thought, is for
+ever hungering.
+
+Indeed, WHERE is the man who can cry aloud for any of us, in the
+Russian tongue dear to our soul, the all-compelling command
+"Forward!"? Who is there who, knowing the strength and the nature and
+the inmost depths of the Russian genius, can by a single magic
+incantation divert our ideals to the higher life? Were there such a
+man, with what tears, with what affection, would not the grateful sons
+of Russia repay him! Yet age succeeds to age, and our callow youth
+still lies wrapped in shameful sloth, or strives and struggles to no
+purpose. God has not yet given us the man able to sound the call.
+
+One circumstance which almost aroused Tientietnikov, which almost
+brought about a revolution in his character, was the fact that he came
+very near to falling in love. Yet even this resulted in nothing. Ten
+versts away there lived the general whom we have heard expressing
+himself in highly uncomplimentary terms concerning Tientietnikov. He
+maintained a General-like establishment, dispensed hospitality (that
+is to say, was glad when his neighbours came to pay him their
+respects, though he himself never went out), spoke always in a hoarse
+voice, read a certain number of books, and had a daughter--a curious,
+unfamiliar type, but full of life as life itself. This maiden's name
+was Ulinka, and she had been strangely brought up, for, losing her
+mother in early childhood, she had subsequently received instruction
+at the hands of an English governess who knew not a single word of
+Russian. Moreover her father, though excessively fond of her, treated
+her always as a toy; with the result that, as she grew to years of
+discretion, she became wholly wayward and spoilt. Indeed, had any one
+seen the sudden rage which would gather on her beautiful young
+forehead when she was engaged in a heated dispute with her father, he
+would have thought her one of the most capricious beings in the world.
+Yet that rage gathered only when she had heard of injustice or harsh
+treatment, and never because she desired to argue on her own behalf,
+or to attempt to justify her own conduct. Also, that anger would
+disappear as soon as ever she saw any one whom she had formerly
+disliked fall upon evil times, and, at his first request for alms
+would, without consideration or subsequent regret, hand him her purse
+and its whole contents. Yes, her every act was strenuous, and when she
+spoke her whole personality seemed to be following hot-foot upon her
+thought--both her expression of face and her diction and the movements
+of her hands. Nay, the very folds of her frock had a similar
+appearance of striving; until one would have thought that all her self
+were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she know reticence:
+before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force could compel
+her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also, her
+enchanting, peculiar gait--a gait which belonged to her alone--was so
+absolutely free and unfettered that every one involuntarily gave her
+way. Lastly, in her presence churls seemed to become confused and fall
+to silence, and even the roughest and most outspoken would lose their
+heads, and have not a word to say; whereas the shy man would find
+himself able to converse as never in his life before, and would feel,
+from the first, as though he had seen her and known her at some
+previous period--during the days of some unremembered childhood, when
+he was at home, and spending a merry evening among a crowd of romping
+children. And for long afterwards he would feel as though his man's
+intellect and estate were a burden.
+
+This was what now befell Tientietnikov; and as it did so a new feeling
+entered into his soul, and his dreamy life lightened for a moment.
+
+At first the General used to receive him with hospitable civility, but
+permanent concord between them proved impossible; their conversation
+always merged into dissension and soreness, seeing that, while the
+General could not bear to be contradicted or worsted in an argument,
+Tientietnikov was a man of extreme sensitiveness. True, for the
+daughter's sake, the father was for a while deferred to, and thus
+peace was maintained; but this lasted only until the time when there
+arrived, on a visit to the General, two kinswomen of his--the Countess
+Bordirev and the Princess Uziakin, retired Court dames, but ladies who
+still kept up a certain connection with Court circles, and therefore
+were much fawned upon by their host. No sooner had they appeared on
+the scene than (so it seemed to Tientietnikov) the General's attitude
+towards the young man became colder--either he ceased to notice him at
+all or he spoke to him familiarly, and as to a person having no
+standing in society. This offended Tientietnikov deeply, and though,
+when at length he spoke out on the subject, he retained sufficient
+presence of mind to compress his lips, and to preserve a gentle and
+courteous tone, his face flushed and his inner man was boiling.
+
+"General," he said, "I thank you for your condescension. By addressing
+me in the second person singular, you have admitted me to the circle
+of your most intimate friends. Indeed, were it not that a difference
+of years forbids any familiarity on my part, I should answer you in
+similar fashion."
+
+The General sat aghast. At length, rallying his tongue and his
+faculties, he replied that, though he had spoken with a lack of
+ceremony, he had used the term "thou" merely as an elderly man
+naturally employs it towards a junior (he made no reference to
+difference of rank).
+
+Nevertheless, the acquaintance broke off here, and with it any
+possibility of love-making. The light which had shed a momentary gleam
+before Tientietnikov's eyes had become extinguished for ever, and upon
+it there followed a darkness denser than before. Henceforth everything
+conduced to evolve the regime which the reader has noted--that regime
+of sloth and inaction which converted Tientietnikov's residence into a
+place of dirt and neglect. For days at a time would a broom and a heap
+of dust be left lying in the middle of a room, and trousers tossing
+about the salon, and pairs of worn-out braces adorning the what-not
+near the sofa. In short, so mean and untidy did Tientietnikov's mode
+of life become, that not only his servants, but even his very poultry
+ceased to treat him with respect. Taking up a pen, he would spend
+hours in idly sketching houses, huts, waggons, troikas, and flourishes
+on a piece of paper; while at other times, when he had sunk into a
+reverie, the pen would, all unknowingly, sketch a small head which had
+delicate features, a pair of quick, penetrating eyes, and a raised
+coiffure. Then suddenly the dreamer would perceive, to his surprise,
+that the pen had executed the portrait of a maiden whose picture no
+artist could adequately have painted; and therewith his despondency
+would become greater than ever, and, believing that happiness did not
+exist on earth, he would relapse into increased ennui, increased
+neglect of his responsibilities.
+
+But one morning he noticed, on moving to the window after breakfast,
+that not a word was proceeding either from the butler or the
+housekeeper, but that, on the contrary, the courtyard seemed to smack
+of a certain bustle and excitement. This was because through the
+entrance gates (which the kitchen maid and the scullion had run to
+open) there were appearing the noses of three horses--one to the
+right, one in the middle, and one to the left, after the fashion of
+triumphal groups of statuary. Above them, on the box seat, were seated
+a coachman and a valet, while behind, again, there could be discerned
+a gentleman in a scarf and a fur cap. Only when the equipage had
+entered the courtyard did it stand revealed as a light spring
+britchka. And as it came to a halt, there leapt on to the verandah of
+the mansion an individual of respectable exterior, and possessed of
+the art of moving with the neatness and alertness of a military man.
+
+Upon this Tientietnikov's heart stood still. He was unused to
+receiving visitors, and for the moment conceived the new arrival to be
+a Government official, sent to question him concerning an abortive
+society to which he had formerly belonged. (Here the author may
+interpolate the fact that, in Tientietnikov's early days, the young
+man had become mixed up in a very absurd affair. That is to say, a
+couple of philosophers belonging to a regiment of hussars had,
+together with an aesthete who had not yet completed his student's
+course and a gambler who had squandered his all, formed a secret
+society of philanthropic aims under the presidency of a certain old
+rascal of a freemason and the ruined gambler aforesaid. The scope of
+the society's work was to be extensive: it was to bring lasting
+happiness to humanity at large, from the banks of the Thames to the
+shores of Kamtchatka. But for this much money was needed: wherefore
+from the noble-minded members of the society generous contributions
+were demanded, and then forwarded to a destination known only to the
+supreme authorities of the concern. As for Tientietnikov's adhesion,
+it was brought about by the two friends already alluded to as
+"embittered"--good-hearted souls whom the wear and tear of their
+efforts on behalf of science, civilisation, and the future
+emancipation of mankind had ended by converting into confirmed
+drunkards. Perhaps it need hardly be said that Tientietnikov soon
+discovered how things stood, and withdrew from the association; but,
+meanwhile, the latter had had the misfortune so to have engaged in
+dealings not wholly creditable to gentlemen of noble origin as
+likewise to have become entangled in dealings with the police.
+Consequently, it is not to be wondered at that, though Tientietnikov
+had long severed his connection with the society and its policy, he
+still remained uneasy in his mind as to what might even yet be the
+result.)
+
+However, his fears vanished the instant that the guest saluted him
+with marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of
+the head, and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time
+past he (the newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business
+and in the pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects
+of interest--not to mention a plenitude of manufactures and a great
+diversity of soil, and that, in spite of the fact that he was greatly
+struck with the amenities of his host's domain, he would certainly not
+have presumed to intrude at such an inconvenient hour but for the
+circumstance that the inclement spring weather, added to the state of
+the roads, had necessitated sundry repairs to his carriage at the
+hands of wheelwrights and blacksmiths. Finally he declared that, even
+if this last had NOT happened, he would still have felt unable to
+deny himself the pleasure of offering to his host that meed of homage
+which was the latter's due.
+
+This speech--a speech of fascinating bonhomie--delivered, the guest
+executed a sort of shuffle with a half-boot of patent leather studded
+with buttons of mother-of-pearl, and followed that up by (in spite of
+his pronounced rotundity of figure) stepping backwards with all the
+elan of an india-rubber ball.
+
+From this the somewhat reassured Tientietnikov concluded that his
+visitor must be a literary, knowledge-seeking professor who was
+engaged in roaming the country in search of botanical specimens and
+fossils; wherefore he hastened to express both his readiness to
+further the visitor's objects (whatever they might be) and his
+personal willingness to provide him with the requisite wheelwrights
+and blacksmiths. Meanwhile he begged his guest to consider himself at
+home, and, after seating him in an armchair, made preparations to
+listen to the newcomer's discourse on natural history.
+
+But the newcomer applied himself, rather, to phenomena of the internal
+world, saying that his life might be likened to a barque tossed on the
+crests of perfidious billows, that in his time he had been fated to
+play many parts, and that on more than one occasion his life had stood
+in danger at the hands of foes. At the same time, these tidings were
+communicated in a manner calculated to show that the speaker was also
+a man of PRACTICAL capabilities. In conclusion, the visitor took out
+a cambric pocket-handkerchief, and sneezed into it with a vehemence
+wholly new to Tientietnikov's experience. In fact, the sneeze rather
+resembled the note which, at times, the trombone of an orchestra
+appears to utter not so much from its proper place on the platform as
+from the immediate neighbourhood of the listener's ear. And as the
+echoes of the drowsy mansion resounded to the report of the explosion
+there followed upon the same a wave of perfume, skilfully wafted
+abroad with a flourish of the eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.
+
+By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none
+other than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov.
+Naturally, time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms;
+wherefore his exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his
+frockcoat had taken on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka,
+coachman, valet, horses, and harness alike had about them a sort of
+second-hand, worse-for-wear effect. Evidently the Chichikovian
+finances were not in the most flourishing of conditions. Nevertheless,
+the old expression of face, the old air of breeding and refinement,
+remained unimpaired, and our hero had even improved in the art of
+walking and turning with grace, and of dexterously crossing one leg
+over the other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of diction, his
+discreet moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if anything,
+increased measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused his
+tactfulness to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these
+accomplishments had their effect further heightened by a snowy
+immaculateness of collar and dickey, and an absence of dust from his
+frockcoat, as complete as though he had just arrived to attend a
+nameday festival. Lastly, his cheeks and chin were of such neat
+clean-shavenness that no one but a blind man could have failed to
+admire their rounded contours.
+
+From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov's
+establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
+cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
+Chichikov, while one other apartment--a little front chamber opening
+into the hall--became permeated with Petrushka's own peculiar smell.
+But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
+transferred to the servants' quarters, a course which ought to have
+been adopted in the first instance.
+
+During the initial days of Chichikov's sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
+rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his guest
+might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the
+established routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless,
+for Paul Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for
+accommodating himself to his new position. To begin with, he
+encouraged his host in his philosophical inertia by saying that the
+latter would help Tientietnikov to become a centenarian. Next, in the
+matter of a life of isolation, he hit things off exactly by remarking
+that such a life bred in a man a capacity for high thinking. Lastly,
+as he inspected the library and dilated on books in general, he
+contrived an opportunity to observe that literature safeguarded a man
+from a tendency to waste his time. In short, the few words of which he
+delivered himself were brief, but invariably to the point. And this
+discretion of speech was outdone by his discretion of conduct. That is
+to say, whether entering or leaving the room, he never wearied his
+host with a question if Tientietnikov had the air of being disinclined
+to talk; and with equal satisfaction the guest could either play chess
+or hold his tongue. Consequently Tientietnikov said to himself:
+
+"For the first time in my life I have met with a man with whom it is
+possible to live. In general, not many of the type exist in Russia,
+and, though clever, good-humoured, well-educated men abound, one would
+be hard put to it to find an individual of equable temperament with
+whom one could share a roof for centuries without a quarrel arising.
+Anyway, Chichikov is the first of his sort that I have met."
+
+For his part, Chichikov was only too delighted to reside with a person
+so quiet and agreeable as his host. Of a wandering life he was
+temporarily weary, and to rest, even for a month, in such a beautiful
+spot, and in sight of green fields and the slow flowering of spring,
+was likely to benefit him also from the hygienic point of view. And,
+indeed, a more delightful retreat in which to recuperate could not
+possibly have been found. The spring, long retarded by previous cold,
+had now begun in all its comeliness, and life was rampant. Already,
+over the first emerald of the grass, the dandelion was showing yellow,
+and the red-pink anemone was hanging its tender head; while the
+surface of every pond was a swarm of dancing gnats and midges, and the
+water-spider was being joined in their pursuit by birds which gathered
+from every quarter to the vantage-ground of the dry reeds. Every
+species of creature also seemed to be assembling in concourse, and
+taking stock of one another. Suddenly the earth became populous, the
+forest had opened its eyes, and the meadows were lifting up their
+voice in song. In the same way had choral dances begun to be weaved in
+the village, and everywhere that the eye turned there was merriment.
+What brightness in the green of nature, what freshness in the air,
+what singing of birds in the gardens of the mansion, what general joy
+and rapture and exaltation! Particularly in the village might the
+shouting and singing have been in honour of a wedding!
+
+Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere--a pursuit for which
+there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his
+steps along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths
+below, where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of
+winter, and where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless
+boughs; while at another time he would plunge into the thicket and
+ravine country, where nests of birds weighted branches almost to the
+ground, and the sky was darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing
+rooks. Again, the drier portions of the meadows could be crossed to
+the river wharves, whence the first barges were just beginning to set
+forth with pea-meal and barley and wheat, while at the same time one's
+ear would be caught with the sound of some mill resuming its functions
+as once more the water turned the wheel. Chichikov would also walk
+afield to watch the early tillage operations of the season, and
+observe how the blackness of a new furrow would make its way across
+the expanse of green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking his
+hand against the pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his
+fistfuls of seed with equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too
+much to one side or to the other.
+
+In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with
+the bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into
+the manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how
+an estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what
+species of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was
+the name of each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had
+bought his cow, and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made
+inquiry concerning the number of peasants who had lately died: but of
+these there appeared to be few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned
+that Tientietnikov's estate was not being worked as it might have
+been--that much neglect and listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness
+was abroad; and on perceiving this, he thought to himself: "What a
+fool is that Tientietnikov! To think of letting a property like this
+decay when he might be drawing from it an income of fifty thousand
+roubles a year!"
+
+Also, more than once, while taking these walks, our hero pondered the
+idea of himself becoming a landowner--not now, of course, but later,
+when his chief aim should have been achieved, and he had got into his
+hands the necessary means for living the quiet life of the proprietor
+of an estate. Yes, and at these times there would include itself in
+his castle-building the figure of a young, fresh, fair-faced maiden of
+the mercantile or other rich grade of society, a woman who could both
+play and sing. He also dreamed of little descendants who should
+perpetuate the name of Chichikov; perhaps a frolicsome little boy and
+a fair young daughter, or possibly, two boys and quite two or three
+daughters; so that all should know that he had really lived and had
+his being, that he had not merely roamed the world like a spectre or a
+shadow; so that for him and his the country should never be put to
+shame. And from that he would go on to fancy that a title appended to
+his rank would not be a bad thing--the title of State Councillor, for
+instance, which was deserving of all honour and respect. Ah, it is a
+common thing for a man who is taking a solitary walk so to detach
+himself from the irksome realities of the present that he is able to
+stir and to excite and to provoke his imagination to the conception of
+things he knows can never really come to pass!
+
+Chichikov's servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like
+their master, speedily made themselves at home in it. In particular
+did Petrushka make friends with Grigory the butler, although at first
+the pair showed a tendency to outbrag one another--Petrushka beginning
+by throwing dust in Grigory's eyes on the score of his (Petrushka's)
+travels, and Grigory taking him down a peg or two by referring to St.
+Petersburg (a city which Petrushka had never visited), and Petrushka
+seeking to recover lost ground by dilating on towns which he HAD
+visited, and Grigory capping this by naming some town which is not to
+be found on any map in existence, and then estimating the journey
+thither as at least thirty thousand versts--a statement which would so
+completely flabbergast the henchman of Chichikov's suite that he would
+be left staring open-mouthed, amid the general laughter of the
+domestic staff. However, as I say, the pair ended by swearing eternal
+friendship with one another, and making a practice of resorting to the
+village tavern in company.
+
+For Selifan, however, the place had a charm of a different kind. That
+is to say, each evening there would take place in the village a
+singing of songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and
+buxom were the maidens--maidens of a type hard to find in our
+present-day villages on large estates--that he would stand for hours
+wondering which of them was the best. White-necked and white-bosomed,
+all had great roving eyes, the gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to
+the waist. And as, with his hands clasping theirs, he glided hither
+and thither in the dance, or retired backwards towards a wall with a
+row of other young fellows, and then, with them, returned to meet the
+damsels--all singing in chorus (and laughing as they sang it),
+"Boyars, show me my bridegroom!" and dusk was falling gently, and from
+the other side of the river there kept coming far, faint, plaintive
+echoes of the melody--well, then our Selifan hardly knew whether he
+were standing upon his head or his heels. Later, when sleeping and
+when waking, both at noon and at twilight, he would seem still to be
+holding a pair of white hands, and moving in the dance.
+
+Chichikov's horses also found nothing of which to disapprove. Yes,
+both the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at
+Tientietnikov's a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats
+excellent, and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True,
+on this occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking
+over the intervening partition, it was possible always to see one's
+fellows, and, should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a
+neigh, to answer it at once.
+
+As for the errand which had hitherto led Chichikov to travel about
+Russia, he had now decided to move very cautiously and secretly in the
+matter. In fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for
+reading and for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself,
+"No--I had better begin at the other end," and proceeded first to feel
+his way among the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt
+several things, and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go
+and call upon a certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the
+General possessed a daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had
+an affair of some sort, but that the pair had subsequently parted, and
+gone their several ways. For that matter, Chichikov himself had
+noticed that Tientietnikov was in the habit of drawing heads of which
+each representation exactly resembled the rest.
+
+Once, as he sat tapping his silver snuff-box after luncheon, Chichikov
+remarked:
+
+"One thing you lack, and only one, Andrei Ivanovitch."
+
+"What is that?" asked his host.
+
+"A female friend or two," replied Chichikov.
+
+Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily
+to an end.
+
+But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for
+supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to
+interject:
+
+"Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry."
+
+As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the
+subject seemed to have annoyed him.
+
+For the third time--it was after supper--Chichikov returned to the
+charge by remarking:
+
+"To-day, as I was walking round your property, I could not help
+thinking that marriage would do you a great deal of good. Otherwise
+you will develop into a hypochondriac."
+
+Whether Chichikov's words now voiced sufficiently the note of
+persuasion, or whether Tientietnikov happened, at the moment, to be
+unusually disposed to frankness, at all events the young landowner
+sighed, and then responded as he expelled a puff of tobacco smoke:
+
+"To attain anything, Paul Ivanovitch, one needs to have been born
+under a lucky star."
+
+And he related to his guest the whole history of his acquaintanceship
+and subsequent rupture with the General.
+
+As Chichikov listened to the recital, and gradually realised that the
+affair had arisen merely out of a chance word on the General's part,
+he was astounded beyond measure, and gazed at Tientietnikov without
+knowing what to make of him.
+
+"Andrei Ivanovitch," he said at length, "what was there to take
+offence at?"
+
+"Nothing, as regards the actual words spoken," replied the other. "The
+offence lay, rather, in the insult conveyed in the General's tone."
+Tientietnikov was a kindly and peaceable man, yet his eyes flashed as
+he said this, and his voice vibrated with wounded feeling.
+
+"Yet, even then, need you have taken it so much amiss?"
+
+"What? Could I have gone on visiting him as before?"
+
+"Certainly. No great harm had been done?"
+
+"I disagree with you. Had he been an old man in a humble station of
+life, instead of a proud and swaggering officer, I should not have
+minded so much. But, as it was, I could not, and would not, brook his
+words."
+
+"A curious fellow, this Tientietnikov!" thought Chichikov to himself.
+
+"A curious fellow, this Chichikov!" was Tientietnikov's inward
+reflection.
+
+"I tell you what," resumed Chichikov. "To-morrow I myself will go and
+see the General."
+
+"To what purpose?" asked Tientietnikov, with astonishment and distrust
+in his eyes.
+
+"To offer him an assurance of my personal respect."
+
+"A strange fellow, this Chichikov!" reflected Tientietnikov.
+
+"A strange fellow, this Tientietnikov!" thought Chichikov, and then
+added aloud: "Yes, I will go and see him at ten o'clock to-morrow; but
+since my britchka is not yet altogether in travelling order, would you
+be so good as to lend me your koliaska for the purpose?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Tientietnikov's good horses covered the ten versts to the General's
+house in a little over half an hour. Descending from the koliaska with
+features attuned to deference, Chichikov inquired for the master of
+the house, and was at once ushered into his presence. Bowing with head
+held respectfully on one side and hands extended like those of a
+waiter carrying a trayful of teacups, the visitor inclined his whole
+body forward, and said:
+
+"I have deemed it my duty to present myself to your Excellency. I have
+deemed it my duty because in my heart I cherish a most profound
+respect for the valiant men who, on the field of battle, have proved
+the saviours of their country."
+
+That this preliminary attack did not wholly displease the General was
+proved by the fact that, responding with a gracious inclination of the
+head, he replied:
+
+"I am glad to make your acquaintance. Pray be so good as to take a
+seat. In what capacity or capacities have you yourself seen service?"
+
+"Of my service," said Chichikov, depositing his form, not exactly in
+the centre of the chair, but rather on one side of it, and resting a
+hand upon one of its arms, "--of my service the scene was laid, in the
+first instance, in the Treasury; while its further course bore me
+successively into the employ of the Public Buildings Commission, of
+the Customs Board, and of other Government Offices. But, throughout,
+my life has resembled a barque tossed on the crests of perfidious
+billows. In suffering I have been swathed and wrapped until I have
+come to be, as it were, suffering personified; while of the extent to
+which my life has been sought by foes, no words, no colouring, no (if
+I may so express it?) painter's brush could ever convey to you an
+adequate idea. And now, at length, in my declining years, I am seeking
+a corner in which to eke out the remainder of my miserable existence,
+while at the present moment I am enjoying the hospitality of a
+neighbour of your acquaintance."
+
+"And who is that?"
+
+"Your neighbour Tientietnikov, your Excellency."
+
+Upon that the General frowned.
+
+"Led me add," put in Chichikov hastily, "that he greatly regrets that
+on a former occasion he should have failed to show a proper respect
+for--for--"
+
+"For what?" asked the General.
+
+"For the services to the public which your Excellency has rendered.
+Indeed, he cannot find words to express his sorrow, but keeps
+repeating to himself: 'Would that I had valued at their true worth the
+men who have saved our fatherland!'"
+
+"And why should he say that?" asked the mollified General. "I bear him
+no grudge. In fact, I have never cherished aught but a sincere liking
+for him, a sincere esteem, and do not doubt but that, in time, he may
+become a useful member of society."
+
+"In the words which you have been good enough to utter," said
+Chichikov with a bow, "there is embodied much justice. Yes,
+Tientietnikov is in very truth a man of worth. Not only does he
+possess the gift of eloquence, but also he is a master of the pen."
+
+"Ah, yes; he DOES write rubbish of some sort, doesn't he? Verses, or
+something of the kind?"
+
+"Not rubbish, your Excellency, but practical stuff. In short, he is
+inditing a history."
+
+"A HISTORY? But a history of what?"
+
+"A history of, of--" For a moment or two Chichikov hesitated. Then,
+whether because it was a General that was seated in front of him, or
+because he desired to impart greater importance to the subject which
+he was about to invent, he concluded: "A history of Generals, your
+Excellency."
+
+"Of Generals? Of WHAT Generals?"
+
+"Of Generals generally--of Generals at large. That is to say, and to
+be more precise, a history of the Generals of our fatherland."
+
+By this time Chichikov was floundering badly. Mentally he spat upon
+himself and reflected: "Gracious heavens! What rubbish I am talking!"
+
+"Pardon me," went on his interlocutor, "but I do not quite understand
+you. Is Tientietnikov producing a history of a given period, or only a
+history made up of a series of biographies? Also, is he including
+ALL our Generals, or only those who took part in the campaign of 1812?"
+
+"The latter, your Excellency--only the Generals of 1812," replied
+Chichikov. Then he added beneath his breath: "Were I to be killed for
+it, I could not say what that may be supposed to mean."
+
+"Then why should he not come and see me in person?" went on his host.
+"Possibly I might be able to furnish him with much interesting
+material?"
+
+"He is afraid to come, your Excellency."
+
+"Nonsense! Just because of a hasty word or two! I am not that sort of
+man at all. In fact, I should be very happy to call upon HIM."
+
+"Never would he permit that, your Excellency. He would greatly prefer
+to be the first to make advances." And Chichikov added to himself:
+"What a stroke of luck those Generals were! Otherwise, the Lord knows
+where my tongue might have landed me!"
+
+At this moment the door into the adjoining room opened, and there
+appeared in the doorway a girl as fair as a ray of the sun--so fair,
+indeed, that Chichikov stared at her in amazement. Apparently she had
+come to speak to her father for a moment, but had stopped short on
+perceiving that there was some one with him. The only fault to be
+found in her appearance was the fact that she was too thin and
+fragile-looking.
+
+"May I introduce you to my little pet?" said the General to Chichikov.
+"To tell you the truth, I do not know your name."
+
+"That you should be unacquainted with the name of one who has never
+distinguished himself in the manner of which you yourself can boast is
+scarcely to be wondered at." And Chichikov executed one of his
+sidelong, deferential bows.
+
+"Well, I should be delighted to know it."
+
+"It is Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, your Excellency." With that went the
+easy bow of a military man and the agile backward movement of an
+india-rubber ball.
+
+"Ulinka, this is Paul Ivanovitch," said the General, turning to his
+daughter. "He has just told me some interesting news--namely, that our
+neighbour Tientietnikov is not altogether the fool we had at first
+thought him. On the contrary, he is engaged upon a very important
+work--upon a history of the Russian Generals of 1812."
+
+"But who ever supposed him to be a fool?" asked the girl quickly.
+"What happened was that you took Vishnepokromov's word--the word of a
+man who is himself both a fool and a good-for-nothing."
+
+"Well, well," said the father after further good-natured dispute on
+the subject of Vishnepokromov. "Do you now run away, for I wish to
+dress for luncheon. And you, sir," he added to Chichikov, "will you
+not join us at table?"
+
+Chichikov bowed so low and so long that, by the time that his eyes had
+ceased to see nothing but his own boots, the General's daughter had
+disappeared, and in her place was standing a bewhiskered butler, armed
+with a silver soap-dish and a hand-basin.
+
+"Do you mind if I wash in your presence?" asked the host.
+
+"By no means," replied Chichikov. "Pray do whatsoever you please in
+that respect."
+
+Upon that the General fell to scrubbing himself--incidentally, to
+sending soapsuds flying in every direction. Meanwhile he seemed so
+favourably disposed that Chichikov decided to sound him then and
+there, more especially since the butler had left the room.
+
+"May I put to you a problem?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly," replied the General. "What is it?"
+
+"It is this, your Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns
+three hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property.
+Also, except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although
+his infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his
+property in person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the
+reason for his conduct--his very strange conduct--he states as
+follows: 'I do not know my nephew, and very likely he is a
+spendthrift. If he wishes to show me that he is good for anything, let
+him go and acquire as many souls as _I_ have acquired; and when he has
+done that I will transfer to him my three hundred souls as well."
+
+"The man must be an absolute fool," commented the General.
+
+"Possibly. And were that all, things would not be as bad as they are.
+But, unfortunately, my uncle has gone and taken up with his
+housekeeper, and has had children by her. Consequently, everything
+will now pass to THEM."
+
+"The old man must have taken leave of his senses," remarked the
+General. "Yet how _I_ can help you I fail to see."
+
+"Well, I have thought of a plan. If you will hand me over all the dead
+souls on your estate--hand them over to me exactly as though they were
+still alive, and were purchasable property--I will offer them to the
+old man, and then he will leave me his fortune."
+
+At this point the General burst into a roar of laughter such as few
+can ever have heard. Half-dressed, he subsided into a chair, threw
+back his head, and guffawed until he came near to choking. In fact,
+the house shook with his merriment, so much so that the butler and his
+daughter came running into the room in alarm.
+
+It was long before he could produce a single articulate word; and even
+when he did so (to reassure his daughter and the butler) he kept
+momentarily relapsing into spluttering chuckles which made the house
+ring and ring again.
+
+Chichikov was greatly taken aback.
+
+"Oh, that uncle!" bellowed the General in paroxysms of mirth. "Oh,
+that blessed uncle! WHAT a fool he'll look! Ha, ha, ha! Dead souls
+offered him instead of live ones! Oh, my goodness!"
+
+"I suppose I've put my foot in it again," ruefully reflected
+Chichikov. "But, good Lord, what a man the fellow is to laugh! Heaven
+send that he doesn't burst of it!"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" broke out the General afresh. "WHAT a donkey the old
+man must be! To think of his saying to you: 'You go and fit yourself
+out with three hundred souls, and I'll cap them with my own lot'! My
+word! What a jackass!"
+
+"A jackass, your Excellency?"
+
+"Yes, indeed! And to think of the jest of putting him off with dead
+souls! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT wouldn't I give to see you handing him the
+title deeds? Who is he? What is he like? Is he very old?"
+
+"He is eighty, your Excellency."
+
+"But still brisk and able to move about, eh? Surely he must be pretty
+strong to go on living with his housekeeper like that?"
+
+"Yes. But what does such strength mean? Sand runs away, your
+Excellency."
+
+"The old fool! But is he really such a fool?"
+
+"Yes, your Excellency."
+
+"And does he go out at all? Does he see company? Can he still hold
+himself upright?"
+
+"Yes, but with great difficulty."
+
+"And has he any teeth left?"
+
+"No more than two at the most."
+
+"The old jackass! Don't be angry with me, but I must say that, though
+your uncle, he is also a jackass."
+
+"Quite so, your Excellency. And though it grieves ME to have to
+confess that he is my uncle, what am I to do with him?"
+
+Yet this was not altogether the truth. What would have been a far
+harder thing for Chichikov to have confessed was the fact that he
+possessed no uncles at all.
+
+"I beg of you, your Excellency," he went on, "to hand me over those,
+those--"
+
+"Those dead souls, eh? Why, in return for the jest I will give you
+some land as well. Yes, you can take the whole graveyard if you like.
+Ha, ha, ha! The old man! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT a fool he'll look! Ha, ha,
+ha!"
+
+And once more the General's guffaws went ringing through the house.
+
+
+       [At this point there is a long hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"If Colonel Koshkarev should turn out to be as mad as the last one it
+is a bad look-out," said Chichikov to himself on opening his eyes amid
+fields and open country--everything else having disappeared save the
+vault of heaven and a couple of low-lying clouds.
+
+"Selifan," he went on, "did you ask how to get to Colonel
+Koshkarev's?"
+
+"Yes, Paul Ivanovitch. At least, there was such a clatter around the
+koliaska that I could not; but Petrushka asked the coachman."
+
+"You fool! How often have I told you not to rely on Petrushka?
+Petrushka is a blockhead, an idiot. Besides, at the present moment I
+believe him to be drunk."
+
+"No, you are wrong, barin," put in the person referred to, turning his
+head with a sidelong glance. "After we get down the next hill we shall
+need but to keep bending round it. That is all."
+
+"Yes, and I suppose you'll tell me that sivnkha is the only thing that
+has passed your lips? Well, the view at least is beautiful. In fact,
+when one has seen this place one may say that one has seen one of the
+beauty spots of Europe." This said, Chichikov added to himself,
+smoothing his chin: "What a difference between the features of a
+civilised man of the world and those of a common lacquey!"
+
+Meanwhile the koliaska quickened its pace, and Chichikov once more
+caught sight of Tientietnikov's aspen-studded meadows. Undulating
+gently on elastic springs, the vehicle cautiously descended the steep
+incline, and then proceeded past water-mills, rumbled over a bridge or
+two, and jolted easily along the rough-set road which traversed the
+flats. Not a molehill, not a mound jarred the spine. The vehicle was
+comfort itself.
+
+Swiftly there flew by clumps of osiers, slender elder trees, and
+silver-leaved poplars, their branches brushing against Selifan and
+Petrushka, and at intervals depriving the valet of his cap. Each time
+that this happened, the sullen-faced servitor fell to cursing both the
+tree responsible for the occurrence and the landowner responsible for
+the tree being in existence; yet nothing would induce him thereafter
+either to tie on the cap or to steady it with his hand, so complete
+was his assurance that the accident would never be repeated. Soon to
+the foregoing trees there became added an occasional birch or spruce
+fir, while in the dense undergrowth around their roots could be seen
+the blue iris and the yellow wood-tulip. Gradually the forest grew
+darker, as though eventually the obscurity would become complete. Then
+through the trunks and the boughs there began to gleam points of light
+like glittering mirrors, and as the number of trees lessened, these
+points grew larger, until the travellers debouched upon the shore of a
+lake four versts or so in circumference, and having on its further
+margin the grey, scattered log huts of a peasant village. In the water
+a great commotion was in progress. In the first place, some twenty
+men, immersed to the knee, to the breast, or to the neck, were
+dragging a large fishing-net inshore, while, in the second place,
+there was entangled in the same, in addition to some fish, a stout man
+shaped precisely like a melon or a hogshead. Greatly excited, he was
+shouting at the top of his voice: "Let Kosma manage it, you lout of a
+Denis! Kosma, take the end of the rope from Denis! Don't bear so hard
+on it, Thoma Bolshoy[1]! Go where Thoma Menshov[2] is! Damn it, bring
+the net to land, will you!" From this it became clear that it was not
+on his own account that the stout man was worrying. Indeed, he had no
+need to do so, since his fat would in any case have prevented him from
+sinking. Yes, even if he had turned head over heels in an effort to
+dive, the water would persistently have borne him up; and the same if,
+say, a couple of men had jumped on his back--the only result would
+have been that he would have become a trifle deeper submerged, and
+forced to draw breath by spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the
+cause of his agitation was lest the net should break, and the fish
+escape: wherefore he was urging some additional peasants who were
+standing on the bank to lay hold of and to pull at, an extra rope or
+two.
+
+[1] The Elder.
+
+[2] The Younger.
+
+"That must be the barin--Colonel Koshkarev," said Selifan.
+
+"Why?" asked Chichikov.
+
+"Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has
+the respectable paunch of a gentleman."
+
+Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the
+barin; until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright
+position, and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with
+Chichikov seated therein, descending the declivity.
+
+"Have you dined yet?" shouted the barin as, still entangled in the
+net, he approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one
+hand shading his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he
+looked, in point of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her
+bath.
+
+"No," replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of
+bows.
+
+"Then thank God for that," rejoined the gentleman.
+
+"Why?" asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his
+cap over his head.
+
+"Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that
+sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma."
+
+With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a
+veritable monster of a fish.
+
+"Isn't it a beauty--a sturgeon fresh run from the river?" exclaimed
+the stout barin. "And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take
+the lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma
+Bolshoy, and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house,
+and I myself shall be along presently."
+
+Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt,
+ran ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had
+hanging in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every
+inhabitant of the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a
+large vegetable enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a
+square near a wooden church, with, showing beyond the latter, the
+roofs of the manorial homestead.
+
+"A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!" said Chichikov to himself.
+
+"Well, whatever I may be, at least I'm here," said a voice by his
+side. Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile,
+the barin had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair
+of yellow trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck
+was as guiltless of a collar as Cupid's. Also, as he sat sideways in
+his drozhki, his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle.
+Chichikov was about to make some remark or another when the stout
+gentleman disappeared; and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view
+at the spot where the fish had been drawn to land, and his voice could
+be heard reiterating exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov
+reached the verandah of the house he found, to his intense surprise,
+the stout gentleman waiting to welcome the visitor. How he had
+contrived to convey himself thither passed Chichikov's comprehension.
+Host and guest embraced three times, according to a bygone custom of
+Russia. Evidently the barin was one of the old school.
+
+"I bring you," said Chichikov, "a greeting from his Excellency."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch."
+
+"Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?"
+
+"What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?"
+exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.
+
+"No, I do not," replied the gentleman.
+
+Chichikov's surprise grew to absolute astonishment.
+
+"How comes that about?" he ejaculated. "I hope that I have the honour
+of addressing Colonel Koshkarev?"
+
+"Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have
+come; and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh--yes, Peter Petrovitch
+Pietukh."
+
+Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.
+
+"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I told you to drive to the house of
+Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter
+Petrovitch Pietukh."
+
+"All the same, your fellows have done quite right," put in the
+gentleman referred to. "Do you" (this to Selifan and Petrushka) "go to
+the kitchen, where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then
+put up the horses, and be off to the servants' quarters."
+
+"I regret the mistake extremely," said Chichikov.
+
+"But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have
+in store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I
+beg of you." And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him
+within, where they were met by a couple of youths.
+
+"Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the
+Gymnasium[3]," said Pietukh. "Nikolasha, come and entertain our good
+visitor, while you, Aleksasha, follow me." And with that the host
+disappeared.
+
+[3] Secondary School.
+
+Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
+town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no
+good was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he
+and his brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the
+provinces not being worth living in.
+
+"I quite understand," Chichikov thought to himself. "The end of the
+chapter will be confectioners' assistants and the boulevards."
+
+"Tell me," he added aloud, "how does your father's property at present
+stand?"
+
+"It is all mortgaged," put in the father himself as he re-entered the
+room. "Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it."
+
+"What a pity!" thought Chichikov. "At this rate it will not be long
+before this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my
+departure." Aloud he said with an air of sympathy: "That you have
+mortgaged the estate seems to me a matter of regret."
+
+"No, not at all," replied Pietukh. "In fact, they tell me that it is a
+good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I
+act differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of
+living here, and should like to try Moscow--more especially since my
+sons are always begging me to give them a metropolitan education."
+
+"Oh, the fool, the fool!" reflected Chichikov. "He is for throwing up
+everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice
+property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and
+that the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon
+as ever these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres,
+the devil will away with every stick of their substance. For my own
+part, I could desire nothing better than this quiet life in the
+country."
+
+"Let me guess what is in your mind," said Pietukh.
+
+"What, then?" asked Chichikov, rather taken aback.
+
+"You are thinking to yourself: 'That fool of a Pietukh has asked me to
+dinner, yet not a bite of dinner do I see.' But wait a little. It will
+be ready presently, for it is being cooked as fast as a maiden who has
+had her hair cut off plaits herself a new set of tresses."
+
+"Here comes Platon Mikhalitch, father!" exclaimed Aleksasha, who had
+been peeping out of the window.
+
+"Yes, and on a grey horse," added his brother.
+
+"Who is Platon Mikhalitch?" inquired Chichikov.
+
+"A neighbour of ours, and an excellent fellow."
+
+The next moment Platon Mikhalitch himself entered the room,
+accompanied by a sporting dog named Yarb. He was a tall, handsome man,
+with extremely red hair. As for his companion, it was of the
+keen-muzzled species used for shooting.
+
+"Have you dined yet?" asked the host.
+
+"Yes," replied Platon.
+
+"Indeed? What do you mean by coming here to laugh at us all? Do I ever
+go to YOUR place after dinner?"
+
+The newcomer smiled. "Well, if it can bring you any comfort," he said,
+"let me tell you that I ate nothing at the meal, for I had no
+appetite."
+
+"But you should see what I have caught--what sort of a sturgeon fate
+has brought my way! Yes, and what crucians and carp!"
+
+"Really it tires one to hear you. How come you always to be so cheerful?"
+
+"And how come YOU always to be so gloomy?" retorted the host.
+
+"How, you ask? Simply because I am so."
+
+"The truth is you don't eat enough. Try the plan of making a good
+dinner. Weariness of everything is a modern invention. Once upon a
+time one never heard of it."
+
+"Well, boast away, but have you yourself never been tired of things?"
+
+"Never in my life. I do not so much as know whether I should find time
+to be tired. In the morning, when one awakes, the cook is waiting, and
+the dinner has to be ordered. Then one drinks one's morning tea, and
+then the bailiff arrives for HIS orders, and then there is fishing
+to be done, and then one's dinner has to be eaten. Next, before one
+has even had a chance to utter a snore, there enters once again the
+cook, and one has to order supper; and when she has departed, behold,
+back she comes with a request for the following day's dinner! What
+time does THAT leave one to be weary of things?"
+
+Throughout this conversation, Chichikov had been taking stock of the
+newcomer, who astonished him with his good looks, his upright,
+picturesque figure, his appearance of fresh, unwasted youthfulness,
+and the boyish purity, innocence, and clarity of his features. Neither
+passion nor care nor aught of the nature of agitation or anxiety of
+mind had ventured to touch his unsullied face, or to lay a single
+wrinkle thereon. Yet the touch of life which those emotions might have
+imparted was wanting. The face was, as it were, dreaming, even though
+from time to time an ironical smile disturbed it.
+
+"I, too, cannot understand," remarked Chichikov, "how a man of your
+appearance can find things wearisome. Of course, if a man is hard
+pressed for money, or if he has enemies who are lying in wait for his
+life (as have certain folk of whom I know), well, then--"
+
+"Believe me when I say," interrupted the handsome guest, "that, for
+the sake of a diversion, I should be glad of ANY sort of an anxiety.
+Would that some enemy would conceive a grudge against me! But no one
+does so. Everything remains eternally dull."
+
+"But perhaps you lack a sufficiency of land or souls?"
+
+"Not at all. I and my brother own ten thousand desiatins[4] of land,
+and over a thousand souls."
+
+[4] The desiatin = 2.86 English acres.
+
+"Curious! I do not understand it. But perhaps the harvest has failed,
+or you have sickness about, and many of your male peasants have died
+of it?"
+
+"On the contrary, everything is in splendid order, for my brother is
+the best of managers."
+
+"Then to find things wearisome!" exclaimed Chichikov. "It passes my
+comprehension." And he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, we will soon put weariness to flight," interrupted the host.
+"Aleksasha, do you run helter-skelter to the kitchen, and there tell
+the cook to serve the fish pasties. Yes, and where have that gawk of
+an Emelian and that thief of an Antoshka got to? Why have they not
+handed round the zakuski?"
+
+At this moment the door opened, and the "gawk" and the "thief" in
+question made their appearance with napkins and a tray--the latter
+bearing six decanters of variously-coloured beverages. These they
+placed upon the table, and then ringed them about with glasses and
+platefuls of every conceivable kind of appetiser. That done, the
+servants applied themselves to bringing in various comestibles under
+covers, through which could be heard the hissing of hot roast viands.
+In particular did the "gawk" and the "thief" work hard at their tasks.
+As a matter of fact, their appellations had been given them merely to
+spur them to greater activity, for, in general, the barin was no lover
+of abuse, but, rather, a kind-hearted man who, like most Russians,
+could not get on without a sharp word or two. That is to say, he
+needed them for his tongue as he need a glass of vodka for his
+digestion. What else could you expect? It was his nature to care for
+nothing mild.
+
+To the zakuski succeeded the meal itself, and the host became a
+perfect glutton on his guests' behalf. Should he notice that a guest
+had taken but a single piece of a comestible, he added thereto another
+one, saying: "Without a mate, neither man nor bird can live in this
+world." Should any one take two pieces, he added thereto a third,
+saying: "What is the good of the number 2? God loves a trinity."
+Should any one take three pieces, he would say: "Where do you see a
+waggon with three wheels? Who builds a three-cornered hut?" Lastly,
+should any one take four pieces, he would cap them with a fifth, and
+add thereto the punning quip, "Na piat opiat[5]". After devouring at
+least twelve steaks of sturgeon, Chichikov ventured to think to
+himself, "My host cannot possibly add to THEM," but found that he
+was mistaken, for, without a word, Pietukh heaped upon his plate an
+enormous portion of spit-roasted veal, and also some kidneys. And what
+veal it was!
+
+[5] "One more makes five."
+
+"That calf was fed two years on milk," he explained. "I cared for it
+like my own son."
+
+"Nevertheless I can eat no more," said Chichikov.
+
+"Do you try the veal before you say that you can eat no more."
+
+"But I could not get it down my throat. There is no room left."
+
+"If there be no room in a church for a newcomer, the beadle is sent
+for, and room is very soon made--yes, even though before there was
+such a crush that an apple couldn't have been dropped between the
+people. Do you try the veal, I say. That piece is the titbit of all."
+
+So Chichikov made the attempt; and in very truth the veal was beyond
+all praise, and room was found for it, even though one would have
+supposed the feat impossible.
+
+"Fancy this good fellow removing to St. Petersburg or Moscow!" said
+the guest to himself. "Why, with a scale of living like this, he would
+be ruined in three years." For that matter, Pietukh might well have
+been ruined already, for hospitality can dissipate a fortune in three
+months as easily as it can in three years.
+
+The host also dispensed the wine with a lavish hand, and what the
+guests did not drink he gave to his sons, who thus swallowed glass
+after glass. Indeed, even before coming to table, it was possible to
+discern to what department of human accomplishment their bent was
+turned. When the meal was over, however, the guests had no mind for
+further drinking. Indeed, it was all that they could do to drag
+themselves on to the balcony, and there to relapse into easy chairs.
+Indeed, the moment that the host subsided into his seat--it was large
+enough for four--he fell asleep, and his portly presence, converting
+itself into a sort of blacksmith's bellows, started to vent, through
+open mouth and distended nostrils, such sounds as can have greeted
+the reader's ear but seldom--sounds as of a drum being beaten in
+combination with the whistling of a flute and the strident howling of
+a dog.
+
+"Listen to him!" said Platon.
+
+Chichikov smiled.
+
+"Naturally, on such dinners as that," continued the other, "our host
+does NOT find the time dull. And as soon as dinner is ended there
+can ensue sleep."
+
+"Yes, but, pardon me, I still fail to understand why you should find
+life wearisome. There are so many resources against ennui!"
+
+"As for instance?"
+
+"For a young man, dancing, the playing of one or another musical
+instrument, and--well, yes, marriage."
+
+"Marriage to whom?"
+
+"To some maiden who is both charming and rich. Are there none in these
+parts?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, were I you, I should travel, and seek a maiden elsewhere." And
+a brilliant idea therewith entered Chichikov's head. "This last
+resource," he added, "is the best of all resources against ennui."
+
+"What resource are you speaking of?"
+
+"Of travel."
+
+"But whither?"
+
+"Well, should it so please you, you might join me as my companion."
+This said, the speaker added to himself as he eyed Platon: "Yes, that
+would suit me exactly, for then I should have half my expenses paid,
+and could charge him also with the cost of mending the koliaska."
+
+"And whither should we go?"
+
+"In that respect I am not wholly my own master, as I have business to
+do for others as well as for myself. For instance, General
+Betristchev--an intimate friend and, I might add, a generous
+benefactor of mine--has charged me with commissions to certain of his
+relatives. However, though relatives are relatives, I am travelling
+likewise on my own account, since I wish to see the world and the
+whirligig of humanity--which, in spite of what people may say, is as
+good as a living book or a second education." As a matter of fact,
+Chichikov was reflecting, "Yes, the plan is an excellent one. I might
+even contrive that he should have to bear the whole of our expenses,
+and that his horses should be used while my own should be put out to
+graze on his farm."
+
+"Well, why should I not adopt the suggestion?" was Platon's thought.
+"There is nothing for me to do at home, since the management of the
+estate is in my brother's hands, and my going would cause him no
+inconvenience. Yes, why should I not do as Chichikov has suggested?"
+
+Then he added aloud:
+
+"Would you come and stay with my brother for a couple of days?
+Otherwise he might refuse me his consent."
+
+"With great pleasure," said Chichikov. "Or even for three days."
+
+"Then here is my hand on it. Let us be off at once." Platon seemed
+suddenly to have come to life again.
+
+"Where are you off to?" put in their host unexpectedly as he roused
+himself and stared in astonishment at the pair. "No, no, my good sirs.
+I have had the wheels removed from your koliaska, Monsieur Chichikov,
+and have sent your horse, Platon Mikhalitch, to a grazing ground
+fifteen versts away. Consequently you must spend the night here, and
+depart to-morrow morning after breakfast."
+
+What could be done with a man like Pietukh? There was no help for it
+but to remain. In return, the guests were rewarded with a beautiful
+spring evening, for, to spend the time, the host organised a boating
+expedition on the river, and a dozen rowers, with a dozen pairs of
+oars, conveyed the party (to the accompaniment of song) across the
+smooth surface of the lake and up a great river with towering banks.
+From time to time the boat would pass under ropes, stretched across
+for purposes of fishing, and at each turn of the rippling current new
+vistas unfolded themselves as tier upon tier of woodland delighted the
+eye with a diversity of timber and foliage. In unison did the rowers
+ply their sculls, yet it was though of itself that the skiff shot
+forward, bird-like, over the glassy surface of the water; while at
+intervals the broad-shouldered young oarsman who was seated third from
+the bow would raise, as from a nightingale's throat, the opening
+staves of a boat song, and then be joined by five or six more, until
+the melody had come to pour forth in a volume as free and boundless as
+Russia herself. And Pietukh, too, would give himself a shake, and help
+lustily to support the chorus; and even Chichikov felt acutely
+conscious of the fact that he was a Russian. Only Platon reflected:
+"What is there so splendid in these melancholy songs? They do but
+increase one's depression of spirits."
+
+The journey homeward was made in the gathering dusk. Rhythmically the
+oars smote a surface which no longer reflected the sky, and darkness
+had fallen when they reached the shore, along which lights were
+twinkling where the fisherfolk were boiling live eels for soup.
+Everything had now wended its way homeward for the night; the cattle
+and poultry had been housed, and the herdsmen, standing at the gates
+of the village cattle-pens, amid the trailing dust lately raised by
+their charges, were awaiting the milk-pails and a summons to partake
+of the eel-broth. Through the dusk came the hum of humankind, and the
+barking of dogs in other and more distant villages; while, over all,
+the moon was rising, and the darkened countryside was beginning to
+glimmer to light again under her beams. What a glorious picture! Yet
+no one thought of admiring it. Instead of galloping over the
+countryside on frisky cobs, Nikolasha and Aleksasha were engaged in
+dreaming of Moscow, with its confectioners' shops and the theatres of
+which a cadet, newly arrived on a visit from the capital, had just
+been telling them; while their father had his mind full of how best to
+stuff his guests with yet more food, and Platon was given up to
+yawning. Only in Chichikov was a spice of animation visible. "Yes," he
+reflected, "some day I, too, will become lord of such a country
+place." And before his mind's eye there arose also a helpmeet and some
+little Chichikovs.
+
+By the time that supper was finished the party had again over-eaten
+themselves, and when Chichikov entered the room allotted him for the
+night, he lay down upon the bed, and prodded his stomach. "It is as
+tight as a drum," he said to himself. "Not another titbit of veal
+could now get into it." Also, circumstances had so brought it about
+that next door to him there was situated his host's apartment; and
+since the intervening wall was thin, Chichikov could hear every word
+that was said there. At the present moment the master of the house was
+engaged in giving the cook orders for what, under the guise of an
+early breakfast, promised to constitute a veritable dinner. You should
+have heard Pietukh's behests! They would have excited the appetite of
+a corpse.
+
+"Yes," he said, sucking his lips, and drawing a deep breath, "in the
+first place, make a pasty in four divisions. Into one of the divisions
+put the sturgeon's cheeks and some viaziga[6], and into another
+division some buckwheat porridge, young mushrooms and onions, sweet
+milk, calves' brains, and anything else that you may find
+suitable--anything else that you may have got handy. Also, bake the
+pastry to a nice brown on one side, and but lightly on the other. Yes,
+and, as to the under side, bake it so that it will be all juicy and
+flaky, so that it shall not crumble into bits, but melt in the mouth
+like the softest snow that ever you heard of." And as he said this
+Pietukh fairly smacked his lips.
+
+[6] Dried spinal marrow of the sturgeon.
+
+"The devil take him!" muttered Chichikov, thrusting his head beneath
+the bedclothes to avoid hearing more. "The fellow won't give one a
+chance to sleep."
+
+Nevertheless he heard through the blankets:
+
+"And garnish the sturgeon with beetroot, smelts, peppered mushrooms,
+young radishes, carrots, beans, and anything else you like, so as to
+have plenty of trimmings. Yes, and put a lump of ice into the pig's
+bladder, so as to swell it up."
+
+Many other dishes did Pietukh order, and nothing was to be heard but
+his talk of boiling, roasting, and stewing. Finally, just as mention
+was being made of a turkey cock, Chichikov fell asleep.
+
+Next morning the guest's state of repletion had reached the point of
+Platon being unable to mount his horse; wherefore the latter was
+dispatched homeward with one of Pietukh's grooms, and the two guests
+entered Chichikov's koliaska. Even the dog trotted lazily in the rear;
+for he, too, had over-eaten himself.
+
+"It has been rather too much of a good thing," remarked Chichikov as
+the vehicle issued from the courtyard.
+
+"Yes, and it vexes me to see the fellow never tire of it," replied
+Platon.
+
+"Ah," thought Chichikov to himself, "if _I_ had an income of seventy
+thousand roubles, as you have, I'd very soon give tiredness one in the
+eye! Take Murazov, the tax-farmer--he, again, must be worth ten
+millions. What a fortune!"
+
+"Do you mind where we drive?" asked Platon. "I should like first to go
+and take leave of my sister and my brother-in-law."
+
+"With pleasure," said Chichikov.
+
+"My brother-in-law is the leading landowner hereabouts. At the present
+moment he is drawing an income of two hundred thousand roubles from a
+property which, eight years ago, was producing a bare twenty
+thousand."
+
+"Truly a man worthy of the utmost respect! I shall be most interested
+to make his acquaintance. To think of it! And what may his family name
+be?"
+
+"Kostanzhoglo."
+
+"And his Christian name and patronymic?"
+
+"Constantine Thedorovitch."
+
+"Constantine Thedorovitch Kostanzhoglo. Yes, it will be a most
+interesting event to make his acquaintance. To know such a man must be
+a whole education."
+
+Here Platon set himself to give Selifan some directions as to the way,
+a necessary proceeding in view of the fact that Selifan could hardly
+maintain his seat on the box. Twice Petrushka, too, had fallen
+headlong, and this necessitated being tied to his perch with a piece
+of rope. "What a clown!" had been Chichikov's only comment.
+
+"This is where my brother-in-law's land begins," said Platon.
+
+"They give one a change of view."
+
+And, indeed, from this point the countryside became planted with
+timber; the rows of trees running as straight as pistol-shots, and
+having beyond them, and on higher ground, a second expanse of forest,
+newly planted like the first; while beyond it, again, loomed a third
+plantation of older trees. Next there succeeded a flat piece of the
+same nature.
+
+"All this timber," said Platon, "has grown up within eight or ten
+years at the most; whereas on another man's land it would have taken
+twenty to attain the same growth."
+
+"And how has your brother-in-law effected this?"
+
+"You must ask him yourself. He is so excellent a husbandman that
+nothing ever fails with him. You see, he knows the soil, and also
+knows what ought to be planted beside what, and what kinds of timber
+are the best neighbourhood for grain. Again, everything on his estate
+is made to perform at least three or four different functions. For
+instance, he makes his timber not only serve as timber, but also serve
+as a provider of moisture and shade to a given stretch of land, and
+then as a fertiliser with its fallen leaves. Consequently, when
+everywhere else there is drought, he still has water, and when
+everywhere else there has been a failure of the harvest, on his lands
+it will have proved a success. But it is a pity that I know so little
+about it all as to be unable to explain to you his many expedients.
+Folk call him a wizard, for he produces so much. Nevertheless,
+personally I find what he does uninteresting."
+
+"Truly an astonishing fellow!" reflected Chichikov with a glance at
+his companion. "It is sad indeed to see a man so superficial as to be
+unable to explain matters of this kind."
+
+At length the manor appeared in sight--an establishment looking almost
+like a town, so numerous were the huts where they stood arranged in
+three tiers, crowned with three churches, and surrounded with huge
+ricks and barns. "Yes," thought Chichikov to himself, "one can see
+what a jewel of a landowner lives here." The huts in question were
+stoutly built and the intervening alleys well laid-out; while,
+wherever a waggon was visible, it looked serviceable and more or less
+new. Also, the local peasants bore an intelligent look on their faces,
+the cattle were of the best possible breed, and even the peasants'
+pigs belonged to the porcine aristocracy. Clearly there dwelt here
+peasants who, to quote the song, were accustomed to "pick up silver by
+the shovelful." Nor were Englishified gardens and parterres and other
+conceits in evidence, but, on the contrary, there ran an open view
+from the manor house to the farm buildings and the workmen's cots, so
+that, after the old Russian fashion, the barin should be able to keep
+an eye upon all that was going on around him. For the same purpose,
+the mansion was topped with a tall lantern and a superstructure--a
+device designed, not for ornament, nor for a vantage-spot for the
+contemplation of the view, but for supervision of the labourers
+engaged in distant fields. Lastly, the brisk, active servants who
+received the visitors on the verandah were very different menials from
+the drunken Petrushka, even though they did not wear swallow-tailed
+coats, but only Cossack tchekmenu[7] of blue homespun cloth.
+
+[7] Long, belted Tartar blouses.
+
+The lady of the house also issued on to the verandah. With her face of
+the freshness of "blood and milk" and the brightness of God's
+daylight, she as nearly resembled Platon as one pea resembles another,
+save that, whereas he was languid, she was cheerful and full of talk.
+
+"Good day, brother!" she cried. "How glad I am to see you! Constantine
+is not at home, but will be back presently."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Doing business in the village with a party of factors," replied the
+lady as she conducted her guests to the drawing-room.
+
+With no little curiosity did Chichikov gaze at the interior of the
+mansion inhabited by the man who received an annual income of two
+hundred thousand roubles; for he thought to discern therefrom the
+nature of its proprietor, even as from a shell one may deduce the
+species of oyster or snail which has been its tenant, and has left
+therein its impression. But no such conclusions were to be drawn. The
+rooms were simple, and even bare. Not a fresco nor a picture nor a
+bronze nor a flower nor a china what-not nor a book was there to be
+seen. In short, everything appeared to show that the proprietor of
+this abode spent the greater part of his time, not between four walls,
+but in the field, and that he thought out his plans, not in sybaritic
+fashion by the fireside, nor in an easy chair beside the stove, but on
+the spot where work was actually in progress--that, in a word, where
+those plans were conceived, there they were put into execution. Nor in
+these rooms could Chichikov detect the least trace of a feminine hand,
+beyond the fact that certain tables and chairs bore drying-boards
+whereon were arranged some sprinklings of flower petals.
+
+"What is all this rubbish for?" asked Platon.
+
+"It is not rubbish," replied the lady of the house. "On the contrary,
+it is the best possible remedy for fever. Last year we cured every one
+of our sick peasants with it. Some of the petals I am going to make
+into an ointment, and some into an infusion. You may laugh as much as
+you like at my potting and preserving, yet you yourself will be glad
+of things of the kind when you set out on your travels."
+
+Platon moved to the piano, and began to pick out a note or two.
+
+"Good Lord, what an ancient instrument!" he exclaimed. "Are you not
+ashamed of it, sister?"
+
+"Well, the truth is that I get no time to practice my music. You see,"
+she added to Chichikov, "I have an eight-year-old daughter to educate;
+and to hand her over to a foreign governess in order that I may have
+leisure for my own piano-playing--well, that is a thing which I could
+never bring myself to do."
+
+"You have become a wearisome sort of person," commented Platon, and
+walked away to the window. "Ah, here comes Constantine," presently he
+added.
+
+Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the
+verandah a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad
+in a rough cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of
+those who care little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded,
+there came a couple of men of a somewhat lower station in life, and
+all three were engaged in an animated discussion. One of the barin's
+two companions was a plain peasant, and the other (clad in a blue
+Siberian smock) a travelling factor. The fact that the party halted
+awhile by the entrance steps made it possible to overhear a portion of
+their conversation from within.
+
+"This is what you peasants had better do," the barin was saying.
+"Purchase your release from your present master. I will lend you the
+necessary money, and afterwards you can work for me."
+
+"No, Constantine Thedorovitch," replied the peasant. "Why should we do
+that? Remove us just as we are. You will know how to arrange it, for a
+cleverer gentleman than you is nowhere to be found. The misfortune of
+us muzhiks is that we cannot protect ourselves properly. The
+tavern-keepers sell us such liquor that, before a man knows where he
+is, a glassful of it has eaten a hole through his stomach, and made
+him feel as though he could drink a pail of water. Yes, it knocks a
+man over before he can look around. Everywhere temptation lies in wait
+for the peasant, and he needs to be cunning if he is to get through
+the world at all. In fact, things seem to be contrived for nothing but
+to make us peasants lose our wits, even to the tobacco which they sell
+us. What are folk like ourselves to do, Constantine Thedorovitch? I
+tell you it is terribly difficult for a muzhik to look after himself."
+
+"Listen to me. This is how things are done here. When I take on a
+serf, I fit him out with a cow and a horse. On the other hand, I
+demand of him thereafter more than is demanded of a peasant anywhere
+else. That is to say, first and foremost I make him work. Whether a
+peasant be working for himself or for me, never do I let him waste
+time. I myself toil like a bullock, and I force my peasants to do the
+same, for experience has taught me that that is the only way to get
+through life. All the mischief in the world comes through lack of
+employment. Now, do you go and consider the matter, and talk it over
+with your mir[8]."
+
+[8] Village commune.
+
+"We have done that already, Constantine Thedorovitch, and our elders'
+opinion is: 'There is no need for further talk. Every peasant
+belonging to Constantine Thedorovitch is well off, and hasn't to work
+for nothing. The priests of his village, too, are men of good heart,
+whereas ours have been taken away, and there is no one to bury us.'"
+
+"Nevertheless, do you go and talk the matter over again."
+
+"We will, barin."
+
+Here the factor who had been walking on the barin's other side put in
+a word.
+
+"Constantine Thedorovitch," he said, "I beg of you to do as I have
+requested."
+
+"I have told you before," replied the barin, "that I do not care to
+play the huckster. I am not one of those landowners whom fellows of
+your sort visit on the very day that the interest on a mortgage is
+due. Ah, I know your fraternity thoroughly, and know that you keep
+lists of all who have mortgages to repay. But what is there so clever
+about that? Any man, if you pinch him sufficiently, will surrender you
+a mortgage at half-price,--any man, that is to say, except myself, who
+care nothing for your money. Were a loan of mine to remain out three
+years, I should never demand a kopeck of interest on it."
+
+"Quite so, Constantine Thedorovitch," replied the factor. "But I am
+asking this of you more for the purpose of establishing us on a
+business footing than because I desire to win your favour. Prey,
+therefore, accept this earnest money of three thousand roubles." And
+the man drew from his breast pocket a dirty roll of bank-notes, which,
+carelessly receiving, Kostanzhoglo thrust, uncounted, into the back
+pocket of his overcoat.
+
+"Hm!" thought Chichikov. "For all he cares, the notes might have been
+a handkerchief."
+
+When Kostanzhoglo appeared at closer quarters--that is to say, in the
+doorway of the drawing-room--he struck Chichikov more than ever with
+the swarthiness of his complexion, the dishevelment of his black,
+slightly grizzled locks, the alertness of his eye, and the impression
+of fiery southern origin which his whole personality diffused. For he
+was not wholly a Russian, nor could he himself say precisely who his
+forefathers had been. Yet, inasmuch as he accounted genealogical
+research no part of the science of estate-management, but a mere
+superfluity, he looked upon himself as, to all intents and purposes, a
+native of Russia, and the more so since the Russian language was the
+only tongue he knew.
+
+Platon presented Chichikov, and the pair exchanged greetings.
+
+"To get rid of my depression, Constantine," continued Platon, "I am
+thinking of accompanying our guest on a tour through a few of the
+provinces."
+
+"An excellent idea," said Kostanzhoglo. "But precisely whither?" he
+added, turning hospitably to Chichikov.
+
+"To tell you the truth," replied that personage with an affable
+inclination of the head as he smoothed the arm of his chair with his
+hand, "I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and,
+I might add, a generous benefactor, of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives
+are relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as
+well, in that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire
+to see the world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, so
+to speak, a living book, a second course of education."
+
+"Yes, there is no harm in looking at other corners of the world
+besides one's own."
+
+"You speak truly. There IS no harm in such a proceeding. Thereby one
+may see things which one has not before encountered, one may meet men
+with whom one has not before come in contact. And with some men of
+that kind a conversation is as precious a benefit as has been
+conferred upon me by the present occasion. I come to you, most worthy
+Constantine Thedorovitch, for instruction, and again for instruction,
+and beg of you to assuage my thirst with an exposition of the truth as
+it is. I hunger for the favour of your words as for manna."
+
+"But how so? What can _I_ teach you?" exclaimed Kostanzhoglo in
+confusion. "I myself was given but the plainest of educations."
+
+"Nay, most worthy sir, you possess wisdom, and again wisdom. Wisdom
+only can direct the management of a great estate, that can derive a
+sound income from the same, that can acquire wealth of a real, not a
+fictitious, order while also fulfilling the duties of a citizen and
+thereby earning the respect of the Russian public. All this I pray you
+to teach me."
+
+"I tell you what," said Kostanzhoglo, looking meditatively at his
+guest. "You had better stay with me for a few days, and during that
+time I can show you how things are managed here, and explain to you
+everything. Then you will see for yourself that no great wisdom is
+required for the purpose."
+
+"Yes, certainly you must stay here," put in the lady of the house.
+Then, turning to her brother, she added: "And you too must stay. Why
+should you be in such a hurry?"
+
+"Very well," he replied. "But what say YOU, Paul Ivanovitch?"
+
+"I say the same as you, and with much pleasure," replied Chichikov.
+"But also I ought to tell you this: that there is a relative of
+General Betristchev's, a certain Colonel Koshkarev--"
+
+"Yes, we know him; but he is quite mad."
+
+"As you say, he is mad, and I should not have been intending to visit
+him, were it not that General Betristchev is an intimate friend of
+mine, as well as, I might add, my most generous benefactor."
+
+"Then," said Kostanzhoglo, "do you go and see Colonel Koshkarev NOW.
+He lives less than ten versts from here, and I have a gig already
+harnessed. Go to him at once, and return here for tea."
+
+"An excellent idea!" cried Chichikov, and with that he seized his cap.
+
+Half an hour's drive sufficed to bring him to the Colonel's
+establishment. The village attached to the manor was in a state of
+utter confusion, since in every direction building and repairing
+operations were in progress, and the alleys were choked with heaps of
+lime, bricks, and beams of wood. Also, some of the huts were arranged
+to resemble offices, and superscribed in gilt letters "Depot for
+Agricultural Implements," "Chief Office of Accounts," "Estate Works
+Committee," "Normal School for the Education of Colonists," and so
+forth.
+
+Chichikov found the Colonel posted behind a desk and holding a pen
+between his teeth. Without an instant's delay the master of the
+establishment--who seemed a kindly, approachable man, and accorded to
+his visitor a very civil welcome--plunged into a recital of the labour
+which it had cost him to bring the property to its present condition
+of affluence. Then he went on to lament the fact that he could not
+make his peasantry understand the incentives to labour which the
+riches of science and art provide; for instance, he had failed to
+induce his female serfs to wear corsets, whereas in Germany, where he
+had resided for fourteen years, every humble miller's daughter could
+play the piano. None the less, he said, he meant to peg away until
+every peasant on the estate should, as he walked behind the plough,
+indulge in a regular course of reading Franklin's Notes on
+Electricity, Virgil's Georgics, or some work on the chemical
+properties of soil.
+
+"Good gracious!" mentally exclaimed Chichikov. "Why, I myself have not
+had time to finish that book by the Duchesse de la Valliere!"
+
+Much else the Colonel said. In particular did he aver that, provided
+the Russian peasant could be induced to array himself in German
+costume, science would progress, trade increase, and the Golden Age
+dawn in Russia.
+
+For a while Chichikov listened with distended eyes. Then he felt
+constrained to intimate that with all that he had nothing to do,
+seeing that his business was merely to acquire a few souls, and
+thereafter to have their purchase confirmed.
+
+"If I understand you aright," said the Colonel, "you wish to present a
+Statement of Plea?"
+
+"Yes, that is so."
+
+"Then kindly put it into writing, and it shall be forwarded to the
+Office for the Reception of Reports and Returns. Thereafter that
+Office will consider it, and return it to me, who will, in turn,
+dispatch it to the Estate Works Committee, who will, in turn, revise
+it, and present it to the Administrator, who, jointly with the
+Secretary, will--"
+
+"Pardon me," expostulated Chichikov, "but that procedure will take up
+a great deal of time. Why need I put the matter into writing at all?
+It is simply this. I want a few souls which are--well, which are, so
+to speak, dead."
+
+"Very good," commented the Colonel. "Do you write down in your
+Statement of Plea that the souls which you desire are, 'so to speak,
+dead.'"
+
+"But what would be the use of my doing so? Though the souls are dead,
+my purpose requires that they should be represented as alive."
+
+"Very good," again commented the Colonel. "Do you write down in your
+Statement that 'it is necessary' (or, should you prefer an alternative
+phrase, 'it is requested,' or 'it is desiderated,' or 'it is prayed,')
+'that the souls be represented as alive.' At all events, WITHOUT
+documentary process of that kind, the matter cannot possibly be
+carried through. Also, I will appoint a Commissioner to guide you
+round the various Offices."
+
+And he sounded a bell; whereupon there presented himself a man whom,
+addressing as "Secretary," the Colonel instructed to summon the
+"Commissioner." The latter, on appearing, was seen to have the air,
+half of a peasant, half of an official.
+
+"This man," the Colonel said to Chichikov, "will act as your escort."
+
+What could be done with a lunatic like Koshkarev? In the end,
+curiosity moved Chichikov to accompany the Commissioner. The Committee
+for the Reception of Reports and Returns was discovered to have put up
+its shutters, and to have locked its doors, for the reason that the
+Director of the Committee had been transferred to the newly-formed
+Committee of Estate Management, and his successor had been annexed by
+the same Committee. Next, Chichikov and his escort rapped at the doors
+of the Department of Estate Affairs; but that Department's quarters
+happened to be in a state of repair, and no one could be made to
+answer the summons save a drunken peasant from whom not a word of
+sense was to be extracted. At length the escort felt himself removed
+to remark:
+
+"There is a deal of foolishness going on here. Fellows like that
+drunkard lead the barin by the nose, and everything is ruled by the
+Committee of Management, which takes men from their proper work, and
+sets them to do any other it likes. Indeed, only through the Committee
+does ANYTHING get done."
+
+By this time Chichikov felt that he had seen enough; wherefore he
+returned to the Colonel, and informed him that the Office for the
+Reception of Reports and Returns had ceased to exist. At once the
+Colonel flamed to noble rage. Pressing Chichikov's hand in token of
+gratitude for the information which the guest had furnished, he took
+paper and pen, and noted eight searching questions under three
+separate headings: (1) "Why has the Committee of Management presumed
+to issue orders to officials not under its jurisdiction?" (2) "Why has
+the Chief Manager permitted his predecessor, though still in retention
+of his post, to follow him to another Department?" and (3) "Why has
+the Committee of Estate Affairs suffered the Office for the Reception
+of Reports and Returns to lapse?"
+
+"Now for a row!" thought Chichikov to himself, and turned to depart;
+but his host stopped him, saying:
+
+"I cannot let you go, for, in addition to my honour having become
+involved, it behoves me to show my people how the regular, the
+organised, administration of an estate may be conducted. Herewith I
+will hand over the conduct of your affair to a man who is worth all
+the rest of the staff put together, and has had a university
+education. Also, the better to lose no time, may I humbly beg you to
+step into my library, where you will find notebooks, paper, pens, and
+everything else that you may require. Of these articles pray make full
+use, for you are a gentleman of letters, and it is your and my joint
+duty to bring enlightenment to all."
+
+So saying, he ushered his guest into a large room lined from floor to
+ceiling with books and stuffed specimens. The books in question were
+divided into sections--a section on forestry, a section on
+cattle-breeding, a section on the raising of swine, and a section on
+horticulture, together with special journals of the type circulated
+merely for the purposes of reference, and not for general reading.
+Perceiving that these works were scarcely of a kind calculated to
+while away an idle hour, Chichikov turned to a second bookcase. But to
+do so was to fall out of the frying-pan into the fire, for the
+contents of the second bookcase proved to be works on philosophy,
+while, in particular, six huge volumes confronted him under a label
+inscribed "A Preparatory Course to the Province of Thought, with the
+Theory of Community of Effort, Co-operation, and Subsistence, in its
+Application to a Right Understanding of the Organic Principles of a
+Mutual Division of Social Productivity." Indeed, wheresoever Chichikov
+looked, every page presented to his vision some such words as
+"phenomenon," "development," "abstract," "contents," and "synopsis."
+"This is not the sort of thing for me," he murmured, and turned his
+attention to a third bookcase, which contained books on the Arts.
+Extracting a huge tome in which some by no means reticent mythological
+illustrations were contained, he set himself to examine these
+pictures. They were of the kind which pleases mostly middle-aged
+bachelors and old men who are accustomed to seek in the ballet and
+similar frivolities a further spur to their waning passions. Having
+concluded his examination, Chichikov had just extracted another volume
+of the same species when Colonel Koshkarev returned with a document of
+some sort and a radiant countenance.
+
+"Everything has been carried through in due form!" he cried. "The man
+whom I mentioned is a genius indeed, and I intend not only to promote
+him over the rest, but also to create for him a special Department.
+Herewith shall you hear what a splendid intellect is his, and how in a
+few minutes he has put the whole affair in order."
+
+"May the Lord be thanked for that!" thought Chichikov. Then he settled
+himself while the Colonel read aloud:
+
+"'After giving full consideration to the Reference which your
+Excellency has entrusted to me, I have the honour to report as
+follows:
+
+"'(1) In the Statement of Plea presented by one Paul Ivanovitch
+Chichikov, Gentleman, Chevalier, and Collegiate Councillor, there
+lurks an error, in that an oversight has led the Petitioner to apply
+to Revisional Souls the term "Dead." Now, from the context it would
+appear that by this term the Petitioner desires to signify Souls
+Approaching Death rather than Souls Actually Deceased: wherefore the
+term employed betrays such an empirical instruction in letters as
+must, beyond doubt, have been confined to the Village School, seeing
+that in truth the Soul is Deathless.'
+
+"The rascal!" Koshkarev broke off to exclaim delightedly. "He has got
+you there, Monsieur Chichikov. And you will admit that he has a
+sufficiently incisive pen?
+
+"'(2) On this Estate there exist no Unmortgaged Souls whatsoever,
+whether Approaching Death or Otherwise; for the reason that all Souls
+thereon have been pledged not only under a First Deed of Mortgage, but
+also (for the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Roubles per Soul) under a
+Second,--the village of Gurmailovka alone excepted, in that, in
+consequence of a Suit having been brought against Landowner
+Priadistchev, and of a caveat having been pronounced by the Land
+Court, and of such caveat having been published in No. 42 of the
+Gazette of Moscow, the said Village has come within the Jurisdiction
+of the Court Above-Mentioned."
+
+"Why did you not tell me all this before?" cried Chichikov furiously.
+"Why you have kept me dancing about for nothing?"
+
+"Because it was absolutely necessary that you should view the matter
+through forms of documentary process. This is no jest on my part. The
+inexperienced may see things subconsciously, yet is imperative that he
+should also see them CONSCIOUSLY."
+
+But to Chichikov's patience an end had come. Seizing his cap, and
+casting all ceremony to the winds, he fled from the house, and rushed
+through the courtyard. As it happened, the man who had driven him
+thither had, warned by experience, not troubled even to take out the
+horses, since he knew that such a proceeding would have entailed not
+only the presentation of a Statement of Plea for fodder, but also a
+delay of twenty-four hours until the Resolution granting the same
+should have been passed. Nevertheless the Colonel pursued his guest to
+the gates, and pressed his hand warmly as he thanked him for having
+enabled him (the Colonel) thus to exhibit in operation the proper
+management of an estate. Also, he begged to state that, under the
+circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to keep things moving and
+circulating, since, otherwise, slackness was apt to supervene, and the
+working of the machine to grow rusty and feeble; but that, in spite of
+all, the present occasion had inspired him with a happy idea--namely,
+the idea of instituting a Committee which should be entitled "The
+Committee of Supervision of the Committee of Management," and which
+should have for its function the detection of backsliders among the
+body first mentioned.
+
+It was late when, tired and dissatisfied, Chichikov regained
+Kostanzhoglo's mansion. Indeed, the candles had long been lit.
+
+"What has delayed you?" asked the master of the house as Chichikov
+entered the drawing-room.
+
+"Yes, what has kept you and the Colonel so long in conversation
+together?" added Platon.
+
+"This--the fact that never in my life have I come across such an
+imbecile," was Chichikov's reply.
+
+"Never mind," said Kostanzhoglo. "Koshkarev is a most reassuring
+phenomenon. He is necessary in that in him we see expressed in
+caricature all the more crying follies of our intellectuals--of the
+intellectuals who, without first troubling to make themselves
+acquainted with their own country, borrow silliness from abroad. Yet
+that is how certain of our landowners are now carrying on. They have
+set up 'offices' and factories and schools and 'commissions,' and the
+devil knows what else besides. A fine lot of wiseacres! After the
+French War in 1812 they had to reconstruct their affairs: and see how
+they have done it! Yet so much worse have they done it than a
+Frenchman would have done that any fool of a Peter Petrovitch Pietukh
+now ranks as a good landowner!"
+
+"But he has mortgaged the whole of his estate?" remarked Chichikov.
+
+"Yes, nowadays everything is being mortgaged, or is going to be." This
+said, Kostanzhoglo's temper rose still further. "Out upon your
+factories of hats and candles!" he cried. "Out upon procuring
+candle-makers from London, and then turning landowners into hucksters!
+To think of a Russian pomiestchik[9], a member of the noblest of
+callings, conducting workshops and cotton mills! Why, it is for the
+wenches of towns to handle looms for muslin and lace."
+
+[9] Landowner.
+
+"But you yourself maintain workshops?" remarked Platon.
+
+"I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
+instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
+began to weave it into cloth--but, mark you, only into good, plain
+cloth of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and
+which is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on
+end did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the
+river; wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I
+took to boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by
+the process."
+
+"The devil!" thought Chichikov to himself as he stared at his host.
+"What a fist this man has for making money!"
+
+"Another reason why I started those factories," continued
+Kostanzhoglo, "is that they might give employment to many peasants who
+would otherwise have starved. You see, the year happened to have been
+a lean one--thanks to those same industry-mongering landowners, in
+that they had neglected to sow their crops; and now my factories keep
+growing at the rate of a factory a year, owing to the circumstance
+that such quantities of remnants and cuttings become so accumulated
+that, if a man looks carefully to his management, he will find every
+sort of rubbish to be capable of bringing in a return--yes, to the
+point of his having to reject money on the plea that he has no need of
+it. Yet I do not find that to do all this I require to build a mansion
+with facades and pillars!"
+
+"Marvellous!" exclaimed Chichikov. "Beyond all things does it surprise
+me that refuse can be so utilised."
+
+"Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays
+every one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an
+instrument instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England.
+Yes, THAT is the thing to do. What folly!" Kostanzhoglo spat and
+added: "Yet when he returns from abroad he is a hundred times more
+ignorant than when he went."
+
+"Ah, Constantine," put in his wife anxiously, "you know how bad for
+you it is to talk like this."
+
+"Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too
+closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character
+should be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort
+of Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man
+get a little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote,
+and establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would
+never have dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who
+is good for nothing, whether in the country or in the town--a fellow
+who drinks and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our
+landowners keep taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into
+philanthropic knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless
+hospitals and institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning
+their families adrift. Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy."
+
+Chichikov's business had nothing to do with the spread of
+enlightenment, he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further
+concerning the putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo
+would not let him get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow
+of sarcastic comment pour from the speaker's lips.
+
+"Yes," went on Kostanzhoglo, "folk are always scheming to educate the
+peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will
+educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown
+stupid to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our
+present-day scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and
+at once you will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will
+you find folk saying: 'The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought
+to be familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above
+his station.' And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant
+will become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only
+knows what diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of
+eighteen who will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and
+found himself left with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate.
+Yes, that is what will come of infecting the peasant with such
+rubbish. But, thank God, there is still one healthy class left to
+us--a class which has never taken up with the 'advantages' of which I
+speak. For that we ought to be grateful. And since, even yet, the
+Russian agriculturist remains the most respect-worthy man in the land,
+why should he be touched? Would to God every one were an
+agriculturist!"
+
+"Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of
+occupations?" said Chichikov.
+
+"The best, at all events--if not the most profitable. 'In the sweat of
+thy brow shalt thou till the land.' To quote that requires no great
+wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the
+agricultural calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure,
+more noble than in any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no
+other calling ought to be practised: simply that the calling in
+question lies at the root of all the rest. However much factories
+may be established privately or by the law, there will still lie ready
+to man's hand all that he needs--he will still require none of those
+amenities which are sapping the vitality of our present-day folk, nor
+any of those industrial establishments which make their profit, and
+keep themselves going, by causing foolish measures to be adopted
+which, in the end, are bound to deprave and corrupt our unfortunate
+masses. I myself am determined never to establish any manufacture,
+however profitable, which will give rise to a demand for 'higher
+things,' such as sugar and tobacco--no not if I lose a million by my
+refusing to do so. If corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it shall
+not be through my hands. And I think that God will justify me in my
+resolve. Twenty years have I lived among the common folk, and I know
+what will inevitably come of such things."
+
+"But what surprises me most," persisted Chichikov, "is that from
+refuse it should be possible, with good management, to make such an
+immensity of profit."
+
+"And as for political economy," continued Kostanzhoglo, without
+noticing him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, "--as
+for political economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool
+sitting on another fool's back, and flogging him along, even though
+the rider can see no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle
+will that fool climb--spectacles and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of
+such things!" And the speaker spat derisively.
+
+"That may be true," said his wife. "Yet you must not get angry about
+it. Surely one can speak on such subjects without losing one's
+temper?"
+
+"As I listen to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch," Chichikov
+hastened to remark, "it becomes plain to me that you have penetrated
+into the meaning of life, and laid your finger upon the essential root
+of the matter. Yet supposing, for a moment, we leave the affairs of
+humanity in general, and turn our attention to a purely individual
+affair, might I ask you how, in the case of a man becoming a
+landowner, and having a mind to grow wealthy as quickly as possible
+(in order that he may fulfil his bounden obligations as a citizen), he
+can best set about it?"
+
+"How he can best set about growing wealthy?" repeated Kostanzhoglo.
+"Why,--"
+
+"Let us go to supper," interrupted the lady of the house, rising from
+her chair, and moving towards the centre of the room, where she
+wrapped her shivering young form in a shawl. Chichikov sprang up with
+the alacrity of a military man, offered her his arm, and escorted her,
+as on parade, to the dining-room, where awaiting them there was the
+soup-toureen. From it the lid had just been removed, and the room was
+redolent of the fragrant odour of early spring roots and herbs. The
+company took their seats, and at once the servants placed the
+remainder of the dishes (under covers) upon the table and withdrew,
+for Kostanzhoglo hated to have servants listening to their employers'
+conversation, and objected still more to their staring at him all the
+while that he was eating.
+
+When the soup had been consumed, and glasses of an excellent vintage
+resembling Hungarian wine had been poured out, Chichikov said to his
+host:
+
+"Most worthy sir, allow me once more to direct your attention to the
+subject of which we were speaking at the point when the conversation
+became interrupted. You will remember that I was asking you how best a
+man can set about, proceed in, the matter of growing . . ."
+
+
+           [Here from the original two pages are missing.]
+
+
+. . . "A property for which, had he asked forty thousand, I should
+still have demanded a reduction."
+
+"Hm!" thought Chichikov; then added aloud: "But why do you not
+purchase it yourself?"
+
+"Because to everything there must be assigned a limit. Already my
+property keeps me sufficiently employed. Moreover, I should cause our
+local dvoriane to begin crying out in chorus that I am exploiting
+their extremities, their ruined position, for the purpose of acquiring
+land for under its value. Of that I am weary."
+
+"How readily folk speak evil!" exclaimed Chichikov.
+
+"Yes, and the amount of evil-speaking in our province surpasses
+belief. Never will you hear my name mentioned without my being called
+also a miser and a usurer of the worst possible sort; whereas my
+accusers justify themselves in everything, and say that, 'though we
+have wasted our money, we have started a demand for the higher
+amenities of life, and therefore encouraged industry with our
+wastefulness, a far better way of doing things than that practised by
+Kostanzhoglo, who lives like a pig.'"
+
+"Would _I_ could live in your 'piggish' fashion!" ejaculated
+Chichikov.
+
+"And so forth, and so forth. Yet what are the 'higher amenities of
+life'? What good can they do to any one? Even if a landowner of the
+day sets up a library, he never looks at a single book in it, but soon
+relapses into card-playing--the usual pursuit. Yet folk call me names
+simply because I do not waste my means upon the giving of dinners! One
+reason why I do not give such dinners is that they weary me; and
+another reason is that I am not used to them. But come you to my house
+for the purpose of taking pot luck, and I shall be delighted to see
+you. Also, folk foolishly say that I lend money on interest; whereas
+the truth is that if you should come to me when you are really in
+need, and should explain to me openly how you propose to employ my
+money, and I should perceive that you are purposing to use that money
+wisely, and that you are really likely to profit thereby--well, in
+that case you would find me ready to lend you all that you might ask
+without interest at all."
+
+"That is a thing which it is well to know," reflected Chichikov.
+
+"Yes," repeated Kostanzhoglo, "under those circumstances I should
+never refuse you my assistance. But I do object to throwing my money
+to the winds. Pardon me for expressing myself so plainly. To think of
+lending money to a man who is merely devising a dinner for his
+mistress, or planning to furnish his house like a lunatic, or thinking
+of taking his paramour to a masked ball or a jubilee in honour of some
+one who had better never have been born!"
+
+And, spitting, he came near to venting some expression which would
+scarcely have been becoming in the presence of his wife. Over his face
+the dark shadow of hypochondria had cast a cloud, and furrows had
+formed on his brow and temples, and his every gesture bespoke the
+influence of a hot, nervous rancour.
+
+"But allow me once more to direct your attention to the subject of our
+recently interrupted conversation," persisted Chichikov as he sipped a
+glass of excellent raspberry wine. "That is to say, supposing I were
+to acquire the property which you have been good enough to bring to my
+notice, how long would it take me to grow rich?"
+
+"That would depend on yourself," replied Kostanzhoglo with grim
+abruptness and evident ill-humour. "You might either grow rich quickly
+or you might never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow
+rich, sooner or later you would find yourself a wealthy man."
+
+"Indeed?" ejaculated Chichikov.
+
+"Yes," replied Kostanzhoglo, as sharply as though he were angry with
+Chichikov. "You would merely need to be fond of work: otherwise you
+would effect nothing. The main thing is to like looking after your
+property. Believe me, you would never grow weary of doing so. People
+would have it that life in the country is dull; whereas, if I were to
+spend a single day as it is spent by some folk, with their stupid
+clubs and their restaurants and their theatres, I should die of ennui.
+The fools, the idiots, the generations of blind dullards! But a
+landowner never finds the days wearisome--he has not the time. In his
+life not a moment remains unoccupied; it is full to the brim. And with
+it all goes an endless variety of occupations. And what occupations!
+Occupations which genuinely uplift the soul, seeing that the landowner
+walks with nature and the seasons of the year, and takes part in, and
+is intimate with, everything which is evolved by creation. For let us
+look at the round of the year's labours. Even before spring has
+arrived there will have begun a general watching and a waiting for it,
+and a preparing for sowing, and an apportioning of crops, and a
+measuring of seed grain by byres, and drying of seed, and a dividing
+of the workers into teams. For everything needs to be examined
+beforehand, and calculations must be made at the very start. And as
+soon as ever the ice shall have melted, and the rivers be flowing, and
+the land have dried sufficiently to be workable, the spade will begin
+its task in kitchen and flower garden, and the plough and the harrow
+their tasks in the field; until everywhere there will be tilling and
+sowing and planting. And do you understand what the sum of that labour
+will mean? It will mean that the harvest is being sown, that the
+welfare of the world is being sown, that the food of millions is being
+put into the earth. And thereafter will come summer, the season of
+reaping, endless reaping; for suddenly the crops will have ripened,
+and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped upon rye-sheaf, with, elsewhere,
+stocks of barley, and of oats, and of wheat. And everything will be
+teeming with life, and not a moment will there need to be lost, seeing
+that, had you even twenty eyes, you would have need for them all. And
+after the harvest festivities there will be grain to be carted to byre
+or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared for the winter, and
+storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned for the same
+purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the totals of
+everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of what has
+been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every threshing-floor
+the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed, will need to
+be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be seen to, and
+the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen's huts to be
+visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is faring (for,
+given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one, am only
+too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering to me is
+labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which everything
+is moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are everywhere
+multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more fruit to
+one's profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes place in a
+man's soul. And that, not because of the growth in his wealth--money
+is money and no more--but because he will feel that everything is the
+work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause of everything,
+and its creator, and that from him, as from a magician, there has
+flowed bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will you
+find such delights in prospect?" As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised his
+face, and it became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and
+that, like the Tsar on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo's
+whole form was diffusing light, and his features had in them a gentle
+radiance. "In all the world," he repeated, "you will find no joys like
+these, for herein man imitates the God who projected creation as the
+supreme happiness, and now demands of man that he, too, should act as
+the creator of prosperity. Yet there are folk who call such functions
+tedious!"
+
+Kostanzhoglo's mellifluous periods fell upon Chichikov's ear like the
+notes of a bird of paradise. From time to time he gulped, and his
+softened eyes expressed the pleasure which it gave him to listen.
+
+"Constantine, it is time to leave the table," said the lady of the
+house, rising from her seat. Every one followed her example, and
+Chichikov once again acted as his hostess's escort--although with less
+dexterity of deportment than before, owing to the fact that this time
+his thoughts were occupied with more essential matters of procedure.
+
+"In spite of what you say," remarked Platon as he walked behind the
+pair, "I, for my part, find these things wearisome."
+
+But the master of the house paid no attention to his remark, for he
+was reflecting that his guest was no fool, but a man of serious
+thought and speech who did not take things lightly. And, with the
+thought, Kostanzhoglo grew lighter in soul, as though he had warmed
+himself with his own words, and were exulting in the fact that he had
+found some one capable of listening to good advice.
+
+When they had settled themselves in the cosy, candle-lighted
+drawing-room, with its balcony and the glass door opening out into the
+garden--a door through which the stars could be seen glittering amid
+the slumbering tops of the trees--Chichikov felt more comfortable than
+he had done for many a day past. It was as though, after long
+journeying, his own roof-tree had received him once more--had received
+him when his quest had been accomplished, when all that he wished for
+had been gained, when his travelling-staff had been laid aside with
+the words "It is finished." And of this seductive frame of mind the
+true source had been the eloquent discourse of his hospitable host.
+Yes, for every man there exist certain things which, instantly that
+they are said, seem to touch him more closely, more intimately, than
+anything has done before. Nor is it an uncommon occurrence that in the
+most unexpected fashion, and in the most retired of retreats, one will
+suddenly come face to face with a man whose burning periods will lead
+one to forget oneself and the tracklessness of the route and the
+discomfort of one's nightly halting-places, and the futility of crazes
+and the falseness of tricks by which one human being deceives another.
+And at once there will become engraven upon one's memory--vividly, and
+for all time--the evening thus spent. And of that evening one's
+remembrance will hold true, both as to who was present, and where each
+such person sat, and what he or she was wearing, and what the walls
+and the stove and other trifling features of the room looked like.
+
+In the same way did Chichikov note each detail that evening--both the
+appointments of the agreeable, but not luxuriously furnished, room,
+and the good-humoured expression which reigned on the face of the
+thoughtful host, and the design of the curtains, and the amber-mounted
+pipe smoked by Platon, and the way in which he kept puffing smoke into
+the fat jowl of the dog Yarb, and the sneeze which, on each such
+occasion, Yarb vented, and the laughter of the pleasant-faced hostess
+(though always followed by the words "Pray do not tease him any more")
+and the cheerful candle-light, and the cricket chirping in a corner,
+and the glass door, and the spring night which, laying its elbows upon
+the tree-tops, and spangled with stars, and vocal with the
+nightingales which were pouring forth warbled ditties from the
+recesses of the foliage, kept glancing through the door, and regarding
+the company within.
+
+"How it delights me to hear your words, good Constantine
+Thedorovitch!" said Chichikov. "Indeed, nowhere in Russia have I met
+with a man of equal intellect."
+
+Kostanzhoglo smiled, while realising that the compliment was scarcely
+deserved.
+
+"If you want a man of GENUINE intellect," he said, "I can tell you
+of one. He is a man whose boot soles are worth more than my whole body."
+
+"Who may he be?" asked Chichikov in astonishment.
+
+"Murazov, our local Commissioner of Taxes."
+
+"Ah! I have heard of him before," remarked Chichikov.
+
+"He is a man who, were he not the director of an estate, might well be
+a director of the Empire. And were the Empire under my direction, I
+should at once appoint him my Minister of Finance."
+
+"I have heard tales beyond belief concerning him--for instance, that
+he has acquired ten million roubles."
+
+"Ten? More than forty. Soon half Russia will be in his hands."
+
+"You don't say so?" cried Chichikov in amazement.
+
+"Yes, certainly. The man who has only a hundred thousand roubles to
+work with grows rich but slowly, whereas he who has millions at his
+disposal can operate over a greater radius, and so back whatsoever he
+undertakes with twice or thrice the money which can be brought against
+him. Consequently his field becomes so spacious that he ends by having
+no rivals. Yes, no one can compete with him, and, whatsoever price he
+may fix for a given commodity, at that price it will have to remain,
+nor will any man be able to outbid it."
+
+"My God!" muttered Chichikov, crossing himself, and staring at
+Kostanzhoglo with his breath catching in his throat. "The mind cannot
+grasp it--it petrifies one's thoughts with awe. You see folk
+marvelling at what Science has achieved in the matter of investigating
+the habits of cowbugs, but to me it is a far more marvellous thing
+that in the hands of a single mortal there can become accumulated such
+gigantic sums of money. But may I ask whether the great fortune of
+which you speak has been acquired through honest means?"
+
+"Yes; through means of the most irreproachable kind--through the most
+honourable of methods."
+
+"Yet so improbable does it seem that I can scarcely believe it.
+Thousands I could understand, but millions--!"
+
+"On the contrary, to make thousands honestly is a far more difficult
+matter than to make millions. Millions are easily come by, for a
+millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways; the way lies
+straight before him, and he needs but to annex whatsoever he comes
+across. No rival will spring up to oppose him, for no rival will be
+sufficiently strong, and since the millionaire can operate over an
+extensive radius, he can bring (as I have said) two or three roubles
+to bear upon any one else's one. Consequently, what interest will he
+derive from a thousand roubles? Why, ten or twenty per cent. at the
+least."
+
+"And it is beyond measure marvellous that the whole should have
+started from a single kopeck."
+
+"Had it started otherwise, the thing could never have been done at
+all. Such is the normal course. He who is born with thousands, and is
+brought up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for
+he will have been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and
+so never come to stand in need of anything. It is necessary to begin
+from the beginning rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather
+than from a rouble; from the bottom rather than from the top. For only
+thus will a man get to know the men and conditions among which his
+career will have to be carved. That is to say, through encountering
+the rough and the tumble of life, and through learning that every
+kopeck has to be beaten out with a three-kopeck nail, and through
+worsting knave after knave, he will acquire such a degree of
+perspicuity and wariness that he will err in nothing which he may
+tackle, and never come to ruin. Believe me, it is so. The beginning,
+and not the middle, is the right starting point. No one who comes to
+me and says, 'Give me a hundred thousand roubles, and I will grow rich
+in no time,' do I believe, for he is likely to meet with failure
+rather than with the success of which he is so assured. 'Tis with a
+kopeck, and with a kopeck only, that a man must begin."
+
+"If that is so, _I_ shall grow rich," said Chichikov, involuntarily
+remembering the dead souls. "For of a surety _I_ began with nothing."
+
+"Constantine, pray allow Paul Ivanovitch to retire to rest," put in
+the lady of the house. "It is high time, and I am sure you have talked
+enough."
+
+"Yes, beyond a doubt you will grow rich," continued Kostanzhoglo,
+without heeding his wife. "For towards you there will run rivers and
+rivers of gold, until you will not know what to do with all your
+gains."
+
+As though spellbound, Chichikov sat in an aureate world of
+ever-growing dreams and fantasies. All his thoughts were in a whirl,
+and on a carpet of future wealth his tumultuous imagination was
+weaving golden patterns, while ever in his ears were ringing the
+words, "towards you there will run rivers and rivers of gold."
+
+"Really, Constantine, DO allow Paul Ivanovitch to go to bed."
+
+"What on earth is the matter?" retorted the master of the household
+testily. "Pray go yourself if you wish to." Then he stopped short, for
+the snoring of Platon was filling the whole room, and
+also--outrivalling it--that of the dog Yarb. This caused Kostanzhoglo
+to realise that bedtime really had arrived; wherefore, after he had
+shaken Platon out of his slumbers, and bidden Chichikov good night,
+all dispersed to their several chambers, and became plunged in sleep.
+
+All, that is to say, except Chichikov, whose thoughts remained
+wakeful, and who kept wondering and wondering how best he could become
+the owner, not of a fictitious, but of a real, estate. The
+conversation with his host had made everything clear, had made the
+possibility of his acquiring riches manifest, had made the difficult
+art of estate management at once easy and understandable; until it
+would seem as though particularly was his nature adapted for mastering
+the art in question. All that he would need to do would be to mortgage
+the dead souls, and then to set up a genuine establishment. Already he
+saw himself acting and administering as Kostanzhoglo had advised
+him--energetically, and through personal oversight, and undertaking
+nothing new until the old had been thoroughly learned, and viewing
+everything with his own eyes, and making himself familiar with each
+member of his peasantry, and abjuring all superfluities, and giving
+himself up to hard work and husbandry. Yes, already could he taste the
+pleasure which would be his when he had built up a complete industrial
+organisation, and the springs of the industrial machine were in
+vigorous working order, and each had become able to reinforce the
+other. Labour should be kept in active operation, and, even as, in a
+mill, flour comes flowing from grain, so should cash, and yet more
+cash, come flowing from every atom of refuse and remnant. And all the
+while he could see before him the landowner who was one of the leading
+men in Russia, and for whom he had conceived such an unbounded
+respect. Hitherto only for rank or for opulence had Chichikov
+respected a man--never for mere intellectual power; but now he made a
+first exception in favour of Kostanzhoglo, seeing that he felt that
+nothing undertaken by his host could possibly come to naught. And
+another project which was occupying Chichikov's mind was the project
+of purchasing the estate of a certain landowner named Khlobuev.
+Already Chichikov had at his disposal ten thousand roubles, and a
+further fifteen thousand he would try and borrow of Kostanzhoglo
+(seeing that the latter had himself said that he was prepared to help
+any one who really desired to grow rich); while, as for the remainder,
+he would either raise the sum by mortgaging the estate or force
+Khlobuev to wait for it--just to tell him to resort to the courts if
+such might be his pleasure.
+
+Long did our hero ponder the scheme; until at length the slumber which
+had, these four hours past, been holding the rest of the household in
+its embraces enfolded also Chichikov, and he sank into oblivion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Next day, with Platon and Constantine, Chichikov set forth to
+interview Khlobuev, the owner whose estate Constantine had consented
+to help Chichikov to purchase with a non-interest-bearing,
+uncovenanted loan of ten thousand roubles. Naturally, our hero was in
+the highest of spirits. For the first fifteen versts or so the road
+led through forest land and tillage belonging to Platon and his
+brother-in-law; but directly the limit of these domains was reached,
+forest land began to be replaced with swamp, and tillage with waste.
+Also, the village in Khlobuev's estate had about it a deserted air,
+and as for the proprietor himself, he was discovered in a state of
+drowsy dishevelment, having not long left his bed. A man of about
+forty, he had his cravat crooked, his frockcoat adorned with a large
+stain, and one of his boots worn through. Nevertheless he seemed
+delighted to see his visitors.
+
+"What?" he exclaimed. "Constantine Thedorovitch and Platon Mikhalitch?
+Really I must rub my eyes! Never again in this world did I look to see
+callers arriving. As a rule, folk avoid me like the devil, for they
+cannot disabuse their minds of the idea that I am going to ask them
+for a loan. Yes, it is my own fault, I know, but what would you? To
+the end will swine cheat swine. Pray excuse my costume. You will
+observe that my boots are in holes. But how can I afford to get them
+mended?"
+
+"Never mind," said Constantine. "We have come on business only. May I
+present to you a possible purchaser of your estate, in the person of
+Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?"
+
+"I am indeed glad to meet you!" was Khlobuev's response. "Pray shake
+hands with me, Paul Ivanovitch."
+
+Chichikov offered one hand, but not both.
+
+"I can show you a property worth your attention," went on the master
+of the estate. "May I ask if you have yet dined?"
+
+"Yes, we have," put in Constantine, desirous of escaping as soon as
+possible. "To save you further trouble, let us go and view the estate
+at once."
+
+"Very well," replied Khlobuev. "Pray come and inspect my
+irregularities and futilities. You have done well to dine beforehand,
+for not so much as a fowl is left in the place, so dire are the
+extremities to which you see me reduced."
+
+Sighing deeply, he took Platon by the arm (it was clear that he did
+not look for any sympathy from Constantine) and walked ahead, while
+Constantine and Chichikov followed.
+
+"Things are going hard with me, Platon Mikhalitch," continued
+Khlobuev. "How hard you cannot imagine. No money have I, no food, no
+boots. Were I still young and a bachelor, it would have come easy to
+me to live on bread and cheese; but when a man is growing old, and has
+got a wife and five children, such trials press heavily upon him, and,
+in spite of himself, his spirits sink."
+
+"But, should you succeed in selling the estate, that would help to put
+you right, would it not?" said Platon.
+
+"How could it do so?" replied Khlobuev with a despairing gesture.
+"What I might get for the property would have to go towards
+discharging my debts, and I should find myself left with less than a
+thousand roubles besides."
+
+"Then what do you intend to do?"
+
+"God knows."
+
+"But is there NOTHING to which you could set your hand in order to
+clear yourself of your difficulties?"
+
+"How could there be?"
+
+"Well, you might accept a Government post."
+
+"Become a provincial secretary, you mean? How could I obtain such a
+post? They would not offer me one of the meanest possible kind. Even
+supposing that they did, how could I live on a salary of five hundred
+roubles--I who have a wife and five children?"
+
+"Then try and obtain a bailiff's post."
+
+"Who would entrust their property to a man who has squandered his own
+estate?"
+
+"Nevertheless, when death and destitution threaten, a man must either
+do something or starve. Shall I ask my brother to use his influence to
+procure you a post?"
+
+"No, no, Platon Mikhalitch," sighed Khlobuev, gripping the other's
+hand. "I am no longer serviceable--I am grown old before my time, and
+find that liver and rheumatism are paying me for the sins of my youth.
+Why should the Government be put to a loss on my account?--not to
+speak of the fact that for every salaried post there are countless
+numbers of applicants. God forbid that, in order to provide me with a
+livelihood further burdens should be imposed upon an impoverished
+public!"
+
+"Such are the results of improvident management!" thought Platon to
+himself. "The disease is even worse than my slothfulness."
+
+Meanwhile Kostanzhoglo, walking by Chichikov's side, was almost taking
+leave of his senses.
+
+"Look at it!" he cried with a wave of his hand. "See to what
+wretchedness the peasant has become reduced! Should cattle disease
+come, Khlobuev will have nothing to fall back upon, but will be forced
+to sell his all--to leave the peasant without a horse, and therefore
+without the means to labour, even though the loss of a single day's
+work may take years of labour to rectify. Meanwhile it is plain that
+the local peasant has become a mere dissolute, lazy drunkard. Give a
+muzhik enough to live upon for twelve months without working, and you
+will corrupt him for ever, so inured to rags and vagrancy will he
+grow. And what is the good of that piece of pasture there--of that
+piece on the further side of those huts? It is a mere flooded tract.
+Were it mine, I should put it under flax, and clear five thousand
+roubles, or else sow it with turnips, and clear, perhaps, four
+thousand. And see how the rye is drooping, and nearly laid. As for
+wheat, I am pretty sure that he has not sown any. Look, too, at those
+ravines! Were they mine, they would be standing under timber which
+even a rook could not top. To think of wasting such quantities of
+land! Where land wouldn't bear corn, I should dig it up, and plant it
+with vegetables. What ought to be done is that Khlobuev ought to take
+a spade into his own hands, and to set his wife and children and
+servants to do the same; and even if they died of the exertion, they
+would at least die doing their duty, and not through guzzling at the
+dinner table."
+
+This said, Kostanzhoglo spat, and his brow flushed with grim
+indignation.
+
+Presently they reached an elevation whence the distant flashing of a
+river, with its flood waters and subsidiary streams, caught the eye,
+while, further off, a portion of General Betristchev's homestead could
+be discerned among the trees, and, over it, a blue, densely wooded
+hill which Chichikov guessed to be the spot where Tientietnikov's
+mansion was situated.
+
+"This is where I should plant timber," said Chichikov. "And, regarded
+as a site for a manor house, the situation could scarcely be beaten
+for beauty of view."
+
+"You seem to get great store upon views and beauty," remarked
+Kostanzhoglo with reproof in his tone. "Should you pay too much
+attention to those things, you might find yourself without crops or
+view. Utility should be placed first, not beauty. Beauty will come of
+itself. Take, for example, towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns
+are those which have built themselves--those in which each man has
+built to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns
+which men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better
+than collections of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only to what
+is NECESSARY."
+
+"Yes, but to me it would always be irksome to have to wait. All the
+time that I was doing so I should be hungering to see in front of the
+me the sort of prospect which I prefer."
+
+"Come, come! Are you a man of twenty-five--you who have served as a
+tchinovnik in St. Petersburg? Have patience, have patience. For six
+years work, and work hard. Plant, sow, and dig the earth without
+taking a moment's rest. It will be difficult, I know--yes, difficult
+indeed; but at the end of that time, if you have thoroughly stirred
+the soil, the land will begin to help you as nothing else can do. That
+is to say, over and above your seventy or so pairs of hands, there
+will begin to assist in the work seven hundred pairs of hands which
+you cannot see. Thus everything will be multiplied tenfold. I myself
+have ceased even to have to lift a finger, for whatsoever needs to be
+done gets done of itself. Nature loves patience: always remember that.
+It is a law given her of God Himself, who has blessed all those who
+are strong to endure."
+
+"To hear your words is to be both encouraged and strengthened," said
+Chichikov. To this Kostanzhoglo made no reply, but presently went on:
+
+"And see how that piece of land has been ploughed! To stay here longer
+is more than I can do. For me, to have to look upon such want of
+orderliness and foresight is death. Finish your business with Khlobuev
+without me, and whatsoever you do, get this treasure out of that
+fool's hands as quickly as possible, for he is dishonouring God's
+gifts."
+
+And Kostanzhoglo, his face dark with the rage that was seething in his
+excitable soul, left Chichikov, and caught up the owner of the
+establishment.
+
+"What, Constantine Thedorovitch?" cried Khlobuev in astonishment.
+"Just arrived, you are going already?"
+
+"Yes; I cannot help it; urgent business requires me at home." And
+entering his gig, Kostanzhoglo drove rapidly away. Somehow Khlobuev
+seemed to divine the cause of his sudden departure.
+
+"It was too much for him," he remarked. "An agriculturist of that kind
+does not like to have to look upon the results of such feckless
+management as mine. Would you believe it, Paul Ivanovitch, but this
+year I have been unable to sow any wheat! Am I not a fine husbandman?
+There was no seed for the purpose, nor yet anything with which to
+prepare the ground. No, I am not like Constantine Thedorovitch, who, I
+hear, is a perfect Napoleon in his particular line. Again and again
+the thought occurs to me, 'Why has so much intellect been put into
+that head, and only a drop or two into my own dull pate?' Take care of
+that puddle, gentlemen. I have told my peasants to lay down planks for
+the spring, but they have not done so. Nevertheless my heart aches for
+the poor fellows, for they need a good example, and what sort of an
+example am I? How am _I_ to give them orders? Pray take them under
+your charge, Paul Ivanovitch, for I cannot teach them orderliness and
+method when I myself lack both. As a matter of fact, I should have
+given them their freedom long ago, had there been any use in my doing
+so; for even I can see that peasants must first be afforded the means
+of earning a livelihood before they can live. What they need is a
+stern, yet just, master who shall live with them, day in, day out, and
+set them an example of tireless energy. The present-day Russian--I
+know of it myself--is helpless without a driver. Without one he falls
+asleep, and the mould grows over him."
+
+"Yet I cannot understand WHY he should fall asleep and grow mouldy
+in that fashion," said Platon. "Why should he need continual
+surveillance to keep him from degenerating into a drunkard and a
+good-for-nothing?"
+
+"The cause is lack of enlightenment," said Chichikov.
+
+"Possibly--only God knows. Yet enlightenment has reached us right
+enough. Do we not attend university lectures and everything else that
+is befitting? Take my own education. I learnt not only the usual
+things, but also the art of spending money upon the latest refinement,
+the latest amenity--the art of familiarising oneself with whatsoever
+money can buy. How, then, can it be said that I was educated
+foolishly? And my comrades' education was the same. A few of them
+succeeded in annexing the cream of things, for the reason that they
+had the wit to do so, and the rest spent their time in doing their
+best to ruin their health and squander their money. Often I think
+there is no hope for the present-day Russian. While desiring to do
+everything, he accomplishes nothing. One day he will scheme to begin a
+new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet before evening he will have
+so over-eaten himself as to be unable to speak or do aught but sit
+staring like an owl. The same with every one."
+
+"Quite so," agreed Chichikov with a smile. "'Tis everywhere the same
+story."
+
+"To tell the truth, we are not born to common sense. I doubt whether
+Russia has ever produced a really sensible man. For my own part, if I
+see my neighbour living a regular life, and making money, and saving
+it, I begin to distrust him, and to feel certain that in old age, if
+not before, he too will be led astray by the devil--led astray in a
+moment. Yes, whether or not we be educated, there is something we
+lack. But what that something is passes my understanding."
+
+On the return journey the prospect was the same as before. Everywhere
+the same slovenliness, the same disorder, was displaying itself
+unadorned: the only difference being that a fresh puddle had formed in
+the middle of the village street. This want and neglect was noticeable
+in the peasants' quarters equally with the quarters of the barin. In
+the village a furious woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor
+young wench within an ace of her life, and at the same time devoting
+some third person to the care of all the devils in hell; further away
+a couple of peasants were stoically contemplating the virago--one
+scratching his rump as he did so, and the other yawning. The same yawn
+was discernible in the buildings, for not a roof was there but had a
+gaping hole in it. As he gazed at the scene Platon himself yawned.
+Patch was superimposed upon patch, and, in place of a roof, one hut
+had a piece of wooden fencing, while its crumbling window-frames were
+stayed with sticks purloined from the barin's barn. Evidently the
+system of upkeep in vogue was the system employed in the case of
+Trishkin's coat--the system of cutting up the cuffs and the collar
+into mendings for the elbows.
+
+"No, I do not admire your way of doing things," was Chichikov's
+unspoken comment when the inspection had been concluded and the party
+had re-entered the house. Everywhere in the latter the visitors were
+struck with the way in which poverty went with glittering, fashionable
+profusion. On a writing-table lay a volume of Shakespeare, and, on an
+occasional table, a carved ivory back-scratcher. The hostess, too, was
+elegantly and fashionably attired, and devoted her whole conversation
+to the town and the local theatre. Lastly, the children--bright, merry
+little things--were well-dressed both as regards boys and girls. Yet
+far better would it have been for them if they had been clad in plain
+striped smocks, and running about the courtyard like peasant children.
+Presently a visitor arrived in the shape of a chattering, gossiping
+woman; whereupon the hostess carried her off to her own portion of the
+house, and, the children following them, the men found themselves
+alone.
+
+"How much do you want for the property?" asked Chichikov of Khlobuev.
+"I am afraid I must request you to name the lowest possible sum, since
+I find the estate in a far worse condition than I had expected to do."
+
+"Yes, it IS in a terrible state," agreed Khlobuev. "Nor is that the
+whole of the story. That is to say, I will not conceal from you the
+fact that, out of a hundred souls registered at the last revision,
+only fifty survive, so terrible have been the ravages of cholera. And
+of these, again, some have absconded; wherefore they too must be
+reckoned as dead, seeing that, were one to enter process against them,
+the costs would end in the property having to pass en bloc to the
+legal authorities. For these reasons I am asking only thirty-five
+thousand roubles for the estate."
+
+Chichikov (it need hardly be said) started to haggle.
+
+"Thirty-five thousand?" he cried. "Come, come! Surely you will accept
+TWENTY-five thousand?"
+
+This was too much for Platon's conscience.
+
+"Now, now, Paul Ivanovitch!" he exclaimed. "Take the property at the
+price named, and have done with it. The estate is worth at least that
+amount--so much so that, should you not be willing to give it, my
+brother-in-law and I will club together to effect the purchase."
+
+"That being so," said Chichikov, taken aback, "I beg to agree to the
+price in question. At the same time, I must ask you to allow me to
+defer payment of one-half of the purchase money until a year from
+now."
+
+"No, no, Paul Ivanovitch. Under no circumstances could I do that. Pay
+me half now, and the rest in . . .[1] You see, I need the money for
+the redemption of the mortgage."
+
+[1] Here, in the original, a word is missing.
+
+"That places me in a difficulty," remarked Chichikov. "Ten thousand
+roubles is all that at the moment I have available." As a matter of
+fact, this was not true, seeing that, counting also the money which he
+had borrowed of Kostanzhoglo, he had at his disposal TWENTY thousand.
+His real reason for hesitating was that he disliked the idea of making
+so large a payment in a lump sum.
+
+"I must repeat my request, Paul Ivanovitch," said Khlobuev, "--namely,
+that you pay me at least fifteen thousand immediately."
+
+"The odd five thousand _I_ will lend you," put in Platon to Chichikov.
+
+"Indeed?" exclaimed Chichikov as he reflected: "So he also lends money!"
+
+In the end Chichikov's dispatch-box was brought from the koliaska, and
+Khlobuev received thence ten thousand roubles, together with a promise
+that the remaining five thousand should be forthcoming on the morrow;
+though the promise was given only after Chichikov had first proposed
+that THREE thousand should be brought on the day named, and the rest
+be left over for two or three days longer, if not for a still more
+protracted period. The truth was that Paul Ivanovitch hated parting
+with money. No matter how urgent a situation might have been, he would
+still have preferred to pay a sum to-morrow rather than to-day. In
+other words, he acted as we all do, for we all like keeping a
+petitioner waiting. "Let him rub his back in the hall for a while," we
+say. "Surely he can bide his time a little?" Yet of the fact that
+every hour may be precious to the poor wretch, and that his business
+may suffer from the delay, we take no account. "Good sir," we say,
+"pray come again to-morrow. To-day I have no time to spare you."
+
+"Where do you intend henceforth to live?" inquired Platon. "Have you
+any other property to which you can retire?"
+
+"No," replied Khlobuev. "I shall remove to the town, where I possess a
+small villa. That would have been necessary, in any case, for the
+children's sake. You see, they must have instruction in God's word,
+and also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can
+these things be procured in the country.
+
+"Nothing to eat, yet dancing lessons for his children!" reflected
+Chichikov.
+
+"An extraordinary man!" was Platon's unspoken comment.
+
+"However, we must contrive to wet our bargain somehow," continued
+Khlobuev. "Hi, Kirushka! Bring that bottle of champagne."
+
+"Nothing to eat, yet champagne to drink!" reflected Chichikov. As for
+Platon, he did not know WHAT to think.
+
+In Khlobuev's eyes it was de rigueur that he should provide a guest
+with champagne; but, though he had sent to the town for some, he had
+been met with a blank refusal to forward even a bottle of kvass on
+credit. Only the discovery of a French dealer who had recently
+transferred his business from St. Petersburg, and opened a connection
+on a system of general credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev
+under the obligation of patronising him.
+
+The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful.
+In particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and
+friendliness, and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left.
+What knowledge of men and the world did his utterances display! How
+well and accurately could he divine things! With what appositeness did
+he sketch the neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their
+faults and failings! How thoroughly he knew the story of certain
+ruined gentry--the story of how, why, and through what cause they had
+fallen upon evil days! With what comic originality could he describe
+their little habits and customs!
+
+In short, his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and
+felt inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect.
+
+"What most surprises me," said Chichikov, "is how, in view of your
+ability, you come to be so destitute of means or resources."
+
+"But I have plenty of both," said Khlobuev, and with that went on to
+deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects
+proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a
+knowledge of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their
+shoulders and mentally exclaim: "Good Lord! What a difference between
+worldly wisdom and the capacity to use it!" In every case the projects
+in question were based upon the imperative necessity of at once
+procuring from somewhere two hundred--or at least one
+hundred--thousand roubles. That done (so Khlobuev averred), everything
+would fall into its proper place, the holes in his pockets would
+become stopped, his income would be quadrupled, and he would find
+himself in a position to liquidate his debts in full. Nevertheless he
+ended by saying: "What would you advise me to do? I fear that the
+philanthropist who would lend me two hundred thousand roubles or even
+a hundred thousand, does not exist. It is not God's will that he
+should."
+
+"Good gracious!" inwardly ejaculated Chichikov. "To suppose that God
+would send such a fool two hundred thousand roubles!"
+
+"However," went on Khlobuev, "I possess an aunt worth three
+millions--a pious old woman who gives freely to churches and
+monasteries, but finds a difficulty in helping her neighbour. At the
+same time, she is a lady of the old school, and worth having a peep
+at. Her canaries alone number four hundred, and, in addition, there is
+an army of pug-dogs, hangers-on, and servants. Even the youngest of
+the servants is sixty, but she calls them all 'young fellows,' and if
+a guest happens to offend her during dinner, she orders them to leave
+him out when handing out the dishes. THERE'S a woman for you!"
+
+Platon laughed.
+
+"And what may her family name be?" asked Chichikov. "And where does
+she live?"
+
+"She lives in the county town, and her name is Alexandra Ivanovna
+Khanasarov."
+
+"Then why do you not apply to her?" asked Platon earnestly. "It seems
+to me that, once she realised the position of your family, she could
+not possibly refuse you."
+
+"Alas! nothing is to be looked for from that quarter," replied
+Khlobuev. "My aunt is of a very stubborn disposition--a perfect stone
+of a woman. Moreover, she has around her a sufficient band of
+favourites already. In particular is there a fellow who is aiming for
+a Governorship, and to that end has managed to insinuate himself into
+the circle of her kinsfolk. By the way," the speaker added, turning to
+Platon, "would you do me a favour? Next week I am giving a dinner to
+the associated guilds of the town."
+
+Platon stared. He had been unaware that both in our capitals and in
+our provincial towns there exists a class of men whose lives are an
+enigma--men who, though they will seem to have exhausted their
+substance, and to have become enmeshed in debt, will suddenly be
+reported as in funds, and on the point of giving a dinner! And though,
+at this dinner, the guests will declare that the festival is bound to
+be their host's last fling, and that for a certainty he will be haled
+to prison on the morrow, ten years or more will elapse, and the rascal
+will still be at liberty, even though, in the meanwhile, his debts
+will have increased!
+
+In the same way did the conduct of Khlobuev's menage afford a curious
+phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te
+Deum, performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play
+performed by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again,
+one day would see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day
+a banquet and generous largesse given to a party of artists and
+sculptors. During these seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to
+have led any one but Khlobuev to seek suicide by hanging or shooting),
+the master of the house would be preserved from rash action by his
+strongly religious disposition, which, contriving in some curious way
+to conform with his irregular mode of life, enabled him to fall back
+upon reading the lives of saints, ascetics, and others of the type
+which has risen superior to its misfortunes. And at such times his
+spirit would become softened, his thoughts full of gentleness, and his
+eyes wet with tears; he would fall to saying his prayers, and
+invariably some strange coincidence would bring an answer thereto in
+the shape of an unexpected measure of assistance. That is to say, some
+former friend of his would remember him, and send him a trifle in the
+way of money; or else some female visitor would be moved by his story
+to let her impulsive, generous heart proffer him a handsome gift; or
+else a suit whereof tidings had never even reached his ears would end
+by being decided in his favour. And when that happened he would
+reverently acknowledge the immensity of the mercy of Providence,
+gratefully tender thanksgiving for the same, and betake himself again
+to his irregular mode of existence.
+
+"Somehow I feel sorry for the man," said Platon when he and Chichikov
+had taken leave of their host, and left the house.
+
+"Perhaps so, but he is a hopeless prodigal," replied the other.
+"Personally I find it impossible to compassionate such fellows."
+
+And with that the pair ceased to devote another thought to Khlobuev.
+In the case of Platon, this was because he contemplated the fortunes
+of his fellows with the lethargic, half-somnolent eye which he turned
+upon all the rest of the world; for though the sight of distress of
+others would cause his heart to contract and feel full of sympathy,
+the impression thus produced never sank into the depths of his being.
+Accordingly, before many minutes were over he had ceased to bestow a
+single thought upon his late host. With Chichikov, however, things
+were different. Whereas Platon had ceased to think of Khlobuev no more
+than he had ceased to think of himself, Chichikov's mind had strayed
+elsewhere, for the reason that it had become taken up with grave
+meditation on the subject of the purchase just made. Suddenly finding
+himself no longer a fictitious proprietor, but the owner of a real, an
+actually existing, estate, he became contemplative, and his plans and
+ideas assumed such a serious vein as imparted to his features an
+unconsciously important air.
+
+"Patience and hard work!" he muttered to himself. "The thing will not
+be difficult, for with those two requisites I have been familiar from
+the days of my swaddling clothes. Yes, no novelty will they be to me.
+Yet, in middle age, shall I be able to compass the patience whereof I
+was capable in my youth?"
+
+However, no matter how he regarded the future, and no matter from what
+point of view he considered his recent acquisition, he could see
+nothing but advantage likely to accrue from the bargain. For one
+thing, he might be able to proceed so that, first the whole of the
+estate should be mortgaged, and then the better portions of land sold
+outright. Or he might so contrive matters as to manage the property
+for a while (and thus become a landowner like Kostanzhoglo, whose
+advice, as his neighbour and his benefactor, he intended always to
+follow), and then to dispose of the property by private treaty
+(provided he did not wish to continue his ownership), and still to
+retain in his hands the dead and abandoned souls. And another possible
+coup occurred to his mind. That is to say, he might contrive to
+withdraw from the district without having repaid Kostanzhoglo at all!
+Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair to say that the idea was
+not one of Chichikov's own conception. Rather, it had presented
+itself--mocking, laughing, and winking--unbidden. Yet the impudent,
+the wanton thing! Who is the procreator of suddenly born ideas of the
+kind? The thought that he was now a real, an actual, proprietor
+instead of a fictitious--that he was now a proprietor of real land,
+real rights of timber and pasture, and real serfs who existed not
+only in the imagination, but also in veritable actuality--greatly
+elated our hero. So he took to dancing up and down in his seat, to
+rubbing his hands together, to winking at himself, to holding his
+fist, trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making believe to execute a
+march), and even to uttering aloud such encouraging nicknames and
+phrases as "bulldog" and "little fat capon." Then suddenly
+recollecting that he was not alone, he hastened to moderate his
+behaviour and endeavoured to stifle the endless flow of his good
+spirits; with the result that when Platon, mistaking certain sounds
+for utterances addressed to himself, inquired what his companion had
+said, the latter retained the presence of mind to reply "Nothing."
+
+Presently, as Chichikov gazed about him, he saw that for some time
+past the koliaska had been skirting a beautiful wood, and that on
+either side the road was bordered with an edging of birch trees, the
+tenderly-green, recently-opened leaves of which caused their tall,
+slender trunks to show up with the whiteness of a snowdrift. Likewise
+nightingales were warbling from the recesses of the foliage, and some
+wood tulips were glowing yellow in the grass. Next (and almost before
+Chichikov had realised how he came to be in such a beautiful spot
+when, but a moment before, there had been visible only open fields)
+there glimmered among the trees the stony whiteness of a church, with,
+on the further side of it, the intermittent, foliage-buried line of a
+fence; while from the upper end of a village street there was
+advancing to meet the vehicle a gentleman with a cap on his head, a
+knotted cudgel in his hands, and a slender-limbed English dog by his
+side.
+
+"This is my brother," said Platon. "Stop, coachman." And he descended
+from the koliaska, while Chichikov followed his example. Yarb and the
+strange dog saluted one another, and then the active, thin-legged,
+slender-tongued Azor relinquished his licking of Yarb's blunt jowl,
+licked Platon's hands instead, and, leaping upon Chichikov, slobbered
+right into his ear.
+
+The two brothers embraced.
+
+"Really, Platon," said the gentleman (whose name was Vassili), "what
+do you mean by treating me like this?"
+
+"How so?" said Platon indifferently.
+
+"What? For three days past I have seen and heard nothing of you! A
+groom from Pietukh's brought your cob home, and told me you had
+departed on an expedition with some barin. At least you might have
+sent me word as to your destination and the probable length of your
+absence. What made you act so? God knows what I have not been
+wondering!"
+
+"Does it matter?" rejoined Platon. "I forgot to send you word, and we
+have been no further than Constantine's (who, with our sister, sends
+you his greeting). By the way, may I introduce Paul Ivanovitch
+Chichikov?"
+
+The pair shook hands with one another. Then, doffing their caps, they
+embraced.
+
+"What sort of man is this Chichikov?" thought Vassili. "As a rule my
+brother Platon is not over-nice in his choice of acquaintances." And,
+eyeing our hero as narrowly as civility permitted, he saw that his
+appearance was that of a perfectly respectable individual.
+
+Chichikov returned Vassili's scrutiny with a similar observance of the
+dictates of civility, and perceived that he was shorter than Platon,
+that his hair was of a darker shade, and that his features, though
+less handsome, contained far more life, animation, and kindliness than
+did his brother's. Clearly he indulged in less dreaming, though that
+was an aspect which Chichikov little regarded.
+
+"I have made up my mind to go touring our Holy Russia with Paul
+Ivanovitch," said Platon. "Perhaps it will rid me of my melancholy."
+
+"What has made you come to such a sudden decision?" asked the
+perplexed Vassili (very nearly he added: "Fancy going travelling with
+a man whose acquaintance you have just made, and who may turn out to
+be a rascal or the devil knows what!" But, in spite of his distrust,
+he contented himself with another covert scrutiny of Chichikov, and
+this time came to the conclusion that there was no fault to be found
+with his exterior).
+
+The party turned to the right, and entered the gates of an ancient
+courtyard attached to an old-fashioned house of a type no longer
+built--the type which has huge gables supporting a high-pitched roof.
+In the centre of the courtyard two great lime trees covered half the
+surrounding space with shade, while beneath them were ranged a number
+of wooden benches, and the whole was encircled with a ring of
+blossoming lilacs and cherry trees which, like a beaded necklace,
+reinforced the wooden fence, and almost buried it beneath their
+clusters of leaves and flowers. The house, too, stood almost concealed
+by this greenery, except that the front door and the windows peered
+pleasantly through the foliage, and that here and there between the
+stems of the trees there could be caught glimpses of the kitchen
+regions, the storehouses, and the cellar. Lastly, around the whole
+stood a grove, from the recesses of which came the echoing songs of
+nightingales.
+
+Involuntarily the place communicated to the soul a sort of quiet,
+restful feeling, so eloquently did it speak of that care-free period
+when every one lived on good terms with his neighbour, and all was
+simple and unsophisticated. Vassili invited Chichikov to seat himself,
+and the party approached, for that purpose, the benches under the lime
+trees; after which a youth of about seventeen, and clad in a red
+shirt, brought decanters containing various kinds of kvass (some of
+them as thick as syrup, and others hissing like aerated lemonade),
+deposited the same upon the table, and, taking up a spade which he had
+left leaning against a tree, moved away towards the garden. The reason
+of this was that in the brothers' household, as in that of
+Kostanzhoglo, no servants were kept, since the whole staff were rated
+as gardeners, and performed that duty in rotation--Vassili holding
+that domestic service was not a specialised calling, but one to which
+any one might contribute a hand, and therefore one which did not
+require special menials to be kept for the purpose. Moreover, he held
+that the average Russian peasant remains active and willing (rather
+than lazy) only so long as he wears a shirt and a peasant's smock; but
+that as soon as ever he finds himself put into a German tailcoat, he
+becomes awkward, sluggish, indolent, disinclined to change his vest or
+take a bath, fond of sleeping in his clothes, and certain to breed
+fleas and bugs under the German apparel. And it may be that Vassili
+was right. At all events, the brothers' peasantry were exceedingly
+well clad--the women, in particular, having their head-dresses
+spangled with gold, and the sleeves of their blouses embroidered after
+the fashion of a Turkish shawl.
+
+"You see here the species of kvass for which our house has long been
+famous," said Vassili to Chichikov. The latter poured himself out a
+glassful from the first decanter which he lighted upon, and found the
+contents to be linden honey of a kind never tasted by him even in
+Poland, seeing that it had a sparkle like that of champagne, and also
+an effervescence which sent a pleasant spray from the mouth into the
+nose.
+
+"Nectar!" he proclaimed. Then he took some from a second decanter. It
+proved to be even better than the first. "A beverage of beverages!" he
+exclaimed. "At your respected brother-in-law's I tasted the finest
+syrup which has ever come my way, but here I have tasted the very
+finest kvass."
+
+"Yet the recipe for the syrup also came from here," said Vassili,
+"seeing that my sister took it with her. By the way, to what part of
+the country, and to what places, are you thinking of travelling?"
+
+"To tell the truth," replied Chichikov, rocking himself to and fro on
+the bench, and smoothing his knee with his hand, and gently inclining
+his head, "I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs
+of others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend,
+and, I might add, a generous benefactor of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives
+are relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as
+well, in that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire
+to see the world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, to
+so speak, a living book, a second course of education."
+
+Vassili took thought. "The man speaks floridly," he reflected, "yet
+his words contain a certain element of truth." After a moment's
+silence he added to Platon: "I am beginning to think that the tour
+might help you to bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition
+of mental slumber. You have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness
+or satiety, as through a lack of vivid perceptions and impressions.
+For myself, I am your complete antithesis. I should be only too glad
+if I could feel less acutely, if I could take things less to heart."
+
+"Emotion has become a disease with you," said Platon. "You seek your
+own troubles, and make your own anxieties."
+
+"How can you say that when ready-made anxieties greet one at every
+step?" exclaimed Vassili. "For example, have you heard of the trick
+which Lienitsin has just played us--of his seizing the piece of vacant
+land whither our peasants resort for their sports? That piece I would
+not sell for all the money in the world. It has long been our
+peasants' play-ground, and all the traditions of our village are bound
+up with it. Moreover, for me, old custom is a sacred thing for which I
+would gladly sacrifice everything else."
+
+"Lienitsin cannot have known of this, or he would not have seized the
+land," said Platon. "He is a newcomer, just arrived from St.
+Petersburg. A few words of explanation ought to meet the case."
+
+"But he DOES know of what I have stated; he DOES know of it.
+Purposely I sent him word to that affect, yet he has returned me the
+rudest of answers."
+
+"Then go yourself and explain matters to him."
+
+"No, I will not do that; he has tried to carry off things with too
+high a hand. But YOU can go if you like."
+
+"I would certainly go were it not that I scarcely like to interfere.
+Also, I am a man whom he could easily hoodwink and outwit."
+
+"Would it help you if _I_ were to go?" put in Chichikov. "Pray
+enlighten me as to the matter."
+
+Vassili glanced at the speaker, and thought to himself: "What a
+passion the man has for travelling!"
+
+"Yes, pray give me an idea of the kind of fellow," repeated Chichikov,
+"and also outline to me the affair."
+
+"I should be ashamed to trouble you with such an unpleasant
+commission," replied Vassili. "He is a man whom I take to be an utter
+rascal. Originally a member of a family of plain dvoriane in this
+province, he entered the Civil Service in St. Petersburg, then married
+some one's natural daughter in that city, and has returned to lord it
+with a high hand. I cannot bear the tone he adopts. Our folk are by no
+means fools. They do not look upon the current fashion as the Tsar's
+ukaz any more than they look upon St. Petersburg as the Church."
+
+"Naturally," said Chichikov. "But tell me more of the particulars of
+the quarrel."
+
+"They are these. He needs additional land and, had he not acted as he
+has done, I would have given him some land elsewhere for nothing; but,
+as it is, the pestilent fellow has taken it into his head to--"
+
+"I think I had better go and have a talk with him. That might settle
+the affair. Several times have people charged me with similar
+commissions, and never have they repented of it. General Betristchev
+is an example."
+
+"Nevertheless I am ashamed that you should be put to the annoyance of
+having to converse with such a fellow."
+
+
+             [At this point there occurs a long hiatus.]
+
+
+"And above all things, such a transaction would need to be carried
+through in secret," said Chichikov. "True, the law does not forbid
+such things, but there is always the risk of a scandal."
+
+"Quite so, quite so," said Lienitsin with head bent down.
+
+"Then we agree!" exclaimed Chichikov. "How charming! As I say, my
+business is both legal and illegal. Though needing to effect a
+mortgage, I desire to put no one to the risk of having to pay the two
+roubles on each living soul; wherefore I have conceived the idea of
+relieving landowners of that distasteful obligation by acquiring dead
+and absconded souls who have failed to disappear from the revision
+list. This enables me at once to perform an act of Christian charity
+and to remove from the shoulders of our more impoverished proprietors
+the burden of tax-payment upon souls of the kind specified. Should you
+yourself care to do business with me, we will draw up a formal
+purchase agreement as though the souls in question were still alive."
+
+"But it would be such a curious arrangement," muttered Lienitsin,
+moving his chair and himself a little further away. "It would be an
+arrangement which, er--er--"
+
+"Would involve you in no scandal whatever, seeing that the affair
+would be carried through in secret. Moreover, between friends who are
+well-disposed towards one another--"
+
+"Nevertheless--"
+
+Chichikov adopted a firmer and more decided tone. "I repeat that there
+would be no scandal," he said. "The transaction would take place as
+between good friends, and as between friends of mature age, and as
+between friends of good status, and as between friends who know how to
+keep their own counsel." And, so saying, he looked his interlocutor
+frankly and generously in the eyes.
+
+Nevertheless Lienitsin's resourcefulness and acumen in business
+matters failed to relieve his mind of a certain perplexity--and the
+less so since he had contrived to become caught in his own net. Yet,
+in general, he possessed neither a love for nor a talent for underhand
+dealings, and, had not fate and circumstances favoured Chichikov by
+causing Lienitsin's wife to enter the room at that moment, things
+might have turned out very differently from what they did. Madame was
+a pale, thin, insignificant-looking young lady, but none the less a
+lady who wore her clothes a la St. Petersburg, and cultivated the
+society of persons who were unimpeachably comme il faut. Behind her,
+borne in a nurse's arms, came the first fruits of the love of husband
+and wife. Adopting his most telling method of approach (the method
+accompanied with a sidelong inclination of the head and a sort of
+hop), Chichikov hastened to greet the lady from the metropolis, and
+then the baby. At first the latter started to bellow disapproval, but
+the words "Agoo, agoo, my pet!" added to a little cracking of the
+fingers and a sight of a beautiful seal on a watch chain, enabled
+Chichikov to weedle the infant into his arms; after which he fell to
+swinging it up and down until he had contrived to raise a smile on its
+face--a circumstance which greatly delighted the parents, and finally
+inclined the father in his visitor's favour. Suddenly,
+however--whether from pleasure or from some other cause--the infant
+misbehaved itself!"
+
+"My God!" cried Madame. "He has gone and spoilt your frockcoat!"
+
+True enough, on glancing downwards, Chichikov saw that the sleeve of
+his brand-new garment had indeed suffered a hurt. "If I could catch
+you alone, you little devil," he muttered to himself, "I'd shoot you!"
+
+Host, hostess and nurse all ran for eau-de-Cologne, and from three
+sides set themselves to rub the spot affected.
+
+"Never mind, never mind; it is nothing," said Chichikov as he strove
+to communicate to his features as cheerful an expression as possible.
+"What does it matter what a child may spoil during the golden age of
+its infancy?"
+
+To himself he remarked: "The little brute! Would it could be devoured
+by wolves. It has made only too good a shot, the cussed young
+ragamuffin!"
+
+How, after this--after the guest had shown such innocent affection for
+the little one, and magnanimously paid for his so doing with a
+brand-new suit--could the father remain obdurate? Nevertheless, to
+avoid setting a bad example to the countryside, he and Chichikov
+agreed to carry through the transaction PRIVATELY, lest, otherwise,
+a scandal should arise.
+
+"In return," said Chichikov, "would you mind doing me the following
+favour? I desire to mediate in the matter of your difference with the
+Brothers Platonov. I believe that you wish to acquire some additional
+land? Is not that so?"
+
+
+            [Here there occurs a hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov's tour in
+search of a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little
+money passed into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he
+did not steal, he merely used. And every one of us at times does the
+same: one man with regard to Government timber, and another with
+regard to a sum belonging to his employer, while a third defrauds his
+children for the sake of an actress, and a fourth robs his peasantry
+for the sake of smart furniture or a carriage. What can one do when
+one is surrounded on every side with roguery, and everywhere there are
+insanely expensive restaurants, masked balls, and dances to the music
+of gipsy bands? To abstain when every one else is indulging in these
+things, and fashion commands, is difficult indeed!
+
+Chichikov was for setting forth again, but the roads had now got into
+a bad state, and, in addition, there was in preparation a second
+fair--one for the dvoriane only. The former fair had been held for the
+sale of horses, cattle, cheese, and other peasant produce, and the
+buyers had been merely cattle-jobbers and kulaks; but this time the
+function was to be one for the sale of manorial produce which had been
+bought up by wholesale dealers at Nizhni Novgorod, and then
+transferred hither. To the fair, of course, came those ravishers of
+the Russian purse who, in the shape of Frenchmen with pomades and
+Frenchwomen with hats, make away with money earned by blood and hard
+work, and, like the locusts of Egypt (to use Kostanzhoglo's term) not
+only devour their prey, but also dig holes in the ground and leave
+behind their eggs.
+
+Although, unfortunately, the occurrence of a bad harvest retained many
+landowners at their country houses, the local tchinovniks (whom the
+failure of the harvest did NOT touch) proceeded to let themselves
+go--as also, to their undoing, did their wives. The reading of books
+of the type diffused, in these modern days, for the inoculation of
+humanity with a craving for new and superior amenities of life had
+caused every one to conceive a passion for experimenting with the
+latest luxury; and to meet this want the French wine merchant opened a
+new establishment in the shape of a restaurant as had never before
+been heard of in the province--a restaurant where supper could be
+procured on credit as regarded one-half, and for an unprecedentedly
+low sum as regarded the other. This exactly suited both heads of
+boards and clerks who were living in hope of being able some day to
+resume their bribes-taking from suitors. There also developed a
+tendency to compete in the matter of horses and liveried flunkeys;
+with the result that despite the damp and snowy weather exceedingly
+elegant turnouts took to parading backwards and forwards. Whence these
+equipages had come God only knows, but at least they would not have
+disgraced St. Petersburg. From within them merchants and attorneys
+doffed their caps to ladies, and inquired after their health, and
+likewise it became a rare sight to see a bearded man in a rough fur
+cap, since every one now went about clean-shaven and with dirty teeth,
+after the European fashion.
+
+"Sir, I beg of you to inspect my goods," said a tradesman as Chichikov
+was passing his establishment. "Within my doors you will find a large
+variety of clothing."
+
+"Have you a cloth of bilberry-coloured check?" inquired the person
+addressed.
+
+"I have cloths of the finest kind," replied the tradesman, raising his
+cap with one hand, and pointing to his shop with the other. Chichikov
+entered, and in a trice the proprietor had dived beneath the counter,
+and appeared on the other side of it, with his back to his wares and
+his face towards the customer. Leaning forward on the tips of his
+fingers, and indicating his merchandise with just the suspicion of a
+nod, he requested the gentleman to specify exactly the species of
+cloth which he required.
+
+"A cloth with an olive-coloured or a bottle-tinted spot in its
+pattern--anything in the nature of bilberry," explained Chichikov.
+
+"That being so, sir, I may say that I am about to show you clothes of
+a quality which even our illustrious capitals could not surpass. Hi,
+boy! Reach down that roll up there--number 34. No, NOT that one,
+fool! Such fellows as you are always too good for your job.
+There--hand it to me. This is indeed a nice pattern!"
+
+Unfolding the garment, the tradesman thrust it close to Chichikov's
+nose in order that he might not only handle, but also smell it.
+
+"Excellent, but not what I want," pronounced Chichikov. "Formerly I
+was in the Custom's Department, and therefore wear none but cloth of
+the latest make. What I want is of a ruddier pattern than this--not
+exactly a bottle-tinted pattern, but something approaching bilberry."
+
+"I understand, sir. Of course you require only the very newest thing.
+A cloth of that kind I DO possess, sir, and though excessive in
+price, it is of a quality to match."
+
+Carrying the roll of stuff to the light--even stepping into the street
+for the purpose--the shopman unfolded his prize with the words, "A
+truly beautiful shade! A cloth of smoked grey, shot with flame colour!"
+
+The material met with the customer's approval, a price was agreed
+upon, and with incredible celerity the vendor made up the purchase
+into a brown-paper parcel, and stowed it away in Chichikov's koliaska.
+
+At this moment a voice asked to be shown a black frockcoat.
+
+"The devil take me if it isn't Khlobuev!" muttered our hero, turning
+his back upon the newcomer. Unfortunately the other had seen him.
+
+"Come, come, Paul Ivanovitch!" he expostulated. "Surely you do not
+intend to overlook me? I have been searching for you everywhere, for I
+have something important to say to you."
+
+"My dear sir, my very dear sir," said Chichikov as he pressed
+Khlobuev's hand, "I can assure you that, had I the necessary leisure,
+I should at all times be charmed to converse with you." And mentally
+he added: "Would that the Evil One would fly away with you!"
+
+Almost at the same time Murazov, the great landowner, entered the
+shop. As he did so our hero hastened to exclaim: "Why, it is Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! How ARE you, my very dear sir?"
+
+"Well enough," replied Murazov, removing his cap (Khlobuev and the
+shopman had already done the same). "How, may I ask, are YOU?"
+
+"But poorly," replied Chichikov, "for of late I have been troubled
+with indigestion, and my sleep is bad. I do not get sufficient
+exercise."
+
+However, instead of probing deeper into the subject of Chichikov's
+ailments, Murazov turned to Khlobuev.
+
+"I saw you enter the shop," he said, "and therefore followed you, for
+I have something important for your ear. Could you spare me a minute
+or two?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said Khlobuev, and the pair left the shop
+together.
+
+"I wonder what is afoot between them," said Chichikov to himself.
+
+"A wise and noble gentleman, Athanasi Vassilievitch!" remarked the
+tradesman. Chichikov made no reply save a gesture.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch, I have been looking for you everywhere," Lienitsin's
+voice said from behind him, while again the tradesman hastened to
+remove his cap. "Pray come home with me, for I have something to say
+to you."
+
+Chichikov scanned the speaker's face, but could make nothing of it.
+Paying the tradesman for the cloth, he left the shop.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov had conveyed Khlobuev to his rooms.
+
+"Tell me," he said to his guest, "exactly how your affairs stand. I
+take it that, after all, your aunt left you something?"
+
+"It would be difficult to say whether or not my affairs are improved,"
+replied Khlobuev. "True, fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles came
+to me from Madame Khanasarova, but I had to pay them away to satisfy
+my debts. Consequently I am once more destitute. But the important
+point is that there was trickery connected with the legacy, and
+shameful trickery at that. Yes, though it may surprise you, it is a
+fact that that fellow Chichikov--"
+
+"Yes, Semen Semenovitch, but, before you go on to speak of Chichikov,
+pray tell me something about yourself, and how much, in your opinion,
+would be sufficient to clear you of your difficulties?"
+
+"My difficulties are grievous," replied Khlobuev. "To rid myself of
+them, and also to have enough to go on with, I should need to acquire
+at least a hundred thousand roubles, if not more. In short, things are
+becoming impossible for me."
+
+"And, had you the money, what should you do with it?"
+
+"I should rent a tenement, and devote myself to the education of my
+children. Not a thought should I give to myself, for my career is
+over, seeing that it is impossible for me to re-enter the Civil
+Service and I am good for nothing else."
+
+"Nevertheless, when a man is leading an idle life he is apt to incur
+temptations which shun his better-employed brother."
+
+"Yes, but beyond question I am good for nothing, so broken is my
+health, and such a martyr I am to dyspepsia."
+
+"But how to you propose to live without working? How can a man like
+you exist without a post or a position of any kind? Look around you at
+the works of God. Everything has its proper function, and pursues its
+proper course. Even a stone can be used for one purpose or another.
+How, then, can it be right for a man who is a thinking being to remain
+a drone?"
+
+"But I should not be a drone, for I should employ myself with the
+education of my children."
+
+"No, Semen Semenovitch--no: THAT you would find the hardest task of
+all. For how can a man educate his children who has never even
+educated himself? Instruction can be imparted to children only through
+the medium of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a
+profitable example--a life which has been spent in idleness and the
+playing of cards? No, Semen Semenovitch. You had far better hand your
+children over to me. Otherwise they will be ruined. Do not think that
+I am jesting. Idleness has wrecked your life, and you must flee from
+it. Can a man live with nothing to keep him in place? Even a
+journeyman labourer who earns the barest pittance may take an interest
+in his occupation."
+
+"Athanasi Vassilievitch, I have tried to overcome myself, but what
+further resource lies open to me? Can I who am old and incapable
+re-enter the Civil Service and spend year after year at a desk with
+youths who are just starting their careers? Moreover, I have lost the
+trick of taking bribes; I should only hinder both myself and others;
+while, as you know, it is a department which has an established caste
+of its own. Therefore, though I have considered, and even attempted to
+obtain, every conceivable post, I find myself incompetent for them
+all. Only in a monastery should I--"
+
+"Nay, nay. Monasteries, again, are only for those who have worked. To
+those who have spent their youth in dissipation such havens say what
+the ant said to the dragonfly--namely, 'Go you away, and return to
+your dancing.' Yes, even in a monastery do folk toil and toil--they do
+not sit playing whist." Murazov looked at Khlobuev, and added: "Semen
+Semenovitch, you are deceiving both yourself and me."
+
+Poor Khlobuev could not utter a word in reply, and Murazov began to
+feel sorry for him.
+
+"Listen, Semen Semenovitch," he went on. "I know that you say your
+prayers, and that you go to church, and that you observe both Matins
+and Vespers, and that, though averse to early rising, you leave your
+bed at four o'clock in the morning before the household fires have
+been lit."
+
+"Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch," said Khlobuev, "that is another matter
+altogether. That I do, not for man's sake, but for the sake of Him who
+has ordered all things here on earth. Yes, I believe that He at least
+can feel compassion for me, that He at least, though I be foul and
+lowly, will pardon me and receive me when all men have cast me out,
+and my best friend has betrayed me and boasted that he has done it for
+a good end."
+
+Khlobuev's face was glowing with emotion, and from the older man's
+eyes also a tear had started.
+
+"You will do well to hearken unto Him who is merciful," he said. "But
+remember also that, in the eyes of the All-Merciful, honest toil is of
+equal merit with a prayer. Therefore take unto yourself whatsoever
+task you may, and do it as though you were doing it, not unto man, but
+unto God. Even though to your lot there should fall but the cleaning
+of a floor, clean that floor as though it were being cleaned for Him
+alone. And thence at least this good you will reap: that there will
+remain to you no time for what is evil--for card playing, for
+feasting, for all the life of this gay world. Are you acquainted with
+Ivan Potapitch?"
+
+"Yes, not only am I acquainted with him, but I also greatly respect
+him."
+
+"Time was when Ivan Potapitch was a merchant worth half a million
+roubles. In everything did he look but for gain, and his affairs
+prospered exceedingly, so much so that he was able to send his son to
+be educated in France, and to marry his daughter to a General. And
+whether in his office or at the Exchange, he would stop any friend
+whom he encountered and carry him off to a tavern to drink, and spend
+whole days thus employed. But at last he became bankrupt, and God sent
+him other misfortunes also. His son! Ah, well! Ivan Potapitch is now
+my steward, for he had to begin life over again. Yet once more his
+affairs are in order, and, had it been his wish, he could have
+restarted in business with a capital of half a million roubles. 'But
+no,' he said. 'A steward am I, and a steward will I remain to the end;
+for, from being full-stomached and heavy with dropsy, I have become
+strong and well.' Not a drop of liquor passes his lips, but only
+cabbage soup and gruel. And he prays as none of the rest of us pray,
+and he helps the poor as none of the rest of us help them; and to this
+he would add yet further charity if his means permitted him to do so."
+
+Poor Khlobuev remained silent, as before.
+
+The elder man took his two hands in his.
+
+"Semen Semenovitch," he said, "you cannot think how much I pity you,
+or how much I have had you in my thoughts. Listen to me. In the
+monastery there is a recluse who never looks upon a human face. Of all
+men whom I know he has the broadest mind, and he breaks not his
+silence save to give advice. To him I went and said that I had a
+friend (though I did not actually mention your name) who was in great
+trouble of soul. Suddenly the recluse interrupted me with the words:
+'God's work first, and our own last. There is need for a church to be
+built, but no money wherewith to build it. Money must be collected to
+that end.' Then he shut to the wicket. I wondered to myself what this
+could mean, and concluded that the recluse had been unwilling to
+accord me his counsel. Next I repaired to the Archimandrite, and had
+scarce reached his door when he inquired of me whether I could commend
+to him a man meet to be entrusted with the collection of alms for a
+church--a man who should belong to the dvoriane or to the more
+lettered merchants, but who would guard the trust as he would guard
+the salvation of his soul. On the instant thought I to myself: 'Why
+should not the Holy Father appoint my friend Semen Semenovitch? For
+the way of suffering would benefit him greatly; and as he passed with
+his ledger from landowner to peasant, and from peasant to townsman, he
+would learn where folk dwell, and who stands in need of aught, and
+thus would become better acquainted with the countryside than folk who
+dwell in cities. And, thus become, he would find that his services
+were always in demand.' Only of late did the Governor-General say to
+me that, could he but be furnished with the name of a secretary who
+should know his work not only by the book but also by experience, he
+would give him a great sum, since nothing is to be learned by the
+former means, and, through it, much confusion arises."
+
+"You confound me, you overwhelm me!" said Khlobuev, staring at his
+companion in open-eyed astonishment. "I can scarcely believe that your
+words are true, seeing that for such a trust an active, indefatigable
+man would be necessary. Moreover, how could I leave my wife and
+children unprovided for?"
+
+"Have no fear," said Murazov, "I myself will take them under my care,
+as well as procure for the children a tutor. Far better and nobler
+were it for you to be travelling with a wallet, and asking alms on
+behalf of God, then to be remaining here and asking alms for yourself
+alone. Likewise, I will furnish you with a tilt-waggon, so that you
+may be saved some of the hardships of the journey, and thus be
+preserved in good health. Also, I will give you some money for the
+journey, in order that, as you pass on your way, you may give to those
+who stand in greater need than their fellows. Thus, if, before giving,
+you assure yourself that the recipient of the alms is worthy of the
+same, you will do much good; and as you travel you will become
+acquainted with all men and sundry, and they will treat you, not as a
+tchinovnik to be feared, but as one to whom, as a petitioner on behalf
+of the Church, they may unloose their tongues without peril."
+
+"I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my
+part in it were it not likely to exceed my strength."
+
+"What is there that does NOT exceed your strength?" said Murazov.
+"Nothing is wholly proportionate to it--everything surpasses it. Help
+from above is necessary: otherwise we are all powerless. Strength
+comes of prayer, and of prayer alone. When a man crosses himself, and
+cries, 'Lord, have mercy upon me!' he soon stems the current and wins
+to the shore. Nor need you take any prolonged thought concerning this
+matter. All that you need do is to accept it as a commission sent of
+God. The tilt-waggon can be prepared for you immediately; and then, as
+soon as you have been to the Archimandrite for your book of accounts
+and his blessing, you will be free to start on your journey."
+
+"I submit myself to you, and accept the commission as a divine trust."
+
+And even as Khlobuev spoke he felt renewed vigour and confidence arise
+in his soul, and his mind begin to awake to a sense of hopefulness of
+eventually being able to put to flight his troubles. And even as it
+was, the world seemed to be growing dim to his eyes. . . .
+
+Meanwhile, plea after plea had been presented to the legal
+authorities, and daily were relatives whom no one had before heard of
+putting in an appearance. Yes, like vultures to a corpse did these
+good folk come flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov
+had left behind her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov,
+rumours with regard to the validity of the second will, rumours with
+regard to will number one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of
+funds. Also, there came to hand information with regard both to
+Chichikov's purchase of dead souls and to his conniving at contraband
+goods during his service in the Customs Department. In short, every
+possible item of evidence was exhumed, and the whole of his previous
+history investigated. How the authorities had come to suspect and to
+ascertain all this God only knows, but the fact remains that there had
+fallen into the hands of those authorities information concerning
+matters of which Chichikov had believed only himself and the four
+walls to be aware. True, for a time these matters remained within the
+cognisance of none but the functionaries concerned, and failed to
+reach Chichikov's ears; but at length a letter from a confidential
+friend gave him reason to think that the fat was about to fall into
+the fire. Said the letter briefly: "Dear sir, I beg to advise you that
+possibly legal trouble is pending, but that you have no cause for
+uneasiness, seeing that everything will be attended to by yours very
+truly." Yet, in spite of its tenor, the epistle reassured its
+recipient. "What a genius the fellow is!" thought Chichikov to
+himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his tailor arrived with
+the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a certain sense of
+pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey shot with
+flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then try on
+the breeches--the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite
+concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves
+(though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a
+drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight
+tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined
+that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. "Sir," he said
+triumphantly, "you may rest assured that the work has been executed
+exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St.
+Petersburg, could have done it better." As a matter of fact, the
+tailor himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his
+signboard "Foreign Costumier from London and Paris"--the truth being
+that by the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to
+mere "Karlsruhe" and "Copenhagen" he designed to acquire business and
+cut out his local rivals.
+
+Chichikov graciously settled the man's account, and, as soon as he had
+gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an
+artist of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to
+look better than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a
+still more interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while
+his white collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened
+the effect of the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie, the
+rich satin waistcoat emphasised the dickey, and the
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, shining like silk,
+splendidly rounded off the whole. When he turned to the right he
+looked well: when he turned to the left he looked even better. In
+short, it was a costume worthy of a Lord Chamberlain or the species of
+dandy who shrinks from swearing in the Russian language, but amply
+relieves his feelings in the language of France. Next, inclining his
+head slightly to one side, our hero endeavoured to pose as though he
+were addressing a middle-aged lady of exquisite refinement; and the
+result of these efforts was a picture which any artist might have
+yearned to portray. Next, his delight led him gracefully to execute a
+hop in ballet fashion, so that the wardrobe trembled and a bottle of
+eau-de-Cologne came crashing to the floor. Yet even this contretemps
+did not upset him; he merely called the offending bottle a fool, and
+then debated whom first he should visit in his attractive guise.
+
+Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels,
+and then the voice of a gendarme saying: "You are commanded to present
+yourself before the Governor-General!" Turning round, Chichikov stared
+in horror at the spectacle presented; for in the doorway there was
+standing an apparition wearing a huge moustache, a helmet surmounted
+with a horsehair plume, a pair of crossed shoulder-belts, and a
+gigantic sword! A whole army might have been combined into a single
+individual! And when Chichikov opened his mouth to speak the
+apparition repeated, "You are commanded to present yourself before the
+Governor-General," and at the same moment our hero caught sight both
+of a second apparition outside the door and of a coach waiting beneath
+the window. What was to be done? Nothing whatever was possible. Just
+as he stood--in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour suit--he had
+then and there to enter the vehicle, and, shaking in every limb, and
+with a gendarme seated by his side, to start for the residence of the
+Governor-General.
+
+And even in the hall of that establishment no time was given him to
+pull himself together, for at once an aide-de-camp said: "Go inside
+immediately, for the Prince is awaiting you." And as in a dream did
+our hero see a vestibule where couriers were being handed dispatches,
+and then a salon which he crossed with the thought, "I suppose I am
+not to be allowed a trial, but shall be sent straight to Siberia!" And
+at the thought his heart started beating in a manner which the most
+jealous of lovers could not have rivalled. At length there opened a
+door, and before him he saw a study full of portfolios, ledgers, and
+dispatch-boxes, with, standing behind them, the gravely menacing
+figure of the Prince.
+
+"There stands my executioner," thought Chichikov to himself. "He is
+about to tear me to pieces as a wolf tears a lamb."
+
+Indeed, the Prince's lips were simply quivering with rage.
+
+"Once before did I spare you," he said, "and allow you to remain in
+the town when you ought to have been in prison: yet your only return
+for my clemency has been to revert to a career of fraud--and of fraud
+as dishonourable as ever a man engaged in."
+
+"To what dishonourable fraud do you refer, your Highness?" asked
+Chichikov, trembling from head to foot.
+
+The Prince approached, and looked him straight in the eyes.
+
+"Let me tell you," he said, "that the woman whom you induced to
+witness a certain will has been arrested, and that you will be
+confronted with her."
+
+The world seemed suddenly to grow dim before Chichikov's sight.
+
+"Your Highness," he gasped, "I will tell you the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth. I am guilty--yes, I am guilty; but I am not so
+guilty as you think, for I was led away by rascals."
+
+"That any one can have led you away is impossible," retorted the
+Prince. "Recorded against your name there stand more felonies than
+even the most hardened liar could have invented. I believe that never
+in your life have you done a deed not innately dishonourable--that not
+a kopeck have you ever obtained by aught but shameful methods of
+trickery and theft, the penalty for which is Siberia and the knut. But
+enough of this! From this room you will be conveyed to prison, where,
+with other rogues and thieves, you will be confined until your trial
+may come on. And this is lenient treatment on my part, for you are
+worse, far worse, than the felons who will be your companions. THEY
+are but poor men in smocks and sheepskins, whereas YOU--" Without
+concluding his words, the Prince shot a glance at Chichikov's
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour apparel.
+
+Then he touched a bell.
+
+"Your Highness," cried Chichikov, "have mercy upon me! You are the
+father of a family! Spare me for the sake of my aged mother!"
+
+"Rubbish!" exclaimed the Prince. "Even as before you besought me for
+the sake of a wife and children whom you did not even possess, so now
+you would speak to me of an aged mother!"
+
+"Your Highness," protested Chichikov, "though I am a wretch and the
+lowest of rascals, and though it is true that I lied when I told you
+that I possessed a wife and children, I swear that, as God is my
+witness, it has always been my DESIRE to possess a wife, and to
+fulfil all the duties of a man and a citizen, and to earn the respect
+of my fellows and the authorities. But what could be done against the
+force of circumstances? By hook or by crook I have ever been forced to
+win a living, though confronted at every step by wiles and temptations
+and traitorous enemies and despoilers. So much has this been so that
+my life has, throughout, resembled a barque tossed by tempestuous
+waves, a barque driven at the mercy of the winds. Ah, I am only a man,
+your Highness!"
+
+And in a moment the tears had gushed in torrents from his eyes, and he
+had fallen forward at the Prince's feet--fallen forward just as he
+was, in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, his velvet
+waistcoat, his satin tie, and his exquisitely fitting breeches, while
+from his neatly brushed pate, as again and again he struck his hand
+against his forehead, there came an odorous whiff of best-quality
+eau-de-Cologne.
+
+"Away with him!" exclaimed the Prince to the gendarme who had just
+entered. "Summon the escort to remove him."
+
+"Your Highness!" Chichikov cried again as he clasped the Prince's
+knees; but, shuddering all over, and struggling to free himself, the
+Prince repeated his order for the prisoner's removal.
+
+"Your Highness, I say that I will not leave this room until you have
+accorded me mercy!" cried Chichikov as he clung to the Prince's leg
+with such tenacity that, frockcoat and all, he began to be dragged
+along the floor.
+
+"Away with him, I say!" once more the Prince exclaimed with the sort
+of indefinable aversion which one feels at the sight of a repulsive
+insect which he cannot summon up the courage to crush with his boot.
+So convulsively did the Prince shudder that Chichikov, clinging to his
+leg, received a kick on the nose. Yet still the prisoner retained his
+hold; until at length a couple of burly gendarmes tore him away and,
+grasping his arms, hurried him--pale, dishevelled, and in that
+strange, half-conscious condition into which a man sinks when he sees
+before him only the dark, terrible figure of death, the phantom which
+is so abhorrent to all our natures--from the building. But on the
+threshold the party came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov's
+heart the circumstance revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with
+almost supernatural strength from the grasp of the escorting
+gendarmes, he threw himself at the feet of the horror-stricken old
+man.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," Murazov exclaimed, "what has happened to you?"
+
+"Save me!" gasped Chichikov. "They are taking me away to prison and
+death!"
+
+Yet almost as he spoke the gendarmes seized him again, and hurried him
+away so swiftly that Murazov's reply escaped his ears.
+
+A damp, mouldy cell which reeked of soldiers' boots and leggings, an
+unvarnished table, two sorry chairs, a window closed with a grating, a
+crazy stove which, while letting the smoke emerge through its cracks,
+gave out no heat--such was the den to which the man who had just begun
+to taste the sweets of life, and to attract the attention of his
+fellows with his new suit of smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour, now
+found himself consigned. Not even necessaries had he been allowed to
+bring away with him, nor his dispatch-box which contained all his
+booty. No, with the indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged
+in the hands of a tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things
+Chichikov rolled about the floor, and felt the cankerous worm of
+remorse seize upon and gnaw at his heart, and bite its way ever
+further and further into that heart so defenceless against its
+ravages, until he made up his mind that, should he have to suffer
+another twenty-four hours of this misery, there would no longer be a
+Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over every one, there hung
+poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his arrival at the
+prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.
+
+Compared with poor Chichikov's sense of relief when the old man
+entered his cell, even the pleasure experienced by a thirsty, dusty
+traveller when he is given a drink of clear spring water to cool his
+dry, parched throat fades into insignificance.
+
+"Ah, my deliverer!" he cried as he rose from the floor, where he had
+been grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old
+man's hand, he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting
+into tears, he added: "God Himself will reward you for having come to
+visit an unfortunate wretch!"
+
+Murazov looked at him sorrowfully, and said no more than "Ah, Paul
+Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch! What has happened?"
+
+"What has happened?" cried Chichikov. "I have been ruined by an
+accursed woman. That was because I could not do things in
+moderation--I was powerless to stop myself in time, Satan tempted me,
+and drove me from my senses, and bereft me of human prudence. Yes,
+truly I have sinned, I have sinned! Yet how came I so to sin? To think
+that a dvorianin--yes, a dvorianin--should be thrown into prison
+without process or trial! I repeat, a dvorianin! Why was I not given
+time to go home and collect my effects? Whereas now they are left with
+no one to look after them! My dispatch-box, my dispatch-box! It
+contained my whole property, all that my heart's blood and years of
+toil and want have been needed to acquire. And now everything will be
+stolen, Athanasi Vassilievitch--everything will be taken from me! My
+God!"
+
+And, unable to stand against the torrent of grief which came rushing
+over his heart once more, he sobbed aloud in tones which penetrated
+even the thickness of the prison walls, and made dull echoes awake
+behind them. Then, tearing off his satin tie, and seizing by the
+collar, the smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, he stripped
+the latter from his shoulders.
+
+"Ah, Paul Ivanovitch," said the old man, "how even now the property
+which you have acquired is blinding your eyes, and causing you to fail
+to realise your terrible position!"
+
+"Yes, my good friend and benefactor," wailed poor Chichikov
+despairingly, and clasping Murazov by the knees. "Yet save me if you
+can! The Prince is fond of you, and would do anything for your sake."
+
+"No, Paul Ivanovitch; however much I might wish to save you, and
+however much I might try to do so, I could not help you as you desire;
+for it is to the power of an inexorable law, and not to the authority
+of any one man, that you have rendered yourself subject."
+
+"Satan tempted me, and has ended by making of me an outcast from the
+human race!" Chichikov beat his head against the wall and struck the
+table with his fist until the blood spurted from his hand. Yet neither
+his head nor his hand seemed to be conscious of the least pain.
+
+"Calm yourself, Paul Ivanovitch," said Murazov. "Calm yourself, and
+consider how best you can make your peace with God. Think of your
+miserable soul, and not of the judgment of man."
+
+"I will, Athanasi Vassilievitch, I will. But what a fate is mine! Did
+ever such a fate befall a man? To think of all the patience with which
+I have gathered my kopecks, of all the toil and trouble which I have
+endured! Yet what I have done has not been done with the intention of
+robbing any one, nor of cheating the Treasury. Why, then, did I gather
+those kopecks? I gathered them to the end that one day I might be able
+to live in plenty, and also to have something to leave to the wife and
+children whom, for the benefit and welfare of my country, I hoped
+eventually to win and maintain. That was why I gathered those kopecks.
+True, I worked by devious methods--that I fully admit; but what else
+could I do? And even devious methods I employed only when I saw that
+the straight road would not serve my purpose so well as a crooked.
+Moreover, as I toiled, the appetite for those methods grew upon me.
+Yet what I took I took only from the rich; whereas villains exist who,
+while drawing thousands a year from the Treasury, despoil the poor,
+and take from the man with nothing even that which he has. Is it not
+the cruelty of fate, therefore, that, just when I was beginning to
+reap the harvest of my toil--to touch it, so to speak, with the tip of
+one finger--there should have arisen a sudden storm which has sent my
+barque to pieces on a rock? My capital had nearly reached the sum of
+three hundred thousand roubles, and a three-storied house was as good
+as mine, and twice over I could have bought a country estate. Why,
+then, should such a tempest have burst upon me? Why should I have
+sustained such a blow? Was not my life already like a barque tossed to
+and fro by the billows? Where is Heaven's justice--where is the reward
+for all my patience, for my boundless perseverance? Three times did I
+have to begin life afresh, and each time that I lost my all I began
+with a single kopeck at a moment when other men would have given
+themselves up to despair and drink. How much did I not have to
+overcome. How much did I not have to bear! Every kopeck which I gained
+I had to make with my whole strength; for though, to others, wealth
+may come easily, every coin of mine had to be 'forged with a nail
+worth three kopecks' as the proverb has it. With such a nail--with the
+nail of an iron, unwearying perseverance--did _I_ forge my kopecks."
+
+Convulsively sobbing with a grief which he could not repress,
+Chichikov sank upon a chair, tore from his shoulders the last ragged,
+trailing remnants of his frockcoat, and hurled them from him. Then,
+thrusting his fingers into the hair which he had once been so careful
+to preserve, he pulled it out by handfuls at a time, as though he
+hoped through physical pain to deaden the mental agony which he was
+suffering.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov sat gazing in silence at the unwonted spectacle of a
+man who had lately been mincing with the gait of a worldling or a
+military fop now writhing in dishevelment and despair as he poured out
+upon the hostile forces by which human ingenuity so often finds itself
+outwitted a flood of invective.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch," at length said Murazov, "what
+could not each of us rise to be did we but devote to good ends the
+same measure of energy and of patience which we bestow upon unworthy
+objects! How much good would not you yourself have effected! Yet I do
+not grieve so much for the fact that you have sinned against your
+fellow as I grieve for the fact that you have sinned against yourself
+and the rich store of gifts and opportunities which has been committed
+to your care. Though originally destined to rise, you have wandered
+from the path and fallen."
+
+"Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch," cried poor Chichikov, clasping his
+friends hands, "I swear to you that, if you would but restore me my
+freedom, and recover for me my lost property, I would lead a different
+life from this time forth. Save me, you who alone can work my
+deliverance! Save me!"
+
+"How can I do that? So to do I should need to procure the setting
+aside of a law. Again, even if I were to make the attempt, the Prince
+is a strict administrator, and would refuse on any consideration to
+release you."
+
+"Yes, but for you all things are possible. It is not the law that
+troubles me: with that I could find a means to deal. It is the fact
+that for no offence at all I have been cast into prison, and treated
+like a dog, and deprived of my papers and dispatch-box and all my
+property. Save me if you can."
+
+Again clasping the old man's knees, he bedewed them with his tears.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," said Murazov, shaking his head, "how that property
+of yours still seals your eyes and ears, so that you cannot so much as
+listen to the promptings of your own soul!"
+
+"Ah, I will think of my soul, too, if only you will save me."
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," the old man began again, and then stopped. For a
+little while there was a pause.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," at length he went on," to save you does not lie
+within my power. Surely you yourself see that? But, so far as I can, I
+will endeavour to, at all events, lighten your lot and procure your
+eventual release. Whether or not I shall succeed I do not know; but I
+will make the attempt. And should I, contrary to my expectations,
+prove successful, I beg of you, in return for these my efforts, to
+renounce all thought of benefit from the property which you have
+acquired. Sincerely do I assure you that, were I myself to be deprived
+of my property (and my property greatly exceeds yours in magnitude), I
+should not shed a single tear. It is not the property of which men can
+deprive us that matters, but the property of which no one on earth can
+deprive or despoil us. You are a man who has seen something of
+life--to use your own words, you have been a barque tossed hither and
+thither by tempestuous waves: yet still will there be left to you a
+remnant of substance on which to live, and therefore I beseech you to
+settle down in some quiet nook where there is a church, and where none
+but plain, good-hearted folk abide. Or, should you feel a yearning to
+leave behind you posterity, take in marriage a good woman who shall
+bring you, not money, but an aptitude for simple, modest domestic
+life. But this life--the life of turmoil, with its longings and its
+temptations--forget, and let it forget YOU; for there is no peace in
+it. See for yourself how, at every step, it brings one but hatred and
+treachery and deceit."
+
+"Indeed, yes!" agreed the repentant Chichikov. "Gladly will I do as
+you wish, since for many a day past have I been longing to amend my
+life, and to engage in husbandry, and to reorder my affairs. A demon,
+the tempter Satan himself, has beguiled me and led me from the right
+path."
+
+Suddenly there had recurred to Chichikov long-unknown, long-unfamiliar
+feelings. Something seemed to be striving to come to life again in
+him--something dim and remote, something which had been crushed out of
+his boyhood by the dreary, deadening education of his youthful days,
+by his desolate home, by his subsequent lack of family ties, by the
+poverty and niggardliness of his early impressions, by the grim eye of
+fate--an eye which had always seemed to be regarding him as through a
+misty, mournful, frost-encrusted window-pane, and to be mocking at his
+struggles for freedom. And as these feelings came back to the penitent
+a groan burst from his lips, and, covering his face with his hands, he
+moaned: "It is all true, it is all true!"
+
+"Of little avail are knowledge of the world and experience of men
+unless based upon a secure foundation," observed Murazov. "Though you
+have fallen, Paul Ivanovitch, awake to better things, for as yet there
+is time."
+
+"No, no!" groaned Chichikov in a voice which made Murazov's heart
+bleed. "It is too late, too late. More and more is the conviction
+gaining upon me that I am powerless, that I have strayed too far ever
+to be able to do as you bid me. The fact that I have become what I am
+is due to my early schooling; for, though my father taught me moral
+lessons, and beat me, and set me to copy maxims into a book, he
+himself stole land from his neighbours, and forced me to help him. I
+have even known him to bring an unjust suit, and defraud the orphan
+whose guardian he was! Consequently I know and feel that, though my
+life has been different from his, I do not hate roguery as I ought to
+hate it, and that my nature is coarse, and that in me there is no real
+love for what is good, no real spark of that beautiful instinct for
+well-doing which becomes a second nature, a settled habit. Also, never
+do I yearn to strive for what is right as I yearn to acquire property.
+This is no more than the truth. What else could I do but confess it?"
+
+The old man sighed.
+
+"Paul Ivanovitch," he said, "I know that you possess will-power, and
+that you possess also perseverance. A medicine may be bitter, yet the
+patient will gladly take it when assured that only by its means can he
+recover. Therefore, if it really be that you have no genuine love for
+doing good, do good by FORCING yourself to do so. Thus you will
+benefit yourself even more than you will benefit him for whose sake
+the act is performed. Only force yourself to do good just once and
+again, and, behold, you will suddenly conceive the TRUE love for
+well-doing. That is so, believe me. 'A kingdom is to be won only by
+striving,' says the proverb. That is to say, things are to be attained
+only by putting forth one's whole strength, since nothing short of
+one's whole strength will bring one to the desired goal. Paul
+Ivanovitch, within you there is a source of strength denied to many
+another man. I refer to the strength of an iron perseverance. Cannot
+THAT help you to overcome? Most men are weak and lack will-power,
+whereas I believe that you possess the power to act a hero's part."
+
+Sinking deep into Chichikov's heart, these words would seem to have
+aroused in it a faint stirring of ambition, so much so that, if it was
+not fortitude which shone in his eyes, at all events it was something
+virile, and of much the same nature.
+
+"Athanasi Vassilievitch," he said firmly, "if you will but petition
+for my release, as well as for permission for me to leave here with a
+portion of my property, I swear to you on my word of honour that I
+will begin a new life, and buy a country estate, and become the head
+of a household, and save money, nor for myself, but for others, and do
+good everywhere, and to the best of my ability, and forget alike
+myself and the feasting and debauchery of town life, and lead,
+instead, a plain, sober existence."
+
+"In that resolve may God strengthen you!" cried the old man with
+unbounded joy. "And I, for my part, will do my utmost to procure your
+release. And though God alone knows whether my efforts will be
+successful, at all events I hope to bring about a mitigation of your
+sentence. Come, let me embrace you! How you have filled my heart with
+gladness! With God's help, I will now go to the Prince."
+
+And the next moment Chichikov found himself alone. His whole nature
+felt shaken and softened, even as, when the bellows have fanned the
+furnace to a sufficient heat, a plate compounded even of the hardest
+and most fire-resisting metal dissolves, glows, and turns to the
+liquefied state.
+
+"I myself can feel but little," he reflected, "but I intend to use my
+every faculty to help others to feel. I myself am but bad and
+worthless, but I intend to do my utmost to set others on the right
+road. I myself am but an indifferent Christian, but I intend to strive
+never to yield to temptation, but to work hard, and to till my land
+with the sweat of my brow, and to engage only in honourable pursuits,
+and to influence my fellows in the same direction. For, after all, am
+I so very useless? At least I could maintain a household, for I am
+frugal and active and intelligent and steadfast. The only thing is to
+make up my mind to it."
+
+Thus Chichikov pondered; and as he did so his half-awakened energies
+of soul touched upon something. That is to say, dimly his instinct
+divined that every man has a duty to perform, and that that duty may
+be performed here, there, and everywhere, and no matter what the
+circumstances and the emotions and the difficulties which compass a
+man about. And with such clearness did Chichikov mentally picture to
+himself the life of grateful toil which lies removed from the bustle
+of towns and the temptations which man, forgetful of the obligation of
+labour, has invented to beguile an hour of idleness that almost our
+hero forgot his unpleasant position, and even felt ready to thank
+Providence for the calamity which had befallen him, provided that it
+should end in his being released, and in his receiving back a portion
+of his property.
+
+Presently the massive door of the cell opened to admit a tchinovnik
+named Samosvitov, a robust, sensual individual who was reputed by his
+comrades to be something of a rake. Had he served in the army, he
+would have done wonders, for he would have stormed any point, however
+dangerous and inaccessible, and captured cannon under the very noses
+of the foe; but, as it was, the lack of a more warlike field for his
+energies caused him to devote the latter principally to dissipation.
+Nevertheless he enjoyed great popularity, for he was loyal to the
+point that, once his word had been given, nothing would ever make him
+break it. At the same time, some reason or another led him to regard
+his superiors in the light of a hostile battery which, come what
+might, he must breach at any weak or unguarded spot or gap which might
+be capable of being utilised for the purpose.
+
+"We have all heard of your plight," he began as soon as the door had
+been safely closed behind him. "Yes, every one has heard of it. But
+never mind. Things will yet come right. We will do our very best for
+you, and act as your humble servants in everything. Thirty thousand
+roubles is our price--no more."
+
+"Indeed?" said Chichikov. "And, for that, shall I be completely
+exonerated?"
+
+"Yes, completely, and also given some compensation for your loss of
+time."
+
+"And how much am I to pay in return, you say?"
+
+"Thirty thousand roubles, to be divided among ourselves, the
+Governor-General's staff, and the Governor-General's secretary."
+
+"But how is even that to be managed, for all my effects, including my
+dispatch-box, will have been sealed up and taken away for
+examination?"
+
+"In an hour's time they will be within your hands again," said
+Samosvitov. "Shall we shake hands over the bargain?"
+
+Chichikov did so with a beating heart, for he could scarcely believe
+his ears.
+
+"For the present, then, farewell," concluded Samosvitov. "I have
+instructed a certain mutual friend that the important points are
+silence and presence of mind."
+
+"Hm!" thought Chichikov. "It is to my lawyer that he is referring."
+
+Even when Samosvitov had departed the prisoner found it difficult to
+credit all that had been said. Yet not an hour had elapsed before a
+messenger arrived with his dispatch-box and the papers and money
+therein practically undisturbed and intact! Later it came out that
+Samosvitov had assumed complete authority in the matter. First, he had
+rebuked the gendarmes guarding Chichikov's effects for lack of
+vigilance, and then sent word to the Superintendent that additional
+men were required for the purpose; after which he had taken the
+dispatch-box into his own charge, removed from it every paper which
+could possibly compromise Chichikov, sealed up the rest in a packet,
+and ordered a gendarme to convey the whole to their owner on the
+pretence of forwarding him sundry garments necessary for the night. In
+the result Chichikov received not only his papers, but also some warm
+clothing for his hypersensitive limbs. Such a swift recovery of his
+treasures delighted him beyond expression, and, gathering new hope, he
+began once more to dream of such allurements as theatre-going and the
+ballet girl after whom he had for some time past been dangling.
+Gradually did the country estate and the simple life begin to recede
+into the distance: gradually did the town house and the life of gaiety
+begin to loom larger and larger in the foreground. Oh, life, life!
+
+Meanwhile in Government offices and chancellories there had been set
+on foot a boundless volume of work. Clerical pens slaved, and brains
+skilled in legal casus toiled; for each official had the artist's
+liking for the curved line in preference to the straight. And all the
+while, like a hidden magician, Chichikov's lawyer imparted driving
+power to that machine which caught up a man into its mechanism before
+he could even look round. And the complexity of it increased and
+increased, for Samosvitov surpassed himself in importance and daring.
+On learning of the place of confinement of the woman who had been
+arrested, he presented himself at the doors, and passed so well for a
+smart young officer of gendarmery that the sentry saluted and sprang
+to attention.
+
+"Have you been on duty long?" asked Samosvitov.
+
+"Since this morning, your Excellency."
+
+"And shall you soon be relieved?"
+
+"In three hours from now, your Excellency."
+
+"Presently I shall want you, so I will instruct your officer to have
+you relieved at once."
+
+"Very good, your Excellency."
+
+Hastening home, thereafter, at top speed, and donning the uniform of a
+gendarme, with a false moustache and a pair of false whiskers--an
+ensemble in which the devil himself would not have known him,
+Samosvitov then made for the gaol where Chichikov was confined, and,
+en route, impressed into the service the first street woman whom he
+encountered, and handed her over to the care of two young fellows of
+like sort with himself. The next step was to hurry back to the prison
+where the original woman had been interned, and there to intimate to
+the sentry that he, Samosvitov (with whiskers and rifle complete), had
+been sent to relieve the said sentry at his post--a proceeding which,
+of course, enabled the newly-arrived relief to ensure, while
+performing his self-assumed turn of duty, that for the woman lying
+under arrest there should be substituted the woman recently recruited
+to the plot, and that the former should then be conveyed to a place of
+concealment where she was highly unlikely to be discovered.
+
+Meanwhile, Samosvitov's feats in the military sphere were being
+rivalled by the wonders worked by Chichikov's lawyer in the civilian
+field of action. As a first step, the lawyer caused it to be intimated
+to the local Governor that the Public Prosecutor was engaged in
+drawing up a report to his, the local Governor's, detriment;
+whereafter the lawyer caused it to be intimated also to the Chief of
+Gendarmery that a certain confidential official was engaged in doing
+the same by HIM; whereafter, again, the lawyer confided to the
+confidential official in question that, owing to the documentary
+exertions of an official of a still more confidential nature than the
+first, he (the confidential official first-mentioned) was in a fair
+way to find himself in the same boat as both the local Governor and
+the Chief of Gendarmery: with the result that the whole trio were
+reduced to a frame of mind in which they were only too glad to turn to
+him (Samosvitov) for advice. The ultimate and farcical upshot was that
+report came crowding upon report, and that such alleged doings were
+brought to light as the sun had never before beheld. In fact, the
+documents in question employed anything and everything as material,
+even to announcing that such and such an individual had an
+illegitimate son, that such and such another kept a paid mistress, and
+that such and such a third was troubled with a gadabout wife; whereby
+there became interwoven with and welded into Chichikov's past history
+and the story of the dead souls such a crop of scandals and innuendoes
+that by no manner of means could any mortal decide to which of these
+rubbishy romances to award the palm, since all them presented an equal
+claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at length, the dossier reached
+the Governor-General himself it simply flabbergasted the poor man; and
+even the exceptionally clever and energetic secretary to whom he
+deputed the making of an abstract of the same very nearly lost his
+reason with the strain of attempting to lay hold of the tangled end of
+the skein. It happened that just at that time the Prince had several
+other important affairs on hand, and affairs of a very unpleasant
+nature. That is to say, famine had made its appearance in one portion
+of the province, and the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to the
+people had done their work badly; in another portion of the province
+certain Raskolniki[2] were in a state of ferment, owing to the
+spreading of a report than an Antichrist had arisen who would not even
+let the dead rest, but was purchasing them wholesale--wherefore the
+said Raskolniki were summoning folk to prayer and repentance, and,
+under cover of capturing the Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning
+non-Antichrists in batches; lastly, the peasants of a third portion of
+the province had risen against the local landowners and
+superintendents of police, for the reason that certain rascals had
+started a rumour that the time was come when the peasants themselves
+were to become landowners, and to wear frockcoats, while the
+landowners in being were about to revert to the peasant state, and to
+take their own wares to market; wherefore one of the local volosts[3],
+oblivious of the fact that an order of things of that kind would lead
+to a superfluity alike of landowners and of superintendents of police,
+had refused to pay its taxes, and necessitated recourse to forcible
+measures. Hence it was in a mood of the greatest possible despondency
+that the poor Prince was sitting plunged when word was brought to him
+that the old man who had gone bail for Chichikov was waiting to see
+him.
+
+[2] Dissenters or Old Believers: i.e. members of the sect which
+    refused to accept the revised version of the Church Service Books
+    promulgated by the Patriarch Nikon in 1665.
+
+[3] Fiscal districts.
+
+"Show him in," said the Prince; and the old man entered.
+
+"A fine fellow your Chichikov!" began the Prince angrily. "You
+defended him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to
+business which even the lowest thief would not have touched!"
+
+"Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are
+referring."
+
+"I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought
+to have been given a public flogging for it."
+
+"Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention, might I ask you
+whether you do not think the case is non-proven? At all events,
+sufficient evidence against him is still lacking."
+
+"What? We have as chief witness the woman who personated the deceased,
+and I will have her interrogated in your presence."
+
+Touching a bell, the Prince ordered her to be sent for.
+
+"It is a most disgraceful affair," he went on; "and, ashamed though I
+am to have to say it, some of our leading tchinovniks, including the
+local Governor himself, have become implicated in the matter. Yet you
+tell me that this Chichikov ought not to be confined among thieves and
+rascals!" Clearly the Governor-General's wrath was very great indeed.
+
+"Your Highness," said Murazov, "the Governor of the town is one of the
+heirs under the will: wherefore he has a certain right to intervene.
+Also, the fact that extraneous persons have meddled in the matter is
+only what is to be expected from human nature. A rich woman dies, and
+no exact, regular disposition of her property is made. Hence there
+comes flocking from every side a cloud of fortune hunters. What else
+could one expect? Such is human nature."
+
+"Yes, but why should such persons go and commit fraud?" asked the
+Prince irritably. "I feel as though not a single honest tchinovnik
+were available--as though every one of them were a rogue."
+
+"Your Highness, which of us is altogether beyond reproach? The
+tchinovniks of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them
+are men of worth, and nearly all of them men skilled in
+business--though also, unfortunately, largely inter-related."
+
+"Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch," said the Prince, "for you
+are about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in
+you such a penchant for defending rascals?"
+
+"This," replied Murazov. "Take any man you like of the persons whom
+you thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being.
+That being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one
+knows that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and
+stupidity? Each of us commits faults with every step that we take;
+each of us entails unhappiness upon others with every breath that we
+draw--and that although we may have no evil intention whatever in our
+minds. Your Highness himself has, before now, committed an injustice
+of the gravest nature."
+
+"_I_ have?" cried the Prince, taken aback by this unexpected turn
+given to the conversation.
+
+Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating
+something in his thoughts. Then he said:
+
+"Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case
+of the lad Dierpiennikov."
+
+"What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the
+Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!"
+
+"I am not seeking to justify him; I am only asking you whether you
+think it right that an inexperienced youth who had been tempted and
+led away by others should have received the same sentence as the man
+who had taken the chief part in the affair. That is to say, although
+Dierpiennikov and the man Voron-Drianni received an equal measure of
+punishment, their CRIMINALITY was not equal."
+
+"If," exclaimed the Prince excitedly, "you know anything further
+concerning the case, for God's sake tell it me at once. Only the other
+day did I forward a recommendation that St. Petersburg should remit a
+portion of the sentence."
+
+"Your Highness," replied Murazov, "I do not mean that I know of
+anything which does not lie also within your own cognisance, though
+one circumstance there was which might have told in the lad's favour
+had he not refused to admit it, lest another should suffer injury. All
+that I have in my mind is this. On that occasion were you not a little
+over-hasty in coming to a conclusion? You will understand, of course,
+that I am judging only according to my own poor lights, and for the
+reason that on more than one occasion you have urged me to be frank.
+In the days when I myself acted as a chief of gendarmery I came in
+contact with a great number of accused--some of them bad, some of them
+good; and in each case I found it well also to consider a man's past
+career, for the reason that, unless one views things calmly, instead
+of at once decrying a man, he is apt to take alarm, and to make it
+impossible thereafter to get any real confession from him. If, on the
+other hand, you question a man as friend might question friend, the
+result will be that straightway he will tell you everything, nor ask
+for mitigation of his penalty, nor bear you the least malice, in that
+he will understand that it is not you who have punished him, but the
+law."
+
+The Prince relapsed into thought; until presently there entered a
+young tchinovnik. Portfolio in hand, this official stood waiting
+respectfully. Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia
+upon his fresh young face; for evidently he had not been in the
+Service for nothing. As a matter of fact, his greatest joy was to
+labour at a tangled case, and successfully to unravel it.
+
+
+        [At this point a long hiatus occurs in the original.]
+
+
+"I will send corn to the localities where famine is worst," said
+Murazov, "for I understand that sort of work better than do the
+tchinovniks, and will personally see to the needs of each person.
+Also, if you will allow me, your Highness, I will go and have a talk
+with the Raskolniki. They are more likely to listen to a plain man
+than to an official. God knows whether I shall succeed in calming
+them, but at least no tchinovnik could do so, for officials of the
+kind merely draw up reports and lose their way among their own
+documents--with the result that nothing comes of it. Nor will I accept
+from you any money for these purposes, since I am ashamed to devote as
+much as a thought to my own pocket at a time when men are dying of
+hunger. I have a large stock of grain lying in my granaries; in
+addition to which, I have sent orders to Siberia that a new
+consignment shall be forwarded me before the coming summer."
+
+"Of a surety will God reward you for your services, Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! Not another word will I say to you on the subject, for
+you yourself feel that any words from me would be inadequate. Yet tell
+me one thing: I refer to the case of which you know. Have I the right
+to pass over the case? Also, would it be just and honourable on my
+part to let the offending tchinovniks go unpunished?"
+
+"Your Highness, it is impossible to return a definite answer to those
+two questions: and the more so because many rascals are at heart men
+of rectitude. Human problems are difficult things to solve. Sometimes
+a man may be drawn into a vicious circle, so that, having once entered
+it, he ceases to be himself."
+
+"But what would the tchinovniks say if I allowed the case to be passed
+over? Would not some of them turn up their noses at me, and declare
+that they have effected my intimidation? Surely they would be the last
+persons in the world to respect me for my action?"
+
+"Your Highness, I think this: that your best course would be to call
+them together, and to inform them that you know everything, and to
+explain to them your personal attitude (exactly as you have explained
+it to me), and to end by at once requesting their advice and asking
+them what each of them would have done had he been placed in similar
+circumstances."
+
+"What? You think that those tchinovniks would be so accessible to
+lofty motives that they would cease thereafter to be venal and
+meticulous? I should be laughed at for my pains."
+
+"I think not, your Highness. Even the baser section of humanity
+possesses a certain sense of equity. Your wisest plan, your Highness,
+would be to conceal nothing and to speak to them as you have just
+spoken to me. If, at present, they imagine you to be ambitious and
+proud and unapproachable and self-assured, your action would afford
+them an opportunity of seeing how the case really stands. Why should
+you hesitate? You would but be exercising your undoubted right. Speak
+to them as though delivering not a message of your own, but a message
+from God."
+
+"I will think it over," the Prince said musingly, "and meanwhile I
+thank you from my heart for your good advice."
+
+"Also, I should order Chichikov to leave the town," suggested Murazov.
+
+"Yes, I will do so. Tell him from me that he is to depart hence as
+quickly as possible, and that the further he should remove himself,
+the better it will be for him. Also, tell him that it is only owing to
+your efforts that he has received a pardon at my hands."
+
+Murazov bowed, and proceeded from the Prince's presence to that of
+Chichikov. He found the prisoner cheerfully enjoying a hearty dinner
+which, under hot covers, had been brought him from an exceedingly
+excellent kitchen. But almost the first words which he uttered showed
+Murazov that the prisoner had been having dealings with the army of
+bribe-takers; as also that in those transactions his lawyer had played
+the principal part.
+
+"Listen, Paul Ivanovitch," the old man said. "I bring you your
+freedom, but only on this condition--that you depart out of the town
+forthwith. Therefore gather together your effects, and waste not a
+moment, lest worse befall you. Also, of all that a certain person has
+contrived to do on your behalf I am aware; wherefore let me tell you,
+as between ourselves, that should the conspiracy come to light,
+nothing on earth can save him, and in his fall he will involve others
+rather then be left unaccompanied in the lurch, and not see the guilt
+shared. How is it that when I left you recently you were in a better
+frame of mind than you are now? I beg of you not to trifle with the
+matter. Ah me! what boots that wealth for which men dispute and cut
+one another's throats? Do they think that it is possible to prosper in
+this world without thinking of the world to come? Believe me when I
+say that, until a man shall have renounced all that leads humanity to
+contend without giving a thought to the ordering of spiritual wealth,
+he will never set his temporal goods either upon a satisfactory
+foundation. Yes, even as times of want and scarcity may come upon
+nations, so may they come upon individuals. No matter what may be said
+to the contrary, the body can never dispense with the soul. Why, then,
+will you not try to walk in the right way, and, by thinking no longer
+of dead souls, but only of your only living one, regain, with God's
+help, the better road? I too am leaving the town to-morrow. Hasten,
+therefore, lest, bereft of my assistance, you meet with some dire
+misfortune."
+
+And the old man departed, leaving Chichikov plunged in thought. Once
+more had the gravity of life begun to loom large before him.
+
+"Yes, Murazov was right," he said to himself. "It is time that I were
+moving."
+
+Leaving the prison--a warder carrying his effects in his wake--he
+found Selifan and Petrushka overjoyed at seeing their master once more
+at liberty.
+
+"Well, good fellows?" he said kindly. "And now we must pack and be
+off."
+
+"True, true, Paul Ivanovitch," agreed Selifan. "And by this time the
+roads will have become firmer, for much snow has fallen. Yes, high
+time is it that we were clear of the town. So weary of it am I that
+the sight of it hurts my eyes."
+
+"Go to the coachbuilder's," commanded Chichikov, "and have
+sledge-runners fitted to the koliaska."
+
+Chichikov then made his way into the town--though not with the object
+of paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have
+given rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an
+unobtrusive call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his
+latest suit. There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with
+the intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
+previous costume; and by promising double remuneration he induced the
+tailor in question so to hasten the cutting out of the garments that,
+through sitting up all night over the work, the man might have the
+whole ready by break of day. True, the goods were delivered a trifle
+after the appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and
+breeches completed; and while the horses were being put to, Chichikov
+tried on the clothes, and found them equal to the previous creation,
+even though during the process he caught sight of a bald patch on his
+head, and was led mournfully to reflect: "Alas! Why did I give way to
+such despair? Surely I need not have torn my hair out so freely?"
+
+Then, when the tailor had been paid, our hero left the town. But no
+longer was he the old Chichikov--he was only a ruin of what he had
+been, and his frame of mind might have been compared to a building
+recently pulled down to make room for a new one, while the new one had
+not yet been erected owing to the non-receipt of the plans from the
+architect. Murazov, too, had departed, but at an earlier hour, and in
+a tilt-waggon with Ivan Potapitch.
+
+An hour later the Governor-General issued to all and sundry officials
+a notice that, on the occasion of his departure for St. Petersburg, he
+would be glad to see the corps of tchinovniks at a private meeting.
+Accordingly all ranks and grades of officialdom repaired to his
+residence, and there awaited--not without a certain measure of
+trepidation and of searching of heart--the Governor-General's entry.
+When that took place he looked neither clear nor dull. Yet his bearing
+was proud, and his step assured. The tchinovniks bowed--some of them
+to the waist, and he answered their salutations with a slight
+inclination of the head. Then he spoke as follows:
+
+"Since I am about to pay a visit to St. Petersburg, I have thought it
+right to meet you, and to explain to you privately my reasons for
+doing so. An affair of a most scandalous character has taken place in
+our midst. To what affair I am referring I think most of those present
+will guess. Now, an automatic process has led to that affair bringing
+about the discovery of other matters. Those matters are no less
+dishonourable than the primary one; and to that I regret to have to
+add that there stand involved in them certain persons whom I had
+hitherto believed to be honourable. Of the object aimed at by those
+who have complicated matters to the point of making their resolution
+almost impossible by ordinary methods I am aware; as also I am aware
+of the identity of the ringleader, despite the skill with which he has
+sought to conceal his share in the scandal. But the principal point
+is, that I propose to decide these matters, not by formal documentary
+process, but by the more summary process of court-martial, and that I
+hope, when the circumstances have been laid before his Imperial
+Majesty, to receive from him authority to adopt the course which I
+have mentioned. For I conceive that when it has become impossible to
+resolve a case by civil means, and some of the necessary documents
+have been burnt, and attempts have been made (both through the
+adduction of an excess of false and extraneous evidence and through
+the framing of fictitious reports) to cloud an already sufficiently
+obscure investigation with an added measure of complexity,--when all
+these circumstances have arisen, I conceive that the only possible
+tribunal to deal with them is a military tribunal. But on that point I
+should like your opinion."
+
+The Prince paused for a moment or two, as though awaiting a reply; but
+none came, seeing that every man had his eyes bent upon the floor, and
+many of the audience had turned white in the face.
+
+"Then," he went on, "I may say that I am aware also of a matter which
+those who have carried it through believe to lie only within the
+cognisance of themselves. The particulars of that matter will not be
+set forth in documentary form, but only through process of myself
+acting as plaintiff and petitioner, and producing none but ocular
+evidence."
+
+Among the throng of tchinovniks some one gave a start, and thereby
+caused others of the more apprehensive sort to fall to trembling in
+their shoes.
+
+"Without saying does it go that the prime conspirators ought to
+undergo deprivation of rank and property, and that the remainder ought
+to be dismissed from their posts; for though that course would cause a
+certain proportion of the innocent to suffer with the guilty, there
+would seem to be no other course available, seeing that the affair is
+one of the most disgraceful nature, and calls aloud for justice.
+Therefore, although I know that to some my action will fail to serve
+as a lesson, since it will lead to their succeeding to the posts of
+dismissed officials, as well as that others hitherto considered
+honourable will lose their reputation, and others entrusted with new
+responsibilities will continue to cheat and betray their
+trust,--although all this is known to me, I still have no choice but
+to satisfy the claims of justice by proceeding to take stern measures.
+I am also aware that I shall be accused of undue severity; but,
+lastly, I am aware that it is my duty to put aside all personal
+feeling, and to act as the unconscious instrument of that retribution
+which justice demands."
+
+Over ever face there passed a shudder. Yet the Prince had spoken
+calmly, and not a trace of anger or any other kind of emotion had been
+visible on his features.
+
+"Nevertheless," he went on, "the very man in whose hands the fate of
+so many now lies, the very man whom no prayer for mercy could ever
+have influenced, himself desires to make a request of you. Should you
+grant that request, all will be forgotten and blotted out and
+pardoned, for I myself will intercede with the Throne on your behalf.
+That request is this. I know that by no manner of means, by no
+preventive measures, and by no penalties will dishonesty ever be
+completely extirpated from our midst, for the reason that its roots
+have struck too deep, and that the dishonourable traffic in bribes has
+become a necessity to, even the mainstay of, some whose nature is not
+innately venal. Also, I know that, to many men, it is an impossibility
+to swim against the stream. Yet now, at this solemn and critical
+juncture, when the country is calling aloud for saviours, and it is
+the duty of every citizen to contribute and to sacrifice his all, I
+feel that I cannot but issue an appeal to every man in whom a Russian
+heart and a spark of what we understand by the word 'nobility' exist.
+For, after all, which of us is more guilty than his fellow? It may be
+to ME the greatest culpability should be assigned, in that at first
+I may have adopted towards you too reserved an attitude, that I may
+have been over-hasty in repelling those who desired but to serve me,
+even though of their services I did not actually stand in need. Yet,
+had they really loved justice and the good of their country, I think
+that they would have been less prone to take offence at the coldness
+of my attitude, but would have sacrificed their feelings and their
+personality to their superior convictions. For hardly can it be that I
+failed to note their overtures and the loftiness of their motives, or
+that I would not have accepted any wise and useful advice proffered.
+At the same time, it is for a subordinate to adapt himself to the tone
+of his superior, rather than for a superior to adapt himself to the
+tone of his subordinate. Such a course is at once more regular and
+more smooth of working, since a corps of subordinates has but one
+director, whereas a director may have a hundred subordinates. But let
+us put aside the question of comparative culpability. The important
+point is, that before us all lies the duty of rescuing our fatherland.
+Our fatherland is suffering, not from the incursion of a score of
+alien tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in addition to the
+lawful administration, there has grown up a second administration
+possessed of infinitely greater powers than the system established by
+law. And that second administration has established its conditions,
+fixed its tariff of prices, and published that tariff abroad; nor
+could any ruler, even though the wisest of legislators and
+administrators, do more to correct the evil than limit it in the
+conduct of his more venal tchinovniks by setting over them, as their
+supervisors, men of superior rectitude. No, until each of us shall
+come to feel that, just as arms were taken up during the period of the
+upheaval of nations, so now each of us must make a stand against
+dishonesty, all remedies will end in failure. As a Russian,
+therefore--as one bound to you by consanguinity and identity of
+blood--I make to you my appeal. I make it to those of you who
+understand wherein lies nobility of thought. I invite those men to
+remember the duty which confronts us, whatsoever our respective
+stations; I invite them to observe more closely their duty, and to
+keep more constantly in mind their obligations of holding true to
+their country, in that before us the future looms dark, and that we
+can scarcely. . . ."
+
+   [Here the manuscript of the original comes abruptly to an end.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Dead Souls, by Nikolai V. Gogol
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sisters, by Martin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+
+Title: Dead Souls
+
+Author: Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
+
+Commentator: John Cournos
+
+Translator: D. J. Hogarth
+
+Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #1081]
+Release Date: October, 1997
+Last Updated: June 12, 2023
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Bickers
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 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
+the bed, and then set to work to cram into it, pell-mell, socks, shirts,
+collars (both clean and dirty), boot trees, a calendar, and a variety of
+other articles. Everything went into the receptacle just as it came
+to hand, since his one object was to obviate any possible delay in
+the morning’s departure. Meanwhile the reluctant Selifan slowly, very
+slowly, left the room, as slowly descended the staircase (on each
+separate step of which he left a muddy foot-print), and, finally, halted
+to scratch his head. What that scratching may have meant no one could
+say; for, with the Russian populace, such a scratching may mean any one
+of a hundred things.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Nevertheless events did not turn out as Chichikov had intended they
+should. In the first place, he overslept himself. That was check number
+one. In the second place, on his rising and inquiring whether the
+britchka had been harnessed and everything got ready, he was informed
+that neither of those two things had been done. That was check number
+two. Beside himself with rage, he prepared to give Selifan the wigging
+of his life, and, meanwhile, waited impatiently to hear what the
+delinquent had got to say in his defence. It goes without saying that
+when Selifan made his appearance in the doorway he had only the usual
+excuses to offer--the sort of excuses usually offered by servants when a
+hasty departure has become imperatively necessary.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “the horses require shoeing.”
+
+“Blockhead!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Why did you not tell me of that
+before, you damned fool? Was there not time enough for them to be shod?”
+
+“Yes, I suppose there was,” agreed Selifan. “Also one of the wheels is
+in want of a new tyre, for the roads are so rough that the old tyre is
+worn through. Also, the body of the britchka is so rickety that probably
+it will not last more than a couple of stages.”
+
+“Rascal!” shouted Chichikov, clenching his fists and approaching Selifan
+in such a manner that, fearing to receive a blow, the man backed and
+dodged aside. “Do you mean to ruin me, and to break all our bones on the
+road, you cursed idiot? For these three weeks past you have been doing
+nothing at all; yet now, at the last moment, you come here stammering
+and playing the fool! Do you think I keep you just to eat and to drive
+yourself about? You must have known of this before? Did you, or did you
+not, know it? Answer me at once.”
+
+“Yes, I did know it,” replied Selifan, hanging his head.
+
+“Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”
+
+Selifan had no reply immediately ready, so continued to hang his head
+while quietly saying to himself: “See how well I have managed things! I
+knew what was the matter, yet I did not say.”
+
+“And now,” continued Chichikov, “go you at once and fetch a blacksmith.
+Tell him that everything must be put right within two hours at the most.
+Do you hear? If that should not be done, I, I--I will give you the best
+flogging that ever you had in your life.” Truly Chichikov was almost
+beside himself with fury.
+
+Turning towards the door, as though for the purpose of going and
+carrying out his orders, Selifan halted and added:
+
+“That skewbald, barin--you might think it well to sell him, seeing that
+he is nothing but a rascal? A horse like that is more of a hindrance
+than a help.”
+
+“What? Do you expect me to go NOW to the market-place and sell him?”
+
+“Well, Paul Ivanovitch, he is good for nothing but show, since by nature
+he is a most cunning beast. Never in my life have I seen such a horse.”
+
+“Fool! Whenever I may wish to sell him I SHALL sell him. Meanwhile,
+don’t you trouble your head about what doesn’t concern you, but go and
+fetch a blacksmith, and see that everything is put right within two
+hours. Otherwise I will take the very hair off your head, and beat you
+till you haven’t a face left. Be off! Hurry!”
+
+Selifan departed, and Chichikov, his ill-humour vented, threw down
+upon the floor the poignard which he always took with him as a means of
+instilling respect into whomsoever it might concern, and spent the next
+quarter of an hour in disputing with a couple of blacksmiths--men who,
+as usual, were rascals of the type which, on perceiving that something
+is wanted in a hurry, at once multiplies its terms for providing the
+same. Indeed, for all Chichikov’s storming and raging as he dubbed
+the fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could make no
+impression upon the pair, since, true to their character, they declined
+to abate their prices, and, even when they had begun their work, spent
+upon it, not two hours, but five and a half. Meanwhile he had the
+satisfaction of experiencing that delightful time with which all
+travellers are familiar--namely, the time during which one sits in a
+room where, except for a litter of string, waste paper, and so forth,
+everything else has been packed. But to all things there comes an end,
+and there arrived also the long-awaited moment when the britchka had
+received the luggage, the faulty wheel had been fitted with a new tyre,
+the horses had been re-shod, and the predatory blacksmiths had departed
+with their gains. “Thank God!” thought Chichikov as the britchka rolled
+out of the gates of the inn, and the vehicle began to jolt over the
+cobblestones. Yet a feeling which he could not altogether have defined
+filled his breast as he gazed upon the houses and the streets and the
+garden walls which he might never see again. Presently, on turning a
+corner, the britchka was brought to a halt through the fact that along
+the street there was filing a seemingly endless funeral procession.
+Leaning forward in his britchka, Chichikov asked Petrushka whose
+obsequies the procession represented, and was told that they represented
+those of the Public Prosecutor. Disagreeably shocked, our hero hastened
+to raise the hood of the vehicle, to draw the curtains across the
+windows, and to lean back into a corner. While the britchka remained
+thus halted Selifan and Petrushka, their caps doffed, sat watching the
+progress of the cortege, after they had received strict instructions not
+to greet any fellow-servant whom they might recognise. Behind the hearse
+walked the whole body of tchinovniks, bare-headed; and though, for a
+moment or two, Chichikov feared that some of their number might discern
+him in his britchka, he need not have disturbed himself, since their
+attention was otherwise engaged. In fact, they were not even exchanging
+the small talk customary among members of such processions, but
+thinking exclusively of their own affairs, of the advent of the new
+Governor-General, and of the probable manner in which he would take up
+the reins of administration. Next came a number of carriages, from
+the windows of which peered the ladies in mourning toilets. Yet the
+movements of their hands and lips made it evident that they were
+indulging in animated conversation--probably about the Governor-General,
+the balls which he might be expected to give, and their own eternal
+fripperies and gewgaws. Lastly came a few empty drozhkis. As soon as the
+latter had passed, our hero was able to continue on his way. Throwing
+back the hood of the britchka, he said to himself:
+
+“Ah, good friend, you have lived your life, and now it is over! In the
+newspapers they will say of you that you died regretted not only by
+your subordinates, but also by humanity at large, as well as that, a
+respected citizen, a kind father, and a husband beyond reproach, you
+went to your grave amid the tears of your widow and orphans. Yet, should
+those journals be put to it to name any particular circumstance which
+justified this eulogy of you, they would be forced to fall back upon the
+fact that you grew a pair of exceptionally thick eyebrows!”
+
+With that Chichikov bid Selifan quicken his pace, and concluded: “After
+all, it is as well that I encountered the procession, for they say that
+to meet a funeral is lucky.”
+
+Presently the britchka turned into some less frequented streets, lines
+of wooden fencing of the kind which mark the outskirts of a town began
+to file by, the cobblestones came to an end, the macadam of the highroad
+succeeded to them, and once more there began on either side of the
+turnpike a procession of verst stones, road menders, and grey villages;
+inns with samovars and peasant women and landlords who came running out
+of yards with seivefuls of oats; pedestrians in worn shoes which, it
+might be, had covered eight hundred versts; little towns, bright with
+booths for the sale of flour in barrels, boots, small loaves, and other
+trifles; heaps of slag; much repaired bridges; expanses of field to
+right and to left; stout landowners; a mounted soldier bearing a green,
+iron-clamped box inscribed: “The --th Battery of Artillery”; long strips
+of freshly-tilled earth which gleamed green, yellow, and black on the
+face of the countryside. With it mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of
+elm-tops amid mist, the far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks,
+and the illimitable line of the horizon.
+
+Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still
+see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you
+the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which
+a yet more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities
+with lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque
+trees, no ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and
+roar, no beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony
+immensity, no vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and
+ageless lines of blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear,
+silvery background of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your
+towns project like points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and
+nothing whatsoever enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what
+invincible force draws me to you? Why does there ceaselessly echo and
+re-echo in my ears the sad song which hovers throughout the length and
+the breadth of your borders? What is the burden of that song? Why does
+it wail and sob and catch at my heart? What say the notes which
+thus painfully caress and embrace my soul, and flit, uttering their
+lamentations, around me? What is it you seek of me, O Russia? What is
+the hidden bond which subsists between us? Why do you regard me as you
+do? Why does everything within you turn upon me eyes full of
+yearning? Even at this moment, as I stand dumbly, fixedly, perplexedly
+contemplating your vastness, a menacing cloud, charged with gathering
+rain, seems to overshadow my head. What is it that your boundless
+expanses presage? Do they not presage that one day there will arise in
+you ideas as boundless as yourself? Do they not presage that one day you
+too will know no limits? Do they not presage that one day, when again
+you shall have room for their exploits, there will spring to life
+the heroes of old? How the power of your immensity enfolds me, and
+reverberates through all my being with a wild, strange spell, and
+flashes in my eyes with an almost supernatural radiance! Yes, a strange,
+brilliant, unearthly vista indeed do you disclose, O Russia, country of
+mine!
+
+“Stop, stop, you fool!” shouted Chichikov to Selifan; and even as he
+spoke a troika, bound on Government business, came chattering by, and
+disappeared in a cloud of dust. To Chichikov’s curses at Selifan for not
+having drawn out of the way with more alacrity a rural constable with
+moustaches of the length of an arshin added his quota.
+
+What a curious and attractive, yet also what an unreal, fascination
+the term “highway” connotes! And how interesting for its own sake is
+a highway! Should the day be a fine one (though chilly) in mellowing
+autumn, press closer your travelling cloak, and draw down your cap over
+your ears, and snuggle cosily, comfortably into a corner of the britchka
+before a last shiver shall course through your limbs, and the ensuing
+warmth shall put to flight the autumnal cold and damp. As the horses
+gallop on their way, how delightfully will drowsiness come stealing upon
+you, and make your eyelids droop! For a while, through your somnolence,
+you will continue to hear the hard breathing of the team and the
+rumbling of the wheels; but at length, sinking back into your corner,
+you will relapse into the stage of snoring. And when you awake--behold!
+you will find that five stages have slipped away, and that the moon is
+shining, and that you have reached a strange town of churches and old
+wooden cupolas and blackened spires and white, half-timbered houses! And
+as the moonlight glints hither and thither, almost you will believe that
+the walls and the streets and the pavements of the place are spread with
+sheets--sheets shot with coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs
+look all the brighter under the slanting beams of the pale luminary.
+Nowhere is a soul to be seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet
+no. In a solitary window a light is flickering where some good burgher
+is mending his boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night
+and powers of heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite
+vault--how lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies
+spread in an intangible, yet audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling
+breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into
+snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as
+he begins to be conscious of your weight. Then again you awake, but
+this time to find yourself confronted with only fields and steppes.
+Everywhere in the ascendant is the desolation of space. But suddenly the
+ciphers on a verst stone leap to the eye! Morning is rising, and on the
+chill, gradually paling line of the horizon you can see gleaming a faint
+gold streak. The wind freshens and grows keener, and you snuggle closer
+in your cloak; yet how glorious is that freshness, and how marvellous
+the sleep in which once again you become enfolded! A jolt!--and for the
+last time you return to consciousness. By now the sun is high in the
+heavens, and you hear a voice cry “gently, gently!” as a farm waggon
+issues from a by-road. Below, enclosed within an ample dike, stretches
+a sheet of water which glistens like copper in the sunlight. Beyond, on
+the side of a slope, lie some scattered peasants’ huts, a manor house,
+and, flanking the latter, a village church with its cross flashing
+like a star. There also comes wafted to your ear the sound of peasants’
+laughter, while in your inner man you are becoming conscious of an
+appetite which is not to be withstood.
+
+Oh long-drawn highway, how excellent you are! How often have I in
+weariness and despondency set forth upon your length, and found in you
+salvation and rest! How often, as I followed your leading, have I been
+visited with wonderful thoughts and poetic dreams and curious, wild
+impressions!
+
+At this moment our friend Chichikov also was experiencing visions of a
+not wholly prosaic nature. Let us peep into his soul and share them.
+At first he remained unconscious of anything whatsoever, for he was too
+much engaged in making sure that he was really clear of the town; but
+as soon as he saw that it had completely disappeared, with its mills and
+factories and other urban appurtenances, and that even the steeples
+of the white stone churches had sunk below the horizon, he turned his
+attention to the road, and the town of N. vanished from his thoughts as
+completely as though he had not seen it since childhood. Again, in its
+turn, the road ceased to interest him, and he began to close his eyes
+and to loll his head against the cushions. Of this let the author
+take advantage, in order to speak at length concerning his hero; since
+hitherto he (the author) has been prevented from so doing by Nozdrev and
+balls and ladies and local intrigues--by those thousand trifles which
+seem trifles only when they are introduced into a book, but which, in
+life, figure as affairs of importance. Let us lay them aside, and betake
+ourselves to business.
+
+Whether the character whom I have selected for my hero has pleased my
+readers is, of course, exceedingly doubtful. At all events the ladies
+will have failed to approve him for the fair sex demands in a hero
+perfection, and, should there be the least mental or physical stain
+on him--well, woe betide! Yes, no matter how profoundly the author may
+probe that hero’s soul, no matter how clearly he may portray his figure
+as in a mirror, he will be given no credit for the achievement. Indeed,
+Chichikov’s very stoutness and plenitude of years may have militated
+against him, for never is a hero pardoned for the former, and the
+majority of ladies will, in such case, turn away, and mutter to
+themselves: “Phew! What a beast!” Yes, the author is well aware of this.
+Yet, though he could not, to save his life, take a person of virtue for
+his principal character, it may be that this story contains themes
+never before selected, and that in it there projects the whole boundless
+wealth of Russian psychology; that it portrays, as well as Chichikov,
+the peasant who is gifted with the virtues which God has sent him, and
+the marvellous maiden of Russia who has not her like in all the world
+for her beautiful feminine spirituality, the roots of which lie buried
+in noble aspirations and boundless self-denial. In fact, compared with
+these types, the virtuous of other races seem lifeless, as does an
+inanimate volume when compared with the living word. Yes, each time that
+there arises in Russia a movement of thought, it becomes clear that the
+movement sinks deep into the Slavonic nature where it would but have
+skimmed the surface of other nations.--But why am I talking like this?
+Whither am I tending? It is indeed shameful that an author who long
+ago reached man’s estate, and was brought up to a course of severe
+introspection and sober, solitary self-enlightenment, should give way to
+such jejune wandering from the point. To everything its proper time
+and place and turn. As I was saying, it does not lie in me to take a
+virtuous character for my hero: and I will tell you why. It is because
+it is high time that a rest were given to the “poor, but virtuous”
+ individual; it is because the phrase “a man of worth” has grown into a
+by-word; it is because the “man of worth” has become converted into a
+horse, and there is not a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out
+of season; it is because the “man of worth” has been starved until he
+has not a shred of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is
+but the ribs and the hide; it is because the “man of worth” is for ever
+being smuggled upon the scene; it is because the “man of worth” has at
+length forfeited every one’s respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm
+that it is high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that
+rascal.
+
+Our hero’s beginnings were both modest and obscure. True, his parents
+were dvoriane, but he in no way resembled them. At all events, a short,
+squab female relative who was present at his birth exclaimed as she
+lifted up the baby: “He is altogether different from what I had expected
+him to be. He ought to have taken after his maternal grandmother,
+whereas he has been born, as the proverb has it, ‘like not father nor
+mother, but like a chance passer-by.’” Thus from the first life
+regarded the little Chichikov with sour distaste, and as through a dim,
+frost-encrusted window. A tiny room with diminutive casements which were
+never opened, summer or winter; an invalid father in a dressing-gown
+lined with lambskin, and with an ailing foot swathed in bandages--a man
+who was continually drawing deep breaths, and walking up and down the
+room, and spitting into a sandbox; a period of perpetually sitting on
+a bench with pen in hand and ink on lips and fingers; a period of being
+eternally confronted with the copy-book maxim, “Never tell a lie, but
+obey your superiors, and cherish virtue in your heart;” an everlasting
+scraping and shuffling of slippers up and down the room; a period of
+continually hearing a well-known, strident voice exclaim: “So you have
+been playing the fool again!” at times when the child, weary of the
+mortal monotony of his task, had added a superfluous embellishment
+to his copy; a period of experiencing the ever-familiar, but
+ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those words as the boy’s
+ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent backwards at
+the tips--such is the miserable picture of that youth of which, in later
+life, Chichikov preserved but the faintest of memories! But in this
+world everything is liable to swift and sudden change; and, one day in
+early spring, when the rivers had melted, the father set forth with
+his little son in a teliezshka [37] drawn by a sorrel steed of the kind
+known to horsy folk as a soroka, and having as coachman the diminutive
+hunchback who, father of the only serf family belonging to the elder
+Chichikov, served as general factotum in the Chichikov establishment.
+For a day and a half the soroka conveyed them on their way; during which
+time they spent the night at a roadside inn, crossed a river, dined off
+cold pie and roast mutton, and eventually arrived at the county town. To
+the lad the streets presented a spectacle of unwonted brilliancy, and
+he gaped with amazement. Turning into a side alley wherein the mire
+necessitated both the most strenuous exertions on the soroka’s part and
+the most vigorous castigation on the part of the driver and the barin,
+the conveyance eventually reached the gates of a courtyard which,
+combined with a small fruit garden containing various bushes, a couple
+of apple-trees in blossom, and a mean, dirty little shed, constituted
+the premises attached to an antiquated-looking villa. Here there lived
+a relative of the Chichikovs, a wizened old lady who went to market in
+person and dried her stockings at the samovar. On seeing the boy, she
+patted his cheek and expressed satisfaction at his physique; whereupon
+the fact became disclosed that here he was to abide for a while, for
+the purpose of attending a local school. After a night’s rest his father
+prepared to betake himself homeward again; but no tears marked the
+parting between him and his son, he merely gave the lad a copper or two
+and (a far more important thing) the following injunctions. “See here,
+my boy. Do your lessons well, do not idle or play the fool, and above
+all things, see that you please your teachers. So long as you observe
+these rules you will make progress, and surpass your fellows, even if
+God shall have denied you brains, and you should fail in your studies.
+Also, do not consort overmuch with your comrades, for they will do you
+no good; but, should you do so, then make friends with the richer of
+them, since one day they may be useful to you. Also, never entertain or
+treat any one, but see that every one entertains and treats YOU. Lastly,
+and above all else, keep and save your every kopeck. To save money is
+the most important thing in life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail
+you, and be the first to desert you in a time of adversity; but never
+will a KOPECK fail you, whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the
+world cannot be done, cannot be attained, with the aid of money.” These
+injunctions given, the father embraced his son, and set forth on his
+return; and though the son never again beheld his parent, the latter’s
+words and precepts sank deep into the little Chichikov’s soul.
+
+The next day young Pavlushka made his first attendance at school. But no
+special aptitude in any branch of learning did he display. Rather, his
+distinguishing characteristics were diligence and neatness. On the other
+hand, he developed great intelligence as regards the PRACTICAL aspect
+of life. In a trice he divined and comprehended how things ought to
+be worked, and, from that time forth, bore himself towards his
+school-fellows in such a way that, though they frequently gave him
+presents, he not only never returned the compliment, but even on
+occasions pocketed the gifts for the mere purpose of selling them again.
+Also, boy though he was, he acquired the art of self-denial. Of the
+trifle which his father had given him on parting he spent not a kopeck,
+but, the same year, actually added to his little store by fashioning
+a bullfinch of wax, painting it, and selling the same at a handsome
+profit. Next, as time went on, he engaged in other speculations--in
+particular, in the scheme of buying up eatables, taking his seat in
+class beside boys who had plenty of pocket-money, and, as soon as such
+opulent individuals showed signs of failing attention (and, therefore,
+of growing appetite), tendering them, from beneath the desk, a roll of
+pudding or a piece of gingerbread, and charging according to degree
+of appetite and size of portion. He also spent a couple of months in
+training a mouse, which he kept confined in a little wooden cage in his
+bedroom. At length, when the training had reached the point that, at the
+several words of command, the mouse would stand upon its hind legs,
+lie down, and get up again, he sold the creature for a respectable sum.
+Thus, in time, his gains attained the amount of five roubles; whereupon
+he made himself a purse and then started to fill a second receptacle of
+the kind. Still more studied was his attitude towards the authorities.
+No one could sit more quietly in his place on the bench than he. In the
+same connection it may be remarked that his teacher was a man who, above
+all things, loved peace and good behaviour, and simply could not
+abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him.
+Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master’s attention with
+a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or
+unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to
+burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and
+to visit him with unmerciful punishment. “Ah, my fine fellow,” he would
+say, “I’LL cure you of your impudence and want of respect! I know you
+through and through far better than you know yourself, and will take
+good care that you have to go down upon your knees and curb your
+appetite.” Whereupon the wretched lad would, for no cause of which he
+was aware, be forced to wear out his breeches on the floor and go hungry
+for days. “Talents and gifts,” the schoolmaster would declare, “are so
+much rubbish. I respect only good behaviour, and shall award full marks
+to those who conduct themselves properly, even if they fail to learn a
+single letter of their alphabet: whereas to those in whom I may perceive
+a tendency to jocularity I shall award nothing, even though they should
+outdo Solon himself.” For the same reason he had no great love of the
+author Krylov, in that the latter says in one of his Fables: “In my
+opinion, the more one sings, the better one works;” and often the
+pedagogue would relate how, in a former school of his, the silence had
+been such that a fly could be heard buzzing on the wing, and for the
+space of a whole year not a single pupil sneezed or coughed in class,
+and so complete was the absence of all sound that no one could have
+told that there was a soul in the place. Of this mentor young Chichikov
+speedily appraised the mentality; wherefore he fashioned his behaviour
+to correspond with it. Not an eyelid, not an eyebrow, would he stir
+during school hours, howsoever many pinches he might receive from
+behind; and only when the bell rang would he run to anticipate his
+fellows in handing the master the three-cornered cap which that
+dignitary customarily sported, and then to be the first to leave the
+class-room, and contrive to meet the master not less than two or three
+times as the latter walked homeward, in order that, on each occasion,
+he might doff his cap. And the scheme proved entirely successful.
+Throughout the period of his attendance at school he was held in high
+favour, and, on leaving the establishment, received full marks for every
+subject, as well as a diploma and a book inscribed (in gilt letters)
+“For Exemplary Diligence and the Perfection of Good Conduct.” By this
+time he had grown into a fairly good-looking youth of the age when the
+chin first calls for a razor; and at about the same period his father
+died, leaving behind him, as his estate, four waistcoats completely worn
+out, two ancient frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had
+been skilled only in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks--not in ACTUALLY
+PRACTISING the art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its
+little parcel of land for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his
+one serf and the serf’s family, to the capital, where he set about
+organising a new establishment and entering the Civil Service.
+Simultaneously with his doing so, his old schoolmaster lost (through
+stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over which he had hitherto
+presided, and in which he had set so much store by silence and good
+behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was left, even
+for that purpose, he retired--ill, helpless, and starving--into a
+broken-down, cheerless hovel. But certain of his former pupils--the same
+clever, witty lads whom he had once been wont to accuse of impertinence
+and evil conduct generally--heard of his pitiable plight, and collected
+for him what money they could, even to the point of selling their own
+necessaries. Only Chichikov, when appealed to, pleaded inability, and
+compromised with a contribution of a single piatak [38]: which his
+old schoolfellows straightway returned him--full in the face, and
+accompanied with a shout of “Oh, you skinflint!” As for the poor
+schoolmaster, when he heard what his former pupils had done, he buried
+his face in his hands, and the tears gushed from his failing eyes as
+from those of a helpless infant. “God has brought you but to weep over
+my death-bed,” he murmured feebly; and added with a profound sigh, on
+hearing of Chichikov’s conduct: “Ah, Pavlushka, how a human being may
+become changed! Once you were a good lad, and gave me no trouble; but
+now you are become proud indeed!”
+
+Yet let it not be inferred from this that our hero’s character had grown
+so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude his
+experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of fact,
+he was capable both of the one and the other, and would have been glad
+to assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or had he not
+been called upon to touch the fund which he had decided should remain
+intact. In other words, the father’s injunction, “Guard and save every
+kopeck,” had become a hard and fast rule of the son’s. Yet the youth had
+no particular attachment to money for money’s sake; he was not possessed
+with the true instinct for hoarding and niggardliness. Rather, before
+his eyes there floated ever a vision of life and its amenities and
+advantages--a vision of carriages and an elegantly furnished house and
+recherche dinners; and it was in the hope that some day he might attain
+these things that he saved every kopeck and, meanwhile, stinted both
+himself and others. Whenever a rich man passed him by in a splendid
+drozhki drawn by swift and handsomely-caparisoned horses, he would halt
+as though deep in thought, and say to himself, like a man awakening
+from a long sleep: “That gentleman must have been a financier, he has so
+little hair on his brow.” In short, everything connected with wealth and
+plenty produced upon him an ineffaceable impression. Even when he left
+school he took no holiday, so strong in him was the desire to get to
+work and enter the Civil Service. Yet, for all the encomiums contained
+in his diploma, he had much ado to procure a nomination to a Government
+Department; and only after a long time was a minor post found for him,
+at a salary of thirty or forty roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched
+though this appointment was, he determined, by strict attention to
+business, to overcome all obstacles, and to win success. And, indeed,
+the self-denial, the patience, and the economy which he displayed
+were remarkable. From early morn until late at night he would, with
+indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed in his sordid task
+of copying official documents--never going home, snatching what sleep he
+could on tables in the building, and dining with the watchman on duty.
+Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and neat, to preserve
+a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to cultivate a certain
+elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked that his fellow
+tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some of them having
+faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding chins, and
+cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was
+handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of
+sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and
+by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there
+remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the
+Director’s room itself they would invade while still licking their lips,
+and since their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room
+grew not over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man
+like Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in
+everything--in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and
+in complete neglect of the use of strong potions--he was the absolute
+antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread,
+for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief
+Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia.
+Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in
+his life have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance’s health.
+Nor had any one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his
+own home from what he was in the office, or showing the least interest
+in anything whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in
+his cups, or indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when
+intoxicated, even a burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was
+there in him. Nor, for that matter, was there in him a particle of
+anything at all, whether good or bad: which complete negativeness
+of character produced rather a strange effect. In the same way, his
+wizened, marble-like features reminded one of nothing in particular, so
+primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous pockmarks and dimples
+with which they were pitted placed him among the number of those over
+whose faces, to quote the popular saying, “The Devil has walked by night
+to grind peas.” In short, it would seem that no human agency could have
+approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet Chichikov made the
+effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the other’s convenience
+in all manner of insignificant trifles--to cleaning his pens carefully,
+and, when they had been prepared exactly to the Chief Clerk’s liking,
+laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and sweeping from his table
+all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to procuring a new mat for his
+inkstand; to looking for his hat--the meanest-looking hat that ever
+the world beheld--and having it ready for him at the exact moment when
+business came to an end; to brushing his back if it happened to become
+smeared with whitewash from a wall. Yet all this passed as unnoticed
+as though it had never been done. Finally, Chichikov sniffed into his
+superior’s family and domestic life, and learnt that he possessed a
+grown-up daughter on whose face also there had taken place a nocturnal,
+diabolical grinding of peas. HERE was a quarter whence a fresh attack
+might be delivered! After ascertaining what church the daughter attended
+on Sundays, our hero took to contriving to meet her in a neat suit and a
+well-starched dickey: and soon the scheme began to work. The surly Chief
+Clerk wavered for a while; then ended by inviting Chichikov to tea. Nor
+could any man in the office have told you how it came about that before
+long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk’s house, and become a
+person necessary--indeed indispensable--to the household, seeing that he
+bought the flour and the sugar, treated the daughter as his betrothed,
+called the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” and occasionally kissed “Papenka’s”
+ hand. In fact, every one at the office supposed that, at the end of
+February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent) there would take place
+a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to agitate with the
+authorities on Chichikov’s behalf, and so enabled our hero, on a vacancy
+occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk. Apparently this marked
+the consummation of Chichikov’s relations with his host, for he hastened
+stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day, figured in a fresh
+lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” or to kiss
+his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as abrupt a termination
+as though it had never been mooted. Yet also he never failed to press
+his late host’s hand, whenever he met him, and to invite him to tea;
+while, on the other hand, for all his immobility and dry indifference,
+the Chief Clerk never failed to shake his head with a muttered, “Ah, my
+fine fellow, you have grown too proud, you have grown too proud.”
+
+The foregoing constituted the most difficult step that our hero had to
+negotiate. Thereafter things came with greater ease and swifter
+success. Everywhere he attracted notice, for he developed within
+himself everything necessary for this world--namely, charm of manner
+and bearing, and great diligence in business matters. Armed with these
+resources, he next obtained promotion to what is known as “a fat post,”
+ and used it to the best advantage; and even though, at that period,
+strict inquiry had begun to be made into the whole subject of bribes,
+such inquiry failed to alarm him--nay, he actually turned it to account
+and thereby manifested the Russian resourcefulness which never fails to
+attain its zenith where extortion is concerned. His method of working
+was the following. As soon as a petitioner or a suitor put his hand into
+his pocket, to extract thence the necessary letters of recommendation
+for signature, Chichikov would smilingly exclaim as he detained his
+interlocutor’s hand: “No, no! Surely you do not think that I--? But no,
+no! It is our duty, it is our obligation, and we do not require rewards
+for doing our work properly. So far as YOUR matter is concerned, you may
+rest easy. Everything shall be carried through to-morrow. But may I
+have your address? There is no need to trouble yourself, seeing that the
+documents can easily be brought to you at your residence.” Upon which
+the delighted suitor would return home in raptures, thinking: “Here, at
+long last, is the sort of man so badly needed. A man of that kind is
+a jewel beyond price.” Yet for a day, for two days--nay, even for
+three--the suitor would wait in vain so far as any messengers with
+documents were concerned. Then he would repair to the office--to find
+that his business had not so much as been entered upon! Lastly, he would
+confront the “jewel beyond price.” “Oh, pardon me, pardon me!” Chichikov
+would exclaim in the politest of tones as he seized and grasped the
+visitor’s hands. “The truth is that we have SUCH a quantity of business
+on hand! But the matter shall be put through to-morrow, and in the
+meanwhile I am most sorry about it.” And with this would go the most
+fascinating of gestures. Yet neither on the morrow, nor on the day
+following, nor on the third would documents arrive at the suitor’s
+abode. Upon that he would take thought as to whether something more
+ought not to have been done; and, sure enough, on his making inquiry,
+he would be informed that “something will have to be given to the
+copyists.” “Well, there can be no harm in that,” he would reply. “As a
+matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak [39] or two.” “Oh, no, no,”
+ the answer would come. “Not a tchetvertak per copyist, but a rouble,
+is the fee.” “What? A rouble per copyist?” “Certainly. What is there to
+grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a tchetvertak
+apiece, and the rest will go to the Government.” Upon that the
+disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought
+about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks
+and their uppish, insolent behaviour. “Once upon a time,” would the
+suitor lament, “one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the
+Director a bank-note, one’s affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But
+now one has to pay a rouble per copyist after waiting a week because
+otherwise it was impossible to guess how the wind might set! The devil
+fly away with all ‘disinterested’ and ‘trustworthy’ tchinovniks!” And
+certainly the aggrieved suitor had reason to grumble, seeing that,
+now that bribe-takers had ceased to exist, and Directors had uniformly
+become men of honour and integrity, secretaries and clerks ought not
+with impunity to have continued their thievish ways. In time there
+opened out to Chichikov a still wider field, for a Commission was
+appointed to supervise the erection of a Government building, and, on
+his being nominated to that body, he proved himself one of its most
+active members. The Commission got to work without delay, but for a
+space of six years had some trouble with the building in question.
+Either the climate hindered operations or the materials used were of the
+kind which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the
+basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for each
+member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official style of
+architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the soil of those parts
+was better than that where the Government building was still engaged
+in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission began to look
+exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family life; and, for
+the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also departed from the
+iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and inexorable self-denial, and
+so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism as to show himself a man not
+averse to those amenities which, during his youth, he had been capable
+of renouncing. That is to say, certain superfluities began to make their
+appearance in his establishment. He engaged a good cook, took to wearing
+linen shirts, bought for himself cloth of a pattern worn by no one else
+in the province, figured in checks shot with the brightest of reds and
+browns, fitted himself out with two splendid horses (which he drove with
+a single pair of reins, added to a ring attachment for the trace horse),
+developed a habit of washing with a sponge dipped in eau-de-Cologne, and
+invested in soaps of the most expensive quality, in order to communicate
+to his skin a more elegant polish.
+
+But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director--a military
+man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and
+anything which might be called irregular. On the very day after his
+arrival he struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts,
+discovering hosts of deficits and missing sums, and directing his
+attention to the aforesaid fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon
+that there ensued a complete reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired
+wholesale, and the houses were sequestrated to the Government, or else
+converted into various pious institutions and schools for soldiers’
+children. Thus the whole fabric, and especially Chichikov, came crashing
+to the ground. Particularly did our hero’s agreeable face displease the
+new Director. Why that was so it is impossible to say, but frequently,
+in cases of the kind, no reason exists. However, the Director conceived
+a mortal dislike to him, and also extended that enmity to the whole of
+Chichikov’s colleagues. But inasmuch as the said Director was a military
+man, he was not fully acquainted with the myriad subtleties of the
+civilian mind; wherefore it was not long before, by dint of maintaining
+a discreet exterior, added to a faculty for humouring all and sundry,
+a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in restoring him to mildness, and
+the General found himself in the hands of greater thieves than before,
+but thieves whom he did not even suspect, seeing that he believed
+himself to have selected men fit and proper, and even ventured to
+boast of possessing a keen eye for talent. In a trice the tchinovniks
+concerned appraised his spirit and character; with the result that the
+entire sphere over which he ruled became an agency for the detection of
+irregularities. Everywhere, and in every case, were those irregularities
+pursued as a fisherman pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff; and to such
+an extent did the sport prove successful that almost in no time each
+participator in the hunt was seen to be in possession of several
+thousand roubles of capital. Upon that a large number of the former band
+of tchinovniks also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were
+allowed to re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could
+Chichikov worm his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry
+items of paper currency, the General’s first secretary and principal
+bear leader did all he could on our hero’s behalf. It seemed that the
+General was the kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided
+it was done without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head
+than it stuck there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted;
+and all that the wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing
+up of a certain dirty fragment of paper--even that being effected only
+by an appeal to the General’s compassion, on the score of the unhappy
+fate which, otherwise, would befall Chichikov’s wife and children (who,
+luckily, had no existence in fact).
+
+“Well,” said Chichikov to himself, “I have done my best, and now
+everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won’t help me, but only
+action.” And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once
+more to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The
+better to effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town. Yet
+somehow, for a while, things miscarried. More than once he found himself
+forced to exchange one post for another, and at the briefest of notice;
+and all of them were posts of the meanest, the most wretched, order.
+Yet, being a man of the utmost nicety of feeling, the fact that he found
+himself rubbing shoulders with anything but nice companions did not
+prevent him from preserving intact his innate love of what was decent
+and seemly, or from cherishing the instinct which led him to hanker
+after office fittings of lacquered wood, with neatness and orderliness
+everywhere. Nor did he at any time permit a foul word to creep into
+his speech, and would feel hurt even if in the speech of others there
+occurred a scornful reference to anything which pertained to rank and
+dignity. Also, the reader will be pleased to know that our hero changed
+his linen every other day, and in summer, when the weather was very
+hot, EVERY day, seeing that the very faintest suspicion of an unpleasant
+odour offended his fastidiousness. For the same reason it was his
+custom, before being valeted by Petrushka, always to plug his nostrils
+with a couple of cloves. In short, there were many occasions when his
+nerves suffered rackings as cruel as a young girl’s, and so helped to
+increase his disgust at having once more to associate with men who set
+no store by the decencies of life. Yet, though he braced himself to the
+task, this period of adversity told upon his health, and he even grew a
+trifle shabby. More than once, on happening to catch sight of himself
+in the mirror, he could not forbear exclaiming: “Holy Mother of God,
+but what a nasty-looking brute I have become!” and for a long while
+afterwards could not with anything like sang-froid contemplate his
+reflection. Yet throughout he bore up stoutly and patiently--and ended
+by being transferred to the Customs Department. It may be said that the
+department had long constituted the secret goal of his ambition, for
+he had noted the foreign elegancies with which its officials always
+contrived to provide themselves, and had also observed that invariably
+they were able to send presents of china and cambric to their sisters
+and aunts--well, to their lady friends generally. Yes, more than once
+he had said to himself with a sigh: “THAT is the department to which I
+ought to belong, for, given a town near the frontier, and a sensible set
+of colleagues, I might be able to fit myself out with excellent linen
+shirts.” Also, it may be said that most frequently of all had his
+thoughts turned towards a certain quality of French soap which imparted
+a peculiar whiteness to the skin and a peerless freshness to the cheeks.
+Its name is known to God alone, but at least it was to be procured only
+in the immediate neighbourhood of the frontier. So, as I say, Chichikov
+had long felt a leaning towards the Customs, but for a time had been
+restrained from applying for the same by the various current advantages
+of the Building Commission; since rightly he had adjudged the latter to
+constitute a bird in the hand, and the former to constitute only a bird
+in the bush. But now he decided that, come what might, into the Customs
+he must make his way. And that way he made, and then applied himself
+to his new duties with a zeal born of the fact that he realised that
+fortune had specially marked him out for a Customs officer. Indeed,
+such activity, perspicuity, and ubiquity as his had never been seen or
+thought of. Within four weeks at the most he had so thoroughly got his
+hand in that he was conversant with Customs procedure in every detail.
+Not only could he weigh and measure, but also he could divine from
+an invoice how many arshins of cloth or other material a given piece
+contained, and then, taking a roll of the latter in his hand, could
+specify at once the number of pounds at which it would tip the scale. As
+for searchings, well, even his colleagues had to admit that he possessed
+the nose of a veritable bloodhound, and that it was impossible not
+to marvel at the patience wherewith he would try every button of the
+suspected person, yet preserve, throughout, a deadly politeness and an
+icy sang-froid which surpass belief. And while the searched were raging,
+and foaming at the mouth, and feeling that they would give worlds to
+alter his smiling exterior with a good, resounding slap, he would
+move not a muscle of his face, nor abate by a jot the urbanity of his
+demeanour, as he murmured, “Do you mind so far incommoding yourself as
+to stand up?” or “Pray step into the next room, madam, where the wife
+of one of our staff will attend you,” or “Pray allow me to slip this
+penknife of mine into the lining of your coat” (after which he would
+extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he
+would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors
+acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so
+perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles,
+horses’ ears, and places whither an author ought not to penetrate even
+in thought--places whither only a Customs official is permitted to go.
+The result was that the wretched traveller who had just crossed the
+frontier would, within a few minutes, become wholly at sea, and, wiping
+away the perspiration, and breaking out into body flushes, would be
+reduced to crossing himself and muttering, “Well, well, well!” In fact,
+such a traveller would feel in the position of a schoolboy who, having
+been summoned to the presence of the headmaster for the ostensible
+purpose of being given an order, has found that he receives, instead, a
+sound flogging. In short, for some time Chichikov made it impossible
+for smugglers to earn a living. In particular, he reduced Polish
+Jewry almost to despair, so invincible, so almost unnatural, was the
+rectitude, the incorruptibility which led him to refrain from converting
+himself into a small capitalist with the aid of confiscated goods and
+articles which, “to save excessive clerical labour,” had failed to be
+handed over to the Government. Also, without saying it goes that
+such phenomenally zealous and disinterested service attracted general
+astonishment, and, eventually, the notice of the authorities; whereupon
+he received promotion, and followed that up by mooting a scheme for
+the infallible detection of contrabandists, provided that he could be
+furnished with the necessary authority for carrying out the same. At
+once such authority was accorded him, as also unlimited power to conduct
+every species of search and investigation. And that was all he
+wanted. It happened that previously there had been formed a well-found
+association for smuggling on regular, carefully prepared lines, and
+that this daring scheme seemed to promise profit to the extent of
+some millions of money: yet, though he had long had knowledge of it,
+Chichikov had said to the association’s emissaries, when sent to buy him
+over, “The time is not yet.” But now that he had got all the reins into
+his hands, he sent word of the fact to the gang, and with it the remark,
+“The time is NOW.” Nor was he wrong in his calculations, for, within
+the space of a year, he had acquired what he could not have made during
+twenty years of non-fraudulent service. With similar sagacity he had,
+during his early days in the department, declined altogether to enter
+into relations with the association, for the reason that he had then
+been a mere cipher, and would have come in for nothing large in the way
+of takings; but now--well, now it was another matter altogether, and
+he could dictate what terms he liked. Moreover, that the affair might
+progress the more smoothly, he suborned a fellow tchinovnik of the type
+which, in spite of grey hairs, stands powerless against temptation;
+and, the contract concluded, the association duly proceeded to business.
+Certainly business began brilliantly. But probably most of my readers
+are familiar with the oft-repeated story of the passage of Spanish sheep
+across the frontier in double fleeces which carried between their outer
+layers and their inner enough lace of Brabant to sell to the tune of
+millions of roubles; wherefore I will not recount the story again beyond
+saying that those journeys took place just when Chichikov had become
+head of the Customs, and that, had he not a hand in the enterprise, not
+all the Jews in the world could have brought it to success. By the time
+that three or four of these ovine invasions had taken place, Chichikov
+and his accomplice had come to be the possessors of four hundred
+thousand roubles apiece; while some even aver that the former’s gains
+totalled half a million, owing to the greater industry which he had
+displayed in the matter. Nor can any one but God say to what a figure
+the fortunes of the pair might not eventually have attained, had not an
+awkward contretemps cut right across their arrangements. That is to
+say, for some reason or another the devil so far deprived these
+tchinovnik-conspirators of sense as to make them come to words with
+one another, and then to engage in a quarrel. Beginning with a heated
+argument, this quarrel reached the point of Chichikov--who was,
+possibly, a trifle tipsy--calling his colleague a priest’s son; and
+though that description of the person so addressed was perfectly
+accurate, he chose to take offence, and to answer Chichikov with the
+words (loudly and incisively uttered), “It is YOU who have a priest for
+your father,” and to add to that (the more to incense his companion),
+“Yes, mark you! THAT is how it is.” Yet, though he had thus turned the
+tables upon Chichikov with a tu quoque, and then capped that exploit
+with the words last quoted, the offended tchinovnik could not remain
+satisfied, but went on to send in an anonymous document to the
+authorities. On the other hand, some aver that it was over a woman that
+the pair fell out--over a woman who, to quote the phrase then current
+among the staff of the Customs Department, was “as fresh and as strong
+as the pulp of a turnip,” and that night-birds were hired to assault our
+hero in a dark alley, and that the scheme miscarried, and that in any
+case both Chichikov and his friend had been deceived, seeing that the
+person to whom the lady had really accorded her favours was a certain
+staff-captain named Shamsharev. However, only God knows the truth of the
+matter. Let the inquisitive reader ferret it out for himself. The fact
+remains that a complete exposure of the dealings with the contrabandists
+followed, and that the two tchinovniks were put to the question,
+deprived of their property, and made to formulate in writing all that
+they had done. Against this thunderbolt of fortune the State Councillor
+could make no headway, and in some retired spot or another sank into
+oblivion; but Chichikov put a brave face upon the matter, for, in
+spite of the authorities’ best efforts to smell out his gains, he had
+contrived to conceal a portion of them, and also resorted to every
+subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an
+experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows.
+Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving
+oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of
+a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was
+retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual
+trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all his capital,
+stripped of his imported effects, stripped of everything. That is to
+say, all that remained to him consisted of ten thousand roubles which he
+had stored against a rainy day, two dozen linen shirts, a small britchka
+of the type used by bachelors, and two serving-men named Selifan and
+Petrushka. Yes, and an impulse of kindness moved the tchinovniks of the
+Customs also to set aside for him a few cakes of the soap which he had
+found so excellent for the freshness of the cheeks. Thus once more our
+hero found himself stranded. And what an accumulation of misfortunes had
+descended upon his head!--though, true, he termed them “suffering in the
+Service in the cause of Truth.” Certainly one would have thought that,
+after these buffetings and trials and changes of fortune--after this
+taste of the sorrows of life--he and his precious ten thousand roubles
+would have withdrawn to some peaceful corner in a provincial town,
+where, clad in a stuff dressing-gown, he could have sat and listened to
+the peasants quarrelling on festival days, or (for the sake of a breath
+of fresh air) have gone in person to the poulterer’s to finger chickens
+for soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly useless, existence;
+but nothing of the kind took place, and therein we must do justice to
+the strength of his character. In other words, although he had undergone
+what, to the majority of men, would have meant ruin and discouragement
+and a shattering of ideals, he still preserved his energy. True,
+downcast and angry, and full of resentment against the world in general,
+he felt furious with the injustice of fate, and dissatisfied with
+the dealings of men; yet he could not forbear courting additional
+experiences. In short, the patience which he displayed was such as to
+make the wooden persistency of the German--a persistency merely due to
+the slow, lethargic circulation of the Teuton’s blood--seem nothing at
+all, seeing that by nature Chichikov’s blood flowed strongly, and
+that he had to employ much force of will to curb within himself those
+elements which longed to burst forth and revel in freedom. He thought
+things over, and, as he did so, a certain spice of reason appeared in
+his reflections.
+
+“How have I come to be what I am?” he said to himself. “Why has
+misfortune overtaken me in this way? Never have I wronged a poor person,
+or robbed a widow, or turned any one out of doors: I have always been
+careful only to take advantage of those who possess more than their
+share. Moreover, I have never gleaned anywhere but where every one else
+was gleaning; and, had I not done so, others would have gleaned in my
+place. Why, then, should those others be prospering, and I be sunk as
+low as a worm? What am I? What am I good for? How can I, in future, hope
+to look any honest father of a family in the face? How shall I escape
+being tortured with the thought that I am cumbering the ground? What,
+in the years to come, will my children say, save that ‘our father was a
+brute, for he left us nothing to live upon?’”
+
+Here I may remark that we have seen how much thought Chichikov devoted
+to his future descendants. Indeed, had not there been constantly
+recurring to his mind the insistent question, “What will my children
+say?” he might not have plunged into the affair so deeply. Nevertheless,
+like a wary cat which glances hither and thither to see whether its
+mistress be not coming before it can make off with whatsoever first
+falls to its paw (butter, fat, lard, a duck, or anything else), so our
+future founder of a family continued, though weeping and bewailing
+his lot, to let not a single detail escape his eye. That is to say,
+he retained his wits ever in a state of activity, and kept his brain
+constantly working. All that he required was a plan. Once more he pulled
+himself together, once more he embarked upon a life of toil, once more
+he stinted himself in everything, once more he left clean and decent
+surroundings for a dirty, mean existence. In other words, until
+something better should turn up, he embraced the calling of an ordinary
+attorney--a calling which, not then possessed of a civic status, was
+jostled on very side, enjoyed little respect at the hands of the minor
+legal fry (or, indeed, at its own), and perforce met with universal
+slights and rudeness. But sheer necessity compelled Chichikov to face
+these things. Among commissions entrusted to him was that of placing in
+the hands of the Public Trustee several hundred peasants who belonged
+to a ruined estate. The estate had reached its parlous condition through
+cattle disease, through rascally bailiffs, through failures of the
+harvest, through such epidemic diseases that had killed off the best
+workmen, and, last, but not least, through the senseless conduct of the
+owner himself, who had furnished a house in Moscow in the latest style,
+and then squandered his every kopeck, so that nothing was left for
+his further maintenance, and it became necessary to mortgage the
+remains--including the peasants--of the estate. In those days mortgage
+to the Treasury was an innovation looked upon with reserve, and, as
+attorney in the matter, Chichikov had first of all to “entertain” every
+official concerned (we know that, unless that be previously done, unless
+a whole bottle of madeira first be emptied down each clerical throat,
+not the smallest legal affair can be carried through), and to explain,
+for the barring of future attachments, that half of the peasants were
+dead.
+
+“And are they entered on the revision lists?” asked the secretary.
+“Yes,” replied Chichikov. “Then what are you boggling at?” continued the
+Secretary. “Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time grow
+up to take the first one’s place.” Upon that there dawned on our hero
+one of the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human brain. “What
+a simpleton I am!” he thought to himself. “Here am I looking about for
+my mittens when all the time I have got them tucked into my belt. Why,
+were I myself to buy up a few souls which are dead--to buy them before
+a new revision list shall have been made, the Council of Public Trust
+might pay me two hundred roubles apiece for them, and I might find
+myself with, say, a capital of two hundred thousand roubles! The present
+moment is particularly propitious, since in various parts of the country
+there has been an epidemic, and, glory be to God, a large number of
+souls have died of it. Nowadays landowners have taken to card-playing
+and junketting and wasting their money, or to joining the Civil Service
+in St. Petersburg; consequently their estates are going to rack and
+ruin, and being managed in any sort of fashion, and succeeding in paying
+their dues with greater difficulty each year. That being so, not a man
+of the lot but would gladly surrender to me his dead souls rather than
+continue paying the poll-tax; and in this fashion I might make--well,
+not a few kopecks. Of course there are difficulties, and, to avoid
+creating a scandal, I should need to employ plenty of finesse; but man
+was given his brain to USE, not to neglect. One good point about the
+scheme is that it will seem so improbable that in case of an accident,
+no one in the world will believe in it. True, it is illegal to buy or
+mortgage peasants without land, but I can easily pretend to be buying
+them only for transferment elsewhere. Land is to be acquired in the
+provinces of Taurida and Kherson almost for nothing, provided that one
+undertakes subsequently to colonise it; so to Kherson I will ‘transfer’
+them, and long may they live there! And the removal of my dead souls
+shall be carried out in the strictest legal form; and if the authorities
+should want confirmation by testimony, I shall produce a letter signed
+by my own superintendent of the Khersonian rural police--that is to
+say, by myself. Lastly, the supposed village in Kherson shall be called
+Chichikovoe--better still Pavlovskoe, according to my Christian name.”
+
+In this fashion there germinated in our hero’s brain that strange scheme
+for which the reader may or may not be grateful, but for which the
+author certainly is so, seeing that, had it never occurred to Chichikov,
+this story would never have seen the light.
+
+After crossing himself, according to the Russian custom, Chichikov set
+about carrying out his enterprise. On pretence of selecting a place
+wherein to settle, he started forth to inspect various corners of the
+Russian Empire, but more especially those which had suffered from
+such unfortunate accidents as failures of the harvest, a high rate of
+mortality, or whatsoever else might enable him to purchase souls at the
+lowest possible rate. But he did not tackle his landowners haphazard: he
+rather selected such of them as seemed more particularly suited to his
+taste, or with whom he might with the least possible trouble conclude
+identical agreements; though, in the first instance, he always tried, by
+getting on terms of acquaintanceship--better still, of friendship--with
+them, to acquire the souls for nothing, and so to avoid purchase at all.
+In passing, my readers must not blame me if the characters whom they
+have encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their
+liking. The fault is Chichikov’s rather than mine, for he is the master,
+and where he leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me
+for a certain dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters
+and actors, that will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad
+tendency and the general scope of a work become immediately apparent.
+Similarly does the entry to every town--the entry even to the Capital
+itself--convey to the traveller such an impression of vagueness that
+at first everything looks grey and monotonous, and the lines of smoky
+factories and workshops seem never to be coming to an end; but in time
+there will begin also to stand out the outlines of six-storied mansions,
+and of shops and balconies, and wide perspectives of streets, and a
+medley of steeples, columns, statues, and turrets--the whole framed in
+rattle and roar and the infinite wonders which the hand and the brain of
+men have conceived. Of the manner in which Chichikov’s first purchases
+were made the reader is aware. Subsequently he will see also how the
+affair progressed, and with what success or failure our hero met,
+and how Chichikov was called upon to decide and to overcome even more
+difficult problems than the foregoing, and by what colossal forces the
+levers of his far-flung tale are moved, and how eventually the horizon
+will become extended until everything assumes a grandiose and a lyrical
+tendency. Yes, many a verst of road remains to be travelled by a party
+made up of an elderly gentleman, a britchka of the kind affected by
+bachelors, a valet named Petrushka, a coachman named Selifan, and
+three horses which, from the Assessor to the skewbald, are known to us
+individually by name. Again, although I have given a full description of
+our hero’s exterior (such as it is), I may yet be asked for an inclusive
+definition also of his moral personality. That he is no hero compounded
+of virtues and perfections must be already clear. Then WHAT is he? A
+villain? Why should we call him a villain? Why should we be so hard upon
+a fellow man? In these days our villains have ceased to exist. Rather
+it would be fairer to call him an ACQUIRER. The love of acquisition, the
+love of gain, is a fault common to many, and gives rise to many and many
+a transaction of the kind generally known as “not strictly honourable.”
+ True, such a character contains an element of ugliness, and the same
+reader who, on his journey through life, would sit at the board of a
+character of this kind, and spend a most agreeable time with him, would
+be the first to look at him askance if he should appear in the guise of
+the hero of a novel or a play. But wise is the reader who, on meeting
+such a character, scans him carefully, and, instead of shrinking from
+him with distaste, probes him to the springs of his being. The human
+personality contains nothing which may not, in the twinkling of an eye,
+become altogether changed--nothing in which, before you can look round,
+there may not spring to birth some cankerous worm which is destined to
+suck thence the essential juice. Yes, it is a common thing to see not
+only an overmastering passion, but also a passion of the most petty
+order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and lead him both
+to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and to see only in
+the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy. For human passions are as
+numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his most
+insistent of masters. Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from
+among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will
+that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by
+hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his
+soul. But there are passions of which a man cannot rid himself, seeing
+that they are born with him at his birth, and he has no power to abjure
+them. Higher powers govern those passions, and in them is something
+which will call to him, and refuse to be silenced, to the end of his
+life. Yes, whether in a guise of darkness, or whether in a guise which
+will become converted into a light to lighten the world, they will and
+must attain their consummation on life’s field: and in either case they
+have been evoked for man’s good. In the same way may the passion
+which drew our Chichikov onwards have been one that was independent of
+himself; in the same way may there have lurked even in his cold essence
+something which will one day cause men to humble themselves in the dust
+before the infinite wisdom of God.
+
+Yet that folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing. What
+matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their approval
+could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to say, had not
+the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov’s soul, nor stirred up in
+its depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light, nor disclosed
+those of his hero’s thoughts which that hero would have not have
+disclosed even to his most intimate friend; had the author, indeed,
+exhibited Chichikov just as he exhibited himself to the townsmen of
+N. and Manilov and the rest; well, then we may rest assured that every
+reader would have been delighted with him, and have voted him a most
+interesting person. For it is not nearly so necessary that Chichikov
+should figure before the reader as though his form and person were
+actually present to the eye as that, on concluding a perusal of this
+work, the reader should be able to return, unharrowed in soul, to that
+cult of the card-table which is the solace and delight of all good
+Russians. Yes, readers of this book, none of you really care to see
+humanity revealed in its nakedness. “Why should we do so?” you say.
+“What would be the use of it? Do we not know for ourselves that human
+life contains much that is gross and contemptible? Do we not with our
+own eyes have to look upon much that is anything but comforting?
+Far better would it be if you would put before us what is comely and
+attractive, so that we might forget ourselves a little.” In the same
+fashion does a landowner say to his bailiff: “Why do you come and tell
+me that the affairs of my estate are in a bad way? I know that without
+YOUR help. Have you nothing else to tell me? Kindly allow me to forget
+the fact, or else to remain in ignorance of it, and I shall be much
+obliged to you.” Whereafter the said landowner probably proceeds to
+spend on his diversion the money which ought to have gone towards the
+rehabilitation of his affairs.
+
+Possibly the author may also incur censure at the hands of those
+so-called “patriots” who sit quietly in corners, and become capitalists
+through making fortunes at the expense of others. Yes, let but something
+which they conceive to be derogatory to their country occur--for
+instance, let there be published some book which voices the bitter
+truth--and out they will come from their hiding-places like a spider
+which perceives a fly to be caught in its web. “Is it well to proclaim
+this to the world, and to set folk talking about it?” they will cry.
+“What you have described touches US, is OUR affair. Is conduct of that
+kind right? What will foreigners say? Does any one care calmly to sit
+by and hear himself traduced? Why should you lead foreigners to suppose
+that all is not well with us, and that we are not patriotic?” Well, to
+these sage remarks no answer can really be returned, especially to such
+of the above as refer to foreign opinion. But see here. There once lived
+in a remote corner of Russia two natives of the region indicated. One of
+those natives was a good man named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly
+disposition; a man who went through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no
+heed to his household, for the reason that his whole being was centred
+upon the province of speculation, and that, in particular, he was
+preoccupied with a philosophical problem usually stated by him thus:
+“A beast,” he would say, “is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why
+should not a beast be born as a bird is born--that is to say, through
+the process of being hatched from an egg? Nature is beyond the
+understanding, however much one may probe her.” This was the substance
+of Kifa Mokievitch’s reflections. But herein is not the chief point.
+The other of the pair was a fellow named Mofi Kifovitch, and son to the
+first named. He was what we Russians call a “hero,” and while his
+father was pondering the parturition of beasts, his, the son’s, lusty,
+twenty-year-old temperament was violently struggling for development.
+Yet that son could tackle nothing without some accident occurring. At
+one moment would he crack some one’s fingers in half, and at another
+would he raise a bump on somebody’s nose; so that both at home
+and abroad every one and everything--from the serving-maid to the
+yard-dog--fled on his approach, and even the bed in his bedroom became
+shattered to splinters. Such was Mofi Kifovitch; and with it all he had
+a kindly soul. But herein is not the chief point. “Good sir, good Kifa
+Mokievitch,” servants and neighbours would come and say to the father,
+“what are you going to do about your Moki Kifovitch? We get no rest from
+him, he is so above himself.” “That is only his play, that is only his
+play,” the father would reply. “What else can you expect? It is too late
+now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one would accuse
+me of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but, were I to reprove
+him in public, the whole thing would become common talk, and folk would
+begin giving him a dog’s name. And if they did that, would not their
+opinion touch me also, seeing that I am his father? Also, I am busy with
+philosophy, and have no time for such things. Lastly, Moki Kifovitch
+is my son, and very dear to my heart.” And, beating his breast, Kifa
+Mokievitch again asserted that, even though his son should elect
+to continue his pranks, it would not be for HIM, for the father,
+to proclaim the fact, or to fall out with his offspring. And, this
+expression of paternal feeling uttered, Kifa Mokievitch left Moki
+Kifovitch to his heroic exploits, and himself returned to his beloved
+subject of speculation, which now included also the problem, “Suppose
+elephants were to take to being hatched from eggs, would not the
+shell of such eggs be of a thickness proof against cannonballs, and
+necessitate the invention of some new type of firearm?” Thus at the end
+of this little story we have these two denizens of a peaceful corner of
+Russia looking thence, as from a window, in less terror of doing what
+was scandalous than of having it SAID of them that they were acting
+scandalously. Yes, the feeling animating our so-called “patriots” is not
+true patriotism at all. Something else lies beneath it. Who, if not an
+author, is to speak aloud the truth? Men like you, my pseudo-patriots,
+stand in dread of the eye which is able to discern, yet shrink from
+using your own, and prefer, rather, to glance at everything unheedingly.
+Yes, after laughing heartily over Chichikov’s misadventures, and perhaps
+even commending the author for his dexterity of observation and pretty
+turn of wit, you will look at yourselves with redoubled pride and a
+self-satisfied smile, and add: “Well, we agree that in certain parts of
+the provinces there exists strange and ridiculous individuals, as well
+as unconscionable rascals.”
+
+Yet which of you, when quiet, and alone, and engaged in solitary
+self-communion, would not do well to probe YOUR OWN souls, and to put
+to YOURSELVES the solemn question, “Is there not in ME an element of
+Chichikov?” For how should there not be? Which of you is not liable at
+any moment to be passed in the street by an acquaintance who, nudging
+his neighbour, may say of you, with a barely suppressed sneer: “Look!
+there goes Chichikov! That is Chichikov who has just gone by!”
+
+But here are we talking at the top of our voices whilst all the time our
+hero lies slumbering in his britchka! Indeed, his name has been repeated
+so often during the recital of his life’s history that he must almost
+have heard us! And at any time he is an irritable, irascible fellow when
+spoken of with disrespect. True, to the reader Chichikov’s displeasure
+cannot matter a jot; but for the author it would mean ruin to quarrel
+with his hero, seeing that, arm in arm, Chichikov and he have yet far to
+go.
+
+“Tut, tut, tut!” came in a shout from Chichikov. “Hi, Selifan!”
+
+“What is it?” came the reply, uttered with a drawl.
+
+“What is it? Why, how dare you drive like that? Come! Bestir yourself a
+little!”
+
+And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and
+hands which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save an
+occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst Petrushka
+had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head had come to
+rest against Chichikov’s knees--a position which necessitated his being
+awakened with a cuff. Selifan also roused himself, and apportioned to
+the skewbald a few cuts across the back of a kind which at least had the
+effect of inciting that animal to trot; and when, presently, the other
+two horses followed their companion’s example, the light britchka moved
+forwards like a piece of thistledown. Selifan flourished his whip and
+shouted, “Hi, hi!” as the inequalities of the road jerked him vertically
+on his seat; and meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions
+of the vehicle’s interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the
+sensation of driving fast. For what Russian does not love to drive fast?
+Which of us does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and
+to let them go, and to cry, “To the devil with the world!”? At such
+moments a great force seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies,
+and everything else flies, but contrariwise--both the verst stones, and
+traders riding on the shafts of their waggons, and the forest with
+dark lines of spruce and fir amid which may be heard the axe of the
+woodcutter and the croaking of the raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote
+distance the road comes towards one, and while nothing save the sky and
+the light clouds through which the moon is cleaving her way seem halted,
+the brief glimpses wherein one can discern nothing clearly have in them
+a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika, troika, swift as a bird, who
+was it first invented you? Only among a hardy race of folk can you have
+come to birth--only in a land which, though poor and rough, lies spread
+over half the world, and spans versts the counting whereof would leave
+one with aching eyes. Nor are you a modishly-fashioned vehicle of the
+road--a thing of clamps and iron. Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen
+and fitted with the axe or chisel of some handy peasant of Yaroslav.
+Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed in German livery, but by a man
+bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts, and flourishes his whip, and
+breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the wind go the horses, and
+the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent circles, and the
+road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of
+astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on
+its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon--a speck amid a
+cloud of dust!
+
+And you, Russia of mine--are not you also speeding like a troika which
+nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and
+the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in
+the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder
+whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that
+awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force
+which lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves
+must abide in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an
+ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids them, with
+iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the earth as
+they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? Whither, then, are
+you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer
+comes--only the weird sound of your collar-bells. Rent into a thousand
+shreds, the air roars past you, for you are overtaking the whole world,
+and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside, to give
+you way!
+
+                                                                 1841.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Why do I so persistently paint the poverty, the imperfections of Russian
+life, and delve into the remotest depths, the most retired holes and
+corners, of our Empire for my subjects? The answer is that there is
+nothing else to be done when an author’s idiosyncrasy happens to incline
+him that way. So again we find ourselves in a retired spot. But what a
+spot!
+
+Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with
+embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards
+the heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse
+of plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone cliffs.
+Here and there those cliffs are seamed with water-courses and gullies,
+while at other points they are rounded off into spurs of green--spurs
+now coated with fleece-like tufts of young undergrowth, now studded with
+the stumps of felled trees, now covered with timber which has, by some
+miracle, escaped the woodman’s axe. Also, a river winds awhile between
+its banks, then leaves the meadow land, divides into runlets (all
+flashing in the sun like fire), plunges, re-united, into the midst of a
+thicket of elder, birch, and pine, and, lastly, speeds triumphantly past
+bridges and mills and weirs which seem to be lying in wait for it at
+every turn.
+
+At one particular spot the steep flank of the mountain range is covered
+with billowy verdure of denser growth than the rest; and here the aid of
+skilful planting, added to the shelter afforded by a rugged ravine, has
+enabled the flora of north and south so to be brought together that,
+twined about with sinuous hop-tendrils, the oak, the spruce fir, the
+wild pear, the maple, the cherry, the thorn, and the mountain ash either
+assist or check one another’s growth, and everywhere cover the declivity
+with their straggling profusion. Also, at the edge of the summit there
+can be seen mingling with the green of the trees the red roofs of a
+manorial homestead, while behind the upper stories of the mansion proper
+and its carved balcony and a great semi-circular window there gleam the
+tiles and gables of some peasants’ huts. Lastly, over this combination
+of trees and roofs there rises--overtopping everything with its gilded,
+sparkling steeple--an old village church. On each of its pinnacles a
+cross of carved gilt is stayed with supports of similar gilding and
+design; with the result that from a distance the gilded portions
+have the effect of hanging without visible agency in the air. And
+the whole--the three successive tiers of woodland, roofs, and crosses
+whole--lies exquisitely mirrored in the river below, where hollow
+willows, grotesquely shaped (some of them rooted on the river’s banks,
+and some in the water itself, and all drooping their branches until
+their leaves have formed a tangle with the water lilies which float on
+the surface), seem to be gazing at the marvellous reflection at their
+feet.
+
+Thus the view from below is beautiful indeed. But the view from above
+is even better. No guest, no visitor, could stand on the balcony of the
+mansion and remain indifferent. So boundless is the panorama revealed
+that surprise would cause him to catch at his breath, and exclaim: “Lord
+of Heaven, but what a prospect!” Beyond meadows studded with spinneys
+and water-mills lie forests belted with green; while beyond, again,
+there can be seen showing through the slightly misty air strips of
+yellow heath, and, again, wide-rolling forests (as blue as the sea or a
+cloud), and more heath, paler than the first, but still yellow. Finally,
+on the far horizon a range of chalk-topped hills gleams white, even in
+dull weather, as though it were lightened with perpetual sunshine;
+and here and there on the dazzling whiteness of its lower slopes some
+plaster-like, nebulous patches represent far-off villages which lie
+too remote for the eye to discern their details. Indeed, only when the
+sunlight touches a steeple to gold does one realise that each such
+patch is a human settlement. Finally, all is wrapped in an immensity of
+silence which even the far, faint echoes of persons singing in the void
+of the plain cannot shatter.
+
+Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the
+visitor would still find nothing to say, save: “Lord of Heaven, but
+what a prospect!” Then who is the dweller in, the proprietor of, this
+manor--a manor to which, as to an impregnable fortress, entrance cannot
+be gained from the side where we have been standing, but only from the
+other approach, where a few scattered oaks offer hospitable welcome to
+the visitor, and then, spreading above him their spacious branches (as
+in friendly embrace), accompany him to the facade of the mansion whose
+top we have been regarding from the reverse aspect, but which now stands
+frontwise on to us, and has, on one side of it, a row of peasants’ huts
+with red tiles and carved gables, and, on the other, the village church,
+with those glittering golden crosses and gilded open-work charms which
+seem to hang suspended in the air? Yes, indeed!--to what fortunate
+individual does this corner of the world belong? It belongs to Andrei
+Ivanovitch Tientietnikov, landowner of the canton of Tremalakhan, and,
+withal, a bachelor of about thirty.
+
+Should my lady readers ask of me what manner of man is Tientietnikov,
+and what are his attributes and peculiarities, I should refer them
+to his neighbours. Of these, a member of the almost extinct tribe
+of intelligent staff officers on the retired list once summed up
+Tientietnikov in the phrase, “He is an absolute blockhead;” while a
+General who resided ten versts away was heard to remark that “he is a
+young man who, though not exactly a fool, has at least too much crowded
+into his head. I myself might have been of use to him, for not only do
+I maintain certain connections with St. Petersburg, but also--” And the
+General left his sentence unfinished. Thirdly, a captain-superintendent
+of rural police happened to remark in the course of conversation:
+“To-morrow I must go and see Tientietnikov about his arrears.” Lastly,
+a peasant of Tientietnikov’s own village, when asked what his barin was
+like, returned no answer at all. All of which would appear to show that
+Tientietnikov was not exactly looked upon with favour.
+
+To speak dispassionately, however, he was not a bad sort of
+fellow--merely a star-gazer; and since the world contains many watchers
+of the skies, why should Tientietnikov not have been one of them?
+However, let me describe in detail a specimen day of his existence--one
+that will closely resemble the rest, and then the reader will be enabled
+to judge of Tientietnikov’s character, and how far his life corresponded
+to the beauties of nature with which he lived surrounded.
+
+On the morning of the specimen day in question he awoke very late, and,
+raising himself to a sitting posture, rubbed his eyes. And since those
+eyes were small, the process of rubbing them occupied a very long time,
+and throughout its continuance there stood waiting by the door his
+valet, Mikhailo, armed with a towel and basin. For one hour, for two
+hours, did poor Mikhailo stand there: then he departed to the kitchen,
+and returned to find his master still rubbing his eyes as he sat on the
+bed. At length, however, Tientietnikov rose, washed himself, donned a
+dressing-gown, and moved into the drawing-room for morning tea, coffee,
+cocoa, and warm milk; of all of which he partook but sparingly, while
+munching a piece of bread, and scattering tobacco ash with complete
+insouciance. Two hours did he sit over this meal, then poured himself
+out another cup of the rapidly cooling tea, and walked to the window.
+This faced the courtyard, and outside it, as usual, there took place the
+following daily altercation between a serf named Grigory (who purported
+to act as butler) and the housekeeper, Perfilievna.
+
+Grigory. Ah, you nuisance, you good-for-nothing, you had better hold
+your stupid tongue.
+
+Perfilievna. Yes; and don’t you wish that I would?
+
+Grigory. What? You so thick with that bailiff of yours, you housekeeping
+jade!
+
+Perfilievna. Nay, he is as big a thief as you are. Do you think the
+barin doesn’t know you? And there he is! He must have heard everything!
+
+Grigory. Where?
+
+Perfilievna. There--sitting by the window, and looking at us!
+
+Next, to complete the hubbub, a serf child which had been clouted by its
+mother broke out into a bawl, while a borzoi puppy which had happened
+to get splashed with boiling water by the cook fell to yelping
+vociferously. In short, the place soon became a babel of shouts and
+squeals, and, after watching and listening for a time, the barin found
+it so impossible to concentrate his mind upon anything that he sent out
+word that the noise would have to be abated.
+
+The next item was that, a couple of hours before luncheon time, he
+withdrew to his study, to set about employing himself upon a weighty
+work which was to consider Russia from every point of view: from the
+political, from the philosophical, and from the religious, as well as to
+resolve various problems which had arisen to confront the Empire, and to
+define clearly the great future to which the country stood ordained. In
+short, it was to be the species of compilation in which the man of the
+day so much delights. Yet the colossal undertaking had progressed but
+little beyond the sphere of projection, since, after a pen had been
+gnawed awhile, and a few strokes had been committed to paper, the whole
+would be laid aside in favour of the reading of some book; and that
+reading would continue also during luncheon and be followed by the
+lighting of a pipe, the playing of a solitary game of chess, and the
+doing of more or less nothing for the rest of the day.
+
+The foregoing will give the reader a pretty clear idea of the manner in
+which it was possible for this man of thirty-three to waste his time.
+Clad constantly in slippers and a dressing-gown, Tientietnikov never
+went out, never indulged in any form of dissipation, and never walked
+upstairs. Nothing did he care for fresh air, and would bestow not a
+passing glance upon all those beauties of the countryside which moved
+visitors to such ecstatic admiration. From this the reader will see that
+Andrei Ivanovitch Tientietnikov belonged to that band of sluggards whom
+we always have with us, and who, whatever be their present appellation,
+used to be known by the nicknames of “lollopers,” “bed pressers,” and
+“marmots.” Whether the type is a type originating at birth, or a type
+resulting from untoward circumstances in later life, it is impossible to
+say. A better course than to attempt to answer that question would be to
+recount the story of Tientietnikov’s boyhood and upbringing.
+
+Everything connected with the latter seemed to promise success, for at
+twelve years of age the boy--keen-witted, but dreamy of temperament, and
+inclined to delicacy--was sent to an educational establishment presided
+over by an exceptional type of master. The idol of his pupils, and the
+admiration of his assistants, Alexander Petrovitch was gifted with
+an extraordinary measure of good sense. How thoroughly he knew the
+peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he understood boys!
+How capable he was of drawing them out! Not a practical joker in the
+school but, after perpetrating a prank, would voluntarily approach his
+preceptor and make to him free confession. True, the preceptor would
+put a stern face upon the matter, yet the culprit would depart with head
+held higher, not lower, than before, since in Alexander Petrovitch
+there was something which heartened--something which seemed to say to a
+delinquent: “Forward you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have
+fallen!” Not lectures on good behaviour was it, therefore, that fell
+from his lips, but rather the injunction, “I want to see intelligence,
+and nothing else. The boy who devotes his attention to becoming clever
+will never play the fool, for under such circumstances, folly disappears
+of itself.” And so folly did, for the boy who failed to strive in the
+desired direction incurred the contempt of all his comrades, and even
+dunces and fools of senior standing did not dare to raise a finger when
+saluted by their juniors with opprobrious epithets. Yet “This is too
+much,” certain folk would say to Alexander. “The result will be that
+your students will turn out prigs.” “But no,” he would reply. “Not at
+all. You see, I make it my principle to keep the incapables for a single
+term only, since that is enough for them; but to the clever ones I allot
+a double course of instruction.” And, true enough, any lad of brains was
+retained for this finishing course. Yet he did not repress all boyish
+playfulness, since he declared it to be as necessary as a rash to a
+doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to diagnose what lay hidden within.
+
+Consequently, how the boys loved him! Never was there such an attachment
+between master and pupils. And even later, during the foolish years,
+when foolish things attract, the measure of affection which Alexander
+Petrovitch retained was extraordinary. In fact, to the day of his death,
+every former pupil would celebrate the birthday of his late master by
+raising his glass in gratitude to the mentor dead and buried--then close
+his eyelids upon the tears which would come trickling through them.
+Even the slightest word of encouragement from Alexander Petrovitch could
+throw a lad into a transport of tremulous joy, and arouse in him an
+honourable emulation of his fellows. Boys of small capacity he did
+not long retain in his establishment; whereas those who possessed
+exceptional talent he put through an extra course of schooling. This
+senior class--a class composed of specially-selected pupils--was a very
+different affair from what usually obtains in other colleges. Only when
+a boy had attained its ranks did Alexander demand of him what other
+masters indiscreetly require of mere infants--namely the superior
+frame of mind which, while never indulging in mockery, can itself bear
+ridicule, and disregard the fool, and keep its temper, and repress
+itself, and eschew revenge, and calmly, proudly retain its tranquillity
+of soul. In short, whatever avails to form a boy into a man of assured
+character, that did Alexander Petrovitch employ during the pupil’s
+youth, as well as constantly put him to the test. How well he understood
+the art of life!
+
+Of assistant tutors he kept but few, since most of the necessary
+instruction he imparted in person, and, without pedantic terminology
+and inflated diction and views, could so transmit to his listeners the
+inmost spirit of a lesson that even the youngest present absorbed its
+essential elements. Also, of studies he selected none but those which
+may help a boy to become a good citizen; and therefore most of the
+lectures which he delivered consisted of discourses on what may be
+awaiting a youth, as well as of such demarcations of life’s field that
+the pupil, though seated, as yet, only at the desk, could beforehand
+bear his part in that field both in thought and spirit. Nor did the
+master CONCEAL anything. That is to say, without mincing words, he
+invariably set before his hearers the sorrows and the difficulties which
+may confront a man, the trials and the temptations which may beset
+him. And this he did in terms as though, in every possible calling and
+capacity, he himself had experienced the same. Consequently, either the
+vigorous development of self-respect or the constant stimulus of the
+master’s eye (which seemed to say to the pupil, “Forward!”--that word
+which has become so familiar to the contemporary Russian, that word
+which has worked such wonders upon his sensitive temperament); one or
+the other, I repeat, would from the first cause the pupil to tackle
+difficulties, and only difficulties, and to hunger for prowess only
+where the path was arduous, and obstacles were many, and it was
+necessary to display the utmost strength of mind. Indeed, few completed
+the course of which I have spoken without issuing therefrom reliable,
+seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most embarrassing
+of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men, distracted
+with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything or, grown
+slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and the
+rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered from
+the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the
+weapons of prudence, exerted a powerful influence upon wrongdoers.
+
+For a long time past the ardent young Tientietnikov’s excitable heart
+had also beat at the thought that one day he might attain the senior
+class described. And, indeed, what better teacher could he have had
+befall him than its preceptor? Yet just at the moment when he had been
+transferred thereto, just at the moment when he had reached the coveted
+position, did his instructor come suddenly by his death! This was
+indeed a blow for the boy--indeed a terrible initial loss! In his eyes
+everything connected with the school seemed to undergo a change--the
+chief reason being the fact that to the place of the deceased headmaster
+there succeeded a certain Thedor Ivanovitch, who at once began to
+insist upon certain external rules, and to demand of the boys what ought
+rightly to have been demanded only of adults. That is to say, since
+the lads’ frank and open demeanour savoured to him only of lack
+of discipline, he announced (as though in deliberate spite of his
+predecessor) that he cared nothing for progress and intellect, but that
+heed was to be paid only to good behaviour. Yet, curiously enough, good
+behaviour was just what he never obtained, for every kind of secret
+prank became the rule; and while, by day, there reigned restraint
+and conspiracy, by night there began to take place chambering and
+wantonness.
+
+Also, certain changes in the curriculum of studies came about, for there
+were engaged new teachers who held new views and opinions, and confused
+their hearers with a multitude of new terms and phrases, and displayed
+in their exposition of things both logical sequence and a zest
+for modern discovery and much warmth of individual bias. Yet their
+instruction, alas! contained no LIFE--in the mouths of those teachers a
+dead language savoured merely of carrion. Thus everything connected with
+the school underwent a radical alteration, and respect for authority
+and the authorities waned, and tutors and ushers came to be dubbed “Old
+Thedor,” “Crusty,” and the like. And sundry other things began to take
+place--things which necessitated many a penalty and expulsion; until,
+within a couple of years, no one who had known the school in former days
+would now have recognised it.
+
+Nevertheless Tientietnikov, a youth of retiring disposition, experienced
+no leanings towards the nocturnal orgies of his companions, orgies
+during which the latter used to flirt with damsels before the very
+windows of the headmaster’s rooms, nor yet towards their mockery of
+all that was sacred, simply because fate had cast in their way an
+injudicious priest. No, despite its dreaminess, his soul ever remembered
+its celestial origin, and could not be diverted from the path of virtue.
+Yet still he hung his head, for, while his ambition had come to life,
+it could find no sort of outlet. Truly ‘twere well if it had NOT come
+to life, for throughout the time that he was listening to professors
+who gesticulated on their chairs he could not help remembering the
+old preceptor who, invariably cool and calm, had yet known how to make
+himself understood. To what subjects, to what lectures, did the boy not
+have to listen!--to lectures on medicine, and on philosophy, and on law,
+and on a version of general history so enlarged that even three years
+failed to enable the professor to do more than finish the introduction
+thereto, and also the account of the development of some self-governing
+towns in Germany. None of the stuff remained fixed in Tientietnikov’s
+brain save as shapeless clots; for though his native intellect could not
+tell him how instruction ought to be imparted, it at least told him that
+THIS was not the way. And frequently, at such moments he would recall
+Alexander Petrovitch, and give way to such grief that scarcely did he
+know what he was doing.
+
+But youth is fortunate in the fact that always before it there lies a
+future; and in proportion as the time for his leaving school drew nigh,
+Tientietnikov’s heart began to beat higher and higher, and he said to
+himself: “This is not life, but only a preparation for life. True life
+is to be found in the Public Service. There at least will there be scope
+for activity.” So, bestowing not a glance upon that beautiful corner of
+the world which never failed to strike the guest or chance visitor with
+amazement, and reverencing not a whit the dust of his ancestors, he
+followed the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to
+St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia
+from every quarter gravitates--there to enter the Public Service, to
+shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks
+of that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But
+the real starting-point of Tientietnikov’s ambition was the moment when
+his uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into him
+the maxim that the only means to success in the Service lay in good
+handwriting, and that, without that accomplishment, no one could ever
+hope to become a Minister or Statesman. Thus, with great difficulty,
+and also with the help of his uncle’s influence, young Tientietnikov at
+length succeeded in being posted to a Department. On the day that he
+was conducted into a splendid, shining hall--a hall fitted with inlaid
+floors and lacquered desks as fine as though this were actually the
+place where the great ones of the Empire met for discussion of the
+fortunes of the State; on the day that he saw legions of handsome
+gentlemen of the quill-driving profession making loud scratchings with
+pens, and cocking their heads to one side; lastly on the day that he
+saw himself also allotted a desk, and requested to copy a document which
+appeared purposely to be one of the pettiest possible order (as a matter
+of fact it related to a sum of three roubles, and had taken half a
+year to produce)--well, at that moment a curious, an unwonted sensation
+seized upon the inexperienced youth, for the gentlemen around him
+appeared so exactly like a lot of college students. And, the further to
+complete the resemblance, some of them were engaged in reading trashy
+translated novels, which they kept hurriedly thrusting between the
+sheets of their apportioned work whenever the Director appeared, as
+though to convey the impression that it was to that work alone that they
+were applying themselves. In short, the scene seemed to Tientietnikov
+strange, and his former pursuits more important than his present, and
+his preparation for the Service preferable to the Service itself. Yes,
+suddenly he felt a longing for his old school; and as suddenly, and with
+all the vividness of life, there appeared before his vision the figure
+of Alexander Petrovitch. He almost burst into tears as he beheld his old
+master, and the room seemed to swim before his eyes, and the tchinovniks
+and the desks to become a blur, and his sight to grow dim. Then he
+thought to himself with an effort: “No, no! I WILL apply myself to
+my work, however petty it be at first.” And hardening his heart and
+recovering his spirit, he determined then and there to perform his
+duties in such a manner as should be an example to the rest.
+
+But where are compensations to be found? Even in St. Petersburg, despite
+its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though thirty degrees
+of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and the family of
+the North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch have heaped
+high the pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and
+fur collars and the shaggy manes of horses--even THEN there will be
+shining hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window
+where, in a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, and to the
+hiss of the samovar, there will be in progress a discussion which warms
+the heart and soul, or else a reading aloud of a brilliant page of one
+of those inspired Russian poets with whom God has dowered us, while the
+breast of each member of the company is heaving with a rapture unknown
+under a noontide sky.
+
+Gradually, therefore, Tientietnikov grew more at home in the Service.
+Yet never did it become, for him, the main pursuit, the main object
+in life, which he had expected. No, it remained but one of a secondary
+kind. That is to say, it served merely to divide up his time, and enable
+him the more to value his hours of leisure. Nevertheless, just when his
+uncle was beginning to flatter himself that his nephew was destined to
+succeed in the profession, the said nephew elected to ruin his every
+hope. Thus it befell. Tientietnikov’s friends (he had many) included
+among their number a couple of fellows of the species known as
+“embittered.” That is to say, though good-natured souls of that
+curiously restless type which cannot endure injustice, nor anything
+which it conceives to be such, they were thoroughly unbalanced of
+conduct themselves, and, while demanding general agreement with
+their views, treated those of others with the scantiest of ceremony.
+Nevertheless these two associates exercised upon Tientietnikov--both
+by the fire of their eloquence and by the form of their noble
+dissatisfaction with society--a very strong influence; with the result
+that, through arousing in him an innate tendency to nervous resentment,
+they led him also to notice trifles which before had escaped his
+attention. An instance of this is seen in the fact that he conceived
+against Thedor Thedorovitch Lienitsin, Director of one of the
+Departments which was quartered in the splendid range of offices before
+mentioned, a dislike which proved the cause of his discerning in the
+man a host of hitherto unmarked imperfections. Above all things did
+Tientietnikov take it into his head that, when conversing with his
+superiors, Lienitsin became, of the moment, a stick of luscious
+sweetmeat, but that, when conversing with his inferiors, he approximated
+more to a vinegar cruet. Certain it is that, like all petty-minded
+individuals, Lienitsin made a note of any one who failed to offer him
+a greeting on festival days, and that he revenged himself upon any one
+whose visiting-card had not been handed to his butler. Eventually the
+youth’s aversion almost attained the point of hysteria; until he felt
+that, come what might, he MUST insult the fellow in some fashion. To
+that task he applied himself con amore; and so thoroughly that he met
+with complete success. That is to say, he seized on an occasion to
+address Lienitsin in such fashion that the delinquent received
+notice either to apologise or to leave the Service; and when of these
+alternatives he chose the latter his uncle came to him, and made a
+terrified appeal. “For God’s sake remember what you are doing!” he
+cried. “To think that, after beginning your career so well, you should
+abandon it merely for the reason that you have not fallen in with the
+sort of Director whom you prefer! What do you mean by it, what do you
+mean by it? Were others to regard things in the same way, the Service
+would find itself without a single individual. Reconsider your
+conduct--forego your pride and conceit, and make Lienitsin amends.”
+
+“But, dear Uncle,” the nephew replied, “that is not the point. The point
+is, not that I should find an apology difficult to offer, seeing that,
+since Lienitsin is my superior, and I ought not to have addressed him as
+I did, I am clearly in the wrong. Rather, the point is the following.
+To my charge there has been committed the performance of another kind of
+service. That is to say, I am the owner of three hundred peasant souls,
+a badly administered estate, and a fool of a bailiff. That being so,
+whereas the State will lose little by having to fill my stool with
+another copyist, it will lose very much by causing three hundred peasant
+souls to fail in the payment of their taxes. As I say (how am I to put
+it?), I am a landowner who has preferred to enter the Public Service.
+Now, should I employ myself henceforth in conserving, restoring, and
+improving the fortunes of the souls whom God has entrusted to my care,
+and thereby provide the State with three hundred law-abiding, sober,
+hard-working taxpayers, how will that service of mine rank as inferior
+to the service of a department-directing fool like Lienitsin?”
+
+On hearing this speech, the State Councillor could only gape, for he
+had not expected Tientietnikov’s torrent of words. He reflected a few
+moments, and then murmured:
+
+“Yes, but, but--but how can a man like you retire to rustication in
+the country? What society will you get there? Here one meets at least
+a general or a prince sometimes; indeed, no matter whom you pass in the
+street, that person represents gas lamps and European civilisation; but
+in the country, no matter what part of it you are in, not a soul is
+to be encountered save muzhiks and their women. Why should you go and
+condemn yourself to a state of vegetation like that?”
+
+Nevertheless the uncle’s expostulations fell upon deaf ears, for already
+the nephew was beginning to think of his estate as a retreat of a type
+more likely to nourish the intellectual faculties and afford the only
+profitable field of activity. After unearthing one or two modern works
+on agriculture, therefore, he, two weeks later, found himself in
+the neighbourhood of the home where his boyhood had been spent, and
+approaching the spot which never failed to enthral the visitor or guest.
+And in the young man’s breast there was beginning to palpitate a
+new feeling--in the young man’s soul there were reawakening old,
+long-concealed impressions; with the result that many a spot which had
+long been faded from his memory now filled him with interest, and the
+beautiful views on the estate found him gazing at them like a newcomer,
+and with a beating heart. Yes, as the road wound through a narrow
+ravine, and became engulfed in a forest where, both above and below, he
+saw three-centuries-old oaks which three men could not have spanned,
+and where Siberian firs and elms overtopped even the poplars, and as
+he asked the peasants to tell him to whom the forest belonged, and
+they replied, “To Tientietnikov,” and he issued from the forest, and
+proceeded on his way through meadows, and past spinneys of elder, and
+of old and young willows, and arrived in sight of the distant range of
+hills, and, crossing by two different bridges the winding river (which
+he left successively to right and to left of him as he did so), he again
+questioned some peasants concerning the ownership of the meadows and
+the flooded lands, and was again informed that they all belonged to
+Tientietnikov, and then, ascending a rise, reached a tableland where, on
+one side, lay ungarnered fields of wheat and rye and barley, and, on the
+other, the country already traversed (but which now showed in shortened
+perspective), and then plunged into the shade of some forked, umbrageous
+trees which stood scattered over turf and extended to the manor-house
+itself, and caught glimpses of the carved huts of the peasants, and of
+the red roofs of the stone manorial outbuildings, and of the glittering
+pinnacles of the church, and felt his heart beating, and knew, without
+being told by any one, whither he had at length arrived--well, then the
+feeling which had been growing within his soul burst forth, and he cried
+in ecstasy:
+
+“Why have I been a fool so long? Why, seeing that fate has appointed
+me to be ruler of an earthly paradise, did I prefer to bind myself in
+servitude as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I had
+been nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge necessary
+for the diffusion of good among those under me, and for the improvement
+of my domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold duties of a
+landowner who is at once judge, administrator, and constable of his
+people, I should have entrusted my estate to an ignorant bailiff, and
+sought to maintain an absentee guardianship over the affairs of serfs
+whom I have never met, and of whose capabilities and characters I am
+yet ignorant! To think that I should have deemed true estate-management
+inferior to a documentary, fantastical management of provinces which lie
+a thousand versts away, and which my foot has never trod, and where I
+could never have effected aught but blunders and irregularities!”
+
+Meanwhile another spectacle was being prepared for him. On learning
+that the barin was approaching the mansion, the muzhiks collected on
+the verandah in very variety of picturesque dress and tonsure; and when
+these good folk surrounded him, and there arose a resounding shout of
+“Here is our Foster Father! He has remembered us!” and, in spite of
+themselves, some of the older men and women began weeping as they
+recalled his grandfather and great-grandfather, he himself could not
+restrain his tears, but reflected: “How much affection! And in return
+for what? In return for my never having come to see them--in return for
+my never having taken the least interest in their affairs!” And then
+and there he registered a mental vow to share their every task and
+occupation.
+
+So he applied himself to supervising and administering. He reduced the
+amount of the barstchina [40], he decreased the number of working-days
+for the owner, and he augmented the sum of the peasants’ leisure-time.
+He also dismissed the fool of a bailiff, and took to bearing a
+personal hand in everything--to being present in the fields, at the
+threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of barges
+and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore even the
+lazy hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last long. The
+peasant is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov’s muzhiks soon
+scented the fact that, though energetic and desirous of doing much, the
+barin had no notion how to do it, nor even how to set about it--that, in
+short, he spoke by the book rather than out of his personal knowledge.
+Consequently things resulted, not in master and men failing to
+understand one another, but in their not singing together, in their not
+producing the very same note.
+
+That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on
+the manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the
+peasants’. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up well,
+and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that Tientietnikov,
+who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of vodka to be served
+out as a reward for the excellence of the labour performed. Yet the rye
+on the peasants’ land had formed into ear, and the oats had begun to
+shoot their grain, and the millet had filled before, on the manorial
+lands, the corn had so much as grown to stalk, or the ears had sprouted
+in embryo. In short, gradually the barin realised that, in spite of
+favours conferred, the peasants were playing the rogue with him. Next he
+resorted to remonstrance, but was met with the reply, “How could we not
+do our best for our barin? You yourself saw how well we laboured at the
+ploughing and the sowing, for you gave us mugs of vodka for our pains.”
+
+“Then why have things turned out so badly?” the barin persisted.
+
+“Who can say? It must be that a grub has eaten the crop from below.
+Besides, what a summer has it been--never a drop of rain!”
+
+Nevertheless, the barin noted that no grub had eaten the PEASANTS’
+crops, as well as that the rain had fallen in the most curious
+fashion--namely, in patches. It had obliged the muzhiks, but had shed a
+mere sprinkling for the barin.
+
+Still more difficult did he find it to deal with the peasant women.
+Ever and anon they would beg to be excused from work, or start making
+complaints of the severity of the barstchina. Indeed, they were terrible
+folk! However, Tientietnikov abolished the majority of the tithes of
+linen, hedge fruit, mushrooms, and nuts, and also reduced by one-half
+other tasks proper to the women, in the hope that they would devote
+their spare time to their own domestic concerns--namely, to sewing and
+mending, and to making clothes for their husbands, and to increasing
+the area of their kitchen gardens. Yet no such result came about. On the
+contrary, such a pitch did the idleness, the quarrelsomeness, and the
+intriguing and caballing of the fair sex attain that their helpmeets
+were for ever coming to the barin with a request that he would rid one
+or another of his wife, since she had become a nuisance, and to live
+with her was impossible.
+
+Next, hardening his heart, the barin attempted severity. But of what
+avail was severity? The peasant woman remained always the peasant
+woman, and would come and whine that she was sick and ailing, and keep
+pitifully hugging to herself the mean and filthy rags which she had
+donned for the occasion. And when poor Tientietnikov found himself
+unable to say more to her than just, “Get out of my sight, and may the
+Lord go with you!” the next item in the comedy would be that he would
+see her, even as she was leaving his gates, fall to contending with a
+neighbour for, say, the possession of a turnip, and dealing out slaps
+in the face such as even a strong, healthy man could scarcely have
+compassed!
+
+Again, amongst other things, Tientietnikov conceived the idea of
+establishing a school for his people; but the scheme resulted in a farce
+which left him in sackcloth and ashes. In the same way he found that,
+when it came to a question of dispensing justice and of adjusting
+disputes, the host of juridical subtleties with which the professors had
+provided him proved absolutely useless. That is to say, the one party
+lied, and the other party lied, and only the devil could have decided
+between them. Consequently he himself perceived that a knowledge of
+mankind would have availed him more than all the legal refinements and
+philosophical maxims in the world could do. He lacked something; and
+though he could not divine what it was, the situation brought about was
+the common one of the barin failing to understand the peasant, and the
+peasant failing to understand the barin, and both becoming disaffected.
+In the end, these difficulties so chilled Tientietnikov’s enthusiasm
+that he took to supervising the labours of the field with greatly
+diminished attention. That is to say, no matter whether the scythes were
+softly swishing through the grass, or ricks were being built, or rafts
+were being loaded, he would allow his eyes to wander from his men, and
+to fall to gazing at, say, a red-billed, red-legged heron which, after
+strutting along the bank of a stream, would have caught a fish in its
+beak, and be holding it awhile, as though in doubt whether to swallow
+it. Next he would glance towards the spot where a similar bird, but one
+not yet in possession of a fish, was engaged in watching the doings of
+its mate. Lastly, with eyebrows knitted, and face turned to scan the
+zenith, he would drink in the smell of the fields, and fall to listening
+to the winged population of the air as from earth and sky alike the
+manifold music of winged creatures combined in a single harmonious
+chorus. In the rye the quail would be calling, and, in the grass, the
+corncrake, and over them would be wheeling flocks of twittering linnets.
+Also, the jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark executing
+its roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and cranes
+sending forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards the
+zenith in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood would seem
+to have become converted into one great concert of melody. O Creator,
+how fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart
+from cities and from highways!
+
+But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased
+altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up
+in his rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that
+functionary called with his reports. Again, although, until now, he had
+to a certain extent associated with a retired colonel of hussars--a man
+saturated with tobacco smoke--and also with a student of pronounced, but
+immature, opinions who culled the bulk of his wisdom from contemporary
+newspapers and pamphlets, he found, as time went on, that these
+companions proved as tedious as the rest, and came to think their
+conversation superficial, and their European method of comporting
+themselves--that is to say, the method of conversing with much slapping
+of knees and a great deal of bowing and gesticulation--too direct and
+unadorned. So these and every one else he decided to “drop,” and carried
+this resolution into effect with a certain amount of rudeness. On the
+next occasion that Varvar Nikolaievitch Vishnepokromov called to indulge
+in a free-and-easy symposium on politics, philosophy, literature,
+morals, and the state of financial affairs in England (he was, in all
+matters which admit of superficial discussion, the pleasantest fellow
+alive, seeing that he was a typical representative both of the retired
+fire-eater and of the school of thought which is now becoming the
+rage)--when, I say, this next happened, Tientietnikov merely sent out
+to say that he was not at home, and then carefully showed himself at the
+window. Host and guest exchanged glances, and, while the one muttered
+through his teeth “The cur!” the other relieved his feelings with a
+remark or two on swine. Thus the acquaintance came to an abrupt end, and
+from that time forth no visitor called at the mansion.
+
+Tientietnikov in no way regretted this, for he could now devote himself
+wholly to the projection of a great work on Russia. Of the scale on
+which this composition was conceived the reader is already aware. The
+reader also knows how strange, how unsystematic, was the system employed
+in it. Yet to say that Tientietnikov never awoke from his lethargy
+would not be altogether true. On the contrary, when the post brought him
+newspapers and reviews, and he saw in their printed pages, perhaps, the
+well-known name of some former comrade who had succeeded in the great
+field of Public Service, or had conferred upon science and the
+world’s work some notable contribution, he would succumb to secret and
+suppressed grief, and involuntarily there would burst from his soul
+an expression of aching, voiceless regret that he himself had done so
+little. And at these times his existence would seem to him odious and
+repellent; at these times there would uprise before him the memory of
+his school days, and the figure of Alexander Petrovitch, as vivid as in
+life. And, slowly welling, the tears would course over Tientietnikov’s
+cheeks.
+
+What meant these repinings? Was there not disclosed in them the secret
+of his galling spiritual pain--the fact that he had failed to order his
+life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started his
+course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he
+had failed to attain the better and the higher state, and there to
+strengthen himself for the overcoming of hindrances and obstacles; the
+fact that, dissolving like overheated metal, his bounteous store of
+superior instincts had failed to take the final tempering; the fact that
+the tutor of his boyhood, a man in a thousand, had prematurely died, and
+left to Tientietnikov no one who could restore to him the moral
+strength shattered by vacillation and the will power weakened by want
+of virility--no one, in short, who could cry hearteningly to his soul
+“Forward!”--the word for which the Russian of every degree, of every
+class, of every occupation, of every school of thought, is for ever
+hungering.
+
+Indeed, WHERE is the man who can cry aloud for any of us, in the Russian
+tongue dear to our soul, the all-compelling command “Forward!”? Who is
+there who, knowing the strength and the nature and the inmost depths of
+the Russian genius, can by a single magic incantation divert our ideals
+to the higher life? Were there such a man, with what tears, with what
+affection, would not the grateful sons of Russia repay him! Yet age
+succeeds to age, and our callow youth still lies wrapped in shameful
+sloth, or strives and struggles to no purpose. God has not yet given us
+the man able to sound the call.
+
+One circumstance which almost aroused Tientietnikov, which almost
+brought about a revolution in his character, was the fact that he came
+very near to falling in love. Yet even this resulted in nothing. Ten
+versts away there lived the general whom we have heard expressing
+himself in highly uncomplimentary terms concerning Tientietnikov. He
+maintained a General-like establishment, dispensed hospitality (that
+is to say, was glad when his neighbours came to pay him their respects,
+though he himself never went out), spoke always in a hoarse voice, read
+a certain number of books, and had a daughter--a curious, unfamiliar
+type, but full of life as life itself. This maiden’s name was Ulinka,
+and she had been strangely brought up, for, losing her mother in early
+childhood, she had subsequently received instruction at the hands of an
+English governess who knew not a single word of Russian. Moreover her
+father, though excessively fond of her, treated her always as a toy;
+with the result that, as she grew to years of discretion, she became
+wholly wayward and spoilt. Indeed, had any one seen the sudden rage
+which would gather on her beautiful young forehead when she was engaged
+in a heated dispute with her father, he would have thought her one of
+the most capricious beings in the world. Yet that rage gathered only
+when she had heard of injustice or harsh treatment, and never because
+she desired to argue on her own behalf, or to attempt to justify her own
+conduct. Also, that anger would disappear as soon as ever she saw any
+one whom she had formerly disliked fall upon evil times, and, at his
+first request for alms would, without consideration or subsequent
+regret, hand him her purse and its whole contents. Yes, her every act
+was strenuous, and when she spoke her whole personality seemed to be
+following hot-foot upon her thought--both her expression of face and her
+diction and the movements of her hands. Nay, the very folds of her frock
+had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have thought
+that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she know
+reticence: before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force
+could compel her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also,
+her enchanting, peculiar gait--a gait which belonged to her alone--was
+so absolutely free and unfettered that every one involuntarily gave her
+way. Lastly, in her presence churls seemed to become confused and fall
+to silence, and even the roughest and most outspoken would lose their
+heads, and have not a word to say; whereas the shy man would find
+himself able to converse as never in his life before, and would feel,
+from the first, as though he had seen her and known her at some previous
+period--during the days of some unremembered childhood, when he was at
+home, and spending a merry evening among a crowd of romping children.
+And for long afterwards he would feel as though his man’s intellect and
+estate were a burden.
+
+This was what now befell Tientietnikov; and as it did so a new feeling
+entered into his soul, and his dreamy life lightened for a moment.
+
+At first the General used to receive him with hospitable civility, but
+permanent concord between them proved impossible; their conversation
+always merged into dissension and soreness, seeing that, while the
+General could not bear to be contradicted or worsted in an argument,
+Tientietnikov was a man of extreme sensitiveness. True, for the
+daughter’s sake, the father was for a while deferred to, and thus peace
+was maintained; but this lasted only until the time when there arrived,
+on a visit to the General, two kinswomen of his--the Countess Bordirev
+and the Princess Uziakin, retired Court dames, but ladies who still
+kept up a certain connection with Court circles, and therefore were much
+fawned upon by their host. No sooner had they appeared on the scene than
+(so it seemed to Tientietnikov) the General’s attitude towards the young
+man became colder--either he ceased to notice him at all or he spoke to
+him familiarly, and as to a person having no standing in society. This
+offended Tientietnikov deeply, and though, when at length he spoke out
+on the subject, he retained sufficient presence of mind to compress his
+lips, and to preserve a gentle and courteous tone, his face flushed and
+his inner man was boiling.
+
+“General,” he said, “I thank you for your condescension. By addressing
+me in the second person singular, you have admitted me to the circle
+of your most intimate friends. Indeed, were it not that a difference of
+years forbids any familiarity on my part, I should answer you in similar
+fashion.”
+
+The General sat aghast. At length, rallying his tongue and his
+faculties, he replied that, though he had spoken with a lack of
+ceremony, he had used the term “thou” merely as an elderly man naturally
+employs it towards a junior (he made no reference to difference of
+rank).
+
+Nevertheless, the acquaintance broke off here, and with it any
+possibility of love-making. The light which had shed a momentary gleam
+before Tientietnikov’s eyes had become extinguished for ever, and upon
+it there followed a darkness denser than before. Henceforth everything
+conduced to evolve the regime which the reader has noted--that regime
+of sloth and inaction which converted Tientietnikov’s residence into a
+place of dirt and neglect. For days at a time would a broom and a heap
+of dust be left lying in the middle of a room, and trousers tossing
+about the salon, and pairs of worn-out braces adorning the what-not near
+the sofa. In short, so mean and untidy did Tientietnikov’s mode of life
+become, that not only his servants, but even his very poultry ceased to
+treat him with respect. Taking up a pen, he would spend hours in idly
+sketching houses, huts, waggons, troikas, and flourishes on a piece of
+paper; while at other times, when he had sunk into a reverie, the pen
+would, all unknowingly, sketch a small head which had delicate features,
+a pair of quick, penetrating eyes, and a raised coiffure. Then suddenly
+the dreamer would perceive, to his surprise, that the pen had executed
+the portrait of a maiden whose picture no artist could adequately have
+painted; and therewith his despondency would become greater than ever,
+and, believing that happiness did not exist on earth, he would relapse
+into increased ennui, increased neglect of his responsibilities.
+
+But one morning he noticed, on moving to the window after breakfast,
+that not a word was proceeding either from the butler or the
+housekeeper, but that, on the contrary, the courtyard seemed to smack of
+a certain bustle and excitement. This was because through the entrance
+gates (which the kitchen maid and the scullion had run to open) there
+were appearing the noses of three horses--one to the right, one in the
+middle, and one to the left, after the fashion of triumphal groups of
+statuary. Above them, on the box seat, were seated a coachman and a
+valet, while behind, again, there could be discerned a gentleman in a
+scarf and a fur cap. Only when the equipage had entered the courtyard
+did it stand revealed as a light spring britchka. And as it came to a
+halt, there leapt on to the verandah of the mansion an individual
+of respectable exterior, and possessed of the art of moving with the
+neatness and alertness of a military man.
+
+Upon this Tientietnikov’s heart stood still. He was unused to receiving
+visitors, and for the moment conceived the new arrival to be a
+Government official, sent to question him concerning an abortive society
+to which he had formerly belonged. (Here the author may interpolate the
+fact that, in Tientietnikov’s early days, the young man had become mixed
+up in a very absurd affair. That is to say, a couple of philosophers
+belonging to a regiment of hussars had, together with an aesthete
+who had not yet completed his student’s course and a gambler who had
+squandered his all, formed a secret society of philanthropic aims under
+the presidency of a certain old rascal of a freemason and the ruined
+gambler aforesaid. The scope of the society’s work was to be extensive:
+it was to bring lasting happiness to humanity at large, from the banks
+of the Thames to the shores of Kamtchatka. But for this much money was
+needed: wherefore from the noble-minded members of the society generous
+contributions were demanded, and then forwarded to a destination known
+only to the supreme authorities of the concern. As for Tientietnikov’s
+adhesion, it was brought about by the two friends already alluded to as
+“embittered”--good-hearted souls whom the wear and tear of their efforts
+on behalf of science, civilisation, and the future emancipation of
+mankind had ended by converting into confirmed drunkards. Perhaps it
+need hardly be said that Tientietnikov soon discovered how things stood,
+and withdrew from the association; but, meanwhile, the latter had had
+the misfortune so to have engaged in dealings not wholly creditable
+to gentlemen of noble origin as likewise to have become entangled in
+dealings with the police. Consequently, it is not to be wondered at
+that, though Tientietnikov had long severed his connection with the
+society and its policy, he still remained uneasy in his mind as to what
+might even yet be the result.)
+
+However, his fears vanished the instant that the guest saluted him with
+marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of the
+head, and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time past
+he (the newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business and
+in the pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects
+of interest--not to mention a plenitude of manufactures and a great
+diversity of soil, and that, in spite of the fact that he was greatly
+struck with the amenities of his host’s domain, he would certainly
+not have presumed to intrude at such an inconvenient hour but for the
+circumstance that the inclement spring weather, added to the state of
+the roads, had necessitated sundry repairs to his carriage at the hands
+of wheelwrights and blacksmiths. Finally he declared that, even if this
+last had NOT happened, he would still have felt unable to deny himself
+the pleasure of offering to his host that meed of homage which was the
+latter’s due.
+
+This speech--a speech of fascinating bonhomie--delivered, the guest
+executed a sort of shuffle with a half-boot of patent leather studded
+with buttons of mother-of-pearl, and followed that up by (in spite of
+his pronounced rotundity of figure) stepping backwards with all the elan
+of an india-rubber ball.
+
+From this the somewhat reassured Tientietnikov concluded that his
+visitor must be a literary, knowledge-seeking professor who was engaged
+in roaming the country in search of botanical specimens and fossils;
+wherefore he hastened to express both his readiness to further the
+visitor’s objects (whatever they might be) and his personal willingness
+to provide him with the requisite wheelwrights and blacksmiths.
+Meanwhile he begged his guest to consider himself at home, and,
+after seating him in an armchair, made preparations to listen to the
+newcomer’s discourse on natural history.
+
+But the newcomer applied himself, rather, to phenomena of the internal
+world, saying that his life might be likened to a barque tossed on the
+crests of perfidious billows, that in his time he had been fated to play
+many parts, and that on more than one occasion his life had stood
+in danger at the hands of foes. At the same time, these tidings were
+communicated in a manner calculated to show that the speaker was also
+a man of PRACTICAL capabilities. In conclusion, the visitor took out a
+cambric pocket-handkerchief, and sneezed into it with a vehemence wholly
+new to Tientietnikov’s experience. In fact, the sneeze rather resembled
+the note which, at times, the trombone of an orchestra appears to utter
+not so much from its proper place on the platform as from the immediate
+neighbourhood of the listener’s ear. And as the echoes of the drowsy
+mansion resounded to the report of the explosion there followed upon the
+same a wave of perfume, skilfully wafted abroad with a flourish of the
+eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.
+
+By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none
+other than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov.
+Naturally, time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms;
+wherefore his exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his
+frockcoat had taken on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka,
+coachman, valet, horses, and harness alike had about them a sort of
+second-hand, worse-for-wear effect. Evidently the Chichikovian finances
+were not in the most flourishing of conditions. Nevertheless, the old
+expression of face, the old air of breeding and refinement, remained
+unimpaired, and our hero had even improved in the art of walking and
+turning with grace, and of dexterously crossing one leg over the
+other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of diction, his discreet
+moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if anything, increased
+measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused his tactfulness
+to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these accomplishments
+had their effect further heightened by a snowy immaculateness of collar
+and dickey, and an absence of dust from his frockcoat, as complete as
+though he had just arrived to attend a nameday festival. Lastly, his
+cheeks and chin were of such neat clean-shavenness that no one but a
+blind man could have failed to admire their rounded contours.
+
+From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov’s
+establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
+cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
+Chichikov, while one other apartment--a little front chamber opening
+into the hall--became permeated with Petrushka’s own peculiar smell.
+But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
+transferred to the servants’ quarters, a course which ought to have been
+adopted in the first instance.
+
+During the initial days of Chichikov’s sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
+rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his
+guest might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the
+established routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless, for
+Paul Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for accommodating
+himself to his new position. To begin with, he encouraged his host
+in his philosophical inertia by saying that the latter would help
+Tientietnikov to become a centenarian. Next, in the matter of a life of
+isolation, he hit things off exactly by remarking that such a life
+bred in a man a capacity for high thinking. Lastly, as he inspected the
+library and dilated on books in general, he contrived an opportunity to
+observe that literature safeguarded a man from a tendency to waste his
+time. In short, the few words of which he delivered himself were brief,
+but invariably to the point. And this discretion of speech was outdone
+by his discretion of conduct. That is to say, whether entering
+or leaving the room, he never wearied his host with a question if
+Tientietnikov had the air of being disinclined to talk; and with equal
+satisfaction the guest could either play chess or hold his tongue.
+Consequently Tientietnikov said to himself:
+
+“For the first time in my life I have met with a man with whom it is
+possible to live. In general, not many of the type exist in Russia, and,
+though clever, good-humoured, well-educated men abound, one would be
+hard put to it to find an individual of equable temperament with whom
+one could share a roof for centuries without a quarrel arising. Anyway,
+Chichikov is the first of his sort that I have met.”
+
+For his part, Chichikov was only too delighted to reside with a
+person so quiet and agreeable as his host. Of a wandering life he was
+temporarily weary, and to rest, even for a month, in such a beautiful
+spot, and in sight of green fields and the slow flowering of spring, was
+likely to benefit him also from the hygienic point of view. And, indeed,
+a more delightful retreat in which to recuperate could not possibly have
+been found. The spring, long retarded by previous cold, had now begun
+in all its comeliness, and life was rampant. Already, over the first
+emerald of the grass, the dandelion was showing yellow, and the red-pink
+anemone was hanging its tender head; while the surface of every pond
+was a swarm of dancing gnats and midges, and the water-spider was being
+joined in their pursuit by birds which gathered from every quarter to
+the vantage-ground of the dry reeds. Every species of creature also
+seemed to be assembling in concourse, and taking stock of one another.
+Suddenly the earth became populous, the forest had opened its eyes, and
+the meadows were lifting up their voice in song. In the same way had
+choral dances begun to be weaved in the village, and everywhere that the
+eye turned there was merriment. What brightness in the green of nature,
+what freshness in the air, what singing of birds in the gardens of the
+mansion, what general joy and rapture and exaltation! Particularly in
+the village might the shouting and singing have been in honour of a
+wedding!
+
+Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere--a pursuit for which
+there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his
+steps along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths
+below, where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of
+winter, and where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless
+boughs; while at another time he would plunge into the thicket and
+ravine country, where nests of birds weighted branches almost to the
+ground, and the sky was darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing
+rooks. Again, the drier portions of the meadows could be crossed to the
+river wharves, whence the first barges were just beginning to set forth
+with pea-meal and barley and wheat, while at the same time one’s ear
+would be caught with the sound of some mill resuming its functions as
+once more the water turned the wheel. Chichikov would also walk afield
+to watch the early tillage operations of the season, and observe how
+the blackness of a new furrow would make its way across the expanse of
+green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking his hand against the
+pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his fistfuls of seed with
+equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too much to one side or to
+the other.
+
+In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with the
+bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into the
+manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how an
+estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what species
+of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was the name
+of each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had bought his
+cow, and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made inquiry concerning
+the number of peasants who had lately died: but of these there appeared
+to be few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned that Tientietnikov’s
+estate was not being worked as it might have been--that much neglect and
+listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness was abroad; and on perceiving
+this, he thought to himself: “What a fool is that Tientietnikov! To
+think of letting a property like this decay when he might be drawing
+from it an income of fifty thousand roubles a year!”
+
+Also, more than once, while taking these walks, our hero pondered the
+idea of himself becoming a landowner--not now, of course, but later,
+when his chief aim should have been achieved, and he had got into his
+hands the necessary means for living the quiet life of the proprietor
+of an estate. Yes, and at these times there would include itself in his
+castle-building the figure of a young, fresh, fair-faced maiden of the
+mercantile or other rich grade of society, a woman who could both play
+and sing. He also dreamed of little descendants who should perpetuate
+the name of Chichikov; perhaps a frolicsome little boy and a fair young
+daughter, or possibly, two boys and quite two or three daughters; so
+that all should know that he had really lived and had his being, that he
+had not merely roamed the world like a spectre or a shadow; so that for
+him and his the country should never be put to shame. And from that he
+would go on to fancy that a title appended to his rank would not be
+a bad thing--the title of State Councillor, for instance, which was
+deserving of all honour and respect. Ah, it is a common thing for a
+man who is taking a solitary walk so to detach himself from the irksome
+realities of the present that he is able to stir and to excite and to
+provoke his imagination to the conception of things he knows can never
+really come to pass!
+
+Chichikov’s servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like
+their master, speedily made themselves at home in it. In particular did
+Petrushka make friends with Grigory the butler, although at first the
+pair showed a tendency to outbrag one another--Petrushka beginning
+by throwing dust in Grigory’s eyes on the score of his (Petrushka’s)
+travels, and Grigory taking him down a peg or two by referring to St.
+Petersburg (a city which Petrushka had never visited), and Petrushka
+seeking to recover lost ground by dilating on towns which he HAD
+visited, and Grigory capping this by naming some town which is not to be
+found on any map in existence, and then estimating the journey
+thither as at least thirty thousand versts--a statement which would so
+completely flabbergast the henchman of Chichikov’s suite that he would
+be left staring open-mouthed, amid the general laughter of the domestic
+staff. However, as I say, the pair ended by swearing eternal friendship
+with one another, and making a practice of resorting to the village
+tavern in company.
+
+For Selifan, however, the place had a charm of a different kind. That is
+to say, each evening there would take place in the village a singing of
+songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and buxom were the
+maidens--maidens of a type hard to find in our present-day villages on
+large estates--that he would stand for hours wondering which of them was
+the best. White-necked and white-bosomed, all had great roving eyes, the
+gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to the waist. And as, with his hands
+clasping theirs, he glided hither and thither in the dance, or retired
+backwards towards a wall with a row of other young fellows, and then,
+with them, returned to meet the damsels--all singing in chorus (and
+laughing as they sang it), “Boyars, show me my bridegroom!” and dusk was
+falling gently, and from the other side of the river there kept coming
+far, faint, plaintive echoes of the melody--well, then our Selifan
+hardly knew whether he were standing upon his head or his heels. Later,
+when sleeping and when waking, both at noon and at twilight, he would
+seem still to be holding a pair of white hands, and moving in the dance.
+
+Chichikov’s horses also found nothing of which to disapprove. Yes,
+both the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at
+Tientietnikov’s a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats excellent,
+and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True, on this
+occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking over the
+intervening partition, it was possible always to see one’s fellows, and,
+should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a neigh, to answer it
+at once.
+
+As for the errand which had hitherto led Chichikov to travel about
+Russia, he had now decided to move very cautiously and secretly in the
+matter. In fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for
+reading and for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself, “No--I
+had better begin at the other end,” and proceeded first to feel his way
+among the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt several
+things, and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go and
+call upon a certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the General
+possessed a daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had an affair
+of some sort, but that the pair had subsequently parted, and gone
+their several ways. For that matter, Chichikov himself had noticed
+that Tientietnikov was in the habit of drawing heads of which each
+representation exactly resembled the rest.
+
+Once, as he sat tapping his silver snuff-box after luncheon, Chichikov
+remarked:
+
+“One thing you lack, and only one, Andrei Ivanovitch.”
+
+“What is that?” asked his host.
+
+“A female friend or two,” replied Chichikov.
+
+Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily
+to an end.
+
+But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for
+supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to
+interject:
+
+“Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry.”
+
+As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the
+subject seemed to have annoyed him.
+
+For the third time--it was after supper--Chichikov returned to the
+charge by remarking:
+
+“To-day, as I was walking round your property, I could not help thinking
+that marriage would do you a great deal of good. Otherwise you will
+develop into a hypochondriac.”
+
+Whether Chichikov’s words now voiced sufficiently the note of
+persuasion, or whether Tientietnikov happened, at the moment, to be
+unusually disposed to frankness, at all events the young landowner
+sighed, and then responded as he expelled a puff of tobacco smoke:
+
+“To attain anything, Paul Ivanovitch, one needs to have been born under
+a lucky star.”
+
+And he related to his guest the whole history of his acquaintanceship
+and subsequent rupture with the General.
+
+As Chichikov listened to the recital, and gradually realised that the
+affair had arisen merely out of a chance word on the General’s part, he
+was astounded beyond measure, and gazed at Tientietnikov without knowing
+what to make of him.
+
+“Andrei Ivanovitch,” he said at length, “what was there to take offence
+at?”
+
+“Nothing, as regards the actual words spoken,” replied the other. “The
+offence lay, rather, in the insult conveyed in the General’s tone.”
+ Tientietnikov was a kindly and peaceable man, yet his eyes flashed as he
+said this, and his voice vibrated with wounded feeling.
+
+“Yet, even then, need you have taken it so much amiss?”
+
+“What? Could I have gone on visiting him as before?”
+
+“Certainly. No great harm had been done?”
+
+“I disagree with you. Had he been an old man in a humble station of
+life, instead of a proud and swaggering officer, I should not have
+minded so much. But, as it was, I could not, and would not, brook his
+words.”
+
+“A curious fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov to himself.
+
+“A curious fellow, this Chichikov!” was Tientietnikov’s inward
+reflection.
+
+“I tell you what,” resumed Chichikov. “To-morrow I myself will go and
+see the General.”
+
+“To what purpose?” asked Tientietnikov, with astonishment and distrust
+in his eyes.
+
+“To offer him an assurance of my personal respect.”
+
+“A strange fellow, this Chichikov!” reflected Tientietnikov.
+
+“A strange fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov, and then
+added aloud: “Yes, I will go and see him at ten o’clock to-morrow; but
+since my britchka is not yet altogether in travelling order, would you
+be so good as to lend me your koliaska for the purpose?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Tientietnikov’s good horses covered the ten versts to the General’s
+house in a little over half an hour. Descending from the koliaska with
+features attuned to deference, Chichikov inquired for the master of the
+house, and was at once ushered into his presence. Bowing with head
+held respectfully on one side and hands extended like those of a waiter
+carrying a trayful of teacups, the visitor inclined his whole body
+forward, and said:
+
+“I have deemed it my duty to present myself to your Excellency. I have
+deemed it my duty because in my heart I cherish a most profound respect
+for the valiant men who, on the field of battle, have proved the
+saviours of their country.”
+
+That this preliminary attack did not wholly displease the General was
+proved by the fact that, responding with a gracious inclination of the
+head, he replied:
+
+“I am glad to make your acquaintance. Pray be so good as to take a seat.
+In what capacity or capacities have you yourself seen service?”
+
+“Of my service,” said Chichikov, depositing his form, not exactly in the
+centre of the chair, but rather on one side of it, and resting a hand
+upon one of its arms, “--of my service the scene was laid, in the first
+instance, in the Treasury; while its further course bore me successively
+into the employ of the Public Buildings Commission, of the Customs
+Board, and of other Government Offices. But, throughout, my life has
+resembled a barque tossed on the crests of perfidious billows. In
+suffering I have been swathed and wrapped until I have come to be, as
+it were, suffering personified; while of the extent to which my life
+has been sought by foes, no words, no colouring, no (if I may so express
+it?) painter’s brush could ever convey to you an adequate idea. And now,
+at length, in my declining years, I am seeking a corner in which to eke
+out the remainder of my miserable existence, while at the present moment
+I am enjoying the hospitality of a neighbour of your acquaintance.”
+
+“And who is that?”
+
+“Your neighbour Tientietnikov, your Excellency.”
+
+Upon that the General frowned.
+
+“Led me add,” put in Chichikov hastily, “that he greatly regrets that
+on a former occasion he should have failed to show a proper respect
+for--for--”
+
+“For what?” asked the General.
+
+“For the services to the public which your Excellency has rendered.
+Indeed, he cannot find words to express his sorrow, but keeps repeating
+to himself: ‘Would that I had valued at their true worth the men who
+have saved our fatherland!’”
+
+“And why should he say that?” asked the mollified General. “I bear him
+no grudge. In fact, I have never cherished aught but a sincere liking
+for him, a sincere esteem, and do not doubt but that, in time, he may
+become a useful member of society.”
+
+“In the words which you have been good enough to utter,” said Chichikov
+with a bow, “there is embodied much justice. Yes, Tientietnikov is
+in very truth a man of worth. Not only does he possess the gift of
+eloquence, but also he is a master of the pen.”
+
+“Ah, yes; he DOES write rubbish of some sort, doesn’t he? Verses, or
+something of the kind?”
+
+“Not rubbish, your Excellency, but practical stuff. In short, he is
+inditing a history.”
+
+“A HISTORY? But a history of what?”
+
+“A history of, of--” For a moment or two Chichikov hesitated. Then,
+whether because it was a General that was seated in front of him, or
+because he desired to impart greater importance to the subject which
+he was about to invent, he concluded: “A history of Generals, your
+Excellency.”
+
+“Of Generals? Of WHAT Generals?”
+
+“Of Generals generally--of Generals at large. That is to say, and to be
+more precise, a history of the Generals of our fatherland.”
+
+By this time Chichikov was floundering badly. Mentally he spat upon
+himself and reflected: “Gracious heavens! What rubbish I am talking!”
+
+“Pardon me,” went on his interlocutor, “but I do not quite understand
+you. Is Tientietnikov producing a history of a given period, or only a
+history made up of a series of biographies? Also, is he including ALL
+our Generals, or only those who took part in the campaign of 1812?”
+
+“The latter, your Excellency--only the Generals of 1812,” replied
+Chichikov. Then he added beneath his breath: “Were I to be killed for
+it, I could not say what that may be supposed to mean.”
+
+“Then why should he not come and see me in person?” went on his
+host. “Possibly I might be able to furnish him with much interesting
+material?”
+
+“He is afraid to come, your Excellency.”
+
+“Nonsense! Just because of a hasty word or two! I am not that sort of
+man at all. In fact, I should be very happy to call upon HIM.”
+
+“Never would he permit that, your Excellency. He would greatly prefer to
+be the first to make advances.” And Chichikov added to himself: “What a
+stroke of luck those Generals were! Otherwise, the Lord knows where my
+tongue might have landed me!”
+
+At this moment the door into the adjoining room opened, and there
+appeared in the doorway a girl as fair as a ray of the sun--so fair,
+indeed, that Chichikov stared at her in amazement. Apparently she had
+come to speak to her father for a moment, but had stopped short on
+perceiving that there was some one with him. The only fault to be
+found in her appearance was the fact that she was too thin and
+fragile-looking.
+
+“May I introduce you to my little pet?” said the General to Chichikov.
+“To tell you the truth, I do not know your name.”
+
+“That you should be unacquainted with the name of one who has never
+distinguished himself in the manner of which you yourself can boast is
+scarcely to be wondered at.” And Chichikov executed one of his sidelong,
+deferential bows.
+
+“Well, I should be delighted to know it.”
+
+“It is Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, your Excellency.” With that went
+the easy bow of a military man and the agile backward movement of an
+india-rubber ball.
+
+“Ulinka, this is Paul Ivanovitch,” said the General, turning to his
+daughter. “He has just told me some interesting news--namely, that
+our neighbour Tientietnikov is not altogether the fool we had at first
+thought him. On the contrary, he is engaged upon a very important
+work--upon a history of the Russian Generals of 1812.”
+
+“But who ever supposed him to be a fool?” asked the girl quickly. “What
+happened was that you took Vishnepokromov’s word--the word of a man who
+is himself both a fool and a good-for-nothing.”
+
+“Well, well,” said the father after further good-natured dispute on the
+subject of Vishnepokromov. “Do you now run away, for I wish to dress for
+luncheon. And you, sir,” he added to Chichikov, “will you not join us at
+table?”
+
+Chichikov bowed so low and so long that, by the time that his eyes had
+ceased to see nothing but his own boots, the General’s daughter had
+disappeared, and in her place was standing a bewhiskered butler, armed
+with a silver soap-dish and a hand-basin.
+
+“Do you mind if I wash in your presence?” asked the host.
+
+“By no means,” replied Chichikov. “Pray do whatsoever you please in that
+respect.”
+
+Upon that the General fell to scrubbing himself--incidentally, to
+sending soapsuds flying in every direction. Meanwhile he seemed so
+favourably disposed that Chichikov decided to sound him then and there,
+more especially since the butler had left the room.
+
+“May I put to you a problem?” he asked.
+
+“Certainly,” replied the General. “What is it?”
+
+“It is this, your Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns three
+hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property. Also,
+except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although his
+infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his property in
+person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the reason for his
+conduct--his very strange conduct--he states as follows: ‘I do not know
+my nephew, and very likely he is a spendthrift. If he wishes to show me
+that he is good for anything, let him go and acquire as many souls as
+_I_ have acquired; and when he has done that I will transfer to him my
+three hundred souls as well.”
+
+“The man must be an absolute fool,” commented the General.
+
+“Possibly. And were that all, things would not be as bad as they are.
+But, unfortunately, my uncle has gone and taken up with his housekeeper,
+and has had children by her. Consequently, everything will now pass to
+THEM.”
+
+“The old man must have taken leave of his senses,” remarked the General.
+“Yet how _I_ can help you I fail to see.”
+
+“Well, I have thought of a plan. If you will hand me over all the dead
+souls on your estate--hand them over to me exactly as though they were
+still alive, and were purchasable property--I will offer them to the old
+man, and then he will leave me his fortune.”
+
+At this point the General burst into a roar of laughter such as few can
+ever have heard. Half-dressed, he subsided into a chair, threw back his
+head, and guffawed until he came near to choking. In fact, the house
+shook with his merriment, so much so that the butler and his daughter
+came running into the room in alarm.
+
+It was long before he could produce a single articulate word; and
+even when he did so (to reassure his daughter and the butler) he kept
+momentarily relapsing into spluttering chuckles which made the house
+ring and ring again.
+
+Chichikov was greatly taken aback.
+
+“Oh, that uncle!” bellowed the General in paroxysms of mirth. “Oh, that
+blessed uncle! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha! Dead souls offered
+him instead of live ones! Oh, my goodness!”
+
+“I suppose I’ve put my foot in it again,” ruefully reflected Chichikov.
+“But, good Lord, what a man the fellow is to laugh! Heaven send that he
+doesn’t burst of it!”
+
+“Ha, ha, ha!” broke out the General afresh. “WHAT a donkey the old man
+must be! To think of his saying to you: ‘You go and fit yourself out
+with three hundred souls, and I’ll cap them with my own lot’! My word!
+What a jackass!”
+
+“A jackass, your Excellency?”
+
+“Yes, indeed! And to think of the jest of putting him off with dead
+souls! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT wouldn’t I give to see you handing him the title
+deeds? Who is he? What is he like? Is he very old?”
+
+“He is eighty, your Excellency.”
+
+“But still brisk and able to move about, eh? Surely he must be pretty
+strong to go on living with his housekeeper like that?”
+
+“Yes. But what does such strength mean? Sand runs away, your
+Excellency.”
+
+“The old fool! But is he really such a fool?”
+
+“Yes, your Excellency.”
+
+“And does he go out at all? Does he see company? Can he still hold
+himself upright?”
+
+“Yes, but with great difficulty.”
+
+“And has he any teeth left?”
+
+“No more than two at the most.”
+
+“The old jackass! Don’t be angry with me, but I must say that, though
+your uncle, he is also a jackass.”
+
+“Quite so, your Excellency. And though it grieves ME to have to confess
+that he is my uncle, what am I to do with him?”
+
+Yet this was not altogether the truth. What would have been a far harder
+thing for Chichikov to have confessed was the fact that he possessed no
+uncles at all.
+
+“I beg of you, your Excellency,” he went on, “to hand me over those,
+those--”
+
+“Those dead souls, eh? Why, in return for the jest I will give you some
+land as well. Yes, you can take the whole graveyard if you like. Ha, ha,
+ha! The old man! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha!”
+
+And once more the General’s guffaws went ringing through the house.
+
+
+       [At this point there is a long hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+“If Colonel Koshkarev should turn out to be as mad as the last one it
+is a bad look-out,” said Chichikov to himself on opening his eyes amid
+fields and open country--everything else having disappeared save the
+vault of heaven and a couple of low-lying clouds.
+
+“Selifan,” he went on, “did you ask how to get to Colonel Koshkarev’s?”
+
+“Yes, Paul Ivanovitch. At least, there was such a clatter around the
+koliaska that I could not; but Petrushka asked the coachman.”
+
+“You fool! How often have I told you not to rely on Petrushka? Petrushka
+is a blockhead, an idiot. Besides, at the present moment I believe him
+to be drunk.”
+
+“No, you are wrong, barin,” put in the person referred to, turning his
+head with a sidelong glance. “After we get down the next hill we shall
+need but to keep bending round it. That is all.”
+
+“Yes, and I suppose you’ll tell me that sivnkha is the only thing that
+has passed your lips? Well, the view at least is beautiful. In fact,
+when one has seen this place one may say that one has seen one of
+the beauty spots of Europe.” This said, Chichikov added to himself,
+smoothing his chin: “What a difference between the features of a
+civilised man of the world and those of a common lacquey!”
+
+Meanwhile the koliaska quickened its pace, and Chichikov once more
+caught sight of Tientietnikov’s aspen-studded meadows. Undulating gently
+on elastic springs, the vehicle cautiously descended the steep incline,
+and then proceeded past water-mills, rumbled over a bridge or two, and
+jolted easily along the rough-set road which traversed the flats. Not a
+molehill, not a mound jarred the spine. The vehicle was comfort itself.
+
+Swiftly there flew by clumps of osiers, slender elder trees, and
+silver-leaved poplars, their branches brushing against Selifan and
+Petrushka, and at intervals depriving the valet of his cap. Each time
+that this happened, the sullen-faced servitor fell to cursing both the
+tree responsible for the occurrence and the landowner responsible for
+the tree being in existence; yet nothing would induce him thereafter
+either to tie on the cap or to steady it with his hand, so complete was
+his assurance that the accident would never be repeated. Soon to the
+foregoing trees there became added an occasional birch or spruce fir,
+while in the dense undergrowth around their roots could be seen the blue
+iris and the yellow wood-tulip. Gradually the forest grew darker, as
+though eventually the obscurity would become complete. Then through
+the trunks and the boughs there began to gleam points of light like
+glittering mirrors, and as the number of trees lessened, these points
+grew larger, until the travellers debouched upon the shore of a lake
+four versts or so in circumference, and having on its further margin
+the grey, scattered log huts of a peasant village. In the water a great
+commotion was in progress. In the first place, some twenty men, immersed
+to the knee, to the breast, or to the neck, were dragging a large
+fishing-net inshore, while, in the second place, there was entangled in
+the same, in addition to some fish, a stout man shaped precisely like a
+melon or a hogshead. Greatly excited, he was shouting at the top of his
+voice: “Let Kosma manage it, you lout of a Denis! Kosma, take the end
+of the rope from Denis! Don’t bear so hard on it, Thoma Bolshoy [41]! Go
+where Thoma Menshov [42] is! Damn it, bring the net to land, will you!”
+ From this it became clear that it was not on his own account that the
+stout man was worrying. Indeed, he had no need to do so, since his fat
+would in any case have prevented him from sinking. Yes, even if he
+had turned head over heels in an effort to dive, the water would
+persistently have borne him up; and the same if, say, a couple of men
+had jumped on his back--the only result would have been that he would
+have become a trifle deeper submerged, and forced to draw breath by
+spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the cause of his agitation was
+lest the net should break, and the fish escape: wherefore he was urging
+some additional peasants who were standing on the bank to lay hold of
+and to pull at, an extra rope or two.
+
+“That must be the barin--Colonel Koshkarev,” said Selifan.
+
+“Why?” asked Chichikov.
+
+“Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has
+the respectable paunch of a gentleman.”
+
+Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the barin;
+until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright position,
+and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with Chichikov
+seated therein, descending the declivity.
+
+“Have you dined yet?” shouted the barin as, still entangled in the net,
+he approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one hand
+shading his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he
+looked, in point of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her bath.
+
+“No,” replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of
+bows.
+
+“Then thank God for that,” rejoined the gentleman.
+
+“Why?” asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his
+cap over his head.
+
+“Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that
+sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma.”
+
+With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a
+veritable monster of a fish.
+
+“Isn’t it a beauty--a sturgeon fresh run from the river?” exclaimed the
+stout barin. “And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take the
+lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma Bolshoy,
+and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house, and I myself
+shall be along presently.”
+
+Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt,
+ran ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had
+hanging in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every
+inhabitant of the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a
+large vegetable enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a square
+near a wooden church, with, showing beyond the latter, the roofs of the
+manorial homestead.
+
+“A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!” said Chichikov to himself.
+
+“Well, whatever I may be, at least I’m here,” said a voice by his side.
+Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile, the barin
+had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair of yellow
+trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck was as
+guiltless of a collar as Cupid’s. Also, as he sat sideways in his
+drozhki, his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle.
+Chichikov was about to make some remark or another when the stout
+gentleman disappeared; and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view at
+the spot where the fish had been drawn to land, and his voice could be
+heard reiterating exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov reached
+the verandah of the house he found, to his intense surprise, the stout
+gentleman waiting to welcome the visitor. How he had contrived to
+convey himself thither passed Chichikov’s comprehension. Host and guest
+embraced three times, according to a bygone custom of Russia. Evidently
+the barin was one of the old school.
+
+“I bring you,” said Chichikov, “a greeting from his Excellency.”
+
+“From whom?”
+
+“From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch.”
+
+“Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?”
+
+“What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?”
+ exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.
+
+“No, I do not,” replied the gentleman.
+
+Chichikov’s surprise grew to absolute astonishment.
+
+“How comes that about?” he ejaculated. “I hope that I have the honour of
+addressing Colonel Koshkarev?”
+
+“Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have come;
+and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh--yes, Peter Petrovitch Pietukh.”
+
+Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.
+
+“What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “I told you to drive to the house
+of Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter
+Petrovitch Pietukh.”
+
+“All the same, your fellows have done quite right,” put in the gentleman
+referred to. “Do you” (this to Selifan and Petrushka) “go to the
+kitchen, where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then put
+up the horses, and be off to the servants’ quarters.”
+
+“I regret the mistake extremely,” said Chichikov.
+
+“But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have in
+store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I beg of
+you.” And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him within,
+where they were met by a couple of youths.
+
+“Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the
+Gymnasium [43],” said Pietukh. “Nikolasha, come and entertain our
+good visitor, while you, Aleksasha, follow me.” And with that the host
+disappeared.
+
+Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
+town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no
+good was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he and
+his brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the provinces
+not being worth living in.
+
+“I quite understand,” Chichikov thought to himself. “The end of the
+chapter will be confectioners’ assistants and the boulevards.”
+
+“Tell me,” he added aloud, “how does your father’s property at present
+stand?”
+
+“It is all mortgaged,” put in the father himself as he re-entered the
+room. “Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it.”
+
+“What a pity!” thought Chichikov. “At this rate it will not be long
+before this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my departure.”
+ Aloud he said with an air of sympathy: “That you have mortgaged the
+estate seems to me a matter of regret.”
+
+“No, not at all,” replied Pietukh. “In fact, they tell me that it is a
+good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I act
+differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of living
+here, and should like to try Moscow--more especially since my sons are
+always begging me to give them a metropolitan education.”
+
+“Oh, the fool, the fool!” reflected Chichikov. “He is for throwing
+up everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice
+property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and
+that the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon as
+ever these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres, the
+devil will away with every stick of their substance. For my own part, I
+could desire nothing better than this quiet life in the country.”
+
+“Let me guess what is in your mind,” said Pietukh.
+
+“What, then?” asked Chichikov, rather taken aback.
+
+“You are thinking to yourself: ‘That fool of a Pietukh has asked me to
+dinner, yet not a bite of dinner do I see.’ But wait a little. It will
+be ready presently, for it is being cooked as fast as a maiden who has
+had her hair cut off plaits herself a new set of tresses.”
+
+“Here comes Platon Mikhalitch, father!” exclaimed Aleksasha, who had
+been peeping out of the window.
+
+“Yes, and on a grey horse,” added his brother.
+
+“Who is Platon Mikhalitch?” inquired Chichikov.
+
+“A neighbour of ours, and an excellent fellow.”
+
+The next moment Platon Mikhalitch himself entered the room, accompanied
+by a sporting dog named Yarb. He was a tall, handsome man, with
+extremely red hair. As for his companion, it was of the keen-muzzled
+species used for shooting.
+
+“Have you dined yet?” asked the host.
+
+“Yes,” replied Platon.
+
+“Indeed? What do you mean by coming here to laugh at us all? Do I ever
+go to YOUR place after dinner?”
+
+The newcomer smiled. “Well, if it can bring you any comfort,” he said,
+“let me tell you that I ate nothing at the meal, for I had no appetite.”
+
+“But you should see what I have caught--what sort of a sturgeon fate has
+brought my way! Yes, and what crucians and carp!”
+
+“Really it tires one to hear you. How come you always to be so
+cheerful?”
+
+“And how come YOU always to be so gloomy?” retorted the host.
+
+“How, you ask? Simply because I am so.”
+
+“The truth is you don’t eat enough. Try the plan of making a good
+dinner. Weariness of everything is a modern invention. Once upon a time
+one never heard of it.”
+
+“Well, boast away, but have you yourself never been tired of things?”
+
+“Never in my life. I do not so much as know whether I should find time
+to be tired. In the morning, when one awakes, the cook is waiting, and
+the dinner has to be ordered. Then one drinks one’s morning tea, and
+then the bailiff arrives for HIS orders, and then there is fishing to be
+done, and then one’s dinner has to be eaten. Next, before one has even
+had a chance to utter a snore, there enters once again the cook, and one
+has to order supper; and when she has departed, behold, back she comes
+with a request for the following day’s dinner! What time does THAT leave
+one to be weary of things?”
+
+Throughout this conversation, Chichikov had been taking stock of
+the newcomer, who astonished him with his good looks, his upright,
+picturesque figure, his appearance of fresh, unwasted youthfulness,
+and the boyish purity, innocence, and clarity of his features. Neither
+passion nor care nor aught of the nature of agitation or anxiety of mind
+had ventured to touch his unsullied face, or to lay a single wrinkle
+thereon. Yet the touch of life which those emotions might have imparted
+was wanting. The face was, as it were, dreaming, even though from time
+to time an ironical smile disturbed it.
+
+“I, too, cannot understand,” remarked Chichikov, “how a man of your
+appearance can find things wearisome. Of course, if a man is hard
+pressed for money, or if he has enemies who are lying in wait for his
+life (as have certain folk of whom I know), well, then--”
+
+“Believe me when I say,” interrupted the handsome guest, “that, for the
+sake of a diversion, I should be glad of ANY sort of an anxiety. Would
+that some enemy would conceive a grudge against me! But no one does so.
+Everything remains eternally dull.”
+
+“But perhaps you lack a sufficiency of land or souls?”
+
+“Not at all. I and my brother own ten thousand desiatins [44] of land,
+and over a thousand souls.”
+
+“Curious! I do not understand it. But perhaps the harvest has failed,
+or you have sickness about, and many of your male peasants have died of
+it?”
+
+“On the contrary, everything is in splendid order, for my brother is the
+best of managers.”
+
+“Then to find things wearisome!” exclaimed Chichikov. “It passes my
+comprehension.” And he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Well, we will soon put weariness to flight,” interrupted the host.
+“Aleksasha, do you run helter-skelter to the kitchen, and there tell
+the cook to serve the fish pasties. Yes, and where have that gawk of an
+Emelian and that thief of an Antoshka got to? Why have they not handed
+round the zakuski?”
+
+At this moment the door opened, and the “gawk” and the “thief” in
+question made their appearance with napkins and a tray--the latter
+bearing six decanters of variously-coloured beverages. These they placed
+upon the table, and then ringed them about with glasses and platefuls
+of every conceivable kind of appetiser. That done, the servants applied
+themselves to bringing in various comestibles under covers, through
+which could be heard the hissing of hot roast viands. In particular
+did the “gawk” and the “thief” work hard at their tasks. As a matter
+of fact, their appellations had been given them merely to spur them to
+greater activity, for, in general, the barin was no lover of abuse, but,
+rather, a kind-hearted man who, like most Russians, could not get on
+without a sharp word or two. That is to say, he needed them for his
+tongue as he need a glass of vodka for his digestion. What else could
+you expect? It was his nature to care for nothing mild.
+
+To the zakuski succeeded the meal itself, and the host became a perfect
+glutton on his guests’ behalf. Should he notice that a guest had taken
+but a single piece of a comestible, he added thereto another one,
+saying: “Without a mate, neither man nor bird can live in this world.”
+ Should any one take two pieces, he added thereto a third, saying: “What
+is the good of the number 2? God loves a trinity.” Should any one
+take three pieces, he would say: “Where do you see a waggon with three
+wheels? Who builds a three-cornered hut?” Lastly, should any one take
+four pieces, he would cap them with a fifth, and add thereto the punning
+quip, “Na piat opiat [45]”. After devouring at least twelve steaks
+of sturgeon, Chichikov ventured to think to himself, “My host cannot
+possibly add to THEM,” but found that he was mistaken, for, without a
+word, Pietukh heaped upon his plate an enormous portion of spit-roasted
+veal, and also some kidneys. And what veal it was!
+
+“That calf was fed two years on milk,” he explained. “I cared for it
+like my own son.”
+
+“Nevertheless I can eat no more,” said Chichikov.
+
+“Do you try the veal before you say that you can eat no more.”
+
+“But I could not get it down my throat. There is no room left.”
+
+“If there be no room in a church for a newcomer, the beadle is sent for,
+and room is very soon made--yes, even though before there was such a
+crush that an apple couldn’t have been dropped between the people. Do
+you try the veal, I say. That piece is the titbit of all.”
+
+So Chichikov made the attempt; and in very truth the veal was beyond all
+praise, and room was found for it, even though one would have supposed
+the feat impossible.
+
+“Fancy this good fellow removing to St. Petersburg or Moscow!” said the
+guest to himself. “Why, with a scale of living like this, he would be
+ruined in three years.” For that matter, Pietukh might well have been
+ruined already, for hospitality can dissipate a fortune in three months
+as easily as it can in three years.
+
+The host also dispensed the wine with a lavish hand, and what the guests
+did not drink he gave to his sons, who thus swallowed glass after glass.
+Indeed, even before coming to table, it was possible to discern to what
+department of human accomplishment their bent was turned. When the meal
+was over, however, the guests had no mind for further drinking. Indeed,
+it was all that they could do to drag themselves on to the balcony,
+and there to relapse into easy chairs. Indeed, the moment that the host
+subsided into his seat--it was large enough for four--he fell asleep,
+and his portly presence, converting itself into a sort of blacksmith’s
+bellows, started to vent, through open mouth and distended nostrils,
+such sounds as can have greeted the reader’s ear but seldom--sounds as
+of a drum being beaten in combination with the whistling of a flute and
+the strident howling of a dog.
+
+“Listen to him!” said Platon.
+
+Chichikov smiled.
+
+“Naturally, on such dinners as that,” continued the other, “our host
+does NOT find the time dull. And as soon as dinner is ended there can
+ensue sleep.”
+
+“Yes, but, pardon me, I still fail to understand why you should find
+life wearisome. There are so many resources against ennui!”
+
+“As for instance?”
+
+“For a young man, dancing, the playing of one or another musical
+instrument, and--well, yes, marriage.”
+
+“Marriage to whom?”
+
+“To some maiden who is both charming and rich. Are there none in these
+parts?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then, were I you, I should travel, and seek a maiden elsewhere.” And a
+brilliant idea therewith entered Chichikov’s head. “This last resource,”
+ he added, “is the best of all resources against ennui.”
+
+“What resource are you speaking of?”
+
+“Of travel.”
+
+“But whither?”
+
+“Well, should it so please you, you might join me as my companion.” This
+said, the speaker added to himself as he eyed Platon: “Yes, that would
+suit me exactly, for then I should have half my expenses paid, and could
+charge him also with the cost of mending the koliaska.”
+
+“And whither should we go?”
+
+“In that respect I am not wholly my own master, as I have business to do
+for others as well as for myself. For instance, General Betristchev--an
+intimate friend and, I might add, a generous benefactor of mine--has
+charged me with commissions to certain of his relatives. However, though
+relatives are relatives, I am travelling likewise on my own account,
+since I wish to see the world and the whirligig of humanity--which, in
+spite of what people may say, is as good as a living book or a second
+education.” As a matter of fact, Chichikov was reflecting, “Yes, the
+plan is an excellent one. I might even contrive that he should have to
+bear the whole of our expenses, and that his horses should be used while
+my own should be put out to graze on his farm.”
+
+“Well, why should I not adopt the suggestion?” was Platon’s thought.
+“There is nothing for me to do at home, since the management of the
+estate is in my brother’s hands, and my going would cause him no
+inconvenience. Yes, why should I not do as Chichikov has suggested?”
+
+Then he added aloud:
+
+“Would you come and stay with my brother for a couple of days? Otherwise
+he might refuse me his consent.”
+
+“With great pleasure,” said Chichikov. “Or even for three days.”
+
+“Then here is my hand on it. Let us be off at once.” Platon seemed
+suddenly to have come to life again.
+
+“Where are you off to?” put in their host unexpectedly as he roused
+himself and stared in astonishment at the pair. “No, no, my good sirs. I
+have had the wheels removed from your koliaska, Monsieur Chichikov, and
+have sent your horse, Platon Mikhalitch, to a grazing ground fifteen
+versts away. Consequently you must spend the night here, and depart
+to-morrow morning after breakfast.”
+
+What could be done with a man like Pietukh? There was no help for it but
+to remain. In return, the guests were rewarded with a beautiful spring
+evening, for, to spend the time, the host organised a boating expedition
+on the river, and a dozen rowers, with a dozen pairs of oars, conveyed
+the party (to the accompaniment of song) across the smooth surface of
+the lake and up a great river with towering banks. From time to time the
+boat would pass under ropes, stretched across for purposes of fishing,
+and at each turn of the rippling current new vistas unfolded themselves
+as tier upon tier of woodland delighted the eye with a diversity of
+timber and foliage. In unison did the rowers ply their sculls, yet it
+was though of itself that the skiff shot forward, bird-like, over the
+glassy surface of the water; while at intervals the broad-shouldered
+young oarsman who was seated third from the bow would raise, as from
+a nightingale’s throat, the opening staves of a boat song, and then be
+joined by five or six more, until the melody had come to pour forth in a
+volume as free and boundless as Russia herself. And Pietukh, too, would
+give himself a shake, and help lustily to support the chorus; and even
+Chichikov felt acutely conscious of the fact that he was a Russian. Only
+Platon reflected: “What is there so splendid in these melancholy songs?
+They do but increase one’s depression of spirits.”
+
+The journey homeward was made in the gathering dusk. Rhythmically the
+oars smote a surface which no longer reflected the sky, and darkness had
+fallen when they reached the shore, along which lights were twinkling
+where the fisherfolk were boiling live eels for soup. Everything had now
+wended its way homeward for the night; the cattle and poultry had
+been housed, and the herdsmen, standing at the gates of the village
+cattle-pens, amid the trailing dust lately raised by their charges,
+were awaiting the milk-pails and a summons to partake of the eel-broth.
+Through the dusk came the hum of humankind, and the barking of dogs in
+other and more distant villages; while, over all, the moon was rising,
+and the darkened countryside was beginning to glimmer to light again
+under her beams. What a glorious picture! Yet no one thought of admiring
+it. Instead of galloping over the countryside on frisky cobs,
+Nikolasha and Aleksasha were engaged in dreaming of Moscow, with its
+confectioners’ shops and the theatres of which a cadet, newly arrived on
+a visit from the capital, had just been telling them; while their father
+had his mind full of how best to stuff his guests with yet more food,
+and Platon was given up to yawning. Only in Chichikov was a spice of
+animation visible. “Yes,” he reflected, “some day I, too, will become
+lord of such a country place.” And before his mind’s eye there arose
+also a helpmeet and some little Chichikovs.
+
+By the time that supper was finished the party had again over-eaten
+themselves, and when Chichikov entered the room allotted him for the
+night, he lay down upon the bed, and prodded his stomach. “It is as
+tight as a drum,” he said to himself. “Not another titbit of veal could
+now get into it.” Also, circumstances had so brought it about that
+next door to him there was situated his host’s apartment; and since the
+intervening wall was thin, Chichikov could hear every word that was
+said there. At the present moment the master of the house was engaged in
+giving the cook orders for what, under the guise of an early breakfast,
+promised to constitute a veritable dinner. You should have heard
+Pietukh’s behests! They would have excited the appetite of a corpse.
+
+“Yes,” he said, sucking his lips, and drawing a deep breath, “in the
+first place, make a pasty in four divisions. Into one of the divisions
+put the sturgeon’s cheeks and some viaziga [46], and into another
+division some buckwheat porridge, young mushrooms and onions,
+sweet milk, calves’ brains, and anything else that you may find
+suitable--anything else that you may have got handy. Also, bake the
+pastry to a nice brown on one side, and but lightly on the other. Yes,
+and, as to the under side, bake it so that it will be all juicy and
+flaky, so that it shall not crumble into bits, but melt in the mouth
+like the softest snow that ever you heard of.” And as he said this
+Pietukh fairly smacked his lips.
+
+“The devil take him!” muttered Chichikov, thrusting his head beneath the
+bedclothes to avoid hearing more. “The fellow won’t give one a chance to
+sleep.”
+
+Nevertheless he heard through the blankets:
+
+“And garnish the sturgeon with beetroot, smelts, peppered mushrooms,
+young radishes, carrots, beans, and anything else you like, so as to
+have plenty of trimmings. Yes, and put a lump of ice into the pig’s
+bladder, so as to swell it up.”
+
+Many other dishes did Pietukh order, and nothing was to be heard but
+his talk of boiling, roasting, and stewing. Finally, just as mention was
+being made of a turkey cock, Chichikov fell asleep.
+
+Next morning the guest’s state of repletion had reached the point
+of Platon being unable to mount his horse; wherefore the latter was
+dispatched homeward with one of Pietukh’s grooms, and the two guests
+entered Chichikov’s koliaska. Even the dog trotted lazily in the rear;
+for he, too, had over-eaten himself.
+
+“It has been rather too much of a good thing,” remarked Chichikov as the
+vehicle issued from the courtyard.
+
+“Yes, and it vexes me to see the fellow never tire of it,” replied
+Platon.
+
+“Ah,” thought Chichikov to himself, “if _I_ had an income of seventy
+thousand roubles, as you have, I’d very soon give tiredness one in
+the eye! Take Murazov, the tax-farmer--he, again, must be worth ten
+millions. What a fortune!”
+
+“Do you mind where we drive?” asked Platon. “I should like first to go
+and take leave of my sister and my brother-in-law.”
+
+“With pleasure,” said Chichikov.
+
+“My brother-in-law is the leading landowner hereabouts. At the present
+moment he is drawing an income of two hundred thousand roubles from a
+property which, eight years ago, was producing a bare twenty thousand.”
+
+“Truly a man worthy of the utmost respect! I shall be most interested to
+make his acquaintance. To think of it! And what may his family name be?”
+
+“Kostanzhoglo.”
+
+“And his Christian name and patronymic?”
+
+“Constantine Thedorovitch.”
+
+“Constantine Thedorovitch Kostanzhoglo. Yes, it will be a most
+interesting event to make his acquaintance. To know such a man must be a
+whole education.”
+
+Here Platon set himself to give Selifan some directions as to the way,
+a necessary proceeding in view of the fact that Selifan could hardly
+maintain his seat on the box. Twice Petrushka, too, had fallen headlong,
+and this necessitated being tied to his perch with a piece of rope.
+“What a clown!” had been Chichikov’s only comment.
+
+“This is where my brother-in-law’s land begins,” said Platon.
+
+“They give one a change of view.”
+
+And, indeed, from this point the countryside became planted with timber;
+the rows of trees running as straight as pistol-shots, and having beyond
+them, and on higher ground, a second expanse of forest, newly planted
+like the first; while beyond it, again, loomed a third plantation of
+older trees. Next there succeeded a flat piece of the same nature.
+
+“All this timber,” said Platon, “has grown up within eight or ten years
+at the most; whereas on another man’s land it would have taken twenty to
+attain the same growth.”
+
+“And how has your brother-in-law effected this?”
+
+“You must ask him yourself. He is so excellent a husbandman that nothing
+ever fails with him. You see, he knows the soil, and also knows what
+ought to be planted beside what, and what kinds of timber are the best
+neighbourhood for grain. Again, everything on his estate is made to
+perform at least three or four different functions. For instance, he
+makes his timber not only serve as timber, but also serve as a provider
+of moisture and shade to a given stretch of land, and then as a
+fertiliser with its fallen leaves. Consequently, when everywhere else
+there is drought, he still has water, and when everywhere else there
+has been a failure of the harvest, on his lands it will have proved a
+success. But it is a pity that I know so little about it all as to be
+unable to explain to you his many expedients. Folk call him a wizard,
+for he produces so much. Nevertheless, personally I find what he does
+uninteresting.”
+
+“Truly an astonishing fellow!” reflected Chichikov with a glance at his
+companion. “It is sad indeed to see a man so superficial as to be unable
+to explain matters of this kind.”
+
+At length the manor appeared in sight--an establishment looking almost
+like a town, so numerous were the huts where they stood arranged in
+three tiers, crowned with three churches, and surrounded with huge ricks
+and barns. “Yes,” thought Chichikov to himself, “one can see what a
+jewel of a landowner lives here.” The huts in question were stoutly
+built and the intervening alleys well laid-out; while, wherever a waggon
+was visible, it looked serviceable and more or less new. Also, the local
+peasants bore an intelligent look on their faces, the cattle were of the
+best possible breed, and even the peasants’ pigs belonged to the porcine
+aristocracy. Clearly there dwelt here peasants who, to quote the
+song, were accustomed to “pick up silver by the shovelful.” Nor were
+Englishified gardens and parterres and other conceits in evidence, but,
+on the contrary, there ran an open view from the manor house to the
+farm buildings and the workmen’s cots, so that, after the old Russian
+fashion, the barin should be able to keep an eye upon all that was going
+on around him. For the same purpose, the mansion was topped with a tall
+lantern and a superstructure--a device designed, not for ornament,
+nor for a vantage-spot for the contemplation of the view, but for
+supervision of the labourers engaged in distant fields. Lastly, the
+brisk, active servants who received the visitors on the verandah were
+very different menials from the drunken Petrushka, even though they did
+not wear swallow-tailed coats, but only Cossack tchekmenu [47] of blue
+homespun cloth.
+
+The lady of the house also issued on to the verandah. With her face of
+the freshness of “blood and milk” and the brightness of God’s daylight,
+she as nearly resembled Platon as one pea resembles another, save that,
+whereas he was languid, she was cheerful and full of talk.
+
+“Good day, brother!” she cried. “How glad I am to see you! Constantine
+is not at home, but will be back presently.”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“Doing business in the village with a party of factors,” replied the
+lady as she conducted her guests to the drawing-room.
+
+With no little curiosity did Chichikov gaze at the interior of the
+mansion inhabited by the man who received an annual income of two
+hundred thousand roubles; for he thought to discern therefrom the nature
+of its proprietor, even as from a shell one may deduce the species of
+oyster or snail which has been its tenant, and has left therein its
+impression. But no such conclusions were to be drawn. The rooms were
+simple, and even bare. Not a fresco nor a picture nor a bronze nor a
+flower nor a china what-not nor a book was there to be seen. In short,
+everything appeared to show that the proprietor of this abode spent the
+greater part of his time, not between four walls, but in the field, and
+that he thought out his plans, not in sybaritic fashion by the fireside,
+nor in an easy chair beside the stove, but on the spot where work was
+actually in progress--that, in a word, where those plans were conceived,
+there they were put into execution. Nor in these rooms could Chichikov
+detect the least trace of a feminine hand, beyond the fact that
+certain tables and chairs bore drying-boards whereon were arranged some
+sprinklings of flower petals.
+
+“What is all this rubbish for?” asked Platon.
+
+“It is not rubbish,” replied the lady of the house. “On the contrary, it
+is the best possible remedy for fever. Last year we cured every one of
+our sick peasants with it. Some of the petals I am going to make into an
+ointment, and some into an infusion. You may laugh as much as you like
+at my potting and preserving, yet you yourself will be glad of things of
+the kind when you set out on your travels.”
+
+Platon moved to the piano, and began to pick out a note or two.
+
+“Good Lord, what an ancient instrument!” he exclaimed. “Are you not
+ashamed of it, sister?”
+
+“Well, the truth is that I get no time to practice my music. You see,”
+ she added to Chichikov, “I have an eight-year-old daughter to educate;
+and to hand her over to a foreign governess in order that I may have
+leisure for my own piano-playing--well, that is a thing which I could
+never bring myself to do.”
+
+“You have become a wearisome sort of person,” commented Platon, and
+walked away to the window. “Ah, here comes Constantine,” presently he
+added.
+
+Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the
+verandah a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad in
+a rough cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of those
+who care little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded, there
+came a couple of men of a somewhat lower station in life, and all
+three were engaged in an animated discussion. One of the barin’s two
+companions was a plain peasant, and the other (clad in a blue Siberian
+smock) a travelling factor. The fact that the party halted awhile by
+the entrance steps made it possible to overhear a portion of their
+conversation from within.
+
+“This is what you peasants had better do,” the barin was saying.
+“Purchase your release from your present master. I will lend you the
+necessary money, and afterwards you can work for me.”
+
+“No, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the peasant. “Why should we do
+that? Remove us just as we are. You will know how to arrange it, for a
+cleverer gentleman than you is nowhere to be found. The misfortune of us
+muzhiks is that we cannot protect ourselves properly. The tavern-keepers
+sell us such liquor that, before a man knows where he is, a glassful of
+it has eaten a hole through his stomach, and made him feel as though
+he could drink a pail of water. Yes, it knocks a man over before he can
+look around. Everywhere temptation lies in wait for the peasant, and he
+needs to be cunning if he is to get through the world at all. In fact,
+things seem to be contrived for nothing but to make us peasants lose
+our wits, even to the tobacco which they sell us. What are folk like
+ourselves to do, Constantine Thedorovitch? I tell you it is terribly
+difficult for a muzhik to look after himself.”
+
+“Listen to me. This is how things are done here. When I take on a serf,
+I fit him out with a cow and a horse. On the other hand, I demand of him
+thereafter more than is demanded of a peasant anywhere else. That is to
+say, first and foremost I make him work. Whether a peasant be working
+for himself or for me, never do I let him waste time. I myself toil like
+a bullock, and I force my peasants to do the same, for experience
+has taught me that that is the only way to get through life. All the
+mischief in the world comes through lack of employment. Now, do you go
+and consider the matter, and talk it over with your mir [48].”
+
+“We have done that already, Constantine Thedorovitch, and our elders’
+opinion is: ‘There is no need for further talk. Every peasant belonging
+to Constantine Thedorovitch is well off, and hasn’t to work for nothing.
+The priests of his village, too, are men of good heart, whereas ours
+have been taken away, and there is no one to bury us.’”
+
+“Nevertheless, do you go and talk the matter over again.”
+
+“We will, barin.”
+
+Here the factor who had been walking on the barin’s other side put in a
+word.
+
+“Constantine Thedorovitch,” he said, “I beg of you to do as I have
+requested.”
+
+“I have told you before,” replied the barin, “that I do not care to play
+the huckster. I am not one of those landowners whom fellows of your sort
+visit on the very day that the interest on a mortgage is due. Ah, I know
+your fraternity thoroughly, and know that you keep lists of all who have
+mortgages to repay. But what is there so clever about that? Any man,
+if you pinch him sufficiently, will surrender you a mortgage at
+half-price,--any man, that is to say, except myself, who care nothing
+for your money. Were a loan of mine to remain out three years, I should
+never demand a kopeck of interest on it.”
+
+“Quite so, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the factor. “But I am
+asking this of you more for the purpose of establishing us on a business
+footing than because I desire to win your favour. Prey, therefore,
+accept this earnest money of three thousand roubles.” And the man drew
+from his breast pocket a dirty roll of bank-notes, which, carelessly
+receiving, Kostanzhoglo thrust, uncounted, into the back pocket of his
+overcoat.
+
+“Hm!” thought Chichikov. “For all he cares, the notes might have been a
+handkerchief.”
+
+When Kostanzhoglo appeared at closer quarters--that is to say, in the
+doorway of the drawing-room--he struck Chichikov more than ever with the
+swarthiness of his complexion, the dishevelment of his black, slightly
+grizzled locks, the alertness of his eye, and the impression of fiery
+southern origin which his whole personality diffused. For he was not
+wholly a Russian, nor could he himself say precisely who his forefathers
+had been. Yet, inasmuch as he accounted genealogical research no part of
+the science of estate-management, but a mere superfluity, he looked upon
+himself as, to all intents and purposes, a native of Russia, and the
+more so since the Russian language was the only tongue he knew.
+
+Platon presented Chichikov, and the pair exchanged greetings.
+
+“To get rid of my depression, Constantine,” continued Platon, “I am
+thinking of accompanying our guest on a tour through a few of the
+provinces.”
+
+“An excellent idea,” said Kostanzhoglo. “But precisely whither?” he
+added, turning hospitably to Chichikov.
+
+“To tell you the truth,” replied that personage with an affable
+inclination of the head as he smoothed the arm of his chair with his
+hand, “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and,
+I might add, a generous benefactor, of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are
+relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in
+that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the
+world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, so to speak, a
+living book, a second course of education.”
+
+“Yes, there is no harm in looking at other corners of the world besides
+one’s own.”
+
+“You speak truly. There IS no harm in such a proceeding. Thereby one may
+see things which one has not before encountered, one may meet men with
+whom one has not before come in contact. And with some men of that kind
+a conversation is as precious a benefit as has been conferred upon me
+by the present occasion. I come to you, most worthy Constantine
+Thedorovitch, for instruction, and again for instruction, and beg of you
+to assuage my thirst with an exposition of the truth as it is. I hunger
+for the favour of your words as for manna.”
+
+“But how so? What can _I_ teach you?” exclaimed Kostanzhoglo in
+confusion. “I myself was given but the plainest of educations.”
+
+“Nay, most worthy sir, you possess wisdom, and again wisdom. Wisdom only
+can direct the management of a great estate, that can derive a
+sound income from the same, that can acquire wealth of a real, not a
+fictitious, order while also fulfilling the duties of a citizen and
+thereby earning the respect of the Russian public. All this I pray you
+to teach me.”
+
+“I tell you what,” said Kostanzhoglo, looking meditatively at his guest.
+“You had better stay with me for a few days, and during that time I can
+show you how things are managed here, and explain to you everything.
+Then you will see for yourself that no great wisdom is required for the
+purpose.”
+
+“Yes, certainly you must stay here,” put in the lady of the house. Then,
+turning to her brother, she added: “And you too must stay. Why should
+you be in such a hurry?”
+
+“Very well,” he replied. “But what say YOU, Paul Ivanovitch?”
+
+“I say the same as you, and with much pleasure,” replied Chichikov.
+“But also I ought to tell you this: that there is a relative of General
+Betristchev’s, a certain Colonel Koshkarev--”
+
+“Yes, we know him; but he is quite mad.”
+
+“As you say, he is mad, and I should not have been intending to visit
+him, were it not that General Betristchev is an intimate friend of mine,
+as well as, I might add, my most generous benefactor.”
+
+“Then,” said Kostanzhoglo, “do you go and see Colonel Koshkarev NOW.
+He lives less than ten versts from here, and I have a gig already
+harnessed. Go to him at once, and return here for tea.”
+
+“An excellent idea!” cried Chichikov, and with that he seized his cap.
+
+Half an hour’s drive sufficed to bring him to the Colonel’s
+establishment. The village attached to the manor was in a state of utter
+confusion, since in every direction building and repairing operations
+were in progress, and the alleys were choked with heaps of lime, bricks,
+and beams of wood. Also, some of the huts were arranged to resemble
+offices, and superscribed in gilt letters “Depot for Agricultural
+Implements,” “Chief Office of Accounts,” “Estate Works Committee,”
+ “Normal School for the Education of Colonists,” and so forth.
+
+Chichikov found the Colonel posted behind a desk and holding a pen
+between his teeth. Without an instant’s delay the master of the
+establishment--who seemed a kindly, approachable man, and accorded to
+his visitor a very civil welcome--plunged into a recital of the labour
+which it had cost him to bring the property to its present condition of
+affluence. Then he went on to lament the fact that he could not make
+his peasantry understand the incentives to labour which the riches
+of science and art provide; for instance, he had failed to induce his
+female serfs to wear corsets, whereas in Germany, where he had resided
+for fourteen years, every humble miller’s daughter could play the piano.
+None the less, he said, he meant to peg away until every peasant on
+the estate should, as he walked behind the plough, indulge in a regular
+course of reading Franklin’s Notes on Electricity, Virgil’s Georgics, or
+some work on the chemical properties of soil.
+
+“Good gracious!” mentally exclaimed Chichikov. “Why, I myself have not
+had time to finish that book by the Duchesse de la Valliere!”
+
+Much else the Colonel said. In particular did he aver that, provided
+the Russian peasant could be induced to array himself in German costume,
+science would progress, trade increase, and the Golden Age dawn in
+Russia.
+
+For a while Chichikov listened with distended eyes. Then he felt
+constrained to intimate that with all that he had nothing to do, seeing
+that his business was merely to acquire a few souls, and thereafter to
+have their purchase confirmed.
+
+“If I understand you aright,” said the Colonel, “you wish to present a
+Statement of Plea?”
+
+“Yes, that is so.”
+
+“Then kindly put it into writing, and it shall be forwarded to the
+Office for the Reception of Reports and Returns. Thereafter that Office
+will consider it, and return it to me, who will, in turn, dispatch it to
+the Estate Works Committee, who will, in turn, revise it, and present it
+to the Administrator, who, jointly with the Secretary, will--”
+
+“Pardon me,” expostulated Chichikov, “but that procedure will take up a
+great deal of time. Why need I put the matter into writing at all? It is
+simply this. I want a few souls which are--well, which are, so to speak,
+dead.”
+
+“Very good,” commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your Statement
+of Plea that the souls which you desire are, ‘so to speak, dead.’”
+
+“But what would be the use of my doing so? Though the souls are dead, my
+purpose requires that they should be represented as alive.”
+
+“Very good,” again commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your
+Statement that ‘it is necessary’ (or, should you prefer an alternative
+phrase, ‘it is requested,’ or ‘it is desiderated,’ or ‘it is prayed,’)
+‘that the souls be represented as alive.’ At all events, WITHOUT
+documentary process of that kind, the matter cannot possibly be carried
+through. Also, I will appoint a Commissioner to guide you round the
+various Offices.”
+
+And he sounded a bell; whereupon there presented himself a man whom,
+addressing as “Secretary,” the Colonel instructed to summon the
+“Commissioner.” The latter, on appearing, was seen to have the air, half
+of a peasant, half of an official.
+
+“This man,” the Colonel said to Chichikov, “will act as your escort.”
+
+What could be done with a lunatic like Koshkarev? In the end, curiosity
+moved Chichikov to accompany the Commissioner. The Committee for the
+Reception of Reports and Returns was discovered to have put up its
+shutters, and to have locked its doors, for the reason that the Director
+of the Committee had been transferred to the newly-formed Committee
+of Estate Management, and his successor had been annexed by the same
+Committee. Next, Chichikov and his escort rapped at the doors of the
+Department of Estate Affairs; but that Department’s quarters happened to
+be in a state of repair, and no one could be made to answer the
+summons save a drunken peasant from whom not a word of sense was to be
+extracted. At length the escort felt himself moved to remark:
+
+“There is a deal of foolishness going on here. Fellows like that
+drunkard lead the barin by the nose, and everything is ruled by the
+Committee of Management, which takes men from their proper work, and
+sets them to do any other it likes. Indeed, only through the Committee
+does ANYTHING get done.”
+
+By this time Chichikov felt that he had seen enough; wherefore he
+returned to the Colonel, and informed him that the Office for the
+Reception of Reports and Returns had ceased to exist. At once the
+Colonel flamed to noble rage. Pressing Chichikov’s hand in token of
+gratitude for the information which the guest had furnished, he took
+paper and pen, and noted eight searching questions under three separate
+headings: (1) “Why has the Committee of Management presumed to issue
+orders to officials not under its jurisdiction?” (2) “Why has the Chief
+Manager permitted his predecessor, though still in retention of his
+post, to follow him to another Department?” and (3) “Why has the
+Committee of Estate Affairs suffered the Office for the Reception of
+Reports and Returns to lapse?”
+
+“Now for a row!” thought Chichikov to himself, and turned to depart; but
+his host stopped him, saying:
+
+“I cannot let you go, for, in addition to my honour having become
+involved, it behoves me to show my people how the regular, the
+organised, administration of an estate may be conducted. Herewith I will
+hand over the conduct of your affair to a man who is worth all the rest
+of the staff put together, and has had a university education. Also, the
+better to lose no time, may I humbly beg you to step into my library,
+where you will find notebooks, paper, pens, and everything else that
+you may require. Of these articles pray make full use, for you are
+a gentleman of letters, and it is your and my joint duty to bring
+enlightenment to all.”
+
+So saying, he ushered his guest into a large room lined from floor to
+ceiling with books and stuffed specimens. The books in question
+were divided into sections--a section on forestry, a section on
+cattle-breeding, a section on the raising of swine, and a section on
+horticulture, together with special journals of the type circulated
+merely for the purposes of reference, and not for general reading.
+Perceiving that these works were scarcely of a kind calculated to while
+away an idle hour, Chichikov turned to a second bookcase. But to do so
+was to fall out of the frying-pan into the fire, for the contents of the
+second bookcase proved to be works on philosophy, while, in particular,
+six huge volumes confronted him under a label inscribed “A Preparatory
+Course to the Province of Thought, with the Theory of Community of
+Effort, Co-operation, and Subsistence, in its Application to a Right
+Understanding of the Organic Principles of a Mutual Division of
+Social Productivity.” Indeed, wheresoever Chichikov looked, every page
+presented to his vision some such words as “phenomenon,” “development,”
+ “abstract,” “contents,” and “synopsis.” “This is not the sort of thing
+for me,” he murmured, and turned his attention to a third bookcase,
+which contained books on the Arts. Extracting a huge tome in which some
+by no means reticent mythological illustrations were contained, he set
+himself to examine these pictures. They were of the kind which pleases
+mostly middle-aged bachelors and old men who are accustomed to seek
+in the ballet and similar frivolities a further spur to their waning
+passions. Having concluded his examination, Chichikov had just extracted
+another volume of the same species when Colonel Koshkarev returned with
+a document of some sort and a radiant countenance.
+
+“Everything has been carried through in due form!” he cried. “The man
+whom I mentioned is a genius indeed, and I intend not only to promote
+him over the rest, but also to create for him a special Department.
+Herewith shall you hear what a splendid intellect is his, and how in a
+few minutes he has put the whole affair in order.”
+
+“May the Lord be thanked for that!” thought Chichikov. Then he settled
+himself while the Colonel read aloud:
+
+“‘After giving full consideration to the Reference which your Excellency
+has entrusted to me, I have the honour to report as follows:
+
+“‘(1) In the Statement of Plea presented by one Paul Ivanovitch
+Chichikov, Gentleman, Chevalier, and Collegiate Councillor, there
+lurks an error, in that an oversight has led the Petitioner to apply to
+Revisional Souls the term “Dead.” Now, from the context it would appear
+that by this term the Petitioner desires to signify Souls Approaching
+Death rather than Souls Actually Deceased: wherefore the term employed
+betrays such an empirical instruction in letters as must, beyond doubt,
+have been confined to the Village School, seeing that in truth the Soul
+is Deathless.’
+
+“The rascal!” Koshkarev broke off to exclaim delightedly. “He has
+got you there, Monsieur Chichikov. And you will admit that he has a
+sufficiently incisive pen?
+
+“‘(2) On this Estate there exist no Unmortgaged Souls whatsoever,
+whether Approaching Death or Otherwise; for the reason that all Souls
+thereon have been pledged not only under a First Deed of Mortgage, but
+also (for the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Roubles per Soul) under
+a Second,--the village of Gurmailovka alone excepted, in that,
+in consequence of a Suit having been brought against Landowner
+Priadistchev, and of a caveat having been pronounced by the Land Court,
+and of such caveat having been published in No. 42 of the Gazette of
+Moscow, the said Village has come within the Jurisdiction of the Court
+Above-Mentioned.”
+
+“Why did you not tell me all this before?” cried Chichikov furiously.
+“Why you have kept me dancing about for nothing?”
+
+“Because it was absolutely necessary that you should view the matter
+through forms of documentary process. This is no jest on my part. The
+inexperienced may see things subconsciously, yet it is imperative that
+he should also see them CONSCIOUSLY.”
+
+But to Chichikov’s patience an end had come. Seizing his cap, and
+casting all ceremony to the winds, he fled from the house, and rushed
+through the courtyard. As it happened, the man who had driven him
+thither had, warned by experience, not troubled even to take out the
+horses, since he knew that such a proceeding would have entailed not
+only the presentation of a Statement of Plea for fodder, but also a
+delay of twenty-four hours until the Resolution granting the same should
+have been passed. Nevertheless the Colonel pursued his guest to the
+gates, and pressed his hand warmly as he thanked him for having enabled
+him (the Colonel) thus to exhibit in operation the proper management of
+an estate. Also, he begged to state that, under the circumstances, it
+was absolutely necessary to keep things moving and circulating, since,
+otherwise, slackness was apt to supervene, and the working of the
+machine to grow rusty and feeble; but that, in spite of all, the
+present occasion had inspired him with a happy idea--namely, the idea
+of instituting a Committee which should be entitled “The Committee of
+Supervision of the Committee of Management,” and which should have
+for its function the detection of backsliders among the body first
+mentioned.
+
+It was late when, tired and dissatisfied, Chichikov regained
+Kostanzhoglo’s mansion. Indeed, the candles had long been lit.
+
+“What has delayed you?” asked the master of the house as Chichikov
+entered the drawing-room.
+
+“Yes, what has kept you and the Colonel so long in conversation
+together?” added Platon.
+
+“This--the fact that never in my life have I come across such an
+imbecile,” was Chichikov’s reply.
+
+“Never mind,” said Kostanzhoglo. “Koshkarev is a most reassuring
+phenomenon. He is necessary in that in him we see expressed in
+caricature all the more crying follies of our intellectuals--of the
+intellectuals who, without first troubling to make themselves acquainted
+with their own country, borrow silliness from abroad. Yet that is
+how certain of our landowners are now carrying on. They have set up
+‘offices’ and factories and schools and ‘commissions,’ and the devil
+knows what else besides. A fine lot of wiseacres! After the French War
+in 1812 they had to reconstruct their affairs: and see how they have
+done it! Yet so much worse have they done it than a Frenchman would have
+done that any fool of a Peter Petrovitch Pietukh now ranks as a good
+landowner!”
+
+“But he has mortgaged the whole of his estate?” remarked Chichikov.
+
+“Yes, nowadays everything is being mortgaged, or is going to be.” This
+said, Kostanzhoglo’s temper rose still further. “Out upon your factories
+of hats and candles!” he cried. “Out upon procuring candle-makers
+from London, and then turning landowners into hucksters! To think of
+a Russian pomiestchik [49], a member of the noblest of callings,
+conducting workshops and cotton mills! Why, it is for the wenches of
+towns to handle looms for muslin and lace.”
+
+“But you yourself maintain workshops?” remarked Platon.
+
+“I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
+instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
+began to weave it into cloth--but, mark you, only into good, plain cloth
+of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and which
+is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on end
+did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the river;
+wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I took
+to boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by the
+process.”
+
+“The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself as he stared at his host.
+“What a fist this man has for making money!”
+
+“Another reason why I started those factories,” continued Kostanzhoglo,
+“is that they might give employment to many peasants who would otherwise
+have starved. You see, the year happened to have been a lean one--thanks
+to those same industry-mongering landowners, in that they had neglected
+to sow their crops; and now my factories keep growing at the rate of
+a factory a year, owing to the circumstance that such quantities
+of remnants and cuttings become so accumulated that, if a man looks
+carefully to his management, he will find every sort of rubbish to be
+capable of bringing in a return--yes, to the point of his having to
+reject money on the plea that he has no need of it. Yet I do not find
+that to do all this I require to build a mansion with facades and
+pillars!”
+
+“Marvellous!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Beyond all things does it surprise
+me that refuse can be so utilised.”
+
+“Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays every
+one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an instrument
+instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England. Yes, THAT is
+the thing to do. What folly!” Kostanzhoglo spat and added: “Yet when
+he returns from abroad he is a hundred times more ignorant than when he
+went.”
+
+“Ah, Constantine,” put in his wife anxiously, “you know how bad for you
+it is to talk like this.”
+
+“Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too
+closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character
+should be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort of
+Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man get
+a little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote, and
+establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would never have
+dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who is good for
+nothing, whether in the country or in the town--a fellow who drinks
+and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our landowners keep
+taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into philanthropic
+knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless hospitals and
+institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning their families
+adrift. Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy.”
+
+Chichikov’s business had nothing to do with the spread of enlightenment,
+he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further concerning the
+putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo would not let
+him get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow of sarcastic
+comment pour from the speaker’s lips.
+
+“Yes,” went on Kostanzhoglo, “folk are always scheming to educate the
+peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will
+educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown
+stupid to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our present-day
+scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and at once you
+will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will you find
+folk saying: ‘The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought to be
+familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above his
+station.’ And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant will
+become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only knows
+what diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of eighteen
+who will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and found himself
+left with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate. Yes, that is
+what will come of infecting the peasant with such rubbish. But, thank
+God, there is still one healthy class left to us--a class which has
+never taken up with the ‘advantages’ of which I speak. For that we ought
+to be grateful. And since, even yet, the Russian agriculturist remains
+the most respect-worthy man in the land, why should he be touched? Would
+to God every one were an agriculturist!”
+
+“Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of occupations?”
+ said Chichikov.
+
+“The best, at all events--if not the most profitable. ‘In the sweat
+of thy brow shalt thou till the land.’ To quote that requires no
+great wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the
+agricultural calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure, more
+noble than in any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no other
+calling ought to be practised: simply that the calling in question lies
+at the root of all the rest. However much factories may be established
+privately or by the law, there will still lie ready to man’s hand all
+that he needs--he will still require none of those amenities which
+are sapping the vitality of our present-day folk, nor any of those
+industrial establishments which make their profit, and keep themselves
+going, by causing foolish measures to be adopted which, in the end,
+are bound to deprave and corrupt our unfortunate masses. I myself am
+determined never to establish any manufacture, however profitable,
+which will give rise to a demand for ‘higher things,’ such as sugar
+and tobacco--no not if I lose a million by my refusing to do so. If
+corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it shall not be through my hands.
+And I think that God will justify me in my resolve. Twenty years have
+I lived among the common folk, and I know what will inevitably come of
+such things.”
+
+“But what surprises me most,” persisted Chichikov, “is that from refuse
+it should be possible, with good management, to make such an immensity
+of profit.”
+
+“And as for political economy,” continued Kostanzhoglo, without noticing
+him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, “--as for political
+economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool sitting on another
+fool’s back, and flogging him along, even though the rider can see
+no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle will that fool
+climb--spectacles and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of such things!” And
+the speaker spat derisively.
+
+“That may be true,” said his wife. “Yet you must not get angry about it.
+Surely one can speak on such subjects without losing one’s temper?”
+
+“As I listen to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch,” Chichikov
+hastened to remark, “it becomes plain to me that you have penetrated
+into the meaning of life, and laid your finger upon the essential root
+of the matter. Yet supposing, for a moment, we leave the affairs of
+humanity in general, and turn our attention to a purely individual
+affair, might I ask you how, in the case of a man becoming a landowner,
+and having a mind to grow wealthy as quickly as possible (in order that
+he may fulfil his bounden obligations as a citizen), he can best set
+about it?”
+
+“How he can best set about growing wealthy?” repeated Kostanzhoglo.
+“Why,--”
+
+“Let us go to supper,” interrupted the lady of the house, rising from
+her chair, and moving towards the centre of the room, where she wrapped
+her shivering young form in a shawl. Chichikov sprang up with the
+alacrity of a military man, offered her his arm, and escorted her, as
+on parade, to the dining-room, where awaiting them there was the
+soup-toureen. From it the lid had just been removed, and the room was
+redolent of the fragrant odour of early spring roots and herbs. The
+company took their seats, and at once the servants placed the
+remainder of the dishes (under covers) upon the table and withdrew,
+for Kostanzhoglo hated to have servants listening to their employers’
+conversation, and objected still more to their staring at him all the
+while that he was eating.
+
+When the soup had been consumed, and glasses of an excellent vintage
+resembling Hungarian wine had been poured out, Chichikov said to his
+host:
+
+“Most worthy sir, allow me once more to direct your attention to the
+subject of which we were speaking at the point when the conversation
+became interrupted. You will remember that I was asking you how best a
+man can set about, proceed in, the matter of growing...”
+
+
+           [Here from the original two pages are missing.]
+
+
+... “A property for which, had he asked forty thousand, I should still
+have demanded a reduction.”
+
+“Hm!” thought Chichikov; then added aloud: “But why do you not purchase
+it yourself?”
+
+“Because to everything there must be assigned a limit. Already my
+property keeps me sufficiently employed. Moreover, I should cause our
+local dvoriane to begin crying out in chorus that I am exploiting their
+extremities, their ruined position, for the purpose of acquiring land
+for under its value. Of that I am weary.”
+
+“How readily folk speak evil!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+
+“Yes, and the amount of evil-speaking in our province surpasses belief.
+Never will you hear my name mentioned without my being called also
+a miser and a usurer of the worst possible sort; whereas my accusers
+justify themselves in everything, and say that, ‘though we have wasted
+our money, we have started a demand for the higher amenities of life,
+and therefore encouraged industry with our wastefulness, a far better
+way of doing things than that practised by Kostanzhoglo, who lives like
+a pig.’”
+
+“Would _I_ could live in your ‘piggish’ fashion!” ejaculated Chichikov.
+
+“And so forth, and so forth. Yet what are the ‘higher amenities of
+life’? What good can they do to any one? Even if a landowner of the
+day sets up a library, he never looks at a single book in it, but soon
+relapses into card-playing--the usual pursuit. Yet folk call me names
+simply because I do not waste my means upon the giving of dinners! One
+reason why I do not give such dinners is that they weary me; and another
+reason is that I am not used to them. But come you to my house for the
+purpose of taking pot luck, and I shall be delighted to see you. Also,
+folk foolishly say that I lend money on interest; whereas the truth is
+that if you should come to me when you are really in need, and should
+explain to me openly how you propose to employ my money, and I should
+perceive that you are purposing to use that money wisely, and that you
+are really likely to profit thereby--well, in that case you would find
+me ready to lend you all that you might ask without interest at all.”
+
+“That is a thing which it is well to know,” reflected Chichikov.
+
+“Yes,” repeated Kostanzhoglo, “under those circumstances I should never
+refuse you my assistance. But I do object to throwing my money to the
+winds. Pardon me for expressing myself so plainly. To think of lending
+money to a man who is merely devising a dinner for his mistress, or
+planning to furnish his house like a lunatic, or thinking of taking his
+paramour to a masked ball or a jubilee in honour of some one who had
+better never have been born!”
+
+And, spitting, he came near to venting some expression which would
+scarcely have been becoming in the presence of his wife. Over his face
+the dark shadow of hypochondria had cast a cloud, and furrows had formed
+on his brow and temples, and his every gesture bespoke the influence of
+a hot, nervous rancour.
+
+“But allow me once more to direct your attention to the subject of our
+recently interrupted conversation,” persisted Chichikov as he sipped a
+glass of excellent raspberry wine. “That is to say, supposing I were
+to acquire the property which you have been good enough to bring to my
+notice, how long would it take me to grow rich?”
+
+“That would depend on yourself,” replied Kostanzhoglo with grim
+abruptness and evident ill-humour. “You might either grow rich quickly
+or you might never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow
+rich, sooner or later you would find yourself a wealthy man.”
+
+“Indeed?” ejaculated Chichikov.
+
+“Yes,” replied Kostanzhoglo, as sharply as though he were angry with
+Chichikov. “You would merely need to be fond of work: otherwise you
+would effect nothing. The main thing is to like looking after your
+property. Believe me, you would never grow weary of doing so. People
+would have it that life in the country is dull; whereas, if I were to
+spend a single day as it is spent by some folk, with their stupid clubs
+and their restaurants and their theatres, I should die of ennui. The
+fools, the idiots, the generations of blind dullards! But a landowner
+never finds the days wearisome--he has not the time. In his life not a
+moment remains unoccupied; it is full to the brim. And with it all goes
+an endless variety of occupations. And what occupations! Occupations
+which genuinely uplift the soul, seeing that the landowner walks with
+nature and the seasons of the year, and takes part in, and is intimate
+with, everything which is evolved by creation. For let us look at the
+round of the year’s labours. Even before spring has arrived there will
+have begun a general watching and a waiting for it, and a preparing for
+sowing, and an apportioning of crops, and a measuring of seed grain by
+byres, and drying of seed, and a dividing of the workers into teams.
+For everything needs to be examined beforehand, and calculations must be
+made at the very start. And as soon as ever the ice shall have melted,
+and the rivers be flowing, and the land have dried sufficiently to be
+workable, the spade will begin its task in kitchen and flower garden,
+and the plough and the harrow their tasks in the field; until everywhere
+there will be tilling and sowing and planting. And do you understand
+what the sum of that labour will mean? It will mean that the harvest is
+being sown, that the welfare of the world is being sown, that the
+food of millions is being put into the earth. And thereafter will come
+summer, the season of reaping, endless reaping; for suddenly the crops
+will have ripened, and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped upon rye-sheaf,
+with, elsewhere, stocks of barley, and of oats, and of wheat. And
+everything will be teeming with life, and not a moment will there need
+to be lost, seeing that, had you even twenty eyes, you would have need
+for them all. And after the harvest festivities there will be grain to
+be carted to byre or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared for the
+winter, and storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned for the
+same purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the totals
+of everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of
+what has been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every
+threshing-floor the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed,
+will need to be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be
+seen to, and the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen’s
+huts to be visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is
+faring (for, given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one,
+am only too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering
+to me is labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which
+everything is moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are
+everywhere multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more
+fruit to one’s profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes
+place in a man’s soul. And that, not because of the growth in his
+wealth--money is money and no more--but because he will feel that
+everything is the work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause
+of everything, and its creator, and that from him, as from a magician,
+there has flowed bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will
+you find such delights in prospect?” As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised
+his face, and it became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and
+that, like the Tsar on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo’s
+whole form was diffusing light, and his features had in them a gentle
+radiance. “In all the world,” he repeated, “you will find no joys like
+these, for herein man imitates the God who projected creation as the
+supreme happiness, and now demands of man that he, too, should act as
+the creator of prosperity. Yet there are folk who call such functions
+tedious!”
+
+Kostanzhoglo’s mellifluous periods fell upon Chichikov’s ear like
+the notes of a bird of paradise. From time to time he gulped, and his
+softened eyes expressed the pleasure which it gave him to listen.
+
+“Constantine, it is time to leave the table,” said the lady of the
+house, rising from her seat. Every one followed her example, and
+Chichikov once again acted as his hostess’s escort--although with less
+dexterity of deportment than before, owing to the fact that this time
+his thoughts were occupied with more essential matters of procedure.
+
+“In spite of what you say,” remarked Platon as he walked behind the
+pair, “I, for my part, find these things wearisome.”
+
+But the master of the house paid no attention to his remark, for he was
+reflecting that his guest was no fool, but a man of serious thought
+and speech who did not take things lightly. And, with the thought,
+Kostanzhoglo grew lighter in soul, as though he had warmed himself with
+his own words, and were exulting in the fact that he had found some one
+capable of listening to good advice.
+
+When they had settled themselves in the cosy, candle-lighted
+drawing-room, with its balcony and the glass door opening out into the
+garden--a door through which the stars could be seen glittering amid the
+slumbering tops of the trees--Chichikov felt more comfortable than he
+had done for many a day past. It was as though, after long journeying,
+his own roof-tree had received him once more--had received him when
+his quest had been accomplished, when all that he wished for had been
+gained, when his travelling-staff had been laid aside with the words “It
+is finished.” And of this seductive frame of mind the true source had
+been the eloquent discourse of his hospitable host. Yes, for every man
+there exist certain things which, instantly that they are said, seem to
+touch him more closely, more intimately, than anything has done before.
+Nor is it an uncommon occurrence that in the most unexpected fashion,
+and in the most retired of retreats, one will suddenly come face to face
+with a man whose burning periods will lead one to forget oneself and
+the tracklessness of the route and the discomfort of one’s nightly
+halting-places, and the futility of crazes and the falseness of tricks
+by which one human being deceives another. And at once there will become
+engraven upon one’s memory--vividly, and for all time--the evening thus
+spent. And of that evening one’s remembrance will hold true, both as to
+who was present, and where each such person sat, and what he or she was
+wearing, and what the walls and the stove and other trifling features of
+the room looked like.
+
+In the same way did Chichikov note each detail that evening--both the
+appointments of the agreeable, but not luxuriously furnished, room, and
+the good-humoured expression which reigned on the face of the thoughtful
+host, and the design of the curtains, and the amber-mounted pipe smoked
+by Platon, and the way in which he kept puffing smoke into the fat
+jowl of the dog Yarb, and the sneeze which, on each such occasion, Yarb
+vented, and the laughter of the pleasant-faced hostess (though always
+followed by the words “Pray do not tease him any more”) and the cheerful
+candle-light, and the cricket chirping in a corner, and the glass door,
+and the spring night which, laying its elbows upon the tree-tops, and
+spangled with stars, and vocal with the nightingales which were pouring
+forth warbled ditties from the recesses of the foliage, kept glancing
+through the door, and regarding the company within.
+
+“How it delights me to hear your words, good Constantine Thedorovitch!”
+ said Chichikov. “Indeed, nowhere in Russia have I met with a man of
+equal intellect.”
+
+Kostanzhoglo smiled, while realising that the compliment was scarcely
+deserved.
+
+“If you want a man of GENUINE intellect,” he said, “I can tell you of
+one. He is a man whose boot soles are worth more than my whole body.”
+
+“Who may he be?” asked Chichikov in astonishment.
+
+“Murazov, our local Commissioner of Taxes.”
+
+“Ah! I have heard of him before,” remarked Chichikov.
+
+“He is a man who, were he not the director of an estate, might well be a
+director of the Empire. And were the Empire under my direction, I should
+at once appoint him my Minister of Finance.”
+
+“I have heard tales beyond belief concerning him--for instance, that he
+has acquired ten million roubles.”
+
+“Ten? More than forty. Soon half Russia will be in his hands.”
+
+“You don’t say so?” cried Chichikov in amazement.
+
+“Yes, certainly. The man who has only a hundred thousand roubles to work
+with grows rich but slowly, whereas he who has millions at his disposal
+can operate over a greater radius, and so back whatsoever he undertakes
+with twice or thrice the money which can be brought against him.
+Consequently his field becomes so spacious that he ends by having no
+rivals. Yes, no one can compete with him, and, whatsoever price he may
+fix for a given commodity, at that price it will have to remain, nor
+will any man be able to outbid it.”
+
+“My God!” muttered Chichikov, crossing himself, and staring at
+Kostanzhoglo with his breath catching in his throat. “The mind cannot
+grasp it--it petrifies one’s thoughts with awe. You see folk marvelling
+at what Science has achieved in the matter of investigating the habits
+of cowbugs, but to me it is a far more marvellous thing that in the
+hands of a single mortal there can become accumulated such gigantic sums
+of money. But may I ask whether the great fortune of which you speak has
+been acquired through honest means?”
+
+“Yes; through means of the most irreproachable kind--through the most
+honourable of methods.”
+
+“Yet so improbable does it seem that I can scarcely believe it.
+Thousands I could understand, but millions--!”
+
+“On the contrary, to make thousands honestly is a far more difficult
+matter than to make millions. Millions are easily come by, for a
+millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways; the way lies straight
+before him, and he needs but to annex whatsoever he comes across. No
+rival will spring up to oppose him, for no rival will be sufficiently
+strong, and since the millionaire can operate over an extensive radius,
+he can bring (as I have said) two or three roubles to bear upon any one
+else’s one. Consequently, what interest will he derive from a thousand
+roubles? Why, ten or twenty per cent. at the least.”
+
+“And it is beyond measure marvellous that the whole should have started
+from a single kopeck.”
+
+“Had it started otherwise, the thing could never have been done at all.
+Such is the normal course. He who is born with thousands, and is brought
+up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for he will
+have been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and so never
+come to stand in need of anything. It is necessary to begin from the
+beginning rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather than from a
+rouble; from the bottom rather than from the top. For only thus will a
+man get to know the men and conditions among which his career will have
+to be carved. That is to say, through encountering the rough and the
+tumble of life, and through learning that every kopeck has to be beaten
+out with a three-kopeck nail, and through worsting knave after knave, he
+will acquire such a degree of perspicuity and wariness that he will err
+in nothing which he may tackle, and never come to ruin. Believe me, it
+is so. The beginning, and not the middle, is the right starting point.
+No one who comes to me and says, ‘Give me a hundred thousand roubles,
+and I will grow rich in no time,’ do I believe, for he is likely to meet
+with failure rather than with the success of which he is so assured.
+’Tis with a kopeck, and with a kopeck only, that a man must begin.”
+
+“If that is so, _I_ shall grow rich,” said Chichikov, involuntarily
+remembering the dead souls. “For of a surety _I_ began with nothing.”
+
+“Constantine, pray allow Paul Ivanovitch to retire to rest,” put in
+the lady of the house. “It is high time, and I am sure you have talked
+enough.”
+
+“Yes, beyond a doubt you will grow rich,” continued Kostanzhoglo,
+without heeding his wife. “For towards you there will run rivers and
+rivers of gold, until you will not know what to do with all your gains.”
+
+As though spellbound, Chichikov sat in an aureate world of ever-growing
+dreams and fantasies. All his thoughts were in a whirl, and on a carpet
+of future wealth his tumultuous imagination was weaving golden patterns,
+while ever in his ears were ringing the words, “towards you there will
+run rivers and rivers of gold.”
+
+“Really, Constantine, DO allow Paul Ivanovitch to go to bed.”
+
+“What on earth is the matter?” retorted the master of the household
+testily. “Pray go yourself if you wish to.” Then he stopped short, for
+the snoring of Platon was filling the whole room, and also--outrivalling
+it--that of the dog Yarb. This caused Kostanzhoglo to realise that
+bedtime really had arrived; wherefore, after he had shaken Platon out
+of his slumbers, and bidden Chichikov good night, all dispersed to their
+several chambers, and became plunged in sleep.
+
+All, that is to say, except Chichikov, whose thoughts remained wakeful,
+and who kept wondering and wondering how best he could become the owner,
+not of a fictitious, but of a real, estate. The conversation with
+his host had made everything clear, had made the possibility of
+his acquiring riches manifest, had made the difficult art of estate
+management at once easy and understandable; until it would seem as
+though particularly was his nature adapted for mastering the art in
+question. All that he would need to do would be to mortgage the dead
+souls, and then to set up a genuine establishment. Already he
+saw himself acting and administering as Kostanzhoglo had advised
+him--energetically, and through personal oversight, and undertaking
+nothing new until the old had been thoroughly learned, and viewing
+everything with his own eyes, and making himself familiar with each
+member of his peasantry, and abjuring all superfluities, and giving
+himself up to hard work and husbandry. Yes, already could he taste the
+pleasure which would be his when he had built up a complete industrial
+organisation, and the springs of the industrial machine were in vigorous
+working order, and each had become able to reinforce the other. Labour
+should be kept in active operation, and, even as, in a mill, flour comes
+flowing from grain, so should cash, and yet more cash, come flowing from
+every atom of refuse and remnant. And all the while he could see before
+him the landowner who was one of the leading men in Russia, and for whom
+he had conceived such an unbounded respect. Hitherto only for rank or
+for opulence had Chichikov respected a man--never for mere intellectual
+power; but now he made a first exception in favour of Kostanzhoglo,
+seeing that he felt that nothing undertaken by his host could possibly
+come to naught. And another project which was occupying Chichikov’s mind
+was the project of purchasing the estate of a certain landowner named
+Khlobuev. Already Chichikov had at his disposal ten thousand roubles,
+and a further fifteen thousand he would try and borrow of Kostanzhoglo
+(seeing that the latter had himself said that he was prepared to help
+any one who really desired to grow rich); while, as for the remainder,
+he would either raise the sum by mortgaging the estate or force Khlobuev
+to wait for it--just to tell him to resort to the courts if such might
+be his pleasure.
+
+Long did our hero ponder the scheme; until at length the slumber which
+had, these four hours past, been holding the rest of the household in
+its embraces enfolded also Chichikov, and he sank into oblivion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Next day, with Platon and Constantine, Chichikov set forth to interview
+Khlobuev, the owner whose estate Constantine had consented to help
+Chichikov to purchase with a non-interest-bearing, uncovenanted loan of
+ten thousand roubles. Naturally, our hero was in the highest of spirits.
+For the first fifteen versts or so the road led through forest land and
+tillage belonging to Platon and his brother-in-law; but directly the
+limit of these domains was reached, forest land began to be replaced
+with swamp, and tillage with waste. Also, the village in Khlobuev’s
+estate had about it a deserted air, and as for the proprietor himself,
+he was discovered in a state of drowsy dishevelment, having not long
+left his bed. A man of about forty, he had his cravat crooked, his
+frockcoat adorned with a large stain, and one of his boots worn through.
+Nevertheless he seemed delighted to see his visitors.
+
+“What?” he exclaimed. “Constantine Thedorovitch and Platon Mikhalitch?
+Really I must rub my eyes! Never again in this world did I look to see
+callers arriving. As a rule, folk avoid me like the devil, for they
+cannot disabuse their minds of the idea that I am going to ask them for
+a loan. Yes, it is my own fault, I know, but what would you? To the end
+will swine cheat swine. Pray excuse my costume. You will observe that my
+boots are in holes. But how can I afford to get them mended?”
+
+“Never mind,” said Constantine. “We have come on business only. May I
+present to you a possible purchaser of your estate, in the person of
+Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+
+“I am indeed glad to meet you!” was Khlobuev’s response. “Pray shake
+hands with me, Paul Ivanovitch.”
+
+Chichikov offered one hand, but not both.
+
+“I can show you a property worth your attention,” went on the master of
+the estate. “May I ask if you have yet dined?”
+
+“Yes, we have,” put in Constantine, desirous of escaping as soon as
+possible. “To save you further trouble, let us go and view the estate at
+once.”
+
+“Very well,” replied Khlobuev. “Pray come and inspect my irregularities
+and futilities. You have done well to dine beforehand, for not so much
+as a fowl is left in the place, so dire are the extremities to which you
+see me reduced.”
+
+Sighing deeply, he took Platon by the arm (it was clear that he did
+not look for any sympathy from Constantine) and walked ahead, while
+Constantine and Chichikov followed.
+
+“Things are going hard with me, Platon Mikhalitch,” continued Khlobuev.
+“How hard you cannot imagine. No money have I, no food, no boots. Were
+I still young and a bachelor, it would have come easy to me to live on
+bread and cheese; but when a man is growing old, and has got a wife
+and five children, such trials press heavily upon him, and, in spite of
+himself, his spirits sink.”
+
+“But, should you succeed in selling the estate, that would help to put
+you right, would it not?” said Platon.
+
+“How could it do so?” replied Khlobuev with a despairing gesture. “What
+I might get for the property would have to go towards discharging my
+debts, and I should find myself left with less than a thousand roubles
+besides.”
+
+“Then what do you intend to do?”
+
+“God knows.”
+
+“But is there NOTHING to which you could set your hand in order to clear
+yourself of your difficulties?”
+
+“How could there be?”
+
+“Well, you might accept a Government post.”
+
+“Become a provincial secretary, you mean? How could I obtain such a
+post? They would not offer me one of the meanest possible kind. Even
+supposing that they did, how could I live on a salary of five hundred
+roubles--I who have a wife and five children?”
+
+“Then try and obtain a bailiff’s post.”
+
+“Who would entrust their property to a man who has squandered his own
+estate?”
+
+“Nevertheless, when death and destitution threaten, a man must either
+do something or starve. Shall I ask my brother to use his influence to
+procure you a post?”
+
+“No, no, Platon Mikhalitch,” sighed Khlobuev, gripping the other’s hand.
+“I am no longer serviceable--I am grown old before my time, and find
+that liver and rheumatism are paying me for the sins of my youth. Why
+should the Government be put to a loss on my account?--not to speak of
+the fact that for every salaried post there are countless numbers of
+applicants. God forbid that, in order to provide me with a livelihood
+further burdens should be imposed upon an impoverished public!”
+
+“Such are the results of improvident management!” thought Platon to
+himself. “The disease is even worse than my slothfulness.”
+
+Meanwhile Kostanzhoglo, walking by Chichikov’s side, was almost taking
+leave of his senses.
+
+“Look at it!” he cried with a wave of his hand. “See to what
+wretchedness the peasant has become reduced! Should cattle disease come,
+Khlobuev will have nothing to fall back upon, but will be forced to sell
+his all--to leave the peasant without a horse, and therefore without the
+means to labour, even though the loss of a single day’s work may take
+years of labour to rectify. Meanwhile it is plain that the local peasant
+has become a mere dissolute, lazy drunkard. Give a muzhik enough to live
+upon for twelve months without working, and you will corrupt him for
+ever, so inured to rags and vagrancy will he grow. And what is the good
+of that piece of pasture there--of that piece on the further side of
+those huts? It is a mere flooded tract. Were it mine, I should put
+it under flax, and clear five thousand roubles, or else sow it with
+turnips, and clear, perhaps, four thousand. And see how the rye is
+drooping, and nearly laid. As for wheat, I am pretty sure that he has
+not sown any. Look, too, at those ravines! Were they mine, they would
+be standing under timber which even a rook could not top. To think of
+wasting such quantities of land! Where land wouldn’t bear corn, I should
+dig it up, and plant it with vegetables. What ought to be done is that
+Khlobuev ought to take a spade into his own hands, and to set his wife
+and children and servants to do the same; and even if they died of the
+exertion, they would at least die doing their duty, and not through
+guzzling at the dinner table.”
+
+This said, Kostanzhoglo spat, and his brow flushed with grim
+indignation.
+
+Presently they reached an elevation whence the distant flashing of a
+river, with its flood waters and subsidiary streams, caught the eye,
+while, further off, a portion of General Betristchev’s homestead could
+be discerned among the trees, and, over it, a blue, densely wooded hill
+which Chichikov guessed to be the spot where Tientietnikov’s mansion was
+situated.
+
+“This is where I should plant timber,” said Chichikov. “And, regarded
+as a site for a manor house, the situation could scarcely be beaten for
+beauty of view.”
+
+“You seem to get great store upon views and beauty,” remarked
+Kostanzhoglo with reproof in his tone. “Should you pay too much
+attention to those things, you might find yourself without crops or
+view. Utility should be placed first, not beauty. Beauty will come of
+itself. Take, for example, towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns
+are those which have built themselves--those in which each man has built
+to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which
+men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than
+collections of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only to what is
+NECESSARY.”
+
+“Yes, but to me it would always be irksome to have to wait. All the time
+that I was doing so I should be hungering to see in front of me the
+sort of prospect which I prefer.”
+
+“Come, come! Are you a man of twenty-five--you who have served as a
+tchinovnik in St. Petersburg? Have patience, have patience. For six
+years work, and work hard. Plant, sow, and dig the earth without taking
+a moment’s rest. It will be difficult, I know--yes, difficult indeed;
+but at the end of that time, if you have thoroughly stirred the soil,
+the land will begin to help you as nothing else can do. That is to say,
+over and above your seventy or so pairs of hands, there will begin to
+assist in the work seven hundred pairs of hands which you cannot see.
+Thus everything will be multiplied tenfold. I myself have ceased even
+to have to lift a finger, for whatsoever needs to be done gets done of
+itself. Nature loves patience: always remember that. It is a law given
+her of God Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure.”
+
+“To hear your words is to be both encouraged and strengthened,” said
+Chichikov. To this Kostanzhoglo made no reply, but presently went on:
+
+“And see how that piece of land has been ploughed! To stay here longer
+is more than I can do. For me, to have to look upon such want of
+orderliness and foresight is death. Finish your business with Khlobuev
+without me, and whatsoever you do, get this treasure out of that fool’s
+hands as quickly as possible, for he is dishonouring God’s gifts.”
+
+And Kostanzhoglo, his face dark with the rage that was seething in
+his excitable soul, left Chichikov, and caught up the owner of the
+establishment.
+
+“What, Constantine Thedorovitch?” cried Khlobuev in astonishment. “Just
+arrived, you are going already?”
+
+“Yes; I cannot help it; urgent business requires me at home.” And
+entering his gig, Kostanzhoglo drove rapidly away. Somehow Khlobuev
+seemed to divine the cause of his sudden departure.
+
+“It was too much for him,” he remarked. “An agriculturist of that
+kind does not like to have to look upon the results of such feckless
+management as mine. Would you believe it, Paul Ivanovitch, but this year
+I have been unable to sow any wheat! Am I not a fine husbandman? There
+was no seed for the purpose, nor yet anything with which to prepare the
+ground. No, I am not like Constantine Thedorovitch, who, I hear, is a
+perfect Napoleon in his particular line. Again and again the thought
+occurs to me, ‘Why has so much intellect been put into that head, and
+only a drop or two into my own dull pate?’ Take care of that puddle,
+gentlemen. I have told my peasants to lay down planks for the spring,
+but they have not done so. Nevertheless my heart aches for the poor
+fellows, for they need a good example, and what sort of an example am I?
+How am _I_ to give them orders? Pray take them under your charge, Paul
+Ivanovitch, for I cannot teach them orderliness and method when I myself
+lack both. As a matter of fact, I should have given them their freedom
+long ago, had there been any use in my doing so; for even I can see that
+peasants must first be afforded the means of earning a livelihood before
+they can live. What they need is a stern, yet just, master who shall
+live with them, day in, day out, and set them an example of tireless
+energy. The present-day Russian--I know of it myself--is helpless
+without a driver. Without one he falls asleep, and the mould grows over
+him.”
+
+“Yet I cannot understand WHY he should fall asleep and grow mouldy in
+that fashion,” said Platon. “Why should he need continual surveillance
+to keep him from degenerating into a drunkard and a good-for-nothing?”
+
+“The cause is lack of enlightenment,” said Chichikov.
+
+“Possibly--only God knows. Yet enlightenment has reached us right
+enough. Do we not attend university lectures and everything else that
+is befitting? Take my own education. I learnt not only the usual things,
+but also the art of spending money upon the latest refinement, the
+latest amenity--the art of familiarising oneself with whatsoever money
+can buy. How, then, can it be said that I was educated foolishly? And
+my comrades’ education was the same. A few of them succeeded in annexing
+the cream of things, for the reason that they had the wit to do so, and
+the rest spent their time in doing their best to ruin their health and
+squander their money. Often I think there is no hope for the present-day
+Russian. While desiring to do everything, he accomplishes nothing. One
+day he will scheme to begin a new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet
+before evening he will have so over-eaten himself as to be unable to
+speak or do aught but sit staring like an owl. The same with every one.”
+
+“Quite so,” agreed Chichikov with a smile. “’Tis everywhere the same
+story.”
+
+“To tell the truth, we are not born to common sense. I doubt whether
+Russia has ever produced a really sensible man. For my own part, if I
+see my neighbour living a regular life, and making money, and saving
+it, I begin to distrust him, and to feel certain that in old age, if not
+before, he too will be led astray by the devil--led astray in a moment.
+Yes, whether or not we be educated, there is something we lack. But what
+that something is passes my understanding.”
+
+On the return journey the prospect was the same as before. Everywhere
+the same slovenliness, the same disorder, was displaying itself
+unadorned: the only difference being that a fresh puddle had formed in
+the middle of the village street. This want and neglect was noticeable
+in the peasants’ quarters equally with the quarters of the barin. In
+the village a furious woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor young
+wench within an ace of her life, and at the same time devoting some
+third person to the care of all the devils in hell; further away
+a couple of peasants were stoically contemplating the virago--one
+scratching his rump as he did so, and the other yawning. The same yawn
+was discernible in the buildings, for not a roof was there but had a
+gaping hole in it. As he gazed at the scene Platon himself yawned. Patch
+was superimposed upon patch, and, in place of a roof, one hut had a
+piece of wooden fencing, while its crumbling window-frames were stayed
+with sticks purloined from the barin’s barn. Evidently the system
+of upkeep in vogue was the system employed in the case of Trishkin’s
+coat--the system of cutting up the cuffs and the collar into mendings
+for the elbows.
+
+“No, I do not admire your way of doing things,” was Chichikov’s unspoken
+comment when the inspection had been concluded and the party had
+re-entered the house. Everywhere in the latter the visitors were
+struck with the way in which poverty went with glittering, fashionable
+profusion. On a writing-table lay a volume of Shakespeare, and, on an
+occasional table, a carved ivory back-scratcher. The hostess, too, was
+elegantly and fashionably attired, and devoted her whole conversation
+to the town and the local theatre. Lastly, the children--bright, merry
+little things--were well-dressed both as regards boys and girls. Yet
+far better would it have been for them if they had been clad in plain
+striped smocks, and running about the courtyard like peasant children.
+Presently a visitor arrived in the shape of a chattering, gossiping
+woman; whereupon the hostess carried her off to her own portion of the
+house, and, the children following them, the men found themselves alone.
+
+“How much do you want for the property?” asked Chichikov of Khlobuev.
+“I am afraid I must request you to name the lowest possible sum, since I
+find the estate in a far worse condition than I had expected to do.”
+
+“Yes, it IS in a terrible state,” agreed Khlobuev. “Nor is that the
+whole of the story. That is to say, I will not conceal from you the fact
+that, out of a hundred souls registered at the last revision, only fifty
+survive, so terrible have been the ravages of cholera. And of these,
+again, some have absconded; wherefore they too must be reckoned as dead,
+seeing that, were one to enter process against them, the costs would
+end in the property having to pass en bloc to the legal authorities.
+For these reasons I am asking only thirty-five thousand roubles for the
+estate.”
+
+Chichikov (it need hardly be said) started to haggle.
+
+“Thirty-five thousand?” he cried. “Come, come! Surely you will accept
+TWENTY-five thousand?”
+
+This was too much for Platon’s conscience.
+
+“Now, now, Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed. “Take the property at the
+price named, and have done with it. The estate is worth at least that
+amount--so much so that, should you not be willing to give it, my
+brother-in-law and I will club together to effect the purchase.”
+
+“That being so,” said Chichikov, taken aback, “I beg to agree to the
+price in question. At the same time, I must ask you to allow me to defer
+payment of one-half of the purchase money until a year from now.”
+
+“No, no, Paul Ivanovitch. Under no circumstances could I do that. Pay
+me half now, and the rest in... [50] You see, I need the money for the
+redemption of the mortgage.”
+
+“That places me in a difficulty,” remarked Chichikov. “Ten thousand
+roubles is all that at the moment I have available.” As a matter of
+fact, this was not true, seeing that, counting also the money which he
+had borrowed of Kostanzhoglo, he had at his disposal TWENTY thousand.
+His real reason for hesitating was that he disliked the idea of making
+so large a payment in a lump sum.
+
+“I must repeat my request, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Khlobuev, “--namely,
+that you pay me at least fifteen thousand immediately.”
+
+“The odd five thousand _I_ will lend you,” put in Platon to Chichikov.
+
+“Indeed?” exclaimed Chichikov as he reflected: “So he also lends money!”
+
+In the end Chichikov’s dispatch-box was brought from the koliaska, and
+Khlobuev received thence ten thousand roubles, together with a promise
+that the remaining five thousand should be forthcoming on the morrow;
+though the promise was given only after Chichikov had first proposed
+that THREE thousand should be brought on the day named, and the rest
+be left over for two or three days longer, if not for a still more
+protracted period. The truth was that Paul Ivanovitch hated parting with
+money. No matter how urgent a situation might have been, he would still
+have preferred to pay a sum to-morrow rather than to-day. In other
+words, he acted as we all do, for we all like keeping a petitioner
+waiting. “Let him rub his back in the hall for a while,” we say. “Surely
+he can bide his time a little?” Yet of the fact that every hour may be
+precious to the poor wretch, and that his business may suffer from
+the delay, we take no account. “Good sir,” we say, “pray come again
+to-morrow. To-day I have no time to spare you.”
+
+“Where do you intend henceforth to live?” inquired Platon. “Have you any
+other property to which you can retire?”
+
+“No,” replied Khlobuev. “I shall remove to the town, where I possess
+a small villa. That would have been necessary, in any case, for the
+children’s sake. You see, they must have instruction in God’s word, and
+also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can these
+things be procured in the country.
+
+“Nothing to eat, yet dancing lessons for his children!” reflected
+Chichikov.
+
+“An extraordinary man!” was Platon’s unspoken comment.
+
+“However, we must contrive to wet our bargain somehow,” continued
+Khlobuev. “Hi, Kirushka! Bring that bottle of champagne.”
+
+“Nothing to eat, yet champagne to drink!” reflected Chichikov. As for
+Platon, he did not know WHAT to think.
+
+In Khlobuev’s eyes it was de rigueur that he should provide a guest with
+champagne; but, though he had sent to the town for some, he had been met
+with a blank refusal to forward even a bottle of kvass on credit.
+Only the discovery of a French dealer who had recently transferred his
+business from St. Petersburg, and opened a connection on a system
+of general credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev under the
+obligation of patronising him.
+
+The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful.
+In particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and
+friendliness, and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left.
+What knowledge of men and the world did his utterances display! How well
+and accurately could he divine things! With what appositeness did he
+sketch the neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their
+faults and failings! How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined
+gentry--the story of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen
+upon evil days! With what comic originality could he describe their
+little habits and customs!
+
+In short, his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and
+felt inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect.
+
+“What most surprises me,” said Chichikov, “is how, in view of your
+ability, you come to be so destitute of means or resources.”
+
+“But I have plenty of both,” said Khlobuev, and with that went on to
+deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects
+proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge
+of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and
+mentally exclaim: “Good Lord! What a difference between worldly wisdom
+and the capacity to use it!” In every case the projects in question were
+based upon the imperative necessity of at once procuring from somewhere
+two hundred--or at least one hundred--thousand roubles. That done (so
+Khlobuev averred), everything would fall into its proper place,
+the holes in his pockets would become stopped, his income would be
+quadrupled, and he would find himself in a position to liquidate his
+debts in full. Nevertheless he ended by saying: “What would you advise
+me to do? I fear that the philanthropist who would lend me two hundred
+thousand roubles or even a hundred thousand, does not exist. It is not
+God’s will that he should.”
+
+“Good gracious!” inwardly ejaculated Chichikov. “To suppose that God
+would send such a fool two hundred thousand roubles!”
+
+“However,” went on Khlobuev, “I possess an aunt worth three millions--a
+pious old woman who gives freely to churches and monasteries, but finds
+a difficulty in helping her neighbour. At the same time, she is a lady
+of the old school, and worth having a peep at. Her canaries alone
+number four hundred, and, in addition, there is an army of pug-dogs,
+hangers-on, and servants. Even the youngest of the servants is sixty,
+but she calls them all ‘young fellows,’ and if a guest happens to offend
+her during dinner, she orders them to leave him out when handing out the
+dishes. THERE’S a woman for you!”
+
+Platon laughed.
+
+“And what may her family name be?” asked Chichikov. “And where does she
+live?”
+
+“She lives in the county town, and her name is Alexandra Ivanovna
+Khanasarov.”
+
+“Then why do you not apply to her?” asked Platon earnestly. “It seems
+to me that, once she realised the position of your family, she could not
+possibly refuse you.”
+
+“Alas! nothing is to be looked for from that quarter,” replied Khlobuev.
+“My aunt is of a very stubborn disposition--a perfect stone of a woman.
+Moreover, she has around her a sufficient band of favourites already.
+In particular is there a fellow who is aiming for a Governorship, and
+to that end has managed to insinuate himself into the circle of her
+kinsfolk. By the way,” the speaker added, turning to Platon, “would you
+do me a favour? Next week I am giving a dinner to the associated guilds
+of the town.”
+
+Platon stared. He had been unaware that both in our capitals and in
+our provincial towns there exists a class of men whose lives are
+an enigma--men who, though they will seem to have exhausted their
+substance, and to have become enmeshed in debt, will suddenly be
+reported as in funds, and on the point of giving a dinner! And though,
+at this dinner, the guests will declare that the festival is bound to
+be their host’s last fling, and that for a certainty he will be haled to
+prison on the morrow, ten years or more will elapse, and the rascal will
+still be at liberty, even though, in the meanwhile, his debts will have
+increased!
+
+In the same way did the conduct of Khlobuev’s menage afford a curious
+phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te
+Deum, performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play
+performed by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again,
+one day would see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day a
+banquet and generous largesse given to a party of artists and sculptors.
+During these seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to have led any
+one but Khlobuev to seek suicide by hanging or shooting), the master of
+the house would be preserved from rash action by his strongly religious
+disposition, which, contriving in some curious way to conform with his
+irregular mode of life, enabled him to fall back upon reading the lives
+of saints, ascetics, and others of the type which has risen superior to
+its misfortunes. And at such times his spirit would become softened, his
+thoughts full of gentleness, and his eyes wet with tears; he would fall
+to saying his prayers, and invariably some strange coincidence would
+bring an answer thereto in the shape of an unexpected measure of
+assistance. That is to say, some former friend of his would remember
+him, and send him a trifle in the way of money; or else some female
+visitor would be moved by his story to let her impulsive, generous heart
+proffer him a handsome gift; or else a suit whereof tidings had never
+even reached his ears would end by being decided in his favour. And when
+that happened he would reverently acknowledge the immensity of the mercy
+of Providence, gratefully tender thanksgiving for the same, and betake
+himself again to his irregular mode of existence.
+
+“Somehow I feel sorry for the man,” said Platon when he and Chichikov
+had taken leave of their host, and left the house.
+
+“Perhaps so, but he is a hopeless prodigal,” replied the other.
+“Personally I find it impossible to compassionate such fellows.”
+
+And with that the pair ceased to devote another thought to Khlobuev. In
+the case of Platon, this was because he contemplated the fortunes of his
+fellows with the lethargic, half-somnolent eye which he turned upon all
+the rest of the world; for though the sight of distress of others would
+cause his heart to contract and feel full of sympathy, the impression
+thus produced never sank into the depths of his being. Accordingly,
+before many minutes were over he had ceased to bestow a single thought
+upon his late host. With Chichikov, however, things were different.
+Whereas Platon had ceased to think of Khlobuev no more than he had
+ceased to think of himself, Chichikov’s mind had strayed elsewhere,
+for the reason that it had become taken up with grave meditation on the
+subject of the purchase just made. Suddenly finding himself no longer
+a fictitious proprietor, but the owner of a real, an actually existing,
+estate, he became contemplative, and his plans and ideas assumed such a
+serious vein as imparted to his features an unconsciously important air.
+
+“Patience and hard work!” he muttered to himself. “The thing will not be
+difficult, for with those two requisites I have been familiar from the
+days of my swaddling clothes. Yes, no novelty will they be to me. Yet,
+in middle age, shall I be able to compass the patience whereof I was
+capable in my youth?”
+
+However, no matter how he regarded the future, and no matter from what
+point of view he considered his recent acquisition, he could see nothing
+but advantage likely to accrue from the bargain. For one thing, he might
+be able to proceed so that, first the whole of the estate should be
+mortgaged, and then the better portions of land sold outright. Or he
+might so contrive matters as to manage the property for a while
+(and thus become a landowner like Kostanzhoglo, whose advice, as his
+neighbour and his benefactor, he intended always to follow), and then to
+dispose of the property by private treaty (provided he did not wish to
+continue his ownership), and still to retain in his hands the dead and
+abandoned souls. And another possible coup occurred to his mind. That is
+to say, he might contrive to withdraw from the district without having
+repaid Kostanzhoglo at all! Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair
+to say that the idea was not one of Chichikov’s own conception. Rather,
+it had presented itself--mocking, laughing, and winking--unbidden. Yet
+the impudent, the wanton thing! Who is the procreator of suddenly
+born ideas of the kind? The thought that he was now a real, an actual,
+proprietor instead of a fictitious--that he was now a proprietor of real
+land, real rights of timber and pasture, and real serfs who existed not
+only in the imagination, but also in veritable actuality--greatly elated
+our hero. So he took to dancing up and down in his seat, to rubbing
+his hands together, to winking at himself, to holding his fist,
+trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making believe to execute a march),
+and even to uttering aloud such encouraging nicknames and phrases as
+“bulldog” and “little fat capon.” Then suddenly recollecting that he
+was not alone, he hastened to moderate his behaviour and endeavoured to
+stifle the endless flow of his good spirits; with the result that when
+Platon, mistaking certain sounds for utterances addressed to himself,
+inquired what his companion had said, the latter retained the presence
+of mind to reply “Nothing.”
+
+Presently, as Chichikov gazed about him, he saw that for some time past
+the koliaska had been skirting a beautiful wood, and that on either side
+the road was bordered with an edging of birch trees, the tenderly-green,
+recently-opened leaves of which caused their tall, slender trunks to
+show up with the whiteness of a snowdrift. Likewise nightingales were
+warbling from the recesses of the foliage, and some wood tulips were
+glowing yellow in the grass. Next (and almost before Chichikov had
+realised how he came to be in such a beautiful spot when, but a moment
+before, there had been visible only open fields) there glimmered among
+the trees the stony whiteness of a church, with, on the further side
+of it, the intermittent, foliage-buried line of a fence; while from the
+upper end of a village street there was advancing to meet the vehicle a
+gentleman with a cap on his head, a knotted cudgel in his hands, and a
+slender-limbed English dog by his side.
+
+“This is my brother,” said Platon. “Stop, coachman.” And he descended
+from the koliaska, while Chichikov followed his example. Yarb and the
+strange dog saluted one another, and then the active, thin-legged,
+slender-tongued Azor relinquished his licking of Yarb’s blunt jowl,
+licked Platon’s hands instead, and, leaping upon Chichikov, slobbered
+right into his ear.
+
+The two brothers embraced.
+
+“Really, Platon,” said the gentleman (whose name was Vassili), “what do
+you mean by treating me like this?”
+
+“How so?” said Platon indifferently.
+
+“What? For three days past I have seen and heard nothing of you! A groom
+from Pietukh’s brought your cob home, and told me you had departed on an
+expedition with some barin. At least you might have sent me word as to
+your destination and the probable length of your absence. What made you
+act so? God knows what I have not been wondering!”
+
+“Does it matter?” rejoined Platon. “I forgot to send you word, and we
+have been no further than Constantine’s (who, with our sister, sends you
+his greeting). By the way, may I introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+
+The pair shook hands with one another. Then, doffing their caps, they
+embraced.
+
+“What sort of man is this Chichikov?” thought Vassili. “As a rule my
+brother Platon is not over-nice in his choice of acquaintances.” And,
+eyeing our hero as narrowly as civility permitted, he saw that his
+appearance was that of a perfectly respectable individual.
+
+Chichikov returned Vassili’s scrutiny with a similar observance of the
+dictates of civility, and perceived that he was shorter than Platon,
+that his hair was of a darker shade, and that his features, though less
+handsome, contained far more life, animation, and kindliness than did
+his brother’s. Clearly he indulged in less dreaming, though that was an
+aspect which Chichikov little regarded.
+
+“I have made up my mind to go touring our Holy Russia with Paul
+Ivanovitch,” said Platon. “Perhaps it will rid me of my melancholy.”
+
+“What has made you come to such a sudden decision?” asked the perplexed
+Vassili (very nearly he added: “Fancy going travelling with a man whose
+acquaintance you have just made, and who may turn out to be a rascal
+or the devil knows what!” But, in spite of his distrust, he contented
+himself with another covert scrutiny of Chichikov, and this time came to
+the conclusion that there was no fault to be found with his exterior).
+
+The party turned to the right, and entered the gates of an ancient
+courtyard attached to an old-fashioned house of a type no longer
+built--the type which has huge gables supporting a high-pitched roof.
+In the centre of the courtyard two great lime trees covered half the
+surrounding space with shade, while beneath them were ranged a number
+of wooden benches, and the whole was encircled with a ring of blossoming
+lilacs and cherry trees which, like a beaded necklace, reinforced the
+wooden fence, and almost buried it beneath their clusters of leaves and
+flowers. The house, too, stood almost concealed by this greenery,
+except that the front door and the windows peered pleasantly through the
+foliage, and that here and there between the stems of the trees there
+could be caught glimpses of the kitchen regions, the storehouses, and
+the cellar. Lastly, around the whole stood a grove, from the recesses of
+which came the echoing songs of nightingales.
+
+Involuntarily the place communicated to the soul a sort of quiet,
+restful feeling, so eloquently did it speak of that care-free period
+when every one lived on good terms with his neighbour, and all was
+simple and unsophisticated. Vassili invited Chichikov to seat himself,
+and the party approached, for that purpose, the benches under the lime
+trees; after which a youth of about seventeen, and clad in a red shirt,
+brought decanters containing various kinds of kvass (some of them as
+thick as syrup, and others hissing like aerated lemonade), deposited the
+same upon the table, and, taking up a spade which he had left leaning
+against a tree, moved away towards the garden. The reason of this was
+that in the brothers’ household, as in that of Kostanzhoglo, no servants
+were kept, since the whole staff were rated as gardeners, and performed
+that duty in rotation--Vassili holding that domestic service was not a
+specialised calling, but one to which any one might contribute a hand,
+and therefore one which did not require special menials to be kept for
+the purpose. Moreover, he held that the average Russian peasant remains
+active and willing (rather than lazy) only so long as he wears a shirt
+and a peasant’s smock; but that as soon as ever he finds himself
+put into a German tailcoat, he becomes awkward, sluggish, indolent,
+disinclined to change his vest or take a bath, fond of sleeping in his
+clothes, and certain to breed fleas and bugs under the German apparel.
+And it may be that Vassili was right. At all events, the brothers’
+peasantry were exceedingly well clad--the women, in particular, having
+their head-dresses spangled with gold, and the sleeves of their blouses
+embroidered after the fashion of a Turkish shawl.
+
+“You see here the species of kvass for which our house has long been
+famous,” said Vassili to Chichikov. The latter poured himself out a
+glassful from the first decanter which he lighted upon, and found
+the contents to be linden honey of a kind never tasted by him even in
+Poland, seeing that it had a sparkle like that of champagne, and also an
+effervescence which sent a pleasant spray from the mouth into the nose.
+
+“Nectar!” he proclaimed. Then he took some from a second decanter. It
+proved to be even better than the first. “A beverage of beverages!” he
+exclaimed. “At your respected brother-in-law’s I tasted the finest
+syrup which has ever come my way, but here I have tasted the very finest
+kvass.”
+
+“Yet the recipe for the syrup also came from here,” said Vassili,
+“seeing that my sister took it with her. By the way, to what part of the
+country, and to what places, are you thinking of travelling?”
+
+“To tell the truth,” replied Chichikov, rocking himself to and fro on
+the bench, and smoothing his knee with his hand, and gently inclining
+his head, “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and,
+I might add, a generous benefactor of mine, has charged me with
+commissions to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are
+relatives, I may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in
+that, in addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the
+world and the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, to so speak, a
+living book, a second course of education.”
+
+Vassili took thought. “The man speaks floridly,” he reflected, “yet his
+words contain a certain element of truth.” After a moment’s silence he
+added to Platon: “I am beginning to think that the tour might help you
+to bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition of mental slumber.
+You have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness or satiety, as
+through a lack of vivid perceptions and impressions. For myself, I am
+your complete antithesis. I should be only too glad if I could feel less
+acutely, if I could take things less to heart.”
+
+“Emotion has become a disease with you,” said Platon. “You seek your own
+troubles, and make your own anxieties.”
+
+“How can you say that when ready-made anxieties greet one at every
+step?” exclaimed Vassili. “For example, have you heard of the trick
+which Lienitsin has just played us--of his seizing the piece of vacant
+land whither our peasants resort for their sports? That piece I would
+not sell for all the money in the world. It has long been our peasants’
+play-ground, and all the traditions of our village are bound up with it.
+Moreover, for me, old custom is a sacred thing for which I would gladly
+sacrifice everything else.”
+
+“Lienitsin cannot have known of this, or he would not have seized the
+land,” said Platon. “He is a newcomer, just arrived from St. Petersburg.
+A few words of explanation ought to meet the case.”
+
+“But he DOES know of what I have stated; he DOES know of it. Purposely
+I sent him word to that affect, yet he has returned me the rudest of
+answers.”
+
+“Then go yourself and explain matters to him.”
+
+“No, I will not do that; he has tried to carry off things with too high
+a hand. But YOU can go if you like.”
+
+“I would certainly go were it not that I scarcely like to interfere.
+Also, I am a man whom he could easily hoodwink and outwit.”
+
+“Would it help you if _I_ were to go?” put in Chichikov. “Pray enlighten
+me as to the matter.”
+
+Vassili glanced at the speaker, and thought to himself: “What a passion
+the man has for travelling!”
+
+“Yes, pray give me an idea of the kind of fellow,” repeated Chichikov,
+“and also outline to me the affair.”
+
+“I should be ashamed to trouble you with such an unpleasant commission,”
+ replied Vassili. “He is a man whom I take to be an utter rascal.
+Originally a member of a family of plain dvoriane in this province, he
+entered the Civil Service in St. Petersburg, then married some one’s
+natural daughter in that city, and has returned to lord it with a high
+hand. I cannot bear the tone he adopts. Our folk are by no means fools.
+They do not look upon the current fashion as the Tsar’s ukaz any more
+than they look upon St. Petersburg as the Church.”
+
+“Naturally,” said Chichikov. “But tell me more of the particulars of the
+quarrel.”
+
+“They are these. He needs additional land and, had he not acted as he
+has done, I would have given him some land elsewhere for nothing; but,
+as it is, the pestilent fellow has taken it into his head to--”
+
+“I think I had better go and have a talk with him. That might settle the
+affair. Several times have people charged me with similar commissions,
+and never have they repented of it. General Betristchev is an example.”
+
+“Nevertheless I am ashamed that you should be put to the annoyance of
+having to converse with such a fellow.”
+
+
+             [At this point there occurs a long hiatus.]
+
+
+“And above all things, such a transaction would need to be carried
+through in secret,” said Chichikov. “True, the law does not forbid such
+things, but there is always the risk of a scandal.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so,” said Lienitsin with head bent down.
+
+“Then we agree!” exclaimed Chichikov. “How charming! As I say, my
+business is both legal and illegal. Though needing to effect a mortgage,
+I desire to put no one to the risk of having to pay the two roubles
+on each living soul; wherefore I have conceived the idea of relieving
+landowners of that distasteful obligation by acquiring dead and
+absconded souls who have failed to disappear from the revision list.
+This enables me at once to perform an act of Christian charity and
+to remove from the shoulders of our more impoverished proprietors the
+burden of tax-payment upon souls of the kind specified. Should you
+yourself care to do business with me, we will draw up a formal purchase
+agreement as though the souls in question were still alive.”
+
+“But it would be such a curious arrangement,” muttered Lienitsin, moving
+his chair and himself a little further away. “It would be an arrangement
+which, er--er--”
+
+“Would involve you in no scandal whatever, seeing that the affair
+would be carried through in secret. Moreover, between friends who are
+well-disposed towards one another--”
+
+“Nevertheless--”
+
+Chichikov adopted a firmer and more decided tone. “I repeat that there
+would be no scandal,” he said. “The transaction would take place as
+between good friends, and as between friends of mature age, and as
+between friends of good status, and as between friends who know how
+to keep their own counsel.” And, so saying, he looked his interlocutor
+frankly and generously in the eyes.
+
+Nevertheless Lienitsin’s resourcefulness and acumen in business matters
+failed to relieve his mind of a certain perplexity--and the less so
+since he had contrived to become caught in his own net. Yet, in general,
+he possessed neither a love for nor a talent for underhand dealings,
+and, had not fate and circumstances favoured Chichikov by causing
+Lienitsin’s wife to enter the room at that moment, things might have
+turned out very differently from what they did. Madame was a pale, thin,
+insignificant-looking young lady, but none the less a lady who wore her
+clothes a la St. Petersburg, and cultivated the society of persons who
+were unimpeachably comme il faut. Behind her, borne in a nurse’s arms,
+came the first fruits of the love of husband and wife. Adopting his
+most telling method of approach (the method accompanied with a sidelong
+inclination of the head and a sort of hop), Chichikov hastened to greet
+the lady from the metropolis, and then the baby. At first the latter
+started to bellow disapproval, but the words “Agoo, agoo, my pet!” added
+to a little cracking of the fingers and a sight of a beautiful seal on a
+watch chain, enabled Chichikov to weedle the infant into his arms; after
+which he fell to swinging it up and down until he had contrived to raise
+a smile on its face--a circumstance which greatly delighted the parents,
+and finally inclined the father in his visitor’s favour. Suddenly,
+however--whether from pleasure or from some other cause--the infant
+misbehaved itself!
+
+“My God!” cried Madame. “He has gone and spoilt your frockcoat!”
+
+True enough, on glancing downwards, Chichikov saw that the sleeve of
+his brand-new garment had indeed suffered a hurt. “If I could catch you
+alone, you little devil,” he muttered to himself, “I’d shoot you!”
+
+Host, hostess and nurse all ran for eau-de-Cologne, and from three sides
+set themselves to rub the spot affected.
+
+“Never mind, never mind; it is nothing,” said Chichikov as he strove to
+communicate to his features as cheerful an expression as possible.
+“What does it matter what a child may spoil during the golden age of its
+infancy?”
+
+To himself he remarked: “The little brute! Would it could be devoured by
+wolves. It has made only too good a shot, the cussed young ragamuffin!”
+
+How, after this--after the guest had shown such innocent affection for
+the little one, and magnanimously paid for his so doing with a brand-new
+suit--could the father remain obdurate? Nevertheless, to avoid setting a
+bad example to the countryside, he and Chichikov agreed to carry through
+the transaction PRIVATELY, lest, otherwise, a scandal should arise.
+
+“In return,” said Chichikov, “would you mind doing me the following
+favour? I desire to mediate in the matter of your difference with the
+Brothers Platonov. I believe that you wish to acquire some additional
+land? Is not that so?”
+
+
+            [Here there occurs a hiatus in the original.]
+
+
+Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov’s tour in search
+of a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little money
+passed into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he did not
+steal, he merely used. And every one of us at times does the same: one
+man with regard to Government timber, and another with regard to a sum
+belonging to his employer, while a third defrauds his children for the
+sake of an actress, and a fourth robs his peasantry for the sake of
+smart furniture or a carriage. What can one do when one is surrounded
+on every side with roguery, and everywhere there are insanely expensive
+restaurants, masked balls, and dances to the music of gipsy bands? To
+abstain when every one else is indulging in these things, and fashion
+commands, is difficult indeed!
+
+Chichikov was for setting forth again, but the roads had now got into a
+bad state, and, in addition, there was in preparation a second fair--one
+for the dvoriane only. The former fair had been held for the sale of
+horses, cattle, cheese, and other peasant produce, and the buyers had
+been merely cattle-jobbers and kulaks; but this time the function was
+to be one for the sale of manorial produce which had been bought up by
+wholesale dealers at Nizhni Novgorod, and then transferred hither. To
+the fair, of course, came those ravishers of the Russian purse who, in
+the shape of Frenchmen with pomades and Frenchwomen with hats, make away
+with money earned by blood and hard work, and, like the locusts of Egypt
+(to use Kostanzhoglo’s term) not only devour their prey, but also dig
+holes in the ground and leave behind their eggs.
+
+Although, unfortunately, the occurrence of a bad harvest retained many
+landowners at their country houses, the local tchinovniks (whom the
+failure of the harvest did NOT touch) proceeded to let themselves go--as
+also, to their undoing, did their wives. The reading of books of the
+type diffused, in these modern days, for the inoculation of humanity
+with a craving for new and superior amenities of life had caused every
+one to conceive a passion for experimenting with the latest luxury; and
+to meet this want the French wine merchant opened a new establishment
+in the shape of a restaurant as had never before been heard of in the
+province--a restaurant where supper could be procured on credit as
+regarded one-half, and for an unprecedentedly low sum as regarded the
+other. This exactly suited both heads of boards and clerks who were
+living in hope of being able some day to resume their bribes-taking from
+suitors. There also developed a tendency to compete in the matter of
+horses and liveried flunkeys; with the result that despite the damp and
+snowy weather exceedingly elegant turnouts took to parading backwards
+and forwards. Whence these equipages had come God only knows, but at
+least they would not have disgraced St. Petersburg. From within them
+merchants and attorneys doffed their caps to ladies, and inquired after
+their health, and likewise it became a rare sight to see a bearded man
+in a rough fur cap, since every one now went about clean-shaven and with
+dirty teeth, after the European fashion.
+
+“Sir, I beg of you to inspect my goods,” said a tradesman as Chichikov
+was passing his establishment. “Within my doors you will find a large
+variety of clothing.”
+
+“Have you a cloth of bilberry-coloured check?” inquired the person
+addressed.
+
+“I have cloths of the finest kind,” replied the tradesman, raising his
+cap with one hand, and pointing to his shop with the other. Chichikov
+entered, and in a trice the proprietor had dived beneath the counter,
+and appeared on the other side of it, with his back to his wares and his
+face towards the customer. Leaning forward on the tips of his fingers,
+and indicating his merchandise with just the suspicion of a nod, he
+requested the gentleman to specify exactly the species of cloth which he
+required.
+
+“A cloth with an olive-coloured or a bottle-tinted spot in its
+pattern--anything in the nature of bilberry,” explained Chichikov.
+
+“That being so, sir, I may say that I am about to show you clothes of a
+quality which even our illustrious capitals could not surpass. Hi, boy!
+Reach down that roll up there--number 34. No, NOT that one, fool! Such
+fellows as you are always too good for your job. There--hand it to me.
+This is indeed a nice pattern!”
+
+Unfolding the garment, the tradesman thrust it close to Chichikov’s nose
+in order that he might not only handle, but also smell it.
+
+“Excellent, but not what I want,” pronounced Chichikov. “Formerly I was
+in the Custom’s Department, and therefore wear none but cloth of the
+latest make. What I want is of a ruddier pattern than this--not exactly
+a bottle-tinted pattern, but something approaching bilberry.”
+
+“I understand, sir. Of course you require only the very newest thing. A
+cloth of that kind I DO possess, sir, and though excessive in price, it
+is of a quality to match.”
+
+Carrying the roll of stuff to the light--even stepping into the street
+for the purpose--the shopman unfolded his prize with the words, “A truly
+beautiful shade! A cloth of smoked grey, shot with flame colour!”
+
+The material met with the customer’s approval, a price was agreed upon,
+and with incredible celerity the vendor made up the purchase into a
+brown-paper parcel, and stowed it away in Chichikov’s koliaska.
+
+At this moment a voice asked to be shown a black frockcoat.
+
+“The devil take me if it isn’t Khlobuev!” muttered our hero, turning his
+back upon the newcomer. Unfortunately the other had seen him.
+
+“Come, come, Paul Ivanovitch!” he expostulated. “Surely you do not
+intend to overlook me? I have been searching for you everywhere, for I
+have something important to say to you.”
+
+“My dear sir, my very dear sir,” said Chichikov as he pressed Khlobuev’s
+hand, “I can assure you that, had I the necessary leisure, I should
+at all times be charmed to converse with you.” And mentally he added:
+“Would that the Evil One would fly away with you!”
+
+Almost at the same time Murazov, the great landowner, entered the
+shop. As he did so our hero hastened to exclaim: “Why, it is Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! How ARE you, my very dear sir?”
+
+“Well enough,” replied Murazov, removing his cap (Khlobuev and the
+shopman had already done the same). “How, may I ask, are YOU?”
+
+“But poorly,” replied Chichikov, “for of late I have been troubled with
+indigestion, and my sleep is bad. I do not get sufficient exercise.”
+
+However, instead of probing deeper into the subject of Chichikov’s
+ailments, Murazov turned to Khlobuev.
+
+“I saw you enter the shop,” he said, “and therefore followed you, for
+I have something important for your ear. Could you spare me a minute or
+two?”
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” said Khlobuev, and the pair left the shop
+together.
+
+“I wonder what is afoot between them,” said Chichikov to himself.
+
+“A wise and noble gentleman, Athanasi Vassilievitch!” remarked the
+tradesman. Chichikov made no reply save a gesture.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch, I have been looking for you everywhere,” Lienitsin’s
+voice said from behind him, while again the tradesman hastened to remove
+his cap. “Pray come home with me, for I have something to say to you.”
+
+Chichikov scanned the speaker’s face, but could make nothing of it.
+Paying the tradesman for the cloth, he left the shop.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov had conveyed Khlobuev to his rooms.
+
+“Tell me,” he said to his guest, “exactly how your affairs stand. I take
+it that, after all, your aunt left you something?”
+
+“It would be difficult to say whether or not my affairs are improved,”
+ replied Khlobuev. “True, fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles came
+to me from Madame Khanasarova, but I had to pay them away to satisfy my
+debts. Consequently I am once more destitute. But the important point is
+that there was trickery connected with the legacy, and shameful trickery
+at that. Yes, though it may surprise you, it is a fact that that fellow
+Chichikov--”
+
+“Yes, Semen Semenovitch, but, before you go on to speak of Chichikov,
+pray tell me something about yourself, and how much, in your opinion,
+would be sufficient to clear you of your difficulties?”
+
+“My difficulties are grievous,” replied Khlobuev. “To rid myself of
+them, and also to have enough to go on with, I should need to acquire
+at least a hundred thousand roubles, if not more. In short, things are
+becoming impossible for me.”
+
+“And, had you the money, what should you do with it?”
+
+“I should rent a tenement, and devote myself to the education of my
+children. Not a thought should I give to myself, for my career is over,
+seeing that it is impossible for me to re-enter the Civil Service and I
+am good for nothing else.”
+
+“Nevertheless, when a man is leading an idle life he is apt to incur
+temptations which shun his better-employed brother.”
+
+“Yes, but beyond question I am good for nothing, so broken is my health,
+and such a martyr I am to dyspepsia.”
+
+“But how do you propose to live without working? How can a man like you
+exist without a post or a position of any kind? Look around you at the
+works of God. Everything has its proper function, and pursues its proper
+course. Even a stone can be used for one purpose or another. How, then,
+can it be right for a man who is a thinking being to remain a drone?”
+
+“But I should not be a drone, for I should employ myself with the
+education of my children.”
+
+“No, Semen Semenovitch--no: THAT you would find the hardest task of
+all. For how can a man educate his children who has never even educated
+himself? Instruction can be imparted to children only through the medium
+of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a profitable
+example--a life which has been spent in idleness and the playing of
+cards? No, Semen Semenovitch. You had far better hand your children over
+to me. Otherwise they will be ruined. Do not think that I am jesting.
+Idleness has wrecked your life, and you must flee from it. Can a man
+live with nothing to keep him in place? Even a journeyman labourer who
+earns the barest pittance may take an interest in his occupation.”
+
+“Athanasi Vassilievitch, I have tried to overcome myself, but what
+further resource lies open to me? Can I who am old and incapable
+re-enter the Civil Service and spend year after year at a desk with
+youths who are just starting their careers? Moreover, I have lost the
+trick of taking bribes; I should only hinder both myself and others;
+while, as you know, it is a department which has an established caste
+of its own. Therefore, though I have considered, and even attempted to
+obtain, every conceivable post, I find myself incompetent for them all.
+Only in a monastery should I--”
+
+“Nay, nay. Monasteries, again, are only for those who have worked. To
+those who have spent their youth in dissipation such havens say what
+the ant said to the dragonfly--namely, ‘Go you away, and return to your
+dancing.’ Yes, even in a monastery do folk toil and toil--they do
+not sit playing whist.” Murazov looked at Khlobuev, and added: “Semen
+Semenovitch, you are deceiving both yourself and me.”
+
+Poor Khlobuev could not utter a word in reply, and Murazov began to feel
+sorry for him.
+
+“Listen, Semen Semenovitch,” he went on. “I know that you say your
+prayers, and that you go to church, and that you observe both Matins and
+Vespers, and that, though averse to early rising, you leave your bed at
+four o’clock in the morning before the household fires have been lit.”
+
+“Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said Khlobuev, “that is another matter
+altogether. That I do, not for man’s sake, but for the sake of Him who
+has ordered all things here on earth. Yes, I believe that He at least
+can feel compassion for me, that He at least, though I be foul and
+lowly, will pardon me and receive me when all men have cast me out, and
+my best friend has betrayed me and boasted that he has done it for a
+good end.”
+
+Khlobuev’s face was glowing with emotion, and from the older man’s eyes
+also a tear had started.
+
+“You will do well to hearken unto Him who is merciful,” he said. “But
+remember also that, in the eyes of the All-Merciful, honest toil is of
+equal merit with a prayer. Therefore take unto yourself whatsoever task
+you may, and do it as though you were doing it, not unto man, but unto
+God. Even though to your lot there should fall but the cleaning of a
+floor, clean that floor as though it were being cleaned for Him alone.
+And thence at least this good you will reap: that there will remain to
+you no time for what is evil--for card playing, for feasting, for all
+the life of this gay world. Are you acquainted with Ivan Potapitch?”
+
+“Yes, not only am I acquainted with him, but I also greatly respect
+him.”
+
+“Time was when Ivan Potapitch was a merchant worth half a million
+roubles. In everything did he look but for gain, and his affairs
+prospered exceedingly, so much so that he was able to send his son to be
+educated in France, and to marry his daughter to a General. And whether
+in his office or at the Exchange, he would stop any friend whom he
+encountered and carry him off to a tavern to drink, and spend whole days
+thus employed. But at last he became bankrupt, and God sent him other
+misfortunes also. His son! Ah, well! Ivan Potapitch is now my steward,
+for he had to begin life over again. Yet once more his affairs are in
+order, and, had it been his wish, he could have restarted in business
+with a capital of half a million roubles. ‘But no,’ he said. ‘A
+steward am I, and a steward will I remain to the end; for, from being
+full-stomached and heavy with dropsy, I have become strong and well.’
+Not a drop of liquor passes his lips, but only cabbage soup and gruel.
+And he prays as none of the rest of us pray, and he helps the poor as
+none of the rest of us help them; and to this he would add yet further
+charity if his means permitted him to do so.”
+
+Poor Khlobuev remained silent, as before.
+
+The elder man took his two hands in his.
+
+“Semen Semenovitch,” he said, “you cannot think how much I pity you, or
+how much I have had you in my thoughts. Listen to me. In the monastery
+there is a recluse who never looks upon a human face. Of all men whom
+I know he has the broadest mind, and he breaks not his silence save to
+give advice. To him I went and said that I had a friend (though I
+did not actually mention your name) who was in great trouble of soul.
+Suddenly the recluse interrupted me with the words: ‘God’s work first,
+and our own last. There is need for a church to be built, but no money
+wherewith to build it. Money must be collected to that end.’ Then he
+shut to the wicket. I wondered to myself what this could mean, and
+concluded that the recluse had been unwilling to accord me his counsel.
+Next I repaired to the Archimandrite, and had scarce reached his door
+when he inquired of me whether I could commend to him a man meet to be
+entrusted with the collection of alms for a church--a man who should
+belong to the dvoriane or to the more lettered merchants, but who would
+guard the trust as he would guard the salvation of his soul. On the
+instant thought I to myself: ‘Why should not the Holy Father appoint
+my friend Semen Semenovitch? For the way of suffering would benefit him
+greatly; and as he passed with his ledger from landowner to peasant,
+and from peasant to townsman, he would learn where folk dwell, and who
+stands in need of aught, and thus would become better acquainted with
+the countryside than folk who dwell in cities. And, thus become, he
+would find that his services were always in demand.’ Only of late did
+the Governor-General say to me that, could he but be furnished with the
+name of a secretary who should know his work not only by the book but
+also by experience, he would give him a great sum, since nothing is to
+be learned by the former means, and, through it, much confusion arises.”
+
+“You confound me, you overwhelm me!” said Khlobuev, staring at his
+companion in open-eyed astonishment. “I can scarcely believe that your
+words are true, seeing that for such a trust an active, indefatigable
+man would be necessary. Moreover, how could I leave my wife and children
+unprovided for?”
+
+“Have no fear,” said Murazov, “I myself will take them under my care, as
+well as procure for the children a tutor. Far better and nobler were
+it for you to be travelling with a wallet, and asking alms on behalf
+of God, then to be remaining here and asking alms for yourself alone.
+Likewise, I will furnish you with a tilt-waggon, so that you may be
+saved some of the hardships of the journey, and thus be preserved in
+good health. Also, I will give you some money for the journey, in
+order that, as you pass on your way, you may give to those who stand
+in greater need than their fellows. Thus, if, before giving, you assure
+yourself that the recipient of the alms is worthy of the same, you will
+do much good; and as you travel you will become acquainted with all men
+and sundry, and they will treat you, not as a tchinovnik to be feared,
+but as one to whom, as a petitioner on behalf of the Church, they may
+unloose their tongues without peril.”
+
+“I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my part
+in it were it not likely to exceed my strength.”
+
+“What is there that does NOT exceed your strength?” said Murazov.
+“Nothing is wholly proportionate to it--everything surpasses it. Help
+from above is necessary: otherwise we are all powerless. Strength comes
+of prayer, and of prayer alone. When a man crosses himself, and cries,
+‘Lord, have mercy upon me!’ he soon stems the current and wins to the
+shore. Nor need you take any prolonged thought concerning this matter.
+All that you need do is to accept it as a commission sent of God. The
+tilt-waggon can be prepared for you immediately; and then, as soon as
+you have been to the Archimandrite for your book of accounts and his
+blessing, you will be free to start on your journey.”
+
+“I submit myself to you, and accept the commission as a divine trust.”
+
+And even as Khlobuev spoke he felt renewed vigour and confidence arise
+in his soul, and his mind begin to awake to a sense of hopefulness of
+eventually being able to put to flight his troubles. And even as it was,
+the world seemed to be growing dim to his eyes....
+
+Meanwhile, plea after plea had been presented to the legal authorities,
+and daily were relatives whom no one had before heard of putting in
+an appearance. Yes, like vultures to a corpse did these good folk come
+flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov had left behind
+her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov, rumours with
+regard to the validity of the second will, rumours with regard to will
+number one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of funds. Also, there
+came to hand information with regard both to Chichikov’s purchase of
+dead souls and to his conniving at contraband goods during his service
+in the Customs Department. In short, every possible item of evidence
+was exhumed, and the whole of his previous history investigated. How
+the authorities had come to suspect and to ascertain all this God only
+knows, but the fact remains that there had fallen into the hands of
+those authorities information concerning matters of which Chichikov had
+believed only himself and the four walls to be aware. True, for a
+time these matters remained within the cognisance of none but the
+functionaries concerned, and failed to reach Chichikov’s ears; but at
+length a letter from a confidential friend gave him reason to think that
+the fat was about to fall into the fire. Said the letter briefly: “Dear
+sir, I beg to advise you that possibly legal trouble is pending, but
+that you have no cause for uneasiness, seeing that everything will
+be attended to by yours very truly.” Yet, in spite of its tenor, the
+epistle reassured its recipient. “What a genius the fellow is!” thought
+Chichikov to himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his tailor
+arrived with the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a certain
+sense of pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey shot
+with flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then
+try on the breeches--the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite
+concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves
+(though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a
+drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight
+tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined
+that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. “Sir,” he said
+triumphantly, “you may rest assured that the work has been executed
+exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St.
+Petersburg, could have done it better.” As a matter of fact, the tailor
+himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his signboard
+“Foreign Costumier from London and Paris”--the truth being that by
+the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to mere
+“Karlsruhe” and “Copenhagen” he designed to acquire business and cut out
+his local rivals.
+
+Chichikov graciously settled the man’s account, and, as soon as he had
+gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an
+artist of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to look
+better than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a still
+more interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while his
+white collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened the
+effect of the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie,
+the rich satin waistcoat emphasised the dickey, and the
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, shining like silk,
+splendidly rounded off the whole. When he turned to the right he looked
+well: when he turned to the left he looked even better. In short, it
+was a costume worthy of a Lord Chamberlain or the species of dandy who
+shrinks from swearing in the Russian language, but amply relieves his
+feelings in the language of France. Next, inclining his head slightly
+to one side, our hero endeavoured to pose as though he were addressing
+a middle-aged lady of exquisite refinement; and the result of these
+efforts was a picture which any artist might have yearned to portray.
+Next, his delight led him gracefully to execute a hop in ballet fashion,
+so that the wardrobe trembled and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne came
+crashing to the floor. Yet even this contretemps did not upset him; he
+merely called the offending bottle a fool, and then debated whom first
+he should visit in his attractive guise.
+
+Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels,
+and then the voice of a gendarme saying: “You are commanded to present
+yourself before the Governor-General!” Turning round, Chichikov stared
+in horror at the spectacle presented; for in the doorway there was
+standing an apparition wearing a huge moustache, a helmet surmounted
+with a horsehair plume, a pair of crossed shoulder-belts, and a gigantic
+sword! A whole army might have been combined into a single individual!
+And when Chichikov opened his mouth to speak the apparition repeated,
+“You are commanded to present yourself before the Governor-General,”
+ and at the same moment our hero caught sight both of a second apparition
+outside the door and of a coach waiting beneath the window. What was
+to be done? Nothing whatever was possible. Just as he stood--in his
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour suit--he had then and there to enter
+the vehicle, and, shaking in every limb, and with a gendarme seated by
+his side, to start for the residence of the Governor-General.
+
+And even in the hall of that establishment no time was given him to
+pull himself together, for at once an aide-de-camp said: “Go inside
+immediately, for the Prince is awaiting you.” And as in a dream did our
+hero see a vestibule where couriers were being handed dispatches, and
+then a salon which he crossed with the thought, “I suppose I am not to
+be allowed a trial, but shall be sent straight to Siberia!” And at the
+thought his heart started beating in a manner which the most jealous
+of lovers could not have rivalled. At length there opened a door,
+and before him he saw a study full of portfolios, ledgers, and
+dispatch-boxes, with, standing behind them, the gravely menacing figure
+of the Prince.
+
+“There stands my executioner,” thought Chichikov to himself. “He is
+about to tear me to pieces as a wolf tears a lamb.”
+
+Indeed, the Prince’s lips were simply quivering with rage.
+
+“Once before did I spare you,” he said, “and allow you to remain in the
+town when you ought to have been in prison: yet your only return for
+my clemency has been to revert to a career of fraud--and of fraud as
+dishonourable as ever a man engaged in.”
+
+“To what dishonourable fraud do you refer, your Highness?” asked
+Chichikov, trembling from head to foot.
+
+The Prince approached, and looked him straight in the eyes.
+
+“Let me tell you,” he said, “that the woman whom you induced to witness
+a certain will has been arrested, and that you will be confronted with
+her.”
+
+The world seemed suddenly to grow dim before Chichikov’s sight.
+
+“Your Highness,” he gasped, “I will tell you the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth. I am guilty--yes, I am guilty; but I am not so
+guilty as you think, for I was led away by rascals.”
+
+“That any one can have led you away is impossible,” retorted the Prince.
+“Recorded against your name there stand more felonies than even the most
+hardened liar could have invented. I believe that never in your life
+have you done a deed not innately dishonourable--that not a kopeck have
+you ever obtained by aught but shameful methods of trickery and theft,
+the penalty for which is Siberia and the knut. But enough of this! From
+this room you will be conveyed to prison, where, with other rogues and
+thieves, you will be confined until your trial may come on. And this
+is lenient treatment on my part, for you are worse, far worse, than the
+felons who will be your companions. THEY are but poor men in smocks and
+sheepskins, whereas YOU--” Without concluding his words, the Prince shot
+a glance at Chichikov’s smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour apparel.
+
+Then he touched a bell.
+
+“Your Highness,” cried Chichikov, “have mercy upon me! You are the
+father of a family! Spare me for the sake of my aged mother!”
+
+“Rubbish!” exclaimed the Prince. “Even as before you besought me for the
+sake of a wife and children whom you did not even possess, so now you
+would speak to me of an aged mother!”
+
+“Your Highness,” protested Chichikov, “though I am a wretch and the
+lowest of rascals, and though it is true that I lied when I told
+you that I possessed a wife and children, I swear that, as God is my
+witness, it has always been my DESIRE to possess a wife, and to fulfil
+all the duties of a man and a citizen, and to earn the respect of my
+fellows and the authorities. But what could be done against the force
+of circumstances? By hook or by crook I have ever been forced to win
+a living, though confronted at every step by wiles and temptations and
+traitorous enemies and despoilers. So much has this been so that my
+life has, throughout, resembled a barque tossed by tempestuous waves,
+a barque driven at the mercy of the winds. Ah, I am only a man, your
+Highness!”
+
+And in a moment the tears had gushed in torrents from his eyes, and he
+had fallen forward at the Prince’s feet--fallen forward just as he
+was, in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, his velvet
+waistcoat, his satin tie, and his exquisitely fitting breeches, while
+from his neatly brushed pate, as again and again he struck his hand
+against his forehead, there came an odorous whiff of best-quality
+eau-de-Cologne.
+
+“Away with him!” exclaimed the Prince to the gendarme who had just
+entered. “Summon the escort to remove him.”
+
+“Your Highness!” Chichikov cried again as he clasped the Prince’s knees;
+but, shuddering all over, and struggling to free himself, the Prince
+repeated his order for the prisoner’s removal.
+
+“Your Highness, I say that I will not leave this room until you have
+accorded me mercy!” cried Chichikov as he clung to the Prince’s leg with
+such tenacity that, frockcoat and all, he began to be dragged along the
+floor.
+
+“Away with him, I say!” once more the Prince exclaimed with the sort of
+indefinable aversion which one feels at the sight of a repulsive
+insect which he cannot summon up the courage to crush with his boot. So
+convulsively did the Prince shudder that Chichikov, clinging to his leg,
+received a kick on the nose. Yet still the prisoner retained his hold;
+until at length a couple of burly gendarmes tore him away and,
+grasping his arms, hurried him--pale, dishevelled, and in that strange,
+half-conscious condition into which a man sinks when he sees before
+him only the dark, terrible figure of death, the phantom which is so
+abhorrent to all our natures--from the building. But on the threshold
+the party came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov’s heart
+the circumstance revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with almost
+supernatural strength from the grasp of the escorting gendarmes, he
+threw himself at the feet of the horror-stricken old man.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” Murazov exclaimed, “what has happened to you?”
+
+“Save me!” gasped Chichikov. “They are taking me away to prison and
+death!”
+
+Yet almost as he spoke the gendarmes seized him again, and hurried him
+away so swiftly that Murazov’s reply escaped his ears.
+
+A damp, mouldy cell which reeked of soldiers’ boots and leggings, an
+unvarnished table, two sorry chairs, a window closed with a grating, a
+crazy stove which, while letting the smoke emerge through its cracks,
+gave out no heat--such was the den to which the man who had just begun
+to taste the sweets of life, and to attract the attention of his fellows
+with his new suit of smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour, now found
+himself consigned. Not even necessaries had he been allowed to bring
+away with him, nor his dispatch-box which contained all his booty. No,
+with the indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands
+of a tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled
+about the floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and
+gnaw at his heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that
+heart so defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind
+that, should he have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery,
+there would no longer be a Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over
+every one, there hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his
+arrival at the prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.
+
+Compared with poor Chichikov’s sense of relief when the old man entered
+his cell, even the pleasure experienced by a thirsty, dusty traveller
+when he is given a drink of clear spring water to cool his dry, parched
+throat fades into insignificance.
+
+“Ah, my deliverer!” he cried as he rose from the floor, where he had
+been grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old
+man’s hand, he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting
+into tears, he added: “God Himself will reward you for having come to
+visit an unfortunate wretch!”
+
+Murazov looked at him sorrowfully, and said no more than “Ah, Paul
+Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch! What has happened?”
+
+“What has happened?” cried Chichikov. “I have been ruined by an accursed
+woman. That was because I could not do things in moderation--I was
+powerless to stop myself in time, Satan tempted me, and drove me from
+my senses, and bereft me of human prudence. Yes, truly I have sinned, I
+have sinned! Yet how came I so to sin? To think that a dvorianin--yes,
+a dvorianin--should be thrown into prison without process or trial! I
+repeat, a dvorianin! Why was I not given time to go home and collect my
+effects? Whereas now they are left with no one to look after them! My
+dispatch-box, my dispatch-box! It contained my whole property, all that
+my heart’s blood and years of toil and want have been needed to acquire.
+And now everything will be stolen, Athanasi Vassilievitch--everything
+will be taken from me! My God!”
+
+And, unable to stand against the torrent of grief which came rushing
+over his heart once more, he sobbed aloud in tones which penetrated even
+the thickness of the prison walls, and made dull echoes awake behind
+them. Then, tearing off his satin tie, and seizing by the collar, the
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, he stripped the latter
+from his shoulders.
+
+“Ah, Paul Ivanovitch,” said the old man, “how even now the property
+which you have acquired is blinding your eyes, and causing you to fail
+to realise your terrible position!”
+
+“Yes, my good friend and benefactor,” wailed poor Chichikov
+despairingly, and clasping Murazov by the knees. “Yet save me if you
+can! The Prince is fond of you, and would do anything for your sake.”
+
+“No, Paul Ivanovitch; however much I might wish to save you, and however
+much I might try to do so, I could not help you as you desire; for it is
+to the power of an inexorable law, and not to the authority of any one
+man, that you have rendered yourself subject.”
+
+“Satan tempted me, and has ended by making of me an outcast from the
+human race!” Chichikov beat his head against the wall and struck the
+table with his fist until the blood spurted from his hand. Yet neither
+his head nor his hand seemed to be conscious of the least pain.
+
+“Calm yourself, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov. “Calm yourself, and
+consider how best you can make your peace with God. Think of your
+miserable soul, and not of the judgment of man.”
+
+“I will, Athanasi Vassilievitch, I will. But what a fate is mine! Did
+ever such a fate befall a man? To think of all the patience with which
+I have gathered my kopecks, of all the toil and trouble which I have
+endured! Yet what I have done has not been done with the intention of
+robbing any one, nor of cheating the Treasury. Why, then, did I gather
+those kopecks? I gathered them to the end that one day I might be able
+to live in plenty, and also to have something to leave to the wife
+and children whom, for the benefit and welfare of my country, I hoped
+eventually to win and maintain. That was why I gathered those kopecks.
+True, I worked by devious methods--that I fully admit; but what else
+could I do? And even devious methods I employed only when I saw that the
+straight road would not serve my purpose so well as a crooked. Moreover,
+as I toiled, the appetite for those methods grew upon me. Yet what
+I took I took only from the rich; whereas villains exist who, while
+drawing thousands a year from the Treasury, despoil the poor, and take
+from the man with nothing even that which he has. Is it not the cruelty
+of fate, therefore, that, just when I was beginning to reap the harvest
+of my toil--to touch it, so to speak, with the tip of one finger--there
+should have arisen a sudden storm which has sent my barque to pieces on
+a rock? My capital had nearly reached the sum of three hundred thousand
+roubles, and a three-storied house was as good as mine, and twice over
+I could have bought a country estate. Why, then, should such a tempest
+have burst upon me? Why should I have sustained such a blow? Was not my
+life already like a barque tossed to and fro by the billows? Where
+is Heaven’s justice--where is the reward for all my patience, for my
+boundless perseverance? Three times did I have to begin life afresh, and
+each time that I lost my all I began with a single kopeck at a moment
+when other men would have given themselves up to despair and drink. How
+much did I not have to overcome. How much did I not have to bear! Every
+kopeck which I gained I had to make with my whole strength; for though,
+to others, wealth may come easily, every coin of mine had to be ‘forged
+with a nail worth three kopecks’ as the proverb has it. With such a
+nail--with the nail of an iron, unwearying perseverance--did _I_ forge
+my kopecks.”
+
+Convulsively sobbing with a grief which he could not repress, Chichikov
+sank upon a chair, tore from his shoulders the last ragged, trailing
+remnants of his frockcoat, and hurled them from him. Then, thrusting his
+fingers into the hair which he had once been so careful to preserve, he
+pulled it out by handfuls at a time, as though he hoped through physical
+pain to deaden the mental agony which he was suffering.
+
+Meanwhile Murazov sat gazing in silence at the unwonted spectacle of
+a man who had lately been mincing with the gait of a worldling or a
+military fop now writhing in dishevelment and despair as he poured out
+upon the hostile forces by which human ingenuity so often finds itself
+outwitted a flood of invective.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch,” at length said Murazov, “what
+could not each of us rise to be did we but devote to good ends the same
+measure of energy and of patience which we bestow upon unworthy objects!
+How much good would not you yourself have effected! Yet I do not grieve
+so much for the fact that you have sinned against your fellow as I
+grieve for the fact that you have sinned against yourself and the rich
+store of gifts and opportunities which has been committed to your care.
+Though originally destined to rise, you have wandered from the path and
+fallen.”
+
+“Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” cried poor Chichikov, clasping his friend’s
+hands, “I swear to you that, if you would but restore me my freedom, and
+recover for me my lost property, I would lead a different life from this
+time forth. Save me, you who alone can work my deliverance! Save me!”
+
+“How can I do that? So to do I should need to procure the setting aside
+of a law. Again, even if I were to make the attempt, the Prince is a
+strict administrator, and would refuse on any consideration to release
+you.”
+
+“Yes, but for you all things are possible. It is not the law that
+troubles me: with that I could find a means to deal. It is the fact that
+for no offence at all I have been cast into prison, and treated like
+a dog, and deprived of my papers and dispatch-box and all my property.
+Save me if you can.”
+
+Again clasping the old man’s knees, he bedewed them with his tears.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov, shaking his head, “how that property
+of yours still seals your eyes and ears, so that you cannot so much as
+listen to the promptings of your own soul!”
+
+“Ah, I will think of my soul, too, if only you will save me.”
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man began again, and then stopped. For a
+little while there was a pause.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” at length he went on, “to save you does not lie
+within my power. Surely you yourself see that? But, so far as I can,
+I will endeavour to, at all events, lighten your lot and procure your
+eventual release. Whether or not I shall succeed I do not know; but I
+will make the attempt. And should I, contrary to my expectations, prove
+successful, I beg of you, in return for these my efforts, to renounce
+all thought of benefit from the property which you have acquired.
+Sincerely do I assure you that, were I myself to be deprived of my
+property (and my property greatly exceeds yours in magnitude), I should
+not shed a single tear. It is not the property of which men can deprive
+us that matters, but the property of which no one on earth can deprive
+or despoil us. You are a man who has seen something of life--to use
+your own words, you have been a barque tossed hither and thither by
+tempestuous waves: yet still will there be left to you a remnant of
+substance on which to live, and therefore I beseech you to settle down
+in some quiet nook where there is a church, and where none but plain,
+good-hearted folk abide. Or, should you feel a yearning to leave behind
+you posterity, take in marriage a good woman who shall bring you,
+not money, but an aptitude for simple, modest domestic life. But
+this life--the life of turmoil, with its longings and its
+temptations--forget, and let it forget YOU; for there is no peace in
+it. See for yourself how, at every step, it brings one but hatred and
+treachery and deceit.”
+
+“Indeed, yes!” agreed the repentant Chichikov. “Gladly will I do as you
+wish, since for many a day past have I been longing to amend my life,
+and to engage in husbandry, and to reorder my affairs. A demon, the
+tempter Satan himself, has beguiled me and led me from the right path.”
+
+Suddenly there had recurred to Chichikov long-unknown, long-unfamiliar
+feelings. Something seemed to be striving to come to life again in
+him--something dim and remote, something which had been crushed out of
+his boyhood by the dreary, deadening education of his youthful days, by
+his desolate home, by his subsequent lack of family ties, by the poverty
+and niggardliness of his early impressions, by the grim eye of fate--an
+eye which had always seemed to be regarding him as through a misty,
+mournful, frost-encrusted window-pane, and to be mocking at his
+struggles for freedom. And as these feelings came back to the penitent
+a groan burst from his lips, and, covering his face with his hands, he
+moaned: “It is all true, it is all true!”
+
+“Of little avail are knowledge of the world and experience of men unless
+based upon a secure foundation,” observed Murazov. “Though you have
+fallen, Paul Ivanovitch, awake to better things, for as yet there is
+time.”
+
+“No, no!” groaned Chichikov in a voice which made Murazov’s heart bleed.
+“It is too late, too late. More and more is the conviction gaining upon
+me that I am powerless, that I have strayed too far ever to be able to
+do as you bid me. The fact that I have become what I am is due to my
+early schooling; for, though my father taught me moral lessons, and beat
+me, and set me to copy maxims into a book, he himself stole land from
+his neighbours, and forced me to help him. I have even known him to
+bring an unjust suit, and defraud the orphan whose guardian he was!
+Consequently I know and feel that, though my life has been different
+from his, I do not hate roguery as I ought to hate it, and that my
+nature is coarse, and that in me there is no real love for what is good,
+no real spark of that beautiful instinct for well-doing which becomes
+a second nature, a settled habit. Also, never do I yearn to strive for
+what is right as I yearn to acquire property. This is no more than the
+truth. What else could I do but confess it?”
+
+The old man sighed.
+
+“Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “I know that you possess will-power, and
+that you possess also perseverance. A medicine may be bitter, yet the
+patient will gladly take it when assured that only by its means can he
+recover. Therefore, if it really be that you have no genuine love for
+doing good, do good by FORCING yourself to do so. Thus you will benefit
+yourself even more than you will benefit him for whose sake the act
+is performed. Only force yourself to do good just once and again, and,
+behold, you will suddenly conceive the TRUE love for well-doing. That
+is so, believe me. ‘A kingdom is to be won only by striving,’ says the
+proverb. That is to say, things are to be attained only by putting forth
+one’s whole strength, since nothing short of one’s whole strength will
+bring one to the desired goal. Paul Ivanovitch, within you there is a
+source of strength denied to many another man. I refer to the strength
+of an iron perseverance. Cannot THAT help you to overcome? Most men are
+weak and lack will-power, whereas I believe that you possess the power
+to act a hero’s part.”
+
+Sinking deep into Chichikov’s heart, these words would seem to have
+aroused in it a faint stirring of ambition, so much so that, if it was
+not fortitude which shone in his eyes, at all events it was something
+virile, and of much the same nature.
+
+“Athanasi Vassilievitch,” he said firmly, “if you will but petition
+for my release, as well as for permission for me to leave here with a
+portion of my property, I swear to you on my word of honour that I will
+begin a new life, and buy a country estate, and become the head of a
+household, and save money, not for myself, but for others, and do good
+everywhere, and to the best of my ability, and forget alike myself and
+the feasting and debauchery of town life, and lead, instead, a plain,
+sober existence.”
+
+“In that resolve may God strengthen you!” cried the old man with
+unbounded joy. “And I, for my part, will do my utmost to procure
+your release. And though God alone knows whether my efforts will be
+successful, at all events I hope to bring about a mitigation of your
+sentence. Come, let me embrace you! How you have filled my heart with
+gladness! With God’s help, I will now go to the Prince.”
+
+And the next moment Chichikov found himself alone. His whole nature felt
+shaken and softened, even as, when the bellows have fanned the furnace
+to a sufficient heat, a plate compounded even of the hardest and most
+fire-resisting metal dissolves, glows, and turns to the liquefied state.
+
+“I myself can feel but little,” he reflected, “but I intend to use my
+every faculty to help others to feel. I myself am but bad and worthless,
+but I intend to do my utmost to set others on the right road. I myself
+am but an indifferent Christian, but I intend to strive never to yield
+to temptation, but to work hard, and to till my land with the sweat of
+my brow, and to engage only in honourable pursuits, and to influence my
+fellows in the same direction. For, after all, am I so very useless?
+At least I could maintain a household, for I am frugal and active and
+intelligent and steadfast. The only thing is to make up my mind to it.”
+
+Thus Chichikov pondered; and as he did so his half-awakened energies of
+soul touched upon something. That is to say, dimly his instinct
+divined that every man has a duty to perform, and that that duty may
+be performed here, there, and everywhere, and no matter what the
+circumstances and the emotions and the difficulties which compass a man
+about. And with such clearness did Chichikov mentally picture to himself
+the life of grateful toil which lies removed from the bustle of towns
+and the temptations which man, forgetful of the obligation of labour,
+has invented to beguile an hour of idleness that almost our hero forgot
+his unpleasant position, and even felt ready to thank Providence for
+the calamity which had befallen him, provided that it should end in his
+being released, and in his receiving back a portion of his property.
+
+Presently the massive door of the cell opened to admit a tchinovnik
+named Samosvitov, a robust, sensual individual who was reputed by his
+comrades to be something of a rake. Had he served in the army, he
+would have done wonders, for he would have stormed any point, however
+dangerous and inaccessible, and captured cannon under the very noses
+of the foe; but, as it was, the lack of a more warlike field for his
+energies caused him to devote the latter principally to dissipation.
+Nevertheless he enjoyed great popularity, for he was loyal to the point
+that, once his word had been given, nothing would ever make him break
+it. At the same time, some reason or another led him to regard his
+superiors in the light of a hostile battery which, come what might, he
+must breach at any weak or unguarded spot or gap which might be capable
+of being utilised for the purpose.
+
+“We have all heard of your plight,” he began as soon as the door had
+been safely closed behind him. “Yes, every one has heard of it. But
+never mind. Things will yet come right. We will do our very best for
+you, and act as your humble servants in everything. Thirty thousand
+roubles is our price--no more.”
+
+“Indeed?” said Chichikov. “And, for that, shall I be completely
+exonerated?”
+
+“Yes, completely, and also given some compensation for your loss of
+time.”
+
+“And how much am I to pay in return, you say?”
+
+“Thirty thousand roubles, to be divided among ourselves, the
+Governor-General’s staff, and the Governor-General’s secretary.”
+
+“But how is even that to be managed, for all my effects, including my
+dispatch-box, will have been sealed up and taken away for examination?”
+
+“In an hour’s time they will be within your hands again,” said
+Samosvitov. “Shall we shake hands over the bargain?”
+
+Chichikov did so with a beating heart, for he could scarcely believe his
+ears.
+
+“For the present, then, farewell,” concluded Samosvitov. “I have
+instructed a certain mutual friend that the important points are silence
+and presence of mind.”
+
+“Hm!” thought Chichikov. “It is to my lawyer that he is referring.”
+
+Even when Samosvitov had departed the prisoner found it difficult to
+credit all that had been said. Yet not an hour had elapsed before a
+messenger arrived with his dispatch-box and the papers and money therein
+practically undisturbed and intact! Later it came out that Samosvitov
+had assumed complete authority in the matter. First, he had rebuked the
+gendarmes guarding Chichikov’s effects for lack of vigilance, and then
+sent word to the Superintendent that additional men were required for
+the purpose; after which he had taken the dispatch-box into his own
+charge, removed from it every paper which could possibly compromise
+Chichikov, sealed up the rest in a packet, and ordered a gendarme to
+convey the whole to their owner on the pretence of forwarding him sundry
+garments necessary for the night. In the result Chichikov received not
+only his papers, but also some warm clothing for his hypersensitive
+limbs. Such a swift recovery of his treasures delighted him beyond
+expression, and, gathering new hope, he began once more to dream of such
+allurements as theatre-going and the ballet girl after whom he had for
+some time past been dangling. Gradually did the country estate and the
+simple life begin to recede into the distance: gradually did the town
+house and the life of gaiety begin to loom larger and larger in the
+foreground. Oh, life, life!
+
+Meanwhile in Government offices and chancellories there had been set
+on foot a boundless volume of work. Clerical pens slaved, and brains
+skilled in legal casus toiled; for each official had the artist’s liking
+for the curved line in preference to the straight. And all the while,
+like a hidden magician, Chichikov’s lawyer imparted driving power to
+that machine which caught up a man into its mechanism before he could
+even look round. And the complexity of it increased and increased, for
+Samosvitov surpassed himself in importance and daring. On learning
+of the place of confinement of the woman who had been arrested, he
+presented himself at the doors, and passed so well for a smart young
+officer of gendarmery that the sentry saluted and sprang to attention.
+
+“Have you been on duty long?” asked Samosvitov.
+
+“Since this morning, your Excellency.”
+
+“And shall you soon be relieved?”
+
+“In three hours from now, your Excellency.”
+
+“Presently I shall want you, so I will instruct your officer to have you
+relieved at once.”
+
+“Very good, your Excellency.”
+
+Hastening home, thereafter, at top speed, and donning the uniform of
+a gendarme, with a false moustache and a pair of false whiskers--an
+ensemble in which the devil himself would not have known him, Samosvitov
+then made for the gaol where Chichikov was confined, and, en route,
+impressed into the service the first street woman whom he encountered,
+and handed her over to the care of two young fellows of like sort
+with himself. The next step was to hurry back to the prison where the
+original woman had been interned, and there to intimate to the sentry
+that he, Samosvitov (with whiskers and rifle complete), had been sent
+to relieve the said sentry at his post--a proceeding which, of course,
+enabled the newly-arrived relief to ensure, while performing his
+self-assumed turn of duty, that for the woman lying under arrest there
+should be substituted the woman recently recruited to the plot, and that
+the former should then be conveyed to a place of concealment where she
+was highly unlikely to be discovered.
+
+Meanwhile, Samosvitov’s feats in the military sphere were being rivalled
+by the wonders worked by Chichikov’s lawyer in the civilian field of
+action. As a first step, the lawyer caused it to be intimated to the
+local Governor that the Public Prosecutor was engaged in drawing up a
+report to his, the local Governor’s, detriment; whereafter the lawyer
+caused it to be intimated also to the Chief of Gendarmery that a certain
+confidential official was engaged in doing the same by HIM; whereafter,
+again, the lawyer confided to the confidential official in question
+that, owing to the documentary exertions of an official of a still
+more confidential nature than the first, he (the confidential official
+first-mentioned) was in a fair way to find himself in the same boat as
+both the local Governor and the Chief of Gendarmery: with the result
+that the whole trio were reduced to a frame of mind in which they were
+only too glad to turn to him (Samosvitov) for advice. The ultimate and
+farcical upshot was that report came crowding upon report, and that such
+alleged doings were brought to light as the sun had never before beheld.
+In fact, the documents in question employed anything and everything as
+material, even to announcing that such and such an individual had an
+illegitimate son, that such and such another kept a paid mistress, and
+that such and such a third was troubled with a gadabout wife; whereby
+there became interwoven with and welded into Chichikov’s past history
+and the story of the dead souls such a crop of scandals and innuendoes
+that by no manner of means could any mortal decide to which of these
+rubbishy romances to award the palm, since all of them presented an equal
+claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at length, the dossier reached
+the Governor-General himself it simply flabbergasted the poor man; and
+even the exceptionally clever and energetic secretary to whom he deputed
+the making of an abstract of the same very nearly lost his reason with
+the strain of attempting to lay hold of the tangled end of the skein. It
+happened that just at that time the Prince had several other important
+affairs on hand, and affairs of a very unpleasant nature. That is to
+say, famine had made its appearance in one portion of the province, and
+the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to the people had done their
+work badly; in another portion of the province certain Raskolniki [51]
+were in a state of ferment, owing to the spreading of a report than
+an Antichrist had arisen who would not even let the dead rest, but was
+purchasing them wholesale--wherefore the said Raskolniki were summoning
+folk to prayer and repentance, and, under cover of capturing the
+Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning non-Antichrists in batches;
+lastly, the peasants of a third portion of the province had risen
+against the local landowners and superintendents of police, for the
+reason that certain rascals had started a rumour that the time was come
+when the peasants themselves were to become landowners, and to wear
+frockcoats, while the landowners in being were about to revert to the
+peasant state, and to take their own wares to market; wherefore one of
+the local volosts[52], oblivious of the fact that an order of things
+of that kind would lead to a superfluity alike of landowners and
+of superintendents of police, had refused to pay its taxes, and
+necessitated recourse to forcible measures. Hence it was in a mood
+of the greatest possible despondency that the poor Prince was sitting
+plunged when word was brought to him that the old man who had gone bail
+for Chichikov was waiting to see him.
+
+“Show him in,” said the Prince; and the old man entered.
+
+“A fine fellow your Chichikov!” began the Prince angrily. “You defended
+him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to business which
+even the lowest thief would not have touched!”
+
+“Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are
+referring.”
+
+“I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought
+to have been given a public flogging for it.”
+
+“Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention, might I ask
+you whether you do not think the case is non-proven? At all events,
+sufficient evidence against him is still lacking.”
+
+“What? We have as chief witness the woman who personated the deceased,
+and I will have her interrogated in your presence.”
+
+Touching a bell, the Prince ordered her to be sent for.
+
+“It is a most disgraceful affair,” he went on; “and, ashamed though I am
+to have to say it, some of our leading tchinovniks, including the local
+Governor himself, have become implicated in the matter. Yet you tell me
+that this Chichikov ought not to be confined among thieves and rascals!”
+ Clearly the Governor-General’s wrath was very great indeed.
+
+“Your Highness,” said Murazov, “the Governor of the town is one of the
+heirs under the will: wherefore he has a certain right to intervene.
+Also, the fact that extraneous persons have meddled in the matter is
+only what is to be expected from human nature. A rich woman dies, and
+no exact, regular disposition of her property is made. Hence there comes
+flocking from every side a cloud of fortune hunters. What else could one
+expect? Such is human nature.”
+
+“Yes, but why should such persons go and commit fraud?” asked the
+Prince irritably. “I feel as though not a single honest tchinovnik were
+available--as though every one of them were a rogue.”
+
+“Your Highness, which of us is altogether beyond reproach? The
+tchinovniks of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them are
+men of worth, and nearly all of them men skilled in business--though
+also, unfortunately, largely inter-related.”
+
+“Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said the Prince, “for you
+are about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in
+you such a penchant for defending rascals?”
+
+“This,” replied Murazov. “Take any man you like of the persons whom you
+thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being. That
+being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one
+knows that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and
+stupidity? Each of us commits faults with every step that we take;
+each of us entails unhappiness upon others with every breath that we
+draw--and that although we may have no evil intention whatever in our
+minds. Your Highness himself has, before now, committed an injustice of
+the gravest nature.”
+
+“_I_ have?” cried the Prince, taken aback by this unexpected turn given
+to the conversation.
+
+Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating
+something in his thoughts. Then he said:
+
+“Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case of
+the lad Dierpiennikov.”
+
+“What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the
+Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!”
+
+“I am not seeking to justify him; I am only asking you whether you think
+it right that an inexperienced youth who had been tempted and led away
+by others should have received the same sentence as the man who
+had taken the chief part in the affair. That is to say, although
+Dierpiennikov and the man Voron-Drianni received an equal measure of
+punishment, their CRIMINALITY was not equal.”
+
+“If,” exclaimed the Prince excitedly, “you know anything further
+concerning the case, for God’s sake tell it me at once. Only the other
+day did I forward a recommendation that St. Petersburg should remit a
+portion of the sentence.”
+
+“Your Highness,” replied Murazov, “I do not mean that I know of
+anything which does not lie also within your own cognisance, though one
+circumstance there was which might have told in the lad’s favour had he
+not refused to admit it, lest another should suffer injury. All that
+I have in my mind is this. On that occasion were you not a little
+over-hasty in coming to a conclusion? You will understand, of course,
+that I am judging only according to my own poor lights, and for the
+reason that on more than one occasion you have urged me to be frank. In
+the days when I myself acted as a chief of gendarmery I came in contact
+with a great number of accused--some of them bad, some of them good; and
+in each case I found it well also to consider a man’s past career, for
+the reason that, unless one views things calmly, instead of at once
+decrying a man, he is apt to take alarm, and to make it impossible
+thereafter to get any real confession from him. If, on the other hand,
+you question a man as friend might question friend, the result will be
+that straightway he will tell you everything, nor ask for mitigation of
+his penalty, nor bear you the least malice, in that he will understand
+that it is not you who have punished him, but the law.”
+
+The Prince relapsed into thought; until presently there entered a young
+tchinovnik. Portfolio in hand, this official stood waiting respectfully.
+Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia upon his fresh
+young face; for evidently he had not been in the Service for nothing. As
+a matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and
+successfully to unravel it.
+
+
+        [At this point a long hiatus occurs in the original.]
+
+
+“I will send corn to the localities where famine is worst,” said
+Murazov, “for I understand that sort of work better than do the
+tchinovniks, and will personally see to the needs of each person. Also,
+if you will allow me, your Highness, I will go and have a talk with the
+Raskolniki. They are more likely to listen to a plain man than to an
+official. God knows whether I shall succeed in calming them, but at
+least no tchinovnik could do so, for officials of the kind merely draw
+up reports and lose their way among their own documents--with the result
+that nothing comes of it. Nor will I accept from you any money for these
+purposes, since I am ashamed to devote as much as a thought to my own
+pocket at a time when men are dying of hunger. I have a large stock of
+grain lying in my granaries; in addition to which, I have sent orders to
+Siberia that a new consignment shall be forwarded me before the coming
+summer.”
+
+“Of a surety will God reward you for your services, Athanasi
+Vassilievitch! Not another word will I say to you on the subject, for
+you yourself feel that any words from me would be inadequate. Yet tell
+me one thing: I refer to the case of which you know. Have I the right to
+pass over the case? Also, would it be just and honourable on my part to
+let the offending tchinovniks go unpunished?”
+
+“Your Highness, it is impossible to return a definite answer to those
+two questions: and the more so because many rascals are at heart men of
+rectitude. Human problems are difficult things to solve. Sometimes a man
+may be drawn into a vicious circle, so that, having once entered it, he
+ceases to be himself.”
+
+“But what would the tchinovniks say if I allowed the case to be passed
+over? Would not some of them turn up their noses at me, and declare
+that they have effected my intimidation? Surely they would be the last
+persons in the world to respect me for my action?”
+
+“Your Highness, I think this: that your best course would be to call
+them together, and to inform them that you know everything, and to
+explain to them your personal attitude (exactly as you have explained
+it to me), and to end by at once requesting their advice and asking
+them what each of them would have done had he been placed in similar
+circumstances.”
+
+“What? You think that those tchinovniks would be so accessible to lofty
+motives that they would cease thereafter to be venal and meticulous? I
+should be laughed at for my pains.”
+
+“I think not, your Highness. Even the baser section of humanity
+possesses a certain sense of equity. Your wisest plan, your Highness,
+would be to conceal nothing and to speak to them as you have just spoken
+to me. If, at present, they imagine you to be ambitious and proud
+and unapproachable and self-assured, your action would afford them
+an opportunity of seeing how the case really stands. Why should you
+hesitate? You would but be exercising your undoubted right. Speak to
+them as though delivering not a message of your own, but a message from
+God.”
+
+“I will think it over,” the Prince said musingly, “and meanwhile I thank
+you from my heart for your good advice.”
+
+“Also, I should order Chichikov to leave the town,” suggested Murazov.
+
+“Yes, I will do so. Tell him from me that he is to depart hence as
+quickly as possible, and that the further he should remove himself, the
+better it will be for him. Also, tell him that it is only owing to your
+efforts that he has received a pardon at my hands.”
+
+Murazov bowed, and proceeded from the Prince’s presence to that of
+Chichikov. He found the prisoner cheerfully enjoying a hearty dinner
+which, under hot covers, had been brought him from an exceedingly
+excellent kitchen. But almost the first words which he uttered showed
+Murazov that the prisoner had been having dealings with the army of
+bribe-takers; as also that in those transactions his lawyer had played
+the principal part.
+
+“Listen, Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man said. “I bring you your freedom,
+but only on this condition--that you depart out of the town forthwith.
+Therefore gather together your effects, and waste not a moment, lest
+worse befall you. Also, of all that a certain person has contrived to
+do on your behalf I am aware; wherefore let me tell you, as between
+ourselves, that should the conspiracy come to light, nothing on earth
+can save him, and in his fall he will involve others rather then be left
+unaccompanied in the lurch, and not see the guilt shared. How is it that
+when I left you recently you were in a better frame of mind than you are
+now? I beg of you not to trifle with the matter. Ah me! what boots that
+wealth for which men dispute and cut one another’s throats? Do they
+think that it is possible to prosper in this world without thinking of
+the world to come? Believe me when I say that, until a man shall have
+renounced all that leads humanity to contend without giving a thought to
+the ordering of spiritual wealth, he will never set his temporal goods
+either upon a satisfactory foundation. Yes, even as times of want and
+scarcity may come upon nations, so may they come upon individuals. No
+matter what may be said to the contrary, the body can never dispense
+with the soul. Why, then, will you not try to walk in the right way,
+and, by thinking no longer of dead souls, but only of your only living
+one, regain, with God’s help, the better road? I too am leaving the town
+to-morrow. Hasten, therefore, lest, bereft of my assistance, you meet
+with some dire misfortune.”
+
+And the old man departed, leaving Chichikov plunged in thought. Once
+more had the gravity of life begun to loom large before him.
+
+“Yes, Murazov was right,” he said to himself. “It is time that I were
+moving.”
+
+Leaving the prison--a warder carrying his effects in his wake--he found
+Selifan and Petrushka overjoyed at seeing their master once more at
+liberty.
+
+“Well, good fellows?” he said kindly. “And now we must pack and be off.”
+
+“True, true, Paul Ivanovitch,” agreed Selifan. “And by this time the
+roads will have become firmer, for much snow has fallen. Yes, high time
+is it that we were clear of the town. So weary of it am I that the sight
+of it hurts my eyes.”
+
+“Go to the coachbuilder’s,” commanded Chichikov, “and have
+sledge-runners fitted to the koliaska.”
+
+Chichikov then made his way into the town--though not with the object of
+paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have given
+rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an unobtrusive
+call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his latest
+suit. There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
+smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with
+the intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
+previous costume; and by promising double remuneration he induced the
+tailor in question so to hasten the cutting out of the garments that,
+through sitting up all night over the work, the man might have the whole
+ready by break of day. True, the goods were delivered a trifle after
+the appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and breeches
+completed; and while the horses were being put to, Chichikov tried on
+the clothes, and found them equal to the previous creation, even though
+during the process he caught sight of a bald patch on his head, and was
+led mournfully to reflect: “Alas! Why did I give way to such despair?
+Surely I need not have torn my hair out so freely?”
+
+Then, when the tailor had been paid, our hero left the town. But no
+longer was he the old Chichikov--he was only a ruin of what he had been,
+and his frame of mind might have been compared to a building recently
+pulled down to make room for a new one, while the new one had not yet
+been erected owing to the non-receipt of the plans from the architect.
+Murazov, too, had departed, but at an earlier hour, and in a tilt-waggon
+with Ivan Potapitch.
+
+An hour later the Governor-General issued to all and sundry officials
+a notice that, on the occasion of his departure for St. Petersburg,
+he would be glad to see the corps of tchinovniks at a private meeting.
+Accordingly all ranks and grades of officialdom repaired to his
+residence, and there awaited--not without a certain measure of
+trepidation and of searching of heart--the Governor-General’s entry.
+When that took place he looked neither clear nor dull. Yet his bearing
+was proud, and his step assured. The tchinovniks bowed--some of them to
+the waist, and he answered their salutations with a slight inclination
+of the head. Then he spoke as follows:
+
+“Since I am about to pay a visit to St. Petersburg, I have thought it
+right to meet you, and to explain to you privately my reasons for doing
+so. An affair of a most scandalous character has taken place in our
+midst. To what affair I am referring I think most of those present will
+guess. Now, an automatic process has led to that affair bringing about
+the discovery of other matters. Those matters are no less dishonourable
+than the primary one; and to that I regret to have to add that there
+stand involved in them certain persons whom I had hitherto believed
+to be honourable. Of the object aimed at by those who have complicated
+matters to the point of making their resolution almost impossible by
+ordinary methods I am aware; as also I am aware of the identity of the
+ringleader, despite the skill with which he has sought to conceal his
+share in the scandal. But the principal point is, that I propose to
+decide these matters, not by formal documentary process, but by the
+more summary process of court-martial, and that I hope, when the
+circumstances have been laid before his Imperial Majesty, to receive
+from him authority to adopt the course which I have mentioned. For I
+conceive that when it has become impossible to resolve a case by civil
+means, and some of the necessary documents have been burnt, and attempts
+have been made (both through the adduction of an excess of false and
+extraneous evidence and through the framing of fictitious reports)
+to cloud an already sufficiently obscure investigation with an added
+measure of complexity,--when all these circumstances have arisen, I
+conceive that the only possible tribunal to deal with them is a military
+tribunal. But on that point I should like your opinion.”
+
+The Prince paused for a moment or two, as though awaiting a reply; but
+none came, seeing that every man had his eyes bent upon the floor, and
+many of the audience had turned white in the face.
+
+“Then,” he went on, “I may say that I am aware also of a matter which
+those who have carried it through believe to lie only within the
+cognisance of themselves. The particulars of that matter will not be set
+forth in documentary form, but only through process of myself acting as
+plaintiff and petitioner, and producing none but ocular evidence.”
+
+Among the throng of tchinovniks some one gave a start, and thereby
+caused others of the more apprehensive sort to fall to trembling in
+their shoes.
+
+“Without saying does it go that the prime conspirators ought to undergo
+deprivation of rank and property, and that the remainder ought to be
+dismissed from their posts; for though that course would cause a certain
+proportion of the innocent to suffer with the guilty, there would seem
+to be no other course available, seeing that the affair is one of
+the most disgraceful nature, and calls aloud for justice. Therefore,
+although I know that to some my action will fail to serve as a lesson,
+since it will lead to their succeeding to the posts of dismissed
+officials, as well as that others hitherto considered honourable will
+lose their reputation, and others entrusted with new responsibilities
+will continue to cheat and betray their trust,--although all this is
+known to me, I still have no choice but to satisfy the claims of justice
+by proceeding to take stern measures. I am also aware that I shall be
+accused of undue severity; but, lastly, I am aware that it is my duty to
+put aside all personal feeling, and to act as the unconscious instrument
+of that retribution which justice demands.”
+
+Over ever face there passed a shudder. Yet the Prince had spoken calmly,
+and not a trace of anger or any other kind of emotion had been visible
+on his features.
+
+“Nevertheless,” he went on, “the very man in whose hands the fate of
+so many now lies, the very man whom no prayer for mercy could ever have
+influenced, himself desires to make a request of you. Should you grant
+that request, all will be forgotten and blotted out and pardoned, for
+I myself will intercede with the Throne on your behalf. That request is
+this. I know that by no manner of means, by no preventive measures, and
+by no penalties will dishonesty ever be completely extirpated from our
+midst, for the reason that its roots have struck too deep, and that
+the dishonourable traffic in bribes has become a necessity to, even the
+mainstay of, some whose nature is not innately venal. Also, I know that,
+to many men, it is an impossibility to swim against the stream. Yet now,
+at this solemn and critical juncture, when the country is calling aloud
+for saviours, and it is the duty of every citizen to contribute and to
+sacrifice his all, I feel that I cannot but issue an appeal to every man
+in whom a Russian heart and a spark of what we understand by the word
+‘nobility’ exist. For, after all, which of us is more guilty than his
+fellow? It may be to ME the greatest culpability should be assigned, in
+that at first I may have adopted towards you too reserved an attitude,
+that I may have been over-hasty in repelling those who desired but to
+serve me, even though of their services I did not actually stand in
+need. Yet, had they really loved justice and the good of their country,
+I think that they would have been less prone to take offence at the
+coldness of my attitude, but would have sacrificed their feelings and
+their personality to their superior convictions. For hardly can it
+be that I failed to note their overtures and the loftiness of their
+motives, or that I would not have accepted any wise and useful advice
+proffered. At the same time, it is for a subordinate to adapt himself to
+the tone of his superior, rather than for a superior to adapt himself to
+the tone of his subordinate. Such a course is at once more regular
+and more smooth of working, since a corps of subordinates has but one
+director, whereas a director may have a hundred subordinates. But let us
+put aside the question of comparative culpability. The important point
+is, that before us all lies the duty of rescuing our fatherland. Our
+fatherland is suffering, not from the incursion of a score of alien
+tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in addition to the lawful
+administration, there has grown up a second administration possessed of
+infinitely greater powers than the system established by law. And that
+second administration has established its conditions, fixed its tariff
+of prices, and published that tariff abroad; nor could any ruler, even
+though the wisest of legislators and administrators, do more to correct
+the evil than limit it in the conduct of his more venal tchinovniks by
+setting over them, as their supervisors, men of superior rectitude. No,
+until each of us shall come to feel that, just as arms were taken up
+during the period of the upheaval of nations, so now each of us must
+make a stand against dishonesty, all remedies will end in failure. As a
+Russian, therefore--as one bound to you by consanguinity and identity of
+blood--I make to you my appeal. I make it to those of you who understand
+wherein lies nobility of thought. I invite those men to remember the
+duty which confronts us, whatsoever our respective stations; I invite
+them to observe more closely their duty, and to keep more constantly in
+mind their obligations of holding true to their country, in that before
+us the future looms dark, and that we can scarcely....”
+
+                 *****
+
+   [Here the manuscript of the original comes abruptly to an end.]
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Essays on Russian Novelists. Macmillan.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature. Duckworth and
+Co.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This is generally referred to in the Russian criticisms of
+Gogol as a quotation from Jeremiah. It appears upon investigation,
+however, that it actually occurs only in the Slavonic version from the
+Greek, and not in the Russian translation made direct from the Hebrew.]
+
+[Footnote 4: An urn for brewing honey tea.]
+
+[Footnote 5: An urn for brewing ordinary tea.]
+
+[Footnote 6: A German dramatist (1761-1819) who also filled sundry posts
+in the service of the Russian Government.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Priest’s wife.]
+
+[Footnote 8: In this case the term General refers to a civil grade
+equivalent to the military rank of the same title.]
+
+[Footnote 9: An annual tax upon peasants, payment of which secured to
+the payer the right of removal.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Cabbage soup.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Three horses harnessed abreast.]
+
+[Footnote 12: A member of the gentry class.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Pieces equal in value to twenty-five kopecks (a quarter of
+a rouble).]
+
+[Footnote 14: A Russian general who, in 1812, stoutly opposed Napoleon
+at the battle of Borodino.]
+
+[Footnote 15: The late eighteenth century.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Forty Russian pounds.]
+
+[Footnote 17: To serve as blotting-paper.]
+
+[Footnote 18: A liquor distilled from fermented bread crusts or sour
+fruit.]
+
+[Footnote 19: That is to say, a distinctively Russian name.]
+
+[Footnote 20: A jeering appellation which owes its origin to the fact
+that certain Russians cherish a prejudice against the initial character
+of the word--namely, the Greek theta, or TH.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The great Russian general who, after winning fame in the
+Seven Years’ War, met with disaster when attempting to assist the
+Austrians against the French in 1799.]
+
+[Footnote 22: A kind of large gnat.]
+
+[Footnote 23: A copper coin worth five kopecks.]
+
+[Footnote 24: A Russian general who fought against Napoleon, and was
+mortally wounded at Borodino.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Literally, “nursemaid.”]
+
+[Footnote 26: Village factor or usurer.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Subordinate government officials.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Nevertheless Chichikov would appear to have erred, since
+most people would make the sum amount to twenty-three roubles, forty
+kopecks. If so, Chichikov cheated himself of one rouble, fifty-six
+kopecks.]
+
+[Footnote 29: The names Kariakin and Volokita might, perhaps, be
+translated as “Gallant” and “Loafer.”]
+
+[Footnote 30: Tradesman or citizen.]
+
+[Footnote 31: The game of knucklebones.]
+
+[Footnote 32: A sort of low, four-wheeled carriage.]
+
+[Footnote 33: The system by which, in annual rotation, two-thirds of a
+given area are cultivated, while the remaining third is left fallow.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Public Prosecutor.]
+
+[Footnote 35: To reproduce this story with a raciness worthy of the
+Russian original is practically impossible. The translator has not
+attempted the task.]
+
+[Footnote 36: One of the mistresses of Louis XIV. of France. In 1680 she
+wrote a book called Reflexions sur la Misericorde de Dieu, par une Dame
+Penitente.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Four-wheeled open carriage.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Silver five kopeck piece.]
+
+[Footnote 39: A silver quarter rouble.]
+
+[Footnote 40: In the days of serfdom, the rate of forced labour--so many
+hours or so many days per week--which the serf had to perform for his
+proprietor.]
+
+[Footnote 41: The Elder.]
+
+[Footnote 42: The Younger.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Secondary School.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The desiatin = 2.86 English acres.]
+
+[Footnote 45: “One more makes five.”]
+
+[Footnote 46: Dried spinal marrow of the sturgeon.]
+
+[Footnote 47: Long, belted Tartar blouses.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Village commune.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Landowner.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Here, in the original, a word is missing.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Dissenters or Old Believers: i.e. members of the sect
+which refused to accept the revised version of the Church Service Books
+promulgated by the Patriarch Nikon in 1665.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Fiscal districts.]
+
+
+
+
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Dead Souls | Project Gutenberg   </title>
+          <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+
+    <style>
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    .p2 {margin-top: 2em;}
+    .right {text-align: right; text-indent: 0em;}
+    .center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;}
+    .big {font-size: 1.3em;}
+    .xbig {font-size: 2em;}
+    .poetry {margin-left: 10%; text-indent: 0em;}
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dead Souls, by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Dead Souls</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #1081]
+Last Updated: June 12, 2023</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by:John Bickers, and David Widger</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAD SOULS ***</div>
+
+
+
+    <p>
+      <br><br>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      DEAD SOULS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br>
+    </p>
+    <p class="center big">
+      By Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
+    </p>
+   
+    <p class="center big p2">
+      Translated by D. J. Hogarth
+    </p>
+    <p class="center big">
+      Introduction By John Cournos
+    </p>
+   
+    <hr>
+   
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <span class="big"><b>CONTENTS</b></span>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_INTR"> Introduction By John Cournos </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> PREPARER’S NOTE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        INTRODUCTION
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST PORTION OF THIS
+        WORK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> <b>DEAD SOULS</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PART"> <b>PART I</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PART2"> <b>PART II</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_FOOT"> FOOTNOTES: </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br>
+    </p>
+    <hr>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br> <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Introduction By John Cournos
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREPARER’S NOTE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the foreign words were italicised in the original, a style not
+      preserved here. Accents and diphthongs have also been left out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_INTR2" id="link2H_INTR2_">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the first in the matter of structure, the other in
+      background, humour, and detail of characterisation&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The work on one hand was received as nothing less than an exposure of all
+      Russia&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      <a href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1" id="linknoteref-1"><small>1</small></a>,
+      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 <a
+      href="#linknote-2" name="linknoteref-2" id="linknoteref-2"><small>2</small></a>,
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From 1835 Gogol spent almost his entire time abroad; some strange unrest&mdash;possibly
+      his Cossack blood&mdash;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&mdash;“a spiritual ladder,” in the words of Merejkovsky&mdash;had
+      been made on an earlier occasion by a certain Russian saint, who used
+      almost the same language. “I shall laugh my bitter laugh” <a
+      href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3" id="linknoteref-3"><small>3</small></a>
+      was the inscription placed on Gogol’s grave.
+    </p>
+<p class="right">
+                                                          JOHN COURNOS
+</p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LIVES, etc.: (Russian) Kotlyarevsky (N. A.), 1903; Shenrok (V. I.),
+      Materials for a Biography, 1892; (French) Leger (L.), Nicholas Gogol,
+      1914.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST PORTION OF THIS WORK
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Second Edition published in 1846
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      From the Author to the Reader
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reader, whosoever or wheresoever you be, and whatsoever be your station&mdash;whether
+      that of a member of the higher ranks of society or that of a member of the
+      plainer walks of life&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;is
+      what has, until now, prevented me from publishing any subsequent volumes
+      of this story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a rude country bumpkin whose life, throughout, has been
+      passed in retirement&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lastly, while thanking all journalists and litterateurs for their
+      previously published criticisms of my book&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br>
+    </p>
+    <hr>
+    <p>
+      <br> <br> <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="center xbig">
+      DEAD SOULS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART" id="link2H_PART">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart
+      britchka&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="linknoteref-4"><small>4</small></a>, cheek by
+      jowl with a samovar <a href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5" id="linknoteref-5"><small>5</small></a>&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      remnant as thin and flat (perhaps also as greasy) as a pancake&mdash;which
+      he had managed to beg of the landlord of the establishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;sometimes
+      through the instrumentality of Russian magnates who profess to be
+      connoisseurs of art&mdash;from Italy; owing to the said magnates having
+      made such purchases solely on the advice of the couriers who have escorted
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To resume, however&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Landowner&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-6" name="linknoteref-6" id="linknoteref-6"><small>6</small></a> 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day he devoted to paying calls upon the various municipal
+      officials&mdash;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&mdash;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”&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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”&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      talkative man by nature&mdash;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 <a
+      href="#linknote-7" name="linknoteref-7" id="linknoteref-7"><small>7</small></a>!”
+       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&mdash;a man still in his prime, and possessed of
+      a pair of eyes which, sweet as sugar, blinked whenever he laughed&mdash;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&mdash;more especially at the present day, when the race of epic
+      heroes is beginning to die out in Russia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day Chichikov dined and spent the evening at the house of the Chief
+      of Police&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;even though the latter included two ladies&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;who as a rule never
+      spoke well of ANY ONE&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;a mere person with whom Aulic Councillors might consort,
+      but upon whom persons of the grade of full General <a href="#linknote-8"
+       name="linknoteref-8" id="linknoteref-8"><small>8</small></a> 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&mdash;and to an author
+      studied negligence spells death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Perhaps you mean Manilovka&mdash;not ZAmanilovka?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, yes&mdash;Manilovka.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Manilovka, eh? Well, you must continue for another verst, and then you
+      will see it straight before you, on the right.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the right?” re-echoed the coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, on the right,” affirmed the peasant. “You are on the proper road for
+      Manilovka, but ZAmanilovka&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;appendages
+      as bare as two pieces of bast&mdash;and crowed loudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed when at length Chichikov leapt from the
+      vehicle. “Never should I have believed that you would have remembered us!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-9" name="linknoteref-9" id="linknoteref-9"><small>9</small></a>?” 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”&mdash;thus ran the
+      formula&mdash;“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&mdash;so diverse are the systems in force! None the
+      less, I may remark that Madame Manilov&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pray be so good as not to inconvenience yourself on my account,” said
+      Chichikov. “<i>I</i> will follow YOU.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Paul Ivanovitch&mdash;no! You are my guest.” And Manilov pointed
+      towards the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, I will not. Never could I allow so distinguished and so
+      welcome a guest as yourself to take second place.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why call me ‘distinguished,’ my dear sir? I beg of you to proceed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay; be YOU pleased to do so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the reason which I have stated.” And Manilov smiled his very
+      pleasantest smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally the pair entered simultaneously and sideways; with the result that
+      they jostled one another not a little in the process.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Allow me to present to you my wife,” continued Manilov. “My dear&mdash;Paul
+      Ivanovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;a
+      treat destined to convert this day into a gala day, a true birthday of the
+      heart.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, you ARE so,” interrupted Manilov with his fixed and engaging smile.
+      “You are all that, and more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How like you our town?” queried Madame. “Have you spent an agreeable time
+      in it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very,” replied Chichikov. “The town is an exceedingly nice one, and I
+      have greatly enjoyed its hospitable society.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what do you think of our Governor?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; IS he not a most engaging and dignified personage?” added Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And the Vice-Governor, too&mdash;he is a nice man, is he not?” inquired
+      Manilov with renewed blinkings of the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who? The Vice-Governor? Yes, a most worthy fellow!” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what of the Chief of Police? Is it not a fact that he too is in the
+      highest degree agreeable?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what of his wife?” queried Madame Manilov. “Is she not a most
+      gracious personality?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “One of the best among my limited acquaintance,” agreed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you devote your time entirely to your estate?” asked Chichikov, in his
+      turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so,” agreed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, quite so,” capped Manilov. “At the same time, it would be a
+      different matter if the neighbourhood were a GOOD one&mdash;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&mdash;”
+       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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay, but even THAT were worth nothing had not one a friend with whom to
+      share one’s life,” remarked Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Manilov with a glance not merely sweet, but
+      positively luscious&mdash;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&mdash;what
+      PERFECT happiness, so to speak&mdash;the present occasion has brought me,
+      seeing that I am permitted to converse with you and to enjoy your
+      conversation.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But WHAT of my conversation?” replied Chichikov. “I am an insignificant
+      individual, and, beyond that, nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the contrary, I should consider it the highest honour in the world if&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lengths to which this mutual outpouring of soul would have proceeded
+      had not a servant entered to announce luncheon must remain a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;we confine ourselves to shtchi <a
+      href="#linknote-10" name="linknoteref-10" id="linknoteref-10"><small>10</small></a>,
+      but we do so with a single heart. Come, I humbly beg of you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What charming children!” said Chichikov as he gazed at the pair. “And how
+      old are they?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The eldest is eight,” replied Manilov, “and the younger one attained the
+      age of six yesterday.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Themistocleus,” repeated the father, “tell me which is the finest city in
+      France.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And which is the finest city in Russia?” continued Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the tutor’s attitude became wholly one of concentration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “St. Petersburg,” replied Themistocleus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what other city?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Moscow,” responded the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I do,” replied Themistocleus, chewing a piece of bread and wagging
+      his head from side to side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;the grease
+      from which had soon covered his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every now and again the hostess would turn to Chichikov with the words,
+      “You are eating nothing&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I should prefer to sit upon this chair.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly Chichikov obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And also let me hand you a pipe.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I never smoke,” answered Chichikov civilly, and with an assumed air
+      of regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why?” inquired Manilov&mdash;equally civilly, but with a regret that
+      was wholly genuine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;a
+      most excellent, well-educated fellow&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov replied that such cases were common, since nature comprised many
+      things which even the finest intellect could not compass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But allow me to put to you a question,” he went on in a tone in which
+      there was a strange&mdash;or, at all events, RATHER a strange&mdash;note.
+      For some unknown reason, also, he glanced over his shoulder. For some
+      equally unknown reason, Manilov glanced over HIS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How long is it,” inquired the guest, “since you last rendered a census
+      return?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, a long, long time. In fact, I cannot remember when it was.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And since then have many of your serfs died?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Look here, my good man,” said Manilov. “How many of our serfs have died
+      since the last census revision?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How many of them have died? Why, a great many.” The bailiff hiccoughed,
+      and slapped his mouth lightly after doing so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How many, for instance?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; how many?” re-echoed Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “HOW many?” re-echoed the bailiff. “Well, no one knows the exact number,
+      for no one has kept any account.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so,” remarked Manilov. “I supposed the death-rate to have been
+      high, but was ignorant of its precise extent.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I will&mdash;a detailed list,” agreed Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bailiff departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For what purpose do you want it?” inquired Manilov when the bailiff had
+      gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You ask me,” said Chichikov, “for what purpose I want the list. Well, my
+      purpose in wanting it is this&mdash;that I desire to purchase a few
+      peasants.” And he broke off in a gulp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But may I ask HOW you desire to purchase those peasants?” asked Manilov.
+      “With land, or merely as souls for transferment&mdash;that is to say, by
+      themselves, and without any land?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I want the peasants themselves only,” replied Chichikov. “And I want dead
+      ones at that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What?&mdash;Excuse me, but I am a trifle deaf. Really, your words sound
+      most strange!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “So,” continued Chichikov, “what I desire to know is whether you are
+      willing to hand over to me&mdash;to resign&mdash;these actually
+      non-living, but legally living, peasants; or whether you have any better
+      proposal to make?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Manilov felt too confused and confounded to do aught but continue staring
+      at his interlocutor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think that you are disturbing yourself unnecessarily,” was Chichikov’s
+      next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I? Oh no! Not at all!” stammered Manilov. “Only&mdash;pardon me&mdash;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&mdash;er&mdash;utterances
+      which have just fallen from your lips there may lie something else
+      concealed, it may equally be that&mdash;er&mdash;you have been pleased so
+      to express yourself for the sake of the beauty of the terms wherein that
+      expression found shape?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Manilov still felt at a loss&mdash;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&mdash;this
+      time from his nostrils as well as from his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “So,” went on Chichikov, “if no obstacle stands in the way, we might as
+      well proceed to the completion of the purchase.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Of the purchase of the dead souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Perhaps you feel doubtful about the proposal?” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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)&mdash;you will, I know, excuse me if I say that
+      possibly this&mdash;er&mdash;this, er, SCHEME of yours, this&mdash;er&mdash;TRANSACTION
+      of yours, may fail altogether to accord with the Civil Statutes and
+      Provisions of the Realm?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;unless on that of some
+      particularly sapient Minister of State who is debating some particularly
+      abstruse problem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, then, do you propose?” asked Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I propose only what is above-board, and nothing else.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then, that being so, it is another matter, and I have nothing to urge
+      against it,” said Manilov, apparently reassured to the full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” remarked Chichikov. “Then we need only to agree as to the
+      price.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is Paul Ivanovitch leaving us so soon, dearest Lizanka?” she said with an
+      air of regret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Surely it must be that we have wearied him?” her spouse replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rest assured that I will not,” responded Manilov. “Only for a couple of
+      days will you and I be parted from one another.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that the party moved into the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should,” replied Themistocleus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And to you, Alkid, I will bring a drum. That would suit you, would it
+      not?” And he bowed in Alkid’s direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Zeth&mdash;a drum,” lisped the boy, hanging his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good! Then a drum it shall be&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are only small ones,” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And you know your way to Sobakevitch’s?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I do not, and should be glad if you would direct me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-11" name="linknoteref-11" id="linknoteref-11"><small>11</small></a>,
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;not as a punishment, but as a sign of his
+      approval. That done, he addressed himself to the skewbald again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he fell to recalling certain reminiscences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;why, every one looks up to him, for
+      he has been in the Government’s service, and is a Collegiate Councillor.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Selifan!” he exclaimed, leaning forward in the britchka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it, barin?” replied the coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Can you see the country house anywhere?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You rascal, what road are you following?” inquired Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Stop, stop, or you will upset us!” he shouted to the fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here he started to turn the vehicle round a little&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, you!” said Selifan meditatively to the britchka. “To think of
+      upsetting us like this!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are as drunk as a lord!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, barin. Drunk, indeed? Why, I know my manners too well. A word or
+      two with a friend&mdash;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&mdash;especially
+      a snack with a decent man.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What did I say to you when last you got drunk?” asked Chichikov. “Have
+      you forgotten what I said then?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, if I lay the whip about you, you’ll know then how to talk to a
+      decent fellow, I’ll warrant!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is that knocking? What have you come for?” shouted the hoarse voice
+      of an elderly woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “We are travellers, good mother,” said Chichikov. “Pray allow us to spend
+      the night here.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what are we to do, mother? We have lost our way, and cannot spend the
+      night out of doors in such weather.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, we cannot. The night is dark and cold,” added Selifan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hold your tongue, you fool!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who ARE you, then?” inquired the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A dvorianin <a href="#linknote-12" name="linknoteref-12" id="linknoteref-12"><small>12</small></a>, good mother.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somehow the word dvorianin seemed to give the old woman food for thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Wait a moment,” she said, “and I will tell the mistress.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-13" name="linknoteref-13" id="linknoteref-13"><small>13</small></a>, 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&mdash;should
+      the old gown become scorched during the baking of holiday cakes and other
+      dainties, or should it fall into pieces of itself&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov apologised for having disturbed the household with his
+      unexpected arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov thanked his hostess kindly, and said that he needed nothing, and
+      she must not put herself about: only for rest was he longing&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But at least you are acquainted with landowner Manilov?” continued
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No. Who is he?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Another landed proprietor, madam.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, neither have I heard of him. No such landowner lives hereabouts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then who ARE your local landowners?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Bobrov, Svinin, Kanapatiev, Khapakin, Trepakin, and Plieshakov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are they rich men?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, none of them. One of them may own twenty souls, and another thirty,
+      but of gentry who own a hundred there are none.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov reflected that he had indeed fallen into an aristocratic
+      wilderness!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “At all events, is the town far away?” he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “About sixty versts. How sorry I am that I have nothing for you to eat!
+      Should you care to drink some tea?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thank you, good mother, but I require nothing beyond a bed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That I am nothing worse than muddy is indeed fortunate, since, but for
+      the Almighty, I should have had my ribs broken.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Dear, dear! To think of all that you must have been through. Had I not
+      better wipe your back?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thank you, I thank you, but you need not trouble. Merely be so good as
+      to tell your maid to dry my clothes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;just
+      as we used to do for your late master&mdash;give them a good rub, and fold
+      them up neatly.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well, mistress,” said Fetinia, spreading some sheets over the bed,
+      and arranging the pillows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-14" name="linknoteref-14" id="linknoteref-14"><small>14</small></a> 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 <a href="#linknote-15" name="linknoteref-15" id="linknoteref-15"><small>15</small></a>. 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&mdash;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&mdash;in some cases almost a new
+      one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have slept exceedingly well,” replied Chichikov, seating himself upon a
+      chair. “And how are YOU, good madam?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But poorly, my dear sir.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why so?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That will pass, that will pass, good mother. You must pay no attention to
+      it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Excellent, good mother! Then I will take that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You have a nice little village here, madam. How many souls does it
+      contain?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But your peasants look fine, strong fellows. May I enquire your name?
+      Through arriving so late at night I have quite lost my wits.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Korobotchka, the widow of a Collegiate Secretary.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I humbly thank you. And your Christian name and patronymic?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nastasia Petrovna.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nastasia Petrovna! Those are excellent names. I have a maternal aunt
+      named like yourself.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And YOUR name?” queried the lady. “May I take it that you are a
+      Government Assessor?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, madam,” replied Chichikov with a smile. “I am not an Assessor, but a
+      traveller on private business.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I never buy honey.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then WHAT do you buy, pray? Hemp? I have a little of that by me, but not
+      more than half a pood <a href="#linknote-16" name="linknoteref-16" id="linknoteref-16"><small>16</small></a> or so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, madam. It is in other wares that I deal. Tell me, have you, of late
+      years, lost many of your peasants by death?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; no fewer than eighteen,” responded the old lady with a sigh. “Such a
+      fine lot, too&mdash;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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? A fire occurred at your place?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, God preserve us all! It was not so bad as that. You must
+      understand that the blacksmith SET HIMSELF on fire&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hand over whom?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The dead peasants.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how could I do that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite simply. Sell them to me, and I will give you some money in
+      exchange.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that the said souls would be listed as still alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what good would they be to you?” asked his hostess, staring at him
+      with her eyes distended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That is MY affair.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But they are DEAD souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes&mdash;but I do not know,” said his hostess diffidently. “You see,
+      never before have I sold dead souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;<i>I</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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But, sir, I have never in my life sold dead folk&mdash;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&mdash;able to make napkins or anything else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but with the living we have nothing to do, damn it! I am asking you
+      only about DEAD folk.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, yes, of course. But at first sight I felt afraid lest I should be
+      incurring a loss&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “See here, madam. (What a woman it is!) HOW could they be worth more?
+      Think for yourself. They are so much loss to you&mdash;so much loss, do
+      you understand? Take any worthless, rubbishy article you like&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “True, true&mdash;they ARE good for nothing. But what troubles me is the
+      fact that they are dead.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;fifteen roubles for each soul, do you understand?&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For twelve roubles per pood.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “By the Lord God I did!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;and roubles not in silver, but roubles in good
+      paper currency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That these powerful inducements would certainly cause the old woman to
+      yield Chichikov had not a doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The Lord save us, but what things you say!” she ejaculated, crossing
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the old woman communed with herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What are you thinking of, Nastasia Petrovna?” inquired Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am thinking that I scarcely know what to do. Perhaps I had better sell
+      you some hemp?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, I think it a very queer bargain. Never have I heard of such a
+      thing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, you and all your village together!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The insults!” exclaimed the old woman, glancing at her visitor in terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No wonder that I lose my temper! An egg too many is no great matter, yet
+      it may prove exceedingly annoying.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly,” replied Madame Korobotchka. “The son of our archpriest,
+      Father Cyril, himself is a lawyer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-17" name="linknoteref-17" id="linknoteref-17"><small>17</small></a> 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&mdash;the latter made to draw out from the side of the
+      receptacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov set to work to clean a pen, and then to write. Presently his
+      hostess entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes&mdash;in Moscow,” replied Chichikov without interrupting his writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this Chichikov explained that the paper was not the sort proper for
+      the purpose&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Try this freshly-made pie and an egg,” continued Madame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And also a few pancakes?” suggested Madame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your pancakes are indeed splendid,” said Chichikov, applying himself to
+      the second consignment of fried dainties when they had arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then it is being got so, madam, it is being got so, and I shall need a
+      moment or two to pack my things.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As you please, dear sir; but do not forget me in connection with those
+      Government contracts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I have said that NEVER shall I forget you,” replied Chichikov as he
+      hurried into the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And would you like to buy some lard?” continued his hostess, pursuing
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Lard? Oh certainly. Why not? Only, only&mdash;I will do so ANOTHER time.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I shall have some ready at about Christmas.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, madam. THEN I will buy anything and everything&mdash;the lard
+      included.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And perhaps you will be wanting also some feathers? I shall be having
+      some for sale about St. Philip’s Day.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well, very well, madam.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “There you see!” she remarked as they stepped out on to the verandah. “The
+      britchka is NOT yet ready.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it soon will be, it soon will be. Only direct me to the main road.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, of course.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;both of which properties were at odds and ends,
+      owing to her ignorance of the art of managing them&mdash;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?&mdash;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?...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Selifan returned no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good-bye, madam,” added the speaker. “But where is the girl whom you
+      promised me?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no,” she replied. “I will show you the road when the time comes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Which way, then?” he asked again when they had proceeded a little
+      further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This way.” And she pointed to the road just mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Get along with you!” retorted the coachman. “That DOES go to the right.
+      You don’t know your right hand from your left.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what is the building?” asked Selifan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A tavern,” she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then we can get along by ourselves,” he observed. “Do you get down, and
+      be off home.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he stopped, and helped her to alight&mdash;muttering as he did
+      so: “Ah, you blackfooted creature!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov added a copper groat, and she departed well pleased with her
+      ride in the gentleman’s carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On reaching the tavern, Chichikov called a halt. His reasons for this were
+      twofold&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you a sucking-pig?” Chichikov inquired of the landlady as she stood
+      expectantly before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And some horse-radish and sour cream?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then serve them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ha, ha, ha!” he cried with a gesture of astonishment at the sight of
+      Chichikov. “What chance brings YOU here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that Chichikov recognised Nozdrev&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you did NOT break the bank,” remarked the flaxen-haired man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No. That was because I did not play my cards right. But what about your
+      precious major’s play? Is THAT good?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good or not, at least he beat you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-18" name="linknoteref-18" id="linknoteref-18"><small>18</small></a>. Try to
+      imagine not merely Clicquot, but a sort of blend of Clicquot and Matradura&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! You CAN’T have got through seventeen,” remarked the
+      flaxen-haired man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I did, I give my word of honour,” retorted Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Imagine what you like, but you didn’t drink even TEN bottles at a
+      sitting.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Will you bet that I did not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; for what would be the use of betting about it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then at least wager the gun which you have bought.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I am not going to do anything of the kind.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Just as an experiment?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am about to call on a friend.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On what friend? Let him go to the devil, and come to my place instead.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I cannot, I cannot. I have business to do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, business again! I thought so!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I HAVE business to do&mdash;and pressing business at that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I wager that you’re lying. If not, tell me whom you’re going to call
+      upon.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Upon Sobakevitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</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&mdash;no, not for ten
+      thousand roubles of money. I tell you that in advance.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;he had contrived to filch the latter while fumbling in
+      the britchka for something else):
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Barin, do you wish for anything to eat?” inquired the landlady as she
+      entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Aniseed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then bring me a glass of it,” repeated Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And one for me as well,” added the flaxen-haired man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;a
+      fellow dressed like his master (that is to say, in a greasy, wadded
+      overcoat)&mdash;entered with the puppy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Put the brute down here,” commanded Nozdrev, “and then fasten it up.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Porphyri deposited the animal upon the floor; whereupon it proceeded to
+      act after the manner of dogs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I DID brush him,” protested Porphyri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then where did these fleas come from?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I cannot think. Perhaps they have leapt into his coat out of the
+      britchka.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You liar! As a matter of fact, you have forgotten to brush him.
+      Nevertheless, look at these ears, Chichikov. Just feel them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why should I? Without doing that, I can see that he is well-bred.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, catch hold of his ears and feel them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To humour the fellow Chichikov did as he had requested, remarking: “Yes,
+      he seems likely to turn out well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And feel the coldness of his nose! Just take it in your hand.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Not wishing to offend his interlocutor, Chichikov felt the puppy’s nose,
+      saying: “Some day he will have an excellent scent.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Porphyri lifted up the puppy, and bore it downstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no,” put in the flaxen-haired man. “You must excuse me, for I must be
+      off home.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish, rubbish! I am NOT going to excuse you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But my wife will be furious with me. You and Monsieur Chichikov must
+      change into the other britchka.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! The thing is not to be thought of.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flaxen-haired man was one of those people in whose character, at first
+      sight, there seems to lurk a certain grain of stubbornness&mdash;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&mdash;yes, better than any one else will do&mdash;to
+      a tune set by some one else. In short, they generally begin well, but
+      always end badly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But the gentleman has not paid for the vodka?” put in the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “All right, all right, good mother. Look here, brother-in-law. Pay her,
+      will you, for I have not a kopeck left.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How much?” inquired the brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, sir? Eighty kopecks, if you please,” replied the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A lie! Give her half a rouble. That will be quite enough.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and consorting with them as though nothing
+      whatsoever had happened&mdash;no reference to the subject being made by
+      him, and they too holding their tongues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a man with a star
+      on his breast&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;who was
+      beginning to feel hungry once more&mdash;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&mdash;even though as early as two o’clock he had to announce
+      that nothing more was to be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You NEVER paid ten thousand roubles for the brute!” exclaimed the
+      brother-in-law. “He isn’t worth even a thousand.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “By God, I DID pay ten thousand!” asserted Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You can swear that as much as you like,” retorted the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Will you bet that I did not?” asked Nozdrev, but the brother-in-law
+      declined the offer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This piece of information was received with renewed incredulity on the
+      part of the brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;their “stems,” as dog fanciers call those members&mdash;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&mdash;also blind; then an inspection of the water-mill,
+      which lacked the spindle-socket wherein the upper stone ought to have been
+      revolving&mdash;“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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You never caught a hare by the hind legs with your hands!” remarked the
+      brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I DID” reiterated Nozdrev. “However, let me show you the boundary
+      where my lands come to an end.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, it isn’t long since I purchased it,” said Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How long?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How long? Why, I purchased it three days ago, and gave a pretty sum for
+      it, as the devil knows!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? Why, three days ago you were at the fair?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, your STEWARD bought it.” The brother-in-law seemed doubtful, and
+      shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;such things as books and papers. On the contrary, the
+      only articles to be seen were a sword and a brace of guns&mdash;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 <a href="#linknote-19" name="linknoteref-19" id="linknoteref-19"><small>19</small></a>,
+      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&mdash;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”&mdash;a
+      term which, in the Nozdrevian vocabulary, purported to signify the acme of
+      perfection).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, after some hors-d’oeuvres of sturgeon’s back, they sat down to
+      table&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;“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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no!” cried Nozdrev. “I am NOT going to let you go.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I MUST go,” replied the brother-in-law. “Don’t try to hinder me. You
+      are annoying me greatly.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish! We are going to play a game of banker.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your wife be&mdash;! But have you REALLY an important piece of business
+      with her?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, let him go,” put in Chichikov under his breath. “What use will he be
+      here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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
+      <a href="#linknote-20" name="linknoteref-20" id="linknoteref-20"><small>20</small></a>.
+      Off you go to your wife and your woman’s talk and may the devil go with
+      you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then off you go to her with your pack of lies. Here is your cap.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, good friend, you are not to speak of her like that. By so doing you
+      offend me greatly&mdash;I say that she is a dear, good woman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then run along home to her.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I am just going. Excuse me for having been unable to stay. Gladly
+      would I have stayed, but really I cannot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that they repaired to the parlour, where, on Porphyri bringing
+      candles, Chichikov perceived that his host had produced a pack of cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov pretended not to have heard him, but remarked with an air of
+      having just recollected a forgotten point:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “By the way, I had omitted to say that I have a request to make of you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What request?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “First give me your word that you will grant it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is the request, I say?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you give me your word, do you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your word of honour?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My word of honour.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have. But why do you ask?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because I want you to make them over to me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of what use would they be to you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind. I have a purpose in wanting them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What purpose?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A purpose which is strictly my own affair. In short, I need them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You seem to have hatched a very fine scheme. Out with it, now! What is in
+      the wind?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then for what purpose do you want the serfs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, the curiosity of the man! He wants to poke his fingers into and smell
+      over every detail!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No matter what you desire me to do, I decline to do it until you have
+      told me your purpose.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are lying,” said Nozdrev without even letting him finish. “Yes, you
+      are lying my good friend.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Again you are lying,” said Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then look here; I have been lying only to this extent.” And Chichikov
+      marked off upon his little finger a minute portion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless I will bet my head that you have been lying throughout.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! That is not very civil of you. Why should I have been lying?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This remark hurt Chichikov, for at any time he disliked expressions gross
+      or offensive to decency, and never allowed any one&mdash;no, not even
+      persons of the highest rank&mdash;to behave towards him with an undue
+      measure of familiarity. Consequently his sense of umbrage on the present
+      occasion was unbounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, after a pause he added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “If you do not care to give me the serfs, why not SELL them?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “SELL them? <i>I</i> know you, you rascal! You wouldn’t give me very much
+      for them, WOULD you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A nice fellow! Look here. What are they to you? So many diamonds, eh?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thought so! <i>I</i> know you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, but I could wish that you were a member of the Jewish
+      persuasion. You would give them to me fast enough then.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what should <i>I</i> want with your colt?” said Chichikov, genuinely
+      astonished at the proposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I ask you again: of what use could the colt possibly be to me? I am not
+      the keeper of a breeding establishment.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I do not mean to buy the colt, damn him!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then buy the roan mare.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, nor the roan mare.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you shall have both the mare and the grey horse which you have seen
+      in my stables for two thousand roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I require no horses at all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then sell them at that fair yourself, seeing that you are so certain of
+      making a triple profit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, I should make it fast enough, only I want YOU to benefit by the
+      transaction.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov duly thanked his interlocutor, but continued to decline either
+      the grey horse or the roan mare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of what use would those dogs be to me? I am not a sportsman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen to the man! In that case, what should I have left to drive in?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And in exchange, you shall have the britchka, the barrel-organ, and the
+      dead souls,” repeated Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I must decline the offer,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because I don’t WANT the things&mdash;I am full up already.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What do you mean, you fool? Think for yourself. Why should I acquire
+      articles which I don’t want?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as Nozdrev uttered the words Porphyri entered with a fresh bottle of
+      liquor; but Chichikov declined either to play or to drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why do you refuse to play?” asked Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because I feel indisposed to do so. Moreover, I must confess that I am no
+      great hand at cards.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “WHY are you no great hand at them?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov shrugged his shoulders. “Because I am not,” he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are no great hand at ANYTHING, I think.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What does that matter? God has made me so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;just
+      such another as he.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This development Chichikov had hardly expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And do you,” added Nozdrev to his guest, “get out of my sight.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet in spite of this, host and guest took supper together&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is where you are to sleep. I cannot very well wish you good-night.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Host and guest greeted one another in friendly fashion, and Nozdrev
+      inquired how Chichikov had slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fairly well,” replied Chichikov, but with a touch of dryness in his tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” though Chichikov to himself, “and I wish that they too would give
+      you a public thrashing!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What think you?” he asked of Chichikov after a short silence. “Are you
+      willing NOW to play me for those souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have told you that I never play cards. If the souls are for sale, I
+      will buy them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have told you that I decline to play.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And you will not agree to an exchange?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are wasting your time. I will play neither chess nor cards.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” he added aloud. “I WILL play you at chess.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And stake the souls for a hundred roubles?” asked Nozdrev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No. Why for a hundred? Would it not be sufficient to stake them for
+      fifty?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” assented Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then how many moves are you going to allow me?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is THAT to be part of the bargain? Why, none, of course.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “At least allow me two.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, none. I myself am only a poor player.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “<i>I</i> know you and your poor play,” said Nozdrev, moving a chessman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “In fact, it is a long time since last I had a chessman in my hand,”
+       replied Chichikov, also moving a piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! <i>I</i> know you and your poor play,” repeated Nozdrev, moving a
+      second chessman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I say again that it is a long time since last I had a chessman in my
+      hand.” And Chichikov, in his turn, moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! <i>I</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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Again, I say,” said Chichikov, “that ’tis a long time since last&mdash;But
+      hi! look here! Put that piece back in its place!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What piece?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How ‘three pieces’? All that I have done is to make a mistake&mdash;to
+      move one of my pieces by accident. If you like, I will forfeit it to you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And whence has the third piece come?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What third piece?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The one now standing between the queens?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “’Tis one of your own pieces. Surely you are forgetting?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Its place? Which IS its place?” But Nozdrev had reddened a good deal. “I
+      perceive you to be a strategist at the game.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, good friend. YOU are the strategist&mdash;though an unsuccessful
+      one, as it happens.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then of what are you supposing me capable? Of cheating you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am not supposing you capable of anything. All that I say is that I will
+      not play with you any more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you can’t refuse to,” said Nozdrev, growing heated. “You see, the
+      game has begun.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, I have a right not to continue it, seeing that you are not
+      playing as an honest man should do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are lying&mdash;you cannot truthfully say that.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “’Tis you who are lying.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I have NOT cheated. Consequently you cannot refuse to play, but must
+      continue the game to a finish.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You cannot force me to play,” retorted Chichikov coldly as, turning to
+      the chessboard, he swept the pieces into confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nozdrev approached Chichikov with a manner so threatening that the other
+      fell back a couple of paces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, my friend. The game is over, and I play you no more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You say that you will not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Surely you can see for yourself that such a thing is impossible?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That cock won’t fight. Say at once that you refuse to play with me.” And
+      Nozdrev approached a step nearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Porphyri! Pavlushka!” shouted Nozdrev as madly he strove to free himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a
+      pair of stout rascals with whom it would be unwise to meddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you, or do you not, intend to finish the game?” said Nozdrev. “Give me
+      a direct answer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then it is as I say? You refuse to finish the game?” repeated Nozdrev,
+      his face as red as fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I would have finished it had you played like a man of honour. But, as it
+      is, I cannot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a
+      href="#linknote-21" name="linknoteref-21" id="linknoteref-21"><small>21</small></a>.
+      He advances to the great encounter, and impulsively cries, “Forward, my
+      sons!”&mdash;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&mdash;blinking
+      and neither alive nor dead&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Kindly tell ME whom I have the honour of addressing?” retorted Nozdrev as
+      he approached the official.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am the Superintendent of Rural Police.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what do you want?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish! What case, pray?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You lie! To your face I tell you that never in my life have I set eyes
+      upon Landowner Maksimov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;and whispering
+      pretty nonsense, too, to judge from the way in which that confidant kept
+      shaking his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <a
+      href="#linknote-22" name="linknoteref-22" id="linknoteref-22"><small>22</small></a>.”
+       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&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;yes, even in the plainest, the dingiest ranks of
+      society, as much as in those which are uniformly bright and presentable&mdash;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&mdash;a hussar or a student or, in general, a
+      man standing on the threshold of life&mdash;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&mdash;himself, his vocation, the
+      world, and everything else that the world contains!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-23" name="linknoteref-23" id="linknoteref-23"><small>23</small></a>. Persons of this kind&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-24" name="linknoteref-24" id="linknoteref-24"><small>24</small></a>&mdash;tall and thin, and with a
+      cluster of small flags and cannon beneath him, and the whole set in the
+      narrowest of frames&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is my wife, Theodulia Ivanovna,” said Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, on that occasion I was not there,” replied Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a nice man he is!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is?” inquired Sobakevitch, gazing into the corner by the stove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The President of the Local Council.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Did he seem so to you? True, he is a mason, but he is also the greatest
+      fool that the world ever saw.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov started a little at this mordant criticism, but soon pulled
+      himself together again, and continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of course, every man has his weakness. Yet the President seems to be an
+      excellent fellow.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And do you think the same of the Governor?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Why not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because there exists no greater rogue than he.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;the Public Prosecutor; though
+      even HE, if the truth be told, is little better than a pig.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After these eulogia Chichikov saw that it would be useless to continue
+      running through the list of officials&mdash;more especially since suddenly
+      he had remembered that Sobakevitch was not at any time given to commending
+      his fellow man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let us go to luncheon, my dear,” put in Theodulia Ivanovna to her spouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My dear,” said Sobakevitch, “the cabbage soup is excellent.” With that he
+      finished his portion, and helped himself to a generous measure of niania
+      <a href="#linknote-25" name="linknoteref-25" id="linknoteref-25"><small>25</small></a>&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless the Governor keeps a fair table,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but do you know what all the stuff is MADE OF?” retorted
+      Sobakevitch. “If you DID know you would never touch it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ugh! What horrible things you say!” put in Madame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;everything
+      that WE (pardon me for mentioning it) cast into the slop-pail&mdash;is
+      used by such folk for making soup.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Always at table you begin talking like this!” objected his helpmeet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My word!” reflected Chichikov. “The fellow has a pretty good holding
+      capacity!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is Plushkin?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really?” ejaculated Chichikov, greatly interested. “Should you, then, say
+      that he has lost many peasants by death?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly. They keep dying like flies.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then how far from here does he reside?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “About five versts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Here is more dessert,” she said. “Pray have a few radishes stewed in
+      honey.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Later, later,” replied Sobakevitch. “Do you go to your room, and Paul
+      Ivanovitch and I will take off our coats and have a nap.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that Chichikov went on to remark that, according to the statutes of
+      the said Russian Empire (which yielded to none in glory&mdash;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”).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well?” said Chichikov&mdash;though not without a certain tremor of
+      diffidence as to the possible response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied Chichikov, and then, as before, softened down the
+      expression “dead souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are to be found,” said Sobakevitch. “Why should they not be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then of course you will be glad to get rid of any that you may chance to
+      have?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself. “Here is he selling the goods
+      before I have even had time to utter a word!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what about the price?” he added aloud. “Of course, the articles are
+      not of a kind very easy to appraise.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should be sorry to ask too much,” said Sobakevitch. “How would a
+      hundred roubles per head suit you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, a hundred roubles per head?” Chichikov stared open-mouthed at his
+      host&mdash;doubting whether he had heard aright, or whether his host’s
+      slow-moving tongue might not have inadvertently substituted one word for
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. Is that too much for you?” said Sobakevitch. Then he added: “What is
+      your own price?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My own price? I think that we cannot properly have understood one another&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Eight grivni?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In my opinion, a higher offer would be impossible.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I am not a seller of boots.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; yet you, for your part, will agree that these souls are not live
+      human beings?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I suppose you hope to find fools ready to sell you souls on the census
+      list for a couple of groats apiece?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You should be ashamed even to mention such a sum! Since you deal in
+      articles of this kind, quote me a genuine price.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;good only for an hour. No, he did it all himself,
+      even down to the varnishing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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!&mdash;a very different assortment
+      from what Plushkin would sell you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well,” said Chichikov, “they exist, though only in idea.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But no&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, I CANNOT give you more than two roubles per head,” said
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is of use to YOU, or you would not be buying such articles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Two roubles is my price,” repeated Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil fly away with him!” mused Chichikov. “However, I will add
+      another half-rouble.” And he did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” said Sobakevitch. “Well, my last word upon it is&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Bless your heart!” retorted the host. “At least give me thirty roubles in
+      assignats, and take the lot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, for I see that you are unwilling to sell. I must say good-day to
+      you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hold on, hold on!” exclaimed Sobakevitch, retaining his guest’s hand, and
+      at the same moment treading heavily upon his toes&mdash;so heavily,
+      indeed, that Chichikov gasped and danced with the pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I BEG your pardon!” said Sobakevitch hastily. “Evidently I have hurt you.
+      Pray sit down again.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” retorted Chichikov. “I am merely wasting my time, and must be off.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, no!” exclaimed Chichikov. “I won’t give you even a QUARTER of
+      that. I won’t advance another kopeck.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is your outside price?” at length said Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Two and a half roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you seem to rate a human soul at about the same value as a boiled
+      turnip. At least give me THREE roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I cannot.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of course.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then for that purpose let us repair to the town.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-26" name="linknoteref-26" id="linknoteref-26"><small>26</small></a>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-27" name="linknoteref-27" id="linknoteref-27"><small>27</small></a>: 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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The list is ready,” said Sobakevitch, turning round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And do you mind handing me the earnest money?” said Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I do. Why need that be done? You can receive the money in a lump sum
+      as soon as we visit the town.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it is always the custom, you know,” asserted Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then I cannot follow it, for I have no money with me. However, here are
+      ten roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ten roubles, indeed? You might as well hand me fifty while you are about
+      it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Kindly give me a receipt for the money,” he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A receipt? Why should I give you a receipt?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because it is better to do so, in order to guard against mistakes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well; but first hand me over the money.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The money? I have it here. Do you write out the receipt, and then the
+      money shall be yours.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, but how am I to write out the receipt before I have seen the
+      cash?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a kulak!” thought Chichikov to himself. “And what a brute beast!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you do not want any WOMEN souls?” queried Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I thank you, no.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I could let you have some cheap&mdash;say, as between friends, at a
+      rouble a head?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I should have no use for them.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov rose to take his leave. “Once more I would request of you,” he
+      said, “that the bargain be left as it is.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;apparently for the purpose of
+      watching to see which way the guest’s carriage would turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hi!” shouted Chichikov. “How can I reach landowner Plushkin’s place
+      without first going past the mansion here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The peasant seemed nonplussed by the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Don’t you know?” queried Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, barin,” replied the peasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You don’t know skinflint Plushkin who feeds his people so badly?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a woman appeared from an outbuilding&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have some business to do,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is the master at home?” he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied the person addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then where is he?” continued Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are you blind, my good sir?” retorted the other. “<i>I</i> am the
+      master.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Involuntarily our hero started and stared. During his travels it had
+      befallen him to meet various types of men&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a brute!” thought Chichikov. “I am lucky to have got through so much
+      pastry and stuffed shoulder of mutton at Sobakevitch’s!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I have been told that you possess over a thousand serfs?” said
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Wholesale, you say?” echoed Chichikov, greatly interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, wholesale,” replied the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then might I ask you the exact number?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fully eighty.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Surely not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it is so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then might I also ask whether it is from the date of the last census
+      revision that you are reckoning these souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, damn it! And since that date I have been bled for taxes upon a
+      hundred and twenty souls in all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, good sir,” replied Plushkin. “I am too old to tell you lies, for I
+      have passed my seventieth year.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My dear sir, have you seen military service?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” replied the other warily, “but I have been a member of the CIVIL
+      Service.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, certainly, if thereby I can please you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a moment or two, but Proshka made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come!” went on the old man. “Set out the samovar, and then give
+      Mavra the key of the store-room&mdash;here it is&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Chichikov assented readily enough&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking up, Chichikov saw that Plushkin had extracted a decanter coated
+      with dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;I happen to possess such a
+      list, since I have drawn one up in readiness for the next revision.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you possess acquaintances in the town?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “By all means.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, him I know well, for we were friends together at school.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Over Plushkin’s wooden features there had gleamed a ray of warmth&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What have you done with my piece of writing paper, you pilferer?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I swear that I have seen no paper except the bit with which you covered
+      the glass.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your very face tells me that you have made off with it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why should I make off with it? ‘Twould be of no use to me, for I can
+      neither read nor write.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You lie! You have taken it away for the sexton to scribble upon.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, if the sexton wanted paper he could get some for himself. Neither
+      he nor I have set eyes upon your piece.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! Wait a bit, for on the Judgment Day you will be roasted by devils on
+      iron spits. Just see if you are not!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But why should I be roasted when I have never even TOUCHED the paper? You
+      might accuse me of any other fault than theft.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless <i>I</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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You have some runaways as well?” exclaimed Chichikov, again greatly
+      interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;that is to say, good at clinking a pair of
+      spurs, but of no use for laying a plea before a court.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how many runaways have you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “About seventy.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Surely not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;well, to advance you such a trifle as would scarcely be worth
+      mentioning.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how much is it?” asked Plushkin eagerly, and with his hands trembling
+      like quicksilver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Twenty-five kopecks per soul.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? In ready money?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes&mdash;in money down.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, consider my poverty, dear friend, and make it FORTY kopecks
+      per soul.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As you please, dear sir. Yet stretch another point, and throw in another
+      two kopecks.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, but I cannot. How many runaway serfs did you say that you
+      possess? Seventy?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; seventy-eight.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Seventy-eight souls at thirty kopecks each will amount to&mdash;to&mdash;”
+       only for a moment did our hero halt, since he was strong in his
+      arithmetic, “&mdash;will amount to twenty-four roubles, ninety-six
+      kopecks.” <a href="#linknote-28" name="linknoteref-28" id="linknoteref-28"><small>28</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I must be going,” he said as he took his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then what about the tea?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Thank you, I will have some on my next visit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</i> will put it back.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” he added after further thought. “I will leave him the watch in my
+      will, as a keepsake.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you have been travelling far, sir?” said the waiter, as he lit the
+      way upstarts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” said Chichikov. “What has happened here in the meanwhile?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing, sir,” replied the waiter, bowing, “except that last night there
+      arrived a military lieutenant. He has got room number sixteen.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A lieutenant?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. He came from Riazan, driving three grey horses.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On entering his room, Chichikov clapped his hand to his nose, and asked
+      his valet why he had never had the windows opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke his eyes halted at one name in particular&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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>I</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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-29" name="linknoteref-29" id="linknoteref-29"><small>29</small></a>. ‘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 <a href="#linknote-30" name="linknoteref-30" id="linknoteref-30"><small>30</small></a>
+      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?’&mdash;and here the
+      Captain shouts another expletive&mdash;‘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 <a href="#linknote-31" name="linknoteref-31" id="linknoteref-31"><small>31</small></a>
+      there, and stretch one’s legs, and see a little society.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;though even HE felt
+      at a loss how to acknowledge what had just been said&mdash;when Manilov
+      cut him short by producing from under his coat a roll of paper tied with
+      red riband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What have you there?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The list of my souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do not ask me,” said Manilov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Did YOU do it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; my wife.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Dear, dear!” Chichikov cried. “To think that I should have put her to so
+      much trouble!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “NOTHING could be too much trouble where Paul Ivanovitch is concerned.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;even the smallest unevenness or difference
+      of level&mdash;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&mdash;a large,
+      three-storied building of a chalky whiteness which probably symbolised the
+      purity of the souls engaged within&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;probably for the
+      reason that a superior official had just entered the room. Meanwhile the
+      two friends ascended the staircase&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of what nature, precisely, IS your business?” countered one of the
+      youthful officials as he turned himself round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I desire to make an application.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In connection with a purchase?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You must state what it is you have bought, and for how much. THEN we
+      shall be happy to give you the information.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you mind telling me,” said Chichikov, bowing, “whether this is the
+      desk for serf affairs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The elderly man raised his eyes, and said stiffly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is NOT the desk for serf affairs.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where is it, then?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In the Serf Department.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And where might the Serf Department be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In charge of Ivan Antonovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And where is Ivan Antonovitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you mind telling me,” said Chichikov, bowing, “whether this is the
+      desk for serf affairs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;it was what, in common parlance, is known as a
+      “pitcher-mug.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you mind telling me,” repeated Chichikov, “whether this is the desk
+      for serf affairs?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is that,” said Ivan Antonovitch, again lowering his jug-shaped jowl,
+      and resuming his writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you also the vendors here?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Some of them, and from the rest I have obtained powers of attorney.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And have you your statement of application?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. I desire&mdash;indeed, it is necessary for me so to do&mdash;to
+      hasten matters a little. Could the affair, therefore, be carried through
+      to-day?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To-day? Oh, dear no!” said Ivan Antonovitch. “Before that can be done you
+      must furnish me with further proofs that no impediments exist.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then, to expedite matters, let me say that Ivan Grigorievitch, the
+      President of the Council, is a very intimate friend of mine.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Possibly,” said Ivan Antonovitch without enthusiasm. “But Ivan
+      Grigorievitch alone will not do&mdash;it is customary to have others as
+      well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A clerk,” he added, “will now conduct you to Ivan Grigorievitch’s room.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that one of the toilers in the service of Themis&mdash;a zealot who
+      had offered her such heartfelt sacrifice that his coat had burst at the
+      elbows and lacked a lining&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, yes; you have always had good health, have you not?” put in the
+      President. “Your late father was equally strong.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, he even went out bear hunting alone,” replied Sobakevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should think that you too could worst a bear if you were to try a
+      tussle with him,” rejoined the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you do not have a comfortable time of it?” exclaimed the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Just listen to the fellow!” was Chichikov’s and the President’s joint
+      inward comment. “What on earth has HE to complain of?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have a letter for you, Ivan Grigorievitch,” went on Chichikov aloud as
+      he produced from his pocket Plushkin’s epistle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And now he is a cur,” concluded Sobakevitch, “as well as a miser who
+      starves his serfs to death.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;now or later?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Is Ivan Antonovitch here?” asked the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied a voice from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then send him here.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that the pitcher-faced Ivan Antonovitch made his appearance in the
+      doorway, and bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Take these indentures, Ivan Antonovitch,” said the President, “and see
+      that they&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But first I would ask you to remember,” put in Sobakevitch, “that
+      witnesses ought to be in attendance&mdash;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&mdash;if he has not gone out to a card
+      party. Others also there are&mdash;all men who cumber the ground for
+      nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, quite so,” agreed the President, and at once dispatched a clerk
+      to fetch the persons named.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well done, Paul Ivanovitch! You have indeed made a nice haul!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That is so,” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Excellent business! Yes, excellent business!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-32" name="linknoteref-32" id="linknoteref-32"><small>32</small></a>.
+      Only, only&mdash;well, lately didn’t you tell me that he is dead?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed a splendid craftsman!” repeated the President. “My only wonder is
+      that you can have brought yourself to part with him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Although a man of grey hairs, I have not yet learned wisdom.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well, then. That is quite another matter. To what province of the
+      country?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To the province of Kherson.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? That region contains some splendid land,” said the President;
+      whereupon he proceeded to expatiate on the fertility of the Kherson
+      pastures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And have you MUCH land there?” he continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; quite sufficient to accommodate the serfs whom I have purchased.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And is there a river on the estate or a lake?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Both.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;the remaining half being somehow debited to the
+      account of another applicant for serf registration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And now,” said Ivan Grigorievitch when all was completed, “we need only
+      to wet the bargain.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;it
+      is our duty, it is our bounden obligation&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You have given a hundred thousand roubles for the serfs, but have paid ME
+      only a trifle for my trouble.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave Ivan Antonovitch to understand that the visitor was a man of
+      strong character&mdash;a man from whom nothing more was to be expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why have you gone and purchased souls from Plushkin?” whispered
+      Sobakevitch in Chichikov’s other ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why did YOU go and add the woman Vorobei to your list?” retorted
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Vorobei? Who is Vorobei?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The woman ‘Elizabet’ Vorobei&mdash;‘Elizabet,’ not ‘Elizabeta?’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I added no such name,” replied Sobakevitch, and straightway joined the
+      other guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;so
+      thoroughly did he perform his duties in this respect&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;vodka of the tint to be seen only in the
+      species of Siberian stone whereof seals are cut&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then a betrothed you shall have. Why not? We will do as you wish.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” assented Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-33" name="linknoteref-33" id="linknoteref-33"><small>33</small></a>,
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;never once releasing their
+      mutual hold&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;well, simply by the innate arduousness of the task. The
+      ladies of N. were&mdash;But no, I cannot do it; my heart has already
+      failed me. Come, come! The ladies of N. were distinguished for&mdash;But
+      it is of no use; somehow my pen seems to refuse to move over the paper&mdash;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.&mdash;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&mdash;even upon a make-shift affair consisting of an ace of
+      diamonds or a two of clubs&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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,”&mdash;or
+      some such formula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+<p class="poetry">
+    “Two turtle doves to thee, one day,<br>
+    My dust will show, congealed in death;<br>
+    And, cooing wearily, they’ll say:<br>
+    ‘In grief and loneliness she drew her closing breath.’”
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;or, at all events, the
+      reflection of other people’s ecstatic delight&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      man, perhaps, who has never before compassed a smile, but is more
+      accustomed to dealing out blows to the populace&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;which, to many of those
+      who had been desirous of doing exactly the same thing, seemed a peculiarly
+      horrible instance of brazen-faced audacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So deeply did Chichikov become plunged in conversation with his fair
+      pursuers&mdash;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)&mdash;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&mdash;she greatly hoped&mdash;that
+      Monsieur Chichikov’s heart still contained a corner&mdash;even the
+      smallest possible corner&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think that you have not met my daughter before?” said Madame. “She is
+      just fresh from school.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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?”&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Herein we see a phenomenon not infrequently observed&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;or, at all events, officers not above the rank of
+      captain&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;but too late&mdash;he
+      was destined to learn this to his cost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, including even the Governor.
+      Nevertheless, had I my way, I would hang you! Yes, by God I would!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s discomfiture was complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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 <a href="#linknote-34" name="linknoteref-34" id="linknoteref-34"><small>34</small></a>?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</i> say that&mdash;<i>I</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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;well,
+      what was one to make of Nozdrev’s reference to such a commodity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, may the pit swallow them up!&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a man dressed in
+      black, and looking as stiff as a poker&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet he was not angry with HIMSELF&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a pretty chintz!” she cried, gazing at the other’s gown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, it IS pretty,” agreed the visitor. “On the other hand, Praskovia
+      Thedorovna thinks that&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how is the universal charmer?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I wonder how any one can see anything in the man to praise or to admire.
+      For my own part, I think&mdash;and I would say the same thing straight to
+      his face&mdash;that he is a perfect rascal.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but do listen to what I have got to tell you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, I know that some people think him handsome,” continued the hostess,
+      unmoved; “but <i>I</i> say that he is nothing of the kind&mdash;that, in
+      particular, his nose is perfectly odious.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but let me finish what I was saying.” The guest’s tone was almost
+      piteous in its appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it, then?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You cannot imagine my state of mind! You see, this morning I received a
+      visit from Father Cyril’s wife&mdash;the Archpriest’s wife&mdash;you know
+      her, don’t you? Well, whom do you suppose that fine gentleman visitor of
+      ours has turned out to be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The man who has built the Archpriest a poultry-run?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;arrived
+      all pale and trembling&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, what of Madame Korobotchka? Is she a young woman or good looking?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh dear no! Quite an old woman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;yes, me, an inexperienced, defenceless widow who
+      knows nothing of business.’ That such things should happen! TRY and
+      imagine my feelings!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In my opinion, there is in this more than the dead souls which meet the
+      eye.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No; tell me what YOU suppose?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What <i>I</i> suppose? I am at a loss to conjecture.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but tell me what is in your mind?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The dead souls,” began the hostess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are what, are what?” inquired the guest in great excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Are, are&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tell me, tell me, for heaven’s sake!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are an invention to conceal something else. The man’s real object
+      is, is&mdash;TO ABDUCT THE GOVERNOR’S DAUGHTER.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So startling and unexpected was this conclusion that the guest sat reduced
+      to a state of pale, petrified, genuine amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My God!” she cried, clapping her hands, “I should NEVER have guessed it!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, to tell you the truth, I guessed it as soon as ever you opened your
+      mouth.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “So much, then, for educating girls like the Governor’s daughter at
+      school! Just see what comes of it!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, indeed! And they tell me that she says things which I hesitate even
+      to repeat.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Truly it wrings one’s heart to see to what lengths immorality has come.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Some of the men have quite lost their heads about her, but for my part I
+      think her not worth noticing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; and I should say that one of those accomplices is Nozdrev.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Surely not?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? You interest me. I should never had thought him capable of such
+      things.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I always guessed him to be so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two ladies were still discussing the matter with acumen and success
+      when there walked into the room the Public Prosecutor&mdash;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&mdash;more especially the army of public officials&mdash;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&mdash;namely,
+      the question of the dead souls and the question of the Governor’s
+      daughter. To this end two parties were formed&mdash;the men’s party and
+      the feminine section. The men’s party&mdash;the more absolutely senseless
+      of the two&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;names such as “old women,”
+       “petticoats,” and others of a nature peculiarly offensive to the male sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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?”&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;yes!&mdash;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?&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, our friends the tchinovniks found themselves compelled to resort
+      to an expedient which, though not particularly savoury, is not
+      infrequently employed&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “<i>I</i> can tell you,” he cried, “who Chichikov is!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who, then?” replied the crowd in great excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is none other than Captain Kopeikin.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And who may Captain Kopeikin be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a href="#linknote-35" name="linknoteref-35" id="linknoteref-35"><small>35</small></a>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “After fighting in the campaign of 1812, there was sent home, wounded, a
+      certain Captain Kopeikin&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a picture made up of the Nevski
+      Prospect, Gorokhovaia Street, countless tapering spires, and a number of
+      bridges apparently supported on nothing&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a constable three ells in height,
+      and armed with a carbine&mdash;a man well fitted to guard a bank&mdash;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&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Allow me,” put in the Head of the Police Department. “You have said that
+      Kopeikin had lost an arm and a leg; whereas Chichikov&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <a
+      href="#linknote-36" name="linknoteref-36" id="linknoteref-36"><small>36</small></a>,
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What?” he exclaimed. “You do not know me? Look at me again, and see if
+      you do not recognise me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? And why so?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I never smoke,” rejoined Chichikov drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish! As if I did not know what a chimney-pot you are! What is your
+      man’s name? Hi, Vakhramei! Come here!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Petrushka is his name, not Vakhramei.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? But you USED to have a man called Vakhramei, didn’t you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, never.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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>I</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&mdash;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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You say that I am believed to be a forger?” said Chichikov, starting from
+      his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;probably induced by the excitement of the
+      public meeting). “Of course, <i>I</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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What scheme to you mean?” Chichikov asked uneasily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “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&mdash;she IS a girl, and no mistake! A
+      regular what you might call ‘miracle in muslin!’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “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.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Things having come to their present pass,” he reflected, “I had better
+      not linger here&mdash;I had better be off at once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 the
+      bed, and then set to work to cram into it, pell-mell, socks, shirts,
+      collars (both clean and dirty), boot trees, a calendar, and a variety of
+      other articles. Everything went into the receptacle just as it came to
+      hand, since his one object was to obviate any possible delay in the
+      morning’s departure. Meanwhile the reluctant Selifan slowly, very slowly,
+      left the room, as slowly descended the staircase (on each separate step of
+      which he left a muddy foot-print), and, finally, halted to scratch his
+      head. What that scratching may have meant no one could say; for, with the
+      Russian populace, such a scratching may mean any one of a hundred things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless events did not turn out as Chichikov had intended they
+      should. In the first place, he overslept himself. That was check number
+      one. In the second place, on his rising and inquiring whether the britchka
+      had been harnessed and everything got ready, he was informed that neither
+      of those two things had been done. That was check number two. Beside
+      himself with rage, he prepared to give Selifan the wigging of his life,
+      and, meanwhile, waited impatiently to hear what the delinquent had got to
+      say in his defence. It goes without saying that when Selifan made his
+      appearance in the doorway he had only the usual excuses to offer&mdash;the
+      sort of excuses usually offered by servants when a hasty departure has
+      become imperatively necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “the horses require shoeing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Blockhead!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Why did you not tell me of that before,
+      you damned fool? Was there not time enough for them to be shod?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I suppose there was,” agreed Selifan. “Also one of the wheels is in
+      want of a new tyre, for the roads are so rough that the old tyre is worn
+      through. Also, the body of the britchka is so rickety that probably it
+      will not last more than a couple of stages.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rascal!” shouted Chichikov, clenching his fists and approaching Selifan
+      in such a manner that, fearing to receive a blow, the man backed and
+      dodged aside. “Do you mean to ruin me, and to break all our bones on the
+      road, you cursed idiot? For these three weeks past you have been doing
+      nothing at all; yet now, at the last moment, you come here stammering and
+      playing the fool! Do you think I keep you just to eat and to drive
+      yourself about? You must have known of this before? Did you, or did you
+      not, know it? Answer me at once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I did know it,” replied Selifan, hanging his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Selifan had no reply immediately ready, so continued to hang his head
+      while quietly saying to himself: “See how well I have managed things! I
+      knew what was the matter, yet I did not say.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And now,” continued Chichikov, “go you at once and fetch a blacksmith.
+      Tell him that everything must be put right within two hours at the most.
+      Do you hear? If that should not be done, I, I&mdash;I will give you the
+      best flogging that ever you had in your life.” Truly Chichikov was almost
+      beside himself with fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning towards the door, as though for the purpose of going and carrying
+      out his orders, Selifan halted and added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That skewbald, barin&mdash;you might think it well to sell him, seeing
+      that he is nothing but a rascal? A horse like that is more of a hindrance
+      than a help.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Do you expect me to go NOW to the market-place and sell him?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, Paul Ivanovitch, he is good for nothing but show, since by nature
+      he is a most cunning beast. Never in my life have I seen such a horse.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fool! Whenever I may wish to sell him I SHALL sell him. Meanwhile, don’t
+      you trouble your head about what doesn’t concern you, but go and fetch a
+      blacksmith, and see that everything is put right within two hours.
+      Otherwise I will take the very hair off your head, and beat you till you
+      haven’t a face left. Be off! Hurry!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Selifan departed, and Chichikov, his ill-humour vented, threw down upon
+      the floor the poignard which he always took with him as a means of
+      instilling respect into whomsoever it might concern, and spent the next
+      quarter of an hour in disputing with a couple of blacksmiths&mdash;men
+      who, as usual, were rascals of the type which, on perceiving that
+      something is wanted in a hurry, at once multiplies its terms for providing
+      the same. Indeed, for all Chichikov’s storming and raging as he dubbed the
+      fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could make no impression
+      upon the pair, since, true to their character, they declined to abate
+      their prices, and, even when they had begun their work, spent upon it, not
+      two hours, but five and a half. Meanwhile he had the satisfaction of
+      experiencing that delightful time with which all travellers are familiar&mdash;namely,
+      the time during which one sits in a room where, except for a litter of
+      string, waste paper, and so forth, everything else has been packed. But to
+      all things there comes an end, and there arrived also the long-awaited
+      moment when the britchka had received the luggage, the faulty wheel had
+      been fitted with a new tyre, the horses had been re-shod, and the
+      predatory blacksmiths had departed with their gains. “Thank God!” thought
+      Chichikov as the britchka rolled out of the gates of the inn, and the
+      vehicle began to jolt over the cobblestones. Yet a feeling which he could
+      not altogether have defined filled his breast as he gazed upon the houses
+      and the streets and the garden walls which he might never see again.
+      Presently, on turning a corner, the britchka was brought to a halt through
+      the fact that along the street there was filing a seemingly endless
+      funeral procession. Leaning forward in his britchka, Chichikov asked
+      Petrushka whose obsequies the procession represented, and was told that
+      they represented those of the Public Prosecutor. Disagreeably shocked, our
+      hero hastened to raise the hood of the vehicle, to draw the curtains
+      across the windows, and to lean back into a corner. While the britchka
+      remained thus halted Selifan and Petrushka, their caps doffed, sat
+      watching the progress of the cortege, after they had received strict
+      instructions not to greet any fellow-servant whom they might recognise.
+      Behind the hearse walked the whole body of tchinovniks, bare-headed; and
+      though, for a moment or two, Chichikov feared that some of their number
+      might discern him in his britchka, he need not have disturbed himself,
+      since their attention was otherwise engaged. In fact, they were not even
+      exchanging the small talk customary among members of such processions, but
+      thinking exclusively of their own affairs, of the advent of the new
+      Governor-General, and of the probable manner in which he would take up the
+      reins of administration. Next came a number of carriages, from the windows
+      of which peered the ladies in mourning toilets. Yet the movements of their
+      hands and lips made it evident that they were indulging in animated
+      conversation&mdash;probably about the Governor-General, the balls which he
+      might be expected to give, and their own eternal fripperies and gewgaws.
+      Lastly came a few empty drozhkis. As soon as the latter had passed, our
+      hero was able to continue on his way. Throwing back the hood of the
+      britchka, he said to himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, good friend, you have lived your life, and now it is over! In the
+      newspapers they will say of you that you died regretted not only by your
+      subordinates, but also by humanity at large, as well as that, a respected
+      citizen, a kind father, and a husband beyond reproach, you went to your
+      grave amid the tears of your widow and orphans. Yet, should those journals
+      be put to it to name any particular circumstance which justified this
+      eulogy of you, they would be forced to fall back upon the fact that you
+      grew a pair of exceptionally thick eyebrows!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that Chichikov bid Selifan quicken his pace, and concluded: “After
+      all, it is as well that I encountered the procession, for they say that to
+      meet a funeral is lucky.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the britchka turned into some less frequented streets, lines of
+      wooden fencing of the kind which mark the outskirts of a town began to
+      file by, the cobblestones came to an end, the macadam of the highroad
+      succeeded to them, and once more there began on either side of the
+      turnpike a procession of verst stones, road menders, and grey villages;
+      inns with samovars and peasant women and landlords who came running out of
+      yards with seivefuls of oats; pedestrians in worn shoes which, it might
+      be, had covered eight hundred versts; little towns, bright with booths for
+      the sale of flour in barrels, boots, small loaves, and other trifles;
+      heaps of slag; much repaired bridges; expanses of field to right and to
+      left; stout landowners; a mounted soldier bearing a green, iron-clamped
+      box inscribed: “The &mdash;th Battery of Artillery”; long strips of
+      freshly-tilled earth which gleamed green, yellow, and black on the face of
+      the countryside. With it mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of elm-tops
+      amid mist, the far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks, and the
+      illimitable line of the horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still
+      see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you the
+      eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which a yet
+      more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities with
+      lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque trees, no
+      ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and roar, no
+      beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony immensity, no
+      vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and ageless lines of
+      blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear, silvery background
+      of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your towns project like
+      points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and nothing whatsoever
+      enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what invincible force draws
+      me to you? Why does there ceaselessly echo and re-echo in my ears the sad
+      song which hovers throughout the length and the breadth of your borders?
+      What is the burden of that song? Why does it wail and sob and catch at my
+      heart? What say the notes which thus painfully caress and embrace my soul,
+      and flit, uttering their lamentations, around me? What is it you seek of
+      me, O Russia? What is the hidden bond which subsists between us? Why do
+      you regard me as you do? Why does everything within you turn upon me eyes
+      full of yearning? Even at this moment, as I stand dumbly, fixedly,
+      perplexedly contemplating your vastness, a menacing cloud, charged with
+      gathering rain, seems to overshadow my head. What is it that your
+      boundless expanses presage? Do they not presage that one day there will
+      arise in you ideas as boundless as yourself? Do they not presage that one
+      day you too will know no limits? Do they not presage that one day, when
+      again you shall have room for their exploits, there will spring to life
+      the heroes of old? How the power of your immensity enfolds me, and
+      reverberates through all my being with a wild, strange spell, and flashes
+      in my eyes with an almost supernatural radiance! Yes, a strange,
+      brilliant, unearthly vista indeed do you disclose, O Russia, country of
+      mine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Stop, stop, you fool!” shouted Chichikov to Selifan; and even as he spoke
+      a troika, bound on Government business, came chattering by, and
+      disappeared in a cloud of dust. To Chichikov’s curses at Selifan for not
+      having drawn out of the way with more alacrity a rural constable with
+      moustaches of the length of an arshin added his quota.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a curious and attractive, yet also what an unreal, fascination the
+      term “highway” connotes! And how interesting for its own sake is a
+      highway! Should the day be a fine one (though chilly) in mellowing autumn,
+      press closer your travelling cloak, and draw down your cap over your ears,
+      and snuggle cosily, comfortably into a corner of the britchka before a
+      last shiver shall course through your limbs, and the ensuing warmth shall
+      put to flight the autumnal cold and damp. As the horses gallop on their
+      way, how delightfully will drowsiness come stealing upon you, and make
+      your eyelids droop! For a while, through your somnolence, you will
+      continue to hear the hard breathing of the team and the rumbling of the
+      wheels; but at length, sinking back into your corner, you will relapse
+      into the stage of snoring. And when you awake&mdash;behold! you will find
+      that five stages have slipped away, and that the moon is shining, and that
+      you have reached a strange town of churches and old wooden cupolas and
+      blackened spires and white, half-timbered houses! And as the moonlight
+      glints hither and thither, almost you will believe that the walls and the
+      streets and the pavements of the place are spread with sheets&mdash;sheets
+      shot with coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs look all the
+      brighter under the slanting beams of the pale luminary. Nowhere is a soul
+      to be seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet no. In a solitary
+      window a light is flickering where some good burgher is mending his boots,
+      or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night and powers of heaven, how
+      perfect is the blackness of your infinite vault&mdash;how lofty, how
+      remote its inaccessible depths where it lies spread in an intangible, yet
+      audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling breath of night blow in your
+      face, until once more you relapse into snoring oblivion, and your poor
+      neighbour turns angrily in his corner as he begins to be conscious of your
+      weight. Then again you awake, but this time to find yourself confronted
+      with only fields and steppes. Everywhere in the ascendant is the
+      desolation of space. But suddenly the ciphers on a verst stone leap to the
+      eye! Morning is rising, and on the chill, gradually paling line of the
+      horizon you can see gleaming a faint gold streak. The wind freshens and
+      grows keener, and you snuggle closer in your cloak; yet how glorious is
+      that freshness, and how marvellous the sleep in which once again you
+      become enfolded! A jolt!&mdash;and for the last time you return to
+      consciousness. By now the sun is high in the heavens, and you hear a voice
+      cry “gently, gently!” as a farm waggon issues from a by-road. Below,
+      enclosed within an ample dike, stretches a sheet of water which glistens
+      like copper in the sunlight. Beyond, on the side of a slope, lie some
+      scattered peasants’ huts, a manor house, and, flanking the latter, a
+      village church with its cross flashing like a star. There also comes
+      wafted to your ear the sound of peasants’ laughter, while in your inner
+      man you are becoming conscious of an appetite which is not to be
+      withstood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh long-drawn highway, how excellent you are! How often have I in
+      weariness and despondency set forth upon your length, and found in you
+      salvation and rest! How often, as I followed your leading, have I been
+      visited with wonderful thoughts and poetic dreams and curious, wild
+      impressions!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment our friend Chichikov also was experiencing visions of a not
+      wholly prosaic nature. Let us peep into his soul and share them. At first
+      he remained unconscious of anything whatsoever, for he was too much
+      engaged in making sure that he was really clear of the town; but as soon
+      as he saw that it had completely disappeared, with its mills and factories
+      and other urban appurtenances, and that even the steeples of the white
+      stone churches had sunk below the horizon, he turned his attention to the
+      road, and the town of N. vanished from his thoughts as completely as
+      though he had not seen it since childhood. Again, in its turn, the road
+      ceased to interest him, and he began to close his eyes and to loll his
+      head against the cushions. Of this let the author take advantage, in order
+      to speak at length concerning his hero; since hitherto he (the author) has
+      been prevented from so doing by Nozdrev and balls and ladies and local
+      intrigues&mdash;by those thousand trifles which seem trifles only when
+      they are introduced into a book, but which, in life, figure as affairs of
+      importance. Let us lay them aside, and betake ourselves to business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether the character whom I have selected for my hero has pleased my
+      readers is, of course, exceedingly doubtful. At all events the ladies will
+      have failed to approve him for the fair sex demands in a hero perfection,
+      and, should there be the least mental or physical stain on him&mdash;well,
+      woe betide! Yes, no matter how profoundly the author may probe that hero’s
+      soul, no matter how clearly he may portray his figure as in a mirror, he
+      will be given no credit for the achievement. Indeed, Chichikov’s very
+      stoutness and plenitude of years may have militated against him, for never
+      is a hero pardoned for the former, and the majority of ladies will, in
+      such case, turn away, and mutter to themselves: “Phew! What a beast!” Yes,
+      the author is well aware of this. Yet, though he could not, to save his
+      life, take a person of virtue for his principal character, it may be that
+      this story contains themes never before selected, and that in it there
+      projects the whole boundless wealth of Russian psychology; that it
+      portrays, as well as Chichikov, the peasant who is gifted with the virtues
+      which God has sent him, and the marvellous maiden of Russia who has not
+      her like in all the world for her beautiful feminine spirituality, the
+      roots of which lie buried in noble aspirations and boundless self-denial.
+      In fact, compared with these types, the virtuous of other races seem
+      lifeless, as does an inanimate volume when compared with the living word.
+      Yes, each time that there arises in Russia a movement of thought, it
+      becomes clear that the movement sinks deep into the Slavonic nature where
+      it would but have skimmed the surface of other nations.&mdash;But why am I
+      talking like this? Whither am I tending? It is indeed shameful that an
+      author who long ago reached man’s estate, and was brought up to a course
+      of severe introspection and sober, solitary self-enlightenment, should
+      give way to such jejune wandering from the point. To everything its proper
+      time and place and turn. As I was saying, it does not lie in me to take a
+      virtuous character for my hero: and I will tell you why. It is because it
+      is high time that a rest were given to the “poor, but virtuous”
+       individual; it is because the phrase “a man of worth” has grown into a
+      by-word; it is because the “man of worth” has become converted into a
+      horse, and there is not a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out
+      of season; it is because the “man of worth” has been starved until he has
+      not a shred of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is but
+      the ribs and the hide; it is because the “man of worth” is for ever being
+      smuggled upon the scene; it is because the “man of worth” has at length
+      forfeited every one’s respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm that it is
+      high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that rascal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our hero’s beginnings were both modest and obscure. True, his parents were
+      dvoriane, but he in no way resembled them. At all events, a short, squab
+      female relative who was present at his birth exclaimed as she lifted up
+      the baby: “He is altogether different from what I had expected him to be.
+      He ought to have taken after his maternal grandmother, whereas he has been
+      born, as the proverb has it, ‘like not father nor mother, but like a
+      chance passer-by.’” Thus from the first life regarded the little Chichikov
+      with sour distaste, and as through a dim, frost-encrusted window. A tiny
+      room with diminutive casements which were never opened, summer or winter;
+      an invalid father in a dressing-gown lined with lambskin, and with an
+      ailing foot swathed in bandages&mdash;a man who was continually drawing
+      deep breaths, and walking up and down the room, and spitting into a
+      sandbox; a period of perpetually sitting on a bench with pen in hand and
+      ink on lips and fingers; a period of being eternally confronted with the
+      copy-book maxim, “Never tell a lie, but obey your superiors, and cherish
+      virtue in your heart;” an everlasting scraping and shuffling of slippers
+      up and down the room; a period of continually hearing a well-known,
+      strident voice exclaim: “So you have been playing the fool again!” at
+      times when the child, weary of the mortal monotony of his task, had added
+      a superfluous embellishment to his copy; a period of experiencing the
+      ever-familiar, but ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those
+      words as the boy’s ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent
+      backwards at the tips&mdash;such is the miserable picture of that youth of
+      which, in later life, Chichikov preserved but the faintest of memories!
+      But in this world everything is liable to swift and sudden change; and,
+      one day in early spring, when the rivers had melted, the father set forth
+      with his little son in a teliezshka <a href="#linknote-37"
+       name="linknoteref-37" id="linknoteref-37"><small>37</small></a> drawn by a
+      sorrel steed of the kind known to horsy folk as a soroka, and having as
+      coachman the diminutive hunchback who, father of the only serf family
+      belonging to the elder Chichikov, served as general factotum in the
+      Chichikov establishment. For a day and a half the soroka conveyed them on
+      their way; during which time they spent the night at a roadside inn,
+      crossed a river, dined off cold pie and roast mutton, and eventually
+      arrived at the county town. To the lad the streets presented a spectacle
+      of unwonted brilliancy, and he gaped with amazement. Turning into a side
+      alley wherein the mire necessitated both the most strenuous exertions on
+      the soroka’s part and the most vigorous castigation on the part of the
+      driver and the barin, the conveyance eventually reached the gates of a
+      courtyard which, combined with a small fruit garden containing various
+      bushes, a couple of apple-trees in blossom, and a mean, dirty little shed,
+      constituted the premises attached to an antiquated-looking villa. Here
+      there lived a relative of the Chichikovs, a wizened old lady who went to
+      market in person and dried her stockings at the samovar. On seeing the
+      boy, she patted his cheek and expressed satisfaction at his physique;
+      whereupon the fact became disclosed that here he was to abide for a while,
+      for the purpose of attending a local school. After a night’s rest his
+      father prepared to betake himself homeward again; but no tears marked the
+      parting between him and his son, he merely gave the lad a copper or two
+      and (a far more important thing) the following injunctions. “See here, my
+      boy. Do your lessons well, do not idle or play the fool, and above all
+      things, see that you please your teachers. So long as you observe these
+      rules you will make progress, and surpass your fellows, even if God shall
+      have denied you brains, and you should fail in your studies. Also, do not
+      consort overmuch with your comrades, for they will do you no good; but,
+      should you do so, then make friends with the richer of them, since one day
+      they may be useful to you. Also, never entertain or treat any one, but see
+      that every one entertains and treats YOU. Lastly, and above all else, keep
+      and save your every kopeck. To save money is the most important thing in
+      life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail you, and be the first to
+      desert you in a time of adversity; but never will a KOPECK fail you,
+      whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the world cannot be done, cannot
+      be attained, with the aid of money.” These injunctions given, the father
+      embraced his son, and set forth on his return; and though the son never
+      again beheld his parent, the latter’s words and precepts sank deep into
+      the little Chichikov’s soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day young Pavlushka made his first attendance at school. But no
+      special aptitude in any branch of learning did he display. Rather, his
+      distinguishing characteristics were diligence and neatness. On the other
+      hand, he developed great intelligence as regards the PRACTICAL aspect of
+      life. In a trice he divined and comprehended how things ought to be
+      worked, and, from that time forth, bore himself towards his school-fellows
+      in such a way that, though they frequently gave him presents, he not only
+      never returned the compliment, but even on occasions pocketed the gifts
+      for the mere purpose of selling them again. Also, boy though he was, he
+      acquired the art of self-denial. Of the trifle which his father had given
+      him on parting he spent not a kopeck, but, the same year, actually added
+      to his little store by fashioning a bullfinch of wax, painting it, and
+      selling the same at a handsome profit. Next, as time went on, he engaged
+      in other speculations&mdash;in particular, in the scheme of buying up
+      eatables, taking his seat in class beside boys who had plenty of
+      pocket-money, and, as soon as such opulent individuals showed signs of
+      failing attention (and, therefore, of growing appetite), tendering them,
+      from beneath the desk, a roll of pudding or a piece of gingerbread, and
+      charging according to degree of appetite and size of portion. He also
+      spent a couple of months in training a mouse, which he kept confined in a
+      little wooden cage in his bedroom. At length, when the training had
+      reached the point that, at the several words of command, the mouse would
+      stand upon its hind legs, lie down, and get up again, he sold the creature
+      for a respectable sum. Thus, in time, his gains attained the amount of
+      five roubles; whereupon he made himself a purse and then started to fill a
+      second receptacle of the kind. Still more studied was his attitude towards
+      the authorities. No one could sit more quietly in his place on the bench
+      than he. In the same connection it may be remarked that his teacher was a
+      man who, above all things, loved peace and good behaviour, and simply
+      could not abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at
+      him. Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master’s attention
+      with a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place,
+      or unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to
+      burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and to
+      visit him with unmerciful punishment. “Ah, my fine fellow,” he would say,
+      “I’LL cure you of your impudence and want of respect! I know you through
+      and through far better than you know yourself, and will take good care
+      that you have to go down upon your knees and curb your appetite.”
+       Whereupon the wretched lad would, for no cause of which he was aware, be
+      forced to wear out his breeches on the floor and go hungry for days.
+      “Talents and gifts,” the schoolmaster would declare, “are so much rubbish.
+      I respect only good behaviour, and shall award full marks to those who
+      conduct themselves properly, even if they fail to learn a single letter of
+      their alphabet: whereas to those in whom I may perceive a tendency to
+      jocularity I shall award nothing, even though they should outdo Solon
+      himself.” For the same reason he had no great love of the author Krylov,
+      in that the latter says in one of his Fables: “In my opinion, the more one
+      sings, the better one works;” and often the pedagogue would relate how, in
+      a former school of his, the silence had been such that a fly could be
+      heard buzzing on the wing, and for the space of a whole year not a single
+      pupil sneezed or coughed in class, and so complete was the absence of all
+      sound that no one could have told that there was a soul in the place. Of
+      this mentor young Chichikov speedily appraised the mentality; wherefore he
+      fashioned his behaviour to correspond with it. Not an eyelid, not an
+      eyebrow, would he stir during school hours, howsoever many pinches he
+      might receive from behind; and only when the bell rang would he run to
+      anticipate his fellows in handing the master the three-cornered cap which
+      that dignitary customarily sported, and then to be the first to leave the
+      class-room, and contrive to meet the master not less than two or three
+      times as the latter walked homeward, in order that, on each occasion, he
+      might doff his cap. And the scheme proved entirely successful. Throughout
+      the period of his attendance at school he was held in high favour, and, on
+      leaving the establishment, received full marks for every subject, as well
+      as a diploma and a book inscribed (in gilt letters) “For Exemplary
+      Diligence and the Perfection of Good Conduct.” By this time he had grown
+      into a fairly good-looking youth of the age when the chin first calls for
+      a razor; and at about the same period his father died, leaving behind him,
+      as his estate, four waistcoats completely worn out, two ancient
+      frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had been skilled only
+      in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks&mdash;not in ACTUALLY PRACTISING the
+      art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its little parcel of land
+      for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his one serf and the serf’s
+      family, to the capital, where he set about organising a new establishment
+      and entering the Civil Service. Simultaneously with his doing so, his old
+      schoolmaster lost (through stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over
+      which he had hitherto presided, and in which he had set so much store by
+      silence and good behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was
+      left, even for that purpose, he retired&mdash;ill, helpless, and starving&mdash;into
+      a broken-down, cheerless hovel. But certain of his former pupils&mdash;the
+      same clever, witty lads whom he had once been wont to accuse of
+      impertinence and evil conduct generally&mdash;heard of his pitiable
+      plight, and collected for him what money they could, even to the point of
+      selling their own necessaries. Only Chichikov, when appealed to, pleaded
+      inability, and compromised with a contribution of a single piatak <a
+      href="#linknote-38" name="linknoteref-38" id="linknoteref-38"><small>38</small></a>:
+      which his old schoolfellows straightway returned him&mdash;full in the
+      face, and accompanied with a shout of “Oh, you skinflint!” As for the poor
+      schoolmaster, when he heard what his former pupils had done, he buried his
+      face in his hands, and the tears gushed from his failing eyes as from
+      those of a helpless infant. “God has brought you but to weep over my
+      death-bed,” he murmured feebly; and added with a profound sigh, on hearing
+      of Chichikov’s conduct: “Ah, Pavlushka, how a human being may become
+      changed! Once you were a good lad, and gave me no trouble; but now you are
+      become proud indeed!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet let it not be inferred from this that our hero’s character had grown
+      so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude his
+      experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of fact, he
+      was capable both of the one and the other, and would have been glad to
+      assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or had he not been
+      called upon to touch the fund which he had decided should remain intact.
+      In other words, the father’s injunction, “Guard and save every kopeck,”
+       had become a hard and fast rule of the son’s. Yet the youth had no
+      particular attachment to money for money’s sake; he was not possessed with
+      the true instinct for hoarding and niggardliness. Rather, before his eyes
+      there floated ever a vision of life and its amenities and advantages&mdash;a
+      vision of carriages and an elegantly furnished house and recherche
+      dinners; and it was in the hope that some day he might attain these things
+      that he saved every kopeck and, meanwhile, stinted both himself and
+      others. Whenever a rich man passed him by in a splendid drozhki drawn by
+      swift and handsomely-caparisoned horses, he would halt as though deep in
+      thought, and say to himself, like a man awakening from a long sleep: “That
+      gentleman must have been a financier, he has so little hair on his brow.”
+       In short, everything connected with wealth and plenty produced upon him an
+      ineffaceable impression. Even when he left school he took no holiday, so
+      strong in him was the desire to get to work and enter the Civil Service.
+      Yet, for all the encomiums contained in his diploma, he had much ado to
+      procure a nomination to a Government Department; and only after a long
+      time was a minor post found for him, at a salary of thirty or forty
+      roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched though this appointment was, he
+      determined, by strict attention to business, to overcome all obstacles,
+      and to win success. And, indeed, the self-denial, the patience, and the
+      economy which he displayed were remarkable. From early morn until late at
+      night he would, with indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed
+      in his sordid task of copying official documents&mdash;never going home,
+      snatching what sleep he could on tables in the building, and dining with
+      the watchman on duty. Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and
+      neat, to preserve a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to
+      cultivate a certain elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked
+      that his fellow tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some
+      of them having faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding
+      chins, and cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was
+      handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of sullenness,
+      as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and by their
+      frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there remains in
+      the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the Director’s
+      room itself they would invade while still licking their lips, and since
+      their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room grew not
+      over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man like
+      Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in
+      everything&mdash;in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and in
+      complete neglect of the use of strong potions&mdash;he was the absolute
+      antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread,
+      for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief
+      Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia. Always
+      the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in his life
+      have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance’s health. Nor had any
+      one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his own home from
+      what he was in the office, or showing the least interest in anything
+      whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in his cups, or
+      indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when intoxicated, even a
+      burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was there in him. Nor, for
+      that matter, was there in him a particle of anything at all, whether good
+      or bad: which complete negativeness of character produced rather a strange
+      effect. In the same way, his wizened, marble-like features reminded one of
+      nothing in particular, so primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous
+      pockmarks and dimples with which they were pitted placed him among the
+      number of those over whose faces, to quote the popular saying, “The Devil
+      has walked by night to grind peas.” In short, it would seem that no human
+      agency could have approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet
+      Chichikov made the effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the
+      other’s convenience in all manner of insignificant trifles&mdash;to
+      cleaning his pens carefully, and, when they had been prepared exactly to
+      the Chief Clerk’s liking, laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and
+      sweeping from his table all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to procuring
+      a new mat for his inkstand; to looking for his hat&mdash;the
+      meanest-looking hat that ever the world beheld&mdash;and having it ready
+      for him at the exact moment when business came to an end; to brushing his
+      back if it happened to become smeared with whitewash from a wall. Yet all
+      this passed as unnoticed as though it had never been done. Finally,
+      Chichikov sniffed into his superior’s family and domestic life, and learnt
+      that he possessed a grown-up daughter on whose face also there had taken
+      place a nocturnal, diabolical grinding of peas. HERE was a quarter whence
+      a fresh attack might be delivered! After ascertaining what church the
+      daughter attended on Sundays, our hero took to contriving to meet her in a
+      neat suit and a well-starched dickey: and soon the scheme began to work.
+      The surly Chief Clerk wavered for a while; then ended by inviting
+      Chichikov to tea. Nor could any man in the office have told you how it
+      came about that before long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk’s
+      house, and become a person necessary&mdash;indeed indispensable&mdash;to
+      the household, seeing that he bought the flour and the sugar, treated the
+      daughter as his betrothed, called the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” and
+      occasionally kissed “Papenka’s” hand. In fact, every one at the office
+      supposed that, at the end of February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent)
+      there would take place a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to
+      agitate with the authorities on Chichikov’s behalf, and so enabled our
+      hero, on a vacancy occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk.
+      Apparently this marked the consummation of Chichikov’s relations with his
+      host, for he hastened stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day,
+      figured in a fresh lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk
+      “Papenka,” or to kiss his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as
+      abrupt a termination as though it had never been mooted. Yet also he never
+      failed to press his late host’s hand, whenever he met him, and to invite
+      him to tea; while, on the other hand, for all his immobility and dry
+      indifference, the Chief Clerk never failed to shake his head with a
+      muttered, “Ah, my fine fellow, you have grown too proud, you have grown
+      too proud.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foregoing constituted the most difficult step that our hero had to
+      negotiate. Thereafter things came with greater ease and swifter success.
+      Everywhere he attracted notice, for he developed within himself everything
+      necessary for this world&mdash;namely, charm of manner and bearing, and
+      great diligence in business matters. Armed with these resources, he next
+      obtained promotion to what is known as “a fat post,” and used it to the
+      best advantage; and even though, at that period, strict inquiry had begun
+      to be made into the whole subject of bribes, such inquiry failed to alarm
+      him&mdash;nay, he actually turned it to account and thereby manifested the
+      Russian resourcefulness which never fails to attain its zenith where
+      extortion is concerned. His method of working was the following. As soon
+      as a petitioner or a suitor put his hand into his pocket, to extract
+      thence the necessary letters of recommendation for signature, Chichikov
+      would smilingly exclaim as he detained his interlocutor’s hand: “No, no!
+      Surely you do not think that I&mdash;? But no, no! It is our duty, it is
+      our obligation, and we do not require rewards for doing our work properly.
+      So far as YOUR matter is concerned, you may rest easy. Everything shall be
+      carried through to-morrow. But may I have your address? There is no need
+      to trouble yourself, seeing that the documents can easily be brought to
+      you at your residence.” Upon which the delighted suitor would return home
+      in raptures, thinking: “Here, at long last, is the sort of man so badly
+      needed. A man of that kind is a jewel beyond price.” Yet for a day, for
+      two days&mdash;nay, even for three&mdash;the suitor would wait in vain so
+      far as any messengers with documents were concerned. Then he would repair
+      to the office&mdash;to find that his business had not so much as been
+      entered upon! Lastly, he would confront the “jewel beyond price.” “Oh,
+      pardon me, pardon me!” Chichikov would exclaim in the politest of tones as
+      he seized and grasped the visitor’s hands. “The truth is that we have SUCH
+      a quantity of business on hand! But the matter shall be put through
+      to-morrow, and in the meanwhile I am most sorry about it.” And with this
+      would go the most fascinating of gestures. Yet neither on the morrow, nor
+      on the day following, nor on the third would documents arrive at the
+      suitor’s abode. Upon that he would take thought as to whether something
+      more ought not to have been done; and, sure enough, on his making inquiry,
+      he would be informed that “something will have to be given to the
+      copyists.” “Well, there can be no harm in that,” he would reply. “As a
+      matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak <a href="#linknote-39"
+       name="linknoteref-39" id="linknoteref-39"><small>39</small></a> or two.”
+       “Oh, no, no,” the answer would come. “Not a tchetvertak per copyist, but a
+      rouble, is the fee.” “What? A rouble per copyist?” “Certainly. What is
+      there to grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a
+      tchetvertak apiece, and the rest will go to the Government.” Upon that the
+      disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought
+      about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks and
+      their uppish, insolent behaviour. “Once upon a time,” would the suitor
+      lament, “one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the Director a
+      bank-note, one’s affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But now one has to
+      pay a rouble per copyist after waiting a week because otherwise it was
+      impossible to guess how the wind might set! The devil fly away with all
+      ‘disinterested’ and ‘trustworthy’ tchinovniks!” And certainly the
+      aggrieved suitor had reason to grumble, seeing that, now that bribe-takers
+      had ceased to exist, and Directors had uniformly become men of honour and
+      integrity, secretaries and clerks ought not with impunity to have
+      continued their thievish ways. In time there opened out to Chichikov a
+      still wider field, for a Commission was appointed to supervise the
+      erection of a Government building, and, on his being nominated to that
+      body, he proved himself one of its most active members. The Commission got
+      to work without delay, but for a space of six years had some trouble with
+      the building in question. Either the climate hindered operations or the
+      materials used were of the kind which prevents official edifices from ever
+      rising higher than the basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the
+      town saw arise, for each member of the Commission, a handsome house of the
+      NON-official style of architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the
+      soil of those parts was better than that where the Government building was
+      still engaged in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission
+      began to look exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family life;
+      and, for the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also departed
+      from the iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and inexorable
+      self-denial, and so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism as to show
+      himself a man not averse to those amenities which, during his youth, he
+      had been capable of renouncing. That is to say, certain superfluities
+      began to make their appearance in his establishment. He engaged a good
+      cook, took to wearing linen shirts, bought for himself cloth of a pattern
+      worn by no one else in the province, figured in checks shot with the
+      brightest of reds and browns, fitted himself out with two splendid horses
+      (which he drove with a single pair of reins, added to a ring attachment
+      for the trace horse), developed a habit of washing with a sponge dipped in
+      eau-de-Cologne, and invested in soaps of the most expensive quality, in
+      order to communicate to his skin a more elegant polish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director&mdash;a military
+      man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and anything
+      which might be called irregular. On the very day after his arrival he
+      struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts, discovering hosts
+      of deficits and missing sums, and directing his attention to the aforesaid
+      fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon that there ensued a complete
+      reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired wholesale, and the houses were
+      sequestrated to the Government, or else converted into various pious
+      institutions and schools for soldiers’ children. Thus the whole fabric,
+      and especially Chichikov, came crashing to the ground. Particularly did
+      our hero’s agreeable face displease the new Director. Why that was so it
+      is impossible to say, but frequently, in cases of the kind, no reason
+      exists. However, the Director conceived a mortal dislike to him, and also
+      extended that enmity to the whole of Chichikov’s colleagues. But inasmuch
+      as the said Director was a military man, he was not fully acquainted with
+      the myriad subtleties of the civilian mind; wherefore it was not long
+      before, by dint of maintaining a discreet exterior, added to a faculty for
+      humouring all and sundry, a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in
+      restoring him to mildness, and the General found himself in the hands of
+      greater thieves than before, but thieves whom he did not even suspect,
+      seeing that he believed himself to have selected men fit and proper, and
+      even ventured to boast of possessing a keen eye for talent. In a trice the
+      tchinovniks concerned appraised his spirit and character; with the result
+      that the entire sphere over which he ruled became an agency for the
+      detection of irregularities. Everywhere, and in every case, were those
+      irregularities pursued as a fisherman pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff;
+      and to such an extent did the sport prove successful that almost in no
+      time each participator in the hunt was seen to be in possession of several
+      thousand roubles of capital. Upon that a large number of the former band
+      of tchinovniks also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were
+      allowed to re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could
+      Chichikov worm his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry items
+      of paper currency, the General’s first secretary and principal bear leader
+      did all he could on our hero’s behalf. It seemed that the General was the
+      kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided it was done
+      without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head than it stuck
+      there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted; and all that the
+      wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing up of a certain
+      dirty fragment of paper&mdash;even that being effected only by an appeal
+      to the General’s compassion, on the score of the unhappy fate which,
+      otherwise, would befall Chichikov’s wife and children (who, luckily, had
+      no existence in fact).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well,” said Chichikov to himself, “I have done my best, and now
+      everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won’t help me, but only
+      action.” And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once more
+      to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The better to
+      effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town. Yet somehow, for
+      a while, things miscarried. More than once he found himself forced to
+      exchange one post for another, and at the briefest of notice; and all of
+      them were posts of the meanest, the most wretched, order. Yet, being a man
+      of the utmost nicety of feeling, the fact that he found himself rubbing
+      shoulders with anything but nice companions did not prevent him from
+      preserving intact his innate love of what was decent and seemly, or from
+      cherishing the instinct which led him to hanker after office fittings of
+      lacquered wood, with neatness and orderliness everywhere. Nor did he at
+      any time permit a foul word to creep into his speech, and would feel hurt
+      even if in the speech of others there occurred a scornful reference to
+      anything which pertained to rank and dignity. Also, the reader will be
+      pleased to know that our hero changed his linen every other day, and in
+      summer, when the weather was very hot, EVERY day, seeing that the very
+      faintest suspicion of an unpleasant odour offended his fastidiousness. For
+      the same reason it was his custom, before being valeted by Petrushka,
+      always to plug his nostrils with a couple of cloves. In short, there were
+      many occasions when his nerves suffered rackings as cruel as a young
+      girl’s, and so helped to increase his disgust at having once more to
+      associate with men who set no store by the decencies of life. Yet, though
+      he braced himself to the task, this period of adversity told upon his
+      health, and he even grew a trifle shabby. More than once, on happening to
+      catch sight of himself in the mirror, he could not forbear exclaiming:
+      “Holy Mother of God, but what a nasty-looking brute I have become!” and
+      for a long while afterwards could not with anything like sang-froid
+      contemplate his reflection. Yet throughout he bore up stoutly and
+      patiently&mdash;and ended by being transferred to the Customs Department.
+      It may be said that the department had long constituted the secret goal of
+      his ambition, for he had noted the foreign elegancies with which its
+      officials always contrived to provide themselves, and had also observed
+      that invariably they were able to send presents of china and cambric to
+      their sisters and aunts&mdash;well, to their lady friends generally. Yes,
+      more than once he had said to himself with a sigh: “THAT is the department
+      to which I ought to belong, for, given a town near the frontier, and a
+      sensible set of colleagues, I might be able to fit myself out with
+      excellent linen shirts.” Also, it may be said that most frequently of all
+      had his thoughts turned towards a certain quality of French soap which
+      imparted a peculiar whiteness to the skin and a peerless freshness to the
+      cheeks. Its name is known to God alone, but at least it was to be procured
+      only in the immediate neighbourhood of the frontier. So, as I say,
+      Chichikov had long felt a leaning towards the Customs, but for a time had
+      been restrained from applying for the same by the various current
+      advantages of the Building Commission; since rightly he had adjudged the
+      latter to constitute a bird in the hand, and the former to constitute only
+      a bird in the bush. But now he decided that, come what might, into the
+      Customs he must make his way. And that way he made, and then applied
+      himself to his new duties with a zeal born of the fact that he realised
+      that fortune had specially marked him out for a Customs officer. Indeed,
+      such activity, perspicuity, and ubiquity as his had never been seen or
+      thought of. Within four weeks at the most he had so thoroughly got his
+      hand in that he was conversant with Customs procedure in every detail. Not
+      only could he weigh and measure, but also he could divine from an invoice
+      how many arshins of cloth or other material a given piece contained, and
+      then, taking a roll of the latter in his hand, could specify at once the
+      number of pounds at which it would tip the scale. As for searchings, well,
+      even his colleagues had to admit that he possessed the nose of a veritable
+      bloodhound, and that it was impossible not to marvel at the patience
+      wherewith he would try every button of the suspected person, yet preserve,
+      throughout, a deadly politeness and an icy sang-froid which surpass
+      belief. And while the searched were raging, and foaming at the mouth, and
+      feeling that they would give worlds to alter his smiling exterior with a
+      good, resounding slap, he would move not a muscle of his face, nor abate
+      by a jot the urbanity of his demeanour, as he murmured, “Do you mind so
+      far incommoding yourself as to stand up?” or “Pray step into the next
+      room, madam, where the wife of one of our staff will attend you,” or “Pray
+      allow me to slip this penknife of mine into the lining of your coat”
+       (after which he would extract thence shawls and towels with as much
+      nonchalance as he would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his
+      superiors acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human
+      being, so perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels,
+      carriage-poles, horses’ ears, and places whither an author ought not to
+      penetrate even in thought&mdash;places whither only a Customs official is
+      permitted to go. The result was that the wretched traveller who had just
+      crossed the frontier would, within a few minutes, become wholly at sea,
+      and, wiping away the perspiration, and breaking out into body flushes,
+      would be reduced to crossing himself and muttering, “Well, well, well!” In
+      fact, such a traveller would feel in the position of a schoolboy who,
+      having been summoned to the presence of the headmaster for the ostensible
+      purpose of being given an order, has found that he receives, instead, a
+      sound flogging. In short, for some time Chichikov made it impossible for
+      smugglers to earn a living. In particular, he reduced Polish Jewry almost
+      to despair, so invincible, so almost unnatural, was the rectitude, the
+      incorruptibility which led him to refrain from converting himself into a
+      small capitalist with the aid of confiscated goods and articles which, “to
+      save excessive clerical labour,” had failed to be handed over to the
+      Government. Also, without saying it goes that such phenomenally zealous
+      and disinterested service attracted general astonishment, and, eventually,
+      the notice of the authorities; whereupon he received promotion, and
+      followed that up by mooting a scheme for the infallible detection of
+      contrabandists, provided that he could be furnished with the necessary
+      authority for carrying out the same. At once such authority was accorded
+      him, as also unlimited power to conduct every species of search and
+      investigation. And that was all he wanted. It happened that previously
+      there had been formed a well-found association for smuggling on regular,
+      carefully prepared lines, and that this daring scheme seemed to promise
+      profit to the extent of some millions of money: yet, though he had long
+      had knowledge of it, Chichikov had said to the association’s emissaries,
+      when sent to buy him over, “The time is not yet.” But now that he had got
+      all the reins into his hands, he sent word of the fact to the gang, and
+      with it the remark, “The time is NOW.” Nor was he wrong in his
+      calculations, for, within the space of a year, he had acquired what he
+      could not have made during twenty years of non-fraudulent service. With
+      similar sagacity he had, during his early days in the department, declined
+      altogether to enter into relations with the association, for the reason
+      that he had then been a mere cipher, and would have come in for nothing
+      large in the way of takings; but now&mdash;well, now it was another matter
+      altogether, and he could dictate what terms he liked. Moreover, that the
+      affair might progress the more smoothly, he suborned a fellow tchinovnik
+      of the type which, in spite of grey hairs, stands powerless against
+      temptation; and, the contract concluded, the association duly proceeded to
+      business. Certainly business began brilliantly. But probably most of my
+      readers are familiar with the oft-repeated story of the passage of Spanish
+      sheep across the frontier in double fleeces which carried between their
+      outer layers and their inner enough lace of Brabant to sell to the tune of
+      millions of roubles; wherefore I will not recount the story again beyond
+      saying that those journeys took place just when Chichikov had become head
+      of the Customs, and that, had he not a hand in the enterprise, not all the
+      Jews in the world could have brought it to success. By the time that three
+      or four of these ovine invasions had taken place, Chichikov and his
+      accomplice had come to be the possessors of four hundred thousand roubles
+      apiece; while some even aver that the former’s gains totalled half a
+      million, owing to the greater industry which he had displayed in the
+      matter. Nor can any one but God say to what a figure the fortunes of the
+      pair might not eventually have attained, had not an awkward contretemps
+      cut right across their arrangements. That is to say, for some reason or
+      another the devil so far deprived these tchinovnik-conspirators of sense
+      as to make them come to words with one another, and then to engage in a
+      quarrel. Beginning with a heated argument, this quarrel reached the point
+      of Chichikov&mdash;who was, possibly, a trifle tipsy&mdash;calling his
+      colleague a priest’s son; and though that description of the person so
+      addressed was perfectly accurate, he chose to take offence, and to answer
+      Chichikov with the words (loudly and incisively uttered), “It is YOU who
+      have a priest for your father,” and to add to that (the more to incense
+      his companion), “Yes, mark you! THAT is how it is.” Yet, though he had
+      thus turned the tables upon Chichikov with a tu quoque, and then capped
+      that exploit with the words last quoted, the offended tchinovnik could not
+      remain satisfied, but went on to send in an anonymous document to the
+      authorities. On the other hand, some aver that it was over a woman that
+      the pair fell out&mdash;over a woman who, to quote the phrase then current
+      among the staff of the Customs Department, was “as fresh and as strong as
+      the pulp of a turnip,” and that night-birds were hired to assault our hero
+      in a dark alley, and that the scheme miscarried, and that in any case both
+      Chichikov and his friend had been deceived, seeing that the person to whom
+      the lady had really accorded her favours was a certain staff-captain named
+      Shamsharev. However, only God knows the truth of the matter. Let the
+      inquisitive reader ferret it out for himself. The fact remains that a
+      complete exposure of the dealings with the contrabandists followed, and
+      that the two tchinovniks were put to the question, deprived of their
+      property, and made to formulate in writing all that they had done. Against
+      this thunderbolt of fortune the State Councillor could make no headway,
+      and in some retired spot or another sank into oblivion; but Chichikov put
+      a brave face upon the matter, for, in spite of the authorities’ best
+      efforts to smell out his gains, he had contrived to conceal a portion of
+      them, and also resorted to every subtle trick of intellect which could
+      possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has a wide
+      knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness
+      of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the
+      occasional insertion of a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the
+      result that he was retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and
+      escaped actual trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all
+      his capital, stripped of his imported effects, stripped of everything.
+      That is to say, all that remained to him consisted of ten thousand roubles
+      which he had stored against a rainy day, two dozen linen shirts, a small
+      britchka of the type used by bachelors, and two serving-men named Selifan
+      and Petrushka. Yes, and an impulse of kindness moved the tchinovniks of
+      the Customs also to set aside for him a few cakes of the soap which he had
+      found so excellent for the freshness of the cheeks. Thus once more our
+      hero found himself stranded. And what an accumulation of misfortunes had
+      descended upon his head!&mdash;though, true, he termed them “suffering in
+      the Service in the cause of Truth.” Certainly one would have thought that,
+      after these buffetings and trials and changes of fortune&mdash;after this
+      taste of the sorrows of life&mdash;he and his precious ten thousand
+      roubles would have withdrawn to some peaceful corner in a provincial town,
+      where, clad in a stuff dressing-gown, he could have sat and listened to
+      the peasants quarrelling on festival days, or (for the sake of a breath of
+      fresh air) have gone in person to the poulterer’s to finger chickens for
+      soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly useless, existence; but
+      nothing of the kind took place, and therein we must do justice to the
+      strength of his character. In other words, although he had undergone what,
+      to the majority of men, would have meant ruin and discouragement and a
+      shattering of ideals, he still preserved his energy. True, downcast and
+      angry, and full of resentment against the world in general, he felt
+      furious with the injustice of fate, and dissatisfied with the dealings of
+      men; yet he could not forbear courting additional experiences. In short,
+      the patience which he displayed was such as to make the wooden persistency
+      of the German&mdash;a persistency merely due to the slow, lethargic
+      circulation of the Teuton’s blood&mdash;seem nothing at all, seeing that
+      by nature Chichikov’s blood flowed strongly, and that he had to employ
+      much force of will to curb within himself those elements which longed to
+      burst forth and revel in freedom. He thought things over, and, as he did
+      so, a certain spice of reason appeared in his reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How have I come to be what I am?” he said to himself. “Why has misfortune
+      overtaken me in this way? Never have I wronged a poor person, or robbed a
+      widow, or turned any one out of doors: I have always been careful only to
+      take advantage of those who possess more than their share. Moreover, I
+      have never gleaned anywhere but where every one else was gleaning; and,
+      had I not done so, others would have gleaned in my place. Why, then,
+      should those others be prospering, and I be sunk as low as a worm? What am
+      I? What am I good for? How can I, in future, hope to look any honest
+      father of a family in the face? How shall I escape being tortured with the
+      thought that I am cumbering the ground? What, in the years to come, will
+      my children say, save that ‘our father was a brute, for he left us nothing
+      to live upon?’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here I may remark that we have seen how much thought Chichikov devoted to
+      his future descendants. Indeed, had not there been constantly recurring to
+      his mind the insistent question, “What will my children say?” he might not
+      have plunged into the affair so deeply. Nevertheless, like a wary cat
+      which glances hither and thither to see whether its mistress be not coming
+      before it can make off with whatsoever first falls to its paw (butter,
+      fat, lard, a duck, or anything else), so our future founder of a family
+      continued, though weeping and bewailing his lot, to let not a single
+      detail escape his eye. That is to say, he retained his wits ever in a
+      state of activity, and kept his brain constantly working. All that he
+      required was a plan. Once more he pulled himself together, once more he
+      embarked upon a life of toil, once more he stinted himself in everything,
+      once more he left clean and decent surroundings for a dirty, mean
+      existence. In other words, until something better should turn up, he
+      embraced the calling of an ordinary attorney&mdash;a calling which, not
+      then possessed of a civic status, was jostled on very side, enjoyed little
+      respect at the hands of the minor legal fry (or, indeed, at its own), and
+      perforce met with universal slights and rudeness. But sheer necessity
+      compelled Chichikov to face these things. Among commissions entrusted to
+      him was that of placing in the hands of the Public Trustee several hundred
+      peasants who belonged to a ruined estate. The estate had reached its
+      parlous condition through cattle disease, through rascally bailiffs,
+      through failures of the harvest, through such epidemic diseases that had
+      killed off the best workmen, and, last, but not least, through the
+      senseless conduct of the owner himself, who had furnished a house in
+      Moscow in the latest style, and then squandered his every kopeck, so that
+      nothing was left for his further maintenance, and it became necessary to
+      mortgage the remains&mdash;including the peasants&mdash;of the estate. In
+      those days mortgage to the Treasury was an innovation looked upon with
+      reserve, and, as attorney in the matter, Chichikov had first of all to
+      “entertain” every official concerned (we know that, unless that be
+      previously done, unless a whole bottle of madeira first be emptied down
+      each clerical throat, not the smallest legal affair can be carried
+      through), and to explain, for the barring of future attachments, that half
+      of the peasants were dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And are they entered on the revision lists?” asked the secretary. “Yes,”
+       replied Chichikov. “Then what are you boggling at?” continued the
+      Secretary. “Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time grow up
+      to take the first one’s place.” Upon that there dawned on our hero one of
+      the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human brain. “What a
+      simpleton I am!” he thought to himself. “Here am I looking about for my
+      mittens when all the time I have got them tucked into my belt. Why, were I
+      myself to buy up a few souls which are dead&mdash;to buy them before a new
+      revision list shall have been made, the Council of Public Trust might pay
+      me two hundred roubles apiece for them, and I might find myself with, say,
+      a capital of two hundred thousand roubles! The present moment is
+      particularly propitious, since in various parts of the country there has
+      been an epidemic, and, glory be to God, a large number of souls have died
+      of it. Nowadays landowners have taken to card-playing and junketting and
+      wasting their money, or to joining the Civil Service in St. Petersburg;
+      consequently their estates are going to rack and ruin, and being managed
+      in any sort of fashion, and succeeding in paying their dues with greater
+      difficulty each year. That being so, not a man of the lot but would gladly
+      surrender to me his dead souls rather than continue paying the poll-tax;
+      and in this fashion I might make&mdash;well, not a few kopecks. Of course
+      there are difficulties, and, to avoid creating a scandal, I should need to
+      employ plenty of finesse; but man was given his brain to USE, not to
+      neglect. One good point about the scheme is that it will seem so
+      improbable that in case of an accident, no one in the world will believe
+      in it. True, it is illegal to buy or mortgage peasants without land, but I
+      can easily pretend to be buying them only for transferment elsewhere. Land
+      is to be acquired in the provinces of Taurida and Kherson almost for
+      nothing, provided that one undertakes subsequently to colonise it; so to
+      Kherson I will ‘transfer’ them, and long may they live there! And the
+      removal of my dead souls shall be carried out in the strictest legal form;
+      and if the authorities should want confirmation by testimony, I shall
+      produce a letter signed by my own superintendent of the Khersonian rural
+      police&mdash;that is to say, by myself. Lastly, the supposed village in
+      Kherson shall be called Chichikovoe&mdash;better still Pavlovskoe,
+      according to my Christian name.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In this fashion there germinated in our hero’s brain that strange scheme
+      for which the reader may or may not be grateful, but for which the author
+      certainly is so, seeing that, had it never occurred to Chichikov, this
+      story would never have seen the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After crossing himself, according to the Russian custom, Chichikov set
+      about carrying out his enterprise. On pretence of selecting a place
+      wherein to settle, he started forth to inspect various corners of the
+      Russian Empire, but more especially those which had suffered from such
+      unfortunate accidents as failures of the harvest, a high rate of
+      mortality, or whatsoever else might enable him to purchase souls at the
+      lowest possible rate. But he did not tackle his landowners haphazard: he
+      rather selected such of them as seemed more particularly suited to his
+      taste, or with whom he might with the least possible trouble conclude
+      identical agreements; though, in the first instance, he always tried, by
+      getting on terms of acquaintanceship&mdash;better still, of friendship&mdash;with
+      them, to acquire the souls for nothing, and so to avoid purchase at all.
+      In passing, my readers must not blame me if the characters whom they have
+      encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their liking. The
+      fault is Chichikov’s rather than mine, for he is the master, and where he
+      leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me for a certain
+      dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters and actors, that
+      will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad tendency and the
+      general scope of a work become immediately apparent. Similarly does the
+      entry to every town&mdash;the entry even to the Capital itself&mdash;convey
+      to the traveller such an impression of vagueness that at first everything
+      looks grey and monotonous, and the lines of smoky factories and workshops
+      seem never to be coming to an end; but in time there will begin also to
+      stand out the outlines of six-storied mansions, and of shops and
+      balconies, and wide perspectives of streets, and a medley of steeples,
+      columns, statues, and turrets&mdash;the whole framed in rattle and roar
+      and the infinite wonders which the hand and the brain of men have
+      conceived. Of the manner in which Chichikov’s first purchases were made
+      the reader is aware. Subsequently he will see also how the affair
+      progressed, and with what success or failure our hero met, and how
+      Chichikov was called upon to decide and to overcome even more difficult
+      problems than the foregoing, and by what colossal forces the levers of his
+      far-flung tale are moved, and how eventually the horizon will become
+      extended until everything assumes a grandiose and a lyrical tendency. Yes,
+      many a verst of road remains to be travelled by a party made up of an
+      elderly gentleman, a britchka of the kind affected by bachelors, a valet
+      named Petrushka, a coachman named Selifan, and three horses which, from
+      the Assessor to the skewbald, are known to us individually by name. Again,
+      although I have given a full description of our hero’s exterior (such as
+      it is), I may yet be asked for an inclusive definition also of his moral
+      personality. That he is no hero compounded of virtues and perfections must
+      be already clear. Then WHAT is he? A villain? Why should we call him a
+      villain? Why should we be so hard upon a fellow man? In these days our
+      villains have ceased to exist. Rather it would be fairer to call him an
+      ACQUIRER. The love of acquisition, the love of gain, is a fault common to
+      many, and gives rise to many and many a transaction of the kind generally
+      known as “not strictly honourable.” True, such a character contains an
+      element of ugliness, and the same reader who, on his journey through life,
+      would sit at the board of a character of this kind, and spend a most
+      agreeable time with him, would be the first to look at him askance if he
+      should appear in the guise of the hero of a novel or a play. But wise is
+      the reader who, on meeting such a character, scans him carefully, and,
+      instead of shrinking from him with distaste, probes him to the springs of
+      his being. The human personality contains nothing which may not, in the
+      twinkling of an eye, become altogether changed&mdash;nothing in which,
+      before you can look round, there may not spring to birth some cankerous
+      worm which is destined to suck thence the essential juice. Yes, it is a
+      common thing to see not only an overmastering passion, but also a passion
+      of the most petty order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and
+      lead him both to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and to
+      see only in the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy. For human passions
+      are as numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his
+      most insistent of masters. Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from
+      among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will
+      that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by
+      hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his
+      soul. But there are passions of which a man cannot rid himself, seeing
+      that they are born with him at his birth, and he has no power to abjure
+      them. Higher powers govern those passions, and in them is something which
+      will call to him, and refuse to be silenced, to the end of his life. Yes,
+      whether in a guise of darkness, or whether in a guise which will become
+      converted into a light to lighten the world, they will and must attain
+      their consummation on life’s field: and in either case they have been
+      evoked for man’s good. In the same way may the passion which drew our
+      Chichikov onwards have been one that was independent of himself; in the
+      same way may there have lurked even in his cold essence something which
+      will one day cause men to humble themselves in the dust before the
+      infinite wisdom of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet that folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing. What
+      matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their approval
+      could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to say, had not
+      the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov’s soul, nor stirred up in its
+      depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light, nor disclosed those of
+      his hero’s thoughts which that hero would have not have disclosed even to
+      his most intimate friend; had the author, indeed, exhibited Chichikov just
+      as he exhibited himself to the townsmen of N. and Manilov and the rest;
+      well, then we may rest assured that every reader would have been delighted
+      with him, and have voted him a most interesting person. For it is not
+      nearly so necessary that Chichikov should figure before the reader as
+      though his form and person were actually present to the eye as that, on
+      concluding a perusal of this work, the reader should be able to return,
+      unharrowed in soul, to that cult of the card-table which is the solace and
+      delight of all good Russians. Yes, readers of this book, none of you
+      really care to see humanity revealed in its nakedness. “Why should we do
+      so?” you say. “What would be the use of it? Do we not know for ourselves
+      that human life contains much that is gross and contemptible? Do we not
+      with our own eyes have to look upon much that is anything but comforting?
+      Far better would it be if you would put before us what is comely and
+      attractive, so that we might forget ourselves a little.” In the same
+      fashion does a landowner say to his bailiff: “Why do you come and tell me
+      that the affairs of my estate are in a bad way? I know that without YOUR
+      help. Have you nothing else to tell me? Kindly allow me to forget the
+      fact, or else to remain in ignorance of it, and I shall be much obliged to
+      you.” Whereafter the said landowner probably proceeds to spend on his
+      diversion the money which ought to have gone towards the rehabilitation of
+      his affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Possibly the author may also incur censure at the hands of those so-called
+      “patriots” who sit quietly in corners, and become capitalists through
+      making fortunes at the expense of others. Yes, let but something which
+      they conceive to be derogatory to their country occur&mdash;for instance,
+      let there be published some book which voices the bitter truth&mdash;and
+      out they will come from their hiding-places like a spider which perceives
+      a fly to be caught in its web. “Is it well to proclaim this to the world,
+      and to set folk talking about it?” they will cry. “What you have described
+      touches US, is OUR affair. Is conduct of that kind right? What will
+      foreigners say? Does any one care calmly to sit by and hear himself
+      traduced? Why should you lead foreigners to suppose that all is not well
+      with us, and that we are not patriotic?” Well, to these sage remarks no
+      answer can really be returned, especially to such of the above as refer to
+      foreign opinion. But see here. There once lived in a remote corner of
+      Russia two natives of the region indicated. One of those natives was a
+      good man named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly disposition; a man who
+      went through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no heed to his household,
+      for the reason that his whole being was centred upon the province of
+      speculation, and that, in particular, he was preoccupied with a
+      philosophical problem usually stated by him thus: “A beast,” he would say,
+      “is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why should not a beast be born as
+      a bird is born&mdash;that is to say, through the process of being hatched
+      from an egg? Nature is beyond the understanding, however much one may
+      probe her.” This was the substance of Kifa Mokievitch’s reflections. But
+      herein is not the chief point. The other of the pair was a fellow named
+      Mofi Kifovitch, and son to the first named. He was what we Russians call a
+      “hero,” and while his father was pondering the parturition of beasts, his,
+      the son’s, lusty, twenty-year-old temperament was violently struggling for
+      development. Yet that son could tackle nothing without some accident
+      occurring. At one moment would he crack some one’s fingers in half, and at
+      another would he raise a bump on somebody’s nose; so that both at home and
+      abroad every one and everything&mdash;from the serving-maid to the
+      yard-dog&mdash;fled on his approach, and even the bed in his bedroom
+      became shattered to splinters. Such was Mofi Kifovitch; and with it all he
+      had a kindly soul. But herein is not the chief point. “Good sir, good Kifa
+      Mokievitch,” servants and neighbours would come and say to the father,
+      “what are you going to do about your Moki Kifovitch? We get no rest from
+      him, he is so above himself.” “That is only his play, that is only his
+      play,” the father would reply. “What else can you expect? It is too late
+      now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one would accuse me
+      of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but, were I to reprove him
+      in public, the whole thing would become common talk, and folk would begin
+      giving him a dog’s name. And if they did that, would not their opinion
+      touch me also, seeing that I am his father? Also, I am busy with
+      philosophy, and have no time for such things. Lastly, Moki Kifovitch is my
+      son, and very dear to my heart.” And, beating his breast, Kifa Mokievitch
+      again asserted that, even though his son should elect to continue his
+      pranks, it would not be for HIM, for the father, to proclaim the fact, or
+      to fall out with his offspring. And, this expression of paternal feeling
+      uttered, Kifa Mokievitch left Moki Kifovitch to his heroic exploits, and
+      himself returned to his beloved subject of speculation, which now included
+      also the problem, “Suppose elephants were to take to being hatched from
+      eggs, would not the shell of such eggs be of a thickness proof against
+      cannonballs, and necessitate the invention of some new type of firearm?”
+       Thus at the end of this little story we have these two denizens of a
+      peaceful corner of Russia looking thence, as from a window, in less terror
+      of doing what was scandalous than of having it SAID of them that they were
+      acting scandalously. Yes, the feeling animating our so-called “patriots”
+       is not true patriotism at all. Something else lies beneath it. Who, if not
+      an author, is to speak aloud the truth? Men like you, my pseudo-patriots,
+      stand in dread of the eye which is able to discern, yet shrink from using
+      your own, and prefer, rather, to glance at everything unheedingly. Yes,
+      after laughing heartily over Chichikov’s misadventures, and perhaps even
+      commending the author for his dexterity of observation and pretty turn of
+      wit, you will look at yourselves with redoubled pride and a self-satisfied
+      smile, and add: “Well, we agree that in certain parts of the provinces
+      there exists strange and ridiculous individuals, as well as unconscionable
+      rascals.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet which of you, when quiet, and alone, and engaged in solitary
+      self-communion, would not do well to probe YOUR OWN souls, and to put to
+      YOURSELVES the solemn question, “Is there not in ME an element of
+      Chichikov?” For how should there not be? Which of you is not liable at any
+      moment to be passed in the street by an acquaintance who, nudging his
+      neighbour, may say of you, with a barely suppressed sneer: “Look! there
+      goes Chichikov! That is Chichikov who has just gone by!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But here are we talking at the top of our voices whilst all the time our
+      hero lies slumbering in his britchka! Indeed, his name has been repeated
+      so often during the recital of his life’s history that he must almost have
+      heard us! And at any time he is an irritable, irascible fellow when spoken
+      of with disrespect. True, to the reader Chichikov’s displeasure cannot
+      matter a jot; but for the author it would mean ruin to quarrel with his
+      hero, seeing that, arm in arm, Chichikov and he have yet far to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tut, tut, tut!” came in a shout from Chichikov. “Hi, Selifan!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it?” came the reply, uttered with a drawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is it? Why, how dare you drive like that? Come! Bestir yourself a
+      little!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and hands
+      which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save an
+      occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst Petrushka
+      had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head had come to
+      rest against Chichikov’s knees&mdash;a position which necessitated his
+      being awakened with a cuff. Selifan also roused himself, and apportioned
+      to the skewbald a few cuts across the back of a kind which at least had
+      the effect of inciting that animal to trot; and when, presently, the other
+      two horses followed their companion’s example, the light britchka moved
+      forwards like a piece of thistledown. Selifan flourished his whip and
+      shouted, “Hi, hi!” as the inequalities of the road jerked him vertically
+      on his seat; and meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions of the
+      vehicle’s interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the sensation
+      of driving fast. For what Russian does not love to drive fast? Which of us
+      does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and to let them go,
+      and to cry, “To the devil with the world!”? At such moments a great force
+      seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies, and everything else flies,
+      but contrariwise&mdash;both the verst stones, and traders riding on the
+      shafts of their waggons, and the forest with dark lines of spruce and fir
+      amid which may be heard the axe of the woodcutter and the croaking of the
+      raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote distance the road comes towards one, and
+      while nothing save the sky and the light clouds through which the moon is
+      cleaving her way seem halted, the brief glimpses wherein one can discern
+      nothing clearly have in them a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika,
+      troika, swift as a bird, who was it first invented you? Only among a hardy
+      race of folk can you have come to birth&mdash;only in a land which, though
+      poor and rough, lies spread over half the world, and spans versts the
+      counting whereof would leave one with aching eyes. Nor are you a
+      modishly-fashioned vehicle of the road&mdash;a thing of clamps and iron.
+      Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen and fitted with the axe or chisel of
+      some handy peasant of Yaroslav. Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed
+      in German livery, but by a man bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts,
+      and flourishes his whip, and breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the
+      wind go the horses, and the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent
+      circles, and the road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with
+      a cry of astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies,
+      flies on its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon&mdash;a
+      speck amid a cloud of dust!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And you, Russia of mine&mdash;are not you also speeding like a troika
+      which nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels,
+      and the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in
+      the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder
+      whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that
+      awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force which
+      lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves must abide
+      in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an ear stretched to
+      catch the celestial message which bids them, with iron-girded breasts, and
+      hooves which barely touch the earth as they gallop, fly forward on a
+      mission of God? Whither, then, are you speeding, O Russia of mine?
+      Whither? Answer me! But no answer comes&mdash;only the weird sound of your
+      collar-bells. Rent into a thousand shreds, the air roars past you, for you
+      are overtaking the whole world, and shall one day force all nations, all
+      empires to stand aside, to give you way!
+    </p>
+<p class="right">
+                                                                 1841.
+</p>    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Why do I so persistently paint the poverty, the imperfections of Russian
+      life, and delve into the remotest depths, the most retired holes and
+      corners, of our Empire for my subjects? The answer is that there is
+      nothing else to be done when an author’s idiosyncrasy happens to incline
+      him that way. So again we find ourselves in a retired spot. But what a
+      spot!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with
+      embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards the
+      heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse of
+      plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone cliffs. Here
+      and there those cliffs are seamed with water-courses and gullies, while at
+      other points they are rounded off into spurs of green&mdash;spurs now
+      coated with fleece-like tufts of young undergrowth, now studded with the
+      stumps of felled trees, now covered with timber which has, by some
+      miracle, escaped the woodman’s axe. Also, a river winds awhile between its
+      banks, then leaves the meadow land, divides into runlets (all flashing in
+      the sun like fire), plunges, re-united, into the midst of a thicket of
+      elder, birch, and pine, and, lastly, speeds triumphantly past bridges and
+      mills and weirs which seem to be lying in wait for it at every turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one particular spot the steep flank of the mountain range is covered
+      with billowy verdure of denser growth than the rest; and here the aid of
+      skilful planting, added to the shelter afforded by a rugged ravine, has
+      enabled the flora of north and south so to be brought together that,
+      twined about with sinuous hop-tendrils, the oak, the spruce fir, the wild
+      pear, the maple, the cherry, the thorn, and the mountain ash either assist
+      or check one another’s growth, and everywhere cover the declivity with
+      their straggling profusion. Also, at the edge of the summit there can be
+      seen mingling with the green of the trees the red roofs of a manorial
+      homestead, while behind the upper stories of the mansion proper and its
+      carved balcony and a great semi-circular window there gleam the tiles and
+      gables of some peasants’ huts. Lastly, over this combination of trees and
+      roofs there rises&mdash;overtopping everything with its gilded, sparkling
+      steeple&mdash;an old village church. On each of its pinnacles a cross of
+      carved gilt is stayed with supports of similar gilding and design; with
+      the result that from a distance the gilded portions have the effect of
+      hanging without visible agency in the air. And the whole&mdash;the three
+      successive tiers of woodland, roofs, and crosses whole&mdash;lies
+      exquisitely mirrored in the river below, where hollow willows, grotesquely
+      shaped (some of them rooted on the river’s banks, and some in the water
+      itself, and all drooping their branches until their leaves have formed a
+      tangle with the water lilies which float on the surface), seem to be
+      gazing at the marvellous reflection at their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the view from below is beautiful indeed. But the view from above is
+      even better. No guest, no visitor, could stand on the balcony of the
+      mansion and remain indifferent. So boundless is the panorama revealed that
+      surprise would cause him to catch at his breath, and exclaim: “Lord of
+      Heaven, but what a prospect!” Beyond meadows studded with spinneys and
+      water-mills lie forests belted with green; while beyond, again, there can
+      be seen showing through the slightly misty air strips of yellow heath,
+      and, again, wide-rolling forests (as blue as the sea or a cloud), and more
+      heath, paler than the first, but still yellow. Finally, on the far horizon
+      a range of chalk-topped hills gleams white, even in dull weather, as
+      though it were lightened with perpetual sunshine; and here and there on
+      the dazzling whiteness of its lower slopes some plaster-like, nebulous
+      patches represent far-off villages which lie too remote for the eye to
+      discern their details. Indeed, only when the sunlight touches a steeple to
+      gold does one realise that each such patch is a human settlement. Finally,
+      all is wrapped in an immensity of silence which even the far, faint echoes
+      of persons singing in the void of the plain cannot shatter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the
+      visitor would still find nothing to say, save: “Lord of Heaven, but what a
+      prospect!” Then who is the dweller in, the proprietor of, this manor&mdash;a
+      manor to which, as to an impregnable fortress, entrance cannot be gained
+      from the side where we have been standing, but only from the other
+      approach, where a few scattered oaks offer hospitable welcome to the
+      visitor, and then, spreading above him their spacious branches (as in
+      friendly embrace), accompany him to the facade of the mansion whose top we
+      have been regarding from the reverse aspect, but which now stands
+      frontwise on to us, and has, on one side of it, a row of peasants’ huts
+      with red tiles and carved gables, and, on the other, the village church,
+      with those glittering golden crosses and gilded open-work charms which
+      seem to hang suspended in the air? Yes, indeed!&mdash;to what fortunate
+      individual does this corner of the world belong? It belongs to Andrei
+      Ivanovitch Tientietnikov, landowner of the canton of Tremalakhan, and,
+      withal, a bachelor of about thirty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Should my lady readers ask of me what manner of man is Tientietnikov, and
+      what are his attributes and peculiarities, I should refer them to his
+      neighbours. Of these, a member of the almost extinct tribe of intelligent
+      staff officers on the retired list once summed up Tientietnikov in the
+      phrase, “He is an absolute blockhead;” while a General who resided ten
+      versts away was heard to remark that “he is a young man who, though not
+      exactly a fool, has at least too much crowded into his head. I myself
+      might have been of use to him, for not only do I maintain certain
+      connections with St. Petersburg, but also&mdash;” And the General left his
+      sentence unfinished. Thirdly, a captain-superintendent of rural police
+      happened to remark in the course of conversation: “To-morrow I must go and
+      see Tientietnikov about his arrears.” Lastly, a peasant of Tientietnikov’s
+      own village, when asked what his barin was like, returned no answer at
+      all. All of which would appear to show that Tientietnikov was not exactly
+      looked upon with favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To speak dispassionately, however, he was not a bad sort of fellow&mdash;merely
+      a star-gazer; and since the world contains many watchers of the skies, why
+      should Tientietnikov not have been one of them? However, let me describe
+      in detail a specimen day of his existence&mdash;one that will closely
+      resemble the rest, and then the reader will be enabled to judge of
+      Tientietnikov’s character, and how far his life corresponded to the
+      beauties of nature with which he lived surrounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the specimen day in question he awoke very late, and,
+      raising himself to a sitting posture, rubbed his eyes. And since those
+      eyes were small, the process of rubbing them occupied a very long time,
+      and throughout its continuance there stood waiting by the door his valet,
+      Mikhailo, armed with a towel and basin. For one hour, for two hours, did
+      poor Mikhailo stand there: then he departed to the kitchen, and returned
+      to find his master still rubbing his eyes as he sat on the bed. At length,
+      however, Tientietnikov rose, washed himself, donned a dressing-gown, and
+      moved into the drawing-room for morning tea, coffee, cocoa, and warm milk;
+      of all of which he partook but sparingly, while munching a piece of bread,
+      and scattering tobacco ash with complete insouciance. Two hours did he sit
+      over this meal, then poured himself out another cup of the rapidly cooling
+      tea, and walked to the window. This faced the courtyard, and outside it,
+      as usual, there took place the following daily altercation between a serf
+      named Grigory (who purported to act as butler) and the housekeeper,
+      Perfilievna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grigory. Ah, you nuisance, you good-for-nothing, you had better hold your
+      stupid tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perfilievna. Yes; and don’t you wish that I would?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grigory. What? You so thick with that bailiff of yours, you housekeeping
+      jade!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perfilievna. Nay, he is as big a thief as you are. Do you think the barin
+      doesn’t know you? And there he is! He must have heard everything!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grigory. Where?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perfilievna. There&mdash;sitting by the window, and looking at us!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next, to complete the hubbub, a serf child which had been clouted by its
+      mother broke out into a bawl, while a borzoi puppy which had happened to
+      get splashed with boiling water by the cook fell to yelping vociferously.
+      In short, the place soon became a babel of shouts and squeals, and, after
+      watching and listening for a time, the barin found it so impossible to
+      concentrate his mind upon anything that he sent out word that the noise
+      would have to be abated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next item was that, a couple of hours before luncheon time, he
+      withdrew to his study, to set about employing himself upon a weighty work
+      which was to consider Russia from every point of view: from the political,
+      from the philosophical, and from the religious, as well as to resolve
+      various problems which had arisen to confront the Empire, and to define
+      clearly the great future to which the country stood ordained. In short, it
+      was to be the species of compilation in which the man of the day so much
+      delights. Yet the colossal undertaking had progressed but little beyond
+      the sphere of projection, since, after a pen had been gnawed awhile, and a
+      few strokes had been committed to paper, the whole would be laid aside in
+      favour of the reading of some book; and that reading would continue also
+      during luncheon and be followed by the lighting of a pipe, the playing of
+      a solitary game of chess, and the doing of more or less nothing for the
+      rest of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foregoing will give the reader a pretty clear idea of the manner in
+      which it was possible for this man of thirty-three to waste his time. Clad
+      constantly in slippers and a dressing-gown, Tientietnikov never went out,
+      never indulged in any form of dissipation, and never walked upstairs.
+      Nothing did he care for fresh air, and would bestow not a passing glance
+      upon all those beauties of the countryside which moved visitors to such
+      ecstatic admiration. From this the reader will see that Andrei Ivanovitch
+      Tientietnikov belonged to that band of sluggards whom we always have with
+      us, and who, whatever be their present appellation, used to be known by
+      the nicknames of “lollopers,” “bed pressers,” and “marmots.” Whether the
+      type is a type originating at birth, or a type resulting from untoward
+      circumstances in later life, it is impossible to say. A better course than
+      to attempt to answer that question would be to recount the story of
+      Tientietnikov’s boyhood and upbringing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything connected with the latter seemed to promise success, for at
+      twelve years of age the boy&mdash;keen-witted, but dreamy of temperament,
+      and inclined to delicacy&mdash;was sent to an educational establishment
+      presided over by an exceptional type of master. The idol of his pupils,
+      and the admiration of his assistants, Alexander Petrovitch was gifted with
+      an extraordinary measure of good sense. How thoroughly he knew the
+      peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he understood boys! How
+      capable he was of drawing them out! Not a practical joker in the school
+      but, after perpetrating a prank, would voluntarily approach his preceptor
+      and make to him free confession. True, the preceptor would put a stern
+      face upon the matter, yet the culprit would depart with head held higher,
+      not lower, than before, since in Alexander Petrovitch there was something
+      which heartened&mdash;something which seemed to say to a delinquent:
+      “Forward you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have fallen!” Not
+      lectures on good behaviour was it, therefore, that fell from his lips, but
+      rather the injunction, “I want to see intelligence, and nothing else. The
+      boy who devotes his attention to becoming clever will never play the fool,
+      for under such circumstances, folly disappears of itself.” And so folly
+      did, for the boy who failed to strive in the desired direction incurred
+      the contempt of all his comrades, and even dunces and fools of senior
+      standing did not dare to raise a finger when saluted by their juniors with
+      opprobrious epithets. Yet “This is too much,” certain folk would say to
+      Alexander. “The result will be that your students will turn out prigs.”
+       “But no,” he would reply. “Not at all. You see, I make it my principle to
+      keep the incapables for a single term only, since that is enough for them;
+      but to the clever ones I allot a double course of instruction.” And, true
+      enough, any lad of brains was retained for this finishing course. Yet he
+      did not repress all boyish playfulness, since he declared it to be as
+      necessary as a rash to a doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to diagnose
+      what lay hidden within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Consequently, how the boys loved him! Never was there such an attachment
+      between master and pupils. And even later, during the foolish years, when
+      foolish things attract, the measure of affection which Alexander
+      Petrovitch retained was extraordinary. In fact, to the day of his death,
+      every former pupil would celebrate the birthday of his late master by
+      raising his glass in gratitude to the mentor dead and buried&mdash;then
+      close his eyelids upon the tears which would come trickling through them.
+      Even the slightest word of encouragement from Alexander Petrovitch could
+      throw a lad into a transport of tremulous joy, and arouse in him an
+      honourable emulation of his fellows. Boys of small capacity he did not
+      long retain in his establishment; whereas those who possessed exceptional
+      talent he put through an extra course of schooling. This senior class&mdash;a
+      class composed of specially-selected pupils&mdash;was a very different
+      affair from what usually obtains in other colleges. Only when a boy had
+      attained its ranks did Alexander demand of him what other masters
+      indiscreetly require of mere infants&mdash;namely the superior frame of
+      mind which, while never indulging in mockery, can itself bear ridicule,
+      and disregard the fool, and keep its temper, and repress itself, and
+      eschew revenge, and calmly, proudly retain its tranquillity of soul. In
+      short, whatever avails to form a boy into a man of assured character, that
+      did Alexander Petrovitch employ during the pupil’s youth, as well as
+      constantly put him to the test. How well he understood the art of life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of assistant tutors he kept but few, since most of the necessary
+      instruction he imparted in person, and, without pedantic terminology and
+      inflated diction and views, could so transmit to his listeners the inmost
+      spirit of a lesson that even the youngest present absorbed its essential
+      elements. Also, of studies he selected none but those which may help a boy
+      to become a good citizen; and therefore most of the lectures which he
+      delivered consisted of discourses on what may be awaiting a youth, as well
+      as of such demarcations of life’s field that the pupil, though seated, as
+      yet, only at the desk, could beforehand bear his part in that field both
+      in thought and spirit. Nor did the master CONCEAL anything. That is to
+      say, without mincing words, he invariably set before his hearers the
+      sorrows and the difficulties which may confront a man, the trials and the
+      temptations which may beset him. And this he did in terms as though, in
+      every possible calling and capacity, he himself had experienced the same.
+      Consequently, either the vigorous development of self-respect or the
+      constant stimulus of the master’s eye (which seemed to say to the pupil,
+      “Forward!”&mdash;that word which has become so familiar to the
+      contemporary Russian, that word which has worked such wonders upon his
+      sensitive temperament); one or the other, I repeat, would from the first
+      cause the pupil to tackle difficulties, and only difficulties, and to
+      hunger for prowess only where the path was arduous, and obstacles were
+      many, and it was necessary to display the utmost strength of mind. Indeed,
+      few completed the course of which I have spoken without issuing therefrom
+      reliable, seasoned fighters who could keep their heads in the most
+      embarrassing of official positions, and at times when older and wiser men,
+      distracted with the annoyances of life, had either abandoned everything
+      or, grown slack and indifferent, had surrendered to the bribe-takers and
+      the rascals. In short, no ex-pupil of Alexander Petrovitch ever wavered
+      from the right road, but, familiar with life and with men, armed with the
+      weapons of prudence, exerted a powerful influence upon wrongdoers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time past the ardent young Tientietnikov’s excitable heart had
+      also beat at the thought that one day he might attain the senior class
+      described. And, indeed, what better teacher could he have had befall him
+      than its preceptor? Yet just at the moment when he had been transferred
+      thereto, just at the moment when he had reached the coveted position, did
+      his instructor come suddenly by his death! This was indeed a blow for the
+      boy&mdash;indeed a terrible initial loss! In his eyes everything connected
+      with the school seemed to undergo a change&mdash;the chief reason being
+      the fact that to the place of the deceased headmaster there succeeded a
+      certain Thedor Ivanovitch, who at once began to insist upon certain
+      external rules, and to demand of the boys what ought rightly to have been
+      demanded only of adults. That is to say, since the lads’ frank and open
+      demeanour savoured to him only of lack of discipline, he announced (as
+      though in deliberate spite of his predecessor) that he cared nothing for
+      progress and intellect, but that heed was to be paid only to good
+      behaviour. Yet, curiously enough, good behaviour was just what he never
+      obtained, for every kind of secret prank became the rule; and while, by
+      day, there reigned restraint and conspiracy, by night there began to take
+      place chambering and wantonness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Also, certain changes in the curriculum of studies came about, for there
+      were engaged new teachers who held new views and opinions, and confused
+      their hearers with a multitude of new terms and phrases, and displayed in
+      their exposition of things both logical sequence and a zest for modern
+      discovery and much warmth of individual bias. Yet their instruction, alas!
+      contained no LIFE&mdash;in the mouths of those teachers a dead language
+      savoured merely of carrion. Thus everything connected with the school
+      underwent a radical alteration, and respect for authority and the
+      authorities waned, and tutors and ushers came to be dubbed “Old Thedor,”
+       “Crusty,” and the like. And sundry other things began to take place&mdash;things
+      which necessitated many a penalty and expulsion; until, within a couple of
+      years, no one who had known the school in former days would now have
+      recognised it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless Tientietnikov, a youth of retiring disposition, experienced
+      no leanings towards the nocturnal orgies of his companions, orgies during
+      which the latter used to flirt with damsels before the very windows of the
+      headmaster’s rooms, nor yet towards their mockery of all that was sacred,
+      simply because fate had cast in their way an injudicious priest. No,
+      despite its dreaminess, his soul ever remembered its celestial origin, and
+      could not be diverted from the path of virtue. Yet still he hung his head,
+      for, while his ambition had come to life, it could find no sort of outlet.
+      Truly ‘twere well if it had NOT come to life, for throughout the time that
+      he was listening to professors who gesticulated on their chairs he could
+      not help remembering the old preceptor who, invariably cool and calm, had
+      yet known how to make himself understood. To what subjects, to what
+      lectures, did the boy not have to listen!&mdash;to lectures on medicine,
+      and on philosophy, and on law, and on a version of general history so
+      enlarged that even three years failed to enable the professor to do more
+      than finish the introduction thereto, and also the account of the
+      development of some self-governing towns in Germany. None of the stuff
+      remained fixed in Tientietnikov’s brain save as shapeless clots; for
+      though his native intellect could not tell him how instruction ought to be
+      imparted, it at least told him that THIS was not the way. And frequently,
+      at such moments he would recall Alexander Petrovitch, and give way to such
+      grief that scarcely did he know what he was doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But youth is fortunate in the fact that always before it there lies a
+      future; and in proportion as the time for his leaving school drew nigh,
+      Tientietnikov’s heart began to beat higher and higher, and he said to
+      himself: “This is not life, but only a preparation for life. True life is
+      to be found in the Public Service. There at least will there be scope for
+      activity.” So, bestowing not a glance upon that beautiful corner of the
+      world which never failed to strike the guest or chance visitor with
+      amazement, and reverencing not a whit the dust of his ancestors, he
+      followed the example of most ambitious men of his class by repairing to
+      St. Petersburg (whither, as we know, the more spirited youth of Russia
+      from every quarter gravitates&mdash;there to enter the Public Service, to
+      shine, to obtain promotion, and, in a word, to scale the topmost peaks of
+      that pale, cold, deceptive elevation which is known as society). But the
+      real starting-point of Tientietnikov’s ambition was the moment when his
+      uncle (one State Councillor Onifri Ivanovitch) instilled into him the
+      maxim that the only means to success in the Service lay in good
+      handwriting, and that, without that accomplishment, no one could ever hope
+      to become a Minister or Statesman. Thus, with great difficulty, and also
+      with the help of his uncle’s influence, young Tientietnikov at length
+      succeeded in being posted to a Department. On the day that he was
+      conducted into a splendid, shining hall&mdash;a hall fitted with inlaid
+      floors and lacquered desks as fine as though this were actually the place
+      where the great ones of the Empire met for discussion of the fortunes of
+      the State; on the day that he saw legions of handsome gentlemen of the
+      quill-driving profession making loud scratchings with pens, and cocking
+      their heads to one side; lastly on the day that he saw himself also
+      allotted a desk, and requested to copy a document which appeared purposely
+      to be one of the pettiest possible order (as a matter of fact it related
+      to a sum of three roubles, and had taken half a year to produce)&mdash;well,
+      at that moment a curious, an unwonted sensation seized upon the
+      inexperienced youth, for the gentlemen around him appeared so exactly like
+      a lot of college students. And, the further to complete the resemblance,
+      some of them were engaged in reading trashy translated novels, which they
+      kept hurriedly thrusting between the sheets of their apportioned work
+      whenever the Director appeared, as though to convey the impression that it
+      was to that work alone that they were applying themselves. In short, the
+      scene seemed to Tientietnikov strange, and his former pursuits more
+      important than his present, and his preparation for the Service preferable
+      to the Service itself. Yes, suddenly he felt a longing for his old school;
+      and as suddenly, and with all the vividness of life, there appeared before
+      his vision the figure of Alexander Petrovitch. He almost burst into tears
+      as he beheld his old master, and the room seemed to swim before his eyes,
+      and the tchinovniks and the desks to become a blur, and his sight to grow
+      dim. Then he thought to himself with an effort: “No, no! I WILL apply
+      myself to my work, however petty it be at first.” And hardening his heart
+      and recovering his spirit, he determined then and there to perform his
+      duties in such a manner as should be an example to the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But where are compensations to be found? Even in St. Petersburg, despite
+      its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though thirty degrees
+      of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and the family of the
+      North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch have heaped high the
+      pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and fur collars
+      and the shaggy manes of horses&mdash;even THEN there will be shining
+      hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window where, in
+      a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, and to the hiss of the
+      samovar, there will be in progress a discussion which warms the heart and
+      soul, or else a reading aloud of a brilliant page of one of those inspired
+      Russian poets with whom God has dowered us, while the breast of each
+      member of the company is heaving with a rapture unknown under a noontide
+      sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually, therefore, Tientietnikov grew more at home in the Service. Yet
+      never did it become, for him, the main pursuit, the main object in life,
+      which he had expected. No, it remained but one of a secondary kind. That
+      is to say, it served merely to divide up his time, and enable him the more
+      to value his hours of leisure. Nevertheless, just when his uncle was
+      beginning to flatter himself that his nephew was destined to succeed in
+      the profession, the said nephew elected to ruin his every hope. Thus it
+      befell. Tientietnikov’s friends (he had many) included among their number
+      a couple of fellows of the species known as “embittered.” That is to say,
+      though good-natured souls of that curiously restless type which cannot
+      endure injustice, nor anything which it conceives to be such, they were
+      thoroughly unbalanced of conduct themselves, and, while demanding general
+      agreement with their views, treated those of others with the scantiest of
+      ceremony. Nevertheless these two associates exercised upon Tientietnikov&mdash;both
+      by the fire of their eloquence and by the form of their noble
+      dissatisfaction with society&mdash;a very strong influence; with the
+      result that, through arousing in him an innate tendency to nervous
+      resentment, they led him also to notice trifles which before had escaped
+      his attention. An instance of this is seen in the fact that he conceived
+      against Thedor Thedorovitch Lienitsin, Director of one of the Departments
+      which was quartered in the splendid range of offices before mentioned, a
+      dislike which proved the cause of his discerning in the man a host of
+      hitherto unmarked imperfections. Above all things did Tientietnikov take
+      it into his head that, when conversing with his superiors, Lienitsin
+      became, of the moment, a stick of luscious sweetmeat, but that, when
+      conversing with his inferiors, he approximated more to a vinegar cruet.
+      Certain it is that, like all petty-minded individuals, Lienitsin made a
+      note of any one who failed to offer him a greeting on festival days, and
+      that he revenged himself upon any one whose visiting-card had not been
+      handed to his butler. Eventually the youth’s aversion almost attained the
+      point of hysteria; until he felt that, come what might, he MUST insult the
+      fellow in some fashion. To that task he applied himself con amore; and so
+      thoroughly that he met with complete success. That is to say, he seized on
+      an occasion to address Lienitsin in such fashion that the delinquent
+      received notice either to apologise or to leave the Service; and when of
+      these alternatives he chose the latter his uncle came to him, and made a
+      terrified appeal. “For God’s sake remember what you are doing!” he cried.
+      “To think that, after beginning your career so well, you should abandon it
+      merely for the reason that you have not fallen in with the sort of
+      Director whom you prefer! What do you mean by it, what do you mean by it?
+      Were others to regard things in the same way, the Service would find
+      itself without a single individual. Reconsider your conduct&mdash;forego
+      your pride and conceit, and make Lienitsin amends.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But, dear Uncle,” the nephew replied, “that is not the point. The point
+      is, not that I should find an apology difficult to offer, seeing that,
+      since Lienitsin is my superior, and I ought not to have addressed him as I
+      did, I am clearly in the wrong. Rather, the point is the following. To my
+      charge there has been committed the performance of another kind of
+      service. That is to say, I am the owner of three hundred peasant souls, a
+      badly administered estate, and a fool of a bailiff. That being so, whereas
+      the State will lose little by having to fill my stool with another
+      copyist, it will lose very much by causing three hundred peasant souls to
+      fail in the payment of their taxes. As I say (how am I to put it?), I am a
+      landowner who has preferred to enter the Public Service. Now, should I
+      employ myself henceforth in conserving, restoring, and improving the
+      fortunes of the souls whom God has entrusted to my care, and thereby
+      provide the State with three hundred law-abiding, sober, hard-working
+      taxpayers, how will that service of mine rank as inferior to the service
+      of a department-directing fool like Lienitsin?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On hearing this speech, the State Councillor could only gape, for he had
+      not expected Tientietnikov’s torrent of words. He reflected a few moments,
+      and then murmured:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but, but&mdash;but how can a man like you retire to rustication in
+      the country? What society will you get there? Here one meets at least a
+      general or a prince sometimes; indeed, no matter whom you pass in the
+      street, that person represents gas lamps and European civilisation; but in
+      the country, no matter what part of it you are in, not a soul is to be
+      encountered save muzhiks and their women. Why should you go and condemn
+      yourself to a state of vegetation like that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless the uncle’s expostulations fell upon deaf ears, for already
+      the nephew was beginning to think of his estate as a retreat of a type
+      more likely to nourish the intellectual faculties and afford the only
+      profitable field of activity. After unearthing one or two modern works on
+      agriculture, therefore, he, two weeks later, found himself in the
+      neighbourhood of the home where his boyhood had been spent, and
+      approaching the spot which never failed to enthral the visitor or guest.
+      And in the young man’s breast there was beginning to palpitate a new
+      feeling&mdash;in the young man’s soul there were reawakening old,
+      long-concealed impressions; with the result that many a spot which had
+      long been faded from his memory now filled him with interest, and the
+      beautiful views on the estate found him gazing at them like a newcomer,
+      and with a beating heart. Yes, as the road wound through a narrow ravine,
+      and became engulfed in a forest where, both above and below, he saw
+      three-centuries-old oaks which three men could not have spanned, and where
+      Siberian firs and elms overtopped even the poplars, and as he asked the
+      peasants to tell him to whom the forest belonged, and they replied, “To
+      Tientietnikov,” and he issued from the forest, and proceeded on his way
+      through meadows, and past spinneys of elder, and of old and young willows,
+      and arrived in sight of the distant range of hills, and, crossing by two
+      different bridges the winding river (which he left successively to right
+      and to left of him as he did so), he again questioned some peasants
+      concerning the ownership of the meadows and the flooded lands, and was
+      again informed that they all belonged to Tientietnikov, and then,
+      ascending a rise, reached a tableland where, on one side, lay ungarnered
+      fields of wheat and rye and barley, and, on the other, the country already
+      traversed (but which now showed in shortened perspective), and then
+      plunged into the shade of some forked, umbrageous trees which stood
+      scattered over turf and extended to the manor-house itself, and caught
+      glimpses of the carved huts of the peasants, and of the red roofs of the
+      stone manorial outbuildings, and of the glittering pinnacles of the
+      church, and felt his heart beating, and knew, without being told by any
+      one, whither he had at length arrived&mdash;well, then the feeling which
+      had been growing within his soul burst forth, and he cried in ecstasy:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why have I been a fool so long? Why, seeing that fate has appointed me to
+      be ruler of an earthly paradise, did I prefer to bind myself in servitude
+      as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I had been
+      nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge necessary for the
+      diffusion of good among those under me, and for the improvement of my
+      domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold duties of a landowner who
+      is at once judge, administrator, and constable of his people, I should
+      have entrusted my estate to an ignorant bailiff, and sought to maintain an
+      absentee guardianship over the affairs of serfs whom I have never met, and
+      of whose capabilities and characters I am yet ignorant! To think that I
+      should have deemed true estate-management inferior to a documentary,
+      fantastical management of provinces which lie a thousand versts away, and
+      which my foot has never trod, and where I could never have effected aught
+      but blunders and irregularities!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile another spectacle was being prepared for him. On learning that
+      the barin was approaching the mansion, the muzhiks collected on the
+      verandah in very variety of picturesque dress and tonsure; and when these
+      good folk surrounded him, and there arose a resounding shout of “Here is
+      our Foster Father! He has remembered us!” and, in spite of themselves,
+      some of the older men and women began weeping as they recalled his
+      grandfather and great-grandfather, he himself could not restrain his
+      tears, but reflected: “How much affection! And in return for what? In
+      return for my never having come to see them&mdash;in return for my never
+      having taken the least interest in their affairs!” And then and there he
+      registered a mental vow to share their every task and occupation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he applied himself to supervising and administering. He reduced the
+      amount of the barstchina <a href="#linknote-40" name="linknoteref-40" id="linknoteref-40"><small>40</small></a>, he decreased the number of
+      working-days for the owner, and he augmented the sum of the peasants’
+      leisure-time. He also dismissed the fool of a bailiff, and took to bearing
+      a personal hand in everything&mdash;to being present in the fields, at the
+      threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of barges
+      and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore even the lazy
+      hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last long. The peasant
+      is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov’s muzhiks soon scented the
+      fact that, though energetic and desirous of doing much, the barin had no
+      notion how to do it, nor even how to set about it&mdash;that, in short, he
+      spoke by the book rather than out of his personal knowledge. Consequently
+      things resulted, not in master and men failing to understand one another,
+      but in their not singing together, in their not producing the very same
+      note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on the
+      manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the
+      peasants’. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up well,
+      and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that Tientietnikov,
+      who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of vodka to be served
+      out as a reward for the excellence of the labour performed. Yet the rye on
+      the peasants’ land had formed into ear, and the oats had begun to shoot
+      their grain, and the millet had filled before, on the manorial lands, the
+      corn had so much as grown to stalk, or the ears had sprouted in embryo. In
+      short, gradually the barin realised that, in spite of favours conferred,
+      the peasants were playing the rogue with him. Next he resorted to
+      remonstrance, but was met with the reply, “How could we not do our best
+      for our barin? You yourself saw how well we laboured at the ploughing and
+      the sowing, for you gave us mugs of vodka for our pains.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why have things turned out so badly?” the barin persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who can say? It must be that a grub has eaten the crop from below.
+      Besides, what a summer has it been&mdash;never a drop of rain!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the barin noted that no grub had eaten the PEASANTS’ crops,
+      as well as that the rain had fallen in the most curious fashion&mdash;namely,
+      in patches. It had obliged the muzhiks, but had shed a mere sprinkling for
+      the barin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still more difficult did he find it to deal with the peasant women. Ever
+      and anon they would beg to be excused from work, or start making
+      complaints of the severity of the barstchina. Indeed, they were terrible
+      folk! However, Tientietnikov abolished the majority of the tithes of
+      linen, hedge fruit, mushrooms, and nuts, and also reduced by one-half
+      other tasks proper to the women, in the hope that they would devote their
+      spare time to their own domestic concerns&mdash;namely, to sewing and
+      mending, and to making clothes for their husbands, and to increasing the
+      area of their kitchen gardens. Yet no such result came about. On the
+      contrary, such a pitch did the idleness, the quarrelsomeness, and the
+      intriguing and caballing of the fair sex attain that their helpmeets were
+      for ever coming to the barin with a request that he would rid one or
+      another of his wife, since she had become a nuisance, and to live with her
+      was impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next, hardening his heart, the barin attempted severity. But of what avail
+      was severity? The peasant woman remained always the peasant woman, and
+      would come and whine that she was sick and ailing, and keep pitifully
+      hugging to herself the mean and filthy rags which she had donned for the
+      occasion. And when poor Tientietnikov found himself unable to say more to
+      her than just, “Get out of my sight, and may the Lord go with you!” the
+      next item in the comedy would be that he would see her, even as she was
+      leaving his gates, fall to contending with a neighbour for, say, the
+      possession of a turnip, and dealing out slaps in the face such as even a
+      strong, healthy man could scarcely have compassed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, amongst other things, Tientietnikov conceived the idea of
+      establishing a school for his people; but the scheme resulted in a farce
+      which left him in sackcloth and ashes. In the same way he found that, when
+      it came to a question of dispensing justice and of adjusting disputes, the
+      host of juridical subtleties with which the professors had provided him
+      proved absolutely useless. That is to say, the one party lied, and the
+      other party lied, and only the devil could have decided between them.
+      Consequently he himself perceived that a knowledge of mankind would have
+      availed him more than all the legal refinements and philosophical maxims
+      in the world could do. He lacked something; and though he could not divine
+      what it was, the situation brought about was the common one of the barin
+      failing to understand the peasant, and the peasant failing to understand
+      the barin, and both becoming disaffected. In the end, these difficulties
+      so chilled Tientietnikov’s enthusiasm that he took to supervising the
+      labours of the field with greatly diminished attention. That is to say, no
+      matter whether the scythes were softly swishing through the grass, or
+      ricks were being built, or rafts were being loaded, he would allow his
+      eyes to wander from his men, and to fall to gazing at, say, a red-billed,
+      red-legged heron which, after strutting along the bank of a stream, would
+      have caught a fish in its beak, and be holding it awhile, as though in
+      doubt whether to swallow it. Next he would glance towards the spot where a
+      similar bird, but one not yet in possession of a fish, was engaged in
+      watching the doings of its mate. Lastly, with eyebrows knitted, and face
+      turned to scan the zenith, he would drink in the smell of the fields, and
+      fall to listening to the winged population of the air as from earth and
+      sky alike the manifold music of winged creatures combined in a single
+      harmonious chorus. In the rye the quail would be calling, and, in the
+      grass, the corncrake, and over them would be wheeling flocks of twittering
+      linnets. Also, the jacksnipe would be uttering its croak, and the lark
+      executing its roulades where it had become lost in the sunshine, and
+      cranes sending forth their trumpet-like challenge as they deployed towards
+      the zenith in triangle-shaped flocks. In fact, the neighbourhood would
+      seem to have become converted into one great concert of melody. O Creator,
+      how fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart
+      from cities and from highways!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased
+      altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up in his
+      rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that functionary
+      called with his reports. Again, although, until now, he had to a certain
+      extent associated with a retired colonel of hussars&mdash;a man saturated
+      with tobacco smoke&mdash;and also with a student of pronounced, but
+      immature, opinions who culled the bulk of his wisdom from contemporary
+      newspapers and pamphlets, he found, as time went on, that these companions
+      proved as tedious as the rest, and came to think their conversation
+      superficial, and their European method of comporting themselves&mdash;that
+      is to say, the method of conversing with much slapping of knees and a
+      great deal of bowing and gesticulation&mdash;too direct and unadorned. So
+      these and every one else he decided to “drop,” and carried this resolution
+      into effect with a certain amount of rudeness. On the next occasion that
+      Varvar Nikolaievitch Vishnepokromov called to indulge in a free-and-easy
+      symposium on politics, philosophy, literature, morals, and the state of
+      financial affairs in England (he was, in all matters which admit of
+      superficial discussion, the pleasantest fellow alive, seeing that he was a
+      typical representative both of the retired fire-eater and of the school of
+      thought which is now becoming the rage)&mdash;when, I say, this next
+      happened, Tientietnikov merely sent out to say that he was not at home,
+      and then carefully showed himself at the window. Host and guest exchanged
+      glances, and, while the one muttered through his teeth “The cur!” the
+      other relieved his feelings with a remark or two on swine. Thus the
+      acquaintance came to an abrupt end, and from that time forth no visitor
+      called at the mansion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tientietnikov in no way regretted this, for he could now devote himself
+      wholly to the projection of a great work on Russia. Of the scale on which
+      this composition was conceived the reader is already aware. The reader
+      also knows how strange, how unsystematic, was the system employed in it.
+      Yet to say that Tientietnikov never awoke from his lethargy would not be
+      altogether true. On the contrary, when the post brought him newspapers and
+      reviews, and he saw in their printed pages, perhaps, the well-known name
+      of some former comrade who had succeeded in the great field of Public
+      Service, or had conferred upon science and the world’s work some notable
+      contribution, he would succumb to secret and suppressed grief, and
+      involuntarily there would burst from his soul an expression of aching,
+      voiceless regret that he himself had done so little. And at these times
+      his existence would seem to him odious and repellent; at these times there
+      would uprise before him the memory of his school days, and the figure of
+      Alexander Petrovitch, as vivid as in life. And, slowly welling, the tears
+      would course over Tientietnikov’s cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What meant these repinings? Was there not disclosed in them the secret of
+      his galling spiritual pain&mdash;the fact that he had failed to order his
+      life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started his
+      course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he had
+      failed to attain the better and the higher state, and there to strengthen
+      himself for the overcoming of hindrances and obstacles; the fact that,
+      dissolving like overheated metal, his bounteous store of superior
+      instincts had failed to take the final tempering; the fact that the tutor
+      of his boyhood, a man in a thousand, had prematurely died, and left to
+      Tientietnikov no one who could restore to him the moral strength shattered
+      by vacillation and the will power weakened by want of virility&mdash;no
+      one, in short, who could cry hearteningly to his soul “Forward!”&mdash;the
+      word for which the Russian of every degree, of every class, of every
+      occupation, of every school of thought, is for ever hungering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, WHERE is the man who can cry aloud for any of us, in the Russian
+      tongue dear to our soul, the all-compelling command “Forward!”? Who is
+      there who, knowing the strength and the nature and the inmost depths of
+      the Russian genius, can by a single magic incantation divert our ideals to
+      the higher life? Were there such a man, with what tears, with what
+      affection, would not the grateful sons of Russia repay him! Yet age
+      succeeds to age, and our callow youth still lies wrapped in shameful
+      sloth, or strives and struggles to no purpose. God has not yet given us
+      the man able to sound the call.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One circumstance which almost aroused Tientietnikov, which almost brought
+      about a revolution in his character, was the fact that he came very near
+      to falling in love. Yet even this resulted in nothing. Ten versts away
+      there lived the general whom we have heard expressing himself in highly
+      uncomplimentary terms concerning Tientietnikov. He maintained a
+      General-like establishment, dispensed hospitality (that is to say, was
+      glad when his neighbours came to pay him their respects, though he himself
+      never went out), spoke always in a hoarse voice, read a certain number of
+      books, and had a daughter&mdash;a curious, unfamiliar type, but full of
+      life as life itself. This maiden’s name was Ulinka, and she had been
+      strangely brought up, for, losing her mother in early childhood, she had
+      subsequently received instruction at the hands of an English governess who
+      knew not a single word of Russian. Moreover her father, though excessively
+      fond of her, treated her always as a toy; with the result that, as she
+      grew to years of discretion, she became wholly wayward and spoilt. Indeed,
+      had any one seen the sudden rage which would gather on her beautiful young
+      forehead when she was engaged in a heated dispute with her father, he
+      would have thought her one of the most capricious beings in the world. Yet
+      that rage gathered only when she had heard of injustice or harsh
+      treatment, and never because she desired to argue on her own behalf, or to
+      attempt to justify her own conduct. Also, that anger would disappear as
+      soon as ever she saw any one whom she had formerly disliked fall upon evil
+      times, and, at his first request for alms would, without consideration or
+      subsequent regret, hand him her purse and its whole contents. Yes, her
+      every act was strenuous, and when she spoke her whole personality seemed
+      to be following hot-foot upon her thought&mdash;both her expression of
+      face and her diction and the movements of her hands. Nay, the very folds
+      of her frock had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have
+      thought that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she
+      know reticence: before any one she would disclose her mind, and no force
+      could compel her to maintain silence when she desired to speak. Also, her
+      enchanting, peculiar gait&mdash;a gait which belonged to her alone&mdash;was
+      so absolutely free and unfettered that every one involuntarily gave her
+      way. Lastly, in her presence churls seemed to become confused and fall to
+      silence, and even the roughest and most outspoken would lose their heads,
+      and have not a word to say; whereas the shy man would find himself able to
+      converse as never in his life before, and would feel, from the first, as
+      though he had seen her and known her at some previous period&mdash;during
+      the days of some unremembered childhood, when he was at home, and spending
+      a merry evening among a crowd of romping children. And for long afterwards
+      he would feel as though his man’s intellect and estate were a burden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was what now befell Tientietnikov; and as it did so a new feeling
+      entered into his soul, and his dreamy life lightened for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the General used to receive him with hospitable civility, but
+      permanent concord between them proved impossible; their conversation
+      always merged into dissension and soreness, seeing that, while the General
+      could not bear to be contradicted or worsted in an argument, Tientietnikov
+      was a man of extreme sensitiveness. True, for the daughter’s sake, the
+      father was for a while deferred to, and thus peace was maintained; but
+      this lasted only until the time when there arrived, on a visit to the
+      General, two kinswomen of his&mdash;the Countess Bordirev and the Princess
+      Uziakin, retired Court dames, but ladies who still kept up a certain
+      connection with Court circles, and therefore were much fawned upon by
+      their host. No sooner had they appeared on the scene than (so it seemed to
+      Tientietnikov) the General’s attitude towards the young man became colder&mdash;either
+      he ceased to notice him at all or he spoke to him familiarly, and as to a
+      person having no standing in society. This offended Tientietnikov deeply,
+      and though, when at length he spoke out on the subject, he retained
+      sufficient presence of mind to compress his lips, and to preserve a gentle
+      and courteous tone, his face flushed and his inner man was boiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “General,” he said, “I thank you for your condescension. By addressing me
+      in the second person singular, you have admitted me to the circle of your
+      most intimate friends. Indeed, were it not that a difference of years
+      forbids any familiarity on my part, I should answer you in similar
+      fashion.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The General sat aghast. At length, rallying his tongue and his faculties,
+      he replied that, though he had spoken with a lack of ceremony, he had used
+      the term “thou” merely as an elderly man naturally employs it towards a
+      junior (he made no reference to difference of rank).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the acquaintance broke off here, and with it any possibility
+      of love-making. The light which had shed a momentary gleam before
+      Tientietnikov’s eyes had become extinguished for ever, and upon it there
+      followed a darkness denser than before. Henceforth everything conduced to
+      evolve the regime which the reader has noted&mdash;that regime of sloth
+      and inaction which converted Tientietnikov’s residence into a place of
+      dirt and neglect. For days at a time would a broom and a heap of dust be
+      left lying in the middle of a room, and trousers tossing about the salon,
+      and pairs of worn-out braces adorning the what-not near the sofa. In
+      short, so mean and untidy did Tientietnikov’s mode of life become, that
+      not only his servants, but even his very poultry ceased to treat him with
+      respect. Taking up a pen, he would spend hours in idly sketching houses,
+      huts, waggons, troikas, and flourishes on a piece of paper; while at other
+      times, when he had sunk into a reverie, the pen would, all unknowingly,
+      sketch a small head which had delicate features, a pair of quick,
+      penetrating eyes, and a raised coiffure. Then suddenly the dreamer would
+      perceive, to his surprise, that the pen had executed the portrait of a
+      maiden whose picture no artist could adequately have painted; and
+      therewith his despondency would become greater than ever, and, believing
+      that happiness did not exist on earth, he would relapse into increased
+      ennui, increased neglect of his responsibilities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one morning he noticed, on moving to the window after breakfast, that
+      not a word was proceeding either from the butler or the housekeeper, but
+      that, on the contrary, the courtyard seemed to smack of a certain bustle
+      and excitement. This was because through the entrance gates (which the
+      kitchen maid and the scullion had run to open) there were appearing the
+      noses of three horses&mdash;one to the right, one in the middle, and one
+      to the left, after the fashion of triumphal groups of statuary. Above
+      them, on the box seat, were seated a coachman and a valet, while behind,
+      again, there could be discerned a gentleman in a scarf and a fur cap. Only
+      when the equipage had entered the courtyard did it stand revealed as a
+      light spring britchka. And as it came to a halt, there leapt on to the
+      verandah of the mansion an individual of respectable exterior, and
+      possessed of the art of moving with the neatness and alertness of a
+      military man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this Tientietnikov’s heart stood still. He was unused to receiving
+      visitors, and for the moment conceived the new arrival to be a Government
+      official, sent to question him concerning an abortive society to which he
+      had formerly belonged. (Here the author may interpolate the fact that, in
+      Tientietnikov’s early days, the young man had become mixed up in a very
+      absurd affair. That is to say, a couple of philosophers belonging to a
+      regiment of hussars had, together with an aesthete who had not yet
+      completed his student’s course and a gambler who had squandered his all,
+      formed a secret society of philanthropic aims under the presidency of a
+      certain old rascal of a freemason and the ruined gambler aforesaid. The
+      scope of the society’s work was to be extensive: it was to bring lasting
+      happiness to humanity at large, from the banks of the Thames to the shores
+      of Kamtchatka. But for this much money was needed: wherefore from the
+      noble-minded members of the society generous contributions were demanded,
+      and then forwarded to a destination known only to the supreme authorities
+      of the concern. As for Tientietnikov’s adhesion, it was brought about by
+      the two friends already alluded to as “embittered”&mdash;good-hearted
+      souls whom the wear and tear of their efforts on behalf of science,
+      civilisation, and the future emancipation of mankind had ended by
+      converting into confirmed drunkards. Perhaps it need hardly be said that
+      Tientietnikov soon discovered how things stood, and withdrew from the
+      association; but, meanwhile, the latter had had the misfortune so to have
+      engaged in dealings not wholly creditable to gentlemen of noble origin as
+      likewise to have become entangled in dealings with the police.
+      Consequently, it is not to be wondered at that, though Tientietnikov had
+      long severed his connection with the society and its policy, he still
+      remained uneasy in his mind as to what might even yet be the result.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, his fears vanished the instant that the guest saluted him with
+      marked politeness and explained, with many deferential poises of the head,
+      and in terms at once civil and concise, that for some time past he (the
+      newcomer) had been touring the Russian Empire on business and in the
+      pursuit of knowledge, that the Empire abounded in objects of interest&mdash;not
+      to mention a plenitude of manufactures and a great diversity of soil, and
+      that, in spite of the fact that he was greatly struck with the amenities
+      of his host’s domain, he would certainly not have presumed to intrude at
+      such an inconvenient hour but for the circumstance that the inclement
+      spring weather, added to the state of the roads, had necessitated sundry
+      repairs to his carriage at the hands of wheelwrights and blacksmiths.
+      Finally he declared that, even if this last had NOT happened, he would
+      still have felt unable to deny himself the pleasure of offering to his
+      host that meed of homage which was the latter’s due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech&mdash;a speech of fascinating bonhomie&mdash;delivered, the
+      guest executed a sort of shuffle with a half-boot of patent leather
+      studded with buttons of mother-of-pearl, and followed that up by (in spite
+      of his pronounced rotundity of figure) stepping backwards with all the
+      elan of an india-rubber ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this the somewhat reassured Tientietnikov concluded that his visitor
+      must be a literary, knowledge-seeking professor who was engaged in roaming
+      the country in search of botanical specimens and fossils; wherefore he
+      hastened to express both his readiness to further the visitor’s objects
+      (whatever they might be) and his personal willingness to provide him with
+      the requisite wheelwrights and blacksmiths. Meanwhile he begged his guest
+      to consider himself at home, and, after seating him in an armchair, made
+      preparations to listen to the newcomer’s discourse on natural history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the newcomer applied himself, rather, to phenomena of the internal
+      world, saying that his life might be likened to a barque tossed on the
+      crests of perfidious billows, that in his time he had been fated to play
+      many parts, and that on more than one occasion his life had stood in
+      danger at the hands of foes. At the same time, these tidings were
+      communicated in a manner calculated to show that the speaker was also a
+      man of PRACTICAL capabilities. In conclusion, the visitor took out a
+      cambric pocket-handkerchief, and sneezed into it with a vehemence wholly
+      new to Tientietnikov’s experience. In fact, the sneeze rather resembled
+      the note which, at times, the trombone of an orchestra appears to utter
+      not so much from its proper place on the platform as from the immediate
+      neighbourhood of the listener’s ear. And as the echoes of the drowsy
+      mansion resounded to the report of the explosion there followed upon the
+      same a wave of perfume, skilfully wafted abroad with a flourish of the
+      eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none other
+      than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov. Naturally,
+      time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms; wherefore his
+      exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his frockcoat had taken
+      on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka, coachman, valet, horses, and
+      harness alike had about them a sort of second-hand, worse-for-wear effect.
+      Evidently the Chichikovian finances were not in the most flourishing of
+      conditions. Nevertheless, the old expression of face, the old air of
+      breeding and refinement, remained unimpaired, and our hero had even
+      improved in the art of walking and turning with grace, and of dexterously
+      crossing one leg over the other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of
+      diction, his discreet moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if
+      anything, increased measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused
+      his tactfulness to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these
+      accomplishments had their effect further heightened by a snowy
+      immaculateness of collar and dickey, and an absence of dust from his
+      frockcoat, as complete as though he had just arrived to attend a nameday
+      festival. Lastly, his cheeks and chin were of such neat clean-shavenness
+      that no one but a blind man could have failed to admire their rounded
+      contours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov’s
+      establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
+      cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
+      Chichikov, while one other apartment&mdash;a little front chamber opening
+      into the hall&mdash;became permeated with Petrushka’s own peculiar smell.
+      But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
+      transferred to the servants’ quarters, a course which ought to have been
+      adopted in the first instance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the initial days of Chichikov’s sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
+      rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his guest
+      might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the established
+      routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless, for Paul
+      Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for accommodating himself
+      to his new position. To begin with, he encouraged his host in his
+      philosophical inertia by saying that the latter would help Tientietnikov
+      to become a centenarian. Next, in the matter of a life of isolation, he
+      hit things off exactly by remarking that such a life bred in a man a
+      capacity for high thinking. Lastly, as he inspected the library and
+      dilated on books in general, he contrived an opportunity to observe that
+      literature safeguarded a man from a tendency to waste his time. In short,
+      the few words of which he delivered himself were brief, but invariably to
+      the point. And this discretion of speech was outdone by his discretion of
+      conduct. That is to say, whether entering or leaving the room, he never
+      wearied his host with a question if Tientietnikov had the air of being
+      disinclined to talk; and with equal satisfaction the guest could either
+      play chess or hold his tongue. Consequently Tientietnikov said to himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the first time in my life I have met with a man with whom it is
+      possible to live. In general, not many of the type exist in Russia, and,
+      though clever, good-humoured, well-educated men abound, one would be hard
+      put to it to find an individual of equable temperament with whom one could
+      share a roof for centuries without a quarrel arising. Anyway, Chichikov is
+      the first of his sort that I have met.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For his part, Chichikov was only too delighted to reside with a person so
+      quiet and agreeable as his host. Of a wandering life he was temporarily
+      weary, and to rest, even for a month, in such a beautiful spot, and in
+      sight of green fields and the slow flowering of spring, was likely to
+      benefit him also from the hygienic point of view. And, indeed, a more
+      delightful retreat in which to recuperate could not possibly have been
+      found. The spring, long retarded by previous cold, had now begun in all
+      its comeliness, and life was rampant. Already, over the first emerald of
+      the grass, the dandelion was showing yellow, and the red-pink anemone was
+      hanging its tender head; while the surface of every pond was a swarm of
+      dancing gnats and midges, and the water-spider was being joined in their
+      pursuit by birds which gathered from every quarter to the vantage-ground
+      of the dry reeds. Every species of creature also seemed to be assembling
+      in concourse, and taking stock of one another. Suddenly the earth became
+      populous, the forest had opened its eyes, and the meadows were lifting up
+      their voice in song. In the same way had choral dances begun to be weaved
+      in the village, and everywhere that the eye turned there was merriment.
+      What brightness in the green of nature, what freshness in the air, what
+      singing of birds in the gardens of the mansion, what general joy and
+      rapture and exaltation! Particularly in the village might the shouting and
+      singing have been in honour of a wedding!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere&mdash;a pursuit for which
+      there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his steps
+      along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths below,
+      where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of winter, and
+      where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless boughs; while at
+      another time he would plunge into the thicket and ravine country, where
+      nests of birds weighted branches almost to the ground, and the sky was
+      darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing rooks. Again, the drier
+      portions of the meadows could be crossed to the river wharves, whence the
+      first barges were just beginning to set forth with pea-meal and barley and
+      wheat, while at the same time one’s ear would be caught with the sound of
+      some mill resuming its functions as once more the water turned the wheel.
+      Chichikov would also walk afield to watch the early tillage operations of
+      the season, and observe how the blackness of a new furrow would make its
+      way across the expanse of green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking
+      his hand against the pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his
+      fistfuls of seed with equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too
+      much to one side or to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with the
+      bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into the
+      manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how an
+      estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what species
+      of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was the name of
+      each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had bought his cow,
+      and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made inquiry concerning the
+      number of peasants who had lately died: but of these there appeared to be
+      few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned that Tientietnikov’s estate was
+      not being worked as it might have been&mdash;that much neglect and
+      listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness was abroad; and on perceiving
+      this, he thought to himself: “What a fool is that Tientietnikov! To think
+      of letting a property like this decay when he might be drawing from it an
+      income of fifty thousand roubles a year!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Also, more than once, while taking these walks, our hero pondered the idea
+      of himself becoming a landowner&mdash;not now, of course, but later, when
+      his chief aim should have been achieved, and he had got into his hands the
+      necessary means for living the quiet life of the proprietor of an estate.
+      Yes, and at these times there would include itself in his castle-building
+      the figure of a young, fresh, fair-faced maiden of the mercantile or other
+      rich grade of society, a woman who could both play and sing. He also
+      dreamed of little descendants who should perpetuate the name of Chichikov;
+      perhaps a frolicsome little boy and a fair young daughter, or possibly,
+      two boys and quite two or three daughters; so that all should know that he
+      had really lived and had his being, that he had not merely roamed the
+      world like a spectre or a shadow; so that for him and his the country
+      should never be put to shame. And from that he would go on to fancy that a
+      title appended to his rank would not be a bad thing&mdash;the title of
+      State Councillor, for instance, which was deserving of all honour and
+      respect. Ah, it is a common thing for a man who is taking a solitary walk
+      so to detach himself from the irksome realities of the present that he is
+      able to stir and to excite and to provoke his imagination to the
+      conception of things he knows can never really come to pass!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like
+      their master, speedily made themselves at home in it. In particular did
+      Petrushka make friends with Grigory the butler, although at first the pair
+      showed a tendency to outbrag one another&mdash;Petrushka beginning by
+      throwing dust in Grigory’s eyes on the score of his (Petrushka’s) travels,
+      and Grigory taking him down a peg or two by referring to St. Petersburg (a
+      city which Petrushka had never visited), and Petrushka seeking to recover
+      lost ground by dilating on towns which he HAD visited, and Grigory capping
+      this by naming some town which is not to be found on any map in existence,
+      and then estimating the journey thither as at least thirty thousand versts&mdash;a
+      statement which would so completely flabbergast the henchman of
+      Chichikov’s suite that he would be left staring open-mouthed, amid the
+      general laughter of the domestic staff. However, as I say, the pair ended
+      by swearing eternal friendship with one another, and making a practice of
+      resorting to the village tavern in company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Selifan, however, the place had a charm of a different kind. That is
+      to say, each evening there would take place in the village a singing of
+      songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and buxom were the
+      maidens&mdash;maidens of a type hard to find in our present-day villages
+      on large estates&mdash;that he would stand for hours wondering which of
+      them was the best. White-necked and white-bosomed, all had great roving
+      eyes, the gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to the waist. And as, with
+      his hands clasping theirs, he glided hither and thither in the dance, or
+      retired backwards towards a wall with a row of other young fellows, and
+      then, with them, returned to meet the damsels&mdash;all singing in chorus
+      (and laughing as they sang it), “Boyars, show me my bridegroom!” and dusk
+      was falling gently, and from the other side of the river there kept coming
+      far, faint, plaintive echoes of the melody&mdash;well, then our Selifan
+      hardly knew whether he were standing upon his head or his heels. Later,
+      when sleeping and when waking, both at noon and at twilight, he would seem
+      still to be holding a pair of white hands, and moving in the dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s horses also found nothing of which to disapprove. Yes, both
+      the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at
+      Tientietnikov’s a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats excellent,
+      and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True, on this
+      occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking over the
+      intervening partition, it was possible always to see one’s fellows, and,
+      should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a neigh, to answer it at
+      once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the errand which had hitherto led Chichikov to travel about Russia,
+      he had now decided to move very cautiously and secretly in the matter. In
+      fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for reading and
+      for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself, “No&mdash;I had
+      better begin at the other end,” and proceeded first to feel his way among
+      the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt several things,
+      and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go and call upon a
+      certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the General possessed a
+      daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had an affair of some sort,
+      but that the pair had subsequently parted, and gone their several ways.
+      For that matter, Chichikov himself had noticed that Tientietnikov was in
+      the habit of drawing heads of which each representation exactly resembled
+      the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, as he sat tapping his silver snuff-box after luncheon, Chichikov
+      remarked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “One thing you lack, and only one, Andrei Ivanovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is that?” asked his host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A female friend or two,” replied Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily to
+      an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for
+      supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to
+      interject:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the
+      subject seemed to have annoyed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the third time&mdash;it was after supper&mdash;Chichikov returned to
+      the charge by remarking:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To-day, as I was walking round your property, I could not help thinking
+      that marriage would do you a great deal of good. Otherwise you will
+      develop into a hypochondriac.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether Chichikov’s words now voiced sufficiently the note of persuasion,
+      or whether Tientietnikov happened, at the moment, to be unusually disposed
+      to frankness, at all events the young landowner sighed, and then responded
+      as he expelled a puff of tobacco smoke:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To attain anything, Paul Ivanovitch, one needs to have been born under a
+      lucky star.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he related to his guest the whole history of his acquaintanceship and
+      subsequent rupture with the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Chichikov listened to the recital, and gradually realised that the
+      affair had arisen merely out of a chance word on the General’s part, he
+      was astounded beyond measure, and gazed at Tientietnikov without knowing
+      what to make of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Andrei Ivanovitch,” he said at length, “what was there to take offence
+      at?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing, as regards the actual words spoken,” replied the other. “The
+      offence lay, rather, in the insult conveyed in the General’s tone.”
+       Tientietnikov was a kindly and peaceable man, yet his eyes flashed as he
+      said this, and his voice vibrated with wounded feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet, even then, need you have taken it so much amiss?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? Could I have gone on visiting him as before?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly. No great harm had been done?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I disagree with you. Had he been an old man in a humble station of life,
+      instead of a proud and swaggering officer, I should not have minded so
+      much. But, as it was, I could not, and would not, brook his words.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A curious fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A curious fellow, this Chichikov!” was Tientietnikov’s inward reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I tell you what,” resumed Chichikov. “To-morrow I myself will go and see
+      the General.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To what purpose?” asked Tientietnikov, with astonishment and distrust in
+      his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To offer him an assurance of my personal respect.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A strange fellow, this Chichikov!” reflected Tientietnikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A strange fellow, this Tientietnikov!” thought Chichikov, and then added
+      aloud: “Yes, I will go and see him at ten o’clock to-morrow; but since my
+      britchka is not yet altogether in travelling order, would you be so good
+      as to lend me your koliaska for the purpose?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Tientietnikov’s good horses covered the ten versts to the General’s house
+      in a little over half an hour. Descending from the koliaska with features
+      attuned to deference, Chichikov inquired for the master of the house, and
+      was at once ushered into his presence. Bowing with head held respectfully
+      on one side and hands extended like those of a waiter carrying a trayful
+      of teacups, the visitor inclined his whole body forward, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have deemed it my duty to present myself to your Excellency. I have
+      deemed it my duty because in my heart I cherish a most profound respect
+      for the valiant men who, on the field of battle, have proved the saviours
+      of their country.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That this preliminary attack did not wholly displease the General was
+      proved by the fact that, responding with a gracious inclination of the
+      head, he replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am glad to make your acquaintance. Pray be so good as to take a seat.
+      In what capacity or capacities have you yourself seen service?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of my service,” said Chichikov, depositing his form, not exactly in the
+      centre of the chair, but rather on one side of it, and resting a hand upon
+      one of its arms, “&mdash;of my service the scene was laid, in the first
+      instance, in the Treasury; while its further course bore me successively
+      into the employ of the Public Buildings Commission, of the Customs Board,
+      and of other Government Offices. But, throughout, my life has resembled a
+      barque tossed on the crests of perfidious billows. In suffering I have
+      been swathed and wrapped until I have come to be, as it were, suffering
+      personified; while of the extent to which my life has been sought by foes,
+      no words, no colouring, no (if I may so express it?) painter’s brush could
+      ever convey to you an adequate idea. And now, at length, in my declining
+      years, I am seeking a corner in which to eke out the remainder of my
+      miserable existence, while at the present moment I am enjoying the
+      hospitality of a neighbour of your acquaintance.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And who is that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your neighbour Tientietnikov, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that the General frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Led me add,” put in Chichikov hastily, “that he greatly regrets that on a
+      former occasion he should have failed to show a proper respect for&mdash;for&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For what?” asked the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the services to the public which your Excellency has rendered.
+      Indeed, he cannot find words to express his sorrow, but keeps repeating to
+      himself: ‘Would that I had valued at their true worth the men who have
+      saved our fatherland!’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And why should he say that?” asked the mollified General. “I bear him no
+      grudge. In fact, I have never cherished aught but a sincere liking for
+      him, a sincere esteem, and do not doubt but that, in time, he may become a
+      useful member of society.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In the words which you have been good enough to utter,” said Chichikov
+      with a bow, “there is embodied much justice. Yes, Tientietnikov is in very
+      truth a man of worth. Not only does he possess the gift of eloquence, but
+      also he is a master of the pen.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, yes; he DOES write rubbish of some sort, doesn’t he? Verses, or
+      something of the kind?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Not rubbish, your Excellency, but practical stuff. In short, he is
+      inditing a history.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A HISTORY? But a history of what?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A history of, of&mdash;” For a moment or two Chichikov hesitated. Then,
+      whether because it was a General that was seated in front of him, or
+      because he desired to impart greater importance to the subject which he
+      was about to invent, he concluded: “A history of Generals, your
+      Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of Generals? Of WHAT Generals?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of Generals generally&mdash;of Generals at large. That is to say, and to
+      be more precise, a history of the Generals of our fatherland.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time Chichikov was floundering badly. Mentally he spat upon
+      himself and reflected: “Gracious heavens! What rubbish I am talking!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me,” went on his interlocutor, “but I do not quite understand you.
+      Is Tientietnikov producing a history of a given period, or only a history
+      made up of a series of biographies? Also, is he including ALL our
+      Generals, or only those who took part in the campaign of 1812?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The latter, your Excellency&mdash;only the Generals of 1812,” replied
+      Chichikov. Then he added beneath his breath: “Were I to be killed for it,
+      I could not say what that may be supposed to mean.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why should he not come and see me in person?” went on his host.
+      “Possibly I might be able to furnish him with much interesting material?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is afraid to come, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nonsense! Just because of a hasty word or two! I am not that sort of man
+      at all. In fact, I should be very happy to call upon HIM.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never would he permit that, your Excellency. He would greatly prefer to
+      be the first to make advances.” And Chichikov added to himself: “What a
+      stroke of luck those Generals were! Otherwise, the Lord knows where my
+      tongue might have landed me!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the door into the adjoining room opened, and there appeared
+      in the doorway a girl as fair as a ray of the sun&mdash;so fair, indeed,
+      that Chichikov stared at her in amazement. Apparently she had come to
+      speak to her father for a moment, but had stopped short on perceiving that
+      there was some one with him. The only fault to be found in her appearance
+      was the fact that she was too thin and fragile-looking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “May I introduce you to my little pet?” said the General to Chichikov. “To
+      tell you the truth, I do not know your name.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That you should be unacquainted with the name of one who has never
+      distinguished himself in the manner of which you yourself can boast is
+      scarcely to be wondered at.” And Chichikov executed one of his sidelong,
+      deferential bows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, I should be delighted to know it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, your Excellency.” With that went the
+      easy bow of a military man and the agile backward movement of an
+      india-rubber ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ulinka, this is Paul Ivanovitch,” said the General, turning to his
+      daughter. “He has just told me some interesting news&mdash;namely, that
+      our neighbour Tientietnikov is not altogether the fool we had at first
+      thought him. On the contrary, he is engaged upon a very important work&mdash;upon
+      a history of the Russian Generals of 1812.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But who ever supposed him to be a fool?” asked the girl quickly. “What
+      happened was that you took Vishnepokromov’s word&mdash;the word of a man
+      who is himself both a fool and a good-for-nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, well,” said the father after further good-natured dispute on the
+      subject of Vishnepokromov. “Do you now run away, for I wish to dress for
+      luncheon. And you, sir,” he added to Chichikov, “will you not join us at
+      table?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov bowed so low and so long that, by the time that his eyes had
+      ceased to see nothing but his own boots, the General’s daughter had
+      disappeared, and in her place was standing a bewhiskered butler, armed
+      with a silver soap-dish and a hand-basin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you mind if I wash in your presence?” asked the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “By no means,” replied Chichikov. “Pray do whatsoever you please in that
+      respect.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon that the General fell to scrubbing himself&mdash;incidentally, to
+      sending soapsuds flying in every direction. Meanwhile he seemed so
+      favourably disposed that Chichikov decided to sound him then and there,
+      more especially since the butler had left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “May I put to you a problem?” he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly,” replied the General. “What is it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is this, your Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns three
+      hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property. Also,
+      except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although his
+      infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his property in
+      person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the reason for his
+      conduct&mdash;his very strange conduct&mdash;he states as follows: ‘I do
+      not know my nephew, and very likely he is a spendthrift. If he wishes to
+      show me that he is good for anything, let him go and acquire as many souls
+      as <i>I</i> have acquired; and when he has done that I will transfer to
+      him my three hundred souls as well.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The man must be an absolute fool,” commented the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Possibly. And were that all, things would not be as bad as they are. But,
+      unfortunately, my uncle has gone and taken up with his housekeeper, and
+      has had children by her. Consequently, everything will now pass to THEM.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The old man must have taken leave of his senses,” remarked the General.
+      “Yet how <i>I</i> can help you I fail to see.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, I have thought of a plan. If you will hand me over all the dead
+      souls on your estate&mdash;hand them over to me exactly as though they
+      were still alive, and were purchasable property&mdash;I will offer them to
+      the old man, and then he will leave me his fortune.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point the General burst into a roar of laughter such as few can
+      ever have heard. Half-dressed, he subsided into a chair, threw back his
+      head, and guffawed until he came near to choking. In fact, the house shook
+      with his merriment, so much so that the butler and his daughter came
+      running into the room in alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long before he could produce a single articulate word; and even
+      when he did so (to reassure his daughter and the butler) he kept
+      momentarily relapsing into spluttering chuckles which made the house ring
+      and ring again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov was greatly taken aback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, that uncle!” bellowed the General in paroxysms of mirth. “Oh, that
+      blessed uncle! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha! Dead souls offered him
+      instead of live ones! Oh, my goodness!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I suppose I’ve put my foot in it again,” ruefully reflected Chichikov.
+      “But, good Lord, what a man the fellow is to laugh! Heaven send that he
+      doesn’t burst of it!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ha, ha, ha!” broke out the General afresh. “WHAT a donkey the old man
+      must be! To think of his saying to you: ‘You go and fit yourself out with
+      three hundred souls, and I’ll cap them with my own lot’! My word! What a
+      jackass!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “A jackass, your Excellency?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, indeed! And to think of the jest of putting him off with dead souls!
+      Ha, ha, ha! WHAT wouldn’t I give to see you handing him the title deeds?
+      Who is he? What is he like? Is he very old?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is eighty, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But still brisk and able to move about, eh? Surely he must be pretty
+      strong to go on living with his housekeeper like that?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes. But what does such strength mean? Sand runs away, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The old fool! But is he really such a fool?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And does he go out at all? Does he see company? Can he still hold himself
+      upright?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but with great difficulty.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And has he any teeth left?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No more than two at the most.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The old jackass! Don’t be angry with me, but I must say that, though your
+      uncle, he is also a jackass.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, your Excellency. And though it grieves ME to have to confess
+      that he is my uncle, what am I to do with him?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet this was not altogether the truth. What would have been a far harder
+      thing for Chichikov to have confessed was the fact that he possessed no
+      uncles at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I beg of you, your Excellency,” he went on, “to hand me over those, those&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Those dead souls, eh? Why, in return for the jest I will give you some
+      land as well. Yes, you can take the whole graveyard if you like. Ha, ha,
+      ha! The old man! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT a fool he’ll look! Ha, ha, ha!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And once more the General’s guffaws went ringing through the house.
+    </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+       [At this point there is a long hiatus in the original.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      “If Colonel Koshkarev should turn out to be as mad as the last one it is a
+      bad look-out,” said Chichikov to himself on opening his eyes amid fields
+      and open country&mdash;everything else having disappeared save the vault
+      of heaven and a couple of low-lying clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Selifan,” he went on, “did you ask how to get to Colonel Koshkarev’s?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Paul Ivanovitch. At least, there was such a clatter around the
+      koliaska that I could not; but Petrushka asked the coachman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You fool! How often have I told you not to rely on Petrushka? Petrushka
+      is a blockhead, an idiot. Besides, at the present moment I believe him to
+      be drunk.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, you are wrong, barin,” put in the person referred to, turning his
+      head with a sidelong glance. “After we get down the next hill we shall
+      need but to keep bending round it. That is all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and I suppose you’ll tell me that sivnkha is the only thing that has
+      passed your lips? Well, the view at least is beautiful. In fact, when one
+      has seen this place one may say that one has seen one of the beauty spots
+      of Europe.” This said, Chichikov added to himself, smoothing his chin:
+      “What a difference between the features of a civilised man of the world
+      and those of a common lacquey!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the koliaska quickened its pace, and Chichikov once more caught
+      sight of Tientietnikov’s aspen-studded meadows. Undulating gently on
+      elastic springs, the vehicle cautiously descended the steep incline, and
+      then proceeded past water-mills, rumbled over a bridge or two, and jolted
+      easily along the rough-set road which traversed the flats. Not a molehill,
+      not a mound jarred the spine. The vehicle was comfort itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Swiftly there flew by clumps of osiers, slender elder trees, and
+      silver-leaved poplars, their branches brushing against Selifan and
+      Petrushka, and at intervals depriving the valet of his cap. Each time that
+      this happened, the sullen-faced servitor fell to cursing both the tree
+      responsible for the occurrence and the landowner responsible for the tree
+      being in existence; yet nothing would induce him thereafter either to tie
+      on the cap or to steady it with his hand, so complete was his assurance
+      that the accident would never be repeated. Soon to the foregoing trees
+      there became added an occasional birch or spruce fir, while in the dense
+      undergrowth around their roots could be seen the blue iris and the yellow
+      wood-tulip. Gradually the forest grew darker, as though eventually the
+      obscurity would become complete. Then through the trunks and the boughs
+      there began to gleam points of light like glittering mirrors, and as the
+      number of trees lessened, these points grew larger, until the travellers
+      debouched upon the shore of a lake four versts or so in circumference, and
+      having on its further margin the grey, scattered log huts of a peasant
+      village. In the water a great commotion was in progress. In the first
+      place, some twenty men, immersed to the knee, to the breast, or to the
+      neck, were dragging a large fishing-net inshore, while, in the second
+      place, there was entangled in the same, in addition to some fish, a stout
+      man shaped precisely like a melon or a hogshead. Greatly excited, he was
+      shouting at the top of his voice: “Let Kosma manage it, you lout of a
+      Denis! Kosma, take the end of the rope from Denis! Don’t bear so hard on
+      it, Thoma Bolshoy <a href="#linknote-41" name="linknoteref-41" id="linknoteref-41"><small>41</small></a>! Go where 
+      Thoma Menshov <a href="#linknote-42" name="linknoteref-42" id="linknoteref-42"><small>42</small></a>
+      is! Damn it, bring the net to land, will you!” From this it became clear
+      that it was not on his own account that the stout man was worrying.
+      Indeed, he had no need to do so, since his fat would in any case have
+      prevented him from sinking. Yes, even if he had turned head over heels in
+      an effort to dive, the water would persistently have borne him up; and the
+      same if, say, a couple of men had jumped on his back&mdash;the only result
+      would have been that he would have become a trifle deeper submerged, and
+      forced to draw breath by spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the cause
+      of his agitation was lest the net should break, and the fish escape:
+      wherefore he was urging some additional peasants who were standing on the
+      bank to lay hold of and to pull at, an extra rope or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That must be the barin&mdash;Colonel Koshkarev,” said Selifan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why?” asked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has the
+      respectable paunch of a gentleman.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the barin;
+      until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright position,
+      and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with Chichikov seated
+      therein, descending the declivity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you dined yet?” shouted the barin as, still entangled in the net, he
+      approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one hand shading
+      his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he looked, in point
+      of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her bath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of bows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then thank God for that,” rejoined the gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why?” asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his cap
+      over his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that
+      sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a
+      veritable monster of a fish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Isn’t it a beauty&mdash;a sturgeon fresh run from the river?” exclaimed
+      the stout barin. “And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take the
+      lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma Bolshoy,
+      and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house, and I myself
+      shall be along presently.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt, ran
+      ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had hanging
+      in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every inhabitant of
+      the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a large vegetable
+      enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a square near a wooden
+      church, with, showing beyond the latter, the roofs of the manorial
+      homestead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!” said Chichikov to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, whatever I may be, at least I’m here,” said a voice by his side.
+      Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile, the barin
+      had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair of yellow
+      trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck was as
+      guiltless of a collar as Cupid’s. Also, as he sat sideways in his drozhki,
+      his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle. Chichikov was
+      about to make some remark or another when the stout gentleman disappeared;
+      and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view at the spot where the fish
+      had been drawn to land, and his voice could be heard reiterating
+      exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov reached the verandah of the
+      house he found, to his intense surprise, the stout gentleman waiting to
+      welcome the visitor. How he had contrived to convey himself thither passed
+      Chichikov’s comprehension. Host and guest embraced three times, according
+      to a bygone custom of Russia. Evidently the barin was one of the old
+      school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I bring you,” said Chichikov, “a greeting from his Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “From whom?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?”
+       exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I do not,” replied the gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s surprise grew to absolute astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How comes that about?” he ejaculated. “I hope that I have the honour of
+      addressing Colonel Koshkarev?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have come;
+      and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh&mdash;yes, Peter Petrovitch Pietukh.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “I told you to drive to the house of
+      Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter Petrovitch
+      Pietukh.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “All the same, your fellows have done quite right,” put in the gentleman
+      referred to. “Do you” (this to Selifan and Petrushka) “go to the kitchen,
+      where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then put up the
+      horses, and be off to the servants’ quarters.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I regret the mistake extremely,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have in
+      store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I beg of
+      you.” And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him within,
+      where they were met by a couple of youths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the Gymnasium
+      <a href="#linknote-43" name="linknoteref-43" id="linknoteref-43"><small>43</small></a>,”
+       said Pietukh. “Nikolasha, come and entertain our good visitor, while you,
+      Aleksasha, follow me.” And with that the host disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
+      town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no good
+      was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he and his
+      brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the provinces not
+      being worth living in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I quite understand,” Chichikov thought to himself. “The end of the
+      chapter will be confectioners’ assistants and the boulevards.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tell me,” he added aloud, “how does your father’s property at present
+      stand?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is all mortgaged,” put in the father himself as he re-entered the
+      room. “Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What a pity!” thought Chichikov. “At this rate it will not be long before
+      this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my departure.” Aloud he
+      said with an air of sympathy: “That you have mortgaged the estate seems to
+      me a matter of regret.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, not at all,” replied Pietukh. “In fact, they tell me that it is a
+      good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I act
+      differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of living
+      here, and should like to try Moscow&mdash;more especially since my sons
+      are always begging me to give them a metropolitan education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Oh, the fool, the fool!” reflected Chichikov. “He is for throwing up
+      everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice
+      property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and that
+      the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon as ever
+      these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres, the devil
+      will away with every stick of their substance. For my own part, I could
+      desire nothing better than this quiet life in the country.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let me guess what is in your mind,” said Pietukh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, then?” asked Chichikov, rather taken aback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You are thinking to yourself: ‘That fool of a Pietukh has asked me to
+      dinner, yet not a bite of dinner do I see.’ But wait a little. It will be
+      ready presently, for it is being cooked as fast as a maiden who has had
+      her hair cut off plaits herself a new set of tresses.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Here comes Platon Mikhalitch, father!” exclaimed Aleksasha, who had been
+      peeping out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and on a grey horse,” added his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who is Platon Mikhalitch?” inquired Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A neighbour of ours, and an excellent fellow.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next moment Platon Mikhalitch himself entered the room, accompanied by
+      a sporting dog named Yarb. He was a tall, handsome man, with extremely red
+      hair. As for his companion, it was of the keen-muzzled species used for
+      shooting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you dined yet?” asked the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed? What do you mean by coming here to laugh at us all? Do I ever go
+      to YOUR place after dinner?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer smiled. “Well, if it can bring you any comfort,” he said,
+      “let me tell you that I ate nothing at the meal, for I had no appetite.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you should see what I have caught&mdash;what sort of a sturgeon fate
+      has brought my way! Yes, and what crucians and carp!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really it tires one to hear you. How come you always to be so cheerful?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how come YOU always to be so gloomy?” retorted the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How, you ask? Simply because I am so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The truth is you don’t eat enough. Try the plan of making a good dinner.
+      Weariness of everything is a modern invention. Once upon a time one never
+      heard of it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, boast away, but have you yourself never been tired of things?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never in my life. I do not so much as know whether I should find time to
+      be tired. In the morning, when one awakes, the cook is waiting, and the
+      dinner has to be ordered. Then one drinks one’s morning tea, and then the
+      bailiff arrives for HIS orders, and then there is fishing to be done, and
+      then one’s dinner has to be eaten. Next, before one has even had a chance
+      to utter a snore, there enters once again the cook, and one has to order
+      supper; and when she has departed, behold, back she comes with a request
+      for the following day’s dinner! What time does THAT leave one to be weary
+      of things?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Throughout this conversation, Chichikov had been taking stock of the
+      newcomer, who astonished him with his good looks, his upright, picturesque
+      figure, his appearance of fresh, unwasted youthfulness, and the boyish
+      purity, innocence, and clarity of his features. Neither passion nor care
+      nor aught of the nature of agitation or anxiety of mind had ventured to
+      touch his unsullied face, or to lay a single wrinkle thereon. Yet the
+      touch of life which those emotions might have imparted was wanting. The
+      face was, as it were, dreaming, even though from time to time an ironical
+      smile disturbed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I, too, cannot understand,” remarked Chichikov, “how a man of your
+      appearance can find things wearisome. Of course, if a man is hard pressed
+      for money, or if he has enemies who are lying in wait for his life (as
+      have certain folk of whom I know), well, then&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Believe me when I say,” interrupted the handsome guest, “that, for the
+      sake of a diversion, I should be glad of ANY sort of an anxiety. Would
+      that some enemy would conceive a grudge against me! But no one does so.
+      Everything remains eternally dull.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But perhaps you lack a sufficiency of land or souls?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Not at all. I and my brother own ten thousand desiatins <a
+      href="#linknote-44" name="linknoteref-44" id="linknoteref-44"><small>44</small></a>
+      of land, and over a thousand souls.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Curious! I do not understand it. But perhaps the harvest has failed, or
+      you have sickness about, and many of your male peasants have died of it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the contrary, everything is in splendid order, for my brother is the
+      best of managers.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then to find things wearisome!” exclaimed Chichikov. “It passes my
+      comprehension.” And he shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, we will soon put weariness to flight,” interrupted the host.
+      “Aleksasha, do you run helter-skelter to the kitchen, and there tell the
+      cook to serve the fish pasties. Yes, and where have that gawk of an
+      Emelian and that thief of an Antoshka got to? Why have they not handed
+      round the zakuski?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the door opened, and the “gawk” and the “thief” in question
+      made their appearance with napkins and a tray&mdash;the latter bearing six
+      decanters of variously-coloured beverages. These they placed upon the
+      table, and then ringed them about with glasses and platefuls of every
+      conceivable kind of appetiser. That done, the servants applied themselves
+      to bringing in various comestibles under covers, through which could be
+      heard the hissing of hot roast viands. In particular did the “gawk” and
+      the “thief” work hard at their tasks. As a matter of fact, their
+      appellations had been given them merely to spur them to greater activity,
+      for, in general, the barin was no lover of abuse, but, rather, a
+      kind-hearted man who, like most Russians, could not get on without a sharp
+      word or two. That is to say, he needed them for his tongue as he need a
+      glass of vodka for his digestion. What else could you expect? It was his
+      nature to care for nothing mild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the zakuski succeeded the meal itself, and the host became a perfect
+      glutton on his guests’ behalf. Should he notice that a guest had taken but
+      a single piece of a comestible, he added thereto another one, saying:
+      “Without a mate, neither man nor bird can live in this world.” Should any
+      one take two pieces, he added thereto a third, saying: “What is the good
+      of the number 2? God loves a trinity.” Should any one take three pieces,
+      he would say: “Where do you see a waggon with three wheels? Who builds a
+      three-cornered hut?” Lastly, should any one take four pieces, he would cap
+      them with a fifth, and add thereto the punning quip, “Na piat opiat <a
+      href="#linknote-45" name="linknoteref-45" id="linknoteref-45"><small>45</small></a>”.
+      After devouring at least twelve steaks of sturgeon, Chichikov ventured to
+      think to himself, “My host cannot possibly add to THEM,” but found that he
+      was mistaken, for, without a word, Pietukh heaped upon his plate an
+      enormous portion of spit-roasted veal, and also some kidneys. And what
+      veal it was!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That calf was fed two years on milk,” he explained. “I cared for it like
+      my own son.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless I can eat no more,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you try the veal before you say that you can eat no more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I could not get it down my throat. There is no room left.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “If there be no room in a church for a newcomer, the beadle is sent for,
+      and room is very soon made&mdash;yes, even though before there was such a
+      crush that an apple couldn’t have been dropped between the people. Do you
+      try the veal, I say. That piece is the titbit of all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Chichikov made the attempt; and in very truth the veal was beyond all
+      praise, and room was found for it, even though one would have supposed the
+      feat impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Fancy this good fellow removing to St. Petersburg or Moscow!” said the
+      guest to himself. “Why, with a scale of living like this, he would be
+      ruined in three years.” For that matter, Pietukh might well have been
+      ruined already, for hospitality can dissipate a fortune in three months as
+      easily as it can in three years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The host also dispensed the wine with a lavish hand, and what the guests
+      did not drink he gave to his sons, who thus swallowed glass after glass.
+      Indeed, even before coming to table, it was possible to discern to what
+      department of human accomplishment their bent was turned. When the meal
+      was over, however, the guests had no mind for further drinking. Indeed, it
+      was all that they could do to drag themselves on to the balcony, and there
+      to relapse into easy chairs. Indeed, the moment that the host subsided
+      into his seat&mdash;it was large enough for four&mdash;he fell asleep, and
+      his portly presence, converting itself into a sort of blacksmith’s
+      bellows, started to vent, through open mouth and distended nostrils, such
+      sounds as can have greeted the reader’s ear but seldom&mdash;sounds as of
+      a drum being beaten in combination with the whistling of a flute and the
+      strident howling of a dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen to him!” said Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Naturally, on such dinners as that,” continued the other, “our host does
+      NOT find the time dull. And as soon as dinner is ended there can ensue
+      sleep.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but, pardon me, I still fail to understand why you should find life
+      wearisome. There are so many resources against ennui!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As for instance?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “For a young man, dancing, the playing of one or another musical
+      instrument, and&mdash;well, yes, marriage.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Marriage to whom?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To some maiden who is both charming and rich. Are there none in these
+      parts?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then, were I you, I should travel, and seek a maiden elsewhere.” And a
+      brilliant idea therewith entered Chichikov’s head. “This last resource,”
+       he added, “is the best of all resources against ennui.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What resource are you speaking of?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of travel.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But whither?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, should it so please you, you might join me as my companion.” This
+      said, the speaker added to himself as he eyed Platon: “Yes, that would
+      suit me exactly, for then I should have half my expenses paid, and could
+      charge him also with the cost of mending the koliaska.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And whither should we go?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In that respect I am not wholly my own master, as I have business to do
+      for others as well as for myself. For instance, General Betristchev&mdash;an
+      intimate friend and, I might add, a generous benefactor of mine&mdash;has
+      charged me with commissions to certain of his relatives. However, though
+      relatives are relatives, I am travelling likewise on my own account, since
+      I wish to see the world and the whirligig of humanity&mdash;which, in
+      spite of what people may say, is as good as a living book or a second
+      education.” As a matter of fact, Chichikov was reflecting, “Yes, the plan
+      is an excellent one. I might even contrive that he should have to bear the
+      whole of our expenses, and that his horses should be used while my own
+      should be put out to graze on his farm.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, why should I not adopt the suggestion?” was Platon’s thought.
+      “There is nothing for me to do at home, since the management of the estate
+      is in my brother’s hands, and my going would cause him no inconvenience.
+      Yes, why should I not do as Chichikov has suggested?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he added aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would you come and stay with my brother for a couple of days? Otherwise
+      he might refuse me his consent.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “With great pleasure,” said Chichikov. “Or even for three days.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then here is my hand on it. Let us be off at once.” Platon seemed
+      suddenly to have come to life again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where are you off to?” put in their host unexpectedly as he roused
+      himself and stared in astonishment at the pair. “No, no, my good sirs. I
+      have had the wheels removed from your koliaska, Monsieur Chichikov, and
+      have sent your horse, Platon Mikhalitch, to a grazing ground fifteen
+      versts away. Consequently you must spend the night here, and depart
+      to-morrow morning after breakfast.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What could be done with a man like Pietukh? There was no help for it but
+      to remain. In return, the guests were rewarded with a beautiful spring
+      evening, for, to spend the time, the host organised a boating expedition
+      on the river, and a dozen rowers, with a dozen pairs of oars, conveyed the
+      party (to the accompaniment of song) across the smooth surface of the lake
+      and up a great river with towering banks. From time to time the boat would
+      pass under ropes, stretched across for purposes of fishing, and at each
+      turn of the rippling current new vistas unfolded themselves as tier upon
+      tier of woodland delighted the eye with a diversity of timber and foliage.
+      In unison did the rowers ply their sculls, yet it was though of itself
+      that the skiff shot forward, bird-like, over the glassy surface of the
+      water; while at intervals the broad-shouldered young oarsman who was
+      seated third from the bow would raise, as from a nightingale’s throat, the
+      opening staves of a boat song, and then be joined by five or six more,
+      until the melody had come to pour forth in a volume as free and boundless
+      as Russia herself. And Pietukh, too, would give himself a shake, and help
+      lustily to support the chorus; and even Chichikov felt acutely conscious
+      of the fact that he was a Russian. Only Platon reflected: “What is there
+      so splendid in these melancholy songs? They do but increase one’s
+      depression of spirits.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The journey homeward was made in the gathering dusk. Rhythmically the oars
+      smote a surface which no longer reflected the sky, and darkness had fallen
+      when they reached the shore, along which lights were twinkling where the
+      fisherfolk were boiling live eels for soup. Everything had now wended its
+      way homeward for the night; the cattle and poultry had been housed, and
+      the herdsmen, standing at the gates of the village cattle-pens, amid the
+      trailing dust lately raised by their charges, were awaiting the milk-pails
+      and a summons to partake of the eel-broth. Through the dusk came the hum
+      of humankind, and the barking of dogs in other and more distant villages;
+      while, over all, the moon was rising, and the darkened countryside was
+      beginning to glimmer to light again under her beams. What a glorious
+      picture! Yet no one thought of admiring it. Instead of galloping over the
+      countryside on frisky cobs, Nikolasha and Aleksasha were engaged in
+      dreaming of Moscow, with its confectioners’ shops and the theatres of
+      which a cadet, newly arrived on a visit from the capital, had just been
+      telling them; while their father had his mind full of how best to stuff
+      his guests with yet more food, and Platon was given up to yawning. Only in
+      Chichikov was a spice of animation visible. “Yes,” he reflected, “some day
+      I, too, will become lord of such a country place.” And before his mind’s
+      eye there arose also a helpmeet and some little Chichikovs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time that supper was finished the party had again over-eaten
+      themselves, and when Chichikov entered the room allotted him for the
+      night, he lay down upon the bed, and prodded his stomach. “It is as tight
+      as a drum,” he said to himself. “Not another titbit of veal could now get
+      into it.” Also, circumstances had so brought it about that next door to
+      him there was situated his host’s apartment; and since the intervening
+      wall was thin, Chichikov could hear every word that was said there. At the
+      present moment the master of the house was engaged in giving the cook
+      orders for what, under the guise of an early breakfast, promised to
+      constitute a veritable dinner. You should have heard Pietukh’s behests!
+      They would have excited the appetite of a corpse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” he said, sucking his lips, and drawing a deep breath, “in the first
+      place, make a pasty in four divisions. Into one of the divisions put the
+      sturgeon’s cheeks and some viaziga <a href="#linknote-46"
+       name="linknoteref-46" id="linknoteref-46"><small>46</small></a>, and into
+      another division some buckwheat porridge, young mushrooms and onions,
+      sweet milk, calves’ brains, and anything else that you may find suitable&mdash;anything
+      else that you may have got handy. Also, bake the pastry to a nice brown on
+      one side, and but lightly on the other. Yes, and, as to the under side,
+      bake it so that it will be all juicy and flaky, so that it shall not
+      crumble into bits, but melt in the mouth like the softest snow that ever
+      you heard of.” And as he said this Pietukh fairly smacked his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil take him!” muttered Chichikov, thrusting his head beneath the
+      bedclothes to avoid hearing more. “The fellow won’t give one a chance to
+      sleep.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless he heard through the blankets:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And garnish the sturgeon with beetroot, smelts, peppered mushrooms, young
+      radishes, carrots, beans, and anything else you like, so as to have plenty
+      of trimmings. Yes, and put a lump of ice into the pig’s bladder, so as to
+      swell it up.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Many other dishes did Pietukh order, and nothing was to be heard but his
+      talk of boiling, roasting, and stewing. Finally, just as mention was being
+      made of a turkey cock, Chichikov fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning the guest’s state of repletion had reached the point of
+      Platon being unable to mount his horse; wherefore the latter was
+      dispatched homeward with one of Pietukh’s grooms, and the two guests
+      entered Chichikov’s koliaska. Even the dog trotted lazily in the rear; for
+      he, too, had over-eaten himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It has been rather too much of a good thing,” remarked Chichikov as the
+      vehicle issued from the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and it vexes me to see the fellow never tire of it,” replied Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah,” thought Chichikov to himself, “if <i>I</i> had an income of seventy
+      thousand roubles, as you have, I’d very soon give tiredness one in the
+      eye! Take Murazov, the tax-farmer&mdash;he, again, must be worth ten
+      millions. What a fortune!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Do you mind where we drive?” asked Platon. “I should like first to go and
+      take leave of my sister and my brother-in-law.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “With pleasure,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My brother-in-law is the leading landowner hereabouts. At the present
+      moment he is drawing an income of two hundred thousand roubles from a
+      property which, eight years ago, was producing a bare twenty thousand.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Truly a man worthy of the utmost respect! I shall be most interested to
+      make his acquaintance. To think of it! And what may his family name be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Kostanzhoglo.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And his Christian name and patronymic?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine Thedorovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine Thedorovitch Kostanzhoglo. Yes, it will be a most interesting
+      event to make his acquaintance. To know such a man must be a whole
+      education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Platon set himself to give Selifan some directions as to the way, a
+      necessary proceeding in view of the fact that Selifan could hardly
+      maintain his seat on the box. Twice Petrushka, too, had fallen headlong,
+      and this necessitated being tied to his perch with a piece of rope. “What
+      a clown!” had been Chichikov’s only comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is where my brother-in-law’s land begins,” said Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “They give one a change of view.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, indeed, from this point the countryside became planted with timber;
+      the rows of trees running as straight as pistol-shots, and having beyond
+      them, and on higher ground, a second expanse of forest, newly planted like
+      the first; while beyond it, again, loomed a third plantation of older
+      trees. Next there succeeded a flat piece of the same nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “All this timber,” said Platon, “has grown up within eight or ten years at
+      the most; whereas on another man’s land it would have taken twenty to
+      attain the same growth.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how has your brother-in-law effected this?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You must ask him yourself. He is so excellent a husbandman that nothing
+      ever fails with him. You see, he knows the soil, and also knows what ought
+      to be planted beside what, and what kinds of timber are the best
+      neighbourhood for grain. Again, everything on his estate is made to
+      perform at least three or four different functions. For instance, he makes
+      his timber not only serve as timber, but also serve as a provider of
+      moisture and shade to a given stretch of land, and then as a fertiliser
+      with its fallen leaves. Consequently, when everywhere else there is
+      drought, he still has water, and when everywhere else there has been a
+      failure of the harvest, on his lands it will have proved a success. But it
+      is a pity that I know so little about it all as to be unable to explain to
+      you his many expedients. Folk call him a wizard, for he produces so much.
+      Nevertheless, personally I find what he does uninteresting.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Truly an astonishing fellow!” reflected Chichikov with a glance at his
+      companion. “It is sad indeed to see a man so superficial as to be unable
+      to explain matters of this kind.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the manor appeared in sight&mdash;an establishment looking
+      almost like a town, so numerous were the huts where they stood arranged in
+      three tiers, crowned with three churches, and surrounded with huge ricks
+      and barns. “Yes,” thought Chichikov to himself, “one can see what a jewel
+      of a landowner lives here.” The huts in question were stoutly built and
+      the intervening alleys well laid-out; while, wherever a waggon was
+      visible, it looked serviceable and more or less new. Also, the local
+      peasants bore an intelligent look on their faces, the cattle were of the
+      best possible breed, and even the peasants’ pigs belonged to the porcine
+      aristocracy. Clearly there dwelt here peasants who, to quote the song,
+      were accustomed to “pick up silver by the shovelful.” Nor were
+      Englishified gardens and parterres and other conceits in evidence, but, on
+      the contrary, there ran an open view from the manor house to the farm
+      buildings and the workmen’s cots, so that, after the old Russian fashion,
+      the barin should be able to keep an eye upon all that was going on around
+      him. For the same purpose, the mansion was topped with a tall lantern and
+      a superstructure&mdash;a device designed, not for ornament, nor for a
+      vantage-spot for the contemplation of the view, but for supervision of the
+      labourers engaged in distant fields. Lastly, the brisk, active servants
+      who received the visitors on the verandah were very different menials from
+      the drunken Petrushka, even though they did not wear swallow-tailed coats,
+      but only Cossack tchekmenu <a href="#linknote-47" name="linknoteref-47" id="linknoteref-47"><small>47</small></a> of blue homespun cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady of the house also issued on to the verandah. With her face of the
+      freshness of “blood and milk” and the brightness of God’s daylight, she as
+      nearly resembled Platon as one pea resembles another, save that, whereas
+      he was languid, she was cheerful and full of talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good day, brother!” she cried. “How glad I am to see you! Constantine is
+      not at home, but will be back presently.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where is he?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Doing business in the village with a party of factors,” replied the lady
+      as she conducted her guests to the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With no little curiosity did Chichikov gaze at the interior of the mansion
+      inhabited by the man who received an annual income of two hundred thousand
+      roubles; for he thought to discern therefrom the nature of its proprietor,
+      even as from a shell one may deduce the species of oyster or snail which
+      has been its tenant, and has left therein its impression. But no such
+      conclusions were to be drawn. The rooms were simple, and even bare. Not a
+      fresco nor a picture nor a bronze nor a flower nor a china what-not nor a
+      book was there to be seen. In short, everything appeared to show that the
+      proprietor of this abode spent the greater part of his time, not between
+      four walls, but in the field, and that he thought out his plans, not in
+      sybaritic fashion by the fireside, nor in an easy chair beside the stove,
+      but on the spot where work was actually in progress&mdash;that, in a word,
+      where those plans were conceived, there they were put into execution. Nor
+      in these rooms could Chichikov detect the least trace of a feminine hand,
+      beyond the fact that certain tables and chairs bore drying-boards whereon
+      were arranged some sprinklings of flower petals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is all this rubbish for?” asked Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is not rubbish,” replied the lady of the house. “On the contrary, it
+      is the best possible remedy for fever. Last year we cured every one of our
+      sick peasants with it. Some of the petals I am going to make into an
+      ointment, and some into an infusion. You may laugh as much as you like at
+      my potting and preserving, yet you yourself will be glad of things of the
+      kind when you set out on your travels.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon moved to the piano, and began to pick out a note or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good Lord, what an ancient instrument!” he exclaimed. “Are you not
+      ashamed of it, sister?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, the truth is that I get no time to practice my music. You see,” she
+      added to Chichikov, “I have an eight-year-old daughter to educate; and to
+      hand her over to a foreign governess in order that I may have leisure for
+      my own piano-playing&mdash;well, that is a thing which I could never bring
+      myself to do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You have become a wearisome sort of person,” commented Platon, and walked
+      away to the window. “Ah, here comes Constantine,” presently he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov also glanced out of the window, and saw approaching the verandah
+      a brisk, swarthy-complexioned man of about forty, a man clad in a rough
+      cloth jacket and a velveteen cap. Evidently he was one of those who care
+      little for the niceties of dress. With him, bareheaded, there came a
+      couple of men of a somewhat lower station in life, and all three were
+      engaged in an animated discussion. One of the barin’s two companions was a
+      plain peasant, and the other (clad in a blue Siberian smock) a travelling
+      factor. The fact that the party halted awhile by the entrance steps made
+      it possible to overhear a portion of their conversation from within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is what you peasants had better do,” the barin was saying. “Purchase
+      your release from your present master. I will lend you the necessary
+      money, and afterwards you can work for me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the peasant. “Why should we do
+      that? Remove us just as we are. You will know how to arrange it, for a
+      cleverer gentleman than you is nowhere to be found. The misfortune of us
+      muzhiks is that we cannot protect ourselves properly. The tavern-keepers
+      sell us such liquor that, before a man knows where he is, a glassful of it
+      has eaten a hole through his stomach, and made him feel as though he could
+      drink a pail of water. Yes, it knocks a man over before he can look
+      around. Everywhere temptation lies in wait for the peasant, and he needs
+      to be cunning if he is to get through the world at all. In fact, things
+      seem to be contrived for nothing but to make us peasants lose our wits,
+      even to the tobacco which they sell us. What are folk like ourselves to
+      do, Constantine Thedorovitch? I tell you it is terribly difficult for a
+      muzhik to look after himself.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen to me. This is how things are done here. When I take on a serf, I
+      fit him out with a cow and a horse. On the other hand, I demand of him
+      thereafter more than is demanded of a peasant anywhere else. That is to
+      say, first and foremost I make him work. Whether a peasant be working for
+      himself or for me, never do I let him waste time. I myself toil like a
+      bullock, and I force my peasants to do the same, for experience has taught
+      me that that is the only way to get through life. All the mischief in the
+      world comes through lack of employment. Now, do you go and consider the
+      matter, and talk it over with your mir <a href="#linknote-48"
+       name="linknoteref-48" id="linknoteref-48"><small>48</small></a>.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “We have done that already, Constantine Thedorovitch, and our elders’
+      opinion is: ‘There is no need for further talk. Every peasant belonging to
+      Constantine Thedorovitch is well off, and hasn’t to work for nothing. The
+      priests of his village, too, are men of good heart, whereas ours have been
+      taken away, and there is no one to bury us.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, do you go and talk the matter over again.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “We will, barin.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the factor who had been walking on the barin’s other side put in a
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine Thedorovitch,” he said, “I beg of you to do as I have
+      requested.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have told you before,” replied the barin, “that I do not care to play
+      the huckster. I am not one of those landowners whom fellows of your sort
+      visit on the very day that the interest on a mortgage is due. Ah, I know
+      your fraternity thoroughly, and know that you keep lists of all who have
+      mortgages to repay. But what is there so clever about that? Any man, if
+      you pinch him sufficiently, will surrender you a mortgage at half-price,&mdash;any
+      man, that is to say, except myself, who care nothing for your money. Were
+      a loan of mine to remain out three years, I should never demand a kopeck
+      of interest on it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, Constantine Thedorovitch,” replied the factor. “But I am asking
+      this of you more for the purpose of establishing us on a business footing
+      than because I desire to win your favour. Prey, therefore, accept this
+      earnest money of three thousand roubles.” And the man drew from his breast
+      pocket a dirty roll of bank-notes, which, carelessly receiving,
+      Kostanzhoglo thrust, uncounted, into the back pocket of his overcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hm!” thought Chichikov. “For all he cares, the notes might have been a
+      handkerchief.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Kostanzhoglo appeared at closer quarters&mdash;that is to say, in the
+      doorway of the drawing-room&mdash;he struck Chichikov more than ever with
+      the swarthiness of his complexion, the dishevelment of his black, slightly
+      grizzled locks, the alertness of his eye, and the impression of fiery
+      southern origin which his whole personality diffused. For he was not
+      wholly a Russian, nor could he himself say precisely who his forefathers
+      had been. Yet, inasmuch as he accounted genealogical research no part of
+      the science of estate-management, but a mere superfluity, he looked upon
+      himself as, to all intents and purposes, a native of Russia, and the more
+      so since the Russian language was the only tongue he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon presented Chichikov, and the pair exchanged greetings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To get rid of my depression, Constantine,” continued Platon, “I am
+      thinking of accompanying our guest on a tour through a few of the
+      provinces.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “An excellent idea,” said Kostanzhoglo. “But precisely whither?” he added,
+      turning hospitably to Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “To tell you the truth,” replied that personage with an affable
+      inclination of the head as he smoothed the arm of his chair with his hand,
+      “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of others.
+      That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and, I might add,
+      a generous benefactor, of mine, has charged me with commissions to some of
+      his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are relatives, I may say
+      that I am travelling on my own account as well, in that, in addition to
+      possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the world and the whirligig
+      of humanity, which constitute, so to speak, a living book, a second course
+      of education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, there is no harm in looking at other corners of the world besides
+      one’s own.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You speak truly. There IS no harm in such a proceeding. Thereby one may
+      see things which one has not before encountered, one may meet men with
+      whom one has not before come in contact. And with some men of that kind a
+      conversation is as precious a benefit as has been conferred upon me by the
+      present occasion. I come to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch, for
+      instruction, and again for instruction, and beg of you to assuage my
+      thirst with an exposition of the truth as it is. I hunger for the favour
+      of your words as for manna.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how so? What can <i>I</i> teach you?” exclaimed Kostanzhoglo in
+      confusion. “I myself was given but the plainest of educations.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay, most worthy sir, you possess wisdom, and again wisdom. Wisdom only
+      can direct the management of a great estate, that can derive a sound
+      income from the same, that can acquire wealth of a real, not a fictitious,
+      order while also fulfilling the duties of a citizen and thereby earning
+      the respect of the Russian public. All this I pray you to teach me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I tell you what,” said Kostanzhoglo, looking meditatively at his guest.
+      “You had better stay with me for a few days, and during that time I can
+      show you how things are managed here, and explain to you everything. Then
+      you will see for yourself that no great wisdom is required for the
+      purpose.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, certainly you must stay here,” put in the lady of the house. Then,
+      turning to her brother, she added: “And you too must stay. Why should you
+      be in such a hurry?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” he replied. “But what say YOU, Paul Ivanovitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I say the same as you, and with much pleasure,” replied Chichikov. “But
+      also I ought to tell you this: that there is a relative of General
+      Betristchev’s, a certain Colonel Koshkarev&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, we know him; but he is quite mad.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As you say, he is mad, and I should not have been intending to visit him,
+      were it not that General Betristchev is an intimate friend of mine, as
+      well as, I might add, my most generous benefactor.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then,” said Kostanzhoglo, “do you go and see Colonel Koshkarev NOW. He
+      lives less than ten versts from here, and I have a gig already harnessed.
+      Go to him at once, and return here for tea.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “An excellent idea!” cried Chichikov, and with that he seized his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour’s drive sufficed to bring him to the Colonel’s establishment.
+      The village attached to the manor was in a state of utter confusion, since
+      in every direction building and repairing operations were in progress, and
+      the alleys were choked with heaps of lime, bricks, and beams of wood.
+      Also, some of the huts were arranged to resemble offices, and superscribed
+      in gilt letters “Depot for Agricultural Implements,” “Chief Office of
+      Accounts,” “Estate Works Committee,” “Normal School for the Education of
+      Colonists,” and so forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov found the Colonel posted behind a desk and holding a pen between
+      his teeth. Without an instant’s delay the master of the establishment&mdash;who
+      seemed a kindly, approachable man, and accorded to his visitor a very
+      civil welcome&mdash;plunged into a recital of the labour which it had cost
+      him to bring the property to its present condition of affluence. Then he
+      went on to lament the fact that he could not make his peasantry understand
+      the incentives to labour which the riches of science and art provide; for
+      instance, he had failed to induce his female serfs to wear corsets,
+      whereas in Germany, where he had resided for fourteen years, every humble
+      miller’s daughter could play the piano. None the less, he said, he meant
+      to peg away until every peasant on the estate should, as he walked behind
+      the plough, indulge in a regular course of reading Franklin’s Notes on
+      Electricity, Virgil’s Georgics, or some work on the chemical properties of
+      soil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good gracious!” mentally exclaimed Chichikov. “Why, I myself have not had
+      time to finish that book by the Duchesse de la Valliere!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Much else the Colonel said. In particular did he aver that, provided the
+      Russian peasant could be induced to array himself in German costume,
+      science would progress, trade increase, and the Golden Age dawn in Russia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a while Chichikov listened with distended eyes. Then he felt
+      constrained to intimate that with all that he had nothing to do, seeing
+      that his business was merely to acquire a few souls, and thereafter to
+      have their purchase confirmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “If I understand you aright,” said the Colonel, “you wish to present a
+      Statement of Plea?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, that is so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then kindly put it into writing, and it shall be forwarded to the Office
+      for the Reception of Reports and Returns. Thereafter that Office will
+      consider it, and return it to me, who will, in turn, dispatch it to the
+      Estate Works Committee, who will, in turn, revise it, and present it to
+      the Administrator, who, jointly with the Secretary, will&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me,” expostulated Chichikov, “but that procedure will take up a
+      great deal of time. Why need I put the matter into writing at all? It is
+      simply this. I want a few souls which are&mdash;well, which are, so to
+      speak, dead.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very good,” commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your Statement
+      of Plea that the souls which you desire are, ‘so to speak, dead.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what would be the use of my doing so? Though the souls are dead, my
+      purpose requires that they should be represented as alive.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very good,” again commented the Colonel. “Do you write down in your
+      Statement that ‘it is necessary’ (or, should you prefer an alternative
+      phrase, ‘it is requested,’ or ‘it is desiderated,’ or ‘it is prayed,’)
+      ‘that the souls be represented as alive.’ At all events, WITHOUT
+      documentary process of that kind, the matter cannot possibly be carried
+      through. Also, I will appoint a Commissioner to guide you round the
+      various Offices.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he sounded a bell; whereupon there presented himself a man whom,
+      addressing as “Secretary,” the Colonel instructed to summon the
+      “Commissioner.” The latter, on appearing, was seen to have the air, half
+      of a peasant, half of an official.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This man,” the Colonel said to Chichikov, “will act as your escort.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What could be done with a lunatic like Koshkarev? In the end, curiosity
+      moved Chichikov to accompany the Commissioner. The Committee for the
+      Reception of Reports and Returns was discovered to have put up its
+      shutters, and to have locked its doors, for the reason that the Director
+      of the Committee had been transferred to the newly-formed Committee of
+      Estate Management, and his successor had been annexed by the same
+      Committee. Next, Chichikov and his escort rapped at the doors of the
+      Department of Estate Affairs; but that Department’s quarters happened to
+      be in a state of repair, and no one could be made to answer the summons
+      save a drunken peasant from whom not a word of sense was to be extracted.
+      At length the escort felt himself moved to remark:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “There is a deal of foolishness going on here. Fellows like that drunkard
+      lead the barin by the nose, and everything is ruled by the Committee of
+      Management, which takes men from their proper work, and sets them to do
+      any other it likes. Indeed, only through the Committee does ANYTHING get
+      done.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time Chichikov felt that he had seen enough; wherefore he returned
+      to the Colonel, and informed him that the Office for the Reception of
+      Reports and Returns had ceased to exist. At once the Colonel flamed to
+      noble rage. Pressing Chichikov’s hand in token of gratitude for the
+      information which the guest had furnished, he took paper and pen, and
+      noted eight searching questions under three separate headings: (1) “Why
+      has the Committee of Management presumed to issue orders to officials not
+      under its jurisdiction?” (2) “Why has the Chief Manager permitted his
+      predecessor, though still in retention of his post, to follow him to
+      another Department?” and (3) “Why has the Committee of Estate Affairs
+      suffered the Office for the Reception of Reports and Returns to lapse?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Now for a row!” thought Chichikov to himself, and turned to depart; but
+      his host stopped him, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I cannot let you go, for, in addition to my honour having become
+      involved, it behoves me to show my people how the regular, the organised,
+      administration of an estate may be conducted. Herewith I will hand over
+      the conduct of your affair to a man who is worth all the rest of the staff
+      put together, and has had a university education. Also, the better to lose
+      no time, may I humbly beg you to step into my library, where you will find
+      notebooks, paper, pens, and everything else that you may require. Of these
+      articles pray make full use, for you are a gentleman of letters, and it is
+      your and my joint duty to bring enlightenment to all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, he ushered his guest into a large room lined from floor to
+      ceiling with books and stuffed specimens. The books in question were
+      divided into sections&mdash;a section on forestry, a section on
+      cattle-breeding, a section on the raising of swine, and a section on
+      horticulture, together with special journals of the type circulated merely
+      for the purposes of reference, and not for general reading. Perceiving
+      that these works were scarcely of a kind calculated to while away an idle
+      hour, Chichikov turned to a second bookcase. But to do so was to fall out
+      of the frying-pan into the fire, for the contents of the second bookcase
+      proved to be works on philosophy, while, in particular, six huge volumes
+      confronted him under a label inscribed “A Preparatory Course to the
+      Province of Thought, with the Theory of Community of Effort, Co-operation,
+      and Subsistence, in its Application to a Right Understanding of the
+      Organic Principles of a Mutual Division of Social Productivity.” Indeed,
+      wheresoever Chichikov looked, every page presented to his vision some such
+      words as “phenomenon,” “development,” “abstract,” “contents,” and
+      “synopsis.” “This is not the sort of thing for me,” he murmured, and
+      turned his attention to a third bookcase, which contained books on the
+      Arts. Extracting a huge tome in which some by no means reticent
+      mythological illustrations were contained, he set himself to examine these
+      pictures. They were of the kind which pleases mostly middle-aged bachelors
+      and old men who are accustomed to seek in the ballet and similar
+      frivolities a further spur to their waning passions. Having concluded his
+      examination, Chichikov had just extracted another volume of the same
+      species when Colonel Koshkarev returned with a document of some sort and a
+      radiant countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Everything has been carried through in due form!” he cried. “The man whom
+      I mentioned is a genius indeed, and I intend not only to promote him over
+      the rest, but also to create for him a special Department. Herewith shall
+      you hear what a splendid intellect is his, and how in a few minutes he has
+      put the whole affair in order.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “May the Lord be thanked for that!” thought Chichikov. Then he settled
+      himself while the Colonel read aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘After giving full consideration to the Reference which your Excellency
+      has entrusted to me, I have the honour to report as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘(1) In the Statement of Plea presented by one Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov,
+      Gentleman, Chevalier, and Collegiate Councillor, there lurks an error, in
+      that an oversight has led the Petitioner to apply to Revisional Souls the
+      term “Dead.” Now, from the context it would appear that by this term the
+      Petitioner desires to signify Souls Approaching Death rather than Souls
+      Actually Deceased: wherefore the term employed betrays such an empirical
+      instruction in letters as must, beyond doubt, have been confined to the
+      Village School, seeing that in truth the Soul is Deathless.’
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The rascal!” Koshkarev broke off to exclaim delightedly. “He has got you
+      there, Monsieur Chichikov. And you will admit that he has a sufficiently
+      incisive pen?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “‘(2) On this Estate there exist no Unmortgaged Souls whatsoever, whether
+      Approaching Death or Otherwise; for the reason that all Souls thereon have
+      been pledged not only under a First Deed of Mortgage, but also (for the
+      sum of One Hundred and Fifty Roubles per Soul) under a Second,&mdash;the
+      village of Gurmailovka alone excepted, in that, in consequence of a Suit
+      having been brought against Landowner Priadistchev, and of a caveat having
+      been pronounced by the Land Court, and of such caveat having been
+      published in No. 42 of the Gazette of Moscow, the said Village has come
+      within the Jurisdiction of the Court Above-Mentioned.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Why did you not tell me all this before?” cried Chichikov furiously. “Why
+      you have kept me dancing about for nothing?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because it was absolutely necessary that you should view the matter
+      through forms of documentary process. This is no jest on my part. The
+      inexperienced may see things subconsciously, yet it is imperative that he
+      should also see them CONSCIOUSLY.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But to Chichikov’s patience an end had come. Seizing his cap, and casting
+      all ceremony to the winds, he fled from the house, and rushed through the
+      courtyard. As it happened, the man who had driven him thither had, warned
+      by experience, not troubled even to take out the horses, since he knew
+      that such a proceeding would have entailed not only the presentation of a
+      Statement of Plea for fodder, but also a delay of twenty-four hours until
+      the Resolution granting the same should have been passed. Nevertheless the
+      Colonel pursued his guest to the gates, and pressed his hand warmly as he
+      thanked him for having enabled him (the Colonel) thus to exhibit in
+      operation the proper management of an estate. Also, he begged to state
+      that, under the circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to keep things
+      moving and circulating, since, otherwise, slackness was apt to supervene,
+      and the working of the machine to grow rusty and feeble; but that, in
+      spite of all, the present occasion had inspired him with a happy idea&mdash;namely,
+      the idea of instituting a Committee which should be entitled “The
+      Committee of Supervision of the Committee of Management,” and which should
+      have for its function the detection of backsliders among the body first
+      mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was late when, tired and dissatisfied, Chichikov regained
+      Kostanzhoglo’s mansion. Indeed, the candles had long been lit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What has delayed you?” asked the master of the house as Chichikov entered
+      the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, what has kept you and the Colonel so long in conversation together?”
+       added Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This&mdash;the fact that never in my life have I come across such an
+      imbecile,” was Chichikov’s reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind,” said Kostanzhoglo. “Koshkarev is a most reassuring
+      phenomenon. He is necessary in that in him we see expressed in caricature
+      all the more crying follies of our intellectuals&mdash;of the
+      intellectuals who, without first troubling to make themselves acquainted
+      with their own country, borrow silliness from abroad. Yet that is how
+      certain of our landowners are now carrying on. They have set up ‘offices’
+      and factories and schools and ‘commissions,’ and the devil knows what else
+      besides. A fine lot of wiseacres! After the French War in 1812 they had to
+      reconstruct their affairs: and see how they have done it! Yet so much
+      worse have they done it than a Frenchman would have done that any fool of
+      a Peter Petrovitch Pietukh now ranks as a good landowner!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But he has mortgaged the whole of his estate?” remarked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, nowadays everything is being mortgaged, or is going to be.” This
+      said, Kostanzhoglo’s temper rose still further. “Out upon your factories
+      of hats and candles!” he cried. “Out upon procuring candle-makers from
+      London, and then turning landowners into hucksters! To think of a Russian
+      pomiestchik <a href="#linknote-49" name="linknoteref-49" id="linknoteref-49"><small>49</small></a>, a member of the noblest of
+      callings, conducting workshops and cotton mills! Why, it is for the
+      wenches of towns to handle looms for muslin and lace.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But you yourself maintain workshops?” remarked Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
+      instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
+      began to weave it into cloth&mdash;but, mark you, only into good, plain
+      cloth of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and
+      which is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on end
+      did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the river;
+      wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I took to
+      boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by the process.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself as he stared at his host. “What
+      a fist this man has for making money!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Another reason why I started those factories,” continued Kostanzhoglo,
+      “is that they might give employment to many peasants who would otherwise
+      have starved. You see, the year happened to have been a lean one&mdash;thanks
+      to those same industry-mongering landowners, in that they had neglected to
+      sow their crops; and now my factories keep growing at the rate of a
+      factory a year, owing to the circumstance that such quantities of remnants
+      and cuttings become so accumulated that, if a man looks carefully to his
+      management, he will find every sort of rubbish to be capable of bringing
+      in a return&mdash;yes, to the point of his having to reject money on the
+      plea that he has no need of it. Yet I do not find that to do all this I
+      require to build a mansion with facades and pillars!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Marvellous!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Beyond all things does it surprise me
+      that refuse can be so utilised.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays every
+      one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an instrument
+      instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England. Yes, THAT is
+      the thing to do. What folly!” Kostanzhoglo spat and added: “Yet when he
+      returns from abroad he is a hundred times more ignorant than when he
+      went.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Constantine,” put in his wife anxiously, “you know how bad for you it
+      is to talk like this.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too
+      closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character should
+      be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort of
+      Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man get a
+      little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote, and
+      establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would never have
+      dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who is good for
+      nothing, whether in the country or in the town&mdash;a fellow who drinks
+      and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our landowners keep
+      taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into philanthropic
+      knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless hospitals and
+      institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning their families adrift.
+      Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov’s business had nothing to do with the spread of enlightenment,
+      he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further concerning the
+      putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo would not let him
+      get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow of sarcastic comment
+      pour from the speaker’s lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” went on Kostanzhoglo, “folk are always scheming to educate the
+      peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will
+      educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown stupid
+      to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our present-day
+      scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and at once you
+      will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will you find folk
+      saying: ‘The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought to be
+      familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above his
+      station.’ And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant will
+      become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only knows what
+      diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of eighteen who
+      will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and found himself left
+      with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate. Yes, that is what will
+      come of infecting the peasant with such rubbish. But, thank God, there is
+      still one healthy class left to us&mdash;a class which has never taken up
+      with the ‘advantages’ of which I speak. For that we ought to be grateful.
+      And since, even yet, the Russian agriculturist remains the most
+      respect-worthy man in the land, why should he be touched? Would to God
+      every one were an agriculturist!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of occupations?”
+       said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The best, at all events&mdash;if not the most profitable. ‘In the sweat
+      of thy brow shalt thou till the land.’ To quote that requires no great
+      wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the agricultural
+      calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure, more noble than in
+      any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no other calling ought to
+      be practised: simply that the calling in question lies at the root of all
+      the rest. However much factories may be established privately or by the
+      law, there will still lie ready to man’s hand all that he needs&mdash;he
+      will still require none of those amenities which are sapping the vitality
+      of our present-day folk, nor any of those industrial establishments which
+      make their profit, and keep themselves going, by causing foolish measures
+      to be adopted which, in the end, are bound to deprave and corrupt our
+      unfortunate masses. I myself am determined never to establish any
+      manufacture, however profitable, which will give rise to a demand for
+      ‘higher things,’ such as sugar and tobacco&mdash;no not if I lose a
+      million by my refusing to do so. If corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it
+      shall not be through my hands. And I think that God will justify me in my
+      resolve. Twenty years have I lived among the common folk, and I know what
+      will inevitably come of such things.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what surprises me most,” persisted Chichikov, “is that from refuse it
+      should be possible, with good management, to make such an immensity of
+      profit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And as for political economy,” continued Kostanzhoglo, without noticing
+      him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, “&mdash;as for
+      political economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool sitting on
+      another fool’s back, and flogging him along, even though the rider can see
+      no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle will that fool climb&mdash;spectacles
+      and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of such things!” And the speaker spat
+      derisively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That may be true,” said his wife. “Yet you must not get angry about it.
+      Surely one can speak on such subjects without losing one’s temper?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “As I listen to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch,” Chichikov
+      hastened to remark, “it becomes plain to me that you have penetrated into
+      the meaning of life, and laid your finger upon the essential root of the
+      matter. Yet supposing, for a moment, we leave the affairs of humanity in
+      general, and turn our attention to a purely individual affair, might I ask
+      you how, in the case of a man becoming a landowner, and having a mind to
+      grow wealthy as quickly as possible (in order that he may fulfil his
+      bounden obligations as a citizen), he can best set about it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How he can best set about growing wealthy?” repeated Kostanzhoglo. “Why,&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let us go to supper,” interrupted the lady of the house, rising from her
+      chair, and moving towards the centre of the room, where she wrapped her
+      shivering young form in a shawl. Chichikov sprang up with the alacrity of
+      a military man, offered her his arm, and escorted her, as on parade, to
+      the dining-room, where awaiting them there was the soup-toureen. From it
+      the lid had just been removed, and the room was redolent of the fragrant
+      odour of early spring roots and herbs. The company took their seats, and
+      at once the servants placed the remainder of the dishes (under covers)
+      upon the table and withdrew, for Kostanzhoglo hated to have servants
+      listening to their employers’ conversation, and objected still more to
+      their staring at him all the while that he was eating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the soup had been consumed, and glasses of an excellent vintage
+      resembling Hungarian wine had been poured out, Chichikov said to his host:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Most worthy sir, allow me once more to direct your attention to the
+      subject of which we were speaking at the point when the conversation
+      became interrupted. You will remember that I was asking you how best a man
+      can set about, proceed in, the matter of growing...”
+     </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+           [Here from the original two pages are missing.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      ... “A property for which, had he asked forty thousand, I should still
+      have demanded a reduction.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hm!” thought Chichikov; then added aloud: “But why do you not purchase it
+      yourself?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Because to everything there must be assigned a limit. Already my property
+      keeps me sufficiently employed. Moreover, I should cause our local
+      dvoriane to begin crying out in chorus that I am exploiting their
+      extremities, their ruined position, for the purpose of acquiring land for
+      under its value. Of that I am weary.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How readily folk speak evil!” exclaimed Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, and the amount of evil-speaking in our province surpasses belief.
+      Never will you hear my name mentioned without my being called also a miser
+      and a usurer of the worst possible sort; whereas my accusers justify
+      themselves in everything, and say that, ‘though we have wasted our money,
+      we have started a demand for the higher amenities of life, and therefore
+      encouraged industry with our wastefulness, a far better way of doing
+      things than that practised by Kostanzhoglo, who lives like a pig.’”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would <i>I</i> could live in your ‘piggish’ fashion!” ejaculated
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And so forth, and so forth. Yet what are the ‘higher amenities of life’?
+      What good can they do to any one? Even if a landowner of the day sets up a
+      library, he never looks at a single book in it, but soon relapses into
+      card-playing&mdash;the usual pursuit. Yet folk call me names simply
+      because I do not waste my means upon the giving of dinners! One reason why
+      I do not give such dinners is that they weary me; and another reason is
+      that I am not used to them. But come you to my house for the purpose of
+      taking pot luck, and I shall be delighted to see you. Also, folk foolishly
+      say that I lend money on interest; whereas the truth is that if you should
+      come to me when you are really in need, and should explain to me openly
+      how you propose to employ my money, and I should perceive that you are
+      purposing to use that money wisely, and that you are really likely to
+      profit thereby&mdash;well, in that case you would find me ready to lend
+      you all that you might ask without interest at all.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That is a thing which it is well to know,” reflected Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” repeated Kostanzhoglo, “under those circumstances I should never
+      refuse you my assistance. But I do object to throwing my money to the
+      winds. Pardon me for expressing myself so plainly. To think of lending
+      money to a man who is merely devising a dinner for his mistress, or
+      planning to furnish his house like a lunatic, or thinking of taking his
+      paramour to a masked ball or a jubilee in honour of some one who had
+      better never have been born!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, spitting, he came near to venting some expression which would
+      scarcely have been becoming in the presence of his wife. Over his face the
+      dark shadow of hypochondria had cast a cloud, and furrows had formed on
+      his brow and temples, and his every gesture bespoke the influence of a
+      hot, nervous rancour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “But allow me once more to direct your attention to the subject of our
+      recently interrupted conversation,” persisted Chichikov as he sipped a
+      glass of excellent raspberry wine. “That is to say, supposing I were to
+      acquire the property which you have been good enough to bring to my
+      notice, how long would it take me to grow rich?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That would depend on yourself,” replied Kostanzhoglo with grim abruptness
+      and evident ill-humour. “You might either grow rich quickly or you might
+      never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow rich, sooner or
+      later you would find yourself a wealthy man.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” ejaculated Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes,” replied Kostanzhoglo, as sharply as though he were angry with
+      Chichikov. “You would merely need to be fond of work: otherwise you would
+      effect nothing. The main thing is to like looking after your property.
+      Believe me, you would never grow weary of doing so. People would have it
+      that life in the country is dull; whereas, if I were to spend a single day
+      as it is spent by some folk, with their stupid clubs and their restaurants
+      and their theatres, I should die of ennui. The fools, the idiots, the
+      generations of blind dullards! But a landowner never finds the days
+      wearisome&mdash;he has not the time. In his life not a moment remains
+      unoccupied; it is full to the brim. And with it all goes an endless
+      variety of occupations. And what occupations! Occupations which genuinely
+      uplift the soul, seeing that the landowner walks with nature and the
+      seasons of the year, and takes part in, and is intimate with, everything
+      which is evolved by creation. For let us look at the round of the year’s
+      labours. Even before spring has arrived there will have begun a general
+      watching and a waiting for it, and a preparing for sowing, and an
+      apportioning of crops, and a measuring of seed grain by byres, and drying
+      of seed, and a dividing of the workers into teams. For everything needs to
+      be examined beforehand, and calculations must be made at the very start.
+      And as soon as ever the ice shall have melted, and the rivers be flowing,
+      and the land have dried sufficiently to be workable, the spade will begin
+      its task in kitchen and flower garden, and the plough and the harrow their
+      tasks in the field; until everywhere there will be tilling and sowing and
+      planting. And do you understand what the sum of that labour will mean? It
+      will mean that the harvest is being sown, that the welfare of the world is
+      being sown, that the food of millions is being put into the earth. And
+      thereafter will come summer, the season of reaping, endless reaping; for
+      suddenly the crops will have ripened, and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped
+      upon rye-sheaf, with, elsewhere, stocks of barley, and of oats, and of
+      wheat. And everything will be teeming with life, and not a moment will
+      there need to be lost, seeing that, had you even twenty eyes, you would
+      have need for them all. And after the harvest festivities there will be
+      grain to be carted to byre or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared
+      for the winter, and storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned
+      for the same purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the
+      totals of everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of
+      what has been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every
+      threshing-floor the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed,
+      will need to be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be
+      seen to, and the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen’s huts
+      to be visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is faring
+      (for, given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one, am only
+      too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering to me is
+      labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which everything is
+      moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are everywhere
+      multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more fruit to
+      one’s profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes place in a man’s
+      soul. And that, not because of the growth in his wealth&mdash;money is
+      money and no more&mdash;but because he will feel that everything is the
+      work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause of everything, and
+      its creator, and that from him, as from a magician, there has flowed
+      bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will you find such
+      delights in prospect?” As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised his face, and it
+      became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and that, like the Tsar
+      on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo’s whole form was diffusing
+      light, and his features had in them a gentle radiance. “In all the world,”
+       he repeated, “you will find no joys like these, for herein man imitates
+      the God who projected creation as the supreme happiness, and now demands
+      of man that he, too, should act as the creator of prosperity. Yet there
+      are folk who call such functions tedious!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kostanzhoglo’s mellifluous periods fell upon Chichikov’s ear like the
+      notes of a bird of paradise. From time to time he gulped, and his softened
+      eyes expressed the pleasure which it gave him to listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine, it is time to leave the table,” said the lady of the house,
+      rising from her seat. Every one followed her example, and Chichikov once
+      again acted as his hostess’s escort&mdash;although with less dexterity of
+      deportment than before, owing to the fact that this time his thoughts were
+      occupied with more essential matters of procedure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “In spite of what you say,” remarked Platon as he walked behind the pair,
+      “I, for my part, find these things wearisome.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the master of the house paid no attention to his remark, for he was
+      reflecting that his guest was no fool, but a man of serious thought and
+      speech who did not take things lightly. And, with the thought,
+      Kostanzhoglo grew lighter in soul, as though he had warmed himself with
+      his own words, and were exulting in the fact that he had found some one
+      capable of listening to good advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had settled themselves in the cosy, candle-lighted drawing-room,
+      with its balcony and the glass door opening out into the garden&mdash;a
+      door through which the stars could be seen glittering amid the slumbering
+      tops of the trees&mdash;Chichikov felt more comfortable than he had done
+      for many a day past. It was as though, after long journeying, his own
+      roof-tree had received him once more&mdash;had received him when his quest
+      had been accomplished, when all that he wished for had been gained, when
+      his travelling-staff had been laid aside with the words “It is finished.”
+       And of this seductive frame of mind the true source had been the eloquent
+      discourse of his hospitable host. Yes, for every man there exist certain
+      things which, instantly that they are said, seem to touch him more
+      closely, more intimately, than anything has done before. Nor is it an
+      uncommon occurrence that in the most unexpected fashion, and in the most
+      retired of retreats, one will suddenly come face to face with a man whose
+      burning periods will lead one to forget oneself and the tracklessness of
+      the route and the discomfort of one’s nightly halting-places, and the
+      futility of crazes and the falseness of tricks by which one human being
+      deceives another. And at once there will become engraven upon one’s memory&mdash;vividly,
+      and for all time&mdash;the evening thus spent. And of that evening one’s
+      remembrance will hold true, both as to who was present, and where each
+      such person sat, and what he or she was wearing, and what the walls and
+      the stove and other trifling features of the room looked like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same way did Chichikov note each detail that evening&mdash;both the
+      appointments of the agreeable, but not luxuriously furnished, room, and
+      the good-humoured expression which reigned on the face of the thoughtful
+      host, and the design of the curtains, and the amber-mounted pipe smoked by
+      Platon, and the way in which he kept puffing smoke into the fat jowl of
+      the dog Yarb, and the sneeze which, on each such occasion, Yarb vented,
+      and the laughter of the pleasant-faced hostess (though always followed by
+      the words “Pray do not tease him any more”) and the cheerful candle-light,
+      and the cricket chirping in a corner, and the glass door, and the spring
+      night which, laying its elbows upon the tree-tops, and spangled with
+      stars, and vocal with the nightingales which were pouring forth warbled
+      ditties from the recesses of the foliage, kept glancing through the door,
+      and regarding the company within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How it delights me to hear your words, good Constantine Thedorovitch!”
+       said Chichikov. “Indeed, nowhere in Russia have I met with a man of equal
+      intellect.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kostanzhoglo smiled, while realising that the compliment was scarcely
+      deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “If you want a man of GENUINE intellect,” he said, “I can tell you of one.
+      He is a man whose boot soles are worth more than my whole body.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who may he be?” asked Chichikov in astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Murazov, our local Commissioner of Taxes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah! I have heard of him before,” remarked Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “He is a man who, were he not the director of an estate, might well be a
+      director of the Empire. And were the Empire under my direction, I should
+      at once appoint him my Minister of Finance.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have heard tales beyond belief concerning him&mdash;for instance, that
+      he has acquired ten million roubles.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ten? More than forty. Soon half Russia will be in his hands.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You don’t say so?” cried Chichikov in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, certainly. The man who has only a hundred thousand roubles to work
+      with grows rich but slowly, whereas he who has millions at his disposal
+      can operate over a greater radius, and so back whatsoever he undertakes
+      with twice or thrice the money which can be brought against him.
+      Consequently his field becomes so spacious that he ends by having no
+      rivals. Yes, no one can compete with him, and, whatsoever price he may fix
+      for a given commodity, at that price it will have to remain, nor will any
+      man be able to outbid it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My God!” muttered Chichikov, crossing himself, and staring at
+      Kostanzhoglo with his breath catching in his throat. “The mind cannot
+      grasp it&mdash;it petrifies one’s thoughts with awe. You see folk
+      marvelling at what Science has achieved in the matter of investigating the
+      habits of cowbugs, but to me it is a far more marvellous thing that in the
+      hands of a single mortal there can become accumulated such gigantic sums
+      of money. But may I ask whether the great fortune of which you speak has
+      been acquired through honest means?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; through means of the most irreproachable kind&mdash;through the most
+      honourable of methods.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet so improbable does it seem that I can scarcely believe it. Thousands
+      I could understand, but millions&mdash;!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “On the contrary, to make thousands honestly is a far more difficult
+      matter than to make millions. Millions are easily come by, for a
+      millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways; the way lies straight
+      before him, and he needs but to annex whatsoever he comes across. No rival
+      will spring up to oppose him, for no rival will be sufficiently strong,
+      and since the millionaire can operate over an extensive radius, he can
+      bring (as I have said) two or three roubles to bear upon any one else’s
+      one. Consequently, what interest will he derive from a thousand roubles?
+      Why, ten or twenty per cent. at the least.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And it is beyond measure marvellous that the whole should have started
+      from a single kopeck.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Had it started otherwise, the thing could never have been done at all.
+      Such is the normal course. He who is born with thousands, and is brought
+      up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for he will have
+      been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and so never come to
+      stand in need of anything. It is necessary to begin from the beginning
+      rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather than from a rouble; from
+      the bottom rather than from the top. For only thus will a man get to know
+      the men and conditions among which his career will have to be carved. That
+      is to say, through encountering the rough and the tumble of life, and
+      through learning that every kopeck has to be beaten out with a
+      three-kopeck nail, and through worsting knave after knave, he will acquire
+      such a degree of perspicuity and wariness that he will err in nothing
+      which he may tackle, and never come to ruin. Believe me, it is so. The
+      beginning, and not the middle, is the right starting point. No one who
+      comes to me and says, ‘Give me a hundred thousand roubles, and I will grow
+      rich in no time,’ do I believe, for he is likely to meet with failure
+      rather than with the success of which he is so assured. ’Tis with a
+      kopeck, and with a kopeck only, that a man must begin.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “If that is so, <i>I</i> shall grow rich,” said Chichikov, involuntarily
+      remembering the dead souls. “For of a surety <i>I</i> began with nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Constantine, pray allow Paul Ivanovitch to retire to rest,” put in the
+      lady of the house. “It is high time, and I am sure you have talked
+      enough.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, beyond a doubt you will grow rich,” continued Kostanzhoglo, without
+      heeding his wife. “For towards you there will run rivers and rivers of
+      gold, until you will not know what to do with all your gains.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though spellbound, Chichikov sat in an aureate world of ever-growing
+      dreams and fantasies. All his thoughts were in a whirl, and on a carpet of
+      future wealth his tumultuous imagination was weaving golden patterns,
+      while ever in his ears were ringing the words, “towards you there will run
+      rivers and rivers of gold.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really, Constantine, DO allow Paul Ivanovitch to go to bed.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What on earth is the matter?” retorted the master of the household
+      testily. “Pray go yourself if you wish to.” Then he stopped short, for the
+      snoring of Platon was filling the whole room, and also&mdash;outrivalling
+      it&mdash;that of the dog Yarb. This caused Kostanzhoglo to realise that
+      bedtime really had arrived; wherefore, after he had shaken Platon out of
+      his slumbers, and bidden Chichikov good night, all dispersed to their
+      several chambers, and became plunged in sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All, that is to say, except Chichikov, whose thoughts remained wakeful,
+      and who kept wondering and wondering how best he could become the owner,
+      not of a fictitious, but of a real, estate. The conversation with his host
+      had made everything clear, had made the possibility of his acquiring
+      riches manifest, had made the difficult art of estate management at once
+      easy and understandable; until it would seem as though particularly was
+      his nature adapted for mastering the art in question. All that he would
+      need to do would be to mortgage the dead souls, and then to set up a
+      genuine establishment. Already he saw himself acting and administering as
+      Kostanzhoglo had advised him&mdash;energetically, and through personal
+      oversight, and undertaking nothing new until the old had been thoroughly
+      learned, and viewing everything with his own eyes, and making himself
+      familiar with each member of his peasantry, and abjuring all
+      superfluities, and giving himself up to hard work and husbandry. Yes,
+      already could he taste the pleasure which would be his when he had built
+      up a complete industrial organisation, and the springs of the industrial
+      machine were in vigorous working order, and each had become able to
+      reinforce the other. Labour should be kept in active operation, and, even
+      as, in a mill, flour comes flowing from grain, so should cash, and yet
+      more cash, come flowing from every atom of refuse and remnant. And all the
+      while he could see before him the landowner who was one of the leading men
+      in Russia, and for whom he had conceived such an unbounded respect.
+      Hitherto only for rank or for opulence had Chichikov respected a man&mdash;never
+      for mere intellectual power; but now he made a first exception in favour
+      of Kostanzhoglo, seeing that he felt that nothing undertaken by his host
+      could possibly come to naught. And another project which was occupying
+      Chichikov’s mind was the project of purchasing the estate of a certain
+      landowner named Khlobuev. Already Chichikov had at his disposal ten
+      thousand roubles, and a further fifteen thousand he would try and borrow
+      of Kostanzhoglo (seeing that the latter had himself said that he was
+      prepared to help any one who really desired to grow rich); while, as for
+      the remainder, he would either raise the sum by mortgaging the estate or
+      force Khlobuev to wait for it&mdash;just to tell him to resort to the
+      courts if such might be his pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long did our hero ponder the scheme; until at length the slumber which
+      had, these four hours past, been holding the rest of the household in its
+      embraces enfolded also Chichikov, and he sank into oblivion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h3>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Next day, with Platon and Constantine, Chichikov set forth to interview
+      Khlobuev, the owner whose estate Constantine had consented to help
+      Chichikov to purchase with a non-interest-bearing, uncovenanted loan of
+      ten thousand roubles. Naturally, our hero was in the highest of spirits.
+      For the first fifteen versts or so the road led through forest land and
+      tillage belonging to Platon and his brother-in-law; but directly the limit
+      of these domains was reached, forest land began to be replaced with swamp,
+      and tillage with waste. Also, the village in Khlobuev’s estate had about
+      it a deserted air, and as for the proprietor himself, he was discovered in
+      a state of drowsy dishevelment, having not long left his bed. A man of
+      about forty, he had his cravat crooked, his frockcoat adorned with a large
+      stain, and one of his boots worn through. Nevertheless he seemed delighted
+      to see his visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What?” he exclaimed. “Constantine Thedorovitch and Platon Mikhalitch?
+      Really I must rub my eyes! Never again in this world did I look to see
+      callers arriving. As a rule, folk avoid me like the devil, for they cannot
+      disabuse their minds of the idea that I am going to ask them for a loan.
+      Yes, it is my own fault, I know, but what would you? To the end will swine
+      cheat swine. Pray excuse my costume. You will observe that my boots are in
+      holes. But how can I afford to get them mended?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind,” said Constantine. “We have come on business only. May I
+      present to you a possible purchaser of your estate, in the person of Paul
+      Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am indeed glad to meet you!” was Khlobuev’s response. “Pray shake hands
+      with me, Paul Ivanovitch.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov offered one hand, but not both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I can show you a property worth your attention,” went on the master of
+      the estate. “May I ask if you have yet dined?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, we have,” put in Constantine, desirous of escaping as soon as
+      possible. “To save you further trouble, let us go and view the estate at
+      once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very well,” replied Khlobuev. “Pray come and inspect my irregularities
+      and futilities. You have done well to dine beforehand, for not so much as
+      a fowl is left in the place, so dire are the extremities to which you see
+      me reduced.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sighing deeply, he took Platon by the arm (it was clear that he did not
+      look for any sympathy from Constantine) and walked ahead, while
+      Constantine and Chichikov followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Things are going hard with me, Platon Mikhalitch,” continued Khlobuev.
+      “How hard you cannot imagine. No money have I, no food, no boots. Were I
+      still young and a bachelor, it would have come easy to me to live on bread
+      and cheese; but when a man is growing old, and has got a wife and five
+      children, such trials press heavily upon him, and, in spite of himself,
+      his spirits sink.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But, should you succeed in selling the estate, that would help to put you
+      right, would it not?” said Platon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How could it do so?” replied Khlobuev with a despairing gesture. “What I
+      might get for the property would have to go towards discharging my debts,
+      and I should find myself left with less than a thousand roubles besides.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then what do you intend to do?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “God knows.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But is there NOTHING to which you could set your hand in order to clear
+      yourself of your difficulties?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How could there be?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, you might accept a Government post.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Become a provincial secretary, you mean? How could I obtain such a post?
+      They would not offer me one of the meanest possible kind. Even supposing
+      that they did, how could I live on a salary of five hundred roubles&mdash;I
+      who have a wife and five children?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then try and obtain a bailiff’s post.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Who would entrust their property to a man who has squandered his own
+      estate?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, when death and destitution threaten, a man must either do
+      something or starve. Shall I ask my brother to use his influence to
+      procure you a post?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, Platon Mikhalitch,” sighed Khlobuev, gripping the other’s hand.
+      “I am no longer serviceable&mdash;I am grown old before my time, and find
+      that liver and rheumatism are paying me for the sins of my youth. Why
+      should the Government be put to a loss on my account?&mdash;not to speak
+      of the fact that for every salaried post there are countless numbers of
+      applicants. God forbid that, in order to provide me with a livelihood
+      further burdens should be imposed upon an impoverished public!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Such are the results of improvident management!” thought Platon to
+      himself. “The disease is even worse than my slothfulness.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Kostanzhoglo, walking by Chichikov’s side, was almost taking
+      leave of his senses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Look at it!” he cried with a wave of his hand. “See to what wretchedness
+      the peasant has become reduced! Should cattle disease come, Khlobuev will
+      have nothing to fall back upon, but will be forced to sell his all&mdash;to
+      leave the peasant without a horse, and therefore without the means to
+      labour, even though the loss of a single day’s work may take years of
+      labour to rectify. Meanwhile it is plain that the local peasant has become
+      a mere dissolute, lazy drunkard. Give a muzhik enough to live upon for
+      twelve months without working, and you will corrupt him for ever, so
+      inured to rags and vagrancy will he grow. And what is the good of that
+      piece of pasture there&mdash;of that piece on the further side of those
+      huts? It is a mere flooded tract. Were it mine, I should put it under
+      flax, and clear five thousand roubles, or else sow it with turnips, and
+      clear, perhaps, four thousand. And see how the rye is drooping, and nearly
+      laid. As for wheat, I am pretty sure that he has not sown any. Look, too,
+      at those ravines! Were they mine, they would be standing under timber
+      which even a rook could not top. To think of wasting such quantities of
+      land! Where land wouldn’t bear corn, I should dig it up, and plant it with
+      vegetables. What ought to be done is that Khlobuev ought to take a spade
+      into his own hands, and to set his wife and children and servants to do
+      the same; and even if they died of the exertion, they would at least die
+      doing their duty, and not through guzzling at the dinner table.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This said, Kostanzhoglo spat, and his brow flushed with grim indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently they reached an elevation whence the distant flashing of a
+      river, with its flood waters and subsidiary streams, caught the eye,
+      while, further off, a portion of General Betristchev’s homestead could be
+      discerned among the trees, and, over it, a blue, densely wooded hill which
+      Chichikov guessed to be the spot where Tientietnikov’s mansion was
+      situated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is where I should plant timber,” said Chichikov. “And, regarded as a
+      site for a manor house, the situation could scarcely be beaten for beauty
+      of view.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You seem to get great store upon views and beauty,” remarked Kostanzhoglo
+      with reproof in his tone. “Should you pay too much attention to those
+      things, you might find yourself without crops or view. Utility should be
+      placed first, not beauty. Beauty will come of itself. Take, for example,
+      towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns are those which have built
+      themselves&mdash;those in which each man has built to suit his own
+      exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which men have
+      constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than collections
+      of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only to what is NECESSARY.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but to me it would always be irksome to have to wait. All the time
+      that I was doing so I should be hungering to see in front of me the
+      sort of prospect which I prefer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come! Are you a man of twenty-five&mdash;you who have served as a
+      tchinovnik in St. Petersburg? Have patience, have patience. For six years
+      work, and work hard. Plant, sow, and dig the earth without taking a
+      moment’s rest. It will be difficult, I know&mdash;yes, difficult indeed;
+      but at the end of that time, if you have thoroughly stirred the soil, the
+      land will begin to help you as nothing else can do. That is to say, over
+      and above your seventy or so pairs of hands, there will begin to assist in
+      the work seven hundred pairs of hands which you cannot see. Thus
+      everything will be multiplied tenfold. I myself have ceased even to have
+      to lift a finger, for whatsoever needs to be done gets done of itself.
+      Nature loves patience: always remember that. It is a law given her of God
+      Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To hear your words is to be both encouraged and strengthened,” said
+      Chichikov. To this Kostanzhoglo made no reply, but presently went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And see how that piece of land has been ploughed! To stay here longer is
+      more than I can do. For me, to have to look upon such want of orderliness
+      and foresight is death. Finish your business with Khlobuev without me, and
+      whatsoever you do, get this treasure out of that fool’s hands as quickly
+      as possible, for he is dishonouring God’s gifts.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Kostanzhoglo, his face dark with the rage that was seething in his
+      excitable soul, left Chichikov, and caught up the owner of the
+      establishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, Constantine Thedorovitch?” cried Khlobuev in astonishment. “Just
+      arrived, you are going already?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes; I cannot help it; urgent business requires me at home.” And entering
+      his gig, Kostanzhoglo drove rapidly away. Somehow Khlobuev seemed to
+      divine the cause of his sudden departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It was too much for him,” he remarked. “An agriculturist of that kind
+      does not like to have to look upon the results of such feckless management
+      as mine. Would you believe it, Paul Ivanovitch, but this year I have been
+      unable to sow any wheat! Am I not a fine husbandman? There was no seed for
+      the purpose, nor yet anything with which to prepare the ground. No, I am
+      not like Constantine Thedorovitch, who, I hear, is a perfect Napoleon in
+      his particular line. Again and again the thought occurs to me, ‘Why has so
+      much intellect been put into that head, and only a drop or two into my own
+      dull pate?’ Take care of that puddle, gentlemen. I have told my peasants
+      to lay down planks for the spring, but they have not done so. Nevertheless
+      my heart aches for the poor fellows, for they need a good example, and
+      what sort of an example am I? How am <i>I</i> to give them orders? Pray
+      take them under your charge, Paul Ivanovitch, for I cannot teach them
+      orderliness and method when I myself lack both. As a matter of fact, I
+      should have given them their freedom long ago, had there been any use in
+      my doing so; for even I can see that peasants must first be afforded the
+      means of earning a livelihood before they can live. What they need is a
+      stern, yet just, master who shall live with them, day in, day out, and set
+      them an example of tireless energy. The present-day Russian&mdash;I know
+      of it myself&mdash;is helpless without a driver. Without one he falls
+      asleep, and the mould grows over him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet I cannot understand WHY he should fall asleep and grow mouldy in that
+      fashion,” said Platon. “Why should he need continual surveillance to keep
+      him from degenerating into a drunkard and a good-for-nothing?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The cause is lack of enlightenment,” said Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Possibly&mdash;only God knows. Yet enlightenment has reached us right
+      enough. Do we not attend university lectures and everything else that is
+      befitting? Take my own education. I learnt not only the usual things, but
+      also the art of spending money upon the latest refinement, the latest
+      amenity&mdash;the art of familiarising oneself with whatsoever money can
+      buy. How, then, can it be said that I was educated foolishly? And my
+      comrades’ education was the same. A few of them succeeded in annexing the
+      cream of things, for the reason that they had the wit to do so, and the
+      rest spent their time in doing their best to ruin their health and
+      squander their money. Often I think there is no hope for the present-day
+      Russian. While desiring to do everything, he accomplishes nothing. One day
+      he will scheme to begin a new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet before
+      evening he will have so over-eaten himself as to be unable to speak or do
+      aught but sit staring like an owl. The same with every one.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so,” agreed Chichikov with a smile. “’Tis everywhere the same
+      story.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To tell the truth, we are not born to common sense. I doubt whether
+      Russia has ever produced a really sensible man. For my own part, if I see
+      my neighbour living a regular life, and making money, and saving it, I
+      begin to distrust him, and to feel certain that in old age, if not before,
+      he too will be led astray by the devil&mdash;led astray in a moment. Yes,
+      whether or not we be educated, there is something we lack. But what that
+      something is passes my understanding.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the return journey the prospect was the same as before. Everywhere the
+      same slovenliness, the same disorder, was displaying itself unadorned: the
+      only difference being that a fresh puddle had formed in the middle of the
+      village street. This want and neglect was noticeable in the peasants’
+      quarters equally with the quarters of the barin. In the village a furious
+      woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor young wench within an ace of
+      her life, and at the same time devoting some third person to the care of
+      all the devils in hell; further away a couple of peasants were stoically
+      contemplating the virago&mdash;one scratching his rump as he did so, and
+      the other yawning. The same yawn was discernible in the buildings, for not
+      a roof was there but had a gaping hole in it. As he gazed at the scene
+      Platon himself yawned. Patch was superimposed upon patch, and, in place of
+      a roof, one hut had a piece of wooden fencing, while its crumbling
+      window-frames were stayed with sticks purloined from the barin’s barn.
+      Evidently the system of upkeep in vogue was the system employed in the
+      case of Trishkin’s coat&mdash;the system of cutting up the cuffs and the
+      collar into mendings for the elbows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I do not admire your way of doing things,” was Chichikov’s unspoken
+      comment when the inspection had been concluded and the party had
+      re-entered the house. Everywhere in the latter the visitors were struck
+      with the way in which poverty went with glittering, fashionable profusion.
+      On a writing-table lay a volume of Shakespeare, and, on an occasional
+      table, a carved ivory back-scratcher. The hostess, too, was elegantly and
+      fashionably attired, and devoted her whole conversation to the town and
+      the local theatre. Lastly, the children&mdash;bright, merry little things&mdash;were
+      well-dressed both as regards boys and girls. Yet far better would it have
+      been for them if they had been clad in plain striped smocks, and running
+      about the courtyard like peasant children. Presently a visitor arrived in
+      the shape of a chattering, gossiping woman; whereupon the hostess carried
+      her off to her own portion of the house, and, the children following them,
+      the men found themselves alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “How much do you want for the property?” asked Chichikov of Khlobuev. “I
+      am afraid I must request you to name the lowest possible sum, since I find
+      the estate in a far worse condition than I had expected to do.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, it IS in a terrible state,” agreed Khlobuev. “Nor is that the whole
+      of the story. That is to say, I will not conceal from you the fact that,
+      out of a hundred souls registered at the last revision, only fifty
+      survive, so terrible have been the ravages of cholera. And of these,
+      again, some have absconded; wherefore they too must be reckoned as dead,
+      seeing that, were one to enter process against them, the costs would end
+      in the property having to pass en bloc to the legal authorities. For these
+      reasons I am asking only thirty-five thousand roubles for the estate.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov (it need hardly be said) started to haggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Thirty-five thousand?” he cried. “Come, come! Surely you will accept
+      TWENTY-five thousand?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was too much for Platon’s conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Now, now, Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed. “Take the property at the price
+      named, and have done with it. The estate is worth at least that amount&mdash;so
+      much so that, should you not be willing to give it, my brother-in-law and
+      I will club together to effect the purchase.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That being so,” said Chichikov, taken aback, “I beg to agree to the price
+      in question. At the same time, I must ask you to allow me to defer payment
+      of one-half of the purchase money until a year from now.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no, Paul Ivanovitch. Under no circumstances could I do that. Pay me
+      half now, and the rest in... <a href="#linknote-50" name="linknoteref-50" id="linknoteref-50"><small>50</small></a> You see, I need the money for
+      the redemption of the mortgage.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That places me in a difficulty,” remarked Chichikov. “Ten thousand
+      roubles is all that at the moment I have available.” As a matter of fact,
+      this was not true, seeing that, counting also the money which he had
+      borrowed of Kostanzhoglo, he had at his disposal TWENTY thousand. His real
+      reason for hesitating was that he disliked the idea of making so large a
+      payment in a lump sum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I must repeat my request, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Khlobuev, “&mdash;namely,
+      that you pay me at least fifteen thousand immediately.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “The odd five thousand <i>I</i> will lend you,” put in Platon to
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” exclaimed Chichikov as he reflected: “So he also lends money!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end Chichikov’s dispatch-box was brought from the koliaska, and
+      Khlobuev received thence ten thousand roubles, together with a promise
+      that the remaining five thousand should be forthcoming on the morrow;
+      though the promise was given only after Chichikov had first proposed that
+      THREE thousand should be brought on the day named, and the rest be left
+      over for two or three days longer, if not for a still more protracted
+      period. The truth was that Paul Ivanovitch hated parting with money. No
+      matter how urgent a situation might have been, he would still have
+      preferred to pay a sum to-morrow rather than to-day. In other words, he
+      acted as we all do, for we all like keeping a petitioner waiting. “Let him
+      rub his back in the hall for a while,” we say. “Surely he can bide his
+      time a little?” Yet of the fact that every hour may be precious to the
+      poor wretch, and that his business may suffer from the delay, we take no
+      account. “Good sir,” we say, “pray come again to-morrow. To-day I have no
+      time to spare you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Where do you intend henceforth to live?” inquired Platon. “Have you any
+      other property to which you can retire?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No,” replied Khlobuev. “I shall remove to the town, where I possess a
+      small villa. That would have been necessary, in any case, for the
+      children’s sake. You see, they must have instruction in God’s word, and
+      also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can these
+      things be procured in the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing to eat, yet dancing lessons for his children!” reflected
+      Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “An extraordinary man!” was Platon’s unspoken comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “However, we must contrive to wet our bargain somehow,” continued
+      Khlobuev. “Hi, Kirushka! Bring that bottle of champagne.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nothing to eat, yet champagne to drink!” reflected Chichikov. As for
+      Platon, he did not know WHAT to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Khlobuev’s eyes it was de rigueur that he should provide a guest with
+      champagne; but, though he had sent to the town for some, he had been met
+      with a blank refusal to forward even a bottle of kvass on credit. Only the
+      discovery of a French dealer who had recently transferred his business
+      from St. Petersburg, and opened a connection on a system of general
+      credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev under the obligation of
+      patronising him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful. In
+      particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and friendliness,
+      and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left. What knowledge of
+      men and the world did his utterances display! How well and accurately
+      could he divine things! With what appositeness did he sketch the
+      neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their faults and failings!
+      How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined gentry&mdash;the story
+      of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen upon evil days! With
+      what comic originality could he describe their little habits and customs!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and felt
+      inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What most surprises me,” said Chichikov, “is how, in view of your
+      ability, you come to be so destitute of means or resources.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I have plenty of both,” said Khlobuev, and with that went on to
+      deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects
+      proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge
+      of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and
+      mentally exclaim: “Good Lord! What a difference between worldly wisdom and
+      the capacity to use it!” In every case the projects in question were based
+      upon the imperative necessity of at once procuring from somewhere two
+      hundred&mdash;or at least one hundred&mdash;thousand roubles. That done
+      (so Khlobuev averred), everything would fall into its proper place, the
+      holes in his pockets would become stopped, his income would be quadrupled,
+      and he would find himself in a position to liquidate his debts in full.
+      Nevertheless he ended by saying: “What would you advise me to do? I fear
+      that the philanthropist who would lend me two hundred thousand roubles or
+      even a hundred thousand, does not exist. It is not God’s will that he
+      should.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Good gracious!” inwardly ejaculated Chichikov. “To suppose that God would
+      send such a fool two hundred thousand roubles!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “However,” went on Khlobuev, “I possess an aunt worth three millions&mdash;a
+      pious old woman who gives freely to churches and monasteries, but finds a
+      difficulty in helping her neighbour. At the same time, she is a lady of
+      the old school, and worth having a peep at. Her canaries alone number four
+      hundred, and, in addition, there is an army of pug-dogs, hangers-on, and
+      servants. Even the youngest of the servants is sixty, but she calls them
+      all ‘young fellows,’ and if a guest happens to offend her during dinner,
+      she orders them to leave him out when handing out the dishes. THERE’S a
+      woman for you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “And what may her family name be?” asked Chichikov. “And where does she
+      live?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “She lives in the county town, and her name is Alexandra Ivanovna
+      Khanasarov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then why do you not apply to her?” asked Platon earnestly. “It seems to
+      me that, once she realised the position of your family, she could not
+      possibly refuse you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Alas! nothing is to be looked for from that quarter,” replied Khlobuev.
+      “My aunt is of a very stubborn disposition&mdash;a perfect stone of a
+      woman. Moreover, she has around her a sufficient band of favourites
+      already. In particular is there a fellow who is aiming for a Governorship,
+      and to that end has managed to insinuate himself into the circle of her
+      kinsfolk. By the way,” the speaker added, turning to Platon, “would you do
+      me a favour? Next week I am giving a dinner to the associated guilds of
+      the town.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Platon stared. He had been unaware that both in our capitals and in our
+      provincial towns there exists a class of men whose lives are an enigma&mdash;men
+      who, though they will seem to have exhausted their substance, and to have
+      become enmeshed in debt, will suddenly be reported as in funds, and on the
+      point of giving a dinner! And though, at this dinner, the guests will
+      declare that the festival is bound to be their host’s last fling, and that
+      for a certainty he will be haled to prison on the morrow, ten years or
+      more will elapse, and the rascal will still be at liberty, even though, in
+      the meanwhile, his debts will have increased!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same way did the conduct of Khlobuev’s menage afford a curious
+      phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te Deum,
+      performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play performed
+      by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again, one day would
+      see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day a banquet and
+      generous largesse given to a party of artists and sculptors. During these
+      seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to have led any one but Khlobuev
+      to seek suicide by hanging or shooting), the master of the house would be
+      preserved from rash action by his strongly religious disposition, which,
+      contriving in some curious way to conform with his irregular mode of life,
+      enabled him to fall back upon reading the lives of saints, ascetics, and
+      others of the type which has risen superior to its misfortunes. And at
+      such times his spirit would become softened, his thoughts full of
+      gentleness, and his eyes wet with tears; he would fall to saying his
+      prayers, and invariably some strange coincidence would bring an answer
+      thereto in the shape of an unexpected measure of assistance. That is to
+      say, some former friend of his would remember him, and send him a trifle
+      in the way of money; or else some female visitor would be moved by his
+      story to let her impulsive, generous heart proffer him a handsome gift; or
+      else a suit whereof tidings had never even reached his ears would end by
+      being decided in his favour. And when that happened he would reverently
+      acknowledge the immensity of the mercy of Providence, gratefully tender
+      thanksgiving for the same, and betake himself again to his irregular mode
+      of existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Somehow I feel sorry for the man,” said Platon when he and Chichikov had
+      taken leave of their host, and left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Perhaps so, but he is a hopeless prodigal,” replied the other.
+      “Personally I find it impossible to compassionate such fellows.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that the pair ceased to devote another thought to Khlobuev. In
+      the case of Platon, this was because he contemplated the fortunes of his
+      fellows with the lethargic, half-somnolent eye which he turned upon all
+      the rest of the world; for though the sight of distress of others would
+      cause his heart to contract and feel full of sympathy, the impression thus
+      produced never sank into the depths of his being. Accordingly, before many
+      minutes were over he had ceased to bestow a single thought upon his late
+      host. With Chichikov, however, things were different. Whereas Platon had
+      ceased to think of Khlobuev no more than he had ceased to think of
+      himself, Chichikov’s mind had strayed elsewhere, for the reason that it
+      had become taken up with grave meditation on the subject of the purchase
+      just made. Suddenly finding himself no longer a fictitious proprietor, but
+      the owner of a real, an actually existing, estate, he became
+      contemplative, and his plans and ideas assumed such a serious vein as
+      imparted to his features an unconsciously important air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Patience and hard work!” he muttered to himself. “The thing will not be
+      difficult, for with those two requisites I have been familiar from the
+      days of my swaddling clothes. Yes, no novelty will they be to me. Yet, in
+      middle age, shall I be able to compass the patience whereof I was capable
+      in my youth?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, no matter how he regarded the future, and no matter from what
+      point of view he considered his recent acquisition, he could see nothing
+      but advantage likely to accrue from the bargain. For one thing, he might
+      be able to proceed so that, first the whole of the estate should be
+      mortgaged, and then the better portions of land sold outright. Or he might
+      so contrive matters as to manage the property for a while (and thus become
+      a landowner like Kostanzhoglo, whose advice, as his neighbour and his
+      benefactor, he intended always to follow), and then to dispose of the
+      property by private treaty (provided he did not wish to continue his
+      ownership), and still to retain in his hands the dead and abandoned souls.
+      And another possible coup occurred to his mind. That is to say, he might
+      contrive to withdraw from the district without having repaid Kostanzhoglo
+      at all! Truly a splendid idea! Yet it is only fair to say that the idea
+      was not one of Chichikov’s own conception. Rather, it had presented itself&mdash;mocking,
+      laughing, and winking&mdash;unbidden. Yet the impudent, the wanton thing!
+      Who is the procreator of suddenly born ideas of the kind? The thought that
+      he was now a real, an actual, proprietor instead of a fictitious&mdash;that
+      he was now a proprietor of real land, real rights of timber and pasture,
+      and real serfs who existed not only in the imagination, but also in
+      veritable actuality&mdash;greatly elated our hero. So he took to dancing
+      up and down in his seat, to rubbing his hands together, to winking at
+      himself, to holding his fist, trumpet-wise, to his mouth (while making
+      believe to execute a march), and even to uttering aloud such encouraging
+      nicknames and phrases as “bulldog” and “little fat capon.” Then suddenly
+      recollecting that he was not alone, he hastened to moderate his behaviour
+      and endeavoured to stifle the endless flow of his good spirits; with the
+      result that when Platon, mistaking certain sounds for utterances addressed
+      to himself, inquired what his companion had said, the latter retained the
+      presence of mind to reply “Nothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, as Chichikov gazed about him, he saw that for some time past
+      the koliaska had been skirting a beautiful wood, and that on either side
+      the road was bordered with an edging of birch trees, the tenderly-green,
+      recently-opened leaves of which caused their tall, slender trunks to show
+      up with the whiteness of a snowdrift. Likewise nightingales were warbling
+      from the recesses of the foliage, and some wood tulips were glowing yellow
+      in the grass. Next (and almost before Chichikov had realised how he came
+      to be in such a beautiful spot when, but a moment before, there had been
+      visible only open fields) there glimmered among the trees the stony
+      whiteness of a church, with, on the further side of it, the intermittent,
+      foliage-buried line of a fence; while from the upper end of a village
+      street there was advancing to meet the vehicle a gentleman with a cap on
+      his head, a knotted cudgel in his hands, and a slender-limbed English dog
+      by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “This is my brother,” said Platon. “Stop, coachman.” And he descended from
+      the koliaska, while Chichikov followed his example. Yarb and the strange
+      dog saluted one another, and then the active, thin-legged, slender-tongued
+      Azor relinquished his licking of Yarb’s blunt jowl, licked Platon’s hands
+      instead, and, leaping upon Chichikov, slobbered right into his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two brothers embraced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Really, Platon,” said the gentleman (whose name was Vassili), “what do
+      you mean by treating me like this?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How so?” said Platon indifferently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? For three days past I have seen and heard nothing of you! A groom
+      from Pietukh’s brought your cob home, and told me you had departed on an
+      expedition with some barin. At least you might have sent me word as to
+      your destination and the probable length of your absence. What made you
+      act so? God knows what I have not been wondering!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Does it matter?” rejoined Platon. “I forgot to send you word, and we have
+      been no further than Constantine’s (who, with our sister, sends you his
+      greeting). By the way, may I introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pair shook hands with one another. Then, doffing their caps, they
+      embraced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “What sort of man is this Chichikov?” thought Vassili. “As a rule my
+      brother Platon is not over-nice in his choice of acquaintances.” And,
+      eyeing our hero as narrowly as civility permitted, he saw that his
+      appearance was that of a perfectly respectable individual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov returned Vassili’s scrutiny with a similar observance of the
+      dictates of civility, and perceived that he was shorter than Platon, that
+      his hair was of a darker shade, and that his features, though less
+      handsome, contained far more life, animation, and kindliness than did his
+      brother’s. Clearly he indulged in less dreaming, though that was an aspect
+      which Chichikov little regarded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have made up my mind to go touring our Holy Russia with Paul
+      Ivanovitch,” said Platon. “Perhaps it will rid me of my melancholy.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What has made you come to such a sudden decision?” asked the perplexed
+      Vassili (very nearly he added: “Fancy going travelling with a man whose
+      acquaintance you have just made, and who may turn out to be a rascal or
+      the devil knows what!” But, in spite of his distrust, he contented himself
+      with another covert scrutiny of Chichikov, and this time came to the
+      conclusion that there was no fault to be found with his exterior).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The party turned to the right, and entered the gates of an ancient
+      courtyard attached to an old-fashioned house of a type no longer built&mdash;the
+      type which has huge gables supporting a high-pitched roof. In the centre
+      of the courtyard two great lime trees covered half the surrounding space
+      with shade, while beneath them were ranged a number of wooden benches, and
+      the whole was encircled with a ring of blossoming lilacs and cherry trees
+      which, like a beaded necklace, reinforced the wooden fence, and almost
+      buried it beneath their clusters of leaves and flowers. The house, too,
+      stood almost concealed by this greenery, except that the front door and
+      the windows peered pleasantly through the foliage, and that here and there
+      between the stems of the trees there could be caught glimpses of the
+      kitchen regions, the storehouses, and the cellar. Lastly, around the whole
+      stood a grove, from the recesses of which came the echoing songs of
+      nightingales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Involuntarily the place communicated to the soul a sort of quiet, restful
+      feeling, so eloquently did it speak of that care-free period when every
+      one lived on good terms with his neighbour, and all was simple and
+      unsophisticated. Vassili invited Chichikov to seat himself, and the party
+      approached, for that purpose, the benches under the lime trees; after
+      which a youth of about seventeen, and clad in a red shirt, brought
+      decanters containing various kinds of kvass (some of them as thick as
+      syrup, and others hissing like aerated lemonade), deposited the same upon
+      the table, and, taking up a spade which he had left leaning against a
+      tree, moved away towards the garden. The reason of this was that in the
+      brothers’ household, as in that of Kostanzhoglo, no servants were kept,
+      since the whole staff were rated as gardeners, and performed that duty in
+      rotation&mdash;Vassili holding that domestic service was not a specialised
+      calling, but one to which any one might contribute a hand, and therefore
+      one which did not require special menials to be kept for the purpose.
+      Moreover, he held that the average Russian peasant remains active and
+      willing (rather than lazy) only so long as he wears a shirt and a
+      peasant’s smock; but that as soon as ever he finds himself put into a
+      German tailcoat, he becomes awkward, sluggish, indolent, disinclined to
+      change his vest or take a bath, fond of sleeping in his clothes, and
+      certain to breed fleas and bugs under the German apparel. And it may be
+      that Vassili was right. At all events, the brothers’ peasantry were
+      exceedingly well clad&mdash;the women, in particular, having their
+      head-dresses spangled with gold, and the sleeves of their blouses
+      embroidered after the fashion of a Turkish shawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You see here the species of kvass for which our house has long been
+      famous,” said Vassili to Chichikov. The latter poured himself out a
+      glassful from the first decanter which he lighted upon, and found the
+      contents to be linden honey of a kind never tasted by him even in Poland,
+      seeing that it had a sparkle like that of champagne, and also an
+      effervescence which sent a pleasant spray from the mouth into the nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nectar!” he proclaimed. Then he took some from a second decanter. It
+      proved to be even better than the first. “A beverage of beverages!” he
+      exclaimed. “At your respected brother-in-law’s I tasted the finest syrup
+      which has ever come my way, but here I have tasted the very finest kvass.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yet the recipe for the syrup also came from here,” said Vassili, “seeing
+      that my sister took it with her. By the way, to what part of the country,
+      and to what places, are you thinking of travelling?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To tell the truth,” replied Chichikov, rocking himself to and fro on the
+      bench, and smoothing his knee with his hand, and gently inclining his
+      head, “I am travelling less on my own affairs than on the affairs of
+      others. That is to say, General Betristchev, an intimate friend, and, I
+      might add, a generous benefactor of mine, has charged me with commissions
+      to some of his relatives. Nevertheless, though relatives are relatives, I
+      may say that I am travelling on my own account as well, in that, in
+      addition to possible benefit to my health, I desire to see the world and
+      the whirligig of humanity, which constitute, to so speak, a living book, a
+      second course of education.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vassili took thought. “The man speaks floridly,” he reflected, “yet his
+      words contain a certain element of truth.” After a moment’s silence he
+      added to Platon: “I am beginning to think that the tour might help you to
+      bestir yourself. At present you are in a condition of mental slumber. You
+      have fallen asleep, not so much from weariness or satiety, as through a
+      lack of vivid perceptions and impressions. For myself, I am your complete
+      antithesis. I should be only too glad if I could feel less acutely, if I
+      could take things less to heart.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Emotion has become a disease with you,” said Platon. “You seek your own
+      troubles, and make your own anxieties.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How can you say that when ready-made anxieties greet one at every step?”
+       exclaimed Vassili. “For example, have you heard of the trick which
+      Lienitsin has just played us&mdash;of his seizing the piece of vacant land
+      whither our peasants resort for their sports? That piece I would not sell
+      for all the money in the world. It has long been our peasants’
+      play-ground, and all the traditions of our village are bound up with it.
+      Moreover, for me, old custom is a sacred thing for which I would gladly
+      sacrifice everything else.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Lienitsin cannot have known of this, or he would not have seized the
+      land,” said Platon. “He is a newcomer, just arrived from St. Petersburg. A
+      few words of explanation ought to meet the case.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But he DOES know of what I have stated; he DOES know of it. Purposely I
+      sent him word to that affect, yet he has returned me the rudest of
+      answers.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then go yourself and explain matters to him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, I will not do that; he has tried to carry off things with too high a
+      hand. But YOU can go if you like.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I would certainly go were it not that I scarcely like to interfere. Also,
+      I am a man whom he could easily hoodwink and outwit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would it help you if <i>I</i> were to go?” put in Chichikov. “Pray
+      enlighten me as to the matter.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vassili glanced at the speaker, and thought to himself: “What a passion
+      the man has for travelling!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, pray give me an idea of the kind of fellow,” repeated Chichikov,
+      “and also outline to me the affair.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should be ashamed to trouble you with such an unpleasant commission,”
+       replied Vassili. “He is a man whom I take to be an utter rascal.
+      Originally a member of a family of plain dvoriane in this province, he
+      entered the Civil Service in St. Petersburg, then married some one’s
+      natural daughter in that city, and has returned to lord it with a high
+      hand. I cannot bear the tone he adopts. Our folk are by no means fools.
+      They do not look upon the current fashion as the Tsar’s ukaz any more than
+      they look upon St. Petersburg as the Church.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Naturally,” said Chichikov. “But tell me more of the particulars of the
+      quarrel.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “They are these. He needs additional land and, had he not acted as he has
+      done, I would have given him some land elsewhere for nothing; but, as it
+      is, the pestilent fellow has taken it into his head to&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think I had better go and have a talk with him. That might settle the
+      affair. Several times have people charged me with similar commissions, and
+      never have they repented of it. General Betristchev is an example.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless I am ashamed that you should be put to the annoyance of
+      having to converse with such a fellow.”
+     </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+             [At this point there occurs a long hiatus.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      “And above all things, such a transaction would need to be carried through
+      in secret,” said Chichikov. “True, the law does not forbid such things,
+      but there is always the risk of a scandal.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Quite so, quite so,” said Lienitsin with head bent down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then we agree!” exclaimed Chichikov. “How charming! As I say, my business
+      is both legal and illegal. Though needing to effect a mortgage, I desire
+      to put no one to the risk of having to pay the two roubles on each living
+      soul; wherefore I have conceived the idea of relieving landowners of that
+      distasteful obligation by acquiring dead and absconded souls who have
+      failed to disappear from the revision list. This enables me at once to
+      perform an act of Christian charity and to remove from the shoulders of
+      our more impoverished proprietors the burden of tax-payment upon souls of
+      the kind specified. Should you yourself care to do business with me, we
+      will draw up a formal purchase agreement as though the souls in question
+      were still alive.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But it would be such a curious arrangement,” muttered Lienitsin, moving
+      his chair and himself a little further away. “It would be an arrangement
+      which, er&mdash;er&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Would involve you in no scandal whatever, seeing that the affair would be
+      carried through in secret. Moreover, between friends who are well-disposed
+      towards one another&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov adopted a firmer and more decided tone. “I repeat that there
+      would be no scandal,” he said. “The transaction would take place as
+      between good friends, and as between friends of mature age, and as between
+      friends of good status, and as between friends who know how to keep their
+      own counsel.” And, so saying, he looked his interlocutor frankly and
+      generously in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless Lienitsin’s resourcefulness and acumen in business matters
+      failed to relieve his mind of a certain perplexity&mdash;and the less so
+      since he had contrived to become caught in his own net. Yet, in general,
+      he possessed neither a love for nor a talent for underhand dealings, and,
+      had not fate and circumstances favoured Chichikov by causing Lienitsin’s
+      wife to enter the room at that moment, things might have turned out very
+      differently from what they did. Madame was a pale, thin,
+      insignificant-looking young lady, but none the less a lady who wore her
+      clothes a la St. Petersburg, and cultivated the society of persons who
+      were unimpeachably comme il faut. Behind her, borne in a nurse’s arms,
+      came the first fruits of the love of husband and wife. Adopting his most
+      telling method of approach (the method accompanied with a sidelong
+      inclination of the head and a sort of hop), Chichikov hastened to greet
+      the lady from the metropolis, and then the baby. At first the latter
+      started to bellow disapproval, but the words “Agoo, agoo, my pet!” added
+      to a little cracking of the fingers and a sight of a beautiful seal on a
+      watch chain, enabled Chichikov to weedle the infant into his arms; after
+      which he fell to swinging it up and down until he had contrived to raise a
+      smile on its face&mdash;a circumstance which greatly delighted the
+      parents, and finally inclined the father in his visitor’s favour.
+      Suddenly, however&mdash;whether from pleasure or from some other cause&mdash;the
+      infant misbehaved itself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “My God!” cried Madame. “He has gone and spoilt your frockcoat!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      True enough, on glancing downwards, Chichikov saw that the sleeve of his
+      brand-new garment had indeed suffered a hurt. “If I could catch you alone,
+      you little devil,” he muttered to himself, “I’d shoot you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Host, hostess and nurse all ran for eau-de-Cologne, and from three sides
+      set themselves to rub the spot affected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Never mind, never mind; it is nothing,” said Chichikov as he strove to
+      communicate to his features as cheerful an expression as possible. “What
+      does it matter what a child may spoil during the golden age of its
+      infancy?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To himself he remarked: “The little brute! Would it could be devoured by
+      wolves. It has made only too good a shot, the cussed young ragamuffin!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How, after this&mdash;after the guest had shown such innocent affection
+      for the little one, and magnanimously paid for his so doing with a
+      brand-new suit&mdash;could the father remain obdurate? Nevertheless, to
+      avoid setting a bad example to the countryside, he and Chichikov agreed to
+      carry through the transaction PRIVATELY, lest, otherwise, a scandal should
+      arise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “In return,” said Chichikov, “would you mind doing me the following
+      favour? I desire to mediate in the matter of your difference with the
+      Brothers Platonov. I believe that you wish to acquire some additional
+      land? Is not that so?”
+     </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+            [Here there occurs a hiatus in the original.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov’s tour in search of
+      a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little money passed
+      into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he did not steal, he
+      merely used. And every one of us at times does the same: one man with
+      regard to Government timber, and another with regard to a sum belonging to
+      his employer, while a third defrauds his children for the sake of an
+      actress, and a fourth robs his peasantry for the sake of smart furniture
+      or a carriage. What can one do when one is surrounded on every side with
+      roguery, and everywhere there are insanely expensive restaurants, masked
+      balls, and dances to the music of gipsy bands? To abstain when every one
+      else is indulging in these things, and fashion commands, is difficult
+      indeed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov was for setting forth again, but the roads had now got into a
+      bad state, and, in addition, there was in preparation a second fair&mdash;one
+      for the dvoriane only. The former fair had been held for the sale of
+      horses, cattle, cheese, and other peasant produce, and the buyers had been
+      merely cattle-jobbers and kulaks; but this time the function was to be one
+      for the sale of manorial produce which had been bought up by wholesale
+      dealers at Nizhni Novgorod, and then transferred hither. To the fair, of
+      course, came those ravishers of the Russian purse who, in the shape of
+      Frenchmen with pomades and Frenchwomen with hats, make away with money
+      earned by blood and hard work, and, like the locusts of Egypt (to use
+      Kostanzhoglo’s term) not only devour their prey, but also dig holes in the
+      ground and leave behind their eggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although, unfortunately, the occurrence of a bad harvest retained many
+      landowners at their country houses, the local tchinovniks (whom the
+      failure of the harvest did NOT touch) proceeded to let themselves go&mdash;as
+      also, to their undoing, did their wives. The reading of books of the type
+      diffused, in these modern days, for the inoculation of humanity with a
+      craving for new and superior amenities of life had caused every one to
+      conceive a passion for experimenting with the latest luxury; and to meet
+      this want the French wine merchant opened a new establishment in the shape
+      of a restaurant as had never before been heard of in the province&mdash;a
+      restaurant where supper could be procured on credit as regarded one-half,
+      and for an unprecedentedly low sum as regarded the other. This exactly
+      suited both heads of boards and clerks who were living in hope of being
+      able some day to resume their bribes-taking from suitors. There also
+      developed a tendency to compete in the matter of horses and liveried
+      flunkeys; with the result that despite the damp and snowy weather
+      exceedingly elegant turnouts took to parading backwards and forwards.
+      Whence these equipages had come God only knows, but at least they would
+      not have disgraced St. Petersburg. From within them merchants and
+      attorneys doffed their caps to ladies, and inquired after their health,
+      and likewise it became a rare sight to see a bearded man in a rough fur
+      cap, since every one now went about clean-shaven and with dirty teeth,
+      after the European fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Sir, I beg of you to inspect my goods,” said a tradesman as Chichikov was
+      passing his establishment. “Within my doors you will find a large variety
+      of clothing.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you a cloth of bilberry-coloured check?” inquired the person
+      addressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I have cloths of the finest kind,” replied the tradesman, raising his cap
+      with one hand, and pointing to his shop with the other. Chichikov entered,
+      and in a trice the proprietor had dived beneath the counter, and appeared
+      on the other side of it, with his back to his wares and his face towards
+      the customer. Leaning forward on the tips of his fingers, and indicating
+      his merchandise with just the suspicion of a nod, he requested the
+      gentleman to specify exactly the species of cloth which he required.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A cloth with an olive-coloured or a bottle-tinted spot in its pattern&mdash;anything
+      in the nature of bilberry,” explained Chichikov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “That being so, sir, I may say that I am about to show you clothes of a
+      quality which even our illustrious capitals could not surpass. Hi, boy!
+      Reach down that roll up there&mdash;number 34. No, NOT that one, fool!
+      Such fellows as you are always too good for your job. There&mdash;hand it
+      to me. This is indeed a nice pattern!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfolding the garment, the tradesman thrust it close to Chichikov’s nose
+      in order that he might not only handle, but also smell it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Excellent, but not what I want,” pronounced Chichikov. “Formerly I was in
+      the Custom’s Department, and therefore wear none but cloth of the latest
+      make. What I want is of a ruddier pattern than this&mdash;not exactly a
+      bottle-tinted pattern, but something approaching bilberry.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I understand, sir. Of course you require only the very newest thing. A
+      cloth of that kind I DO possess, sir, and though excessive in price, it is
+      of a quality to match.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carrying the roll of stuff to the light&mdash;even stepping into the
+      street for the purpose&mdash;the shopman unfolded his prize with the
+      words, “A truly beautiful shade! A cloth of smoked grey, shot with flame
+      colour!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The material met with the customer’s approval, a price was agreed upon,
+      and with incredible celerity the vendor made up the purchase into a
+      brown-paper parcel, and stowed it away in Chichikov’s koliaska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a voice asked to be shown a black frockcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “The devil take me if it isn’t Khlobuev!” muttered our hero, turning his
+      back upon the newcomer. Unfortunately the other had seen him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Come, come, Paul Ivanovitch!” he expostulated. “Surely you do not intend
+      to overlook me? I have been searching for you everywhere, for I have
+      something important to say to you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My dear sir, my very dear sir,” said Chichikov as he pressed Khlobuev’s
+      hand, “I can assure you that, had I the necessary leisure, I should at all
+      times be charmed to converse with you.” And mentally he added: “Would that
+      the Evil One would fly away with you!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same time Murazov, the great landowner, entered the shop. As
+      he did so our hero hastened to exclaim: “Why, it is Athanasi
+      Vassilievitch! How ARE you, my very dear sir?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well enough,” replied Murazov, removing his cap (Khlobuev and the shopman
+      had already done the same). “How, may I ask, are YOU?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But poorly,” replied Chichikov, “for of late I have been troubled with
+      indigestion, and my sleep is bad. I do not get sufficient exercise.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, instead of probing deeper into the subject of Chichikov’s
+      ailments, Murazov turned to Khlobuev.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I saw you enter the shop,” he said, “and therefore followed you, for I
+      have something important for your ear. Could you spare me a minute or
+      two?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Certainly, certainly,” said Khlobuev, and the pair left the shop
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I wonder what is afoot between them,” said Chichikov to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A wise and noble gentleman, Athanasi Vassilievitch!” remarked the
+      tradesman. Chichikov made no reply save a gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch, I have been looking for you everywhere,” Lienitsin’s
+      voice said from behind him, while again the tradesman hastened to remove
+      his cap. “Pray come home with me, for I have something to say to you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov scanned the speaker’s face, but could make nothing of it. Paying
+      the tradesman for the cloth, he left the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Murazov had conveyed Khlobuev to his rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Tell me,” he said to his guest, “exactly how your affairs stand. I take
+      it that, after all, your aunt left you something?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “It would be difficult to say whether or not my affairs are improved,”
+       replied Khlobuev. “True, fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles came to
+      me from Madame Khanasarova, but I had to pay them away to satisfy my
+      debts. Consequently I am once more destitute. But the important point is
+      that there was trickery connected with the legacy, and shameful trickery
+      at that. Yes, though it may surprise you, it is a fact that that fellow
+      Chichikov&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Semen Semenovitch, but, before you go on to speak of Chichikov, pray
+      tell me something about yourself, and how much, in your opinion, would be
+      sufficient to clear you of your difficulties?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “My difficulties are grievous,” replied Khlobuev. “To rid myself of them,
+      and also to have enough to go on with, I should need to acquire at least a
+      hundred thousand roubles, if not more. In short, things are becoming
+      impossible for me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And, had you the money, what should you do with it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I should rent a tenement, and devote myself to the education of my
+      children. Not a thought should I give to myself, for my career is over,
+      seeing that it is impossible for me to re-enter the Civil Service and I am
+      good for nothing else.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless, when a man is leading an idle life he is apt to incur
+      temptations which shun his better-employed brother.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but beyond question I am good for nothing, so broken is my health,
+      and such a martyr I am to dyspepsia.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how do you propose to live without working? How can a man like you
+      exist without a post or a position of any kind? Look around you at the
+      works of God. Everything has its proper function, and pursues its proper
+      course. Even a stone can be used for one purpose or another. How, then,
+      can it be right for a man who is a thinking being to remain a drone?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But I should not be a drone, for I should employ myself with the
+      education of my children.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Semen Semenovitch&mdash;no: THAT you would find the hardest task of
+      all. For how can a man educate his children who has never even educated
+      himself? Instruction can be imparted to children only through the medium
+      of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a profitable
+      example&mdash;a life which has been spent in idleness and the playing of
+      cards? No, Semen Semenovitch. You had far better hand your children over
+      to me. Otherwise they will be ruined. Do not think that I am jesting.
+      Idleness has wrecked your life, and you must flee from it. Can a man live
+      with nothing to keep him in place? Even a journeyman labourer who earns
+      the barest pittance may take an interest in his occupation.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Athanasi Vassilievitch, I have tried to overcome myself, but what further
+      resource lies open to me? Can I who am old and incapable re-enter the
+      Civil Service and spend year after year at a desk with youths who are just
+      starting their careers? Moreover, I have lost the trick of taking bribes;
+      I should only hinder both myself and others; while, as you know, it is a
+      department which has an established caste of its own. Therefore, though I
+      have considered, and even attempted to obtain, every conceivable post, I
+      find myself incompetent for them all. Only in a monastery should I&mdash;”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nay, nay. Monasteries, again, are only for those who have worked. To
+      those who have spent their youth in dissipation such havens say what the
+      ant said to the dragonfly&mdash;namely, ‘Go you away, and return to your
+      dancing.’ Yes, even in a monastery do folk toil and toil&mdash;they do not
+      sit playing whist.” Murazov looked at Khlobuev, and added: “Semen
+      Semenovitch, you are deceiving both yourself and me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Khlobuev could not utter a word in reply, and Murazov began to feel
+      sorry for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen, Semen Semenovitch,” he went on. “I know that you say your
+      prayers, and that you go to church, and that you observe both Matins and
+      Vespers, and that, though averse to early rising, you leave your bed at
+      four o’clock in the morning before the household fires have been lit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said Khlobuev, “that is another matter
+      altogether. That I do, not for man’s sake, but for the sake of Him who has
+      ordered all things here on earth. Yes, I believe that He at least can feel
+      compassion for me, that He at least, though I be foul and lowly, will
+      pardon me and receive me when all men have cast me out, and my best friend
+      has betrayed me and boasted that he has done it for a good end.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Khlobuev’s face was glowing with emotion, and from the older man’s eyes
+      also a tear had started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “You will do well to hearken unto Him who is merciful,” he said. “But
+      remember also that, in the eyes of the All-Merciful, honest toil is of
+      equal merit with a prayer. Therefore take unto yourself whatsoever task
+      you may, and do it as though you were doing it, not unto man, but unto
+      God. Even though to your lot there should fall but the cleaning of a
+      floor, clean that floor as though it were being cleaned for Him alone. And
+      thence at least this good you will reap: that there will remain to you no
+      time for what is evil&mdash;for card playing, for feasting, for all the
+      life of this gay world. Are you acquainted with Ivan Potapitch?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, not only am I acquainted with him, but I also greatly respect him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Time was when Ivan Potapitch was a merchant worth half a million roubles.
+      In everything did he look but for gain, and his affairs prospered
+      exceedingly, so much so that he was able to send his son to be educated in
+      France, and to marry his daughter to a General. And whether in his office
+      or at the Exchange, he would stop any friend whom he encountered and carry
+      him off to a tavern to drink, and spend whole days thus employed. But at
+      last he became bankrupt, and God sent him other misfortunes also. His son!
+      Ah, well! Ivan Potapitch is now my steward, for he had to begin life over
+      again. Yet once more his affairs are in order, and, had it been his wish,
+      he could have restarted in business with a capital of half a million
+      roubles. ‘But no,’ he said. ‘A steward am I, and a steward will I remain
+      to the end; for, from being full-stomached and heavy with dropsy, I have
+      become strong and well.’ Not a drop of liquor passes his lips, but only
+      cabbage soup and gruel. And he prays as none of the rest of us pray, and
+      he helps the poor as none of the rest of us help them; and to this he
+      would add yet further charity if his means permitted him to do so.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Khlobuev remained silent, as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder man took his two hands in his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Semen Semenovitch,” he said, “you cannot think how much I pity you, or
+      how much I have had you in my thoughts. Listen to me. In the monastery
+      there is a recluse who never looks upon a human face. Of all men whom I
+      know he has the broadest mind, and he breaks not his silence save to give
+      advice. To him I went and said that I had a friend (though I did not
+      actually mention your name) who was in great trouble of soul. Suddenly the
+      recluse interrupted me with the words: ‘God’s work first, and our own
+      last. There is need for a church to be built, but no money wherewith to
+      build it. Money must be collected to that end.’ Then he shut to the
+      wicket. I wondered to myself what this could mean, and concluded that the
+      recluse had been unwilling to accord me his counsel. Next I repaired to
+      the Archimandrite, and had scarce reached his door when he inquired of me
+      whether I could commend to him a man meet to be entrusted with the
+      collection of alms for a church&mdash;a man who should belong to the
+      dvoriane or to the more lettered merchants, but who would guard the trust
+      as he would guard the salvation of his soul. On the instant thought I to
+      myself: ‘Why should not the Holy Father appoint my friend Semen
+      Semenovitch? For the way of suffering would benefit him greatly; and as he
+      passed with his ledger from landowner to peasant, and from peasant to
+      townsman, he would learn where folk dwell, and who stands in need of
+      aught, and thus would become better acquainted with the countryside than
+      folk who dwell in cities. And, thus become, he would find that his
+      services were always in demand.’ Only of late did the Governor-General say
+      to me that, could he but be furnished with the name of a secretary who
+      should know his work not only by the book but also by experience, he would
+      give him a great sum, since nothing is to be learned by the former means,
+      and, through it, much confusion arises.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “You confound me, you overwhelm me!” said Khlobuev, staring at his
+      companion in open-eyed astonishment. “I can scarcely believe that your
+      words are true, seeing that for such a trust an active, indefatigable man
+      would be necessary. Moreover, how could I leave my wife and children
+      unprovided for?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have no fear,” said Murazov, “I myself will take them under my care, as
+      well as procure for the children a tutor. Far better and nobler were it
+      for you to be travelling with a wallet, and asking alms on behalf of God,
+      then to be remaining here and asking alms for yourself alone. Likewise, I
+      will furnish you with a tilt-waggon, so that you may be saved some of the
+      hardships of the journey, and thus be preserved in good health. Also, I
+      will give you some money for the journey, in order that, as you pass on
+      your way, you may give to those who stand in greater need than their
+      fellows. Thus, if, before giving, you assure yourself that the recipient
+      of the alms is worthy of the same, you will do much good; and as you
+      travel you will become acquainted with all men and sundry, and they will
+      treat you, not as a tchinovnik to be feared, but as one to whom, as a
+      petitioner on behalf of the Church, they may unloose their tongues without
+      peril.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my part
+      in it were it not likely to exceed my strength.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What is there that does NOT exceed your strength?” said Murazov. “Nothing
+      is wholly proportionate to it&mdash;everything surpasses it. Help from
+      above is necessary: otherwise we are all powerless. Strength comes of
+      prayer, and of prayer alone. When a man crosses himself, and cries, ‘Lord,
+      have mercy upon me!’ he soon stems the current and wins to the shore. Nor
+      need you take any prolonged thought concerning this matter. All that you
+      need do is to accept it as a commission sent of God. The tilt-waggon can
+      be prepared for you immediately; and then, as soon as you have been to the
+      Archimandrite for your book of accounts and his blessing, you will be free
+      to start on your journey.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I submit myself to you, and accept the commission as a divine trust.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And even as Khlobuev spoke he felt renewed vigour and confidence arise in
+      his soul, and his mind begin to awake to a sense of hopefulness of
+      eventually being able to put to flight his troubles. And even as it was,
+      the world seemed to be growing dim to his eyes....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, plea after plea had been presented to the legal authorities,
+      and daily were relatives whom no one had before heard of putting in an
+      appearance. Yes, like vultures to a corpse did these good folk come
+      flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov had left behind
+      her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov, rumours with regard
+      to the validity of the second will, rumours with regard to will number
+      one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of funds. Also, there came to
+      hand information with regard both to Chichikov’s purchase of dead souls
+      and to his conniving at contraband goods during his service in the Customs
+      Department. In short, every possible item of evidence was exhumed, and the
+      whole of his previous history investigated. How the authorities had come
+      to suspect and to ascertain all this God only knows, but the fact remains
+      that there had fallen into the hands of those authorities information
+      concerning matters of which Chichikov had believed only himself and the
+      four walls to be aware. True, for a time these matters remained within the
+      cognisance of none but the functionaries concerned, and failed to reach
+      Chichikov’s ears; but at length a letter from a confidential friend gave
+      him reason to think that the fat was about to fall into the fire. Said the
+      letter briefly: “Dear sir, I beg to advise you that possibly legal trouble
+      is pending, but that you have no cause for uneasiness, seeing that
+      everything will be attended to by yours very truly.” Yet, in spite of its
+      tenor, the epistle reassured its recipient. “What a genius the fellow is!”
+       thought Chichikov to himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his
+      tailor arrived with the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a
+      certain sense of pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey
+      shot with flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then
+      try on the breeches&mdash;the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite
+      concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves
+      (though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a
+      drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight
+      tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined
+      that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. “Sir,” he said
+      triumphantly, “you may rest assured that the work has been executed
+      exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St.
+      Petersburg, could have done it better.” As a matter of fact, the tailor
+      himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his signboard
+      “Foreign Costumier from London and Paris”&mdash;the truth being that by
+      the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to mere
+      “Karlsruhe” and “Copenhagen” he designed to acquire business and cut out
+      his local rivals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov graciously settled the man’s account, and, as soon as he had
+      gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an artist
+      of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to look better
+      than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a still more
+      interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while his white
+      collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened the effect of
+      the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie, the rich satin
+      waistcoat emphasised the dickey, and the
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, shining like silk,
+      splendidly rounded off the whole. When he turned to the right he looked
+      well: when he turned to the left he looked even better. In short, it was a
+      costume worthy of a Lord Chamberlain or the species of dandy who shrinks
+      from swearing in the Russian language, but amply relieves his feelings in
+      the language of France. Next, inclining his head slightly to one side, our
+      hero endeavoured to pose as though he were addressing a middle-aged lady
+      of exquisite refinement; and the result of these efforts was a picture
+      which any artist might have yearned to portray. Next, his delight led him
+      gracefully to execute a hop in ballet fashion, so that the wardrobe
+      trembled and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne came crashing to the floor. Yet
+      even this contretemps did not upset him; he merely called the offending
+      bottle a fool, and then debated whom first he should visit in his
+      attractive guise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels, and
+      then the voice of a gendarme saying: “You are commanded to present
+      yourself before the Governor-General!” Turning round, Chichikov stared in
+      horror at the spectacle presented; for in the doorway there was standing
+      an apparition wearing a huge moustache, a helmet surmounted with a
+      horsehair plume, a pair of crossed shoulder-belts, and a gigantic sword! A
+      whole army might have been combined into a single individual! And when
+      Chichikov opened his mouth to speak the apparition repeated, “You are
+      commanded to present yourself before the Governor-General,” and at the
+      same moment our hero caught sight both of a second apparition outside the
+      door and of a coach waiting beneath the window. What was to be done?
+      Nothing whatever was possible. Just as he stood&mdash;in his
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour suit&mdash;he had then and there to
+      enter the vehicle, and, shaking in every limb, and with a gendarme seated
+      by his side, to start for the residence of the Governor-General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even in the hall of that establishment no time was given him to pull
+      himself together, for at once an aide-de-camp said: “Go inside
+      immediately, for the Prince is awaiting you.” And as in a dream did our
+      hero see a vestibule where couriers were being handed dispatches, and then
+      a salon which he crossed with the thought, “I suppose I am not to be
+      allowed a trial, but shall be sent straight to Siberia!” And at the
+      thought his heart started beating in a manner which the most jealous of
+      lovers could not have rivalled. At length there opened a door, and before
+      him he saw a study full of portfolios, ledgers, and dispatch-boxes, with,
+      standing behind them, the gravely menacing figure of the Prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “There stands my executioner,” thought Chichikov to himself. “He is about
+      to tear me to pieces as a wolf tears a lamb.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, the Prince’s lips were simply quivering with rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Once before did I spare you,” he said, “and allow you to remain in the
+      town when you ought to have been in prison: yet your only return for my
+      clemency has been to revert to a career of fraud&mdash;and of fraud as
+      dishonourable as ever a man engaged in.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “To what dishonourable fraud do you refer, your Highness?” asked
+      Chichikov, trembling from head to foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince approached, and looked him straight in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Let me tell you,” he said, “that the woman whom you induced to witness a
+      certain will has been arrested, and that you will be confronted with her.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The world seemed suddenly to grow dim before Chichikov’s sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” he gasped, “I will tell you the whole truth, and nothing
+      but the truth. I am guilty&mdash;yes, I am guilty; but I am not so guilty
+      as you think, for I was led away by rascals.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “That any one can have led you away is impossible,” retorted the Prince.
+      “Recorded against your name there stand more felonies than even the most
+      hardened liar could have invented. I believe that never in your life have
+      you done a deed not innately dishonourable&mdash;that not a kopeck have
+      you ever obtained by aught but shameful methods of trickery and theft, the
+      penalty for which is Siberia and the knut. But enough of this! From this
+      room you will be conveyed to prison, where, with other rogues and thieves,
+      you will be confined until your trial may come on. And this is lenient
+      treatment on my part, for you are worse, far worse, than the felons who
+      will be your companions. THEY are but poor men in smocks and sheepskins,
+      whereas YOU&mdash;” Without concluding his words, the Prince shot a glance
+      at Chichikov’s smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour apparel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he touched a bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” cried Chichikov, “have mercy upon me! You are the father
+      of a family! Spare me for the sake of my aged mother!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Rubbish!” exclaimed the Prince. “Even as before you besought me for the
+      sake of a wife and children whom you did not even possess, so now you
+      would speak to me of an aged mother!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” protested Chichikov, “though I am a wretch and the lowest
+      of rascals, and though it is true that I lied when I told you that I
+      possessed a wife and children, I swear that, as God is my witness, it has
+      always been my DESIRE to possess a wife, and to fulfil all the duties of a
+      man and a citizen, and to earn the respect of my fellows and the
+      authorities. But what could be done against the force of circumstances? By
+      hook or by crook I have ever been forced to win a living, though
+      confronted at every step by wiles and temptations and traitorous enemies
+      and despoilers. So much has this been so that my life has, throughout,
+      resembled a barque tossed by tempestuous waves, a barque driven at the
+      mercy of the winds. Ah, I am only a man, your Highness!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in a moment the tears had gushed in torrents from his eyes, and he had
+      fallen forward at the Prince’s feet&mdash;fallen forward just as he was,
+      in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, his velvet waistcoat,
+      his satin tie, and his exquisitely fitting breeches, while from his neatly
+      brushed pate, as again and again he struck his hand against his forehead,
+      there came an odorous whiff of best-quality eau-de-Cologne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Away with him!” exclaimed the Prince to the gendarme who had just
+      entered. “Summon the escort to remove him.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness!” Chichikov cried again as he clasped the Prince’s knees;
+      but, shuddering all over, and struggling to free himself, the Prince
+      repeated his order for the prisoner’s removal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, I say that I will not leave this room until you have
+      accorded me mercy!” cried Chichikov as he clung to the Prince’s leg with
+      such tenacity that, frockcoat and all, he began to be dragged along the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Away with him, I say!” once more the Prince exclaimed with the sort of
+      indefinable aversion which one feels at the sight of a repulsive insect
+      which he cannot summon up the courage to crush with his boot. So
+      convulsively did the Prince shudder that Chichikov, clinging to his leg,
+      received a kick on the nose. Yet still the prisoner retained his hold;
+      until at length a couple of burly gendarmes tore him away and, grasping
+      his arms, hurried him&mdash;pale, dishevelled, and in that strange,
+      half-conscious condition into which a man sinks when he sees before him
+      only the dark, terrible figure of death, the phantom which is so abhorrent
+      to all our natures&mdash;from the building. But on the threshold the party
+      came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov’s heart the circumstance
+      revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with almost supernatural strength
+      from the grasp of the escorting gendarmes, he threw himself at the feet of
+      the horror-stricken old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” Murazov exclaimed, “what has happened to you?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Save me!” gasped Chichikov. “They are taking me away to prison and
+      death!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet almost as he spoke the gendarmes seized him again, and hurried him
+      away so swiftly that Murazov’s reply escaped his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A damp, mouldy cell which reeked of soldiers’ boots and leggings, an
+      unvarnished table, two sorry chairs, a window closed with a grating, a
+      crazy stove which, while letting the smoke emerge through its cracks, gave
+      out no heat&mdash;such was the den to which the man who had just begun to
+      taste the sweets of life, and to attract the attention of his fellows with
+      his new suit of smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour, now found himself
+      consigned. Not even necessaries had he been allowed to bring away with
+      him, nor his dispatch-box which contained all his booty. No, with the
+      indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands of a
+      tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled about the
+      floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and gnaw at his
+      heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that heart so
+      defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind that, should he
+      have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery, there would no
+      longer be a Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over every one, there
+      hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his arrival at the
+      prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Compared with poor Chichikov’s sense of relief when the old man entered
+      his cell, even the pleasure experienced by a thirsty, dusty traveller when
+      he is given a drink of clear spring water to cool his dry, parched throat
+      fades into insignificance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, my deliverer!” he cried as he rose from the floor, where he had been
+      grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old man’s hand,
+      he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting into tears, he
+      added: “God Himself will reward you for having come to visit an
+      unfortunate wretch!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Murazov looked at him sorrowfully, and said no more than “Ah, Paul
+      Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch! What has happened?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What has happened?” cried Chichikov. “I have been ruined by an accursed
+      woman. That was because I could not do things in moderation&mdash;I was
+      powerless to stop myself in time, Satan tempted me, and drove me from my
+      senses, and bereft me of human prudence. Yes, truly I have sinned, I have
+      sinned! Yet how came I so to sin? To think that a dvorianin&mdash;yes, a
+      dvorianin&mdash;should be thrown into prison without process or trial! I
+      repeat, a dvorianin! Why was I not given time to go home and collect my
+      effects? Whereas now they are left with no one to look after them! My
+      dispatch-box, my dispatch-box! It contained my whole property, all that my
+      heart’s blood and years of toil and want have been needed to acquire. And
+      now everything will be stolen, Athanasi Vassilievitch&mdash;everything
+      will be taken from me! My God!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, unable to stand against the torrent of grief which came rushing over
+      his heart once more, he sobbed aloud in tones which penetrated even the
+      thickness of the prison walls, and made dull echoes awake behind them.
+      Then, tearing off his satin tie, and seizing by the collar, the
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, he stripped the latter from
+      his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Paul Ivanovitch,” said the old man, “how even now the property which
+      you have acquired is blinding your eyes, and causing you to fail to
+      realise your terrible position!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, my good friend and benefactor,” wailed poor Chichikov despairingly,
+      and clasping Murazov by the knees. “Yet save me if you can! The Prince is
+      fond of you, and would do anything for your sake.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, Paul Ivanovitch; however much I might wish to save you, and however
+      much I might try to do so, I could not help you as you desire; for it is
+      to the power of an inexorable law, and not to the authority of any one
+      man, that you have rendered yourself subject.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Satan tempted me, and has ended by making of me an outcast from the human
+      race!” Chichikov beat his head against the wall and struck the table with
+      his fist until the blood spurted from his hand. Yet neither his head nor
+      his hand seemed to be conscious of the least pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Calm yourself, Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov. “Calm yourself, and
+      consider how best you can make your peace with God. Think of your
+      miserable soul, and not of the judgment of man.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I will, Athanasi Vassilievitch, I will. But what a fate is mine! Did ever
+      such a fate befall a man? To think of all the patience with which I have
+      gathered my kopecks, of all the toil and trouble which I have endured! Yet
+      what I have done has not been done with the intention of robbing any one,
+      nor of cheating the Treasury. Why, then, did I gather those kopecks? I
+      gathered them to the end that one day I might be able to live in plenty,
+      and also to have something to leave to the wife and children whom, for the
+      benefit and welfare of my country, I hoped eventually to win and maintain.
+      That was why I gathered those kopecks. True, I worked by devious methods&mdash;that
+      I fully admit; but what else could I do? And even devious methods I
+      employed only when I saw that the straight road would not serve my purpose
+      so well as a crooked. Moreover, as I toiled, the appetite for those
+      methods grew upon me. Yet what I took I took only from the rich; whereas
+      villains exist who, while drawing thousands a year from the Treasury,
+      despoil the poor, and take from the man with nothing even that which he
+      has. Is it not the cruelty of fate, therefore, that, just when I was
+      beginning to reap the harvest of my toil&mdash;to touch it, so to speak,
+      with the tip of one finger&mdash;there should have arisen a sudden storm
+      which has sent my barque to pieces on a rock? My capital had nearly
+      reached the sum of three hundred thousand roubles, and a three-storied
+      house was as good as mine, and twice over I could have bought a country
+      estate. Why, then, should such a tempest have burst upon me? Why should I
+      have sustained such a blow? Was not my life already like a barque tossed
+      to and fro by the billows? Where is Heaven’s justice&mdash;where is the
+      reward for all my patience, for my boundless perseverance? Three times did
+      I have to begin life afresh, and each time that I lost my all I began with
+      a single kopeck at a moment when other men would have given themselves up
+      to despair and drink. How much did I not have to overcome. How much did I
+      not have to bear! Every kopeck which I gained I had to make with my whole
+      strength; for though, to others, wealth may come easily, every coin of
+      mine had to be ‘forged with a nail worth three kopecks’ as the proverb has
+      it. With such a nail&mdash;with the nail of an iron, unwearying
+      perseverance&mdash;did <i>I</i> forge my kopecks.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Convulsively sobbing with a grief which he could not repress, Chichikov
+      sank upon a chair, tore from his shoulders the last ragged, trailing
+      remnants of his frockcoat, and hurled them from him. Then, thrusting his
+      fingers into the hair which he had once been so careful to preserve, he
+      pulled it out by handfuls at a time, as though he hoped through physical
+      pain to deaden the mental agony which he was suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Murazov sat gazing in silence at the unwonted spectacle of a man
+      who had lately been mincing with the gait of a worldling or a military fop
+      now writhing in dishevelment and despair as he poured out upon the hostile
+      forces by which human ingenuity so often finds itself outwitted a flood of
+      invective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch,” at length said Murazov, “what could
+      not each of us rise to be did we but devote to good ends the same measure
+      of energy and of patience which we bestow upon unworthy objects! How much
+      good would not you yourself have effected! Yet I do not grieve so much for
+      the fact that you have sinned against your fellow as I grieve for the fact
+      that you have sinned against yourself and the rich store of gifts and
+      opportunities which has been committed to your care. Though originally
+      destined to rise, you have wandered from the path and fallen.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” cried poor Chichikov, clasping his friend’s
+      hands, “I swear to you that, if you would but restore me my freedom, and
+      recover for me my lost property, I would lead a different life from this
+      time forth. Save me, you who alone can work my deliverance! Save me!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “How can I do that? So to do I should need to procure the setting aside of
+      a law. Again, even if I were to make the attempt, the Prince is a strict
+      administrator, and would refuse on any consideration to release you.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but for you all things are possible. It is not the law that troubles
+      me: with that I could find a means to deal. It is the fact that for no
+      offence at all I have been cast into prison, and treated like a dog, and
+      deprived of my papers and dispatch-box and all my property. Save me if you
+      can.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again clasping the old man’s knees, he bedewed them with his tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” said Murazov, shaking his head, “how that property of
+      yours still seals your eyes and ears, so that you cannot so much as listen
+      to the promptings of your own soul!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Ah, I will think of my soul, too, if only you will save me.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man began again, and then stopped. For a little
+      while there was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” at length he went on, “to save you does not lie within
+      my power. Surely you yourself see that? But, so far as I can, I will
+      endeavour to, at all events, lighten your lot and procure your eventual
+      release. Whether or not I shall succeed I do not know; but I will make the
+      attempt. And should I, contrary to my expectations, prove successful, I
+      beg of you, in return for these my efforts, to renounce all thought of
+      benefit from the property which you have acquired. Sincerely do I assure
+      you that, were I myself to be deprived of my property (and my property
+      greatly exceeds yours in magnitude), I should not shed a single tear. It
+      is not the property of which men can deprive us that matters, but the
+      property of which no one on earth can deprive or despoil us. You are a man
+      who has seen something of life&mdash;to use your own words, you have been
+      a barque tossed hither and thither by tempestuous waves: yet still will
+      there be left to you a remnant of substance on which to live, and
+      therefore I beseech you to settle down in some quiet nook where there is a
+      church, and where none but plain, good-hearted folk abide. Or, should you
+      feel a yearning to leave behind you posterity, take in marriage a good
+      woman who shall bring you, not money, but an aptitude for simple, modest
+      domestic life. But this life&mdash;the life of turmoil, with its longings
+      and its temptations&mdash;forget, and let it forget YOU; for there is no
+      peace in it. See for yourself how, at every step, it brings one but hatred
+      and treachery and deceit.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed, yes!” agreed the repentant Chichikov. “Gladly will I do as you
+      wish, since for many a day past have I been longing to amend my life, and
+      to engage in husbandry, and to reorder my affairs. A demon, the tempter
+      Satan himself, has beguiled me and led me from the right path.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly there had recurred to Chichikov long-unknown, long-unfamiliar
+      feelings. Something seemed to be striving to come to life again in him&mdash;something
+      dim and remote, something which had been crushed out of his boyhood by the
+      dreary, deadening education of his youthful days, by his desolate home, by
+      his subsequent lack of family ties, by the poverty and niggardliness of
+      his early impressions, by the grim eye of fate&mdash;an eye which had
+      always seemed to be regarding him as through a misty, mournful,
+      frost-encrusted window-pane, and to be mocking at his struggles for
+      freedom. And as these feelings came back to the penitent a groan burst
+      from his lips, and, covering his face with his hands, he moaned: “It is
+      all true, it is all true!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of little avail are knowledge of the world and experience of men unless
+      based upon a secure foundation,” observed Murazov. “Though you have
+      fallen, Paul Ivanovitch, awake to better things, for as yet there is
+      time.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “No, no!” groaned Chichikov in a voice which made Murazov’s heart bleed.
+      “It is too late, too late. More and more is the conviction gaining upon me
+      that I am powerless, that I have strayed too far ever to be able to do as
+      you bid me. The fact that I have become what I am is due to my early
+      schooling; for, though my father taught me moral lessons, and beat me, and
+      set me to copy maxims into a book, he himself stole land from his
+      neighbours, and forced me to help him. I have even known him to bring an
+      unjust suit, and defraud the orphan whose guardian he was! Consequently I
+      know and feel that, though my life has been different from his, I do not
+      hate roguery as I ought to hate it, and that my nature is coarse, and that
+      in me there is no real love for what is good, no real spark of that
+      beautiful instinct for well-doing which becomes a second nature, a settled
+      habit. Also, never do I yearn to strive for what is right as I yearn to
+      acquire property. This is no more than the truth. What else could I do but
+      confess it?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “I know that you possess will-power, and that
+      you possess also perseverance. A medicine may be bitter, yet the patient
+      will gladly take it when assured that only by its means can he recover.
+      Therefore, if it really be that you have no genuine love for doing good,
+      do good by FORCING yourself to do so. Thus you will benefit yourself even
+      more than you will benefit him for whose sake the act is performed. Only
+      force yourself to do good just once and again, and, behold, you will
+      suddenly conceive the TRUE love for well-doing. That is so, believe me. ‘A
+      kingdom is to be won only by striving,’ says the proverb. That is to say,
+      things are to be attained only by putting forth one’s whole strength,
+      since nothing short of one’s whole strength will bring one to the desired
+      goal. Paul Ivanovitch, within you there is a source of strength denied to
+      many another man. I refer to the strength of an iron perseverance. Cannot
+      THAT help you to overcome? Most men are weak and lack will-power, whereas
+      I believe that you possess the power to act a hero’s part.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sinking deep into Chichikov’s heart, these words would seem to have
+      aroused in it a faint stirring of ambition, so much so that, if it was not
+      fortitude which shone in his eyes, at all events it was something virile,
+      and of much the same nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Athanasi Vassilievitch,” he said firmly, “if you will but petition for my
+      release, as well as for permission for me to leave here with a portion of
+      my property, I swear to you on my word of honour that I will begin a new
+      life, and buy a country estate, and become the head of a household, and
+      save money, not for myself, but for others, and do good everywhere, and to
+      the best of my ability, and forget alike myself and the feasting and
+      debauchery of town life, and lead, instead, a plain, sober existence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In that resolve may God strengthen you!” cried the old man with unbounded
+      joy. “And I, for my part, will do my utmost to procure your release. And
+      though God alone knows whether my efforts will be successful, at all
+      events I hope to bring about a mitigation of your sentence. Come, let me
+      embrace you! How you have filled my heart with gladness! With God’s help,
+      I will now go to the Prince.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next moment Chichikov found himself alone. His whole nature felt
+      shaken and softened, even as, when the bellows have fanned the furnace to
+      a sufficient heat, a plate compounded even of the hardest and most
+      fire-resisting metal dissolves, glows, and turns to the liquefied state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “I myself can feel but little,” he reflected, “but I intend to use my
+      every faculty to help others to feel. I myself am but bad and worthless,
+      but I intend to do my utmost to set others on the right road. I myself am
+      but an indifferent Christian, but I intend to strive never to yield to
+      temptation, but to work hard, and to till my land with the sweat of my
+      brow, and to engage only in honourable pursuits, and to influence my
+      fellows in the same direction. For, after all, am I so very useless? At
+      least I could maintain a household, for I am frugal and active and
+      intelligent and steadfast. The only thing is to make up my mind to it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Chichikov pondered; and as he did so his half-awakened energies of
+      soul touched upon something. That is to say, dimly his instinct divined
+      that every man has a duty to perform, and that that duty may be performed
+      here, there, and everywhere, and no matter what the circumstances and the
+      emotions and the difficulties which compass a man about. And with such
+      clearness did Chichikov mentally picture to himself the life of grateful
+      toil which lies removed from the bustle of towns and the temptations which
+      man, forgetful of the obligation of labour, has invented to beguile an
+      hour of idleness that almost our hero forgot his unpleasant position, and
+      even felt ready to thank Providence for the calamity which had befallen
+      him, provided that it should end in his being released, and in his
+      receiving back a portion of his property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the massive door of the cell opened to admit a tchinovnik named
+      Samosvitov, a robust, sensual individual who was reputed by his comrades
+      to be something of a rake. Had he served in the army, he would have done
+      wonders, for he would have stormed any point, however dangerous and
+      inaccessible, and captured cannon under the very noses of the foe; but, as
+      it was, the lack of a more warlike field for his energies caused him to
+      devote the latter principally to dissipation. Nevertheless he enjoyed
+      great popularity, for he was loyal to the point that, once his word had
+      been given, nothing would ever make him break it. At the same time, some
+      reason or another led him to regard his superiors in the light of a
+      hostile battery which, come what might, he must breach at any weak or
+      unguarded spot or gap which might be capable of being utilised for the
+      purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “We have all heard of your plight,” he began as soon as the door had been
+      safely closed behind him. “Yes, every one has heard of it. But never mind.
+      Things will yet come right. We will do our very best for you, and act as
+      your humble servants in everything. Thirty thousand roubles is our price&mdash;no
+      more.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Indeed?” said Chichikov. “And, for that, shall I be completely
+      exonerated?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, completely, and also given some compensation for your loss of time.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And how much am I to pay in return, you say?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Thirty thousand roubles, to be divided among ourselves, the
+      Governor-General’s staff, and the Governor-General’s secretary.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But how is even that to be managed, for all my effects, including my
+      dispatch-box, will have been sealed up and taken away for examination?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In an hour’s time they will be within your hands again,” said Samosvitov.
+      “Shall we shake hands over the bargain?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov did so with a beating heart, for he could scarcely believe his
+      ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “For the present, then, farewell,” concluded Samosvitov. “I have
+      instructed a certain mutual friend that the important points are silence
+      and presence of mind.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Hm!” thought Chichikov. “It is to my lawyer that he is referring.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Even when Samosvitov had departed the prisoner found it difficult to
+      credit all that had been said. Yet not an hour had elapsed before a
+      messenger arrived with his dispatch-box and the papers and money therein
+      practically undisturbed and intact! Later it came out that Samosvitov had
+      assumed complete authority in the matter. First, he had rebuked the
+      gendarmes guarding Chichikov’s effects for lack of vigilance, and then
+      sent word to the Superintendent that additional men were required for the
+      purpose; after which he had taken the dispatch-box into his own charge,
+      removed from it every paper which could possibly compromise Chichikov,
+      sealed up the rest in a packet, and ordered a gendarme to convey the whole
+      to their owner on the pretence of forwarding him sundry garments necessary
+      for the night. In the result Chichikov received not only his papers, but
+      also some warm clothing for his hypersensitive limbs. Such a swift
+      recovery of his treasures delighted him beyond expression, and, gathering
+      new hope, he began once more to dream of such allurements as theatre-going
+      and the ballet girl after whom he had for some time past been dangling.
+      Gradually did the country estate and the simple life begin to recede into
+      the distance: gradually did the town house and the life of gaiety begin to
+      loom larger and larger in the foreground. Oh, life, life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile in Government offices and chancellories there had been set on
+      foot a boundless volume of work. Clerical pens slaved, and brains skilled
+      in legal casus toiled; for each official had the artist’s liking for the
+      curved line in preference to the straight. And all the while, like a
+      hidden magician, Chichikov’s lawyer imparted driving power to that machine
+      which caught up a man into its mechanism before he could even look round.
+      And the complexity of it increased and increased, for Samosvitov surpassed
+      himself in importance and daring. On learning of the place of confinement
+      of the woman who had been arrested, he presented himself at the doors, and
+      passed so well for a smart young officer of gendarmery that the sentry
+      saluted and sprang to attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Have you been on duty long?” asked Samosvitov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Since this morning, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “And shall you soon be relieved?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “In three hours from now, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Presently I shall want you, so I will instruct your officer to have you
+      relieved at once.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Very good, your Excellency.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hastening home, thereafter, at top speed, and donning the uniform of a
+      gendarme, with a false moustache and a pair of false whiskers&mdash;an
+      ensemble in which the devil himself would not have known him, Samosvitov
+      then made for the gaol where Chichikov was confined, and, en route,
+      impressed into the service the first street woman whom he encountered, and
+      handed her over to the care of two young fellows of like sort with
+      himself. The next step was to hurry back to the prison where the original
+      woman had been interned, and there to intimate to the sentry that he,
+      Samosvitov (with whiskers and rifle complete), had been sent to relieve
+      the said sentry at his post&mdash;a proceeding which, of course, enabled
+      the newly-arrived relief to ensure, while performing his self-assumed turn
+      of duty, that for the woman lying under arrest there should be substituted
+      the woman recently recruited to the plot, and that the former should then
+      be conveyed to a place of concealment where she was highly unlikely to be
+      discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Samosvitov’s feats in the military sphere were being rivalled
+      by the wonders worked by Chichikov’s lawyer in the civilian field of
+      action. As a first step, the lawyer caused it to be intimated to the local
+      Governor that the Public Prosecutor was engaged in drawing up a report to
+      his, the local Governor’s, detriment; whereafter the lawyer caused it to
+      be intimated also to the Chief of Gendarmery that a certain confidential
+      official was engaged in doing the same by HIM; whereafter, again, the
+      lawyer confided to the confidential official in question that, owing to
+      the documentary exertions of an official of a still more confidential
+      nature than the first, he (the confidential official first-mentioned) was
+      in a fair way to find himself in the same boat as both the local Governor
+      and the Chief of Gendarmery: with the result that the whole trio were
+      reduced to a frame of mind in which they were only too glad to turn to him
+      (Samosvitov) for advice. The ultimate and farcical upshot was that report
+      came crowding upon report, and that such alleged doings were brought to
+      light as the sun had never before beheld. In fact, the documents in
+      question employed anything and everything as material, even to announcing
+      that such and such an individual had an illegitimate son, that such and
+      such another kept a paid mistress, and that such and such a third was
+      troubled with a gadabout wife; whereby there became interwoven with and
+      welded into Chichikov’s past history and the story of the dead souls such
+      a crop of scandals and innuendoes that by no manner of means could any
+      mortal decide to which of these rubbishy romances to award the palm, since
+      all of them presented an equal claim to that honour. Naturally, when, at
+      length, the dossier reached the Governor-General himself it simply
+      flabbergasted the poor man; and even the exceptionally clever and
+      energetic secretary to whom he deputed the making of an abstract of the
+      same very nearly lost his reason with the strain of attempting to lay hold
+      of the tangled end of the skein. It happened that just at that time the
+      Prince had several other important affairs on hand, and affairs of a very
+      unpleasant nature. That is to say, famine had made its appearance in one
+      portion of the province, and the tchinovniks sent to distribute food to
+      the people had done their work badly; in another portion of the province
+      certain Raskolniki <a href="#linknote-51" name="linknoteref-51" id="linknoteref-51"><small>51</small></a> were in a state of ferment,
+      owing to the spreading of a report than an Antichrist had arisen who would
+      not even let the dead rest, but was purchasing them wholesale&mdash;wherefore
+      the said Raskolniki were summoning folk to prayer and repentance, and,
+      under cover of capturing the Antichrist in question, were bludgeoning
+      non-Antichrists in batches; lastly, the peasants of a third portion of the
+      province had risen against the local landowners and superintendents of
+      police, for the reason that certain rascals had started a rumour that the
+      time was come when the peasants themselves were to become landowners, and
+      to wear frockcoats, while the landowners in being were about to revert to
+      the peasant state, and to take their own wares to market; wherefore one of
+      the local volosts<a href="#linknote-52" name="linknoteref-52" id="linknoteref-52"><small>52</small></a>, oblivious of the fact that an
+      order of things of that kind would lead to a superfluity alike of
+      landowners and of superintendents of police, had refused to pay its taxes,
+      and necessitated recourse to forcible measures. Hence it was in a mood of
+      the greatest possible despondency that the poor Prince was sitting plunged
+      when word was brought to him that the old man who had gone bail for
+      Chichikov was waiting to see him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Show him in,” said the Prince; and the old man entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “A fine fellow your Chichikov!” began the Prince angrily. “You defended
+      him, and went bail for him, even though he had been up to business which
+      even the lowest thief would not have touched!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Pardon me, your Highness; I do not understand to what you are referring.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am referring to the matter of the fraudulent will. The fellow ought to
+      have been given a public flogging for it.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Although to exculpate Chichikov is not my intention, might I ask you
+      whether you do not think the case is non-proven? At all events, sufficient
+      evidence against him is still lacking.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? We have as chief witness the woman who personated the deceased, and
+      I will have her interrogated in your presence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Touching a bell, the Prince ordered her to be sent for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “It is a most disgraceful affair,” he went on; “and, ashamed though I am
+      to have to say it, some of our leading tchinovniks, including the local
+      Governor himself, have become implicated in the matter. Yet you tell me
+      that this Chichikov ought not to be confined among thieves and rascals!”
+       Clearly the Governor-General’s wrath was very great indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” said Murazov, “the Governor of the town is one of the
+      heirs under the will: wherefore he has a certain right to intervene. Also,
+      the fact that extraneous persons have meddled in the matter is only what
+      is to be expected from human nature. A rich woman dies, and no exact,
+      regular disposition of her property is made. Hence there comes flocking
+      from every side a cloud of fortune hunters. What else could one expect?
+      Such is human nature.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, but why should such persons go and commit fraud?” asked the Prince
+      irritably. “I feel as though not a single honest tchinovnik were available&mdash;as
+      though every one of them were a rogue.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, which of us is altogether beyond reproach? The tchinovniks
+      of our town are human beings, and no more. Some of them are men of worth,
+      and nearly all of them men skilled in business&mdash;though also,
+      unfortunately, largely inter-related.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Now, tell me this, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said the Prince, “for you are
+      about the only honest man of my acquaintance. What has inspired in you
+      such a penchant for defending rascals?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “This,” replied Murazov. “Take any man you like of the persons whom you
+      thus term rascals. That man none the less remains a human being. That
+      being so, how can one refuse to defend him when all the time one knows
+      that half his errors have been committed through ignorance and stupidity?
+      Each of us commits faults with every step that we take; each of us entails
+      unhappiness upon others with every breath that we draw&mdash;and that
+      although we may have no evil intention whatever in our minds. Your
+      Highness himself has, before now, committed an injustice of the gravest
+      nature.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “<i>I</i> have?” cried the Prince, taken aback by this unexpected turn
+      given to the conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Murazov remained silent for a moment, as though he were debating something
+      in his thoughts. Then he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless it is as I say. You committed the injustice in the case of
+      the lad Dierpiennikov.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What, Athanasi Vassilievitch? The fellow had infringed one of the
+      Fundamental Laws! He had been found guilty of treason!”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I am not seeking to justify him; I am only asking you whether you think
+      it right that an inexperienced youth who had been tempted and led away by
+      others should have received the same sentence as the man who had taken the
+      chief part in the affair. That is to say, although Dierpiennikov and the
+      man Voron-Drianni received an equal measure of punishment, their
+      CRIMINALITY was not equal.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “If,” exclaimed the Prince excitedly, “you know anything further
+      concerning the case, for God’s sake tell it me at once. Only the other day
+      did I forward a recommendation that St. Petersburg should remit a portion
+      of the sentence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness,” replied Murazov, “I do not mean that I know of anything
+      which does not lie also within your own cognisance, though one
+      circumstance there was which might have told in the lad’s favour had he
+      not refused to admit it, lest another should suffer injury. All that I
+      have in my mind is this. On that occasion were you not a little over-hasty
+      in coming to a conclusion? You will understand, of course, that I am
+      judging only according to my own poor lights, and for the reason that on
+      more than one occasion you have urged me to be frank. In the days when I
+      myself acted as a chief of gendarmery I came in contact with a great
+      number of accused&mdash;some of them bad, some of them good; and in each
+      case I found it well also to consider a man’s past career, for the reason
+      that, unless one views things calmly, instead of at once decrying a man,
+      he is apt to take alarm, and to make it impossible thereafter to get any
+      real confession from him. If, on the other hand, you question a man as
+      friend might question friend, the result will be that straightway he will
+      tell you everything, nor ask for mitigation of his penalty, nor bear you
+      the least malice, in that he will understand that it is not you who have
+      punished him, but the law.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince relapsed into thought; until presently there entered a young
+      tchinovnik. Portfolio in hand, this official stood waiting respectfully.
+      Care and hard work had already imprinted their insignia upon his fresh
+      young face; for evidently he had not been in the Service for nothing. As a
+      matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and
+      successfully to unravel it.
+    </p>
+<p class="center p2">
+        [At this point a long hiatus occurs in the original.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      “I will send corn to the localities where famine is worst,” said Murazov,
+      “for I understand that sort of work better than do the tchinovniks, and
+      will personally see to the needs of each person. Also, if you will allow
+      me, your Highness, I will go and have a talk with the Raskolniki. They are
+      more likely to listen to a plain man than to an official. God knows
+      whether I shall succeed in calming them, but at least no tchinovnik could
+      do so, for officials of the kind merely draw up reports and lose their way
+      among their own documents&mdash;with the result that nothing comes of it.
+      Nor will I accept from you any money for these purposes, since I am
+      ashamed to devote as much as a thought to my own pocket at a time when men
+      are dying of hunger. I have a large stock of grain lying in my granaries;
+      in addition to which, I have sent orders to Siberia that a new consignment
+      shall be forwarded me before the coming summer.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Of a surety will God reward you for your services, Athanasi
+      Vassilievitch! Not another word will I say to you on the subject, for you
+      yourself feel that any words from me would be inadequate. Yet tell me one
+      thing: I refer to the case of which you know. Have I the right to pass
+      over the case? Also, would it be just and honourable on my part to let the
+      offending tchinovniks go unpunished?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, it is impossible to return a definite answer to those two
+      questions: and the more so because many rascals are at heart men of
+      rectitude. Human problems are difficult things to solve. Sometimes a man
+      may be drawn into a vicious circle, so that, having once entered it, he
+      ceases to be himself.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “But what would the tchinovniks say if I allowed the case to be passed
+      over? Would not some of them turn up their noses at me, and declare that
+      they have effected my intimidation? Surely they would be the last persons
+      in the world to respect me for my action?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Your Highness, I think this: that your best course would be to call them
+      together, and to inform them that you know everything, and to explain to
+      them your personal attitude (exactly as you have explained it to me), and
+      to end by at once requesting their advice and asking them what each of
+      them would have done had he been placed in similar circumstances.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “What? You think that those tchinovniks would be so accessible to lofty
+      motives that they would cease thereafter to be venal and meticulous? I
+      should be laughed at for my pains.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I think not, your Highness. Even the baser section of humanity possesses
+      a certain sense of equity. Your wisest plan, your Highness, would be to
+      conceal nothing and to speak to them as you have just spoken to me. If, at
+      present, they imagine you to be ambitious and proud and unapproachable and
+      self-assured, your action would afford them an opportunity of seeing how
+      the case really stands. Why should you hesitate? You would but be
+      exercising your undoubted right. Speak to them as though delivering not a
+      message of your own, but a message from God.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “I will think it over,” the Prince said musingly, “and meanwhile I thank
+      you from my heart for your good advice.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Also, I should order Chichikov to leave the town,” suggested Murazov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, I will do so. Tell him from me that he is to depart hence as quickly
+      as possible, and that the further he should remove himself, the better it
+      will be for him. Also, tell him that it is only owing to your efforts that
+      he has received a pardon at my hands.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Murazov bowed, and proceeded from the Prince’s presence to that of
+      Chichikov. He found the prisoner cheerfully enjoying a hearty dinner
+      which, under hot covers, had been brought him from an exceedingly
+      excellent kitchen. But almost the first words which he uttered showed
+      Murazov that the prisoner had been having dealings with the army of
+      bribe-takers; as also that in those transactions his lawyer had played the
+      principal part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Listen, Paul Ivanovitch,” the old man said. “I bring you your freedom,
+      but only on this condition&mdash;that you depart out of the town
+      forthwith. Therefore gather together your effects, and waste not a moment,
+      lest worse befall you. Also, of all that a certain person has contrived to
+      do on your behalf I am aware; wherefore let me tell you, as between
+      ourselves, that should the conspiracy come to light, nothing on earth can
+      save him, and in his fall he will involve others rather then be left
+      unaccompanied in the lurch, and not see the guilt shared. How is it that
+      when I left you recently you were in a better frame of mind than you are
+      now? I beg of you not to trifle with the matter. Ah me! what boots that
+      wealth for which men dispute and cut one another’s throats? Do they think
+      that it is possible to prosper in this world without thinking of the world
+      to come? Believe me when I say that, until a man shall have renounced all
+      that leads humanity to contend without giving a thought to the ordering of
+      spiritual wealth, he will never set his temporal goods either upon a
+      satisfactory foundation. Yes, even as times of want and scarcity may come
+      upon nations, so may they come upon individuals. No matter what may be
+      said to the contrary, the body can never dispense with the soul. Why,
+      then, will you not try to walk in the right way, and, by thinking no
+      longer of dead souls, but only of your only living one, regain, with God’s
+      help, the better road? I too am leaving the town to-morrow. Hasten,
+      therefore, lest, bereft of my assistance, you meet with some dire
+      misfortune.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the old man departed, leaving Chichikov plunged in thought. Once more
+      had the gravity of life begun to loom large before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Yes, Murazov was right,” he said to himself. “It is time that I were
+      moving.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving the prison&mdash;a warder carrying his effects in his wake&mdash;he
+      found Selifan and Petrushka overjoyed at seeing their master once more at
+      liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Well, good fellows?” he said kindly. “And now we must pack and be off.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “True, true, Paul Ivanovitch,” agreed Selifan. “And by this time the roads
+      will have become firmer, for much snow has fallen. Yes, high time is it
+      that we were clear of the town. So weary of it am I that the sight of it
+      hurts my eyes.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      “Go to the coachbuilder’s,” commanded Chichikov, “and have sledge-runners
+      fitted to the koliaska.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Chichikov then made his way into the town&mdash;though not with the object
+      of paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have given
+      rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an unobtrusive
+      call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his latest suit.
+      There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
+      smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with the
+      intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
+      previous costume; and by promising double remuneration he induced the
+      tailor in question so to hasten the cutting out of the garments that,
+      through sitting up all night over the work, the man might have the whole
+      ready by break of day. True, the goods were delivered a trifle after the
+      appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and breeches
+      completed; and while the horses were being put to, Chichikov tried on the
+      clothes, and found them equal to the previous creation, even though during
+      the process he caught sight of a bald patch on his head, and was led
+      mournfully to reflect: “Alas! Why did I give way to such despair? Surely I
+      need not have torn my hair out so freely?”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, when the tailor had been paid, our hero left the town. But no longer
+      was he the old Chichikov&mdash;he was only a ruin of what he had been, and
+      his frame of mind might have been compared to a building recently pulled
+      down to make room for a new one, while the new one had not yet been
+      erected owing to the non-receipt of the plans from the architect. Murazov,
+      too, had departed, but at an earlier hour, and in a tilt-waggon with Ivan
+      Potapitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later the Governor-General issued to all and sundry officials a
+      notice that, on the occasion of his departure for St. Petersburg, he would
+      be glad to see the corps of tchinovniks at a private meeting. Accordingly
+      all ranks and grades of officialdom repaired to his residence, and there
+      awaited&mdash;not without a certain measure of trepidation and of
+      searching of heart&mdash;the Governor-General’s entry. When that took
+      place he looked neither clear nor dull. Yet his bearing was proud, and his
+      step assured. The tchinovniks bowed&mdash;some of them to the waist, and
+      he answered their salutations with a slight inclination of the head. Then
+      he spoke as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Since I am about to pay a visit to St. Petersburg, I have thought it
+      right to meet you, and to explain to you privately my reasons for doing
+      so. An affair of a most scandalous character has taken place in our midst.
+      To what affair I am referring I think most of those present will guess.
+      Now, an automatic process has led to that affair bringing about the
+      discovery of other matters. Those matters are no less dishonourable than
+      the primary one; and to that I regret to have to add that there stand
+      involved in them certain persons whom I had hitherto believed to be
+      honourable. Of the object aimed at by those who have complicated matters
+      to the point of making their resolution almost impossible by ordinary
+      methods I am aware; as also I am aware of the identity of the ringleader,
+      despite the skill with which he has sought to conceal his share in the
+      scandal. But the principal point is, that I propose to decide these
+      matters, not by formal documentary process, but by the more summary
+      process of court-martial, and that I hope, when the circumstances have
+      been laid before his Imperial Majesty, to receive from him authority to
+      adopt the course which I have mentioned. For I conceive that when it has
+      become impossible to resolve a case by civil means, and some of the
+      necessary documents have been burnt, and attempts have been made (both
+      through the adduction of an excess of false and extraneous evidence and
+      through the framing of fictitious reports) to cloud an already
+      sufficiently obscure investigation with an added measure of complexity,&mdash;when
+      all these circumstances have arisen, I conceive that the only possible
+      tribunal to deal with them is a military tribunal. But on that point I
+      should like your opinion.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince paused for a moment or two, as though awaiting a reply; but
+      none came, seeing that every man had his eyes bent upon the floor, and
+      many of the audience had turned white in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Then,” he went on, “I may say that I am aware also of a matter which
+      those who have carried it through believe to lie only within the
+      cognisance of themselves. The particulars of that matter will not be set
+      forth in documentary form, but only through process of myself acting as
+      plaintiff and petitioner, and producing none but ocular evidence.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the throng of tchinovniks some one gave a start, and thereby caused
+      others of the more apprehensive sort to fall to trembling in their shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Without saying does it go that the prime conspirators ought to undergo
+      deprivation of rank and property, and that the remainder ought to be
+      dismissed from their posts; for though that course would cause a certain
+      proportion of the innocent to suffer with the guilty, there would seem to
+      be no other course available, seeing that the affair is one of the most
+      disgraceful nature, and calls aloud for justice. Therefore, although I
+      know that to some my action will fail to serve as a lesson, since it will
+      lead to their succeeding to the posts of dismissed officials, as well as
+      that others hitherto considered honourable will lose their reputation, and
+      others entrusted with new responsibilities will continue to cheat and
+      betray their trust,&mdash;although all this is known to me, I still have
+      no choice but to satisfy the claims of justice by proceeding to take stern
+      measures. I am also aware that I shall be accused of undue severity; but,
+      lastly, I am aware that it is my duty to put aside all personal feeling,
+      and to act as the unconscious instrument of that retribution which justice
+      demands.”
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Over ever face there passed a shudder. Yet the Prince had spoken calmly,
+      and not a trace of anger or any other kind of emotion had been visible on
+      his features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      “Nevertheless,” he went on, “the very man in whose hands the fate of so
+      many now lies, the very man whom no prayer for mercy could ever have
+      influenced, himself desires to make a request of you. Should you grant
+      that request, all will be forgotten and blotted out and pardoned, for I
+      myself will intercede with the Throne on your behalf. That request is
+      this. I know that by no manner of means, by no preventive measures, and by
+      no penalties will dishonesty ever be completely extirpated from our midst,
+      for the reason that its roots have struck too deep, and that the
+      dishonourable traffic in bribes has become a necessity to, even the
+      mainstay of, some whose nature is not innately venal. Also, I know that,
+      to many men, it is an impossibility to swim against the stream. Yet now,
+      at this solemn and critical juncture, when the country is calling aloud
+      for saviours, and it is the duty of every citizen to contribute and to
+      sacrifice his all, I feel that I cannot but issue an appeal to every man
+      in whom a Russian heart and a spark of what we understand by the word
+      ‘nobility’ exist. For, after all, which of us is more guilty than his
+      fellow? It may be to ME the greatest culpability should be assigned, in
+      that at first I may have adopted towards you too reserved an attitude,
+      that I may have been over-hasty in repelling those who desired but to
+      serve me, even though of their services I did not actually stand in need.
+      Yet, had they really loved justice and the good of their country, I think
+      that they would have been less prone to take offence at the coldness of my
+      attitude, but would have sacrificed their feelings and their personality
+      to their superior convictions. For hardly can it be that I failed to note
+      their overtures and the loftiness of their motives, or that I would not
+      have accepted any wise and useful advice proffered. At the same time, it
+      is for a subordinate to adapt himself to the tone of his superior, rather
+      than for a superior to adapt himself to the tone of his subordinate. Such
+      a course is at once more regular and more smooth of working, since a corps
+      of subordinates has but one director, whereas a director may have a
+      hundred subordinates. But let us put aside the question of comparative
+      culpability. The important point is, that before us all lies the duty of
+      rescuing our fatherland. Our fatherland is suffering, not from the
+      incursion of a score of alien tongues, but from our own acts, in that, in
+      addition to the lawful administration, there has grown up a second
+      administration possessed of infinitely greater powers than the system
+      established by law. And that second administration has established its
+      conditions, fixed its tariff of prices, and published that tariff abroad;
+      nor could any ruler, even though the wisest of legislators and
+      administrators, do more to correct the evil than limit it in the conduct
+      of his more venal tchinovniks by setting over them, as their supervisors,
+      men of superior rectitude. No, until each of us shall come to feel that,
+      just as arms were taken up during the period of the upheaval of nations,
+      so now each of us must make a stand against dishonesty, all remedies will
+      end in failure. As a Russian, therefore&mdash;as one bound to you by
+      consanguinity and identity of blood&mdash;I make to you my appeal. I make
+      it to those of you who understand wherein lies nobility of thought. I
+      invite those men to remember the duty which confronts us, whatsoever our
+      respective stations; I invite them to observe more closely their duty, and
+      to keep more constantly in mind their obligations of holding true to their
+      country, in that before us the future looms dark, and that we can
+      scarcely....”
+     </p>
+    <hr>
+<p class="center p2">
+   [Here the manuscript of the original comes abruptly to an end.]
+</p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_FOOT" id="link2H_FOOT">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br><br><br><br>
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      FOOTNOTES:
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br> [ Essays on Russian
+      Novelists. Macmillan.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-2" id="linknote-2">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      2 (<a href="#linknoteref-2">return</a>)<br> [ Ideals and Realities in
+      Russian Literature. Duckworth and Co.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-3" id="linknote-3">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      3 (<a href="#linknoteref-3">return</a>)<br> [ This is generally referred
+      to in the Russian criticisms of Gogol as a quotation from Jeremiah. It
+      appears upon investigation, however, that it actually occurs only in the
+      Slavonic version from the Greek, and not in the Russian translation made
+      direct from the Hebrew.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-4" id="linknote-4">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      4 (<a href="#linknoteref-4">return</a>)<br> [ An urn for brewing honey
+      tea.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-5" id="linknote-5">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      5 (<a href="#linknoteref-5">return</a>)<br> [ An urn for brewing ordinary
+      tea.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-6" id="linknote-6">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      6 (<a href="#linknoteref-6">return</a>)<br> [ A German dramatist
+      (1761-1819) who also filled sundry posts in the service of the Russian
+      Government.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-7" id="linknote-7">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      7 (<a href="#linknoteref-7">return</a>)<br> [ Priest’s wife.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-8" id="linknote-8">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      8 (<a href="#linknoteref-8">return</a>)<br> [ In this case the term
+      General refers to a civil grade equivalent to the military rank of the
+      same title.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-9" id="linknote-9">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      9 (<a href="#linknoteref-9">return</a>)<br> [ An annual tax upon
+      peasants, payment of which secured to the payer the right of removal.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-10" id="linknote-10">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      10 (<a href="#linknoteref-10">return</a>)<br> [ Cabbage soup.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-11" id="linknote-11">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      11 (<a href="#linknoteref-11">return</a>)<br> [ Three horses harnessed
+      abreast.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-12" id="linknote-12">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      12 (<a href="#linknoteref-12">return</a>)<br> [ A member of the gentry
+      class.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-13" id="linknote-13">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      13 (<a href="#linknoteref-13">return</a>)<br> [ Pieces equal in value to
+      twenty-five kopecks (a quarter of a rouble).]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-14" id="linknote-14">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      14 (<a href="#linknoteref-14">return</a>)<br> [ A Russian general who, in
+      1812, stoutly opposed Napoleon at the battle of Borodino.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-15" id="linknote-15">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      15 (<a href="#linknoteref-15">return</a>)<br> [ The late eighteenth
+      century.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-16" id="linknote-16">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      16 (<a href="#linknoteref-16">return</a>)<br> [ Forty Russian pounds.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-17" id="linknote-17">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      17 (<a href="#linknoteref-17">return</a>)<br> [ To serve as
+      blotting-paper.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-18" id="linknote-18">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      18 (<a href="#linknoteref-18">return</a>)<br> [ A liquor distilled from
+      fermented bread crusts or sour fruit.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-19" id="linknote-19">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      19 (<a href="#linknoteref-19">return</a>)<br> [ That is to say, a
+      distinctively Russian name.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-20" id="linknote-20">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      20 (<a href="#linknoteref-20">return</a>)<br> [ A jeering appellation
+      which owes its origin to the fact that certain Russians cherish a
+      prejudice against the initial character of the word&mdash;namely, the
+      Greek theta, or TH.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-21" id="linknote-21">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      21 (<a href="#linknoteref-21">return</a>)<br> [ The great Russian general
+      who, after winning fame in the Seven Years’ War, met with disaster when
+      attempting to assist the Austrians against the French in 1799.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-22" id="linknote-22">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      22 (<a href="#linknoteref-22">return</a>)<br> [ A kind of large gnat.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-23" id="linknote-23">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      23 (<a href="#linknoteref-23">return</a>)<br> [ A copper coin worth five
+      kopecks.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-24" id="linknote-24">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      24 (<a href="#linknoteref-24">return</a>)<br> [ A Russian general who
+      fought against Napoleon, and was mortally wounded at Borodino.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-25" id="linknote-25">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      25 (<a href="#linknoteref-25">return</a>)<br> [ Literally, “nursemaid.”]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-26" id="linknote-26">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      26 (<a href="#linknoteref-26">return</a>)<br> [ Village factor or
+      usurer.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-27" id="linknote-27">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      27 (<a href="#linknoteref-27">return</a>)<br> [ Subordinate government
+      officials.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-28" id="linknote-28">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      28 (<a href="#linknoteref-28">return</a>)<br> [ Nevertheless Chichikov
+      would appear to have erred, since most people would make the sum amount to
+      twenty-three roubles, forty kopecks. If so, Chichikov cheated himself of
+      one rouble, fifty-six kopecks.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-29" id="linknote-29">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      29 (<a href="#linknoteref-29">return</a>)<br> [ The names Kariakin and
+      Volokita might, perhaps, be translated as “Gallant” and “Loafer.”]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-30" id="linknote-30">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      30 (<a href="#linknoteref-30">return</a>)<br> [ Tradesman or citizen.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-31" id="linknote-31">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      31 (<a href="#linknoteref-31">return</a>)<br> [ The game of
+      knucklebones.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-32" id="linknote-32">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      32 (<a href="#linknoteref-32">return</a>)<br> [ A sort of low,
+      four-wheeled carriage.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-33" id="linknote-33">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      33 (<a href="#linknoteref-33">return</a>)<br> [ The system by which, in
+      annual rotation, two-thirds of a given area are cultivated, while the
+      remaining third is left fallow.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-34" id="linknote-34">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      34 (<a href="#linknoteref-34">return</a>)<br> [ Public Prosecutor.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-35" id="linknote-35">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      35 (<a href="#linknoteref-35">return</a>)<br> [ To reproduce this story
+      with a raciness worthy of the Russian original is practically impossible.
+      The translator has not attempted the task.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-36" id="linknote-36">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      36 (<a href="#linknoteref-36">return</a>)<br> [ One of the mistresses of
+      Louis XIV. of France. In 1680 she wrote a book called Reflexions sur la
+      Misericorde de Dieu, par une Dame Penitente.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-37" id="linknote-37">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      37 (<a href="#linknoteref-37">return</a>)<br> [ Four-wheeled open
+      carriage.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-38" id="linknote-38">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      38 (<a href="#linknoteref-38">return</a>)<br> [ Silver five kopeck
+      piece.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-39" id="linknote-39">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      39 (<a href="#linknoteref-39">return</a>)<br> [ A silver quarter rouble.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-40" id="linknote-40">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      40 (<a href="#linknoteref-40">return</a>)<br> [ In the days of serfdom,
+      the rate of forced labour&mdash;so many hours or so many days per week&mdash;which
+      the serf had to perform for his proprietor.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-41" id="linknote-41">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      41 (<a href="#linknoteref-41">return</a>)<br> [ The Elder.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-42" id="linknote-42">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      42 (<a href="#linknoteref-42">return</a>)<br> [ The Younger.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-43" id="linknote-43">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      43 (<a href="#linknoteref-43">return</a>)<br> [ Secondary School.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-44" id="linknote-44">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      44 (<a href="#linknoteref-44">return</a>)<br> [ The desiatin = 2.86
+      English acres.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-45" id="linknote-45">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      45 (<a href="#linknoteref-45">return</a>)<br> [ “One more makes five.”]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-46" id="linknote-46">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      46 (<a href="#linknoteref-46">return</a>)<br> [ Dried spinal marrow of
+      the sturgeon.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-47" id="linknote-47">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      47 (<a href="#linknoteref-47">return</a>)<br> [ Long, belted Tartar
+      blouses.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-48" id="linknote-48">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      48 (<a href="#linknoteref-48">return</a>)<br> [ Village commune.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-49" id="linknote-49">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      49 (<a href="#linknoteref-49">return</a>)<br> [ Landowner.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-50" id="linknote-50">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      50 (<a href="#linknoteref-50">return</a>)<br> [ Here, in the original, a
+      word is missing.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-51" id="linknote-51">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      51 (<a href="#linknoteref-51">return</a>)<br> [ Dissenters or Old
+      Believers: i.e. members of the sect which refused to accept the revised
+      version of the Church Service Books promulgated by the Patriarch Nikon in
+      1665.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-52" id="linknote-52">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      52 (<a href="#linknoteref-52">return</a>)<br> [ Fiscal districts.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br><br>
+    </p>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAD SOULS ***</div>
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