"Yes, of course, they're dead," Sobakevich said, as if catching himself and remembering that they were indeed already dead, and then added: "Though one can also say: what about those people who are now listed as living? What sort of people are they? Flies, not people."
"Still, they do exist, while these are a dream."
"Oh, no, not a dream! I'll tell you what sort Mikheev was, one of those people you don't find anymore: such a huge machine, he wouldn't fit into this room; no, it's not a dream! And there was such tremendous strength in his tremendous shoulders as no horse ever had; I'd like to know where else you'll find such a dream!"
These last words he spoke addressing the portraits of Bagration and Colocotronis[24] hanging on the wall, as commonly happens when people are conversing and one of them suddenly, for some unknown reason, addresses not the one whom his words concern, but some third who chances to come in, even a total stranger, from whom he knows he will hear neither a reply, nor an opinion, nor a confirmation, but at whom he will nevertheless direct his gaze, as if calling on him to act as intermediary; and the stranger, slightly confused for the first moment, does not know whether to answer him on the matter, of which he has heard nothing, or to stand there for a moment, maintaining the proper decorum, and only then walk away.
"No, more than two roubles I cannot give," said Chichikov.
"If you please, so that you won't claim I'm asking too much and don't want to do you a favor, if you please—seventy-five roubles per soul, only in banknotes, really only for the sake of our acquaintance!"
"What indeed is with him," Chichikov thought to himself, "does he take me for a fool, or what?" and then added aloud:
"I find it strange, really: it seems some theater performance or comedy is going on between us, otherwise I can't explain it to myself . . . You seem to be quite an intelligent man, you possess educated knowledge. The object is simply pooh-pooh. What is it worth? Who needs it?"
"Well, you're buying it, that means you need it."
Here Chichikov bit his lip and could find no reply. He tried to begin talking about some family and domestic circumstances, but Sobakevich responded simply:
"I have no need to know what your relations are; I don't interfere in family affairs, that's your business. You're in need of souls, I'm selling them to you, and you'll regret it if you don't buy them."
"Two roubles," said Chichikov.
"Eh, really, the parrot calls everyone Poll, as the proverb says; you're stuck on this two and don't want to get off it. Give me your real price!"
"Well, devil take him," Chichikov thought to himself, "I'll add fifty kopecks, the dog, to buy nuts with!"
"If you please, I'll add fifty kopecks."
"Well, if you please, I'll also give you my final word: fifty roubles! It's my loss, really, you won't get such fine folk so cheaply anywhere else!"
"What a pinchfist!" Chichikov said to himself, and then continued aloud in some vexation:
"What indeed is this ... as if it were all quite a serious matter;
I can get them for nothing elsewhere. Anyone would be eager to unload them on me, just to get rid of them the sooner. Only a fool would keep them and pay taxes on them!"
"But, you know, this kind of purchase—I say it between the two of us, in friendship—is not always permissible, and if I or someone else were to tell, such a person would not enjoy any confidence with regard to contracts or on entering into any sort of profitable obligations."
"So that's what he's aiming at, the scoundrel!" thought Chichikov, and he straightaway uttered with a most cool air:
"As you wish, I'm not buying out of any sort of need, as you think, but just like that, following the bent of my own thoughts. If you don't want two and a half—good-bye!"
"He won't be thrown off, the tough one!" thought Sobakevich.
"Well, God help you, give me thirty and take them!"
"No, I can see you don't want to sell, good-bye!"
"Excuse me, excuse me," said Sobakevich, not letting go of his hands and stepping on his foot, for our hero had forgotten his caution, in punishment for which he had to hiss and jump about on one foot.
"I beg your pardon! I seem to have inconvenienced you. Do sit down here! Please!" Whereupon he seated him in an armchair even with a certain dexterity, like a bear that has had some training and knows how to turn somersaults and perform various tricks in response to questions like: "Show us, Misha, how peasant women take a steam bath" or "Misha, how do little children steal peas?"
"Really, I'm wasting my time, I must hurry."
"Stay for one little minute, I'm going to tell you something right now that you'll find very pleasant." Here Sobakevich sat down closer to Chichikov and said softly in his ear, as if it were a secret: "Want a quarter?"
"You mean twenty-five roubles? No, no, no, not even a quarter of a quarter, I won't add a single kopeck."
Sobakevich fell silent. Chichikov also fell silent. The silence lasted about two minutes. From the wall, Bagration with his aquiline nose looked extremely attentively upon this purchasing.
"So what's your final price?" Sobakevich said at last.
"Two-fifty."
"Really, for you a human soul is the same as a stewed turnip. Give me three roubles at least!" I can’t.
"Well, there's nothing to do with you, if you please! It's a loss, but I have this beastly character: I can't help gratifying my neighbor. And I expect we'll have to draw up a deed of purchase, so that everything will be in order."
"Certainly."
"Well, that means going to town."
Thus the deal was concluded. They both decided to be in town the next day and take care of the deed of purchase. Chichikov asked for a little list of the peasants. Sobakevich agreed willingly, straightaway went to his bureau, and began writing them all down with his own hand, not only by name but with mention of their laudable qualities.
And Chichikov, having nothing to do, occupied himself, while standing behind him, with an examination of his entire vast frame. As he gazed at his back, broad as a squat Vyatka horse's, and his legs, which resembled iron hitching posts set along the sidewalk, he could not help exclaiming inwardly: "Eh, God really endowed you well! Just as they say, crudely cut but stoutly stitched! . . . Were you born such a bear, or did you get bearified by the backwoods life, sowing grain, dealing with muzhiks, and turn through all that into what's known as a pinchfist? But no, I think you'd be just the same even if you'd been raised according to fashion, got your start and lived in Petersburg, and not in this backwoods. The whole difference is that now you tuck away half a rack of lamb with groats, followed by a cheesecake as big as a plate, and then you'd eat some sort of cutlets with truffles. Yes, and now you have muzhiks under your rule: you get along with them and, of course, wouldn't mistreat them, because they're yours and it would be the worse for you; and then you'd have officials, whom you could knock about roughly, realizing that they're not your serfs, or else you could rob the treasury! No, if a man's a pinchfist, he'll never open his hand! And if you get him to open one or two fingers, it will come out still worse. If he slightly grazes the tips of some science, he'll let it be known later, when he occupies some prominent post, to all those who actually do know some science. What's more, he may later say: 'Why don't I just show myself!' And he'll think up such a wise decree that lots of people will find themselves in a pickle . . . Eh, if all these pinch-fists ..."
"The list's ready," said Sobakevich, turning around.
"Ready? Let me have it, please!" He ran down it with his eyes and marveled at its accuracy and precision: not only were trade, name, age, and family situation thoroughly indicated, but there were even special marginal notes concerning behavior, sobriety— in short, it was lovely to look at.
"And now a little down payment, please!" said Sobakevich.
"Why a little down payment? You'll get all the money at once, in town."
"You know, that's how it's always done," objected Sobakevich.
"I
don't know how I can give it to you, I didn't bring any money with me. Wait, here's ten roubles."
"What's ten roubles! Give me fifty at least!"
Chichikov started telling him no, he could not do that; but Sobakevich said so affirmatively that he did have money, that he brought out another banknote, saying:
"Oh, well, here's another fifteen for you, twenty-five in all. Only give me a receipt, please."
"But why do you need a receipt?"
"You know, it's always better with a receipt. If perchance something should happen."
"All right, give me the money then."
"Why the money? It's right here in my hand! As soon as you've written the receipt, you can take it that same moment."
"Excuse me, but how am I to write the receipt? I have to see the money first."
Chichikov let the paper notes go from his hand to Sobakevich, who, approaching the table, covered them with the fingers of his left hand, and with the other wrote on a scrap of paper that a down payment of twenty-five roubles in government banknotes for the bought souls had been received in full. Having written the receipt, he once again examined the banknotes.
"The paper's a bit old!" he said, studying one of them in the light, "and slightly torn—well, but among friends that's nothing to look at."
"A pinchfist, a real pinchfist!" Chichikov thought to himself, "and a knave to boot!"
"You don't want any of the female sex?"
"No, thank you."
"I wouldn't ask much. One little rouble apiece, for the sake of acquaintance."
"No, I have no need of the female sex."
"Well, if you have no need, there's nothing to talk about. Taste knows no rules: one man loves the parson, another the parsoness, as the proverb says."
"I also wanted to ask you to keep this deal between us," Chichikov said as he was taking his leave.
"But that goes without saying. No point mixing a third person up in it; what takes place between close friends in all sincerity ought to be kept to their mutual friendship. Good-bye! Thank you for coming; I beg you not to forget us in the future: if you happen to have a free moment, come for dinner and spend some time. Maybe we'll chance to be of service to each other again."
"Oh, sure thing!" Chichikov thought to himself, getting into his britzka. "Hustled me out of two-fifty for a dead soul, the devil's pinchfist!"
He was displeased with Sobakevich's behavior. After all, one way or another he was still an acquaintance, they had met at the governor's and at the police chief's, but he had acted like a complete stranger, had taken money for trash! As the britzka drove out of the yard, he looked back and saw that Sobakevich was still standing on the porch and seemed to be watching, as if he wished to know where the guest would go.
"The scoundrel, he's still standing there!" he said through his teeth, and told Selifan to turn towards the peasants' cottages and drive off in such a way that the carriage could not be seen from the master's yard. He wished to go and see Plyushkin, whose people, in Sobakevich's words, were dying like flies, but he did not wish Sobakevich to know of it. When the britzka was already at the end of the village, he beckoned to the first muzhik they met, who, having chanced upon a really stout beam somewhere on the road, was dragging it on his shoulder, like an indefatigable ant, back to his cottage.
"Hey, graybeard! how can I get from here to Plyushkin's, so as not to go past the master's house?"
The muzhik seemed to have difficulty with the question.
"What, you don't know?"
"No, your honor, I don't."
"Eh, you! And with all your gray hairs, you don't know the niggard Plyushkin, the one who feeds his people so badly?"
"Ah! the patchy one, the patchy one!" the muzhik cried.
He added a noun to the word "patchy," a very felicitous one, but not usable in polite conversation, and therefore we shall omit it. However, one could tell that the expression was very apt, because, although the muzhik had long disappeared from view and they had driven a good way on, Chichikov still sat chuckling in the britzka. Strongly do the Russian folk express themselves! and if they bestow a little word on someone, it will go with him and his posterity for generations, and he will drag it with him into the service, and into retirement, and to Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth. And no matter how clever you are in ennobling your nickname later, even getting little scriveners to derive it for hire from ancient princely stock, nothing will help: the nickname will caw itself away at the top of its crow's voice and tell clearly where the bird has flown from.[25] Aptly uttered is as good as written, an axe cannot destroy it. And oh, how apt is everything that comes from deep Russia, where there are no German, or Finnish, or any other tribes, but all is native natural-born, lively and pert Russian wit, which does not fish for a word in its pockets, does not brood on it like a hen on her chicks, but pastes it on at once, like a passport, for eternal wear, and there is no point in adding later what sort of nose or lips you have—in one line you are portrayed from head to foot!
As a numberless multitude of churches and monasteries with their cupolas, domes, and crosses is scattered over holy, pious Russia, so a numberless multitude of tribes, generations, peoples also throngs, ripples, and rushes over the face of the earth. And each of these peoples, bearing within itself the pledge of its strength, filled with the creative capacity of the soul, with its own marked peculiarity and other gifts of God, is in an original fashion distinguished by its own word, which, whatever subject it may express, reflects in that expression a portion of its character. A knowledge of hearts and a wise comprehension of life resound in the word of the Briton; like a nimble fop the short-lived word of the Frenchman flashes and scatters; whimsically does the German contrive his lean, intelligent word, not accessible to all; but there is no word so sweeping, so pert, so bursting from beneath the very heart, so ebullient and vibrant with life, as an aptly spoken Russian word.
Chapter Six
Once, long ago, in the days of my youth, in the days of my flashed-by never-to-return childhood, I used to rejoice when I approached an unknown place for the first time: no matter whether it was a little village, a wretched provincial town, a settlement, a hamlet—much that was curious in it revealed itself to a child's curious eyes. Every building, everything that bore on itself the stamp of some noticeable peculiarity—everything arrested and amazed me. A stone government building of familiar architecture with half its windows false, sticking up all by itself amid a trimmed log pile of common one-storied tradesmen's houses, or a regular round cupola, all clad in white sheet metal, soaring high above a snowy, whitewashed new church, or a marketplace, or a provincial fop who turned up in the middle of town—nothing escaped my fresh, keen attention, and, poking my nose out of my traveling cart, I gazed at the never-before-seen cut of some frock coat, and at the wooden boxes of nails, of sulphur yellowing from afar, of raisins and soap, flashing by in the doorway of a grocer's shop together with jars of stale Moscow candy, gazed also at an infantry officer walking off to one side, brought from God knows what district capital into provincial boredom, and at a merchant in a tight-waisted coat flashing by in a racing droshky, and mentally I would be carried off with them into their poor lives. Should a provincial official pass by, it was enough to set me thinking: where is he going, to spend the evening with some crony of his, or straight to his own home, to linger for half an hour or so on the porch, until dusk gathers fully, and then sit down to an early supper with his mama, his wife, his wife's sister, and the whole family, and what will be talked about among them, while a serf girl in a coin necklace or a lad in a thick jacket comes in after the soup bringing a tallow candle in a long-lived homemade candlestick. Approaching the estate of some landowner, I looked with curiosity at the tall, narrow wooden belfry or the broad, dark old wooden church. From far off through the green of the trees, the red roof and white chimneys of the landowner's house flashed enticingly to me, and I waited impatiently for the gardens screening it to part on both sides and show t
he whole of the house with its—then, alas!—by no means trite appearance; and from it I tried to guess what the landowner himself was, whether he was fat, and whether he had sons or as many as six daughters with ringing girlish laughter, games, and the youngest sister invariably a beauty, and whether they had dark eyes, and whether he himself was a jolly man, or sullen as the last days of September, looking at the calendar and boring the young folk with talk of rye and wheat.
Now it is with indifference that I approach any unknown estate, and with indifference that I gaze at its trite appearance; my chilled glance finds no refuge, I do not laugh, and that which in earlier days would have awakened a lively movement in my face, laughter and unceasing talk, now flits by, and my motionless lips preserve an impassive silence. Oh, my youth! Oh, my freshness!
While Chichikov thought and chuckled inwardly over the nickname the muzhiks had bestowed upon Plyushkin, he failed to notice that he had driven into the middle of a vast settlement with a multitude of cottages and lanes. Soon, however, it was brought to his notice by a quite decent jolt, produced by the log pavement, to which town cobblestones are nothing in comparison. These logs, like piano keys, kept rising up and down, and the unwary traveler would acquire a bump on his head, or a bruise on his brow, or might chance to give a painful bite with his own teeth to the tip of his own tongue. He noticed a sort of special dilapidation in all the village buildings: the logs of the cottages were dark and old; many of the roofs were riddled like sieves; some had just a ridge pole on top and rafters like ribs on the sides. It seemed as if the owners themselves had torn off the shingles and laths, considering—correctly, of course—that one does not roof cottages in the rain, and in fair weather there is no dripping anyway, so why sit around women's skirts inside, when there is free space enough in the pot-house and on the high road—in short, anywhere you like. The windows of the cottages had no glass, some were stopped up with a rag or a jacket; the little roofed balconies with railings, which for unknown reasons are built onto some Russian cottages, were lopsided and blackened, not even picturesquely. Behind the cottages in many places stretched rows of huge stacks of wheat, which had evidently been standing there for a long time; in color they resembled old, poorly baked brick, trash of all kinds was growing on top of them, and bushes even clung to their sides. The wheat evidently belonged to the master. From behind the wheat stacks and dilapidated roofs there soared and flashed in the clear air, now right, now left, according to the turns the britzka made, two village churches, one next to the other: an abandoned wooden one, and a stone one, its yellowed walls all stains and cracks. Parts of the master's house came into view and finally the whole of it appeared in a gap where the chain of cottages broke off and in their place was left a vacant lot, formerly a kitchen garden or cabbage patch, surrounded by a low, in places broken, fence. Long, immeasurably long, the strange castle looked like some decrepit invalid. In places it had one story, in places two; on the dark roof, which did not everywhere reliably shield its old age, two belvederes had been stuck, facing each other, both of them shaky now, deprived of the paint that had once covered them. The walls of the house showed bare lath in places and had evidently suffered much from all sorts of bad weather, rains, gales, and autumnal changes. Of the windows, only two were open, the rest being either shuttered or even boarded up. These two windows, for their part, were also weak-sighted; one of them had a dark triangle of blue sugar paper glued to it.
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