Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol

  But we have begun talking rather loudly, forgetting that our hero, asleep all the while his story was being told, is now awake and can easily hear his last name being repeated so often. He is a touchy man and does not like it when he is spoken of disrespectfully. The reader can hardly care whether Chichikov gets angry with him or not, but as for the author, he must in no case quarrel with his hero: they still have many a road to travel together hand in hand; two big parts lie ahead—no trifling matter.

  "Hey, hey! what's with you!" said Chichikov to Selifan, "eh?"

  "What?" said Selifan in a slow voice.

  "What do you mean, what? You goose! is that any way to drive? Get a move on!"

  And indeed Selifan had long been driving with his eyes closed, only occasionally, through sleep, snapping the reins against the flanks of the horses, who were also dozing; and Petrushka's cap had long since flown off at some unknown place, and he himself was leaning back, resting his head on Chichikov's knee, so that he had to give it a flick. Selifan perked up and, slapping the dapple-gray on the back a few times, which made him break into a trot, and brandishing his whip over them all, added in a thin, singsong voice: "Never fear!" The horses got moving and pulled the light britzka along like a bit of fluff. Selifan just kept brandishing and shouting "Hup! hup! hup!" bouncing smoothly on his box, as the troika now flew up and now rushed full-tilt down a hummock, such as were scattered the whole length of the high road, which ran down a barely noticeable slope. Chichikov just smiled, jouncing slightly on his leather cushion, for he loved fast driving. And what Russian does not love fast driving? How can his soul, which yearns to get into a whirl, to carouse, to say sometimes: "Devil take it all!"—how can his soul not love it? Not love it when something ecstatically wondrous is felt in it? It seems an unknown force has taken you on its wing, and you are flying, and everything is flying: milestones go flying by, merchants come flying at you on the boxes of their kibitkas, the forest on both sides is flying by with its dark ranks of firs and pines, with axes chopping and crows cawing, the whole road is flying off no one knows where into the vanishing distance, and there is something terrible in this quick flashing, in which the vanishing object has no time to fix itself—only the sky overhead, and the light clouds, and the moon trying to break through, they alone seem motionless. Ah, troika! bird troika, who invented you? Surely you could only have been born among a brisk people, in a land that cares not for jokes, but sweeps smoothly and evenly over half the world, and you can go on counting the miles until it all dances before your eyes. And you are no clever traveling outfit, it seems, held together by an iron screw, but some dextrous Yaroslav muzhik fitted you out and put you together slapdash, with only an axe and a chisel. The driver wears no German top boots: a beard, mittens, and devil knows what he sits on; but when he stands up, waves, and strikes up a song—the steeds go like the wind, the spokes of the wheels blend to a smooth disc, the road simply shudders, and the passerby stops and cries out in fright—there she goes racing, racing, racing! . . . And already far in the distance you see something raising dust and drilling the air.

  And you, Rus, are you not also like a brisk, unbeatable troika racing on? The road smokes under you, bridges rumble, everything falls back and is left behind. Dumbstruck by the divine wonder, the contemplator stops: was it a bolt of lightning thrown down from heaven? what is the meaning of this horrific movement? and what unknown force is hidden in these steeds unknown to the world? Ah, steeds, steeds, what steeds! Are there whirlwinds in your manes? Is a keen ear burning in your every nerve? Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you strain your bronze chests and, hooves barely touching the ground, turn into straight lines flying through the air, and all inspired by God it rushes on! . . . Rus, where are you racing to? Give answer! She gives no answer. Wondrously the harness bell dissolves in ringing; the air rumbles, shattered to pieces, and turns to wind; everything on earth flies by, and, looking askance, other nations and states step aside to make way.

  Volume Two

  Chapter One

  Why, then, make a show of the poverty of our life and our sad imperfection, unearthing people from the backwoods, from remote corners of the state? But what if this is in the writer's nature, and his own imperfection grieves him so, and the makeup of his talent is such, that he can only portray the poverty of our life, unearthing people from the backwoods, from remote corners of the state! So here we are again in the backwoods, again we have come out in some corner!

  Yes, but what a backwoods and what a corner!

  Over a thousand miles and more raced the meandering mountain heights. Like the giant rampart of some endless fortress they rose above the plains, now as a yellowish cliff, a gullied and pitted wall in appearance, now as a rounded green prominence covered, as if with lambswool, with young shrubs growing from the stumps of cut trees, or, finally, with dark forest so far spared the axe. The river, sometimes faithful to its high banks, followed them in their angles and bends over the whole expanse, but at other times abandoned them to go into the meadows, meandering there through several meanders, flashing like fire in the sun, then vanished in groves of birches, aspens, and alders, to rush out again in triumph, accompanied by bridges, mills, and dams that seemed to pursue it at every turn.

  In one place the steep side of the heights heaved itself higher than the rest, and was decked out from top to bottom in a greenery of thickly crowding trees. Everything was there together: maples, pear trees, low-growing willows, gorse, birches, firs, and mountain ash all twined with hops; here flashed the red roofs of manor buildings, the fretwork cornices of cottages hiding behind them, and the upper story added to the manor house itself, and over this whole heap of trees and roofs the ancient church raised aloft its five gleaming tops. On each of them stood a gold openwork cross, attached to the cupola by gold openwork chains, so that the gold shone from afar as if it were suspended in air, not attached to anything. And this whole heap of trees and roofs, together with the church, turned upside down, was reflected in the river, where picturesquely ugly old willows, some standing on the bank, some right in the water, trailing their branches and leaves in it, were as if gazing at this picture, which they could not get their fill of admiring through all their long lives.

  The view was not bad at all, but the view from above, from the upper story of the house, onto the plains and the distance, was better still. No guest or visitor could long stand indifferently on the balcony. His breath would be taken away, and he would only be able to say: "Lord, how spacious it is!" The space opened out endlessly. Beyond the meadows strewn with copses and water mills, thick forests stood green and blue, like seas or mist spreading far away. Beyond the forests, through the hazy air, showed yellowing sands. Beyond the sands, a ridge against the far curve of the sky, lay chalk mountains, their dazzling whiteness gleaming even in rainy spells, as if an eternal sun shone on them. Here and there upon them, light misty blue spots smoked. These were remote villages, but the human eye could no longer make them out. Only the golden dome of a church, flashing like a spark, made known that it was a large, populous village. All this was wrapped in imperturbable silence, which was not broken even by the barely audible echoes of the aerial singers that filled the air. In short, no guest or visitor could long stand indifferently on the balcony, and after some two hours of contemplation he would utter the same exclamation as in the first minute: "Heavenly powers, how spacious it is!"

  Who, then, was the occupant of this estate, which, like an impregnable fortress, could not even be approached from here, but had to be approached from the other side—through meadows, wheat fields, and, finally, a sparse oak grove, spread picturesquely over the green, right up to the cottages and the master's house? Who was the occupant, the master and owner of this estate? To what happy man did this remote corner belong?

  To Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov, landowner of the Tremalakhan district, a young gentleman, thirty-three years old, a collegiate secretary, an unmarried man.

  And what
sort of man, then, of what disposition, what qualities and character, was the landowner Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov?

  To be sure, these inquiries ought to be addressed to his neighbors. One neighbor, who belonged to the race of retired staff officers and firebrands, expressed himself about him in a laconic expression: "A natural-born brute!" The general who lived six miles away used to say: "A young man, no fool, but with too many ideas in his head. I could be useful to him, because I have in Petersburg, and even at the ..." The general never finished his speech. The district captain of police observed: "No, but his rank is—trash; and what if I come by tomorrow to collect the arrears!" A muzhik from his estate, if asked what sort of master he had, usually gave no answer. In short, the public opinion of him was rather unfavorable than favorable.

  And yet in his essence Andrei Ivanovich was neither a good nor a bad being, but simply—a burner of the daylight. Since there are already not a few people in the world occupied with burning the daylight, why should Tentetnikov not burn it as well? However, here in a few words is the full journal of his day, and from it the reader himself can judge what his character was.

  In the morning he awoke very late and, sitting up, stayed in bed for a long time rubbing his eyes. His eyes, as ill luck would have it, were small, and therefore the rubbing of them was performed for an extraordinarily long time. All the while the servant Mikhailo would be standing at the door with a washbasin and a towel. This poor Mikhailo would stand there for one hour, two hours, then go to the kitchen, come back again—the master would still be rubbing his eyes and sitting on his bed. Finally he would get up, wash himself, put on his dressing gown, and come out to the drawing room to have tea, coffee, cocoa, and even fresh milk, taking little sips of each, crumbling his bread unmercifully, and shamelessly scattering pipe ashes everywhere. Two hours he would spend over his tea; what's more, he would take a cold cup and with it move to the window looking out on the yard. And at the window the following scene would take place each time.

  First of all, the unshaven butler Grigory would bellow, addressing himself to the housekeeper, Perfilyevna, in the following terms:

  "You wretched petty-landowning soul, you nonentity! You'd better shut up, vile wench, and that's all!"

  "I take no orders from the likes of you, you guzzling gullet!" the nonentity, that is, Perfilyevna, would shout back.

  "Nobody can get along with you, you even scrap with the steward, you barnyard piddler!" Grigory would bellow.

  "The steward's a thief, just like you!" the nonentity would shout back, so that it could be heard in the village. "You're both drunkards, you're ruining the master, you bottomless barrels! You think the master doesn't know it? There he is, and he can hear you.

  "Where is he?"

  "He's sitting there in the window; he can see everything."

  And indeed the master was sitting in the window and could see everything.

  To crown it all, a house serf's brat was yelling his head off, having received a whack from his mother; a borzoi hound was whimpering, crouched on the ground, for reason of being scalded with boiling hot water by the cook, who was peeking out from the kitchen. In short, everything was howling and squealing insufferably. The master could see and hear it all. And only when it became so unbearable that it even prevented the master from doing nothing, would he send to tell them to make their noise more quietly.

  Two hours before dinner, Andrei Ivanovich would go to his study in order to occupy himself truly and seriously. The occupation was indeed a serious one. It consisted in pondering a work which had been long and continuously pondered. This work was to embrace Russia from all viewpoints—civic, political, religious, philosophical; to resolve the difficult problems and questions posed for her by the times; and to define clearly her great future—in short, a work of vast scope. But so far it had all ended with the pondering; the pen got well chewed, doodles appeared on the paper, then it was all pushed aside, a book was taken up instead and not put down until dinnertime. The book was read with the soup, the sauce, the stew, and even the pastry, so that some dishes got cold as a result, while others were sent back quite untouched. Then came a pipe and the sipping of a cup of coffee, then a game of chess with himself. What was done from then until suppertime it is really quite difficult to say. It seems that simply nothing was done.

  And thus, as alone as could be in the whole world, this young man of thirty-three spent his time, sitting around in a dressing gown without a tie. He did not feel like strolling, like walking, did not even want to go upstairs and have a look at the distances and views, did not even want to open the windows and let some fresh air into his room, and the beautiful view of the countryside, which no visitor could admire with indifference, was as if it did not exist for the owner himself.

  From this journal the reader can see that Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov belonged to that race of people, so numerous in Russia, who are known as sluggards, lie-abeds, sloths, and the like.

  Whether such characters are born that way or become that way later on—who can answer? I think that, instead of an answer, it would be better to tell the story of Andrei Ivanovich's childhood and upbringing.

  In childhood he was a clever, talented boy, now lively, now pensive. By a lucky or unlucky chance, he landed in a school of which the director was, in his own way, a remarkable man, despite certain whimsicalities. Alexander Petrovich possessed the gift of sensing the nature of the Russian man and knew the language in which to speak to him. No child left his presence crestfallen; on the contrary, even after a severe reprimand, he would feel a certain cheerfulness and a desire to smooth over the nastiness or trespass committed. The crowd of his charges seemed to look so mischievous, casual, and lively that one might have taken them for disorderly, unbridled freebooters. But that would have been a mistake: one man's power was felt only too well by these freebooters. There was no mischief maker or prankster who would not come to him on his own and tell all the mischief he had done. The least movement of their thoughts was known to him. In all things he acted extraordinarily. He used to say that one ought first of all to awaken ambition in a man—he called ambition the force that pushes a man forward—without which he cannot be moved to activity. Many times he did not restrain playfulness and prankishness at all: in elementary playfulness he saw the awakening development of the soul's qualities. He needed it in order to see precisely what lay hidden in a child. So an intelligent doctor looks calmly at the temporary fits approaching and the rashes appearing on the body, not combatting them, but studying them attentively, so as to find out for certain precisely what is concealed inside the man.

  He did not have many teachers: the majority of the subjects he taught himself. And, truth to tell, he knew how to convey the very soul of a subject in a few words, without any of the pedantic terminology, the enormous views and opinions that young professors like to flaunt, so that even a young child could see clearly the precise need for this subject. He maintained that what man needed most was the science of life, that once he knew that, he would then know for himself what he must occupy himself with predominantly.

  This science of life he made the subject of a separate course of study, to which he admitted only the most excellent. Those of small ability he let go into government service after the first year, maintaining that there was no need to torment them too much: it was enough for them if they learned to be patient, industrious workers, without acquiring presumptuousness or any long-range views. "But with the clever ones, the gifted ones, I must take a lot more trouble," he used to say. And in this course he became a totally different Alexander Petrovich, who from the first announced to them that so far he had demanded simple intelligence from them, but now he would demand a higher intelligence. Not the intelligence that knows how to taunt a fool and laugh at him, but one that knows how to endure any insult, ignore the fool—and not become irritated. It was here that he started to demand what others demand of children. It was this that he called the highest degree of intelligence! To pr
eserve the lofty calm in which man must abide eternally amid any griefs whatever—it was this that he called intelligence! It was in this course that Alexander Petrovich showed that he indeed knew the science of life. Of subjects those alone were selected which were able to form a man into a citizen of his country. The majority of the lectures consisted of accounts of what lay ahead for a man in all careers and steps of government service and private occupations. All the troubles and obstacles that could be set up on a man's path, all the temptations and seductions lying in wait for him, he gathered before them in all their nakedness, concealing nothing. Everything was known to him, just as if he himself had filled every rank and post. In short, what he outlined for them was not at all a bright future. Strangely enough, whether because ambition was already so strongly awakened in them, or because there was something in the very eyes of their extraordinary mentor that said to a young man: Forward!— that word which produces such miracles in the Russian man—in any case, the young men sought only difficulties from the very start, longing to act only where it was difficult, where one had to show great strength of soul. There was something sober in their life. Alexander Petrovich did all sorts of experiments and tests with them, inflicting palpable insults on them either himself or by means of their comrades, but, perceiving as much, they would become still more prudent. Few finished this course, but those few were stalwarts, people who had been under fire. In the service they held out in the most unstable posts, while many far more intelligent men, not able to endure, quit the service on account of petty personal troubles, quit altogether, or, quite unawares, wound up in the hands of bribe takers and crooks. But those educated by Alexander Petrovich not only did not waver, but, wise in their knowledge of man and the soul, acquired a lofty moral influence even over the bribe takers and bad people.