Dead Souls: A Novel

by Nikolai Gogol

“A hundred!” cried Chichikov, opening his mouth and looking him straight in the eye, not knowing whether he himself had not heard right or Sobakevich’s tongue, being of a heavy nature, had turned the wrong way and blurted out one word instead of another.

  “Why, is that too costly for you?” Sobakevich said, and then added: “And what, incidentally, would your price be?”

  “My price? Surely we’ve made a mistake somehow, or not understood each other, or have forgotten what the object in question is. I suppose, for my part, laying my hand on my heart, that eighty kopecks per soul would be the fairest price.”

  “Eh, that’s overdoing it—a mere eighty kopecks!”

  “Well, in my judgment, to my mind, it can’t be more.”

  “But I’m not selling bast shoes.”

  “However, you must agree, they’re not people either.”

  “So you think you’ll find someone fool enough to take a few kopecks for a registered soul?”

  “I beg your pardon, but why do you call them registered, when the souls themselves have been dead for a long time, and all that’s left is a sensually imperceptible sound. However, not to get into further conversation along this line, I’ll give you a rouble and a half, if you please, but more I cannot do.”

  “It’s a shame for you even to mention such a sum! Come on, bargain, tell me the real price!”

  “I cannot, Mikhail Semyonovich, trust my conscience, I cannot: what’s impossible is impossible,” Chichikov said, yet he did add another fifty kopecks.

  “How can you be so stingy?” said Sobakevich. “Really, it’s not so costly! Some crook would cheat you, sell you trash, not souls; but mine are all hale as nuts, all picked men: if not craftsmen, then some other kind of sturdy muzhiks. Just look: there’s Mikheev the cartwright, for example! Never made any other kind of carriage than the spring kind. And not like your typical Moscow workmanship, good for an hour—really solid, and he does the upholstery and lacquering himself!”

  Chichikov opened his mouth to observe that Mikheev had, however, long since departed this life; but Sobakevich had entered, as they say, into his full speaking strength, wherever on earth he got this clip and gift of words:

  “And Cork Stepan, the carpenter? I’ll bet my life you won’t find such a muzhik anywhere. What tremendous strength! If he’d served in the guards, God knows what they’d have given him, he was seven feet tall!”

  Chichikov was again about to observe that Cork, too, had departed this life; but Sobakevich obviously could not contain himself: speech poured out in such torrents that one could only listen:

  “Milushkin, the bricklayer! Could put a stove into any house you like. Maxim Telyatnikov, the cobbler: one prick of the awl and your boots are done, and boots they are, too, thank you very much, and never a drop of liquor in him. And Yeremey Sorokoplyokhin! This muzhik alone is worth all the others, he went trading in Moscow, brought five hundred roubles in quitrent alone. That’s the kind of folk they are! A far cry from what some sort of Plyushkin would sell you.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Chichikov said finally, amazed by such an abundant flood of speeches, which also seemed to have no end, “but why do you enumerate all their qualities, they’re not good for anything now, these are all dead folk. A dead body’s a good fence prop, as the proverb says.”

  “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 Colocotronis24 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 en
ds 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 the 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.