Dead Souls: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

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.]

Back to chapter list of: Dead Souls