Dead Souls (16 page)

"Kindly tell me which of you is Monsieur Nozdrev?" said the unknown
with a glance of perplexity both at the person named (who was still
standing with pipe-shank upraised) and at Chichikov (who was just
beginning to recover from his unpleasant predicament).

"Kindly tell ME whom I have the honour of addressing?" retorted
Nozdrev as he approached the official.

"I am the Superintendent of Rural Police."

"And what do you want?"

"I have come to fulfil a commission imposed upon me. That is to say,
I have come to place you under arrest until your case shall have
been decided."

"Rubbish! What case, pray?"

"The case in which you involved yourself when, in a drunken condition,
and through the instrumentality of a walking-stick, you offered grave
offence to the person of Landowner Maksimov."

"You lie! To your face I tell you that never in my life have I set
eyes upon Landowner Maksimov."

"Good sir, allow me to represent to you that I am a Government officer.
Speeches like that you may address to your servants, but not to me."

At this point Chichikov, without waiting for Nozdrev's reply, seized
his cap, slipped behind the Superintendent's back, rushed out on to
the verandah, sprang into his britchka, and ordered Selifan to drive
like the wind.

Certainly Chichikov was a thorough coward, for, although the britchka
pursued its headlong course until Nozdrev's establishment had
disappeared behind hillocks and hedgerows, our hero continued to
glance nervously behind him, as though every moment expecting to see a
stern chase begin. His breath came with difficulty, and when he tried
his heart with his hands he could feel it fluttering like a quail
caught in a net.

"What a sweat the fellow has thrown me into!" he thought to himself,
while many a dire and forceful aspiration passed through his mind.
Indeed, the expressions to which he gave vent were most inelegant in
their nature. But what was to be done next? He was a Russian and
thoroughly aroused. The affair had been no joke. "But for the
Superintendent," he reflected, "I might never again have looked upon
God's daylight—I might have vanished like a bubble on a pool, and
left neither trace nor posterity nor property nor an honourable name
for my future offspring to inherit!" (it seemed that our hero was
particularly anxious with regard to his possible issue).

"What a scurvy barin!" mused Selifan as he drove along. "Never have I
seen such a barin. I should like to spit in his face. 'Tis better to
allow a man nothing to eat than to refuse to feed a horse properly. A
horse needs his oats—they are his proper fare. Even if you make a man
procure a meal at his own expense, don't deny a horse his oats, for he
ought always to have them."

An equally poor opinion of Nozdrev seemed to be cherished also by the
steeds, for not only were the bay and the Assessor clearly out of
spirits, but even the skewbald was wearing a dejected air. True, at
home the skewbald got none but the poorer sorts of oats to eat, and
Selifan never filled his trough without having first called him a
villain; but at least they WERE oats, and not hay—they were stuff
which could be chewed with a certain amount of relish. Also, there was
the fact that at intervals he could intrude his long nose into his
companions' troughs (especially when Selifan happened to be absent
from the stable) and ascertain what THEIR provender was like. But at
Nozdrev's there had been nothing but hay! That was not right. All
three horses felt greatly discontented.

But presently the malcontents had their reflections cut short in a
very rude and unexpected manner. That is to say, they were brought
back to practicalities by coming into violent collision with a
six-horsed vehicle, while upon their heads descended both a babel of
cries from the ladies inside and a storm of curses and abuse from the
coachman. "Ah, you damned fool!" he vociferated. "I shouted to you
loud enough! Draw out, you old raven, and keep to the right! Are you
drunk?" Selifan himself felt conscious that he had been careless, but
since a Russian does not care to admit a fault in the presence of
strangers, he retorted with dignity: "Why have you run into US? Did
you leave your eyes behind you at the last tavern that you stopped
at?" With that he started to back the britchka, in the hope that it
might get clear of the other's harness; but this would not do, for the
pair were too hopelessly intertwined. Meanwhile the skewbald snuffed
curiously at his new acquaintances as they stood planted on either
side of him; while the ladies in the vehicle regarded the scene with
an expression of terror. One of them was an old woman, and the other a
damsel of about sixteen. A mass of golden hair fell daintily from a
small head, and the oval of her comely face was as shapely as an egg,
and white with the transparent whiteness seen when the hands of a
housewife hold a new-laid egg to the light to let the sun's rays
filter through its shell. The same tint marked the maiden's ears where
they glowed in the sunshine, and, in short, what with the tears in her
wide-open, arresting eyes, she presented so attractive a picture that
our hero bestowed upon it more than a passing glance before he turned
his attention to the hubbub which was being raised among the horses
and the coachmen.

"Back out, you rook of Nizhni Novgorod!" the strangers' coachman
shouted. Selifan tightened his reins, and the other driver did the
same. The horses stepped back a little, and then came together
again—this time getting a leg or two over the traces. In fact, so
pleased did the skewbald seem with his new friends that he refused to
stir from the melee into which an unforeseen chance had plunged him.
Laying his muzzle lovingly upon the neck of one of his
recently-acquired acquaintances, he seemed to be whispering something
in that acquaintance's ear—and whispering pretty nonsense, too, to
judge from the way in which that confidant kept shaking his ears.

At length peasants from a village which happened to be near the scene
of the accident tackled the mess; and since a spectacle of that kind
is to the Russian muzhik what a newspaper or a club-meeting is to the
German, the vehicles soon became the centre of a crowd, and the
village denuded even of its old women and children. The traces were
disentangled, and a few slaps on the nose forced the skewbald to draw
back a little; after which the teams were straightened out and
separated. Nevertheless, either sheer obstinacy or vexation at being
parted from their new friends caused the strange team absolutely to
refuse to move a leg. Their driver laid the whip about them, but still
they stood as though rooted to the spot. At length the participatory
efforts of the peasants rose to an unprecedented degree of enthusiasm,
and they shouted in an intermittent chorus the advice, "Do you,
Andrusha, take the head of the trace horse on the right, while Uncle
Mitai mounts the shaft horse. Get up, Uncle Mitai." Upon that the
lean, long, and red-bearded Uncle Mitai mounted the shaft horse; in
which position he looked like a village steeple or the winder which is
used to raise water from wells. The coachman whipped up his steeds
afresh, but nothing came of it, and Uncle Mitai had proved useless.
"Hold on, hold on!" shouted the peasants again. "Do you, Uncle Mitai,
mount the trace horse, while Uncle Minai mounts the shaft horse."
Whereupon Uncle Minai—a peasant with a pair of broad shoulders, a
beard as black as charcoal, and a belly like the huge samovar in which
sbiten is brewed for all attending a local market—hastened to seat
himself upon the shaft horse, which almost sank to the ground beneath
his weight. "NOW they will go all right!" the muzhiks exclaimed.
"Lay it on hot, lay it on hot! Give that sorrel horse the whip, and
make him squirm like a koramora
^[22]
." Nevertheless, the affair in no
way progressed; wherefore, seeing that flogging was of no use, Uncles
Mitai and Minai BOTH mounted the sorrel, while Andrusha seated
himself upon the trace horse. Then the coachman himself lost patience,
and sent the two Uncles about their business—and not before it was
time, seeing that the horses were steaming in a way that made it clear
that, unless they were first winded, they would never reach the next
posthouse. So they were given a moment's rest. That done, they moved
off of their own accord!

Throughout, Chichikov had been gazing at the young unknown with great
attention, and had even made one or two attempts to enter into
conversation with her: but without success. Indeed, when the ladies
departed, it was as in a dream that he saw the girl's comely presence,
the delicate features of her face, and the slender outline of her form
vanish from his sight; it was as in a dream that once more he saw only
the road, the britchka, the three horses, Selifan, and the bare, empty
fields. Everywhere in life—yes, even in the plainest, the dingiest
ranks of society, as much as in those which are uniformly bright and
presentable—a man may happen upon some phenomenon which is so
entirely different from those which have hitherto fallen to his lot.
Everywhere through the web of sorrow of which our lives are woven
there may suddenly break a clear, radiant thread of joy; even as
suddenly along the street of some poor, poverty-stricken village
which, ordinarily, sees nought but a farm waggon there may came
bowling a gorgeous coach with plated harness, picturesque horses, and
a glitter of glass, so that the peasants stand gaping, and do not
resume their caps until long after the strange equipage has become
lost to sight. Thus the golden-haired maiden makes a sudden,
unexpected appearance in our story, and as suddenly, as unexpectedly,
disappears. Indeed, had it not been that the person concerned was
Chichikov, and not some youth of twenty summers—a hussar or a student
or, in general, a man standing on the threshold of life—what thoughts
would not have sprung to birth, and stirred and spoken, within him;
for what a length of time would he not have stood entranced as he
stared into the distance and forgot alike his journey, the business
still to be done, the possibility of incurring loss through
lingering—himself, his vocation, the world, and everything else that
the world contains!

But in the present case the hero was a man of middle-age, and of
cautious and frigid temperament. True, he pondered over the incident,
but in more deliberate fashion than a younger man would have done.
That is to say, his reflections were not so irresponsible and
unsteady. "She was a comely damsel," he said to himself as he opened
his snuff-box and took a pinch. "But the important point is: Is she
also a NICE DAMSEL? One thing she has in her favour—and that is
that she appears only just to have left school, and not to have had
time to become womanly in the worser sense. At present, therefore, she
is like a child. Everything in her is simple, and she says just what
she thinks, and laughs merely when she feels inclined. Such a damsel
might be made into anything—or she might be turned into worthless
rubbish. The latter, I surmise, for trudging after her she will have a
fond mother and a bevy of aunts, and so forth—persons who, within a
year, will have filled her with womanishness to the point where her
own father wouldn't know her. And to that there will be added pride
and affectation, and she will begin to observe established rules, and
to rack her brains as to how, and how much, she ought to talk, and to
whom, and where, and so forth. Every moment will see her growing
timorous and confused lest she be saying too much. Finally, she will
develop into a confirmed prevaricator, and end by marrying the devil
knows whom!" Chichikov paused awhile. Then he went on: "Yet I should
like to know who she is, and who her father is, and whether he is a
rich landowner of good standing, or merely a respectable man who has
acquired a fortune in the service of the Government. Should he allow
her, on marriage, a dowry of, say, two hundred thousand roubles, she
will be a very nice catch indeed. She might even, so to speak, make a
man of good breeding happy."

Indeed, so attractively did the idea of the two hundred thousand
roubles begin to dance before his imagination that he felt a twinge of
self-reproach because, during the hubbub, he had not inquired of the
postillion or the coachman who the travellers might be. But soon the
sight of Sobakevitch's country house dissipated his thoughts, and
forced him to return to his stock subject of reflection.

Sobakevitch's country house and estate were of very fair size, and on
each side of the mansion were expanses of birch and pine forest in two
shades of green. The wooden edifice itself had dark-grey walls and a
red-gabled roof, for it was a mansion of the kind which Russia builds
for her military settlers and for German colonists. A noticeable
circumstance was the fact that the taste of the architect had differed
from that of the proprietor—the former having manifestly been a
pedant and desirous of symmetry, and the latter having wished only for
comfort. Consequently he (the proprietor) had dispensed with all
windows on one side of the mansion, and had caused to be inserted, in
their place, only a small aperture which, doubtless, was intended to
light an otherwise dark lumber-room. Likewise, the architect's best
efforts had failed to cause the pediment to stand in the centre of the
building, since the proprietor had had one of its four original
columns removed. Evidently durability had been considered throughout,
for the courtyard was enclosed by a strong and very high wooden fence,
and both the stables, the coach-house, and the culinary premises were
partially constructed of beams warranted to last for centuries. Nay,
even the wooden huts of the peasantry were wonderful in the solidity
of their construction, and not a clay wall or a carved pattern or
other device was to be seen. Everything fitted exactly into its right
place, and even the draw-well of the mansion was fashioned of the
oakwood usually thought suitable only for mills or ships. In short,
wherever Chichikov's eye turned he saw nothing that was not free from
shoddy make and well and skilfully arranged. As he approached the
entrance steps he caught sight of two faces peering from a window. One
of them was that of a woman in a mobcap with features as long and as
narrow as a cucumber, and the other that of a man with features as
broad and as short as the Moldavian pumpkins (known as gorlianki)
whereof balallaiki—the species of light, two-stringed instrument
which constitutes the pride and the joy of the gay young fellow of
twenty as he sits winking and smiling at the white-necked,
white-bosomed maidens who have gathered to listen to his low-pitched
tinkling—are fashioned. This scrutiny made, both faces withdrew, and
there came out on to the entrance steps a lacquey clad in a grey
jacket and a stiff blue collar. This functionary conducted Chichikov
into the hall, where he was met by the master of the house himself,
who requested his guest to enter, and then led him into the inner part
of the mansion.