Dead Souls (17 page)

A covert glance at Sobakevitch showed our hero that his host exactly
resembled a moderate-sized bear. To complete the resemblance,
Sobakevitch's long frockcoat and baggy trousers were of the precise
colour of a bear's hide, while, when shuffling across the floor, he
made a criss-cross motion of the legs, and had, in addition, a
constant habit of treading upon his companion's toes. As for his face,
it was of the warm, ardent tint of a piatok
^[23]
. Persons of this
kind—persons to whose designing nature has devoted not much thought,
and in the fashioning of whose frames she has used no instruments so
delicate as a file or a gimlet and so forth—are not uncommon. Such
persons she merely roughhews. One cut with a hatchet, and there
results a nose; another such cut with a hatchet, and there
materialises a pair of lips; two thrusts with a drill, and there
issues a pair of eyes. Lastly, scorning to plane down the roughness,
she sends out that person into the world, saying: "There is another
live creature." Sobakevitch was just such a ragged, curiously put
together figure—though the above model would seem to have been
followed more in his upper portion than in his lower. One result was
that he seldom turned his head to look at the person with whom he was
speaking, but, rather, directed his eyes towards, say, the stove
corner or the doorway. As host and guest crossed the dining-room
Chichikov directed a second glance at his companion. "He is a bear,
and nothing but a bear," he thought to himself. And, indeed, the
strange comparison was inevitable. Incidentally, Sobakevitch's
Christian name and patronymic were Michael Semenovitch. Of his habit
of treading upon other people's toes Chichikov had become fully aware;
wherefore he stepped cautiously, and, throughout, allowed his host to
take the lead. As a matter of fact, Sobakevitch himself seemed
conscious of his failing, for at intervals he would inquire: "I hope I
have not hurt you?" and Chichikov, with a word of thanks, would reply
that as yet he had sustained no injury.

At length they reached the drawing-room, where Sobakevitch pointed to
an armchair, and invited his guest to be seated. Chichikov gazed with
interest at the walls and the pictures. In every such picture there
were portrayed either young men or Greek generals of the type of
Movrogordato (clad in a red uniform and breaches), Kanaris, and
others; and all these heroes were depicted with a solidity of thigh
and a wealth of moustache which made the beholder simply shudder with
awe. Among them there were placed also, according to some unknown
system, and for some unknown reason, firstly, Bagration
^[24]
—tall and
thin, and with a cluster of small flags and cannon beneath him, and
the whole set in the narrowest of frames—and, secondly, the Greek
heroine, Bobelina, whose legs looked larger than do the whole bodies
of the drawing-room dandies of the present day. Apparently the master
of the house was himself a man of health and strength, and therefore
liked to have his apartments adorned with none but folk of equal
vigour and robustness. Lastly, in the window, and suspected cheek by
jowl with Bobelina, there hung a cage whence at intervals there peered
forth a white-spotted blackbird. Like everything else in the
apartment, it bore a strong resemblance to Sobakevitch. When host and
guest had been conversing for two minutes or so the door opened, and
there entered the hostess—a tall lady in a cap adorned with ribands
of domestic colouring and manufacture. She entered deliberately, and
held her head as erect as a palm.

"This is my wife, Theodulia Ivanovna," said Sobakevitch.

Chichikov approached and took her hand. The fact that she raised it
nearly to the level of his lips apprised him of the circumstance that
it had just been rinsed in cucumber oil.

"My dear, allow me to introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov," added
Sobakevitch. "He has the honour of being acquainted both with our
Governor and with our Postmaster."

Upon this Theodulia Ivanovna requested her guest to be seated, and
accompanied the invitation with the kind of bow usually employed only
by actresses who are playing the role of queens. Next, she took a seat
upon the sofa, drew around her her merino gown, and sat thereafter
without moving an eyelid or an eyebrow. As for Chichikov, he glanced
upwards, and once more caught sight of Kanaris with his fat thighs and
interminable moustache, and of Bobelina and the blackbird. For fully
five minutes all present preserved a complete silence—the only sound
audible being that of the blackbird's beak against the wooden floor of
the cage as the creature fished for grains of corn. Meanwhile
Chichikov again surveyed the room, and saw that everything in it was
massive and clumsy in the highest degree; as also that everything was
curiously in keeping with the master of the house. For example, in one
corner of the apartment there stood a hazelwood bureau with a bulging
body on four grotesque legs—the perfect image of a bear. Also, the
tables and the chairs were of the same ponderous, unrestful order, and
every single article in the room appeared to be saying either, "I,
too, am a Sobakevitch," or "I am exactly like Sobakevitch."

"I heard speak of you one day when I was visiting the President of the
Council," said Chichikov, on perceiving that no one else had a mind to
begin a conversation. "That was on Thursday last. We had a very
pleasant evening."

"Yes, on that occasion I was not there," replied Sobakevitch.

"What a nice man he is!"

"Who is?" inquired Sobakevitch, gazing into the corner by the stove.

"The President of the Local Council."

"Did he seem so to you? True, he is a mason, but he is also the
greatest fool that the world ever saw."

Chichikov started a little at this mordant criticism, but soon pulled
himself together again, and continued:

"Of course, every man has his weakness. Yet the President seems to be
an excellent fellow."

"And do you think the same of the Governor?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"Because there exists no greater rogue than he."

"What? The Governor a rogue?" ejaculated Chichikov, at a loss to
understand how the official in question could come to be numbered with
thieves. "Let me say that I should never have guessed it. Permit me
also to remark that his conduct would hardly seem to bear out your
opinion—he seems so gentle a man." And in proof of this Chichikov
cited the purses which the Governor knitted, and also expatiated on
the mildness of his features.

"He has the face of a robber," said Sobakevitch. "Were you to give him
a knife, and to turn him loose on a turnpike, he would cut your throat
for two kopecks. And the same with the Vice-Governor. The pair are
just Gog and Magog."

"Evidently he is not on good terms with them," thought Chichikov to
himself. "I had better pass to the Chief of Police, which whom he
DOES seem to be friendly." Accordingly he added aloud: "For my own
part, I should give the preference to the Head of the Gendarmery. What
a frank, outspoken nature he has! And what an element of simplicity
does his expression contain!"

"He is mean to the core," remarked Sobakevitch coldly. "He will sell
you and cheat you, and then dine at your table. Yes, I know them all,
and every one of them is a swindler, and the town a nest of rascals
engaged in robbing one another. Not a man of the lot is there but
would sell Christ. Yet stay: ONE decent fellow there is—the Public
Prosecutor; though even HE, if the truth be told, is little better
than a pig."

After these eulogia Chichikov saw that it would be useless to continue
running through the list of officials—more especially since suddenly
he had remembered that Sobakevitch was not at any time given to
commending his fellow man.

"Let us go to luncheon, my dear," put in Theodulia Ivanovna to her
spouse.

"Yes; pray come to table," said Sobakevitch to his guest; whereupon
they consumed the customary glass of vodka (accompanied by sundry
snacks of salted cucumber and other dainties) with which Russians,
both in town and country, preface a meal. Then they filed into the
dining-room in the wake of the hostess, who sailed on ahead like a
goose swimming across a pond. The small dining-table was found to be
laid for four persons—the fourth place being occupied by a lady or a
young girl (it would have been difficult to say which exactly) who
might have been either a relative, the housekeeper, or a casual
visitor. Certain persons in the world exist, not as personalities in
themselves, but as spots or specks on the personalities of others.
Always they are to be seen sitting in the same place, and holding
their heads at exactly the same angle, so that one comes within an ace
of mistaking them for furniture, and thinks to oneself that never
since the day of their birth can they have spoken a single word.

"My dear," said Sobakevitch, "the cabbage soup is excellent." With
that he finished his portion, and helped himself to a generous measure
of niania
^[25]
—the dish which follows shtchi and consists of a sheep's
stomach stuffed with black porridge, brains, and other things. "What
niania this is!" he added to Chichikov. "Never would you get such
stuff in a town, where one is given the devil knows what."

"Nevertheless the Governor keeps a fair table," said Chichikov.

"Yes, but do you know what all the stuff is MADE OF?" retorted
Sobakevitch. "If you DID know you would never touch it."

"Of course I am not in a position to say how it is prepared, but at
least the pork cutlets and the boiled fish seemed excellent."

"Ah, it might have been thought so; yet I know the way in which such
things are bought in the market-place. They are bought by some rascal
of a cook whom a Frenchman has taught how to skin a tomcat and then
serve it up as hare."

"Ugh! What horrible things you say!" put in Madame.

"Well, my dear, that is how things are done, and it is no fault of
mine that it is so. Moreover, everything that is left over—everything
that WE (pardon me for mentioning it) cast into the slop-pail—is
used by such folk for making soup."

"Always at table you begin talking like this!" objected his helpmeet.

"And why not?" said Sobakevitch. "I tell you straight that I would not
eat such nastiness, even had I made it myself. Sugar a frog as much as
you like, but never shall it pass MY lips. Nor would I swallow an
oyster, for I know only too well what an oyster may resemble. But have
some mutton, friend Chichikov. It is shoulder of mutton, and very
different stuff from the mutton which they cook in noble
kitchens—mutton which has been kicking about the market-place four
days or more. All that sort of cookery has been invented by French and
German doctors, and I should like to hang them for having done so.
They go and prescribe diets and a hunger cure as though what suits
their flaccid German systems will agree with a Russian stomach! Such
devices are no good at all." Sobakevitch shook his head wrathfully.
"Fellows like those are for ever talking of civilisation. As if THAT
sort of thing was civilisation! Phew!" (Perhaps the speaker's
concluding exclamation would have been even stronger had he not been
seated at table.) "For myself, I will have none of it. When I eat pork
at a meal, give me the WHOLE pig; when mutton, the WHOLE sheep;
when goose, the WHOLE of the bird. Two dishes are better than a
thousand, provided that one can eat of them as much as one wants."

And he proceeded to put precept into practice by taking half the
shoulder of mutton on to his plate, and then devouring it down to the
last morsel of gristle and bone.

"My word!" reflected Chichikov. "The fellow has a pretty good holding
capacity!"

"None of it for me," repeated Sobakevitch as he wiped his hands on his
napkin. "I don't intend to be like a fellow named Plushkin, who owns
eight hundred souls, yet dines worse than does my shepherd."

"Who is Plushkin?" asked Chichikov.

"A miser," replied Sobakevitch. "Such a miser as never you could
imagine. Even convicts in prison live better than he does. And he
starves his servants as well."

"Really?" ejaculated Chichikov, greatly interested. "Should you, then,
say that he has lost many peasants by death?"

"Certainly. They keep dying like flies."

"Then how far from here does he reside?"

"About five versts."

"Only five versts?" exclaimed Chichikov, feeling his heart beating
joyously. "Ought one, when leaving your gates, to turn to the right or
to the left?"

"I should be sorry to tell you the way to the house of such a cur,"
said Sobakevitch. "A man had far better go to hell than to
Plushkin's."

"Quite so," responded Chichikov. "My only reason for asking you is
that it interests me to become acquainted with any and every sort of
locality."

To the shoulder of mutton there succeeded, in turn, cutlets (each one
larger than a plate), a turkey of about the size of a calf, eggs,
rice, pastry, and every conceivable thing which could possibly be put
into a stomach. There the meal ended. When he rose from table
Chichikov felt as though a pood's weight were inside him. In the
drawing-room the company found dessert awaiting them in the shape of
pears, plums, and apples; but since neither host nor guest could
tackle these particular dainties the hostess removed them to another
room. Taking advantage of her absence, Chichikov turned to Sobakevitch
(who, prone in an armchair, seemed, after his ponderous meal, to be
capable of doing little beyond belching and grunting—each such grunt
or belch necessitating a subsequent signing of the cross over the
mouth), and intimated to him a desire to have a little private
conversation concerning a certain matter. At this moment the hostess
returned.

"Here is more dessert," she said. "Pray have a few radishes stewed in
honey."