Dead Souls (39 page)

This speech—a speech of fascinating bonhomie—delivered, the guest
executed a sort of shuffle with a half-boot of patent leather studded
with buttons of mother-of-pearl, and followed that up by (in spite of
his pronounced rotundity of figure) stepping backwards with all the
elan of an india-rubber ball.

From this the somewhat reassured Tientietnikov concluded that his
visitor must be a literary, knowledge-seeking professor who was
engaged in roaming the country in search of botanical specimens and
fossils; wherefore he hastened to express both his readiness to
further the visitor's objects (whatever they might be) and his
personal willingness to provide him with the requisite wheelwrights
and blacksmiths. Meanwhile he begged his guest to consider himself at
home, and, after seating him in an armchair, made preparations to
listen to the newcomer's discourse on natural history.

But the newcomer applied himself, rather, to phenomena of the internal
world, saying that his life might be likened to a barque tossed on the
crests of perfidious billows, that in his time he had been fated to
play many parts, and that on more than one occasion his life had stood
in danger at the hands of foes. At the same time, these tidings were
communicated in a manner calculated to show that the speaker was also
a man of PRACTICAL capabilities. In conclusion, the visitor took out
a cambric pocket-handkerchief, and sneezed into it with a vehemence
wholly new to Tientietnikov's experience. In fact, the sneeze rather
resembled the note which, at times, the trombone of an orchestra
appears to utter not so much from its proper place on the platform as
from the immediate neighbourhood of the listener's ear. And as the
echoes of the drowsy mansion resounded to the report of the explosion
there followed upon the same a wave of perfume, skilfully wafted
abroad with a flourish of the eau-de-Cologne-scented handkerchief.

By this time the reader will have guessed that the visitor was none
other than our old and respected friend Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov.
Naturally, time had not spared him his share of anxieties and alarms;
wherefore his exterior had come to look a trifle more elderly, his
frockcoat had taken on a suggestion of shabbiness, and britchka,
coachman, valet, horses, and harness alike had about them a sort of
second-hand, worse-for-wear effect. Evidently the Chichikovian
finances were not in the most flourishing of conditions. Nevertheless,
the old expression of face, the old air of breeding and refinement,
remained unimpaired, and our hero had even improved in the art of
walking and turning with grace, and of dexterously crossing one leg
over the other when taking a seat. Also, his mildness of diction, his
discreet moderation of word and phrase, survived in, if anything,
increased measure, and he bore himself with a skill which caused his
tactfulness to surpass itself in sureness of aplomb. And all these
accomplishments had their effect further heightened by a snowy
immaculateness of collar and dickey, and an absence of dust from his
frockcoat, as complete as though he had just arrived to attend a
nameday festival. Lastly, his cheeks and chin were of such neat
clean-shavenness that no one but a blind man could have failed to
admire their rounded contours.

From that moment onwards great changes took place in Tientietnikov's
establishment, and certain of its rooms assumed an unwonted air of
cleanliness and order. The rooms in question were those assigned to
Chichikov, while one other apartment—a little front chamber opening
into the hall—became permeated with Petrushka's own peculiar smell.
But this lasted only for a little while, for presently Petrushka was
transferred to the servants' quarters, a course which ought to have
been adopted in the first instance.

During the initial days of Chichikov's sojourn, Tientietnikov feared
rather to lose his independence, inasmuch as he thought that his guest
might hamper his movements, and bring about alterations in the
established routine of the place. But these fears proved groundless,
for Paul Ivanovitch displayed an extraordinary aptitude for
accommodating himself to his new position. To begin with, he
encouraged his host in his philosophical inertia by saying that the
latter would help Tientietnikov to become a centenarian. Next, in the
matter of a life of isolation, he hit things off exactly by remarking
that such a life bred in a man a capacity for high thinking. Lastly,
as he inspected the library and dilated on books in general, he
contrived an opportunity to observe that literature safeguarded a man
from a tendency to waste his time. In short, the few words of which he
delivered himself were brief, but invariably to the point. And this
discretion of speech was outdone by his discretion of conduct. That is
to say, whether entering or leaving the room, he never wearied his
host with a question if Tientietnikov had the air of being disinclined
to talk; and with equal satisfaction the guest could either play chess
or hold his tongue. Consequently Tientietnikov said to himself:

"For the first time in my life I have met with a man with whom it is
possible to live. In general, not many of the type exist in Russia,
and, though clever, good-humoured, well-educated men abound, one would
be hard put to it to find an individual of equable temperament with
whom one could share a roof for centuries without a quarrel arising.
Anyway, Chichikov is the first of his sort that I have met."

For his part, Chichikov was only too delighted to reside with a person
so quiet and agreeable as his host. Of a wandering life he was
temporarily weary, and to rest, even for a month, in such a beautiful
spot, and in sight of green fields and the slow flowering of spring,
was likely to benefit him also from the hygienic point of view. And,
indeed, a more delightful retreat in which to recuperate could not
possibly have been found. The spring, long retarded by previous cold,
had now begun in all its comeliness, and life was rampant. Already,
over the first emerald of the grass, the dandelion was showing yellow,
and the red-pink anemone was hanging its tender head; while the
surface of every pond was a swarm of dancing gnats and midges, and the
water-spider was being joined in their pursuit by birds which gathered
from every quarter to the vantage-ground of the dry reeds. Every
species of creature also seemed to be assembling in concourse, and
taking stock of one another. Suddenly the earth became populous, the
forest had opened its eyes, and the meadows were lifting up their
voice in song. In the same way had choral dances begun to be weaved in
the village, and everywhere that the eye turned there was merriment.
What brightness in the green of nature, what freshness in the air,
what singing of birds in the gardens of the mansion, what general joy
and rapture and exaltation! Particularly in the village might the
shouting and singing have been in honour of a wedding!

Chichikov walked hither, thither, and everywhere—a pursuit for which
there was ample choice and facility. At one time he would direct his
steps along the edge of the flat tableland, and contemplate the depths
below, where still there lay sheets of water left by the floods of
winter, and where the island-like patches of forest showed leafless
boughs; while at another time he would plunge into the thicket and
ravine country, where nests of birds weighted branches almost to the
ground, and the sky was darkened with the criss-cross flight of cawing
rooks. Again, the drier portions of the meadows could be crossed to
the river wharves, whence the first barges were just beginning to set
forth with pea-meal and barley and wheat, while at the same time one's
ear would be caught with the sound of some mill resuming its functions
as once more the water turned the wheel. Chichikov would also walk
afield to watch the early tillage operations of the season, and
observe how the blackness of a new furrow would make its way across
the expanse of green, and how the sower, rhythmically striking his
hand against the pannier slung across his breast, would scatter his
fistfuls of seed with equal distribution, apportioning not a grain too
much to one side or to the other.

In fact, Chichikov went everywhere. He chatted and talked, now with
the bailiff, now with a peasant, now with a miller, and inquired into
the manner and nature of everything, and sought information as to how
an estate was managed, and at what price corn was selling, and what
species of grain was best for spring and autumn grinding, and what was
the name of each peasant, and who were his kinsfolk, and where he had
bought his cow, and what he fed his pigs on. Chichikov also made
inquiry concerning the number of peasants who had lately died: but of
these there appeared to be few. And suddenly his quick eye discerned
that Tientietnikov's estate was not being worked as it might have
been—that much neglect and listlessness and pilfering and drunkenness
was abroad; and on perceiving this, he thought to himself: "What a
fool is that Tientietnikov! To think of letting a property like this
decay when he might be drawing from it an income of fifty thousand
roubles a year!"

Also, more than once, while taking these walks, our hero pondered the
idea of himself becoming a landowner—not now, of course, but later,
when his chief aim should have been achieved, and he had got into his
hands the necessary means for living the quiet life of the proprietor
of an estate. Yes, and at these times there would include itself in
his castle-building the figure of a young, fresh, fair-faced maiden of
the mercantile or other rich grade of society, a woman who could both
play and sing. He also dreamed of little descendants who should
perpetuate the name of Chichikov; perhaps a frolicsome little boy and
a fair young daughter, or possibly, two boys and quite two or three
daughters; so that all should know that he had really lived and had
his being, that he had not merely roamed the world like a spectre or a
shadow; so that for him and his the country should never be put to
shame. And from that he would go on to fancy that a title appended to
his rank would not be a bad thing—the title of State Councillor, for
instance, which was deserving of all honour and respect. Ah, it is a
common thing for a man who is taking a solitary walk so to detach
himself from the irksome realities of the present that he is able to
stir and to excite and to provoke his imagination to the conception of
things he knows can never really come to pass!

Chichikov's servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like
their master, speedily made themselves at home in it. In particular
did Petrushka make friends with Grigory the butler, although at first
the pair showed a tendency to outbrag one another—Petrushka beginning
by throwing dust in Grigory's eyes on the score of his (Petrushka's)
travels, and Grigory taking him down a peg or two by referring to St.
Petersburg (a city which Petrushka had never visited), and Petrushka
seeking to recover lost ground by dilating on towns which he HAD
visited, and Grigory capping this by naming some town which is not to
be found on any map in existence, and then estimating the journey
thither as at least thirty thousand versts—a statement which would so
completely flabbergast the henchman of Chichikov's suite that he would
be left staring open-mouthed, amid the general laughter of the
domestic staff. However, as I say, the pair ended by swearing eternal
friendship with one another, and making a practice of resorting to the
village tavern in company.

For Selifan, however, the place had a charm of a different kind. That
is to say, each evening there would take place in the village a
singing of songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and
buxom were the maidens—maidens of a type hard to find in our
present-day villages on large estates—that he would stand for hours
wondering which of them was the best. White-necked and white-bosomed,
all had great roving eyes, the gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to
the waist. And as, with his hands clasping theirs, he glided hither
and thither in the dance, or retired backwards towards a wall with a
row of other young fellows, and then, with them, returned to meet the
damsels—all singing in chorus (and laughing as they sang it),
"Boyars, show me my bridegroom!" and dusk was falling gently, and from
the other side of the river there kept coming far, faint, plaintive
echoes of the melody—well, then our Selifan hardly knew whether he
were standing upon his head or his heels. Later, when sleeping and
when waking, both at noon and at twilight, he would seem still to be
holding a pair of white hands, and moving in the dance.

Chichikov's horses also found nothing of which to disapprove. Yes,
both the bay, the Assessor, and the skewbald accounted residence at
Tientietnikov's a most comfortable affair, and voted the oats
excellent, and the arrangement of the stables beyond all cavil. True,
on this occasion each horse had a stall to himself; yet, by looking
over the intervening partition, it was possible always to see one's
fellows, and, should a neighbour take it into his head to utter a
neigh, to answer it at once.

As for the errand which had hitherto led Chichikov to travel about
Russia, he had now decided to move very cautiously and secretly in the
matter. In fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for
reading and for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself,
"No—I had better begin at the other end," and proceeded first to feel
his way among the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt
several things, and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go
and call upon a certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the
General possessed a daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had
an affair of some sort, but that the pair had subsequently parted, and
gone their several ways. For that matter, Chichikov himself had
noticed that Tientietnikov was in the habit of drawing heads of which
each representation exactly resembled the rest.