Dead Souls (41 page)

"No more than two at the most."

"The old jackass! Don't be angry with me, but I must say that, though
your uncle, he is also a jackass."

"Quite so, your Excellency. And though it grieves ME to have to
confess that he is my uncle, what am I to do with him?"

Yet this was not altogether the truth. What would have been a far
harder thing for Chichikov to have confessed was the fact that he
possessed no uncles at all.

"I beg of you, your Excellency," he went on, "to hand me over those,
those—"

"Those dead souls, eh? Why, in return for the jest I will give you
some land as well. Yes, you can take the whole graveyard if you like.
Ha, ha, ha! The old man! Ha, ha, ha! WHAT a fool he'll look! Ha, ha,
ha!"

And once more the General's guffaws went ringing through the house.

(At this point there is a long hiatus in the original.)

"If Colonel Koshkarev should turn out to be as mad as the last one it
is a bad look-out," said Chichikov to himself on opening his eyes amid
fields and open country—everything else having disappeared save the
vault of heaven and a couple of low-lying clouds.

"Selifan," he went on, "did you ask how to get to Colonel
Koshkarev's?"

"Yes, Paul Ivanovitch. At least, there was such a clatter around the
koliaska that I could not; but Petrushka asked the coachman."

"You fool! How often have I told you not to rely on Petrushka?
Petrushka is a blockhead, an idiot. Besides, at the present moment I
believe him to be drunk."

"No, you are wrong, barin," put in the person referred to, turning his
head with a sidelong glance. "After we get down the next hill we shall
need but to keep bending round it. That is all."

"Yes, and I suppose you'll tell me that sivnkha is the only thing that
has passed your lips? Well, the view at least is beautiful. In fact,
when one has seen this place one may say that one has seen one of the
beauty spots of Europe." This said, Chichikov added to himself,
smoothing his chin: "What a difference between the features of a
civilised man of the world and those of a common lacquey!"

Meanwhile the koliaska quickened its pace, and Chichikov once more
caught sight of Tientietnikov's aspen-studded meadows. Undulating
gently on elastic springs, the vehicle cautiously descended the steep
incline, and then proceeded past water-mills, rumbled over a bridge or
two, and jolted easily along the rough-set road which traversed the
flats. Not a molehill, not a mound jarred the spine. The vehicle was
comfort itself.

Swiftly there flew by clumps of osiers, slender elder trees, and
silver-leaved poplars, their branches brushing against Selifan and
Petrushka, and at intervals depriving the valet of his cap. Each time
that this happened, the sullen-faced servitor fell to cursing both the
tree responsible for the occurrence and the landowner responsible for
the tree being in existence; yet nothing would induce him thereafter
either to tie on the cap or to steady it with his hand, so complete
was his assurance that the accident would never be repeated. Soon to
the foregoing trees there became added an occasional birch or spruce
fir, while in the dense undergrowth around their roots could be seen
the blue iris and the yellow wood-tulip. Gradually the forest grew
darker, as though eventually the obscurity would become complete. Then
through the trunks and the boughs there began to gleam points of light
like glittering mirrors, and as the number of trees lessened, these
points grew larger, until the travellers debouched upon the shore of a
lake four versts or so in circumference, and having on its further
margin the grey, scattered log huts of a peasant village. In the water
a great commotion was in progress. In the first place, some twenty
men, immersed to the knee, to the breast, or to the neck, were
dragging a large fishing-net inshore, while, in the second place,
there was entangled in the same, in addition to some fish, a stout man
shaped precisely like a melon or a hogshead. Greatly excited, he was
shouting at the top of his voice: "Let Kosma manage it, you lout of a
Denis! Kosma, take the end of the rope from Denis! Don't bear so hard
on it, Thoma Bolshoy
^[41]
! Go where Thoma Menshov
^[42]
is! Damn it, bring
the net to land, will you!" From this it became clear that it was not
on his own account that the stout man was worrying. Indeed, he had no
need to do so, since his fat would in any case have prevented him from
sinking. Yes, even if he had turned head over heels in an effort to
dive, the water would persistently have borne him up; and the same if,
say, a couple of men had jumped on his back—the only result would
have been that he would have become a trifle deeper submerged, and
forced to draw breath by spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the
cause of his agitation was lest the net should break, and the fish
escape: wherefore he was urging some additional peasants who were
standing on the bank to lay hold of and to pull at, an extra rope or
two.

"That must be the barin—Colonel Koshkarev," said Selifan.

"Why?" asked Chichikov.

"Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has
the respectable paunch of a gentleman."

Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the
barin; until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright
position, and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with
Chichikov seated therein, descending the declivity.

"Have you dined yet?" shouted the barin as, still entangled in the
net, he approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one
hand shading his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he
looked, in point of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her
bath.

"No," replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of
bows.

"Then thank God for that," rejoined the gentleman.

"Why?" asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his
cap over his head.

"Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that
sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma."

With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a
veritable monster of a fish.

"Isn't it a beauty—a sturgeon fresh run from the river?" exclaimed
the stout barin. "And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take
the lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma
Bolshoy, and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house,
and I myself shall be along presently."

Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt,
ran ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had
hanging in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every
inhabitant of the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a
large vegetable enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a
square near a wooden church, with, showing beyond the latter, the
roofs of the manorial homestead.

"A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!" said Chichikov to himself.

"Well, whatever I may be, at least I'm here," said a voice by his
side. Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile,
the barin had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair
of yellow trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck
was as guiltless of a collar as Cupid's. Also, as he sat sideways in
his drozhki, his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle.
Chichikov was about to make some remark or another when the stout
gentleman disappeared; and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view
at the spot where the fish had been drawn to land, and his voice could
be heard reiterating exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov
reached the verandah of the house he found, to his intense surprise,
the stout gentleman waiting to welcome the visitor. How he had
contrived to convey himself thither passed Chichikov's comprehension.
Host and guest embraced three times, according to a bygone custom of
Russia. Evidently the barin was one of the old school.

"I bring you," said Chichikov, "a greeting from his Excellency."

"From whom?"

"From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch."

"Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?"

"What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?"
exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.

"No, I do not," replied the gentleman.

Chichikov's surprise grew to absolute astonishment.

"How comes that about?" he ejaculated. "I hope that I have the honour
of addressing Colonel Koshkarev?"

"Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have
come; and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh—yes, Peter Petrovitch
Pietukh."

Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I told you to drive to the house of
Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter
Petrovitch Pietukh."

"All the same, your fellows have done quite right," put in the
gentleman referred to. "Do you" (this to Selifan and Petrushka) "go to
the kitchen, where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then
put up the horses, and be off to the servants' quarters."

"I regret the mistake extremely," said Chichikov.

"But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have
in store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I
beg of you." And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him
within, where they were met by a couple of youths.

"Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the
Gymnasium
^[43]
," said Pietukh. "Nikolasha, come and entertain our good
visitor, while you, Aleksasha, follow me." And with that the host
disappeared.

Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about
town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no
good was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he
and his brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the
provinces not being worth living in.

"I quite understand," Chichikov thought to himself. "The end of the
chapter will be confectioners' assistants and the boulevards."

"Tell me," he added aloud, "how does your father's property at present
stand?"

"It is all mortgaged," put in the father himself as he re-entered the
room. "Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it."

"What a pity!" thought Chichikov. "At this rate it will not be long
before this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my
departure." Aloud he said with an air of sympathy: "That you have
mortgaged the estate seems to me a matter of regret."

"No, not at all," replied Pietukh. "In fact, they tell me that it is a
good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I
act differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of
living here, and should like to try Moscow—more especially since my
sons are always begging me to give them a metropolitan education."

"Oh, the fool, the fool!" reflected Chichikov. "He is for throwing up
everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice
property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and
that the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon
as ever these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres,
the devil will away with every stick of their substance. For my own
part, I could desire nothing better than this quiet life in the
country."

"Let me guess what is in your mind," said Pietukh.

"What, then?" asked Chichikov, rather taken aback.

"You are thinking to yourself: 'That fool of a Pietukh has asked me to
dinner, yet not a bite of dinner do I see.' But wait a little. It will
be ready presently, for it is being cooked as fast as a maiden who has
had her hair cut off plaits herself a new set of tresses."

"Here comes Platon Mikhalitch, father!" exclaimed Aleksasha, who had
been peeping out of the window.

"Yes, and on a grey horse," added his brother.

"Who is Platon Mikhalitch?" inquired Chichikov.

"A neighbour of ours, and an excellent fellow."

The next moment Platon Mikhalitch himself entered the room,
accompanied by a sporting dog named Yarb. He was a tall, handsome man,
with extremely red hair. As for his companion, it was of the
keen-muzzled species used for shooting.

"Have you dined yet?" asked the host.

"Yes," replied Platon.

"Indeed? What do you mean by coming here to laugh at us all? Do I ever
go to YOUR place after dinner?"

The newcomer smiled. "Well, if it can bring you any comfort," he said,
"let me tell you that I ate nothing at the meal, for I had no
appetite."

"But you should see what I have caught—what sort of a sturgeon fate
has brought my way! Yes, and what crucians and carp!"

"Really it tires one to hear you. How come you always to be so cheerful?"

"And how come YOU always to be so gloomy?" retorted the host.

"How, you ask? Simply because I am so."

"The truth is you don't eat enough. Try the plan of making a good
dinner. Weariness of everything is a modern invention. Once upon a
time one never heard of it."

"Well, boast away, but have you yourself never been tired of things?"

"Never in my life. I do not so much as know whether I should find time
to be tired. In the morning, when one awakes, the cook is waiting, and
the dinner has to be ordered. Then one drinks one's morning tea, and
then the bailiff arrives for HIS orders, and then there is fishing
to be done, and then one's dinner has to be eaten. Next, before one
has even had a chance to utter a snore, there enters once again the
cook, and one has to order supper; and when she has departed, behold,
back she comes with a request for the following day's dinner! What
time does THAT leave one to be weary of things?"