Dead Souls (53 page)

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
^[51]
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
^[52]
,
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.

"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."