Dead Souls
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