Dead Souls
white-necked, white-bosomed maidens who have gathered to listen to his
low-pitched tinkling--are fashioned. This scrutiny made, both faces
withdrew, and there came out on to the entrance steps a lacquey clad
in a grey jacket and a stiff blue collar. This functionary conducted
Chichikov into the hall, where he was met by the master of the house
himself, who requested his guest to enter, and then led him into the
inner part of the mansion.
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 suspended 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;