Dead Souls
when mutton, the WHOLE sheep; when goose, the WHOLE of the bird. Two
dishes are better than a thousand, provided that one can eat of them as
much as one wants.”
And he proceeded to put precept into practice by taking half the
shoulder of mutton on to his plate, and then devouring it down to the
last morsel of gristle and bone.
“My word!” reflected Chichikov. “The fellow has a pretty good holding
capacity!”
“None of it for me,” repeated Sobakevitch as he wiped his hands on his
napkin. “I don’t intend to be like a fellow named Plushkin, who owns
eight hundred souls, yet dines worse than does my shepherd.”
“Who is Plushkin?” asked Chichikov.
“A miser,” replied Sobakevitch. “Such a miser as never you could
imagine. Even convicts in prison live better than he does. And he
starves his servants as well.”
“Really?” ejaculated Chichikov, greatly interested. “Should you, then,
say that he has lost many peasants by death?”
“Certainly. They keep dying like flies.”
“Then how far from here does he reside?”
“About five versts.”
“Only five versts?” exclaimed Chichikov, feeling his heart beating
joyously. “Ought one, when leaving your gates, to turn to the right or
to the left?”
“I should be sorry to tell you the way to the house of such a cur,” said
Sobakevitch. “A man had far better go to hell than to Plushkin’s.”
“Quite so,” responded Chichikov. “My only reason for asking you is
that it interests me to become acquainted with any and every sort of
locality.”
To the shoulder of mutton there succeeded, in turn, cutlets (each one
larger than a plate), a turkey of about the size of a calf, eggs, rice,
pastry, and every conceivable thing which could possibly be put into a
stomach. There the meal ended. When he rose from table Chichikov felt as
though a pood’s weight were inside him. In the drawing-room the company
found dessert awaiting them in the shape of pears, plums, and apples;
but since neither host nor guest could tackle these particular dainties
the hostess removed them to another room. Taking advantage of her
absence, Chichikov turned to Sobakevitch (who, prone in an armchair,
seemed, after his ponderous meal, to be capable of doing little
beyond belching and grunting--each such grunt or belch necessitating a
subsequent signing of the cross over the mouth), and intimated to him
a desire to have a little private conversation concerning a certain
matter. At this moment the hostess returned.
“Here is more dessert,” she said. “Pray have a few radishes stewed in
honey.”
“Later, later,” replied Sobakevitch. “Do you go to your room, and Paul
Ivanovitch and I will take off our coats and have a nap.”
Upon this the good lady expressed her readiness to send for feather beds
and cushions, but her husband expressed a preference for slumbering in
an armchair, and she therefore departed. When she had gone Sobakevitch
inclined his head in an attitude of willingness to listen to Chichikov’s
business. Our hero began in a sort of detached manner--touching lightly
upon the subject of the Russian Empire, and expatiating upon the
immensity of the same, and saying that even the Empire of Ancient Rome
had been of considerably smaller dimensions. Meanwhile Sobakevitch sat
with his head drooping.
From that Chichikov went on to remark that, according to the statutes of
the said Russian Empire (which yielded to none in glory--so much so that
foreigners marvelled at it), peasants on the census lists who had ended
their earthly careers were nevertheless, on the rendering of new lists,
returned equally with the living, to the end that the courts might be
relieved of a multitude of trifling, useless emendations which might
complicate the already sufficiently complex mechanism of the State.
Nevertheless, said Chichikov, the general equity of this measure did
not obviate a certain amount of annoyance to landowners, since it forced
them to pay upon a non-living article the tax due upon a living. Hence
(our hero concluded) he (Chichikov) was prepared, owing to the personal
respect which he felt for Sobakevitch, to relieve him, in part, of
the irksome obligation referred to (in passing, it may be said that
Chichikov referred to his principal point only guardedly, for he called
the souls which he was seeking not “dead,” but “non-existent”).
Meanwhile Sobakevitch listened with bent head; though something like a
trace of expression dawned in his face as he did so. Ordinarily his
body lacked a soul--or, if he did possess a soul, he seemed to keep it
elsewhere than where it ought to have been; so that, buried beneath
mountains (as it were) or enclosed within a massive shell, its movements
produced no sort of agitation on the surface.
“Well?” said Chichikov--though not without a certain tremor of
diffidence as to the possible response.
“You are after dead souls?” were Sobakevitch’s perfectly simple words.
He spoke without the least surprise in his tone, and much as though the
conversation had been turning on grain.
“Yes,” replied Chichikov, and then, as before, softened down the
expression “dead souls.”
“They are to be found,” said Sobakevitch. “Why should they not be?”
“Then of course you will be glad to get rid of any that you may chance
to have?”
“Yes, I shall have no objection to SELLING them.” At this point the
speaker raised his head a little, for it had struck him that surely the
would-be buyer must have some advantage in view.
“The devil!” thought Chichikov to himself. “Here is he selling the goods
before I have even had time to utter a word!”
“And what about the price?” he added aloud. “Of course, the articles are
not of a kind very easy to appraise.”
“I should be sorry to ask too much,” said Sobakevitch. “How would a
hundred roubles per head suit you?”
“What, a hundred roubles per head?” Chichikov stared open-mouthed at
his host--doubting whether he had heard aright, or whether his host’s
slow-moving tongue might not have inadvertently substituted one word for
another.
“Yes. Is that too much for you?” said Sobakevitch. Then he added: “What
is your own price?”
“My own price? I think that we cannot properly have understood one
another--that you must have forgotten of what the goods consist. With
my hand on my heart do I submit that eight grivni per soul would be a
handsome, a VERY handsome, offer.”
“What? Eight grivni?”
“In my opinion, a higher offer would be impossible.”
“But I am not a seller of boots.”
“No; yet you, for your part, will agree that these souls are not live
human beings?”
“I suppose you hope to find fools ready to sell you souls on the census
list for a couple of groats apiece?”
“Pardon me, but why do you use the term ‘on the census list’? The souls
themselves have long since passed away, and have left behind them only
their names. Not to trouble you with any further discussion of the
subject, I can offer you a rouble and a half per head, but no more.”
“You should be ashamed even to mention such a sum! Since you deal in
articles of this kind, quote me a genuine price.”
“I cannot, Michael Semenovitch. Believe me, I cannot. What a man
cannot do, that he cannot do.” The speaker ended by advancing another
half-rouble per head.
“But why hang back with your money?” said Sobakevitch. “Of a truth I am
not asking much of you. Any other rascal than myself would have cheated
you by selling you old rubbish instead of good, genuine souls, whereas
I should be ready to give you of my best, even were you buying only
nut-kernels. For instance, look at wheelwright Michiev. Never was there
such a one to build spring carts! And his handiwork was not like your
Moscow handiwork--good only for an hour. No, he did it all himself, even
down to the varnishing.”
Chichikov opened his mouth to remark that, nevertheless, the said
Michiev had long since departed this world; but Sobakevitch’s eloquence
had got too thoroughly into its stride to admit of any interruption.
“And look, too, at Probka Stepan, the carpenter,” his host went on. “I
will wager my head that nowhere else would you find such a workman. What
a strong fellow he was! He had served in the Guards, and the Lord only
knows what they had given for him, seeing that he was over three arshins
in height.”
Again Chichikov tried to remark that Probka was dead, but Sobakevitch’s
tongue was borne on the torrent of its own verbiage, and the only thing
to be done was to listen.
“And Milushkin, the bricklayer! He could build a stove in any house you
liked! And Maksim Teliatnikov, the bootmaker! Anything that he drove
his awl into became a pair of boots--and boots for which you would
be thankful, although he WAS a bit foul of the mouth. And Eremi
Sorokoplechin, too! He was the best of the lot, and used to work at
his trade in Moscow, where he paid a tax of five hundred roubles. Well,
THERE’S an assortment of serfs for you!--a very different assortment
from what Plushkin would sell you!”
“But permit me,” at length put in Chichikov, astounded at this flood of
eloquence to which there appeared to be no end. “Permit me, I say, to
inquire why you enumerate the talents of the deceased, seeing that they
are all of them dead, and that therefore there can be no sense in doing
so. ‘A dead body is only good to prop a fence with,’ says the proverb.”
“Of course they are dead,” replied Sobakevitch, but rather as though the
idea had only just occurred to him, and was giving him food for thought.
“But tell me, now: what is the use of listing them as still alive? And
what is the use of them themselves? They are flies, not human beings.”
“Well,” said Chichikov, “they exist, though only in idea.”
“But no--NOT only in idea. I tell you that nowhere else would you
find such a fellow for working heavy tools as was Michiev. He had the
strength of a horse in his shoulders.” And, with the words, Sobakevitch
turned, as though for corroboration, to the portrait of Bagration, as is
frequently done by one of the parties in a dispute when he purports to
appeal to an extraneous individual who is not only unknown to him, but
wholly unconnected with the subject in hand; with the result that the
individual is left in doubt whether to make a reply, or whether to
betake himself elsewhere.
“Nevertheless, I CANNOT give you more than two roubles per head,” said
Chichikov.
“Well, as I don’t want you to swear that I have asked too much of you
and won’t meet you halfway, suppose, for friendship’s sake, that you pay
me seventy-five roubles in assignats?”
“Good heavens!” thought Chichikov to himself. “Does the man take me for
a fool?” Then he added aloud: “The situation seems to me a strange
one, for it is as though we were performing a stage comedy. No other
explanation would meet the case. Yet you appear to be a man of sense,
and possessed of some education. The matter is a very simple one. The
question is: what is a dead soul worth, and is it of any use to any
one?”
“It is of use to YOU, or you would not be buying such articles.”
Chichikov bit his lip, and stood at a loss for a retort. He tried
to saying something about “family and domestic circumstances,” but
Sobakevitch cut him short with:
“I don’t want to know your private affairs, for I never poke my nose
into such things. You need the souls, and I am ready to sell them.
Should you not buy them, I think you will repent it.”
“Two roubles is my price,” repeated Chichikov.
“Come, come! As you have named that sum, I can understand your not
liking to go back upon it; but quote me a bona fide figure.”
“The devil fly away with him!” mused Chichikov. “However, I will add
another half-rouble.” And he did so.
“Indeed?” said Sobakevitch. “Well, my last word upon it is--fifty
roubles in assignats. That will mean a sheer loss to me, for nowhere