Dead Souls
before the coming of the French to Moscow. As for the walls, they were
hung with a medley of pictures. Among the latter was a long engraving of
a battle scene, wherein soldiers in three-cornered hats were brandishing
huge drums and slender lances. It lacked a glass, and was set in a frame
ornamented with bronze fretwork and bronze corner rings. Beside it hung
a huge, grimy oil painting representative of some flowers and fruit,
half a water melon, a boar’s head, and the pendent form of a dead
wild duck. Attached to the ceiling there was a chandelier in a holland
covering--the covering so dusty as closely to resemble a huge cocoon
enclosing a caterpillar. Lastly, in one corner of the room lay a pile
of articles which had evidently been adjudged unworthy of a place on the
table. Yet what the pile consisted of it would have been difficult to
say, seeing that the dust on the same was so thick that any hand which
touched it would have at once resembled a glove. Prominently protruding
from the pile was the shaft of a wooden spade and the antiquated sole
of a shoe. Never would one have supposed that a living creature had
tenanted the room, were it not that the presence of such a creature was
betrayed by the spectacle of an old nightcap resting on the table.
Whilst Chichikov was gazing at this extraordinary mess, a side door
opened and there entered the housekeeper who had met him near the
outbuildings. But now Chichikov perceived this person to be a man rather
than a woman, since a female housekeeper would have had no beard to
shave, whereas the chin of the newcomer, with the lower portion of his
cheeks, strongly resembled the curry-comb which is used for grooming
horses. Chichikov assumed a questioning air, and waited to hear what the
housekeeper might have to say. The housekeeper did the same. At length,
surprised at the misunderstanding, Chichikov decided to ask the first
question.
“Is the master at home?” he inquired.
“Yes,” replied the person addressed.
“Then where is he?” continued Chichikov.
“Are you blind, my good sir?” retorted the other. “_I_ am the master.”
Involuntarily our hero started and stared. During his travels it had
befallen him to meet various types of men--some of them, it may be,
types which you and I have never encountered; but even to Chichikov this
particular species was new. In the old man’s face there was nothing very
special--it was much like the wizened face of many another dotard, save
that the chin was so greatly projected that whenever he spoke he was
forced to wipe it with a handkerchief to avoid dribbling, and that his
small eyes were not yet grown dull, but twinkled under their overhanging
brows like the eyes of mice when, with attentive ears and sensitive
whiskers, they snuff the air and peer forth from their holes to
see whether a cat or a boy may not be in the vicinity. No, the most
noticeable feature about the man was his clothes. In no way could it
have been guessed of what his coat was made, for both its sleeves and
its skirts were so ragged and filthy as to defy description, while
instead of two posterior tails, there dangled four of those appendages,
with, projecting from them, a torn newspaper. Also, around his neck
there was wrapped something which might have been a stocking, a garter,
or a stomacher, but was certainly not a tie. In short, had Chichikov
chanced to encounter him at a church door, he would have bestowed upon
him a copper or two (for, to do our hero justice, he had a sympathetic
heart and never refrained from presenting a beggar with alms), but in
the present case there was standing before him, not a mendicant, but
a landowner--and a landowner possessed of fully a thousand serfs, the
superior of all his neighbours in wealth of flour and grain, and the
owner of storehouses, and so forth, that were crammed with homespun
cloth and linen, tanned and undressed sheepskins, dried fish, and every
conceivable species of produce. Nevertheless, such a phenomenon is
rare in Russia, where the tendency is rather to prodigality than to
parsimony.
For several minutes Plushkin stood mute, while Chichikov remained so
dazed with the appearance of the host and everything else in the room,
that he too, could not begin a conversation, but stood wondering how
best to find words in which to explain the object of his visit. For a
while he thought of expressing himself to the effect that, having heard
so much of his host’s benevolence and other rare qualities of spirit,
he had considered it his duty to come and pay a tribute of respect; but
presently even HE came to the conclusion that this would be overdoing
the thing, and, after another glance round the room, decided that
the phrase “benevolence and other rare qualities of spirit” might to
advantage give place to “economy and genius for method.” Accordingly,
the speech mentally composed, he said aloud that, having heard of
Plushkin’s talents for thrifty and systematic management, he had
considered himself bound to make the acquaintance of his host, and
to present him with his personal compliments (I need hardly say that
Chichikov could easily have alleged a better reason, had any better one
happened, at the moment, to have come into his head).
With toothless gums Plushkin murmured something in reply, but nothing is
known as to its precise terms beyond that it included a statement
that the devil was at liberty to fly away with Chichikov’s sentiments.
However, the laws of Russian hospitality do not permit even of a miser
infringing their rules; wherefore Plushkin added to the foregoing a more
civil invitation to be seated.
“It is long since I last received a visitor,” he went on. “Also, I feel
bound to say that I can see little good in their coming. Once introduce
the abominable custom of folk paying calls, and forthwith there will
ensue such ruin to the management of estates that landowners will be
forced to feed their horses on hay. Not for a long, long time have I
eaten a meal away from home--although my own kitchen is a poor one, and
has its chimney in such a state that, were it to become overheated, it
would instantly catch fire.”
“What a brute!” thought Chichikov. “I am lucky to have got through so
much pastry and stuffed shoulder of mutton at Sobakevitch’s!”
“Also,” went on Plushkin, “I am ashamed to say that hardly a wisp of
fodder does the place contain. But how can I get fodder? My lands are
small, and the peasantry lazy fellows who hate work and think of nothing
but the tavern. In the end, therefore, I shall be forced to go and spend
my old age in roaming about the world.”
“But I have been told that you possess over a thousand serfs?” said
Chichikov.
“Who told you that? No matter who it was, you would have been justified
in giving him the lie. He must have been a jester who wanted to make
a fool of you. A thousand souls, indeed! Why, just reckon the taxes
on them, and see what there would be left! For these three years that
accursed fever has been killing off my serfs wholesale.”
“Wholesale, you say?” echoed Chichikov, greatly interested.
“Yes, wholesale,” replied the old man.
“Then might I ask you the exact number?”
“Fully eighty.”
“Surely not?”
“But it is so.”
“Then might I also ask whether it is from the date of the last census
revision that you are reckoning these souls?”
“Yes, damn it! And since that date I have been bled for taxes upon a
hundred and twenty souls in all.”
“Indeed? Upon a hundred and twenty souls in all!” And Chichikov’s
surprise and elation were such that, this said, he remained sitting
open-mouthed.
“Yes, good sir,” replied Plushkin. “I am too old to tell you lies, for I
have passed my seventieth year.”
Somehow he seemed to have taken offence at Chichikov’s almost joyous
exclamation; wherefore the guest hastened to heave a profound sigh, and
to observe that he sympathised to the full with his host’s misfortunes.
“But sympathy does not put anything into one’s pocket,” retorted
Plushkin. “For instance, I have a kinsman who is constantly plaguing me.
He is a captain in the army, damn him, and all day he does nothing but
call me ‘dear uncle,’ and kiss my hand, and express sympathy until I am
forced to stop my ears. You see, he has squandered all his money upon
his brother-officers, as well as made a fool of himself with an actress;
so now he spends his time in telling me that he has a sympathetic
heart!”
Chichikov hastened to explain that HIS sympathy had nothing in common
with the captain’s, since he dealt, not in empty words alone, but in
actual deeds; in proof of which he was ready then and there (for
the purpose of cutting the matter short, and of dispensing with
circumlocution) to transfer to himself the obligation of paying the
taxes due upon such serfs as Plushkin’s as had, in the unfortunate
manner just described, departed this world. The proposal seemed to
astonish Plushkin, for he sat staring open-eyed. At length he inquired:
“My dear sir, have you seen military service?”
“No,” replied the other warily, “but I have been a member of the CIVIL
Service.”
“Oh! Of the CIVIL Service?” And Plushkin sat moving his lips as though
he were chewing something. “Well, what of your proposal?” he added
presently. “Are you prepared to lose by it?”
“Yes, certainly, if thereby I can please you.”
“My dear sir! My good benefactor!” In his delight Plushkin lost sight of
the fact that his nose was caked with snuff of the consistency of thick
coffee, and that his coat had parted in front and was disclosing some
very unseemly underclothing. “What comfort you have brought to an old
man! Yes, as God is my witness!”
For the moment he could say no more. Yet barely a minute had elapsed
before this instantaneously aroused emotion had, as instantaneously,
disappeared from his wooden features. Once more they assumed a careworn
expression, and he even wiped his face with his handkerchief, then
rolled it into a ball, and rubbed it to and fro against his upper lip.
“If it will not annoy you again to state the proposal,” he went on,
“what you undertake to do is to pay the annual tax upon these souls, and
to remit the money either to me or to the Treasury?”
“Yes, that is how it shall be done. We will draw up a deed of purchase
as though the souls were still alive and you had sold them to myself.”
“Quite so--a deed of purchase,” echoed Plushkin, once more relapsing
into thought and the chewing motion of the lips. “But a deed of such
a kind will entail certain expenses, and lawyers are so devoid of
conscience! In fact, so extortionate is their avarice that they will
charge one half a rouble, and then a sack of flour, and then a whole
waggon-load of meal. I wonder that no one has yet called attention to
the system.”
Upon that Chichikov intimated that, out of respect for his host, he
himself would bear the cost of the transfer of souls. This led Plushkin
to conclude that his guest must be the kind of unconscionable fool who,
while pretending to have been a member of the Civil Service, has in
reality served in the army and run after actresses; wherefore the old
man no longer disguised his delight, but called down blessings alike
upon Chichikov’s head and upon those of his children (he had never even
inquired whether Chichikov possessed a family). Next, he shuffled to the
window, and, tapping one of its panes, shouted the name of “Proshka.”
Immediately some one ran quickly into the hall, and, after much stamping
of feet, burst into the room. This was Proshka--a thirteen-year-old
youngster who was shod with boots of such dimensions as almost to engulf
his legs as he walked. The reason why he had entered thus shod was
that Plushkin only kept one pair of boots for the whole of his domestic