Dead Souls
babblings; but his words on the subject of the purchase of dead souls
had none the less been uttered at the top of his voice, and been
accompanied with such uproarious laughter that the curiosity even of
those who had happened to be sitting or standing in the remoter corners
of the room had been aroused. So strange and novel seemed the idea that
the company stood with faces expressive of nothing but a dumb, dull
wonder. Only some of the ladies (as Chichikov did not fail to remark)
exchanged meaning, ill-natured winks and a series of sarcastic smiles:
which circumstance still further increased his confusion. That Nozdrev
was a notorious liar every one, of course, knew, and that he should have
given vent to an idiotic outburst of this sort had surprised no one; but
a dead soul--well, what was one to make of Nozdrev’s reference to such a
commodity?
Naturally this unseemly contretemps had greatly upset our hero; for,
however foolish be a madman’s words, they may yet prove sufficient to
sow doubt in the minds of saner individuals. He felt much as does a
man who, shod with well-polished boots, has just stepped into a dirty,
stinking puddle. He tried to put away from him the occurrence, and to
expand, and to enjoy himself once more. Nay, he even took a hand
at whist. But all was of no avail--matters kept going as awry as a
badly-bent hoop. Twice he blundered in his play, and the President of
the Council was at a loss to understand how his friend, Paul Ivanovitch,
lately so good and so circumspect a player, could perpetrate such a
mauvais pas as to throw away a particular king of spades which the
President has been “trusting” as (to quote his own expression) “he would
have trusted God.” At supper, too, matters felt uncomfortable, even
though the society at Chichikov’s table was exceedingly agreeable and
Nozdrev had been removed, owing to the fact that the ladies had found
his conduct too scandalous to be borne, now that the delinquent had
taken to seating himself on the floor and plucking at the skirts of
passing lady dancers. As I say, therefore, Chichikov found the situation
not a little awkward, and eventually put an end to it by leaving the
supper room before the meal was over, and long before the hour when
usually he returned to the inn.
In his little room, with its door of communication blocked with a
wardrobe, his frame of mind remained as uncomfortable as the chair in
which he was seated. His heart ached with a dull, unpleasant sensation,
with a sort of oppressive emptiness.
“The devil take those who first invented balls!” was his reflection.
“Who derives any real pleasure from them? In this province there exist
want and scarcity everywhere: yet folk go in for balls! How absurd,
too, were those overdressed women! One of them must have had a thousand
roubles on her back, and all acquired at the expense of the overtaxed
peasant, or, worse still, at that of the conscience of her neighbour.
Yes, we all know why bribes are accepted, and why men become crooked
in soul. It is all done to provide wives--yes, may the pit swallow them
up!--with fal-lals. And for what purpose? That some woman may not have
to reproach her husband with the fact that, say, the Postmaster’s wife
is wearing a better dress than she is--a dress which has cost a thousand
roubles! ‘Balls and gaiety, balls and gaiety’ is the constant cry. Yet
what folly balls are! They do not consort with the Russian spirit and
genius, and the devil only knows why we have them. A grown, middle-aged
man--a man dressed in black, and looking as stiff as a poker--suddenly
takes the floor and begins shuffling his feet about, while another man,
even though conversing with a companion on important business, will, the
while, keep capering to right and left like a billy-goat! Mimicry, sheer
mimicry! The fact that the Frenchman is at forty precisely what he was
at fifteen leads us to imagine that we too, forsooth, ought to be the
same. No; a ball leaves one feeling that one has done a wrong thing--so
much so that one does not care even to think of it. It also leaves one’s
head perfectly empty, even as does the exertion of talking to a man of
the world. A man of that kind chatters away, and touches lightly upon
every conceivable subject, and talks in smooth, fluent phrases which he
has culled from books without grazing their substance; whereas go and
have a chat with a tradesman who knows at least ONE thing thoroughly,
and through the medium of experience, and see whether his conversation
will not be worth more than the prattle of a thousand chatterboxes. For
what good does one get out of balls? Suppose that a competent writer
were to describe such a scene exactly as it stands? Why, even in a
book it would seem senseless, even as it certainly is in life. Are,
therefore, such functions right or wrong? One would answer that the
devil alone knows, and then spit and close the book.”
Such were the unfavourable comments which Chichikov passed upon balls
in general. With it all, however, there went a second source of
dissatisfaction. That is to say, his principal grudge was not so much
against balls as against the fact that at this particular one he had
been exposed, he had been made to disclose the circumstance that he had
been playing a strange, an ambiguous part. Of course, when he reviewed
the contretemps in the light of pure reason, he could not but see that
it mattered nothing, and that a few rude words were of no account now
that the chief point had been attained; yet man is an odd creature, and
Chichikov actually felt pained by the cold-shouldering administered to
him by persons for whom he had not an atom of respect, and whose vanity
and love of display he had only that moment been censuring. Still more,
on viewing the matter clearly, he felt vexed to think that he himself
had been so largely the cause of the catastrophe.
Yet he was not angry with HIMSELF--of that you may be sure, seeing that
all of us have a slight weakness for sparing our own faults, and
always do our best to find some fellow-creature upon whom to vent our
displeasure--whether that fellow-creature be a servant, a subordinate
official, or a wife. In the same way Chichikov sought a scapegoat upon
whose shoulders he could lay the blame for all that had annoyed him. He
found one in Nozdrev, and you may be sure that the scapegoat in question
received a good drubbing from every side, even as an experienced captain
or chief of police will give a knavish starosta or postboy a rating not
only in the terms become classical, but also in such terms as the said
captain or chief of police may invent for himself. In short, Nozdrev’s
whole lineage was passed in review; and many of its members in the
ascending line fared badly in the process.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the town there was in progress an event
which was destined to augment still further the unpleasantness of our
hero’s position. That is to say, through the outlying streets and
alleys of the town there was clattering a vehicle to which it would be
difficult precisely to assign a name, seeing that, though it was of a
species peculiar to itself, it most nearly resembled a large, rickety
water melon on wheels. Eventually this monstrosity drew up at the gates
of a house where the archpriest of one of the churches resided, and from
its doors there leapt a damsel clad in a jerkin and wearing a scarf over
her head. For a while she thumped the gates so vigorously as to set
all the dogs barking; then the gates stiffly opened, and admitted this
unwieldy phenomenon of the road. Lastly, the barinia herself alighted,
and stood revealed as Madame Korobotchka, widow of a Collegiate
Secretary! The reason of her sudden arrival was that she had felt so
uneasy about the possible outcome of Chichikov’s whim, that during the
three nights following his departure she had been unable to sleep a
wink; whereafter, in spite of the fact that her horses were not shod,
she had set off for the town, in order to learn at first hand how the
dead souls were faring, and whether (which might God forfend!) she
had not sold them at something like a third of their true value. The
consequences of her venture the reader will learn from a conversation
between two ladies. We will reserve it for the ensuing chapter.
CHAPTER IX
Next morning, before the usual hour for paying calls, there tripped from
the portals of an orange-coloured wooden house with an attic storey and
a row of blue pillars a lady in an elegant plaid cloak. With her came
a footman in a many-caped greatcoat and a polished top hat with a gold
band. Hastily, but gracefully, the lady ascended the steps let down from
a koliaska which was standing before the entrance, and as soon as
she had done so the footman shut her in, put up the steps again, and,
catching hold of the strap behind the vehicle, shouted to the coachman,
“Right away!” The reason of all this was that the lady was the possessor
of a piece of intelligence that she was burning to communicate to a
fellow-creature. Every moment she kept looking out of the carriage
window, and perceiving, with almost speechless vexation, that, as yet,
she was but half-way on her journey. The fronts of the houses appeared
to her longer than usual, and in particular did the front of the white
stone hospital, with its rows of narrow windows, seem interminable to
a degree which at length forced her to ejaculate: “Oh, the cursed
building! Positively there is no end to it!” Also, she twice adjured the
coachman with the words, “Go quicker, Andrusha! You are a horribly long
time over the journey this morning.” But at length the goal was reached,
and the koliaska stopped before a one-storied wooden mansion, dark grey
in colour, and having white carvings over the windows, a tall wooden
fence and narrow garden in front of the latter, and a few meagre trees
looming white with an incongruous coating of road dust. In the windows
of the building were also a few flower pots and a parrot that kept
alternately dancing on the floor of its cage and hanging on to the ring
of the same with its beak. Also, in the sunshine before the door two pet
dogs were sleeping. Here there lived the lady’s bosom friend. As soon as
the bosom friend in question learnt of the newcomer’s arrival, she ran
down into the hall, and the two ladies kissed and embraced one another.
Then they adjourned to the drawing-room.
“How glad I am to see you!” said the bosom friend. “When I heard some
one arriving I wondered who could possibly be calling so early. Parasha
declared that it must be the Vice-Governor’s wife, so, as I did not want
to be bored with her, I gave orders that I was to be reported ‘not at
home.’”
For her part, the guest would have liked to have proceeded to business
by communicating her tidings, but a sudden exclamation from the hostess
imparted (temporarily) a new direction to the conversation.
“What a pretty chintz!” she cried, gazing at the other’s gown.
“Yes, it IS pretty,” agreed the visitor. “On the other hand, Praskovia
Thedorovna thinks that--”
In other words, the ladies proceeded to indulge in a conversation on
the subject of dress; and only after this had lasted for a considerable
while did the visitor let fall a remark which led her entertainer to
inquire:
“And how is the universal charmer?”
“My God!” replied the other. “There has been SUCH a business! In fact,
do you know why I am here at all?” And the visitor’s breathing became
more hurried, and further words seemed to be hovering between her lips
like hawks preparing to stoop upon their prey. Only a person of the
unhumanity of a “true friend” would have had the heart to interrupt her;
but the hostess was just such a friend, and at once interposed with: