Dead Souls
was that there had just been appointed to the province a new
Governor-General--an event which, of course, had thrown the whole army
of provincial tchinovniks into a state of great excitement, seeing that
they knew that before long there would ensue transferments and sentences
of censure, as well as the series of official dinners with which a
Governor-General is accustomed to entertain his subordinates. “Alas,”
thought the army of tchinovniks, “it is probable that, should he learn
of the gross reports at present afloat in our town, he will make such a
fuss that we shall never hear the last of them.” In particular did
the Director of the Medical Department turn pale at the thought that
possibly the new Governor-General would surmise the term “dead folk”
to connote patients in the local hospitals who, for want of proper
preventative measures, had died of sporadic fever. Indeed, might it not
be that Chichikov was neither more nor less than an emissary of the said
Governor-General, sent to conduct a secret inquiry? Accordingly he (the
Director of the Medical Department) communicated this last supposition
to the President of the Council, who, though at first inclined to
ejaculate “Rubbish!” suddenly turned pale on propounding to himself the
theory. “What if the souls purchased by Chichikov should REALLY be
dead ones?”--a terrible thought considering that he, the President, had
permitted their transferment to be registered, and had himself acted
as Plushkin’s representative! What if these things should reach the
Governor-General’s ears? He mentioned the matter to one friend and
another, and they, in their turn, went white to the lips, for panic
spreads faster and is even more destructive, than the dreaded black
death. Also, to add to the tchinovniks’ troubles, it so befell that
just at this juncture there came into the local Governor’s hands two
documents of great importance. The first of them contained advices that,
according to received evidence and reports, there was operating in the
province a forger of rouble-notes who had been passing under various
aliases and must therefore be sought for with the utmost diligence;
while the second document was a letter from the Governor of a
neighbouring province with regard to a malefactor who had there evaded
apprehension--a letter conveying also a warning that, if in the province
of the town of N. there should appear any suspicious individual who
could produce neither references nor passports, he was to be arrested
forthwith. These two documents left every one thunderstruck, for they
knocked on the head all previous conceptions and theories. Not for
a moment could it be supposed that the former document referred to
Chichikov; yet, as each man pondered the position from his own point of
view, he remembered that no one REALLY knew who Chichikov was; as also
that his vague references to himself had--yes!--included statements that
his career in the service had suffered much to the cause of Truth, and
that he possessed a number of enemies who were seeking his life. This
gave the tchinovniks further food for thought. Perhaps his life really
DID stand in danger? Perhaps he really WAS being sought for by some one?
Perhaps he really HAD done something of the kind above referred to? As a
matter of fact, who was he?--not that it could actually be supposed that
he was a forger of notes, still less a brigand, seeing that his exterior
was respectable in the highest degree. Yet who was he? At length
the tchinovniks decided to make enquiries among those of whom he had
purchased souls, in order that at least it might be learnt what the
purchases had consisted of, and what exactly underlay them, and whether,
in passing, he had explained to any one his real intentions, or revealed
to any one his identity. In the first instance, therefore, resort was
had to Korobotchka. Yet little was gleaned from that source--merely
a statement that he had bought of her some souls for fifteen roubles
apiece, and also a quantity of feathers, while promising also to buy
some other commodities in the future, seeing that, in particular, he had
entered into a contract with the Treasury for lard, a fact constituting
fairly presumptive proof that the man was a rogue, seeing that just such
another fellow had bought a quantity of feathers, yet had cheated folk
all round, and, in particular, had done the Archpriest out of over a
hundred roubles. Thus the net result of Madame’s cross-examination was
to convince the tchinovniks that she was a garrulous, silly old woman.
With regard to Manilov, he replied that he would answer for Chichikov as
he would for himself, and that he would gladly sacrifice his property in
toto if thereby he could attain even a tithe of the qualities which
Paul Ivanovitch possessed. Finally, he delivered on Chichikov, with
acutely-knitted brows, a eulogy couched in the most charming of terms,
and coupled with sundry sentiments on the subject of friendship and
affection in general. True, these remarks sufficed to indicate the
tender impulses of the speaker’s heart, but also they did nothing to
enlighten his examiners concerning the business that was actually at
hand. As for Sobakevitch, that landowner replied that he considered
Chichikov an excellent fellow, as well as that the souls whom he had
sold to his visitor had been in the truest sense of the word alive, but
that he could not answer for anything which might occur in the future,
seeing that any difficulties which might arise in the course of the
actual transferment of souls would not be HIS fault, in view of the fact
that God was lord of all, and that fevers and other mortal complaints
were so numerous in the world, and that instances of whole villages
perishing through the same could be found on record.
Finally, our friends the tchinovniks found themselves compelled to
resort to an expedient which, though not particularly savoury, is not
infrequently employed--namely, the expedient of getting lacqueys quietly
to approach the servants of the person concerning whom information is
desired, and to ascertain from them (the servants) certain details with
regard to their master’s life and antecedents. Yet even from this source
very little was obtained, since Petrushka provided his interrogators
merely with a taste of the smell of his living-room, and Selifan
confined his replies to a statement that the barin had “been in the
employment of the State, and also had served in the Customs.”
In short, the sum total of the results gathered by the tchinovniks was
that they still stood in ignorance of Chichikov’s identity, but that he
MUST be some one; wherefore it was decided to hold a final debate on the
subject on what ought to be done, and who Chichikov could possibly be,
and whether or not he was a man who ought to be apprehended and detained
as not respectable, or whether he was a man who might himself be able
to apprehend and detain THEM as persons lacking in respectability. The
debate in question, it was proposed, should be held at the residence of
the Chief of Police, who is known to our readers as the father and the
general benefactor of the town.
CHAPTER X
On assembling at the residence indicated, the tchinovniks had occasion
to remark that, owing to all these cares and excitements, every one
of their number had grown thinner. Yes, the appointment of a new
Governor-General, coupled with the rumours described and the reception
of the two serious documents above-mentioned, had left manifest traces
upon the features of every one present. More than one frockcoat had come
to look too large for its wearer, and more than one frame had fallen
away, including the frames of the President of the Council, the Director
of the Medical Department, and the Public Prosecutor. Even a certain
Semen Ivanovitch, who, for some reason or another, was never alluded to
by his family name, but who wore on his index finger a ring with which
he was accustomed to dazzle his lady friends, had diminished in bulk.
Yet, as always happens at such junctures, there were also present
a score of brazen individuals who had succeeded in NOT losing their
presence of mind, even though they constituted a mere sprinkling.
Of them the Postmaster formed one, since he was a man of equable
temperament who could always say: “WE know you, Governor-Generals! We
have seen three or four of you come and go, whereas WE have been sitting
on the same stools these thirty years.” Nevertheless a prominent feature
of the gathering was the total absence of what is vulgarly known as
“common sense.” In general, we Russians do not make a good show at
representative assemblies, for the reason that, unless there be in
authority a leading spirit to control the rest, the affair always
develops into confusion. Why this should be so one could hardly say, but
at all events a success is scored only by such gatherings as have for
their object dining and festivity--to wit, gatherings at clubs or in
German-run restaurants. However, on the present occasion, the meeting
was NOT one of this kind; it was a meeting convoked of necessity, and
likely in view of the threatened calamity to affect every tchinovnik in
the place. Also, in addition to the great divergency of views expressed
thereat, there was visible in all the speakers an invincible tendency to
indecision which led them at one moment to make assertions, and at the
next to contradict the same. But on at least one point all seemed to
agree--namely, that Chichikov’s appearance and conversation were too
respectable for him to be a forger or a disguised brigand. That is to
say, all SEEMED to agree on the point; until a sudden shout arose from
the direction of the Postmaster, who for some time past had been sitting
plunged in thought.
“_I_ can tell you,” he cried, “who Chichikov is!”
“Who, then?” replied the crowd in great excitement.
“He is none other than Captain Kopeikin.”
“And who may Captain Kopeikin be?”
Taking a pinch of snuff (which he did with the lid of his snuff-box
half-open, lest some extraneous person should contrive to insert a not
over-clean finger into the stuff), the Postmaster related the following
story [35].
“After fighting in the campaign of 1812, there was sent home, wounded,
a certain Captain Kopeikin--a headstrong, lively blade who, whether on
duty or under arrest, made things lively for everybody. Now, since at
Krasni or at Leipzig (it matters not which) he had lost an arm and a
leg, and in those days no provision was made for wounded soldiers, and
he could not work with his left arm alone, he set out to see his father.
Unfortunately his father could only just support himself, and was forced
to tell his son so; wherefore the Captain decided to go and apply for
help in St. Petersburg, seeing that he had risked his life for his
country, and had lost much blood in its service. You can imagine him
arriving in the capital on a baggage waggon--in the capital which is
like no other city in the world! Before him there lay spread out the
whole field of life, like a sort of Arabian Nights--a picture made up of
the Nevski Prospect, Gorokhovaia Street, countless tapering spires, and
a number of bridges apparently supported on nothing--in fact, a regular
second Nineveh. Well, he made shift to hire a lodging, but found
everything so wonderfully furnished with blinds and Persian carpets and
so forth that he saw it would mean throwing away a lot of money. True,
as one walks the streets of St. Petersburg one seems to smell money by
the thousand roubles, but our friend Kopeikin’s bank was limited to a
few score coppers and a little silver--not enough to buy a village with!
At length, at the price of a rouble a day, he obtained a lodging in the
sort of tavern where the daily ration is a bowl of cabbage soup and a