Dead Souls
crust of bread; and as he felt that he could not manage to live very
long on fare of that kind he asked folk what he had better do. ‘What you
had better do?’ they said. ‘Well the Government is not here--it is in
Paris, and the troops have not yet returned from the war; but there is a
TEMPORARY Commission sitting, and you had better go and see what IT can
do for you.’ ‘All right!’ he said. ‘I will go and tell the Commission
that I have shed my blood, and sacrificed my life, for my country.’
And he got up early one morning, and shaved himself with his left hand
(since the expense of a barber was not worth while), and set out, wooden
leg and all, to see the President of the Commission. But first he
asked where the President lived, and was told that his house was in
Naberezhnaia Street. And you may be sure that it was no peasant’s hut,
with its glazed windows and great mirrors and statues and lacqueys and
brass door handles! Rather, it was the sort of place which you would
enter only after you had bought a cheap cake of soap and indulged in a
two hours’ wash. Also, at the entrance there was posted a grand Swiss
footman with a baton and an embroidered collar--a fellow looking like a
fat, over-fed pug dog. However, friend Kopeikin managed to get himself
and his wooden leg into the reception room, and there squeezed himself
away into a corner, for fear lest he should knock down the gilded china
with his elbow. And he stood waiting in great satisfaction at having
arrived before the President had so much as left his bed and been served
with his silver wash-basin. Nevertheless, it was only when Kopeikin had
been waiting four hours that a breakfast waiter entered to say, ‘The
President will soon be here.’ By now the room was as full of people as
a plate is of beans, and when the President left the breakfast-room he
brought with him, oh, such dignity and refinement, and such an air
of the metropolis! First he walked up to one person, and then up to
another, saying: ‘What do YOU want? And what do YOU want? What can I
do for YOU? What is YOUR business?’ And at length he stopped before
Kopeikin, and Kopeikin said to him: ‘I have shed my blood, and lost
both an arm and a leg, for my country, and am unable to work. Might I
therefore dare to ask you for a little help, if the regulations should
permit of it, or for a gratuity, or for a pension, or something of the
kind?’ Then the President looked at him, and saw that one of his legs
was indeed a wooden one, and that an empty right sleeve was pinned to
his uniform. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Come to me again in a few days’
time.’ Upon this friend Kopeikin felt delighted. ‘NOW I have done my
job!’ he thought to himself; and you may imagine how gaily he trotted
along the pavement, and how he dropped into a tavern for a glass of
vodka, and how he ordered a cutlet and some caper sauce and some other
things for luncheon, and how he called for a bottle of wine, and how he
went to the theatre in the evening! In short, he did himself thoroughly
well. Next, he saw in the street a young English lady, as graceful as a
swan, and set off after her on his wooden leg. ‘But no,’ he thought to
himself. ‘To the devil with that sort of thing just now! I will wait
until I have drawn my pension. For the present I have spent enough.’
(And I may tell you that by now he had got through fully half his
money.) Two or three days later he went to see the President of the
Commission again. ‘I should be glad to know,’ he said, ‘whether by now
you can do anything for me in return for my having shed my blood and
suffered sickness and wounds on military service.’ ‘First of all,’ said
the President, ‘I must tell you that nothing can be decided in your case
without the authority of the Supreme Government. Without that sanction
we cannot move in the matter. Surely you see how things stand until the
army shall have returned from the war? All that I can advise you to
do is wait for the Minister to return, and, in the meanwhile, to have
patience. Rest assured that then you will not be overlooked. And if for
the moment you have nothing to live upon, this is the best that I can
do for you.’ With that he handed Kopeikin a trifle until his case should
have been decided. However, that was not what Kopeikin wanted. He
had supposed that he would be given a gratuity of a thousand roubles
straight away; whereas, instead of ‘Drink and be merry,’ it was ‘Wait,
for the time is not yet.’ Thus, though his head had been full of soup
plates and cutlets and English girls, he now descended the steps with
his ears and his tail down--looking, in fact, like a poodle over which
the cook has poured a bucketful of water. You see, St. Petersburg life
had changed him not a little since first he had got a taste of it, and,
now that the devil only knew how he was going to live, it came all the
harder to him that he should have no more sweets to look forward to.
Remember that a man in the prime of years has an appetite like a
wolf; and as he passed a restaurant he could see a round-faced,
holland-shirted, snow-white aproned fellow of a French chef preparing a
dish delicious enough to make it turn to and eat itself; while, again,
as he passed a fruit shop he could see delicacies looking out of a
window for fools to come and buy them at a hundred roubles apiece.
Imagine, therefore, his position! On the one hand, so to speak, were
salmon and water-melons, while on the other hand was the bitter fare
which passed at a tavern for luncheon. ‘Well,’ he thought to himself,
‘let them do what they like with me at the Commission, but I intend
to go and raise the whole place, and to tell every blessed functionary
there that I have a mind to do as I choose.’ And in truth this
bold impertinence of a man did have the hardihood to return to the
Commission. ‘What do you want?’ said the President. ‘Why are you here
for the third time? You have had your orders given you.’ ‘I daresay I
have,’ he retorted, ‘but I am not going to be put off with THEM. I want
some cutlets to eat, and a bottle of French wine, and a chance to go and
amuse myself at the theatre.’ ‘Pardon me,’ said the President. ‘What you
really need (if I may venture to mention it) is a little patience. You
have been given something for food until the Military Committee shall
have met, and then, doubtless, you will receive your proper reward,
seeing that it would not be seemly that a man who has served his country
should be left destitute. On the other hand, if, in the meanwhile, you
desire to indulge in cutlets and theatre-going, please understand that
we cannot help you, but you must make your own resources, and try as
best you can to help yourself.’ You can imagine that this went in at one
of Kopeikin’s ears, and out at the other; that it was like shooting peas
at a stone wall. Accordingly he raised a turmoil which sent the staff
flying. One by one, he gave the mob of secretaries and clerks a real
good hammering. ‘You, and you, and you,’ he said, ‘do not even know
your duties. You are law-breakers.’ Yes, he trod every man of them under
foot. At length the General himself arrived from another office, and
sounded the alarm. What was to be done with a fellow like Kopeikin?
The President saw that strong measures were imperative. ‘Very well,’ he
said. ‘Since you decline to rest satisfied with what has been given you,
and quietly to await the decision of your case in St. Petersburg, I must
find you a lodging. Here, constable, remove the man to gaol.’ Then a
constable who had been called to the door--a constable three ells
in height, and armed with a carbine--a man well fitted to guard a
bank--placed our friend in a police waggon. ‘Well,’ reflected Kopeikin,
‘at least I shan’t have to pay my fare for THIS ride. That’s one
comfort.’ Again, after he had ridden a little way, he said to himself:
‘they told me at the Commission to go and make my own means of enjoying
myself. Very good. I’ll do so.’ However, what became of Kopeikin,
and whither he went, is known to no one. He sank, to use the poet’s
expression, into the waters of Lethe, and his doings now lie buried in
oblivion. But allow me, gentlemen, to piece together the further threads
of the story. Not two months later there appeared in the forests of
Riazan a band of robbers: and of that band the chieftain was none other
than--”
“Allow me,” put in the Head of the Police Department. “You have said
that Kopeikin had lost an arm and a leg; whereas Chichikov--”
To say anything more was unnecessary. The Postmaster clapped his hand
to his forehead, and publicly called himself a fool, though, later, he
tried to excuse his mistake by saying that in England the science of
mechanics had reached such a pitch that wooden legs were manufactured
which would enable the wearer, on touching a spring, to vanish
instantaneously from sight.
Various other theories were then propounded, among them a theory that
Chichikov was Napoleon, escaped from St. Helena and travelling about
the world in disguise. And if it should be supposed that no such notion
could possibly have been broached, let the reader remember that these
events took place not many years after the French had been driven out of
Russia, and that various prophets had since declared that Napoleon was
Antichrist, and would one day escape from his island prison to exercise
universal sway on earth. Nay, some good folk had even declared the
letters of Napoleon’s name to constitute the Apocalyptic cipher!
As a last resort, the tchinovniks decided to question Nozdrev, since not
only had the latter been the first to mention the dead souls, but
also he was supposed to stand on terms of intimacy with Chichikov.
Accordingly the Chief of Police dispatched a note by the hand of a
commissionaire. At the time Nozdrev was engaged on some very important
business--so much so that he had not left his room for four days, and
was receiving his meals through the window, and no visitors at all. The
business referred to consisted of the marking of several dozen selected
cards in such a way as to permit of his relying upon them as upon his
bosom friend. Naturally he did not like having his retirement invaded,
and at first consigned the commissionaire to the devil; but as soon
as he learnt from the note that, since a novice at cards was to be the
guest of the Chief of Police that evening, a call at the latter’s house
might prove not wholly unprofitable he relented, unlocked the door of
his room, threw on the first garments that came to hand, and set forth.
To every question put to him by the tchinovniks he answered firmly and
with assurance. Chichikov, he averred, had indeed purchased dead souls,
and to the tune of several thousand roubles. In fact, he (Nozdrev) had
himself sold him some, and still saw no reason why he should not have
done so. Next, to the question of whether or not he considered Chichikov
to be a spy, he replied in the affirmative, and added that, as long ago
as his and Chichikov’s joint schooldays, the said Chichikov had been
known as “The Informer,” and repeatedly been thrashed by his companions
on that account. Again, to the question of whether or not Chichikov was
a forger of currency notes the deponent, as before, responded in
the affirmative, and appended thereto an anecdote illustrative of
Chichikov’s extraordinary dexterity of hand--namely, an anecdote to
that effect that, once upon a time, on learning that two million
roubles worth of counterfeit notes were lying in Chichikov’s house, the
authorities had placed seals upon the building, and had surrounded it
on every side with an armed guard; whereupon Chichikov had, during the
night, changed each of these seals for a new one, and also so arranged
matters that, when the house was searched, the forged notes were found
to be genuine ones!