Dead Souls
For everything needs to be examined beforehand, and calculations must be
made at the very start. And as soon as ever the ice shall have melted,
and the rivers be flowing, and the land have dried sufficiently to be
workable, the spade will begin its task in kitchen and flower garden,
and the plough and the harrow their tasks in the field; until everywhere
there will be tilling and sowing and planting. And do you understand
what the sum of that labour will mean? It will mean that the harvest is
being sown, that the welfare of the world is being sown, that the
food of millions is being put into the earth. And thereafter will come
summer, the season of reaping, endless reaping; for suddenly the crops
will have ripened, and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped upon rye-sheaf,
with, elsewhere, stocks of barley, and of oats, and of wheat. And
everything will be teeming with life, and not a moment will there need
to be lost, seeing that, had you even twenty eyes, you would have need
for them all. And after the harvest festivities there will be grain to
be carted to byre or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared for the
winter, and storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned for the
same purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the totals
of everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of
what has been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every
threshing-floor the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed,
will need to be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be
seen to, and the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen’s
huts to be visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is
faring (for, given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one,
am only too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering
to me is labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which
everything is moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are
everywhere multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more
fruit to one’s profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes
place in a man’s soul. And that, not because of the growth in his
wealth--money is money and no more--but because he will feel that
everything is the work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause
of everything, and its creator, and that from him, as from a magician,
there has flowed bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will
you find such delights in prospect?” As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised
his face, and it became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and
that, like the Tsar on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo’s
whole form was diffusing light, and his features had in them a gentle
radiance. “In all the world,” he repeated, “you will find no joys like
these, for herein man imitates the God who projected creation as the
supreme happiness, and now demands of man that he, too, should act as
the creator of prosperity. Yet there are folk who call such functions
tedious!”
Kostanzhoglo’s mellifluous periods fell upon Chichikov’s ear like
the notes of a bird of paradise. From time to time he gulped, and his
softened eyes expressed the pleasure which it gave him to listen.
“Constantine, it is time to leave the table,” said the lady of the
house, rising from her seat. Every one followed her example, and
Chichikov once again acted as his hostess’s escort--although with less
dexterity of deportment than before, owing to the fact that this time
his thoughts were occupied with more essential matters of procedure.
“In spite of what you say,” remarked Platon as he walked behind the
pair, “I, for my part, find these things wearisome.”
But the master of the house paid no attention to his remark, for he was
reflecting that his guest was no fool, but a man of serious thought
and speech who did not take things lightly. And, with the thought,
Kostanzhoglo grew lighter in soul, as though he had warmed himself with
his own words, and were exulting in the fact that he had found some one
capable of listening to good advice.
When they had settled themselves in the cosy, candle-lighted
drawing-room, with its balcony and the glass door opening out into the
garden--a door through which the stars could be seen glittering amid the
slumbering tops of the trees--Chichikov felt more comfortable than he
had done for many a day past. It was as though, after long journeying,
his own roof-tree had received him once more--had received him when
his quest had been accomplished, when all that he wished for had been
gained, when his travelling-staff had been laid aside with the words “It
is finished.” And of this seductive frame of mind the true source had
been the eloquent discourse of his hospitable host. Yes, for every man
there exist certain things which, instantly that they are said, seem to
touch him more closely, more intimately, than anything has done before.
Nor is it an uncommon occurrence that in the most unexpected fashion,
and in the most retired of retreats, one will suddenly come face to face
with a man whose burning periods will lead one to forget oneself and
the tracklessness of the route and the discomfort of one’s nightly
halting-places, and the futility of crazes and the falseness of tricks
by which one human being deceives another. And at once there will become
engraven upon one’s memory--vividly, and for all time--the evening thus
spent. And of that evening one’s remembrance will hold true, both as to
who was present, and where each such person sat, and what he or she was
wearing, and what the walls and the stove and other trifling features of
the room looked like.
In the same way did Chichikov note each detail that evening--both the
appointments of the agreeable, but not luxuriously furnished, room, and
the good-humoured expression which reigned on the face of the thoughtful
host, and the design of the curtains, and the amber-mounted pipe smoked
by Platon, and the way in which he kept puffing smoke into the fat
jowl of the dog Yarb, and the sneeze which, on each such occasion, Yarb
vented, and the laughter of the pleasant-faced hostess (though always
followed by the words “Pray do not tease him any more”) and the cheerful
candle-light, and the cricket chirping in a corner, and the glass door,
and the spring night which, laying its elbows upon the tree-tops, and
spangled with stars, and vocal with the nightingales which were pouring
forth warbled ditties from the recesses of the foliage, kept glancing
through the door, and regarding the company within.
“How it delights me to hear your words, good Constantine Thedorovitch!”
said Chichikov. “Indeed, nowhere in Russia have I met with a man of
equal intellect.”
Kostanzhoglo smiled, while realising that the compliment was scarcely
deserved.
“If you want a man of GENUINE intellect,” he said, “I can tell you of
one. He is a man whose boot soles are worth more than my whole body.”
“Who may he be?” asked Chichikov in astonishment.
“Murazov, our local Commissioner of Taxes.”
“Ah! I have heard of him before,” remarked Chichikov.
“He is a man who, were he not the director of an estate, might well be a
director of the Empire. And were the Empire under my direction, I should
at once appoint him my Minister of Finance.”
“I have heard tales beyond belief concerning him--for instance, that he
has acquired ten million roubles.”
“Ten? More than forty. Soon half Russia will be in his hands.”
“You don’t say so?” cried Chichikov in amazement.
“Yes, certainly. The man who has only a hundred thousand roubles to work
with grows rich but slowly, whereas he who has millions at his disposal
can operate over a greater radius, and so back whatsoever he undertakes
with twice or thrice the money which can be brought against him.
Consequently his field becomes so spacious that he ends by having no
rivals. Yes, no one can compete with him, and, whatsoever price he may
fix for a given commodity, at that price it will have to remain, nor
will any man be able to outbid it.”
“My God!” muttered Chichikov, crossing himself, and staring at
Kostanzhoglo with his breath catching in his throat. “The mind cannot
grasp it--it petrifies one’s thoughts with awe. You see folk marvelling
at what Science has achieved in the matter of investigating the habits
of cowbugs, but to me it is a far more marvellous thing that in the
hands of a single mortal there can become accumulated such gigantic sums
of money. But may I ask whether the great fortune of which you speak has
been acquired through honest means?”
“Yes; through means of the most irreproachable kind--through the most
honourable of methods.”
“Yet so improbable does it seem that I can scarcely believe it.
Thousands I could understand, but millions--!”
“On the contrary, to make thousands honestly is a far more difficult
matter than to make millions. Millions are easily come by, for a
millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways; the way lies straight
before him, and he needs but to annex whatsoever he comes across. No
rival will spring up to oppose him, for no rival will be sufficiently
strong, and since the millionaire can operate over an extensive radius,
he can bring (as I have said) two or three roubles to bear upon any one
else’s one. Consequently, what interest will he derive from a thousand
roubles? Why, ten or twenty per cent. at the least.”
“And it is beyond measure marvellous that the whole should have started
from a single kopeck.”
“Had it started otherwise, the thing could never have been done at all.
Such is the normal course. He who is born with thousands, and is brought
up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for he will
have been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and so never
come to stand in need of anything. It is necessary to begin from the
beginning rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather than from a
rouble; from the bottom rather than from the top. For only thus will a
man get to know the men and conditions among which his career will have
to be carved. That is to say, through encountering the rough and the
tumble of life, and through learning that every kopeck has to be beaten
out with a three-kopeck nail, and through worsting knave after knave, he
will acquire such a degree of perspicuity and wariness that he will err
in nothing which he may tackle, and never come to ruin. Believe me, it
is so. The beginning, and not the middle, is the right starting point.
No one who comes to me and says, ‘Give me a hundred thousand roubles,
and I will grow rich in no time,’ do I believe, for he is likely to meet
with failure rather than with the success of which he is so assured.
’Tis with a kopeck, and with a kopeck only, that a man must begin.”
“If that is so, _I_ shall grow rich,” said Chichikov, involuntarily
remembering the dead souls. “For of a surety _I_ began with nothing.”
“Constantine, pray allow Paul Ivanovitch to retire to rest,” put in
the lady of the house. “It is high time, and I am sure you have talked
enough.”
“Yes, beyond a doubt you will grow rich,” continued Kostanzhoglo,
without heeding his wife. “For towards you there will run rivers and
rivers of gold, until you will not know what to do with all your gains.”
As though spellbound, Chichikov sat in an aureate world of ever-growing
dreams and fantasies. All his thoughts were in a whirl, and on a carpet
of future wealth his tumultuous imagination was weaving golden patterns,
while ever in his ears were ringing the words, “towards you there will
run rivers and rivers of gold.”
“Really, Constantine, DO allow Paul Ivanovitch to go to bed.”
“What on earth is the matter?” retorted the master of the household
testily. “Pray go yourself if you wish to.” Then he stopped short, for