Dead Souls
when his nose caught this smell amid the freshness of the morning, and
exclaim with a toss of his head: “The devil only knows what is up with
you! Surely you sweat a good deal, do you not? The best thing you can do
is to go and take a bath.” To this Petrushka would make no reply, but,
approaching, brush in hand, the spot where his master’s coat would be
pendent, or starting to arrange one and another article in order, would
strive to seem wholly immersed in his work. Yet of what was he thinking
as he remained thus silent? Perhaps he was saying to himself: “My master
is a good fellow, but for him to keep on saying the same thing forty
times over is a little wearisome.” Only God knows and sees all things;
wherefore for a mere human being to know what is in the mind of a
servant while his master is scolding him is wholly impossible. However,
no more need be said about Petrushka. On the other hand, Coachman
Selifan--
But here let me remark that I do not like engaging the reader’s
attention in connection with persons of a lower class than himself; for
experience has taught me that we do not willingly familiarise ourselves
with the lower orders--that it is the custom of the average Russian to
yearn exclusively for information concerning persons on the higher rungs
of the social ladder. In fact, even a bowing acquaintance with a prince
or a lord counts, in his eyes, for more than do the most intimate of
relations with ordinary folk. For the same reason the author feels
apprehensive on his hero’s account, seeing that he has made that hero
a mere Collegiate Councillor--a mere person with whom Aulic Councillors
might consort, but upon whom persons of the grade of full General
[8] would probably bestow one of those glances proper to a man who is
cringing at their august feet. Worse still, such persons of the grade of
General are likely to treat Chichikov with studied negligence--and to an
author studied negligence spells death.
However, in spite of the distressfulness of the foregoing possibilities,
it is time that I returned to my hero. After issuing, overnight, the
necessary orders, he awoke early, washed himself, rubbed himself
from head to foot with a wet sponge (a performance executed only on
Sundays--and the day in question happened to be a Sunday), shaved his
face with such care that his cheeks issued of absolutely satin-like
smoothness and polish, donned first his bilberry-coloured, spotted
frockcoat, and then his bearskin overcoat, descended the staircase
(attended, throughout, by the waiter) and entered his britchka. With a
loud rattle the vehicle left the inn-yard, and issued into the street.
A passing priest doffed his cap, and a few urchins in grimy shirts
shouted, “Gentleman, please give a poor orphan a trifle!” Presently the
driver noticed that a sturdy young rascal was on the point of climbing
onto the splashboard; wherefore he cracked his whip and the britchka
leapt forward with increased speed over the cobblestones. At last, with
a feeling of relief, the travellers caught sight of macadam ahead, which
promised an end both to the cobblestones and to sundry other annoyances.
And, sure enough, after his head had been bumped a few more times
against the boot of the conveyance, Chichikov found himself bowling over
softer ground. On the town receding into the distance, the sides of the
road began to be varied with the usual hillocks, fir trees, clumps of
young pine, trees with old, scarred trunks, bushes of wild juniper, and
so forth. Presently there came into view also strings of country villas
which, with their carved supports and grey roofs (the latter looking
like pendent, embroidered tablecloths), resembled, rather, bundles
of old faggots. Likewise the customary peasants, dressed in sheepskin
jackets, could be seen yawning on benches before their huts, while
their womenfolk, fat of feature and swathed of bosom, gazed out of upper
windows, and the windows below displayed, here a peering calf, and there
the unsightly jaws of a pig. In short, the view was one of the familiar
type. After passing the fifteenth verst-stone Chichikov suddenly
recollected that, according to Manilov, fifteen versts was the exact
distance between his country house and the town; but the sixteenth verst
stone flew by, and the said country house was still nowhere to be
seen. In fact, but for the circumstance that the travellers happened to
encounter a couple of peasants, they would have come on their errand in
vain. To a query as to whether the country house known as Zamanilovka
was anywhere in the neighbourhood the peasants replied by doffing their
caps; after which one of them who seemed to boast of a little more
intelligence than his companion, and who wore a wedge-shaped beard, made
answer:
“Perhaps you mean Manilovka--not ZAmanilovka?”
“Yes, yes--Manilovka.”
“Manilovka, eh? Well, you must continue for another verst, and then you
will see it straight before you, on the right.”
“On the right?” re-echoed the coachman.
“Yes, on the right,” affirmed the peasant. “You are on the proper road
for Manilovka, but ZAmanilovka--well, there is no such place. The house
you mean is called Manilovka because Manilovka is its name; but no house
at all is called ZAmanilovka. The house you mean stands there, on that
hill, and is a stone house in which a gentleman lives, and its name
is Manilovka; but ZAmanilovka does not stand hereabouts, nor ever has
stood.”
So the travellers proceeded in search of Manilovka, and, after driving
an additional two versts, arrived at a spot whence there branched off a
by-road. Yet two, three, or four versts of the by-road had been covered
before they saw the least sign of a two-storied stone mansion. Then it
was that Chichikov suddenly recollected that, when a friend has invited
one to visit his country house, and has said that the distance thereto
is fifteen versts, the distance is sure to turn out to be at least
thirty.
Not many people would have admired the situation of Manilov’s abode, for
it stood on an isolated rise and was open to every wind that blew. On
the slope of the rise lay closely-mown turf, while, disposed here and
there, after the English fashion, were flower-beds containing clumps of
lilac and yellow acacia. Also, there were a few insignificant groups
of slender-leaved, pointed-tipped birch trees, with, under two of the
latter, an arbour having a shabby green cupola, some blue-painted wooden
supports, and the inscription “This is the Temple of Solitary Thought.”
Lower down the slope lay a green-coated pond--green-coated ponds
constitute a frequent spectacle in the gardens of Russian landowners;
and, lastly, from the foot of the declivity there stretched a line of
mouldy, log-built huts which, for some obscure reason or another, our
hero set himself to count. Up to two hundred or more did he count, but
nowhere could he perceive a single leaf of vegetation or a single stick
of timber. The only thing to greet the eye was the logs of which the
huts were constructed. Nevertheless the scene was to a certain extent
enlivened by the spectacle of two peasant women who, with clothes
picturesquely tucked up, were wading knee-deep in the pond and dragging
behind them, with wooden handles, a ragged fishing-net, in the meshes
of which two crawfish and a roach with glistening scales were entangled.
The women appeared to have cause of dispute between themselves--to be
rating one another about something. In the background, and to one side
of the house, showed a faint, dusky blur of pinewood, and even the
weather was in keeping with the surroundings, since the day was neither
clear nor dull, but of the grey tint which may be noted in uniforms of
garrison soldiers which have seen long service. To complete the picture,
a cock, the recognised harbinger of atmospheric mutations, was present;
and, in spite of the fact that a certain connection with affairs of
gallantry had led to his having had his head pecked bare by other
cocks, he flapped a pair of wings--appendages as bare as two pieces of
bast--and crowed loudly.
As Chichikov approached the courtyard of the mansion he caught sight
of his host (clad in a green frock coat) standing on the verandah and
pressing one hand to his eyes to shield them from the sun and so get a
better view of the approaching carriage. In proportion as the britchka
drew nearer and nearer to the verandah, the host’s eyes assumed a more
and more delighted expression, and his smile a broader and broader
sweep.
“Paul Ivanovitch!” he exclaimed when at length Chichikov leapt from the
vehicle. “Never should I have believed that you would have remembered
us!”
The two friends exchanged hearty embraces, and Manilov then conducted
his guest to the drawing-room. During the brief time that they are
traversing the hall, the anteroom, and the dining-room, let me try
to say something concerning the master of the house. But such an
undertaking bristles with difficulties--it promises to be a far less
easy task than the depicting of some outstanding personality which calls
but for a wholesale dashing of colours upon the canvas--the colours of
a pair of dark, burning eyes, a pair of dark, beetling brows, a forehead
seamed with wrinkles, a black, or a fiery-red, cloak thrown backwards
over the shoulder, and so forth, and so forth. Yet, so numerous are
Russian serf owners that, though careful scrutiny reveals to one’s sight
a quantity of outre peculiarities, they are, as a class, exceedingly
difficult to portray, and one needs to strain one’s faculties to the
utmost before it becomes possible to pick out their variously subtle,
their almost invisible, features. In short, one needs, before doing
this, to carry out a prolonged probing with the aid of an insight
sharpened in the acute school of research.
Only God can say what Manilov’s real character was. A class of men
exists whom the proverb has described as “men unto themselves, neither
this nor that--neither Bogdan of the city nor Selifan of the village.”
And to that class we had better assign also Manilov. Outwardly he was
presentable enough, for his features were not wanting in amiability, but
that amiability was a quality into which there entered too much of the
sugary element, so that his every gesture, his every attitude, seemed
to connote an excess of eagerness to curry favour and cultivate a closer
acquaintance. On first speaking to the man, his ingratiating smile, his
flaxen hair, and his blue eyes would lead one to say, “What a pleasant,
good-tempered fellow he seems!” yet during the next moment or two one
would feel inclined to say nothing at all, and, during the third moment,
only to say, “The devil alone knows what he is!” And should, thereafter,
one not hasten to depart, one would inevitably become overpowered with
the deadly sense of ennui which comes of the intuition that nothing
in the least interesting is to be looked for, but only a series of
wearisome utterances of the kind which are apt to fall from the lips
of a man whose hobby has once been touched upon. For every man HAS his
hobby. One man’s may be sporting dogs; another man’s may be that of
believing himself to be a lover of music, and able to sound the art to
its inmost depths; another’s may be that of posing as a connoisseur of
recherche cookery; another’s may be that of aspiring to play roles of
a kind higher than nature has assigned him; another’s (though this is
a more limited ambition) may be that of getting drunk, and of dreaming
that he is edifying both his friends, his acquaintances, and people with
whom he has no connection at all by walking arm-in-arm with an Imperial
aide-de-camp; another’s may be that of possessing a hand able to chip
corners off aces and deuces of diamonds; another’s may be that of