Dead Souls (19 page)

"And do you mind handing me the earnest money?" said Sobakevitch?

"Yes, I do. Why need that be done? You can receive the money in a lump
sum as soon as we visit the town."

"But it is always the custom, you know," asserted Sobakevitch.

"Then I cannot follow it, for I have no money with me. However, here
are ten roubles."

"Ten roubles, indeed? You might as well hand me fifty while you are
about it."

Once more Chichikov started to deny that he had any money upon him,
but Sobakevitch insisted so strongly that this was not so that at
length the guest pulled out another fifteen roubles, and added them to
the ten already produced.

"Kindly give me a receipt for the money," he added.

"A receipt? Why should I give you a receipt?"

"Because it is better to do so, in order to guard against mistakes."

"Very well; but first hand me over the money."

"The money? I have it here. Do you write out the receipt, and then the
money shall be yours."

"Pardon me, but how am I to write out the receipt before I have seen
the cash?"

Chichikov placed the notes in Sobakevitch's hand; whereupon the host
moved nearer to the table, and added to the list of serfs a note that
he had received for the peasants, therewith sold, the sum of
twenty-five roubles, as earnest money. This done, he counted the notes
once more.

"This is a very OLD note," he remarked, holding one up to the light.
"Also, it is a trifle torn. However, in a friendly transaction one
must not be too particular."

"What a kulak!" thought Chichikov to himself. "And what a brute
beast!"

"Then you do not want any WOMEN souls?" queried Sobakevitch.

"I thank you, no."

"I could let you have some cheap—say, as between friends, at a rouble
a head?"

"No, I should have no use for them."

"Then, that being so, there is no more to be said. There is no
accounting for tastes. 'One man loves the priest, and another the
priest's wife,' says the proverb."

Chichikov rose to take his leave. "Once more I would request of you,"
he said, "that the bargain be left as it is."

"Of course, of course. What is done between friends holds good because
of their mutual friendship. Good-bye, and thank you for your visit. In
advance I would beg that, whenever you should have an hour or two to
spare, you will come and lunch with us again. Perhaps we might be able
to do one another further service?"

"Not if I know it!" reflected Chichikov as he mounted his britchka.
"Not I, seeing that I have had two and a half roubles per soul
squeezed out of me by a brute of a kulak!"

Altogether he felt dissatisfied with Sobakevitch's behaviour. In spite
of the man being a friend of the Governor and the Chief of Police, he
had acted like an outsider in taking money for what was worthless
rubbish. As the britchka left the courtyard Chichikov glanced back and
saw Sobakevitch still standing on the verandah—apparently for the
purpose of watching to see which way the guest's carriage would turn.

"The old villain, to be still standing there!" muttered Chichikov
through his teeth; after which he ordered Selifan to proceed so that
the vehicle's progress should be invisible from the mansion—the truth
being that he had a mind next to visit Plushkin (whose serfs, to quote
Sobakevitch, had a habit of dying like flies), but not to let his late
host learn of his intention. Accordingly, on reaching the further end
of the village, he hailed the first peasant whom he saw—a man who was
in the act of hoisting a ponderous beam on to his shoulder before
setting off with it, ant-like, to his hut.

"Hi!" shouted Chichikov. "How can I reach landowner Plushkin's place
without first going past the mansion here?"

The peasant seemed nonplussed by the question.

"Don't you know?" queried Chichikov.

"No, barin," replied the peasant.

"What? You don't know skinflint Plushkin who feeds his people so
badly?"

"Of course I do!" exclaimed the fellow, and added thereto an
uncomplimentary expression of a species not ordinarily employed in
polite society. We may guess that it was a pretty apt expression,
since long after the man had become lost to view Chichikov was still
laughing in his britchka. And, indeed, the language of the Russian
populace is always forcible in its phraseology.

Chichikov's amusement at the peasant's outburst prevented him from
noticing that he had reached the centre of a large and populous
village; but, presently, a violent jolt aroused him to the fact that
he was driving over wooden pavements of a kind compared with which the
cobblestones of the town had been as nothing. Like the keys of a
piano, the planks kept rising and falling, and unguarded passage over
them entailed either a bump on the back of the neck or a bruise on the
forehead or a bite on the tip of one's tongue. At the same time
Chichikov noticed a look of decay about the buildings of the village.
The beams of the huts had grown dark with age, many of their roofs
were riddled with holes, others had but a tile of the roof remaining,
and yet others were reduced to the rib-like framework of the same. It
would seem as though the inhabitants themselves had removed the laths
and traverses, on the very natural plea that the huts were no
protection against the rain, and therefore, since the latter entered
in bucketfuls, there was no particular object to be gained by sitting
in such huts when all the time there was the tavern and the highroad
and other places to resort to.

Suddenly a woman appeared from an outbuilding—apparently the
housekeeper of the mansion, but so roughly and dirtily dressed as
almost to seem indistinguishable from a man. Chichikov inquired for
the master of the place.

"He is not at home," she replied, almost before her interlocutor had
had time to finish. Then she added: "What do you want with him?"

"I have some business to do," said Chichikov.

"Then pray walk into the house," the woman advised. Then she turned
upon him a back that was smeared with flour and had a long slit in the
lower portion of its covering. Entering a large, dark hall which
reeked like a tomb, he passed into an equally dark parlour that was
lighted only by such rays as contrived to filter through a crack under
the door. When Chichikov opened the door in question, the spectacle of
the untidiness within struck him almost with amazement. It would seem
that the floor was never washed, and that the room was used as a
receptacle for every conceivable kind of furniture. On a table stood a
ragged chair, with, beside it, a clock minus a pendulum and covered
all over with cobwebs. Against a wall leant a cupboard, full of old
silver, glassware, and china. On a writing table, inlaid with
mother-of-pearl which, in places, had broken away and left behind it a
number of yellow grooves (stuffed with putty), lay a pile of finely
written manuscript, an overturned marble press (turning green), an
ancient book in a leather cover with red edges, a lemon dried and
shrunken to the dimensions of a hazelnut, the broken arm of a chair, a
tumbler containing the dregs of some liquid and three flies (the whole
covered over with a sheet of notepaper), a pile of rags, two
ink-encrusted pens, and a yellow toothpick with which the master of
the house had picked his teeth (apparently) at least before the coming
of the French to Moscow. As for the walls, they were hung with a
medley of pictures. Among the latter was a long engraving of a battle
scene, wherein soldiers in three-cornered hats were brandishing huge
drums and slender lances. It lacked a glass, and was set in a frame
ornamented with bronze fretwork and bronze corner rings. Beside it
hung a huge, grimy oil painting representative of some flowers and
fruit, half a water melon, a boar's head, and the pendent form of a
dead wild duck. Attached to the ceiling there was a chandelier in a
holland covering—the covering so dusty as closely to resemble a huge
cocoon enclosing a caterpillar. Lastly, in one corner of the room lay
a pile of articles which had evidently been adjudged unworthy of a
place on the table. Yet what the pile consisted of it would have been
difficult to say, seeing that the dust on the same was so thick that
any hand which touched it would have at once resembled a glove.
Prominently protruding from the pile was the shaft of a wooden spade
and the antiquated sole of a shoe. Never would one have supposed that
a living creature had tenanted the room, were it not that the presence
of such a creature was betrayed by the spectacle of an old nightcap
resting on the table.

Whilst Chichikov was gazing at this extraordinary mess, a side door
opened and there entered the housekeeper who had met him near the
outbuildings. But now Chichikov perceived this person to be a man
rather than a woman, since a female housekeeper would have had no
beard to shave, whereas the chin of the newcomer, with the lower
portion of his cheeks, strongly resembled the curry-comb which is used
for grooming horses. Chichikov assumed a questioning air, and waited
to hear what the housekeeper might have to say. The housekeeper did
the same. At length, surprised at the misunderstanding, Chichikov
decided to ask the first question.

"Is the master at home?" he inquired.

"Yes," replied the person addressed.

"Then were is he?" continued Chichikov.

"Are you blind, my good sir?" retorted the other. "
I
am the master."

Involuntarily our hero started and stared. During his travels it had
befallen him to meet various types of men—some of them, it may be,
types which you and I have never encountered; but even to Chichikov
this particular species was new. In the old man's face there was
nothing very special—it was much like the wizened face of many
another dotard, save that the chin was so greatly projected that
whenever he spoke he was forced to wipe it with a handkerchief to
avoid dribbling, and that his small eyes were not yet grown dull, but
twinkled under their overhanging brows like the eyes of mice when,
with attentive ears and sensitive whiskers, they snuff the air and
peer forth from their holes to see whether a cat or a boy may not be
in the vicinity. No, the most noticeable feature about the man was his
clothes. In no way could it have been guessed of what his coat was
made, for both its sleeves and its skirts were so ragged and filthy as
to defy description, while instead of two posterior tails, there
dangled four of those appendages, with, projecting from them, a torn
newspaper. Also, around his neck there was wrapped something which
might have been a stocking, a garter, or a stomacher, but was
certainly not a tie. In short, had Chichikov chanced to encounter him
at a church door, he would have bestowed upon him a copper or two
(for, to do our hero justice, he had a sympathetic heart and never
refrained from presenting a beggar with alms), but in the present case
there was standing before him, not a mendicant, but a landowner—and a
landowner possessed of fully a thousand serfs, the superior of all his
neighbours in wealth of flour and grain, and the owner of storehouses,
and so forth, that were crammed with homespun cloth and linen, tanned
and undressed sheepskins, dried fish, and every conceivable species of
produce. Nevertheless, such a phenomenon is rare in Russia, where the
tendency is rather to prodigality than to parsimony.

For several minutes Plushkin stood mute, while Chichikov remained so
dazed with the appearance of the host and everything else in the room,
that he too, could not begin a conversation, but stood wondering how
best to find words in which to explain the object of his visit. For a
while he thought of expressing himself to the effect that, having
heard so much of his host's benevolence and other rare qualities of
spirit, he had considered it his duty to come and pay a tribute of
respect; but presently even HE came to the conclusion that this
would be overdoing the thing, and, after another glance round the
room, decided that the phrase "benevolence and other rare qualities of
spirit" might to advantage give place to "economy and genius for
method." Accordingly, the speech mentally composed, he said aloud
that, having heard of Plushkin's talents for thrifty and systematic
management, he had considered himself bound to make the acquaintance
of his host, and to present him with his personal compliments (I need
hardly say that Chichikov could easily have alleged a better reason,
had any better one happened, at the moment, to have come into his
head).

With toothless gums Plushkin murmured something in reply, but nothing
is known as to its precise terms beyond that it included a statement
that the devil was at liberty to fly away with Chichikov's sentiments.
However, the laws of Russian hospitality do not permit even of a miser
infringing their rules; wherefore Plushkin added to the foregoing a
more civil invitation to be seated.

"It is long since I last received a visitor," he went on. "Also, I
feel bound to say that I can see little good in their coming. Once
introduce the abominable custom of folk paying calls, and forthwith
there will ensue such ruin to the management of estates that
landowners will be forced to feed their horses on hay. Not for a long,
long time have I eaten a meal away from home—although my own kitchen
is a poor one, and has its chimney in such a state that, were it to
become overheated, it would instantly catch fire."

"What a brute!" thought Chichikov. "I am lucky to have got through so
much pastry and stuffed shoulder of mutton at Sobakevitch's!"

"Also," went on Plushkin, "I am ashamed to say that hardly a wisp of
fodder does the place contain. But how can I get fodder? My lands are
small, and the peasantry lazy fellows who hate work and think of
nothing but the tavern. In the end, therefore, I shall be forced to go
and spend my old age in roaming about the world."