Текст книги "The Collected tales of Nikolai Gogol"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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The collegiate assessor was totally discouraged. He dropped his eyes to the bottom of the newspaper, where theater performances were announced; his face was getting ready to smile, seeing the name of a pretty actress, and his hand went to his pocket to see if he had a blue banknote 4 on him, because staff officers, in Kovalev's opinion, ought to sit in the orchestra-but the thought of the nose ruined everything!

The clerk himself seemed to be moved by Kovalev's difficult situation. Wishing to soften his grief somehow, he deemed it fitting to express his sympathy in a few words:

"I'm truly sorry that such an odd thing has happened to you. Would you care for a pinch? It dispels headaches and melancholy states of mind; it's even good with regard to hemorrhoids."

So saying, the clerk held the snuffbox out to Kovalev, quite deftly flipping back the lid with the portrait of some lady in a hat.

This unintentional act brought Kovalev's patience to an end.

"I do not understand how you find it possible to joke," he said in passion. "Can you not see that I precisely lack what's needed for a pinch of snuff? Devil take your snuff! I cannot stand the sight of it now, not only your vile Berezinsky, but even if you were to offer me rappee itself."

Having said this, he left the newspaper office in deep vexation and went to see the police commissioner, a great lover of sugar. In his house, the entire front room, which was also the dining room, was filled with sugar loaves that merchants brought him out of friendship. Just then the cook was removing the commissioner's regulation boots; his sword and other military armor were already hanging peacefully in the corners, and his three-year-old son was playing with his awesome three-cornered hat; and he himself, after his martial, military life, was preparing to taste the pleasures of peace.

Kovalev entered just as he stretched, grunted, and said: "Ah, now for a nice two-hour nap!" And therefore it could be foreseen that the collegiate assessor's arrival was quite untimely; and I do not know whether he would have been received all that cordially even if he had brought him several pounds of sugar or a length of broadcloth. The commissioner was a great patron of all the arts and manufactures, but preferred state banknotes to them all. "Here's a thing," he used to say, "there's nothing better than this thing: doesn't ask to eat, takes up little space, can always be put in the pocket, drop it and it won't break."

The commissioner received Kovalev rather drily and said that after dinner was no time for carrying out investigations, that nature herself had so arranged it that after eating one should have a little rest (from this the collegiate assessor could see that the police commissioner was not unacquainted with the sayings of the ancient wise men), that a respectable man would not have his nose torn off, and that there were many majors in the world whose underclothes were not even in decent condition, and who dragged themselves around to all sorts of improper places.

That is, a square hit, right between the eyes. It must be noted that Kovalev was an extremely touchy man. He could forgive anything said about himself, but he could never pardon a reference to his rank or title. He even thought that in theatrical plays everything referring to inferior officers could pass, but staff officers should never be attacked. The commissioner's reception so perplexed him that he shook his head and said with dignity, spreading his arms slightly, "I confess, after such offensive remarks on your part, I have nothing to add…" and left.

He returned home scarcely feeling his legs under him. It was already dark. Dismal or extremely vile his apartment seemed to him after this whole unsuccessful search. Going into the front room, he saw his lackey Ivan lying on his back on the soiled leather sofa, spitting at the ceiling and hitting the same spot quite successfully. The man's indifference infuriated him; he gave him a whack on the forehead with his hat, adding, "You pig, you're always busy with stupidities!"

Ivan suddenly jumped up from his place and rushed to help him off with his cape.

Going into his bedroom, the major, weary and woeful, threw himself into an armchair and finally, after several sighs, said:

"My God! my God! Why this misfortune? If I lacked an arm or a leg, it would still be better; if I lacked ears, it would be bad, but still more bearable; but lacking a nose, a man is devil knows what: not a bird, not a citizen-just take and chuck him out the window! And if it had been cut off in war or a duel, or if I'd caused it myself-but it vanished for no reason, vanished for nothing, nothing at all!… Only, no, it can't be," he added, after reflecting briefly.

"It's incredible that a nose should vanish, simply incredible. I must be dreaming, or just imagining it; maybe, by mistake somehow, instead of water I drank the vodka I use to pat my chin after shaving. That fool Ivan didn't take it away, and I must have downed it."

To make absolutely sure that he was not drunk, the major pinched himself so painfully that he cried out. This pain completely reassured him that he was acting and living in a waking state. He slowly approached the mirror and at first closed his eyes, thinking that the nose might somehow show up where it ought to be; but he jumped back at that same moment, saying:

"What a lampoonish look!"

This was indeed incomprehensible. If it had been a button, a silver spoon, a watch, or something of the sort, that had vanished– but to vanish, and who was it that vanished? and what's more, in his own apartment!… Major Kovalev, having put all the circumstances together, supposed it would hardly be unlikely if the blame were placed on none other than Podtochina, the staff officer's wife, who wished him to marry her daughter. He himself enjoyed dallying with her, but kept avoiding a final settlement. And when the mother announced to him directly that she wanted to give him the girl's hand, he quiedy eased off with his compliments, saying that he was still young and had to serve some five years more, until he turned exactly forty-two. And therefore the staff officer's wife, probably in revenge, decided to put a spell on him, and to that end hired some sorceress, because it was by no means possible to suppose that the nose had been cut off; no one had come into his room; and the barber Ivan Yakovlevich had shaved him on Wednesday, and the nose had been there for the whole of Wednesday, and even all day Thursday-he remembered that and knew it very well; besides, he would have felt the pain, and the wound undoubtedly could not have healed so quickly and become smooth as a pancake. He made plans in his head: to formally summon the staff officer's wife to court, or to go to her in person and expose her. His reflections were interrupted by the light flickering through all the chinks in the door, signifying that Ivan had already lighted a candle in the front room. Soon Ivan himself appeared, carrying it before him and brightly lighting up the whole bedroom. Kovalev's first impulse was to grab the handkerchief and cover the place where his nose had been just the day before, so that the stupid man would not actually start gaping, seeing such an oddity in his master.

Ivan had just gone back to his closet when an unfamiliar voice came from the front room, saying:

"Does the collegiate assessor Kovalev live here?"

"Come in. Major Kovalev is here," said Kovalev, hastily jumping up and opening the door.

In came a police officer of handsome appearance, with quite plump cheeks and side-whiskers neither light nor dark, the very same one who, at the beginning of this tale, was standing at the end of St. Isaac's Bridge.

"Did Your Honor lose his nose?"

"Right."

"It has now been found."

"What's that you say?" cried Major Kovalev. Joy robbed him of speech. He stared with both eyes at the policeman standing before him, over whose plump lips and cheeks the tremulous candlelight flickered brightly. "How did it happen?"

"By a strange chance: he was intercepted almost on the road. He was getting into a stage coach to go to Riga. And he had a passport long since filled out in the name of some official. The strange thing was that I myself first took him for a gentleman. But fortunately I was wearing my spectacles, and I saw at once that he was a nose. For I'm nearsighted, and if you're standing right in front of me, I'll see only that you have a face, but won't notice any nose or beard. My mother-in-law-that is, my wife's mother-can't see anything either."

Kovalev was beside himself

"Where is it? Where? I'll run there at once."

"Don't trouble yourself.. Knowing you had need of him, I brought him with me. And it's strange that the chief participant in this affair is that crook of a barber on Voznesenskaya Street, who is now sitting in the police station. I've long suspected him of being a drunkard and a thief, and only two days ago he pilfered a card of buttons from a shop. Your nose is exactly as it was."

Here the policeman went to his pocket and took out a nose wrapped in a piece of paper.

"That's it!" cried Kovalev. "That's it all right! Kindly take a cup of tea with me today."

"I'd consider it a great pleasure, but I really can't: I must go to the house of correction… The prices of all products have gone up so expensively… I've got my mother-in-law-that is, my wife's mother-living with me, and the children-for the oldest in particular we have great hopes: he's a very clever lad, but there's no means at all for his education…"

Kovalev understood and, snatching a red banknote from the table, put it into the hand of the officer, who bowed and scraped his way out, and at almost the same moment Kovalev heard his voice in the street, where he delivered an admonition into the mug of a stupid muzhik who had driven his cart right on to the boulevard.

On the policeman's departure, the collegiate assessor remained in some vague state for a few minutes, and only after several minutes acquired the ability to see and feel: such obliviousness came over him on account of the unexpected joy. He carefully took the found nose in his two cupped hands and once again studied it attentively.

"That's it, that's it all right!" Major Kovalev kept repeating. "There's the pimple that popped out on the left side yesterday."

The major almost laughed for joy.

But nothing in this world lasts long, and therefore joy, in the minute that follows the first, is less lively; in the third minute it becomes still weaker, and finally it merges imperceptibly with one's usual state of mind, as a ring in the water, born of a stone's fall, finally merges with the smooth surface. Kovalev began to reflect and realized that the matter was not ended yet: the nose had been found, but it still had to be attached, put in its place.

"And what if it doesn't stick?"

At this question, presented to himself, the major blanched.

With a feeling of inexplicable fear, he rushed to the table and set the mirror before him, so as not to put the nose on somehow askew. His hands were trembling. Carefully and cautiously he applied it to its former place. Oh, horror! The nose did not stick!… He held it to his mouth, warmed it a little with his breath, and again brought it to the smooth space between his two cheeks; but in no way would the nose hold on.

"Well, so, stay there, you fool!" he said to it. But the nose was as if made of wood and kept falling to the table with a strange, corklike sound. The major's face twisted convulsively. "Can it be that it won't grow back on?" he repeated in fear. But no matter how many times he put it in its proper place, his efforts remained unsuccessful.

He called Ivan and sent him for the doctor, who occupied the best apartment on the first floor of the same building. This doctor was an imposing man, possessed of handsome, pitch-black side-whiskers and of a fresh, robust doctress, ate fresh apples in the morning, and kept his mouth extraordinarily clean by rinsing it every morning for nearly three quarters of an hour and polishing his teeth with five different sorts of brushes. The doctor came that same minute. Having asked him how long ago the misfortune had occurred, he raised Major Kovalev's face by the chin and flicked him with his thumb in the very place where the nose had formerly been, which made the major throw his head back so hard that it struck the wall behind. The physician said it was nothing, advised him to move away from the wall a bit, told him to tip his head to the right first, and, having palpated the spot where the nose had been, said, "Hm!" Then he told him to tip his head to the left, said, "Hm!" and in conclusion flicked him again with his thumb, which made Major Kovalev jerk his head back like a horse having its teeth examined. After performing this test, the physician shook his head and said:

"No, impossible. You'd better stay the way you are, because it might come out still worse. Of course, it could be attached; I could perhaps attach it for you now; but I assure you it will be the worse for you."

"Well, that's just fine! How can I stay without a nose?" said Kovalev. "It can't be worse than now. This is simply devil knows what! Where can I show myself with such lampoonery! I have good acquaintances; today alone I have to be at soirees in two houses. I know many people: Chekhtareva, a state councillor's wife, Podtochina, a staff officer's wife… though after this act I won't deal with her except through the police. Do me the kindness," Kovalev said in a pleading voice, "isn't there some remedy? Attach it somehow-maybe not perfectly, so long as it holds; I can even prop it up with my hand on dangerous occasions. Besides, I don't dance, so I can't injure it with some careless movement. Regarding my gratitude for your visits, rest assured that everything my means will permit…"

"Believe me," the doctor said in a voice neither loud nor soft but extremely affable and magnetic, "I never treat people for profit. That is against my rules and my art. True, I take money for visits, but solely so as not to give offense by refusing. Of course, I could attach your nose; but I assure you on my honor, if you do not believe my word, that it will be much worse. You'd better leave it to the effect of nature herself. Wash it frequently with cold water, and I assure you that you'll be as healthy without a nose as with one. As for the nose, I advise you to put it in a jar of alcohol, or, better still, add two tablespoons of aquafortis and warm vinegar-then you'll get decent money for it. I'll even buy it myself, if you don't put too high a price on it."

"No, no! I won't sell it for anything!" cried the desperate Major Kovalev. "Better let it perish!"

"Excuse me!" said the doctor, bowing out. "I wished to be of use to you… Nothing to be done! At least you've seen how I tried."

Having said this, the doctor, with a noble bearing, left the room. Kovalev did not even notice his face but, plunged in profound insensibility, saw only the cuffs of his shirt, clean and white as snow, peeking out from the sleeves of his black tailcoat.

He resolved to write to the staff officer's wife the next day, before filing a complaint, on the chance that she might agree to return to him what she owed without a fight. The content of the letter was as follows:

My dear madam, Alexandra 5 Grigorievna!

I am unable to understand this strange act on your part. Rest assured that in behaving in this fashion you gain nothing and will by no means prevail upon me to marry your daughter. Believe me, I am perfectly well informed concerning the story of my nose, as well as the fact that none other than the two of you are the main participants in it. Its sudden detachment from its place, its flight, its disguising itself first as an official and now finally as its own self, are nothing else but the results of witchcraft, performed either by you or by those who exercise similarly noble occupations. I, for my part, consider it my duty to warn you: if the above-mentioned nose of mine is not back in place this same day, I shall be forced to resort to the shelter and protection of the law.

Nevertheless, with the utmost respect for you, I have the honor of being

Your humble servant,

Platon Kovalev

My dear sir, Platon Kuzmich!

I am extremely astonished by your letter. I confess to you in all frankness, I never expected, the less so with regard to unjust reproaches on your part. I warn you that I have never received the official you mention in my house, either disguised or as his real self. True, Filipp Ivanovich Potanchikov used to visit me. And though he indeed sought my daughter's hand, being himself of good, sober behavior and great learning, I never gave him reasons for any hope. You also mention a nose. If by that you mean that I supposedly led you by the nose and intended to refuse you formally, I am surprised that you speak of it, since I, as you know, was of the completely opposite opinion, and if you were to propose to my daughter in a lawful fashion right now, I would be ready to satisfy you at once, for this has always constituted the object of my liveliest desire, in hopes of which I remain, always ready to be at your service,

Alexandra Podtochina

"No," said Kovalev, after reading the letter. "She's clearly not guilty. She can't be! The way the letter's written, it couldn't have been written by a person guilty of a crime." The collegiate assessor was informed in such matters, because he had been sent on investigations several times while still in the Caucasus. "How, then, how on earth did it happen? The devil alone can sort it all out!" he finally said, dropping his arms.

Meanwhile, rumors of this remarkable incident spread all over the capital, and, as usually happens, not without special additions. Just then everyone's mind was precisely attuned to the extraordinary: only recently the public had been taken up with experiments on the effects of magnetism. What's more, the story about the dancing chairs on Konyushennaya Street was still fresh, and thus it was no wonder people soon began saying that the nose of the collegiate assessor Kovalev went strolling on Nevsky Prospect at exactly three o'clock. Hordes of the curious thronged there every day. Someone said the nose was supposed to be in Junker's shop 6 – and such a crowd and crush formed outside Junker's that the police even had to intervene. One speculator of respectable appearance, with side-whiskers, who sold various kinds of cookies at the entrance to the theater, had some fine, sturdy wooden benches specially made, which he invited the curious to stand on for eighty kopecks per visitor. One worthy colonel left home earlier specifically for that and made his way through the crowd with great difficulty; but to his great indignation, he saw in the shop window, instead of the nose, an ordinary woolen jacket and a lithograph portraying a girl straightening a stocking and a fop with a turned-back waistcoat and a small beard peeping at her from behind a tree-a picture that had been hanging in the same place for over ten years. He walked off saying vexedly, "How is it possible to upset people with such stupid and implausible rumors?"

Then the rumor spread that Major Kovalev's nose went strolling not on Nevsky Prospect but in the Tavrichesky Garden, and had long been going there; that when Khozrev-Mirza 7 lived there, he wondered greatly at this strange sport of nature. Some students from the College of Surgeons went there. One noble, respectable lady, in a special letter, asked the overseer of the garden to show this rare phenomenon to her children and, if possible, with an explanation instructive and edifying for the young.

All these events were an extreme joy for those inevitable frequenters of social gatherings who delight in making the ladies laugh and whose stock was by then completely exhausted. A small portion of respectable and right-minded people was extremely displeased. One gentleman said with indignation that he did not understand how such preposterous inventions could be spread in our enlightened age and that he was astonished that the government paid no attention to it. This gentleman was obviously one of those gentlemen who wish to mix the government into everything, even their daily quarrels with their wives. After that… but here again the whole incident is shrouded in mist, and what came later is decidedly unknown.

III

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all: suddenly, as if nothing was wrong, that same nose which had driven about in the rank of state councillor and made such a stir in town was back in place-that is, precisely between the two cheeks of Major Kovalev. This happened on the seventh of April. Waking up and chancing to look in the mirror, he saw: the nose! He grabbed it with his hand-yes, the nose! "Aha!" said Kovalev, and in his joy he nearly burst into a trepak all around the room, but Ivan hindered him by coming in. He ordered a wash at once and, as he was washing, again glanced in the mirror: the nose! Drying himself with a towel, he again glanced in the mirror: the nose!

"Look, Ivan, I think I've got a pimple on my nose," he said, and thought meanwhile, "What a disaster if Ivan says, 'No, sir, not only no pimple, but no nose either!'"

But Ivan said:

"Nothing, sir, no pimple at all-the nose is clean!"

"Good, devil take it!" the major said to himself and snapped his fingers. At that moment the barber Ivan Yakovlevich peeked in the door, but as timorously as a cat that has just been beaten for stealing lard.

"Tell me first: are your hands clean?" Kovalev cried to him from afar.

"Yes."

"Lies!"

"By God, they're clean, sir."

"Well, watch yourself now."

Kovalev sat down. Ivan Yakovlevich covered him with a towel and in an instant, with the aid of a brush, transformed his whole chin and part of his cheeks into a cream such as is served on merchants' birthdays.

"Look at that!" Ivan Yakovlevich said to himself, glancing at the nose. Then he tipped the head the other way and looked at it from the side. "There, now! really, just think of it," he continued and went on looking at the nose for a long time. At last, lightly, as cautiously as one can imagine, he raised two fingers so as to grasp the tip of it. Such was Ivan Yakovlevich's system.

"Oh-oh, watch out!" cried Kovalev.

Ivan Yakovlevich dropped his arms, more confused and taken aback than he had ever been before. Finally he started tickling carefully under his chin with the razor; and though it was quite difficult and inconvenient for him to give a shave without holding on to the smelling part of the body, nevertheless, resting his rough thumb on the cheek and lower jaw, he finally overcame all obstacles and shaved him.

When everything was ready, Kovalev hastened at once to get dressed, hired a cab, and drove straight to the pastry shop. Going in, he cried from afar, "A cup of hot chocolate, boy!" and instantly went up to the mirror: the nose was there! He gaily turned around and, with a satirical air, squinting one eye a little, looked at two. military men, one of whom had a nose no bigger than a waistcoat button. After that, he went to the office of the department where he had solicited a post as vice-governor or, failing that, as an executive. Passing through the waiting room, he looked in the mirror: the nose was there! Then he went to see another collegiate assessor, or major, a great mocker, to whom he often said in response to various needling remarks: "Well, don't I know you, you sharpy!" On the way there, he thought, "If even the major doesn't split from laughing when he sees me, then it's a sure sign that whatever's there is sitting where it should." But from the collegiate assessor– nothing. "Good, good, devil take it!" Kovalev thought to himself. On his way he met Podtochina, the staff officer's wife, with her daughter, greeted them, and was met with joyful exclamations– nothing, then; he was in no way damaged. He talked with them for a very long time and, purposely taking out his snuffbox, spent a very long time in front of them filling his nose from both entrances, murmuring to himself, "There, that's for you, females, hen folk! and even so I won't marry the daughter. Just like that– par amour, if you please!" And Major Kovalev strolled on thereafter as if nothing was wrong, on Nevsky Prospect, and in the theaters, and everywhere. And the nose also sat on his face as if nothing was wrong, not even showing a sign that it had ever gone anywhere. And after that Major Kovalev was seen eternally in a good humor, smiling, chasing after decidedly all the pretty ladies, and even stopping once in front of a shop in the Merchants' Arcade to buy some ribbon or other, no one knows for what reason, since he was not himself the bearer of any decoration.

Such was the story that occurred in the northern capital of our vast country! Only now, on overall reflection, we can see that there is much of the implausible in it. To say nothing of the strangeness of the supernatural detachment of the nose and its appearance in various places in the guise of a state councillor-how was it that Kovalev did not realize that he ought not to make an announcement about the nose through the newspaper office? I'm speaking here not in the sense that I think it costly to pay for an announcement: that is nonsense, and I am not to be numbered among the mercenary. But it is indecent, inept, injudicious! And then, too-how did the nose end up in the baked bread and how did Ivan Yakovlevich himself…? no, that I just do not understand, I decidedly do not understand! But what is strangest, what is most incomprehensible of all is how authors can choose such subjects… I confess, that is utterly inconceivable, it is simply… no, no, I utterly fail to understand. In the first place, there is decidedly no benefit to the fatherland; in the second place… but in the second place there is also no benefit. I simply do not know what it…

And yet, for all that, though it is certainly possible to allow for one thing, and another, and a third, perhaps even… And then, too, are there not incongruities everywhere?… And yet, once you reflect on it, there really is something to all this. Say what you like, but such incidents do happen in the world-rarely, but they do happen.

The Carriage

The little town of B. became much gayer when the cavalry regiment was stationed there. Before then, it was awfully boring. When you happened to drive through it and gaze at the low cob houses looking out so incredibly sourly, it's impossible to describe what would come over your heart then-such anguish as if you'd lost at cards or blurted out something stupid at the wrong time; in short, no good. The cob has fallen off them on account of the rain, and the walls, instead of white, have become piebald; the roofs are in most cases covered with thatch, as is usual in our southern towns; as for the gardens, they were cut down long ago on the mayor's orders, to improve appearances. You wouldn't meet a soul abroad, except maybe a rooster crossing the street, soft as a pillow owing to the five inches of dust lying on it, which turns to mud with the slightest rain, and then the streets of the town of B. fill up with those stout animals the mayor of the place calls Frenchmen. Poking their serious snouts out of their baths, they set up such a grunting that the traveler can only urge his horses on taster. However, it was hard to meet a traveler in the town of B. Rarely, very rarely, some landowner possessed of eleven peasant souls, wearing a nankeen frock coat, would rattle down the street in something halfway between a cart and a britzka, peeking out from amidst a heap of flour sacks and whipping up a bay mare with a colt running behind her. The marketplace itself has a rather woeful look: the tailor's house sits quite stupidly, not with the whole front facing it, but catercorner; across from it some stone building with two windows has been a-building for fifteen years now; further on, a fashionable plank fence stands all by itself, painted gray to match the color of the mud, erected as a model for other buildings by the mayor in the time of his youth, when he did not yet have the habit of napping directly after dinner and taking some sort of infusion of dried gooseberries before going to bed. In other places, it's almost all wattle fence; in the middle of the square stand the smallest shops: in them you could always notice a string of pretzels, a woman in a red kerchief, a crate of soap, a few pounds of bitter almonds, shot for small arms, half-cotton cloth, and two salesclerks playing mumblety-peg by the shop door all the time. But when the cavalry regiment began to be stationed in the regional town of B., everything changed. The streets became colorful, animated-in short, acquired a totally different look. The little, low houses often saw passing by a trim, adroit officer with a plume on his head, on his way to visit a friend for a chat about horse breeding, or the excellence of tobacco, or occasionally for a game of cards, with what might be called the regimental droshky as the stake, because it managed to pass through everybody's hands without ever leaving the regiment: today the major was driving around in it, tomorrow it turned up in the lieutenant's stable, and a week later, lo and behold, again the major's orderly was greasing it with lard. The wooden fences between houses were all dotted with soldiers' caps hanging out in the sun; a gray overcoat was bound to be sticking up somewhere on a gate; in the lanes you might run into soldiers with mustaches as stiff as a bootblack's brush. These mustaches could be seen in all places. If tradeswomen got together at the market with their dippers, a mustache was sure to be peeking over their shoulders. In the middle of the square, a soldier with a mustache was sure to be soaping the beard of some village yokel, who merely grunted, rolling up his eyes. The officers animated society, which till then had consisted only of the judge, who lived in the same house as some deacon's widow, and the mayor, a reasonable man, but who slept decidedly all day: from dinner till evening, and from evening till dinner. Society became still more numerous and entertaining when the quarters of the brigadier general were transferred there. Neighboring landowners, whose existence no one had even suspected till then, began coming to the little town more often, to meet the gentlemen officers and on occasion to play a little game of faro, which before had been an extremely vague fancy in their heads, busied with crops, their wives' errands, and hunting hares. It's a great pity I'm unable to remember for what occasion the brigadier general gave a big dinner; enormous preparations went into it: the snick of the chef's knives in the general's kitchen could be heard as far as the town gates. The entire market was completely bought up for this dinner, so that the judge and his deaconess had to eat buckwheat pancakes and cornstarch custard. The small yard of the general's house was entirely filled with droshkies and carriages. The company consisted of men: officers and some neighboring landowners. Among the landowners, the most remarkable was Pythagor Pythagorovich Chertokutsky, one of the chief aristocrats of the B. region, who made the biggest stir at the local elections, coming to them in a jaunty carriage. He had served formerly in one of the cavalry regiments and had numbered among its important and notable officers. At least he was seen at many balls and gatherings, wherever his regiment happened to migrate; the girls of Tambov and Simbirsk provinces might, incidentally, be asked about that. It's quite possible that his favorable repute would have spread to other provinces as well, if he had not retired on a certain occasion, usually known as an unpleasant incident: either he gave someone a slap in his earlier years, or he was given one, I don't remember for sure, only the upshot was that he was asked to retire. However, he by no means lost any of his dignity: wore a high-waisted tailcoat after the fashion of military uniforms, spurs on his boots, and a mustache under his nose, because otherwise the noblemen might have thought he had served in the infantry, which he sometimes scornfully called infantury and sometimes infantary. He visited all the crowded fairs, where the insides of Russia, consisting of nannies, children, daughters, and fat landowners, came for the merrymaking in britzkas, gigs, tarantasses, and such carriages as no one ever saw even in dreams. His nose could smell where a cavalry regiment was stationed, and he always went to meet the gentleman officers. With great adroitness he would leap from his light carriage or droshky before them and make their acquaintance extremely quickly. During the last election, he gave an excellent dinner for the nobility, at which he announced that if he were elected marshal, 1 he would put the nobility on the very best footing. He generally behaved with largesse, as they say in the districts and provinces, married a pretty little thing, with her got a dowry of two hundred souls plus several thousand in capital. The capital went immediately on a sixsome of really fine horses, gilded door latches, a tame monkey for the house, and a Frenchman for a butler. The two hundred souls, together with his own two hundred, were mortgaged with a view to some sort of commercial transactions. In short, he was a real landowner… A landowner good and proper. Besides him, there were several other landowners at the general's dinner, but they are not worth talking about. The rest were all army men of the same regiment, including two staff officers: a colonel and a rather fat major. The general was stocky and corpulent himself, though a good commander in the officers' opinion. He spoke in a rather deep, imposing bass. The dinner was extraordinary: sturgeon, beluga, sterlet, bustard, asparagus, quail, partridge, and mushrooms testified that the cook had not sat down to eat since the day before, and that four soldiers, knives in hand, had worked all night helping him with the fricassees and gelees. The myriads of bottles-tall ones of Lafitte, short-necked ones of Madeira-the beautiful summer day, the windows all thrown wide open, the plates of ice on the table, the gentlemen officers with their bottom button unbuttoned, the owners of trim tailcoats with their shirt fronts all rumpled, the crisscross conversation dominated by the general's voice and drowned in champagne-everything was in harmony with everything else. After dinner they all got up with an agreeable heaviness in their stomachs and, having lit their long or short chibouks, stepped out on the porch, cups of coffee in their hands.