Текст книги "Dead Souls"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

"In the civil service?" Plyushkin repeated, and he began munching his lips as if he were eating something. "But how can it be? Won't you yourself come out the loser?"

"For your pleasure I am even ready to come out the loser."

"Ah, my dear! ah, my benefactor!" Plyushkin cried, not noticing in his joy that snuff was peeking quite unpicturesquely from his nose, after the manner of thick coffee, and the skirts of his robe had opened revealing garments none too fit for inspection. "What a boon for an old man! Ah, my Lord! Ah, saints alive! ..." Further Plyushkin could not even speak. But before a minute passed, this joy, which had appeared so instantaneously on his wooden face, just as instantaneously left, as if it had never been, and his face again assumed a worried expression. He even wiped it with a handkerchief, which he then bunched into a ball and began dragging over his upper lip.

"So then, with your permission, not wishing to anger you, are you undertaking to pay the tax on them each year? and will you give the money to me or to the treasury?"

"Here's what we'll do: we'll make out a deed of purchase, as if they were alive and as if you were selling them to me."

"Yes, a deed of purchase . . . ," Plyushkin said, lapsed into thought, and began chewing with his lips again. "This deed of purchase, you see—it all costs money. The clerks are such a shameless lot! Before, you used to get off with fifty coppers and a sack of flour, but now you must send them a whole cartload of grain, and a red banknote [29]29
  The different denominations of Russian banknotes were given different colors; red was the color of the ten-rouble bill.


[Закрыть]on top of it—such cupidity! I don't know how it is the priests don't pay attention to it; they should read some sort of lesson: say what you like, no one can stand against the word of God."

"But you'd stand, I imagine!" Chichikov thought to himself, and straightaway said that, out of respect for him, he was even ready to take upon himself the costs of the deed.

Hearing that he would even take the costs of the deed upon himself, Plyushkin concluded that the visitor must be completely stupid and was only pretending he had been in the civil service, but had really been an officer and dangled after actresses. For all that, however, he was unable to conceal his joy and wished all kinds of boons not only upon him, but even upon his children, without asking whether he had any or not. Going to the window, he rapped on it with his fingers and shouted: "Hey, Proshka!" A minute later someone could be heard running into the front hall in a flurry, pottering about there and thumping with his boots for a long time, then the door finally opened and in came Proshka, a boy of about thirteen, in such big boots that he almost walked out of them as he stepped. Why Proshka had such big boots can be learned at once: Plyushkin had for all his domestics, however many there were in the house, only one pair of boots, which had always to be kept in the front hall. Anyone summoned to the squire's quarters would usually do a barefoot dance across the whole yard, but, on coming into the front hall, would put on the boots and in that manner enter the room. On leaving the room, he would put the boots back in the front hall and set off again on his own soles. Someone looking out the window in the fall, especially when there begins to be a little frost in the mornings, would see all the domestics making such leaps as the most nimble dancer in the theater is scarcely able to bring off.

"Just look, my dear, what a mug!" Plyushkin said to Chichikov, pointing his finger at Proshka's face. "Stupid as a log, but try putting something down and he'll steal it in a trice! Well, what have you come for, fool, can you tell me that?" Here he produced a small silence, to which Proshka also responded with silence. "Prepare the samovar, do you hear, and take this key and give it to Mavra so she can go to the pantry: there's a rusk of the kulichAlexandra Stepanovna brought on the shelf there, to be served with tea! . . . Wait, where are you going? A tomfool! egad, what a tomfool! Have you got a devil itching in your feet, or what? . . . You listen first: the rusk, I expect, has gone bad on the outside, so have her scrape it with a knife, but don't throw the crumbs out, take them to the henhouse. And look out, brother, don't go into the pantry yourself, or you'll get you know what! with a birch broom, to make it taste better! You've got a nice appetite now, so that'll improve it for you! Just try going into the pantry with me watching out the window all the while. They can't be trusted in anything," he went on, turning to Chichikov, once Proshka had cleared out together with his boots. Then he began glancing suspiciously at Chichikov as well. The traits of such extraordinary magnanimity began to seem incredible to him, and he thought to himself: "Devil knows about him, maybe he's just a braggart, like all those spendthrifts: he'll lie and lie, just to talk and have some tea, and then he'll up and leave!" Hence, as a precaution and at the same time wishing to test him a little, he said it would not be a bad idea to sign the deed as soon as possible, because there's no trusting in man: today he's alive, but tomorrow God knows.

Chichikov expressed a readiness to sign it that very minute and asked only for a list of all the peasants.

This reassured Plyushkin. One could see that he was thinking about doing something, and, in fact, taking his keys, he approached the cupboard and, opening the little door, rummaged for a long time among the glasses and cups and finally said:

"I can't seem to find it, but I did have a splendid little liqueur, unless they drank it! Such thievish folk! Ah, could this be it?" Chichikov saw in his hands a little decanter, all covered with dust as with a fuzzy jacket. "My late wife made it," Plyushkin went on, "the crook of a housekeeper neglected it completely and didn't even put a stopper in it, the slut! Bugs and other trash got into it, but I removed all the bits, and now it's nice and clean; I'll pour you a glass."

But Chichikov tried to decline this nice little liqueur, saying that he already drank and ate.

"Already drank and ate!" said Plyushkin. "Yes, of course, a man of good society is recognizable anywhere: he doesn't eat but is full; but just take one of these little thieves, the more you feed him . . . There's this captain turns up: 'Uncle,' he says, 'give me something to eat!' And I'm as much his uncle as he's my carbuncle. Must have nothing to eat at home, so he hangs around here! Ah, yes, you want a little list of all those parasites? Look here, just as if I'd known, I wrote them all down on a separate piece of paper, so as to cross them off at the next census report."

Plyushkin put on his spectacles and began rummaging among his papers. Untying various bundles, he treated his visitor to so much dust that he sneezed. At last he pulled out a sheet that was written all over. Peasant names covered it as thickly as gnats. Every sort was there: Paramonov, Pimenov, Panteleimonov, even a certain Grigory Go-never-get peeked out—a hundred and twenty-something in all. Chichikov smiled to see such numerousness. Tucking it away in his pocket, he observed to Plyushkin that he would have to go to town to sign the deed.

"To town? But how? . . . how can I leave the house? All my folk are either thieves or crooks: they'll strip the place bare in a day, there'll be nothing left to hang a caftan on."

"Don't you have some acquaintance then?"

"Have I some acquaintance? My acquaintances all either died off or got unacquainted. Ah, my dear! but I do have one, I do!" he cried. "I know the head magistrate himself, he used to come here in the old days, of course I know him! we supped from the same trough, we used to climb fences together! of course we're acquainted! As if we're not acquainted! So mightn't I just write to him?"

"But, of course, write to him."

"Really, as if we're not acquainted! We were friends at school."

And some warm ray suddenly passed over his wooden face, expressing not a feeling, but some pale reflection of a feeling, a phenomenon similar to the sudden appearance of a drowning man on the surface, drawing a joyful shout from the crowd on the bank. But in vain do the rejoicing brothers and sisters throw a rope from the bank and wait for another glimpse of the back or the struggle-weary arms—that appearance was the last. Everything is desolate, and the stilled surface of the unresponding element is all the more terrible and deserted after that. So, too, Plyushkin's face, after the momentary passage of that feeling, became all the more unfeeling and trite.

"There was a piece of clean writing paper lying on the table," he said, "I don't know where on earth it's gone: my people are such a worthless lot!" Here he began peering under the table, and over the table, feeling everywhere, and finally shouted: "Mavra! hey, Mavra!"

At his call a woman appeared with a plate in her hands, on which lay a rusk, already familiar to the reader. Between them the following conversation took place:

"You robber, what did you do with that paper?"

"By God, master, I never saw any, save that little scrap you were pleased to cover the wine glass with."

"Ah, but I can see by your eyes that you filched it."

"And why would I filch it? I've got no use for it; I don't know how to write."

"Lies, you took it to the beadle's boy: he knows how to scribble, so you took it to him."

"Why, the beadle's boy can get paper for himself if he wants. Much he needs your scrap!"

"But just you wait: at the Last Judgment the devils will make it hot for you with the iron tongs! You'll see how hot!"

"And why make it hot, since I never laid a finger on your writing paper? Sooner some other female weakness, but no one has yet reproached me for thievery."

"Ah, but the devils will make it hot for you! They'll say: Ah, but take that, you crook, for deceiving your master!' and they'll get you with the hot ones."

"And I'll say: 'It's not fair! by God, it's not fair, I didn't take it. . .' Why, look, it's lying there on the table. You're always nattering at me for nothing."

Plyushkin indeed saw the writing paper, paused for a moment, munched his lips, and said:

"So, why get yourself worked up like that? Bristling all over! Say just one word to her, and she comes back with a dozen! Go fetch some fire to seal the letter. Wait, you're going to grab a tallow candle, tallow's a melting affair: it'll burn up and—gone, nothing but loss, you'd better bring me a spill!"

Mavra left, and Plyushkin, sitting down in an armchair and taking pen in hand, spent, a long time turning the piece of paper in all directions, considering whether it was possible to save part of it, but finally became convinced that it was not possible; he dipped the pen into an ink pot with some moldy liquid and a multitude of flies at the bottom of it and began to write, producing letters that resembled musical notes, constantly restraining the zip of his hand, which went galloping all across the paper, stingily cramming in line upon line and thinking, not without regret, that there was still going to be a lot of blank space in between.

To such worthlessness, pettiness, vileness a man can descend! So changed he can become! Does this resemble the truth? Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man. The now ardent youth would jump back in horror if he were shown his own portrait in old age. So take with you on your way, as you pass from youth's tender years into stern, hardening manhood, take with you every humane impulse, do not leave them by the wayside, you will not pick them up later! Terrible, dreadful old age looms ahead, and nothing does it give back again! The grave is more merciful, on the grave it will be written: "Here lies a man!"—but nothing can be read in the cold, unfeeling features of inhuman old age.

"And don't you know some friend of yours," Plyushkin said, folding the letter, "who might be in need of runaway souls?"

"You have runaways, too?" Chichikov asked quickly, coming to his senses.

"The point is that I have. My son-in-law made inquiries: he says the tracks are cold, but he's a military man: an expert in jingling his spurs, but as for dealing with the courts...”

"And how many might there be?"

"Oh, they'd also add up to about seventy."

"No!"

"By God, it's so! Every year someone runs away on me. These folk are mighty gluttons, got into the habit of stuffing themselves from idleness, and I myself have nothing to eat... So I'd take whatever I was given for them. You can advise your friend: if only a dozen get found, he's already making good money. A registered soul is worth about five hundred roubles."

"No, we won't let any friend get a whiff of this," Chichikov said to himself, and then explained that there was no way to find such a friend, that the cost of the procedure alone would be more than it was worth, for one had better cut off the tails of one's caftan and run as far as one can from the courts; but that if he was actually in such straits, then, being moved by compassion, he was ready to give . . . but it was such a trifle that it did not deserve mention.

"And how much would you give?" Plyushkin asked, turning Jew: his hands trembled like quicksilver.

"I'd give twenty-five kopecks per soul."

"And how would you buy them, for cash?"

"Yes, ready money."

"Only, my dear, for the sake of my beggarliness, you might give me forty kopecks."

"Most honorable sir!" said Chichikov, "not only forty kopecks, I would pay you five hundred roubles! With pleasure I would pay it, because I see—an honorable, kindly old man is suffering on account of his own good-heartedness."

"Ah, by God, it's so! by God, it's true!" said Plyushkin, hanging his head down and shaking it ruefully. "All from good-heartedness."

"So, you see, I suddenly grasped your character. And so, why shouldn't I give you five hundred roubles per soul, but ... I haven't got a fortune; five kopecks, if you please, I'm ready to add, so that each soul would, in that case, cost thirty kopecks."

"Well, my dear, as you will, just tack on two kopecks."

"Two little kopecks I will tack on, if you please. How many of them do you have? I believe you were saying seventy?"

"No. It comes to seventy-eight in all."

"Seventy-eight, seventy-eight, at thirty kopecks per soul, that would make ..." Here our hero thought for one second, not more, and said suddenly: "... that would make twenty-four roubles, ninety-six kopecks!"—he was good at arithmetic. Straightaway he made Plyushkin write a receipt and handed him the money, which he received in both hands and carried to his bureau as carefully as if he were carrying some liquid, fearing every moment to spill it. Coming to his bureau, he looked through it once more and then placed it, also with extreme care, in one of the drawers, where it was probably doomed to lie buried until such time as Father Carp and Father Polycarp, the two priests of his village, came to bury him himself, to the indescribable delight of his son-in-law and daughter, and perhaps also of the captain who had enrolled himself among his relatives. Having put the money away, Plyushkin sat down in his armchair, at which point, it seemed, he was unable to find any further matter for conversation.

"What, you're already preparing to go?" he said, noticing a slight movement which Chichikov had made only so as to take his handkerchief from his pocket.

This question reminded him that in fact he had no reason to linger longer.

"Yes, it's time!" he said, picking up his hat.

"And a spot of tea?"

"No, better save the spot of tea for another time."

"Well, there, and I've sent for the samovar. I confess to say, I'm not an avid tea drinker: it's expensive, and the price of sugar has risen unmercifully. Proshka! never mind the samovar! Take the rusk to Mavra, do you hear: let her put it back in the same place—or, no, give it to me, I'd better take it myself. Good-bye, my dear, God bless you, and do give my letter to the magistrate. Yes! let him read it, he's my old acquaintance. Why, of course, we supped from the same trough!"

Whereupon this strange phenomenon, this wizened little old man, saw him off the premises, after which he ordered the gates locked at once, then made the round of the storerooms, to check whether the guards, who stood at every corner, banging with wooden spades on empty barrels instead of iron rails, were all in their places; after that, he peeked into the kitchen, where, on the pretext of testing whether people were being properly fed, he downed a goodly quantity of cabbage soup with groats and, having scolded every last one of them for thievery and bad behavior, returned to his room. Left alone, he even had the thought of somehow rewarding his guest for such indeed unexampled magnanimity. "I'll give him the pocket watch," he thought to himself. "It's a good silver watch, not some sort of pinchbeck or brass one; it's slightly broken, but he can have it repaired; he's still a young man, he needs a pocket watch so his fiancée will like him! Or, no," he added, after some reflection, "I'd better leave it to him after my death, in my will, so that he remembers me."

But our hero, even without the watch, was in the merriest spirits. Such an unexpected acquisition was a real gift. Indeed, whatever you say, not just dead souls alone, but runaways as well, and over two hundred persons in all! Of course, while still approaching Plyushkin's estate, he had had a presentiment of some pickings, but he had never expected anything so profitable. For the whole way he was extraordinarily merry, kept whistling, played on his lips, putting his fist to his mouth as if he were blowing a trumpet, and finally broke into some sort of song, extraordinary to such a degree that Selifan himself listened, listened, and then, shaking his head slightly, said: "Just look how the master's singing!" It was thick dusk by the time they drove up to the town. Shadow and light were thoroughly mingled, and objects themselves also seemed to mingle. The particolored tollgate took on some indefinite hue; the mustache of the soldier standing sentry seemed to be on his forehead, way above his eyes, and his nose was as if not there at all. A rumbling and jolting made it known that the britzka had come to the pavement. The streetlamps were not yet burning, only here and there the windows of the houses were beginning to light up, and in nooks and crooks there occurred scenes and conversations inseparable from that time of day in all towns where there are many soldiers, coachmen, workers, and beings of a special kind, in the form of ladies in red shawls and shoes without stockings, who flit about like bats at the street-corners. Chichikov paid them no notice, and even did not notice the many slim clerks with canes, who were probably returning home after taking a stroll out of town. From time to time there reached his ears certain, apparently feminine, exclamations: "Lies, you drunkard! I never allowed him no such rudeness!" or "Don't fight, you boor, go to the police, I'll prove it to you there!...” In short, words which suddenly pour like boiling pitch over some dreamy twenty-year-old youth, when he is returning from the theater, carrying in his head a street in Spain, night, the wondrous image of a woman with a guitar and curls. Is there anything, any dream, not in his head? He is in heaven and has come calling on Schiller [30]30
  Johann Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), German romantic idealist poet and playwright, profoundly influenced Russian literature and thought in the early nineteenth century.


[Закрыть]—and suddenly over him there resound, like thunder, the fatal words, and he sees that he is back on earth, and even on Haymarket Square, and even near a pot-house, and workaday life again goes strutting before him.

Finally, after a decent bounce, the britzka sank, as if into a hole, into the gates of the inn, and Chichikov was met by Petrushka, who held the skirts of his frock coat with one hand, for he did not like them to come open, and with the other began helping him to get out of the britzka. The floorboy also ran out with a candle in his hand and a napkin on his shoulder. Whether Petrushka was glad of his master's arrival is not known; in any case, he exchanged winks with Selifan, and his ordinarily stern exterior this time seemed to brighten a little.

"You've been off on a long one, sir," said the floorboy, lighting the stairway.

"Yes," said Chichikov, as he went up the stairs. "And how's with you?"

"Well, thank God," the floorboy replied, bowing. "Yesterday some army lieutenant came and took number sixteen."

"A lieutenant?"

"Some unknown kind, from Ryazan, bay horses."

"Very good, very good, keep up the good behavior," Chichikov said and went into his room. Passing through the anteroom, he wrinkled his nose and said to Petrushka: "You might at least have opened the windows!"

"But I did open them," Petrushka said, lying. Incidentally, the master knew he was lying, but he had no wish to object. After the trip he had made, he felt great fatigue. Having asked for a very light supper, consisting only of suckling pig, he straightaway got undressed and, slipping under the blanket, fell asleep soundly, deeply, fell asleep in the wondrous way that they alone sleep who are so fortunate as to know nothing of hemorrhoids, or fleas, or overly powerful mental abilities.