Текст книги "Dead Souls"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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This apparently absurd occurrence noticeably upset our hero. However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man. He began to feel uneasy, ungainly—exactly as if he had suddenly stepped with a beautifully polished shoe into a dirty, stinking puddle; in short, not good, not good at all! He tried not to think about it, tried to get diverted, distracted, sat down to whist, but it all went like a crooked wheel: twice he played into his opponents' strong suit, and, forgetting that one does not double trump, he swung his arm and, like a fool, took his own trick. The magistrate simply could not understand how Pavel Ivanovich, who had such a good and, one might say, subtle understanding of the game, could make such mistakes and even put under the axe his king of spades, in which, to use his own words, he trusted as in God. Of course, the postmaster and the magistrate, and even the police chief himself, kept poking fun at our hero, as is customary, suggesting that he might be in love, and don't we know that Pavel Ivanovich's heart has been smitten, and don't we know who shot the dart; but all this was no comfort, however much he tried to smile and laugh it off. At supper, too, he was quite unable to be expansive, though the company at table was pleasant and Nozdryov had long ago been taken out; for even the ladies themselves finally noticed that his behavior was becoming much too scandalous. In the midst of the cotillion, he got down on the floor and started grabbing the dancers by their skirt hems, which was really beyond everything, as the ladies put it. The supper was very gay, all the faces flitting before the three-stemmed candlesticks, flowers, sweets, and bottles radiated the most unconstrained pleasure. Officers, ladies, tailcoats—everything became courteous, even to the point of cloying. Men jumped up from their chairs and ran to take dishes from the servants in order to offer them, with extraordinary adroitness, to the ladies. One colonel offered a dish of sauce to a lady on the tip of his bare sword. The men of respectable age, among whom Chichikov sat, were arguing loudly, following their sensible words with fish or beef dipped unmercifully in mustard, and arguing about subjects he had even always been interested in; but he was like a man worn-out or broken by a long journey, whose mind is closed to everything and who is unable to enter into anything. He did not even wait until supper was over, and went home incomparably earlier than was his custom.

There, in that little room so familiar to the reader, with the door blocked up by a chest of drawers, and cockroaches occasionally peeking from the corners, the state of his mind and spirit was uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as the armchair in which he sat. His heart felt unpleasant, troubled; some burdensome emptiness lingered in it. "Devil take all of you who thought up these balls!" he said in vexation. "What are the fools so glad about? There are crop failures, high prices in the provinces, and here they are with their balls! A fine thing: decked out in their female rags! So what if she's wrapped herself in a thousand roubles' worth! And it's at the expense of peasant quitrent or, worse still, at the expense of our own good conscience. Everyone knows why you take bribes and bend the truth: so as to pay for your wife's shawl or hoopskirt or whatever they're called, confound them. And what for? So that some strumpet Sidorovna won't say the postmaster's wife's dress was better, and so—bang, there goes a thousand roubles. They shout: A ball, a ball, a gay time!'—a ball is just trash, not in the Russian spirit, not in the Russian nature; devil knows what it is: an adult, a man of age, suddenly pops out all in black, plucked and tightly fitted like a little imp, and goes mincing away with his feet. Some man, dancing with his partner, can be discussing important business with someone else, while at the same time twirling his legs right and left like a little goat. . . It's all apery, all apery! The Frenchman at forty is the same child he was at fifteen, so let's all do likewise! No, really . . . after each ball it's as if you'd committed some sin; you don't even want to remember it. The head is simply empty, as after talking with a man of society; he talks about all sorts of things, touches lightly on everything, says everything he's pulled out of books, brightly, prettily, but there's no trace of any of it in his head, and you see then that even talking with a simple merchant who knows only his business, but knows it firmly and practically, is better than all these baubles. So, what can possibly be squeezed out of this ball? So, what if some writer, say, decided to describe the whole scene as it is? So, then in the book it would come out just as witless as in nature. What is it—moral? immoral? It's simply devil-knows-what! You'd spit and close the book." So unfavorable was Chichikov's opinion of balls in general; but it seems another reason for indignation was mixed in here. He was mainly vexed not at the ball, but at the fact that he had happened to trip up, that he had suddenly appeared before everyone looking like God knows what, that he had played some strange, ambiguous role. Of course, looking at it with the eye of a reasonable man, he saw that it was all absurd, that a stupid word meant nothing, particularly now, when the main business had already been properly done. But man is strange: he was greatly upset by the ill disposition of those very people whom he did not respect and with regard to whom he had spoken so sharply, denouncing their vanity and finery. This was the more vexatious to him since, on sorting out the matter clearly, he saw that he himself was partly the cause of it. He did not, however, get angry with himself, and in that, of course, he was right. We all have a little weakness for sparing ourselves somewhat, and prefer to try and find some neighbor on whom to vent our vexation, a servant, for instance, or a subordinate official who turns up at that moment, or a wife, or, finally, a chair, which gets flung devil knows where, straight at the door, so that the armrest and back come flying off: that will teach it what wrath is. So Chichikov, too, soon found a neighbor who could drag onto his own back everything his vexation might suggest to him. This neighbor was Nozdryov, and, needless to say, he got it from all sides and ends, as only some crook of a village elder or coachman gets it from some traveled, experienced captain, or even general, who on top of many expressions that have become classical, adds many unknown ones, the invention of which belongs properly to himself. The whole of Nozdryov's genealogy was examined and many members of his family in the line of ascent suffered greatly.

But all the while he was sitting in his hard armchair, troubled by thoughts and sleeplessness, zealously giving what for to Nozdryov and all his kin, and the tallow candle glimmered before him, its wick long covered by a black cap of snuff, threatening to go out at any moment, and blind, dark night looked in his window, ready to turn blue with approaching dawn, and somewhere far away far-off roosters whistled to each other, and in a completely sleeping town, perhaps, a frieze greatcoat plodded along somewhere, a wretch of unknown class and rank, who knows (alas!) one path only, all too well beaten by the devil-may-care Russian people—during this time, at the other end of town, an event was taking place which was about to increase the unpleasantness of our hero's situation. Namely, through the remote streets and alleys of the town there came clattering a rather strange vehicle, causing bewilderment with regard to its name. It resembled neither a tarantass, nor a barouche, nor a britzka, but more closely resembled a round, fat-cheeked watermelon on wheels. The cheeks of this watermelon–the doors, that is—bearing traces of yellow paint, closed very poorly on account of the poor condition of the handles and latches, which were tied anyhow with string. The watermelon was filled with cotton pillows shaped like pouches, bolsters, and simple pillows, and it was stuffed with sacks of bread, kalatchi, [41]41
  A kalatch(pi. kalatchi)is a very fine white bread shaped like a purse with a looped handle.


[Закрыть]cheesecakes, filled dumplings, and doughnuts. A chicken pie and a mince pie even peeked from the top. The footboard was occupied by a person of lackey origin, in a jacket of homespun ticking, with an unshaved beard shot with gray—a person known by the name of "lad." The noise and screeching of iron clamps and rusty bolts awakened a sentinel on the other side of town, who, raising his halberd, shouted, half awake, with all his might: "Who goes there?"—but seeing no one going there, and hearing only a distant clatter, he caught some beast on his collar and, going up to the streetlamp, executed it then and there on his nail. After which, setting his halberd aside, he fell asleep again according to the rules of his knightly order. The horses kept falling on their knees, because they were not shod and, besides, evidently had little familiarity with the comforts of town cobblestones. The rattletrap made several turns from one street to another and finally turned onto a dark lane by the small parish church of St. Nicholas on Nedotychki [42]42
  The naming of the church is an absurd development along the lines of St. Martin's in the Fields or St. Mark's in the Bouwerie: nedo-tychkimeans "bunglers" or "botchers"; it may, by some stretch of the imagination, be a topographical name—Bungler's Hill, or Botcher's Lane.


[Закрыть]and stopped by the gates of the archpriest's wife's house. A wench climbed out of the britzka in a quilted jacket, with a kerchief on her head, and banged on the gate with both fists as good as a man (the lad in the homespun jacket was later pulled down by his feet, for he was sleeping like the dead). The dogs barked and the gates, having gaped open, finally swallowed, though with great difficulty, this clumsy traveling contraption. The vehicle drove into a small yard cluttered with firewood, chicken coops, and all sorts of sheds; out of the vehicle climbed a lady: this lady was a landowner, the widow of a collegiate secretary, Korobochka. Soon after our hero's departure, the old woman had become so worried with regard to the possible occurrence of deceit on his side that, after three sleepless nights in a row, she had resolved to go to town, even though the horses were not shod, and there find out for certain what was the going price for dead souls, and whether she had, God forbid, gone amiss, having perhaps sold them dirt cheap. What consequences this arrival produced, the reader may learn from a certain conversation that took place between a certain two ladies. This conversation . . . but better let this conversation take place in the next chapter.

Chapter Nine

In the morning, even earlier than the hour fixed for visits in the town of N., there came fluttering out the doors of an orange wooden house with a mezzanine and light blue columns a lady in a stylish checked cloak, accompanied by a lackey in a greatcoat with several collars and gold braid on his round, glossy hat. The lady, with extraordinary haste, fluttered straight up the folding steps into the carriage standing at the front door. The lackey straightaway slammed the door on the lady, flung up the steps behind her, and, catching hold of the straps at the back of the carriage, shouted "Drive!" to the coachman. The lady was bearing some just-heard news and felt an irresistible urge to communicate it quickly. Every other moment she peeked out the window and saw to her unspeakable vexation that there was still halfway to go. Every house seemed longer than usual to her; the white stone almshouse with its narrow windows dragged on unbearably, so that she finally could not bear it and said: "Cursed building, there's just no end to it!" The coachman had already twice been given the order: "Faster, faster, Andryushka! You're taking insufferably long today!" At last the goal was attained. The carriage stopped in front of another one-storied wooden house, of a dark gray color, with little white bas-reliefs over the windows, and just in front of the windows a high wooden lattice and a narrow front garden, the slim trees of which were all white behind the lattice from the ever-abiding dust of the town. In the windows flashed flowerpots, a parrot swinging in his cage, clutching the ring with his beak, and two little dogs asleep in the sun. In this house lived the bosom friend of the arriving lady. The author is in the greatest perplexity how to name the two ladies in such a way that people do not get angry with him again, as they used to in olden times. To refer to them by fictitious names is dangerous. Whatever name one comes up with, there is sure to be found in some corner of our state, given its greatness, someone who bears that name and who is sure to get mortally angry and start saying that the author came secretly with the purpose of ferreting out everything about who he was, what kind of woolly coat he went around in, and what Agrafena Ivanovna he came calling on, and upon what food he liked to dine. To refer to them by their ranks, God forbid, is even more dangerous. Our ranks and estates are so irritated these days that they take personally whatever appears in printed books: such, evidently, is the mood in the air. It is enough simply to say that there is a stupid man in a certain town, and it already becomes personal; suddenly a gentleman of respectable appearance pops up and shouts: "But I, too, am a man, which means that I, too, am stupid"—in short, he instantly grasps the situation. And therefore, to avoid all this, we shall refer to the lady who received the visit as she was referred to almost unanimously in the town of N.—namely, as a lady agreeable in all respects. She acquired this appellation legitimately, for she indeed spared nothing in making herself amiable to the utmost degree, but oh, of course, what nimble alacrity of female character lurked behind this amiableness! and oh, what a pin sometimes pricked through every agreeable word of hers! and God alone knew what seethed in that heart against any woman who might somewhere, somehow creep to the forefront. But all this was clothed in the subtlest worldliness, such as exists only in a provincial capital. Every movement she produced was tasteful, she even loved poetry, she even knew how to hold her head in a dreamy way on occasion– and everyone concurred that she was indeed a lady agreeable in all respects. Now the other lady, that is, the arriving one, was not possessed of so versatile a character, and therefore we shall refer to her as the simply agreeable lady. The arrival of the visitor woke the little dogs that were sleeping in the sun: the shaggy Adèle, ceaselessly entangled in her own fur, and Potpourri on his skinny legs. The one and the other, barking, carried the rings of their tails to the front hall, where the visitor was being freed from her cloak and emerged in a dress of fashionable pattern and color and with long tails around the neck; jasmine wafted through the whole room. The moment the lady agreeable in all respects learned of the arrival of the simply agreeable lady, she rushed to the front hall. The ladies seized each other's hands, kissed each other, and uttered little cries, as boarding-school girls do when they meet soon after graduation, before their mamas have had time to explain to them that one has a father who is poorer and of lower rank than the other. The kiss was performed noisily, so that the dogs started barking again, for which they received a flick of a shawl, and the two ladies went to the drawing room, a light blue one, naturally, with a sofa, an oval table, and even a little screen covered with ivy; after them, growling, ran shaggy Adèle and tall Potpourri on his skinny legs. "Here, here, in this little corner!" the hostess said as she sat her visitor down in a corner of the sofa. "That's right! that's right! here's a pillow for you!" So saying, she stuffed a pillow behind her back, on which a knight was embroidered in worsted the way things are always embroidered on canvas: the nose came out as a ladder, and the lips as a rectangle. "I'm so glad it's you ... I heard someone drive up and asked myself who it could be so early. Parasha said, 'The vice-governor's wife,' and I said, 'So that fool is coming to bore me again,' and I was just about to say I wasn't home ..."

The visitor was about to get down to business and tell her news. But the exclamation that the lady agreeable in all respects let out at that moment suddenly gave a different direction to the conversation.

"What a gay little print!" the lady agreeable in all respects exclaimed, looking at the dress of the simply agreeable lady.

"Yes, very gay. Praskovya Fyodorovna, however, finds that it would be nicer if the checks were a bit smaller and the speckles were not brown but light blue. Her sister was sent a fabric—it's simply charming beyond words; imagine to yourself: narrow little stripes, as narrow as human imagination can possibly conceive, a light blue background, and between the stripes it's all spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs . . . Incomparable, in short! One can say decidedly that nothing comparable has ever existed in the world."

"It's gaudy, my dear."

"Ah, no, not gaudy."

"Ah, gaudy!"

It must be noted that the lady agreeable in all respects was something of a materialist, inclined to negation and doubt, and she rejected quite a lot in life.

Here the simply agreeable lady explained that it was by no means gaudy, and cried out:

"Besides, I congratulate you: flounces are no longer being worn."

"Not worn?"

"It's little festoons now."

"Ah, that's not pretty—little festoons!"

"Little festoons, little festoons all over: a pelerine of little festoons, sleeves with little festoons, epaulettes of little festoons, little festoons below, little festoons everywhere."

"It's not pretty, Sofya Ivanovna, if it's little festoons all over."

"It's sweet, Anna Grigorievna, unbelievably sweet. It's made with double seams: wide armholes and above . . . But here, here is something amazing for you, now you're going to say . . . Well, be amazed: imagine, the bodices are even longer now, vee-shaped in front, and the front busk goes beyond all bounds; the skirt is gathered around as it used to be with the old-fashioned farthingale, and they even pad it out a little behind with cotton batting, so as to make for a perfect belle-femme."

"Now that's just—I declare!" said the lady agreeable in all respects, making a movement of her head expressive of dignity.

"Precisely, it is indeed—I declare!" replied the simply agreeable lady.

"As you like, but I wouldn't follow that for anything."

"Neither would I . . . Really, when you imagine what fashion comes to sometimes . . . it's beyond everything! I begged my sister to give me the pattern just for fun; my Melanya's started sewing."

"So you have the pattern?" the lady agreeable in all respects cried out, not without a noticeable tremor of excitement.

"Of course, my sister brought it."

"Give it to me, dear heart, by all that's holy."

"Ah, I've already promised it to Praskovya Fyodorovna. Perhaps after her."

"Who's going to wear it after Praskovya Fyodorovna? It would be all too strange on your part to prefer others to your own."

"But she's also my aunt twice removed."

"God knows what kind of aunt she is to you: it's on your husband's side . . . No, Sofya Ivanovna, I don't even want to listen, since you intend to hand me such an insult. . . Obviously, I'm already boring to you, obviously you wish to stop all acquaintance with me."

Poor Sofya Ivanovna absolutely did not know what to do. She herself felt that she had put herself between a rock and a hard place. So much for her boasting! She was ready to prick her stupid tongue all over with needles for it.

"Well, and how's our charmer?" the lady agreeable in all respects said meanwhile.

"Ah, my God! why am I sitting in front of you like this? Aren't I a good one! Do you know, Anna Grigorievna, what I've come to you with?" Here the visitor's breath was taken away; words, like hawks, were ready to rush in pursuit of each other, and one had to be as inhuman as her bosom friend to venture to stop her.

"No matter how you go praising and exalting him," she said, with greater animation than usual, "I will say straight out, and say it to his face, that he is a worthless man, worthless, worthless, worthless."

"But just listen to what I'm going to reveal to you ...”

"Word is going around that he's good-looking, but he's not good-looking at all, not at all, and his nose ... a most disagreeable nose."

"But let me tell you, just let me tell you . . . darling Anna Grigorievna, let me tell you! It's a whole story, do you understand, a story, sconapel istwar," [43]43
  A phonetic transcription of mispronounced French, meaning: ce qu'on appelle histoire("what's known as a story, or scandal"). There will be other such transcriptions in what follows: "orerr" for horreur,"scandaleusities," and the postmaster's "finzerb" for fines herbes,the minced dried herbs used in cooking, which he apparently thinks is the name of some dish.


[Закрыть]the visitor said with an expression almost of despair and in an utterly imploring voice. It will do no harm to mention that the conversation of the two ladies was interspersed with a great many foreign words and sometimes entire long phrases in French. But filled though the author is with reverence for the saving benefits that the French language brings to Russia, filled though he is with reverence for the praiseworthy custom of our high society which expresses itself in it at all hours of the day—out of a deep feeling of love for the fatherland, of course—for all that he simply cannot bring himself to introduce any phrase from any foreign language whatsoever into this Russian poem of his. And so let us continue in Russian.

"What is the story?"

"Ah, Anna Grigorievna, dear heart, if you could only imagine the position I was in, just fancy: this morning the archpriest's wife comes to me—the wife of the archpriest, Father Kiril—and what do you think: our humble fellow, our visitor here, is quite a one, eh?"

"What, you don't mean he was making sheep's eyes at the arch-priest's wife?"

"Ah, Anna Grigorievna, if it was only sheep it would be nothing; but just listen to what the archpriest's wife said: the lady landowner Korobochka comes to her, she says, all frightened and pale as death, and tells her, and how she tells her, just listen, it's a perfect novel: suddenly, in the dead of night, when the whole house is asleep, there comes a knocking at the gate, the most terrible knocking you could possibly imagine, and a shout: 'Open up, open up, or we'll break down the gate!' How do you like that? What do you think of our charmer after that?"

"And this Korobochka is what, young and good-looking?"

"Not a whit, an old crone."

"Ah, how charming! So he's taken up with an old crone. Talk about our ladies' taste after that! They found who to fall in love with!"

"But no, Anna Grigorievna, it's not at all what you're thinking. Just imagine to yourself how he comes in, armed from head to foot like Rinaldo Rinaldini, [44]44
  Rinaldo Rinaldini, an Italian brigand, is the eponymous hero of a novel by the German writer Christian August Vulpius (1762-1827), which had a resounding success throughout Europe and created the type of the Italian brigand in literature. Vulpius was Goethe's brother-in-law.


[Закрыть]and demands: 'Sell me all your souls that have died.' And Korobochka answers very reasonably, saying: 'I can't sell them, because they're dead.' 'No,' he says, 'they're not dead, it's my business to know whether they're dead or not, and they're not dead,' he shouts, 'they're not, they're not!'

In short, he caused a terrible scandal: the whole village came running, babies were crying, everything was shouting, no one understood anyone else—well, simply orerr, orerr, orerr! . . . But you cannot imagine to yourself, Anna Grigorievna, how alarmed I was when I heard it all. 'Dearest mistress,' Mashka says to me, 'look in the mirror: you're pale.' 'Who cares about the mirror,' I say, 'I must go and tell Anna Grigorievna.' That same moment I order the carriage readied: the coachman Andryushka asks me where to go, and I cannot even say anything, I just gaze into his eyes like a fool—I think he thought I was mad. Ah, Anna Grigorievna, if you could only imagine how alarmed I was!"

"It is strange, though," said the lady agreeable in all respects. "What might they mean, these dead souls? I confess, I understand precisely nothing of it. It's the second time I've heard about these dead souls; but my husband still says Nozdryov's lying. No, there must be something to it."

"But do imagine, Anna Grigorievna, the position I was in when I heard it. And now,' says Korobochka, 'I don't know what I'm to do. He made me sign some false paper,' she says, 'threw down fifteen roubles in banknotes. I'm an inexperienced, helpless widow,' she says, 'I know nothing. . .' Such goings-on! But if only you could imagine at least slightly to yourself how totally alarmed I was."

"But, as you will, only it's not dead souls here, there's something else hidden in it."

"I confess, I think so, too," the simply agreeable lady said, not without surprise, and straightaway felt a strong desire to learn what it was that might be hidden in it. She even said in measured tones: "And what do you think is hidden in it?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"What do I think? ... I confess, I'm completely at a loss."

"But, all the same, I'd like to know your thoughts concerning it."

But the agreeable lady found nothing to say. She knew only how to be alarmed, but as for arriving at some sort of clever conjecture, she was not equal to the task, and therefore, more than any other woman, she was in need of tender friendship and advice.

"Well, listen then, here's what it is with these dead souls," said the lady agreeable in all respects, and at these words the visitor became all attention: her little ears pricked up of themselves, she rose slightly, almost not sitting or holding on to the sofa, and though she was somewhat on the heavy side, she suddenly became slenderer, like a light bit of fluff about to fly into the air with a breath of wind.

Thus a Russian squire, a dog-lover and hunter, approaching the woods from which a hare, startled by the beaters, is just about to leap, turns, all of him, together with his horse and raised crop, for one frozen moment into powder that is just about to be ignited. He is all fastened on the murky air with his eyes, and he will catch the beast, he will finish it off, ineluctably, no matter how the whole rebellious, snowy steppe rises up against him, sending silver stars into his mouth, his mustache, his eyes, his eyebrows, and his beaver hat.

"The dead souls . . . ," pronounced the lady agreeable in all respects.

"What, what?" the visitor picked up, all excitement.

"The dead souls! ..."

"Ah, speak, for God's sake!"

"That was simply invented as a cover, and here's the real thing: he wants to carry off the governor's daughter."

This conclusion was, indeed, quite unanticipated and in all respects extraordinary. The agreeable lady, on hearing it, simply froze on the spot, turned pale, pale as death, and, indeed, became seriously alarmed.

"Ah, my God!" she cried out, clasping her hands, "that is something I would never have thought."

"And, I confess, as soon as you opened your mouth, I grasped what it was," replied the lady agreeable in all respects.

"But what is boarding-school education after that, Anna Grigorievna! There's innocence for you!"

"What innocence! I've heard her say such things as, I confess, I would never have the courage to utter."

"You know, Anna Grigorievna, it's simply heartrending to see where immorality has finally come to."

"And men lose their minds over her. As for me, I confess, I find nothing in her . . . She's insufferably affected."

"Ah, Anna Grigorievna, dear heart, she's a statue, and if only she at least had some expression in her face."

"Ah, how affected! Ah, how affected! God, how affected! Who taught her I do not know, but I have never yet seen a woman in whom there was so much mincing."

"Darling! she's a statue, and pale as death."

"Ah, don't tell me, Sofya Ivanovna: she's sinfully rouged."

"Ah, how can you, Anna Grigorievna: she's chalk, chalk, the purest chalk!"

"My dear, I sat next to her: rouge finger-thick, and it comes off in pieces, like plaster. The mother taught her, she's a coquette herself, and the daughter will outdo her mama."

"No, excuse me, I'll take any oath you like, I'm ready to be deprived this instant of my children, my husband, all my property, if she wears the least drop, the least particle, the least shadow of any sort of rouge!"

"Ah, what are you saying, Sofya Ivanovna!" said the lady agreeable in all respects, clasping her hands.

"Ah, you really are the one, Anna Grigorievna! ... I look at you in amazement!" the agreeable lady said, also clasping her hands.

Let it not seem strange to the reader that the two ladies could not agree between them on what they had seen at almost the same time. There are, indeed, many things in the world that have this quality: when one lady looks at them, they come out perfectly white, and when another lady looks, they come out red, red as a cranberry.

"Now, here's another proof for you that she's pale," the simply agreeable lady went on. "I remember, as if it were today, sitting next to Manilov and saying to him: 'Look how pale she is!' Really, our men must be altogether witless to admire her. And our charmer . . . Ah, how disgusting I found him! You cannot imagine, Anna Grigorievna, to what extent I found him disgusting."

"But, all the same, certain ladies turned up who were not indifferent to him."

"Me, Anna Grigorievna? Now, that you can never say, never, never!

"But I'm not talking about you, as if there were no one else but you."

"Never, never, Anna Grigorievna! Allow me to point out to you that I know myself very well; but perhaps on the part of certain other ladies who play the role of untouchables."

"I beg your pardon, Sofya Ivanovna! Allow me to inform you that such scandaleusities have never yet occurred with me. Perhaps with someone else, but not with me, do allow me to point that out to you."

"Why are you so offended? There were other ladies present, there were even such as would be the first to grab the chair by the door in order to sit closer to him."

Well, now, after such words uttered by the agreeable lady, a storm had inevitably to ensue, but, to the greatest amazement, the two ladies suddenly quieted down, and absolutely nothing ensued. The lady agreeable in all respects recalled that the pattern for the fashionable dress was not yet in her hands, and the simply agreeable lady realized that she had not yet succeeded in ferreting out any details with regard to the discovery made by her bosom friend, and therefore peace very quickly ensued. Incidentally, it cannot be said that either lady had in her nature any need to inflict disagreeableness, and generally there was nothing wicked in their characters, but just like that, imperceptibly, a little wish to needle each other was born of itself in the course of conversation; one of them would simply thrust a lively little phrase at the other now and then, for the sake of a little pleasure: there, that's for you! take that and eat it! All sorts of needs exist in the hearts of both the male and the female sex.