Текст книги "Dead Souls"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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"Correct, Your Excellency. Though he's my relative, and it's hard to admit it, he is indeed an ass."

However, as the reader can guess for himself, it was not hard for Chichikov to admit it, the less so since it is unlikely he ever had any uncle.

"So if you would be so good, Your Excellency, as to ...”

"As to give you the dead souls? But for such an invention I'll give them to you with land, with lodgings! Take the whole cemetery! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The old man, oh, the old man! Ha, ha, ha, ha! Made such a fool of! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

And the general's laughter again went echoing all through the general's apartments. [The end of the chapter is missing. In the first edition of the second volume of Dead Souls (1855), there was a note: "Here omitted is the reconciliation of Betrishchev and Tentetnikov; the dinner at the general's and their conversation about the year 'twelve; the betrothal of Ulinka and Tentetnikov; her prayer and lament on her mother's grave; the conversation of the betrothed couple in the garden. Chichikov sets out, at General Betrishchev's request, to call on his relatives and to inform them of his daughter's betrothal, and he goes to see one of these relations—Colonel Koshkarev."—Trans.]

Chapter Three

"No, not like that," Chichikov was saying as he found himself again in the midst of the open fields and spaces, "I wouldn't handle it like that. As soon as, God willing, I finish it all happily and indeed become a well-to-do, prosperous man, I'll behave quite differently: I'll have a cook, and a house full of plenty, but the managerial side will also be in order. The ends will meet, and a little sum will be set aside each year for posterity, if only God grants my wife fruitfulness . . .

"Hey, you tomfool!"

Selifan and Petrushka both looked back from the box.

"Where are you going?"

"Just as you were pleased to order, Pavel Ivanovich—to Colonel Koshkarev's," said Selifan.

"And you asked the way?"

"If you please, Pavel Ivanovich, since I was pottering with the carriage, I . . . saw only the general's stableboy . . . But Petrushka asked the coachman."

"What a fool! I told you not to rely on Petrushka: Petrushka's a log."

"It takes no sort of wisdom," said Petrushka, with a sidelong glance, "excepting as you go down the hill you should keep straight on, there's nothing more to it."

"And I suppose you never touched a drop, excepting the home brew? I suppose you got yourself well oiled?"

Seeing what turn the conversation was taking, Petrushka merely set his nose awry. He was about to say that he had not even begun, but then he felt somehow ashamed.

"It's nice riding in a coach, sir," Selifan said, turning around.

"What?"

"I say, Pavel Ivanovich, that it's nice for your honor to be riding in a coach, sir, better than a britzka, sir—less bouncy."

"Drive, drive! No one's asking your opinion."

Selifan gave the horses' steep flanks a light flick of the whip and addressed himself to Petrushka:

"Master Koshkarev, I hear tell, has got his muzhiks dressed up like Germans; you can't figure out from far off—he walks cranelike, same as a German. And the women don't wear kerchiefs on their heads, pie-shaped, like they do sometimes, or headbands either, but this sort of German bonnet, what German women wear, you know, a bonnet—a bonnet, it's called, you know, a bonnet. A German sort of bonnet."

"What if they got you up like a German, and in a bonnet!" Petrushka said, sharpening his wit on Selifan and grinning. But what a mug resulted from this grin! It had no semblance of a grin, but was as if a man with a cold in his nose was trying to sneeze, but did not sneeze, and simply remained in the position of a man about to sneeze.

Chichikov peered into his mug from below, wishing to know what was going on there, and said: "A fine one! and he still fancies he's a handsome fellow!" It must be said that Pavel Ivanovich was seriously convinced that Petrushka was in love with his own beauty, whereas the latter even forgot at times whether he had any mug at all.

"What a nice idea it would be, Pavel Ivanovich," said Selifan, turning around on his box, "to ask Andrei Ivanovich for another horse in exchange for the dapple-gray; he wouldn't refuse, being of friendly disposition towards you, and this horse, sir, is a scoundrel of a horse and a real hindrance."

"Drive, drive, don't babble!" Chichikov said, and thought to himself: "In fact, it's too bad it never occurred to me."

The light-wheeled coach meanwhile went lightly wheeling along. Lightly it went uphill, though the road was occasionally uneven; lightly it also went downhill, though the descents of country roads are worrisome. They descended the hill. The road went through meadows, across the bends of the river, past the mills. Far away flashed sands, aspen groves emerged picturesquely one from behind the other; willow bushes, slender alders, and silvery poplars flew quickly past them, their branches striking Selifan and Petrushka as they sat on their box. The latter had his peaked cap knocked off every moment. The stern servitor would jump down from the box, scold the stupid tree and the owner who had planted it, but never thought of tying the cap on or at least of holding it with his hand, still hoping that maybe it would not happen again. Then the trees became thicker: aspens and alders were joined by birches, and soon a forest thicket formed around them. The light of the sun disappeared. Pines and firs darkled. The impenetrable gloom of the endless forest became denser, and, it seemed, was preparing to turn into night. And suddenly among the trees—light, here and there among the branches and trunks, like a mirror or like quicksilver. The forest began to brighten, trees became sparser, shouts were heard—and suddenly before them was a lake. A watery plain about three miles across, with trees around it, and cottages behind them. Some twenty men, up to their waists, shoulders, or chins in water, were pulling a dragnet towards the opposite shore. In the midst of them, swimming briskly, shouting, fussing enough for all of them, was a man nearly as tall as he was fat, round all around, just like a watermelon. Owing to his fatness he might not possibly drown, and if he wanted to dive, he could flip over all he liked, but the water would keep buoying him up; and if two more men had sat on his back, he would have gone on floating with them like a stubborn bubble on the surface of the water, only groaning slightly under the weight and blowing bubbles from his nose and mouth.

"That one, Pavel Ivanovich," said Selifan, turning around on the box, "must be the master, Colonel Koshkarev."

"Why so?"

"Because his body, if you'll be pleased to notice, is a bit whiter than the others', and he's respectably portly, as a master should be."

The shouts meanwhile were getting more distinct. The squire-watermelon was shouting in a ringing patter:

"Hand it over, Denis, hand it over to Kozma! Kozma, take the tail from Denis! You, Big Foma, push there along with Little Foma! Go around to the right, the right! Stop, stop, devil take you both! You've got me tangled in the net! You've caught me, I tell you, damn it, you've caught me by the navel!"

The draggers on the right flank stopped, seeing that an unforeseen mishap had indeed occurred: the master was caught in the net.

"Just look," Selifan said to Petrushka, "they've dragged in the master like a fish."

The squire floundered and, wishing to disentangle himself, turned over on his back, belly up, getting still more tangled in the net. Fearful of tearing it, he was floating together with the caught fish, only ordering them to tie a rope around him. When they had tied a rope around him, they threw the end to shore. Some twenty fishermen standing on the shore picked it up and began carefully to haul him in. On reaching a shallow spot, the squire stood up, all covered with the meshes of the net, like a lady's hand in a net glove in summer—looked up, and saw the visitor driving onto the dam in his coach. Seeing the visitor, he nodded to him. Chichikov took off his cap and bowed courteously from his coach.

"Had dinner?" shouted the squire, climbing onto the shore with the caught fish, holding one hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, and the other lower down in the manner of the Medici Venus stepping from her bath.

"No," said Chichikov.

"Well, then you can thank God."

"Why?" Chichikov asked curiously, holding his cap up over his head.

"Here's why!" said the squire, winding up on shore with the carp and bream thrashing around his feet leaping a yard high off the ground. "This is nothing, don't look at this: that's the real thing over there! . . . Show us the sturgeon, Big Foma." Two stalwart muzhiks dragged some sort of monster from a tub. "What a princeling! strayed in from the river!"

"No, that's a full prince!" said Chichikov.

"You said it. Go on ahead now, and I'll follow. You there, coachman, take the lower road, through the kitchen garden. Run, Little Foma, you dolt, and take the barrier down. I'll follow in no time, before you ..."

"The colonel's an odd bird," thought Chichikov, finally getting across the endless dam and driving up to the cottages, of which some, like a flock of ducks, were scattered over the slope of a hill, while others stood below on pilings, like herons. Nets, sweep-nets, dragnets were hanging everywhere. Little Foma took down the barrier, the coach drove through the kitchen garden, and came out on a square near an antiquated wooden church. Behind the church, the roofs of the manor buildings could be seen farther off.

"And here I am!" a voice came from the side. Chichikov looked around. The squire was already driving along next to him, clothed, in a droshky—grass-green nankeen frock coat, yellow trousers, and a neck without a tie, after the manner of a cupid! He was sitting sideways on the droshky, taking up the whole droshky with himself. Chichikov was about to say something to him, but the fat man had already vanished. The droshky appeared on the other side, and all that was heard was a voice: "Take the pike and seven carp to that dolt of a cook, and fetch the sturgeon here: I'll take him myself in the droshky." Again came voices: "Big Foma and Little Foma! Kozma and Denis!" And when he drove up to the porch of the house, to his greatest amazement the fat squire was already standing there and received him into his embrace. How he had managed to fly there was inconceivable. They kissed each other three times crisscross.

"I bring you greetings from His Excellency," said Chichikov.

"Which Excellency?"

"Your relative, General Alexander Dmitrievich."

"Who is Alexander Dmitrievich?"

"General Betrishchev," Chichikov replied in some amazement.

"Don't know him, sir, never met him."

Chichikov was still more amazed.

"How's that? ... I hope I at least have the pleasure of speaking with Colonel Koshkarev?"

"Pyotr Petrovich Petukh, Petukh Pyotr Petrovich!" [60]60
  Petukhis Russian for "rooster"; moreover, Petya, the diminutive of Pyotr, is the common name for a rooster. Pyotr Petrovich Petukh is thus a rooster not only backwards and forwards but three times over.


[Закрыть]the host picked up.

Chichikov was dumbfounded.

"There you have it! How now, you fools," he said, turning to Selifan and Petrushka, who both gaped, goggle-eyed, one sitting on his box, the other standing by the door of the coach, "how now, you fools? Weren't you told—to Colonel Koshkarev's . . . And this is Pyotr Petrovich Petukh ..."

"The lads did excellently!" said Pyotr Petrovich. "For that you'll each get a noggin of vodka and pie to boot. Unharness the horses and go at once to the servants' quarters."

"I'm embarrassed," Chichikov said with a bow, "such an unexpected mistake ..."

"Not a mistake," Pyotr Petrovich Petukh said promptly, "not a mistake. You try how the dinner is first, and then say whether it was a mistake or not. Kindly step in," he said, taking Chichikov under the arm and leading him to the inner rooms.

Chichikov decorously passed through the doors sideways, so as to allow the host to enter with him; but this was in vain: the host could not enter, and besides he was no longer there. One could only hear his talk resounding all over the yard: "But where's Big Foma? Why isn't he here yet? Emelyan, you gawk, run and tell that dolt of a cook to gut the sturgeon quickly. Milt, roe, innards, and bream—into the soup; carp—into the sauce. And crayfish, crayfish! Little Foma, you gawk, where are the crayfish? crayfish, I say, crayfish?!" And for a long time there went on echoing "crayfish, crayfish."

"Well, the host's bustling about," said Chichikov, sitting in an armchair and studying the walls and corners.

"And here I am," said the host, entering and bringing in two youths in summer frock coats. Slender as willow wands, they shot up almost two feet taller than Pyotr Petrovich.

"My sons, high-school boys. Home for the holidays. Nikolasha, you stay with our guest, and you, Alexasha, follow me."

And again Pyotr Petrovich Petukh vanished.

Chichikov occupied himself with Nikolasha. Nikolasha was talkative. He said that the teaching in his school was not very good, that more favor was shown those whose mamas sent them costlier presents, that the Inkermanland hussar regiment was stationed in their town, that Captain Vetvitsky had a better horse than the colonel himself, though Lieutenant Vzemtsev was a far better rider.

"And, tell me, what is the condition of your papa's estate?" asked Chichikov.

"Mortgaged," the papa himself replied to that, appearing in the drawing room again, "mortgaged."

It remained for Chichikov to make the sort of movement with his lips that a man makes when a deal comes to nought and ends in nothing.

"Why did you mortgage it?" he asked.

"Just so. Everybody got into mortgaging, why should I lag behind the rest? They say it's profitable. And besides, I've always lived here, so why not try living in Moscow a bit?"

"The fool, the fool!" thought Chichikov, "he'll squander everything, and turn his children into little squanderers, too. He ought to stay in the country, porkpie that he is!"

"And I know just what you're thinking," said Petukh.

"What?" asked Chichikov, embarrassed.

"You're thinking: 'He's a fool, a fool, this Petukh! Got me to stay for dinner, and there's still no dinner.' It'll be ready, most honorable sir. Quicker than a crop-headed wench can braid her hair."

"Papa, Platon Mikhalych is coming!" said Alexasha, looking out the window.

"Riding a bay horse," Nikolasha added, bending down to the window. "Do you think our gray is worse than that, Alexasha?"

"Worse or not, he doesn't have the same gait."

An argument arose between them about the bay horse and the gray. Meanwhile a handsome man entered the room—tall and trim, with glossy light brown curls and dark eyes. A big-muzzled monster of a dog came in after him, its bronze collar clanking.

"Had dinner?" asked Pyotr Petrovich Petukh.

"I have," said the guest.

"What, then, have you come here to laugh at me?" Petukh said crossly. "Who needs you after dinner?"

"Anyhow, Pyotr Petrovich," the guest said, smiling, "I have this comfort for you, that I ate nothing at dinner: I have no appetite at all."

"And what a catch we had, if only you'd seen! What a giant of a sturgeon came to us! We didn't even count the carp."

"I'm envious just listening to you," said the guest. "Teach me to be as merry as you are."

"But why be bored? for pity's sake!" said the host.

"Why be bored? Because it's boring."

"You eat too little, that's all. Try and have a good dinner. Boredom was only invented recently. Before no one was bored."

"Enough boasting! As if you've never been bored?"

"Never! I don't know, I haven't even got time to be bored. In the morning you wake up, you have to have your tea, and the steward is there, and then it's time for fishing, and then there's dinner. After dinner you just barely have time for a snooze, then it's supper, and then the cook comes—you have to order dinner for the next day. When could I be bored?"

All the while this conversation was going on, Chichikov was studying the guest.

Platon Mikhalych Platonov was Achilles and Paris combined: trim build, impressive height, freshness—all met together in him. A pleasant smile, with a slight expression of irony, seemed to make him still more handsome. But in spite of it all, there was something sleepy and inanimate in him. Passions, sorrows, and shocks had brought no wrinkles to his virginal, fresh face, nor at the same time did they animate it.

"I confess," Chichikov spoke, "I, too, cannot understand—if you will allow me the observation—cannot understand how it is possible, with an appearance such as yours, to be bored. Of course, there may be other reasons: lack of money, oppression from some sort of malefactors—for there exist such as are even ready to make an attempt on one's life."

"That's just it, that there's nothing of the sort," said Platonov. "Believe me, I could wish for it on occasion, that there was at least some sort of care and anxiety. Well, at least that someone would simply make me angry. But no! Boring—and that's all."

"I don't understand. But perhaps your estate isn't big enough, there's too few souls?"

"Not in the least. My brother and I have about thirty thousand acres of land and a thousand peasant souls along with it."

"And yet you're bored. Incomprehensible! But perhaps your estate is in disorder? the harvests have been poor, many people have died?"

"On the contrary, everything's in the best possible order, and my brother is an excellent manager."

"I don't understand!" said Chichikov, shrugging.

"But now we're going to drive boredom away," said the host. "Run to the kitchen, Alexasha, tell the cook to hurry up and send us some fish tarts. Where's that gawk Emelyan and the thief Antoshka? Why don't they serve the hors d'oeuvres?"

But the door opened. The gawk Emelyan and the thief Antoshka appeared with napkins, laid the table, set down a tray with six carafes filled with varicolored liqueurs. Soon, around the tray and the carafes lay a necklace of plates—caviar, cheeses, salted mushrooms of various sorts, and from the kitchen a newly brought something on covered dishes, from which came a gurgling of butter. The gawk Emelyan and the thief Antoshka were fine and efficient folk. The master had given them these appellations only because everything came out somehow insipid without nicknames, and he did not like insipid things; he himself had a good heart, yet he loved a spicy phrase. Anyhow, his servants were not angered by it.

The hors d'oeuvres were followed by dinner. Here the good-natured host turned into a real bully. The moment he noticed someone taking one piece, he would immediately give him a second, muttering: "Without a mate neither man nor bird can live in this world." The guest ate the two—he heaped on a third, muttering: "What good is the number two? God loves the trinity." The guest ate the third—then he: "Who ever saw a cart with three wheels? Does anyone build a cottage with three corners?" For four he had yet another saying, and also for five. Chichikov ate about a dozen helpings of something and thought: "Well, the host can't come up with anything more now." Not so: the host, without saying a word, put on his plate a rack of veal roasted on a spit, the best part there is, with the kidneys, and of such a calf!

"Milk-fed for two years," said the host. "I took care of him like my own son!"

"I can't!" said Chichikov.

"Try it, and then say 'I can't.’“

"It won't go in. No room."

"There was no room in the church either. The governor came—they found room. And there was such a crush that an apple had nowhere to fall. Just try it: this piece is the same as the governor."

Chichikov tried it—the piece was indeed something like a governor. Room was found for it, though it seemed impossible to find any.

With the wines there also came a story. Having received his mortgage money, Pyotr Petrovich had stocked up on provisions for ten years to come. He kept pouring and pouring; whatever the guests left was finished by Nikolasha and Alexasha, who tossed off glass after glass, yet when they left the table, it was as if nothing had happened, as if they had just been drinking water. Not so the guests: with great, great effort they dragged themselves over to the balcony and with great effort lowered themselves into their armchairs. The host, the moment he sat down in his, which was something like a four-seater, immediately fell asleep. His corpulent self turned into a blacksmith's bellows. Through his open mouth and the nostrils of his nose it began producing sounds such as do not exist even in the latest music. Everything was there—drum, flute, and some abrupt sound, like a dog's barking.

"What a whistler!" said Platonov.

Chichikov laughed.

"Naturally, once you've had a dinner like that," Platonov said, "how could boredom come to you! What comes is sleep."

"Yes," Chichikov said lazily. His eyes became extraordinarily small. "All the same, however, I can't understand how it's possible to be bored. There are so many remedies for boredom."

"Such as?"

"There are all sorts for a young man! You can dance, play some instrument... or else—get married."

"To whom, tell me?"

"As if there were no nice and rich brides in the neighborhood?"

"There arent.

"Well, then, you could go and look elsewhere." Here a rich thought flashed in Chichikov's head, his eyes got bigger. "But there is a wonderful remedy!" he said, looking into Platonov's eyes.

"Which?" "Travel.

"Where to?"

"If you're free, then come with me," said Chichikov, thinking to himself as he looked at Platonov: "And it would be nice: we could split the expenses, and the repairs of the carriage could go entirely to his account."

"And where are you going?"

"How shall I say—where? I'm traveling now not so much on my own as on someone else's need. General Betrishchev, a close friend and, one might say, benefactor, asked me to visit his relatives ... of course, relatives are relatives, but it is partly, so to speak, for my own self as well: for to see the world, the circulation of people—whatever they may say—is like a living book, a second education."

Platonov fell to thinking.

Chichikov meanwhile reflected thus: "Truly, it would be nice! It could even be done so that all the expenses would go to his account. It could even be arranged so that we would take his horses and mine would be fed on his estate. I could also spare my carriage by leaving it on his estate and taking his for the road."

"Well, then, why not take a trip?" Platonov was thinking meanwhile. "It really might cheer me up. I have nothing to do at home, the management is in my brother's hands anyway; so there won't be any trouble. Why, indeed, not take a trip?"

"And would you agree," he said aloud, "to being my brother's guest for a couple of days? Otherwise he won't let me go."

"With great pleasure! Even three."

"Well, in that case—my hand on it! Let's go!" said Platonov, livening up.

"Bravo!" said Chichikov, slapping his hand. "Let's go!"

"Where? where?" the host exclaimed, waking up and goggling his eyes at them. "No, gentlemen, I ordered the wheels taken off your coach, and your stallion, Platon Mikhalych, is now ten miles away from here. No, today you spend the night, and tomorrow, after an early dinner, you'll be free to go."

"Well, now!" thought Chichikov. Platonov made no reply, knowing that Petukh held fast to his customs. They had to stay.

In return, they were rewarded with a remarkable spring evening. The host arranged a party on the river. Twelve rowers, manning twenty-four oars, with singing, swept them across the smooth back of the mirrory lake. From the lake they swept on to the river, boundless, with gently sloping banks on both sides. No current stirred the water. They drank tea with kalatchion the boat, constantly passing under cables stretched across the river for net fishing. Still before tea the host had already managed to undress and jump into the river, where he spent about half an hour with the fishermen, splashing about and making a lot of noise, shouting at Big Foma and Kozma, and, having had his fill of shouting, bustling, freezing in the water, he came back aboard with an appetite and drank his tea in a manner enviable to see. Meanwhile the sun went down. Brightness lingered in the sky. The echoes of shouting grew louder. Instead of fishermen, groups of bathing children appeared on the banks everywhere, splashing in the water, laughter echoed far away. The rowers, setting twenty-four oars in motion, would all at once raise them, and the boat would glide by itself, like a light bird, over the moveless mirror surface. A healthy stalwart, fresh as a young wench, the third from the tiller, led the singing alone, working in a clear, ringing voice; five picked it up, six carried it on—and the song poured forth as boundlessly as all Rus; and, hand on ear, the singers themselves were as if lost in its boundlessness. It felt somehow free, and Chichikov thought: "Eh, really, someday I'm going to get me a little country estate!" "Well, where's the good in it," thought Platonov, "in this mournful song? It makes one still more sick at heart."

It was already dusk as they were coming back. In the darkness the oars struck waters that no longer reflected the sky. Barely visible were the little lights on the shores of the lake. The moon was rising when they pulled in to shore. Everywhere fishermen were cooking fish soup on tripods, all of ruff, the fish still quiveringly alive. Everything was already home. Geese, cows, and goats had been driven home long ago, and the very dust they raised had long settled, and their herdsmen stood by the gates waiting for a crock of milk and an invitation for fish soup. Here and there some human chatter and clatter could be heard, the loud barking of dogs from this village, and distant barking from villages farther away. The moon was rising, the darkness began to brighten, and finally everything became bright—lake and cottages; the lights in the windows paled; one could now see the smoke from the chimneys, silvered by moonbeams. Nikolasha and Alexasha swept past them just then on two dashing steeds, racing each other; they raised as much dust as a flock of sheep. "Eh, really, someday I'm going to get me a little country estate!" Chichikov was thinking. A young wench and little Chichikies again rose in his imagination. Who could help being warmed by such an evening?

And at supper they again ate too much. When Pavel Ivanovich came to the room where he was to sleep, and, getting into bed, felt his tummy: "A drum!" he said, "no governor could possibly get in!" Just imagine such a coincidence: on the other side of the wall was the host's study. The wall was thin and one could hear everything that was being said there. The host was ordering the cook to prepare for the next day, in the guise of an early lunch, a decided dinner. And how he was ordering it! It was enough to make a dead man hungry. He sucked and smacked his lips. One heard only: "And fry it, and then let it stew nice and long!" And the cook kept saying in a thin falsetto: "Yes, sir. It can be done, sir. That can be done, too, sir."

"And make a covered pie, a four-cornered one. In one corner put sturgeon cheeks and cartilage, and stuff another with buckwheat and mushrooms with onions, and sweet milt, and brains, and something else as well, whatever you know ..."

"Yes, sir. That could be done, sir."

"And so that on one side, you understand, it gets nice and brown, but on the other let it be a bit lighter. From the bottom, from the bottom, you understand, bake it from the bottom, so that it gets all crumbly, so that it gets all juicy through and through, so that you don't feel it in your mouth—it should melt like snow."

"Devil take it!" thought Chichikov, tossing and turning. "He just won't let me sleep."

"And make me a pig haggis. Put a piece of ice in the middle so that it plumps up nicely. And put things around the sturgeon, garnishes, more garnishes! Surround it with crayfish, and little fried fish, and layer it with a stuffing of smelts with some finely minced horseradish, and mushrooms, and turnips, and carrots, and beans, and isn't there some other root?"

"Some kohlrabi or star-cut beets could be put in," said the cook.

"Put in both kohlrabi and beets. And for the roast you'll make me a garnish like this ..."

"Sleep's gone completely!" said Chichikov, turning on his other side, burying his head in the pillows, and covering himself up with a blanket so as not to hear anything. But through the blanket came unremittingly: "And fry it, and bake it, and let it plump up nicely." He finally fell asleep at some turkey.

The next day the guests overate so much that Platonov was no longer able to ride on horseback; the stallion was sent with Petukh's stableboy. They got into the coach. The big-muzzled dog walked lazily behind the coach. He, too, had overeaten.

"No, it's too much," said Chichikov, as they left the place. "It's even piggish. Are you uncomfortable, Platon Mikhalych? Such a comfortable carriage it was, and suddenly it's become uncomfortable. Petrushka, you must have been fool enough to start repacking? There are boxes sticking out everywhere!"

Platon laughed.

"That I can explain for you," he said. "Pyotr Petrovich put things in for the road."

"Right you are," said Petrushka, turning around from the box, "we were ordered to put everything in the coach—pasterries and pies."

"Right, sir, Pavel Ivanovich," said Selifan, turning around from the box, merrily, "such a respectable master. A regaling landowner! Sent us down a glass of champagne each. Right, sir, and ordered them to give us food from the table—very good food, of a delicate aromer. There's never yet been such a respectful master."

"You see? He's satisfied everyone," said Platon. "Tell me simply, however: do you have time to stop by at a certain estate, some six miles from here? I'd like to say good-bye to my sister and brother-in-law."

"With great pleasure," said Chichikov.

"You won't be any the worse for it: my brother-in-law is quite a remarkable man."

"In what sense?" said Chichikov.