Текст книги "Dead Souls"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

One of the Later Chapters

At the very moment when Chichikov, in a new Persian dressing gown of gold satin, sprawling on the sofa, was bargaining with an itinerant smuggler-merchant of Jewish extraction and German enunciation, and before them already lay a purchased piece of the foremost Holland shirt linen and two pasteboard boxes with excellent soap of first-rate quality (this was precisely the soap he used to acquire at the Radziwill customs; it indeed had the property of imparting an amazing tenderness and whiteness to the cheeks)—at the moment when he, as a connoisseur, was buying these products necessary for a cultivated man, there came the rumble of a carriage driving up, echoed by a slight reverberation of the windows and walls, and in walked His Excellency Alexei Ivanovich Lenitsyn.

"I lay it before Your Excellency's judgment: what linen, what soap, and how about this little thing I bought yesterday!" At which Chichikov put on his head a skullcap embroidered with gold and beads, and acquired the look of a Persian shah, filled with dignity and majesty.

But His Excellency, without answering the question, said with a worried look:

"I must talk with you about an important matter."

One could see by his face that he was upset. The worthy merchant of German enunciation was sent out at once, and they were left alone.

"Do you know what trouble is brewing? They've found another will of the old woman's, made five years ago. Half of the estate goes to the monastery, and the other half is divided equally between the two wards, and nothing to anyone else."

Chichikov was dumbfounded.

"Well, that will is nonsense. It means nothing, it is annulled by the second one."

"But it's not stated in the second will that it annuls the first."

"It goes without saying: the second annuls the first. The first will is totally worthless. I know the will of the deceased woman very well. I was with her. Who signed it? Who were the witnesses?"

"It was certified in the proper manner, in court. The witnesses were the former probate judge Burmilov and Khavanov."

"That's bad," thought Chichikov, "they say Khavanov's an honest man; Burmilov is an old hypocrite, reads the epistle in church on feast days."

"Nonsense, nonsense," he said aloud, and at once felt himself prepared for any trick. "I know better: I shared the deceased woman's last minutes. I'm informed better than anyone. I'm ready to testify personally under oath."

These words and his resoluteness set Lenitsyn at ease for the moment. He was very worried and had already begun to suspect the possibility of some fabrication on Chichikov's part with regard to the will. Now he reproached himself for his suspicions. The readiness to testify under oath was clear proof that Chichikov was innocent. We do not know whether Pavel Ivanovich would have had the courage to swear on the Bible, but he did have the courage to say it.

"Rest assured, I'll discuss the matter with several lawyers. There's nothing here that needs doing on your part; you must stay out of it entirely. And I can now live in town as long as I like."

Chichikov straightaway ordered the carriage readied and went to see a lawyer. This lawyer was a man of extraordinary experience. For fifteen years he had been on trial himself, but he had managed so that it was quite impossible to remove him from his post. Everyone knew him, and knew that he ought to have been sent into exile six times over for his deeds. There were suspicions of him all around and on every side, yet it was impossible to present any clear and proven evidence. Here there was indeed something mysterious, and he might have been boldly recognized as a sorcerer if the story we are telling belonged to the times of ignorance.

The lawyer struck him with the coldness of his looks and the greasiness of his dressing gown, in complete contrast to the good mahogany furniture, the golden clock under its glass case, the chandelier visible through the muslin cover protecting it, and generally to everything around him, which bore the vivid stamp of brilliant European cultivation.

Not hindered, however, by the lawyer's skeptical appearance, Chichikov explained the difficult points of the matter and depicted in alluring perspective the gratitude necessarily consequent upon good counsel and concern.

To this the lawyer responded by depicting the uncertainty of all earthly things, and artfully alluded to the fact that two birds in the bush meant nothing, and what was needed was one in the hand.

There was no help for it: he had to give him the bird in the hand. The philosophers skeptical coldness suddenly vanished. He turned out to be a most good-natured man, most talkative, and most agreeable in his talk, not inferior to Chichikov himself in the adroitness of his manners.

"If I may, instead of starting a long case, you probably did not examine the will very well: there's probably some sort of little addition. Take it home for a while. Though, of course, it's prohibited to take such things home, still, if you ask certain officials nicely ... I, for my part, will exercise my concern."

"I see," thought Chichikov, and he said: "In fact, I really don't remember very well whether there was a little addition or not"– as if he had not written the will himself.

"You'd best look into that. However, in any case," he continued good-naturedly, "always be calm and don't be put out by anything, even if something worse happens. Don't despair of anything ever: there are no incorrigible cases. Look at me: I'm always calm. Whatever mishaps are imputed to me, my calm is imperturbable."

The face of the lawyer-philosopher indeed preserved an extraordinary calm, so that Chichikov was greatly . . . [The sentence is unfinished in the manuscript.—Trans.]

"Of course, that's the first thing," he said. "Admit, however, that there may be such cases and matters, such matters and such calumnies on the part of one's enemies, and such difficult situations, that all calm flies away."

"Believe me, that is pusillanimity," the philosopher-jurist replied very calmly and good-naturedly. "Only make sure that the case is all based on documents, that nothing is merely verbal. And as soon as you see that the case is reaching a denouement and can conveniently be resolved, make sure—not really to justify and defend yourself—no, but simply to confuse things by introducing new and even unrelated issues."

"You mean, so as ...”

"To confuse, to confuse—nothing more," the philosopher replied, "to introduce into the case some other, unrelated circumstances that will entangle other people in it, to make it complicated—nothing more. And then let some Petersburg official come and sort it out. Let him sort it out, just let him!" he repeated, looking into Chichikov's eyes with extraordinary pleasure, the way a teacher looks into his pupil's eyes while explaining some fascinating point in Russian grammar.

"Yes, good, if one picks circumstances capable of blowing smoke in people's eyes," said Chichikov, also looking with pleasure into the philosopher's eyes, like a pupil who has understood the fascinating point explained by his teacher.

"They'll get picked, the circumstances will get picked! Believe me: frequent exercise makes the head resourceful. Above all remember that you're going to be helped. In a complicated case there's gain for many: more officials are needed, and more pay for them ... In short, more people must be drawn into the case. Never mind that some of them will get into it for no reason: it's easier for them to justify themselves, they have to respond to the documents, to pay themselves off. . . So there's bread in it. . . Believe me, as soon as circumstances get critical, the first thing to do is confuse. One can get it so confused, so entangled, that no one can understand anything. Why am I calm? Because I know: if my affairs get worse, I'll entangle them all in it—the governor, the vice-governor, the police chief, and the magiatrate—I'll get them all entangled. I know all their circumstances: who's angry with whom, and who's pouting at whom, and who wants to lock up whom. Let them disentangle themselves later, but while they do, others will have time to make their own gains. The crayfish thrives in troubled waters. Everyone's waiting to entangle everything." Here the jurist-philosopher looked into Chichikov's eyes again with that delight with which the teacher explains to the pupil a still more fascinating point in Russian grammar.

"No, the man is indeed a wizard," Chichikov thought to himself, and he parted from the lawyer in a most excellent and most agreeable state of mind.

Having been completely reassured and reinforced, he threw himself back on the springy cushions of the carriage with careless adroitness, ordered Selifan to take the top down (as he went to the lawyer, he had the top up and even the apron buttoned), and settled exactly like a retired colonel of the hussars, or Vishnepokromov himself—adroitly tucking one leg under the other, turning his face agreeably towards passersby, beaming from under the new silk hat cocked slightly over one ear. Selifan was ordered to proceed in the direction of the shopping arcade. Merchants, both itinerant and aboriginal, standing at the doors of their shops, reverently took their hats off, and Chichikov, not without dignity, raised his own in response. Many of them were already known to him; others, though itinerant, being charmed by the adroit air of this gentleman who knew how to bear himself, greeted him like an acquaintance. The fair in the town of Phooeyslavl was never-ending. After the horse fair and the agricultural fair were over, there came the fair of luxury goods for gentlefolk of high cultivation. The merchants who came on wheels planned to go home not otherwise than on sleds.

"Welcome, sir, welcome!" a German frock coat made in Moscow kept saying, outside a fabric shop, posing courteously, his head uncovered, his hat in his outstretched hand, just barely holding two fingers to his round, glabrous chin and with an expression of cultivated finesse on his face.

Chichikov went into the shop.

"Show me your little fabrics, my most gentle sir."

The propitious merchant at once lifted the removable board in the counter and, having thereby made a passage for himself, wound up inside the shop, his back to his goods, his face to the buyer.

Standing back to his goods and face to the buyer, the merchant of the bare head and the outstretched hat greeted Chichikov once again. Then he put his hat on and, leaning forward agreeably, his two arms resting on the counter, spoke thus:

"What sort of cloth, sir? Of English manufacture, or do you prefer domestic?"

"Domestic," said Chichikov, "only precisely of that best sort known as English cloth."

"What colors would you prefer?" inquired the merchant, still swaying agreeably with his two arms resting on the counter.

"Dark colors, olive or bottle green, with flecks tending, so to speak, towards cranberry," said Chichikov.

"I may say that you will get the foremost sort, of which there is none better in either capital," the merchant said as he hoisted himself to the upper shelf to get the bolt; he flung it down adroitly onto the counter, unrolled it from the other end, and held it to the light. "What play, sir! The most fashionable, the latest taste!"

The cloth gleamed like silk. The merchant could smell that there stood before him a connoisseur of fabrics, and he did not wish to begin with the ten-rouble sort.

"Decent enough," said Chichikov, stroking it lightly. "But I tell you what, my worthy man, show me at once the one you save for last, and there should be more of that color . . . those flecks, those red flecks."

"I understand, sir: you truly want the color that is now becoming fashionable in Petersburg. I have cloth of the most excellent properties. I warn you that the price is high, but so is the quality."

"Let's have it."

Not a word about the price.

The bolt fell from above. The merchant unrolled it with still greater art, grasping the other end and unrolling it like silk, offered it to Chichikov so that he would have the opportunity not only of examining it, but even of smelling it, and merely said:

"Here's the fabric, sir! the colors of the smoke and flame of Navarino!" [67]67
  Navarino, or Pylos, is a Greek port in the southwest Peloponnesus on the Ionian Sea where, in 1827, the joint naval forces of Russia, England, and France destroyed the Turkish fleet.


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The price was agreed upon. The iron yardstick, like a magician's wand, meted out enough for Chichikov's tailcoat and trousers. Having snipped it a little with his scissors, the merchant performed with both hands the deft tearing of the fabric across its whole width, and on finishing bowed to Chichikov with the most seductive agreeableness. The fabric was straightaway folded and deftly wrapped in paper; the package twirled under the light string. Chichikov was just going to his pocket when he felt his waist being pleasantly encircled by someone's very delicate arm, and his ears heard:

"What are you buying here, my most respected friend?"

"Ah, what a pleasantly unexpected meeting!" said Chichikov.

"A pleasant encounter," said the voice of the same man who had encircled his waist. It was Vishnepokromov. "I was prepared to pass by the shop without paying any attention, when suddenly I saw a familiar face—how can one deny oneself an agreeable pleasure! There's no denying the fabrics are incomparably better this year. It's a shame and a disgrace! I simply couldn't find . . . Thirty roubles, forty roubles I'm prepared to . . . ask even fifty, but give me something good. I say either one has something that is really of the most excellent quality, or it's better not to have it at all. Right?"

"Absolutely right!" said Chichikov. "Why work, if it's not so as to have something really good?"

"Show me some moderate-priced fabrics," a voice came from behind that seemed familiar to Chichikov. He turned around: it was Khlobuev. By all tokens he was buying fabric not merely on a whim, for his wretched frock coat was quite worn out.

"Ah, Pavel Ivanovich! allow me to speak with you at last. One can't find you anymore. I came by several times—you're always out.

"My esteemed friend, I've been so busy that, by God, I've had no time." He looked around, hoping to elude explanations, and saw Murazov coming into the shop. "Afanasy Vassilyevich! Ah, my God!" said Chichikov. "What a pleasant encounter!"

And Vishnepokromov repeated after him:

"Afanasy Vassilyevich!"

And Khlobuev repeated:

"Afanasy Vassilyevich!"

And, lastly, the well-bred merchant, having carried his hat as far away from his head as his arm permitted, and, all of him thrust forward, pronounced:

"To Afanasy Vassilyevich—our humblest respects!"

Their faces were stamped with that doglike servility that is rendered unto millionaires by the doglike race of men.

The old man exchanged bows with them all and turned directly to Khlobuev:

"Excuse me: I saw you from far off going into the shop, and decided to trouble you. If you're free afterwards and my house is not out of your way, kindly stop by for a short while. I must have a talk with you."

Khlobuev said:

"Very well, Afanasy Vassilyevich."

"What wonderful weather we're having, Afanasy Vassilyevich," said Chichikov.

"Isn't that so, Afanasy Vassilyevich," Vishnepokromov picked up, "it's extraordinary."

"Yes, sir, thank God, it's not bad. But we need a bit of rain for the crops."

"We do, very much," said Vishnepokromov, "it would even be good for the hunting."

"Yes, a bit of rain wouldn't hurt," said Chichikov, who did not need any rain, but felt it so pleasant to agree with a man who had a million.

And the old man, having bowed to them all again, walked out.

"My head simply spins," said Chichikov, "when I think that this man has ten million. It's simply impossible."

"It's not a rightful thing, though," said Vishnepokromov, "capital shouldn't be in one man's hands. That's even the subject of treatises now all over Europe. You have money—so, share it with others: treat people, give balls, produce beneficent luxury, which gives bread to the artisans, the master craftsmen."

"This I am unable to understand," said Chichikov. "Ten million—and he lives like a simple muzhik! With ten million one could do devil knows what. It could be so arranged that you wouldn't have any other company than generals and princes."

"Yes, sir," the merchant added, "with all his respectable qualities, there's much uncultivatedness in Afanasy Vassilyevich. If a merchant is respectable, he's no longer a merchant, he's already in a certain way a negotiant. I've got to take a box in the theater, then, and I'll never marry my daughter to a mere colonel—no, sir, I won't marry her to anything but a general. What's a colonel to me? My dinner's got to be provided by a confectioner, not just any cook ..."

"What's there to talk about! for pity's sake," said Vishnepokromov, "what can one not do with ten million? Give me ten million—you'll see what I'll do!"

"No," thought Chichikov, "you won't do much that's sensible with ten million. But if I were to have ten million, I'd really do something."

"No, if I were to have ten million now, after this dreadful experience!" thought Khlobuev. "Eh, it would be different now: one comes to know the value of every kopeck by experience." And then, having thought for a moment, he asked himself inwardly: "Would I really handle it more intelligently?" And, waving his hand, he added: "What the devil! I suppose I'd squander it just as I did before," and he walked out of the shop, burning with desire to know what Murazov would say to him.

"I've been waiting for you, Pyotr Petrovich!" said Murazov, when he saw Khlobuev enter. "Please come to my little room."

And he led Khlobuev into the little room already familiar to the reader, and so unpretentious that an official with a salary of seven hundred roubles a year would not have one more so.

"Tell me, now, I suppose your circumstances have improved? You did get something from your aunt?"

"How shall I tell you, Afanasy Vassilyevich? I don't know whether my circumstances have improved. I got only fifty peasant souls and thirty thousand roubles, which I had to pay out to cover part of my debts—and I again have exactly nothing. And the main thing is that this thing about the will is most shady. Such swindling has been going on here, Afanasy Vassilyevich! I'll tell you right now, and you'll marvel at such goings-on. This Chichikov ..."

"Excuse me, Pyotr Petrovich: before we talk about this Chichikov, allow me to talk about you yourself. Tell me: how much, in your estimation, would be satisfactory and sufficient for you to extricate yourself completely from these circumstances?"

"My circumstances are difficult," said Khlobuev. "And in order to extricate myself, pay everything off, and have the possibility of living in the most moderate fashion, I would need at least a hundred thousand, if not more. In short, it's impossible for me."

"Well, and if you had it, how would you lead your life then?"

"Well, I would then rent a little apartment and occupy myself with my children's upbringing, because I'm not going to enter the service: I'm no longer good for anything."

"And why are you no longer good for anything?"

"But where shall I go, judge for yourself! I can't start as an office clerk. You forget that I have a family. I'm forty, I have lower-back pains, I've grown lazy; they won't give me a more important post; I'm not in good repute. I confess to you: I personally would not take a lucrative post. I may be a worthless man, a gambler, anything you like, but I won't take bribes. I wouldn't get along with Krasnonosov and Samosvistov."

"But still, excuse me, sir, I can't understand how one can be without any path; how can you walk if not down a path; how can you drive if there's no ground under you; how can you float if the bark isn't in the water? And life is a journey. Forgive me, Pyotr Petrovich, those gentlemen of whom you are speaking are, after all, on some sort of path, they do work, after all. Well, let's say they turned off somehow, as happens with every sinner; yet there's hope they'll find their way back. Whoever walks can't fail to arrive; there's hope he'll find his way back. But how will one who sits idle get to any path? The path won't come to me."

"Believe me, Afanasy Vassilyevich, I feel you're absolutely right, but I tell you that all activity has decidedly perished and died in me; I don't see that I can be of any use to anyone in the world. I

feel that I'm decidedly a useless log. Before, when I was younger, it seemed to me that it was all a matter of money, that if I had hundreds of thousands in my hands, I'd make many people happy: I'd help poor artists, I'd set up libraries, useful institutions, assemble collections. I'm a man not without taste, and I know that in many respects I could manage better than those rich men among us who do it all senselessly. And now I see that this, too, is vanity and there's not much sense in it. No, Afanasy Vassilyevich, I'm good for nothing, precisely nothing, I tell you. I'm not capable of the least thing."

"Listen, Pyotr Petrovich! But you do pray, you go to church, you don't miss any matins or vespers, I know. Though you don't like getting up early, you do get up and go—you go at four o'clock in the morning, when no one's up yet."

"That is a different matter, Afanasy Vassilyevich. I do it for the salvation of my soul, because I'm convinced that I will thereby make up at least somewhat for my idle life, that, bad as I am, prayers still mean something to God. I tell you that I pray, that even without faith, I still pray. One feels only that there is a master on whom everything depends, as a horse or a beast of burden smells the one who harnesses him."

"So you pray in order to please the one you pray to, in order to save your soul, and this gives you strength and makes you get up early from your bed. Believe me, if you were to undertake your work in the same fashion, as if in the certainty that you are serving the one you pray to, you would become active and no man among us would be able to cool you down."

"Afanasy Vassilyevich! I tell you again that this is something different. In the first case I see that anyway I'm doing something. I tell you that I'm ready to go to the monastery, and I'll do whatever labors and deeds they impose on me there, even the heaviest. I'm sure that it's not my business to reason about what will be asked of those who make me do it; there I obey and know that I'm obeying God."

"And why don't you reason that way in worldly matters as well? In the world we must also serve God and no one else. Even if we serve another, we do it only while being convinced that God tells us to do so, and without that we would not serve. What else are all our abilities and gifts, which vary from one person to another? They are tools for our prayer: the one is in words, and the other is in deeds. You cannot go to a monastery: you're tied to the world, you have a family."

Here Murazov fell silent. Khlobuev also fell silent.

"So you suppose that if you had, for instance, two hundred thousand, you would be able to shore up your life and live more economically therafter?"

"That is, at least I would occupy myself with what I would be able to do—my children's upbringing; it would be possible for me to provide them with good teachers."

"And shall I tell you this, Pyotr Petrovich, that in two years you'd again be over your head in debt, as in a net?"

Khlobuev was silent for a while, and then began measuredly:

"Not really, though, after such experience ..."

"What's experience?" said Murazov. "You see, I know you. You're a man with a good heart: a friend will come to borrow money from you—you'll give it to him; you'll see a poor man and want to help; a nice guest will come—you'll want to receive him better, and you'll obey that first good impulse and forget your accounting. And allow me finally to tell you in all sincerity that you are unable to bring up your own children. Children can be brought up only by a father who has already done his own duty. And your wife . . . she, too, is good-hearted . . . she wasn't brought up at all so as to be able to bring up children. I even think—forgive me, Pyotr Petrovich—mightn't it even be harmful for the children to be with you?"

Khlobuev thought a little: he began to examine himself mentally on all sides and finally felt that Murazov was partly right.

"You know what, Pyotr Petrovich? hand it all over to me– your children, your affairs; leave your family, and the children: I'll take care of them. Your circumstances are such that you are in my hands; you're heading for starvation. Here you must be prepared to do anything. Do you know Ivan Potapych?"

"And respect him greatly, even though he goes around in a sibirka."

"Ivan Potapych was a millionaire, got his daughters married to officials, lived like a tsar; but once he was bankrupt—what to do?

He went and became a shop clerk. It was no fun for him going from a silver platter to a simple bowl: it seemed he couldn't set a hand to anything. Now Ivan Potapych could gobble from a silver platter, but he no longer wants to. He could save it all up again, but he says: 'No, Afanasy Ivanovich, [Thus in the manuscript; it should be Vassilyevich.– Trans.]now I do not serve myself or for myself, but because God has judged so. I don't wish to do anything of my own will. I listen to you, because I wish to obey God and not people, and because God speaks only through the mouths of the best people. You are more intelligent than I am, and therefore it is not I who answer, but you.' That is what Ivan Potapych says; and he, if the truth be told, is many times more intelligent than I am."

"Afanasy Vassilyevich! I, too, am ready to acknowledge your power over me, I am your servant and whatever you want: I give myself to you. But don't give me work beyond my strength: I'm no Potapych, and I tell you that I'm not fit for anything good."

"It is not I, Pyotr Petrovich, who will impose it on you, but since you wish to serve, as you yourself say, sir, here is a God-pleasing deed for you. There is a church being built in a certain place on voluntary donations from pious people. There's not enough money, a collection must be taken. Put on a simple sibirka. .. you see, you're a simple man now, a ruined nobleman, the same as a beggar: why pretend? With ledger in hand, in a simple cart, go around to the towns and villages. You'll get a blessing and a loose-leaf ledger from the bishop, and go with God."

Pyotr Petrovich was amazed by this completely new duty. He, a nobleman, after all, of a once ancient family, was to set out with a ledger in his hand, to beg donations for a church, and go bouncing along in a cart to boot! And yet it was impossible to wriggle out of it or avoid it: it was a God-pleasing thing.

"Thinking it over?" said Murazov. "You'll be performing two services here: one for God, and the other—for me."

"What for you?"

"Here's what. Since you'll be going to places where I've never been, you'll find out everything on the spot, sir: how the muzhiks live there, where the richer ones are, where the needy, and what condition it's all in. I must tell you that I love the muzhiks, perhaps because I myself come from muzhiks. But the thing is that all sorts of vileness is going on among them. Old Believers [68]68
  The Old Believers, called Raskolniki("schismatics") in Russian, split off from the Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century, in disagreement with reforms carried out by the patriarch Nikon. Some sects of the Old Believers refused obedience to the civil authorities, claiming that they, like the Church, were under the sway of the Antichrist.


[Закрыть]and various vagabonds confuse them, sir, get them to rebel against the authorities, yes, against the authorities and the regulations, and if a man is oppressed, he rebels easily. Why, as if it's hard to stir up a man who is truly suffering! But the thing is that reprisals ought not to start from below. It's bad when it comes to fists: there'll be no sense to it, only the thieves will gain. You're an intelligent man, you'll examine things, you'll find out where a man indeed suffers from others, and where from his own restless character, and then you'll tell me about it all. I'll give you a small sum of money just in case, to give to those who truly suffer innocently. For your part, it will also be helpful to comfort them with your word, and to explain to them as best you can that God tells us to endure without murmuring, and to pray in times of misfortune, and not to be violent and take justice into our own hands. In short, speak to them, not rousing anyone against anyone else, but reconciling them all. If you see hatred in anyone against whomever it may be, apply all your efforts."

"Afanasy Vassilyevich! the task you are entrusting to me," said Khlobuev, "is a holy task; but remember whom you are entrusting it to. You might entrust it to a man who is of almost holy life and already knows how to forgive others."

"But I'm not saying you should accomplish it all, only as much as possible, whatever you can. The thing is that you will come back from those parts with some knowledge in any case, and will have an idea of the situation in that area. An official will never meet anyone personally, and a muzhik will not be frank with him. While you, collecting for the church, will call on all sorts of people—tradesmen, merchants—and will have the chance to question them all. I'm telling you this, sir, because the Governor-general now has special need of such people; and you, bypassing all official promotions, will get a position in which your life will not be useless."

"I'll try, I'll apply my efforts, as far as my strength allows," said Khlobuev. And reassurance could be noted in his voice, his back straightened, and his head lifted, as with a man upon whom hope shines. "I see that God has granted you understanding, and you know certain things better than we nearsighted people."

"Now allow me to ask you," said Murazov, "what Chichikov is and what sort of affair it is?"

"I can tell you unheard-of things about Chichikov. He pulls such deals . . . Do you know, Afanasy Vassilyevich, that the will is false? The real one has been found, in which the whole estate goes to the wards."

"What are you saying? But who, then, concocted the false will?"

"That's just the thing, it's a most vile affair! They say it was Chichikov, and that the will was signed after death: they dressed up some woman in place of the deceased, and it was she who signed it. In short, a most tempting affair. They say thousands of petitions have come from all sides. Marya Yeremeevna is now besieged by wooers; two functionaries are already fighting over her. That's what sort of affair it is, Afanasy Vassilyevich!"