Текст книги "Dead Souls"

Автор книги: Николай Гоголь

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

Chichikov again raised his eyes and again saw Canaris with his fat haunches and interminable mustaches, Bobelina, and the thrush in the cage.

For the space of nearly a whole five minutes, they all preserved their silence; the only sound was the tapping of the thrush's beak against the wood of the wooden cage, on the bottom of which he was fishing for grains of wheat. Chichikov glanced around the room once more: everything that was in it, everything, was solid, clumsy in the highest degree, and bore some strange resemblance to the master of the house himself; in the corner of the drawing room stood a big-bellied walnut bureau on four most preposterous legs, a veritable bear. The table, the chairs, the armchairs—all was of the most heavy and uncomfortable quality—in short, every object, every chair seemed to be saying: "I, too, am Sobakevich!" or "I, too, am very like Sobakevich!"

"We were remembering you at the head magistrate's, at Ivan Grigorievich's," Chichikov said finally, seeing that no one was disposed to begin the conversation, "last Thursday. We had a very pleasant time there."

"Yes, I wasn't at the magistrate's then," replied Sobakevich.

"A wonderful man!"

"Who is?" said Sobakevich, staring at the corner of the stove.

"The magistrate."

"Well, maybe it seemed so to you: he's a mason, but otherwise as big a fool as the world has yet produced."

Chichikov was a bit taken aback by this rather sharp definition, but then recovered himself and went on:

"Of course, no man is without weaknesses, but the governor, on the other hand, is such an excellent man!"

"The governor is an excellent man?"

"Yes, isn't it true?"

"The foremost bandit in the world!"

"What, the governor a bandit?" said Chichikov, totally unable to understand how the governor could come to be a bandit. "I confess, I would never have thought it," he went on. "But allow me, nevertheless, to observe: his actions are not like that at all, on the contrary, there is even a good deal of softness in him." Here he held up as evidence even the purses embroidered by his own hands, and spoke with praise of the gentle expression of his face.

"And he has the face of a bandit!" said Sobakevich. "Just give him a knife and set him out on the highway—he'll stick it in you, he'll do it for a kopeck! He and the vice-governor—they're Gog and Magog!" [21]21
  In Ezekiel (38:2, 3, 18; 39:11, 15) Gog is named as prince of Meshech and Tubal, in some unclear relation with "the land of Magog." In Revelation (20:8) Gog and Magog are called "the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth." But in the popular mind, the rhyming names suggest two evil monsters.


[Закрыть]

"No, he's not on good terms with them," Chichikov thought to himself. "I'll try talking with him about the police chief: it seems he's a friend of his."

"Anyhow, as for me," he said, "I confess, I like the police chief most of all. He has a direct, open sort of character; there's something simple-hearted in his face."

"A crook!" Sobakevich said very coolly. "He'll sell you, deceive you, and then sit down to dinner with you! I know them all: they're all crooks, the whole town is the same: a crook mounted on a crook and driving him with a crook. Judases, all of them. There's only one decent man there: the prosecutor—and to tell the truth, he, too, is a swine."

After such laudatory, if somewhat brief, biographies, Chichikov saw that there was no point in mentioning any other officials, and remembered that Sobakevich did not like to speak well of anyone.

"Now then, sweetie, let's go and have dinner," Sobakevich's spouse said to him.

"Please!" said Sobakevich.

Whereupon, going up to the table where the hors d'oeuvres were, guest and host fittingly drank a glass of vodka each, and snacked as the whole of Russia snacks in towns and villages—that is, on various pickled things and other savory blessings—and they all flowed into the dining room; at their head, like a gliding goose, swept the hostess. The small table was set for four. The fourth place was very quickly claimed, it is hard to say positively by whom, a lady or a young maid, a relation, a housekeeper, or simply a woman living in the house: something without a bonnet, about thirty years old, in a motley shawl. There are persons who exist in the world not as objects, but as alien specks or spots on objects. They sit in the same place, hold their head in the identical manner, one is ready to take them for furniture and thinks that in all their born days no word has ever passed those lips; but somewhere in the servants' quarters or the pantry it turns out simply—oh-ho-ho!

"The cabbage soup is very good today, my sweet!" said Sobakevich, having slurped up some soup and heaped on his plate an enormous piece of nyanya,a well-known dish served with cabbage soup, consisting of a sheep's stomach stuffed with buckwheat groats, brains, and trotters. "Such nyanyayou'll never get in town," he went on, addressing Chichikov, "they'll serve you the devil knows what there!"

"The governor, however, keeps a rather good table," said Chichikov.

"But do you know what it's all made from? You wouldn't eat it if you found out."

"I don't know how it's prepared, I can't judge about that, but the pork cutlets and poached fish were excellent."

"It seemed so to you. I know what they buy at the market. That rascal of a cook, who learned from a Frenchman, buys a cat, skins it, and serves it instead of hare."

"Pah! what an unpleasant thing to say," said Sobakevich's spouse.

"But, sweetie, that's what they do, it's not my fault, that's what they all do. Whatever they've got that's unusable, that our Akulka throws, if I may say so, into the pig bucket, they put into the soup! into the soup! right plop into it!"

"What things you're always telling about at the table!" Sobakevich's spouse objected again.

"But, my sweet," said Sobakevich, "it's not as if I were doing it myself, but I'll tell you right to your face, I will not eat any vile-ness. No frog, even if it's pasted all over with sugar, will ever go near my mouth, and no oyster either: I know what oysters are like. Take this lamb," he went on, addressing Chichikov, "this is a rack of lamb with buckwheat groats! It's not that fricassee they make in squires' kitchens out of lamb that's been lying around the marketplace for four days! It was German and French doctors who invented it all, I'd have the whole lot of them hung for it! They invented the diet, the hunger treatment! With their thin-boned German nature, they fancy they can take on the Russian stomach, too! No, it's all wrong, all these inventions, it's all..." Here Sobakevich even shook his head angrily. "They say: enlightenment, enlightenment, and this enlightenment—poof! I'd use another word, only it wouldn't be proper at the table. With me it's not like that. With me, if it's pork—let's have the whole pig on the table, if it's lamb—drag in the whole sheep, if goose—the whole goose! Better that I eat just two courses, but eat my fill, as my soul demands." Sobakevich confirmed this in action: he dumped half of the rack of lamb onto his own plate, ate it all up, gnawed it, and sucked it out to the last little bone.

"Yes," thought Chichikov, "there's no flies on this one."

"With me it's not like that," Sobakevich said, wiping his hands on a napkin, "with me it's not like with some Plyushkin: he owns eight hundred souls, yet he lives and eats worse than my shepherd!"

"Who is this Plyushkin?" asked Chichikov.

"A crook," replied Sobakevich. "Such a niggard, it's hard to imagine. Jailbirds in prison live better than he does: he's starved all his people to death ..."

"Indeed!" Chichikov picked up with interest. "And you say his people are actually dying in large numbers?"

"Dropping like flies."

"Like flies, really! And may I ask how far away he lives?"

"Three miles."

"Three miles!" exclaimed Chichikov, and he even felt a slight throb in his heart. "But if one were driving out your gate, would it be to the right or the left?"

"I wouldn't advise you even to know the way to that dog's!"

said Sobakevich. "It's more excusable to go and visit some indecent place than him."

"No, I wasn't asking for any reason, but just because I'm interested in learning about all sorts of places," Chichikov replied to that.

After the rack of lamb came cheesecakes, each much bigger than a plate, then a turkey the size of a calf, chock-full of all sorts of good things: eggs, rice, livers, and whatnot else, all of which settled in one lump in the stomach. With that dinner ended; but when they got up from the table, Chichikov felt himself a good ton heavier. They went to the drawing room, where a saucer of preserves was already waiting—not pear, not plum, not any other berry—which, however, neither guest nor host touched. The hostess stepped out in order to put more in other saucers. Taking advantage of her absence, Chichikov addressed Sobakevich, who was lying in an armchair, only letting out little groans after such a hearty dinner and producing some unintelligible sounds with his mouth, crossing and covering it with his hand every moment. [22]22
  Russians (and others) have a custom of making the sign of the cross over their mouths when they yawn, to keep evil spirits from flying in.


[Закрыть]Chichikov addressed him in the following words:

"I would like to talk with you about a little business."

"Here's more preserves," said the hostess, returning with a saucer, "black radish, cooked in honey."

"We'll get to it later!" said Sobakevich. "You go to your room now, Pavel Ivanovich and I are going to take our coats off and rest a bit."

The hostess at once expressed a readiness to send for feather beds and pillows, but the host said: "Never mind, we'll rest in the armchairs," and the hostess left.

Sobakevich inclined his head slightly, preparing to hear what the little business was about.

Chichikov began somehow very remotely, touched generally on the entire Russian state, and spoke in great praise of its vast-ness, saying that even the most ancient Roman monarchy was not so big, and foreigners are rightly astonished . . . Sobakevich went on listening, his head bent. And that according to the existing regulations of this state, unequaled in glory, the souls listed in the census, once their life's path has ended, are nevertheless counted equally with the living until the new census is taken, so as not to burden the institutions with a quantity of petty and useless documents and increase the complexity of the already quite complex state machinery . . . Sobakevich went on listening, his head bent—and that, nevertheless, for all the justice of this measure, it was often somewhat burdensome for many owners, obliging them to pay taxes as if for the living object, and that he, feeling a personal respect for him, would even be ready to take this truly heavy responsibility partly upon himself. With regard to the main object, Chichikov expressed himself very cautiously: he never referred to the souls as dead, but only as nonexistent.

Sobakevich went on listening in the same way, his head bowed, and nothing in the least resembling expression showed on his face. It seemed there was no soul in this body at all, or if there was, it was not at all where it ought to be, but, as with the deathless Koshchey, [23]23
  Koshchey the Deathless is a wicked character from Russian folktales. The hero of the tales must cross the sea, come to an island, find an oak tree, dig up a chest under the oak tree, find in the chest a hare, in the hare a duck, in the duck an egg, and in the egg a needle. When the hero breaks off the point of the needle, Koshchey dies.


[Закрыть]was somewhere beyond the mountains, and covered with such a thick shell that whatever stirred at the bottom of it produced decidedly no movement on the surface.

"And so . . . ?" said Chichikov, waiting not without some anxiety for an answer.

"You want dead souls?" Sobakevich asked quite simply, without the least surprise, as if they were talking about grain.

"Yes," replied Chichikov, and again he softened the expression, adding, "nonexistent ones."

"They could be found, why not. . . ," said Sobakevich.

"And if so, then you, undoubtedly . . . would be pleased to get rid of them?"

"If you like, I'm ready to sell," said Sobakevich, now raising his head slightly, as he realized that the buyer must certainly see some profit in it.

"Devil take it," Chichikov thought to himself, "this one's already selling before I've made a peep!" and said aloud:

"And, for instance, about the price? . . . though, anyhow, it's such an object. . . that a price is even a strange thing to ...”

"Well, so as not to ask too much from you, let's make it a hundred apiece!" said Sobakevich.

"A hundred!" cried Chichikov, opening his mouth and looking him straight in the eye, not knowing whether he himself had not heard right or Sobakevich's tongue, being of a heavy nature, had turned the wrong way and blurted out one word instead of another.

"Why, is that too costly for you?" Sobakevich said, and then added: "And what, incidentally, would your price be?"

"My price? Surely we've made a mistake somehow, or not understood each other, or have forgotten what the object in question is. I suppose, for my part, laying my hand on my heart, that eighty kopecks per soul would be the fairest price."

"Eh, that's overdoing it—a mere eighty kopecks!"

"Well, in my judgment, to my mind, it can't be more."

"But I'm not selling bast shoes."

"However, you must agree, they're not people either."

"So you think you'll find someone fool enough to take a few kopecks for a registered soul?"

"I beg your pardon, but why do you call them registered, when the souls themselves have been dead for a long time, and all that's left is a sensually imperceptible sound. However, not to get into further conversation along this line, I'll give you a rouble and a half, if you please, but more I cannot do."

"It's a shame for you even to mention such a sum! Come on, bargain, tell me the real price!"

"I cannot, Mikhail Semyonovich, trust my conscience, I cannot: what's impossible is impossible," Chichikov said, yet he did add another fifty kopecks.

"How can you be so stingy?" said Sobakevich. "Really, it's not so costly! Some crook would cheat you, sell you trash, not souls; but mine are all hale as nuts, all picked men: if not craftsmen, then some other kind of sturdy muzhiks. Just look: there's Mikheev the cartwright, for example! Never made any other kind of carriage than the spring kind. And not like your typical Moscow workmanship, good for an hour—really solid, and he does the upholstery and lacquering himself!"

Chichikov opened his mouth to observe that Mikheev had, however, long since departed this life; but Sobakevich had entered, as they say, into his full speaking strength, wherever on earth he got this clip and gift of words:

"And Cork Stepan, the carpenter? I'll bet my life you won't find such a muzhik anywhere. What tremendous strength! If he'd served in the guards, God knows what they'd have given him, he was seven feet tall!"

Chichikov was again about to observe that Cork, too, had departed this life; but Sobakevich obviously could not contain himself: speech poured out in such torrents that one could only listen:

"Milushkin, the bricklayer! Could put a stove into any house you like. Maxim Telyatnikov, the cobbler: one prick of the awl and your boots are done, and boots they are, too, thank you very much, and never a drop of liquor in him. And Yeremey Soroko-plyokhin! This muzhik alone is worth all the others, he went trading in Moscow, brought five hundred roubles in quittent alone. That's the kind of folk they are! A far cry from what some sort of Plyushkin would sell you."

"I beg your pardon," Chichikov said finally, amazed by such an abundant flood of speeches, which also seemed to have no end, "but why do you enumerate all their qualities, they're not good for anything now, these are all dead folk. A dead body's a good fence prop, as the proverb says."

"Yes, of course, they're dead," Sobakevich said, as if catching himself and remembering that they were indeed already dead, and then added: "Though one can also say: what about those people who are now listed as living? What sort of people are they? Flies, not people."

"Still, they do exist, while these are a dream."

"Oh, no, not a dream! I'll tell you what sort Mikheev was, one of those people you don't find anymore: such a huge machine, he wouldn't fit into this room; no, it's not a dream! And there was such tremendous strength in his tremendous shoulders as no horse ever had; I'd like to know where else you'll find such a dream!"

These last words he spoke addressing the portraits of Bagration and Colocotronis [24]24
  Theodoras Colocotronis (1770-1843), a Greek general, was another hero of the Greek war of independence.


[Закрыть]hanging on the wall, as commonly happens when people are conversing and one of them suddenly, for some unknown reason, addresses not the one whom his words concern, but some third who chances to come in, even a total stranger, from whom he knows he will hear neither a reply, nor an opinion, nor a confirmation, but at whom he will nevertheless direct his gaze, as if calling on him to act as intermediary; and the stranger, slightly confused for the first moment, does not know whether to answer him on the matter, of which he has heard nothing, or to stand there for a moment, maintaining the proper decorum, and only then walk away.

"No, more than two roubles I cannot give," said Chichikov.

"If you please, so that you won't claim I'm asking too much and don't want to do you a favor, if you please—seventy-five roubles per soul, only in banknotes, really only for the sake of our acquaintance!"

"What indeed is with him," Chichikov thought to himself, "does he take me for a fool, or what?" and then added aloud:

"I find it strange, really: it seems some theater performance or comedy is going on between us, otherwise I can't explain it to myself . . . You seem to be quite an intelligent man, you possess educated knowledge. The object is simply pooh-pooh. What is it worth? Who needs it?"

"Well, you're buying it, that means you need it."

Here Chichikov bit his lip and could find no reply. He tried to begin talking about some family and domestic circumstances, but Sobakevich responded simply:

"I have no need to know what your relations are; I don't interfere in family affairs, that's your business. You're in need of souls, I'm selling them to you, and you'll regret it if you don't buy them."

"Two roubles," said Chichikov.

"Eh, really, the parrot calls everyone Poll, as the proverb says; you're stuck on this two and don't want to get off it. Give me your real price!"

"Well, devil take him," Chichikov thought to himself, "I'll add fifty kopecks, the dog, to buy nuts with!"

"If you please, I'll add fifty kopecks."

"Well, if you please, I'll also give you my final word: fifty roubles! It's my loss, really, you won't get such fine folk so cheaply anywhere else!"

"What a pinchfist!" Chichikov said to himself, and then continued aloud in some vexation:

"What indeed is this ... as if it were all quite a serious matter;

I can get them for nothing elsewhere. Anyone would be eager to unload them on me, just to get rid of them the sooner. Only a fool would keep them and pay taxes on them!"

"But, you know, this kind of purchase—I say it between the two of us, in friendship—is not always permissible, and if I or someone else were to tell, such a person would not enjoy any confidence with regard to contracts or on entering into any sort of profitable obligations."

"So that's what he's aiming at, the scoundrel!" thought Chichikov, and he straightaway uttered with a most cool air:

"As you wish, I'm not buying out of any sort of need, as you think, but just like that, following the bent of my own thoughts. If you don't want two and a half—good-bye!"

"He won't be thrown off, the tough one!" thought Sobakevich.

"Well, God help you, give me thirty and take them!"

"No, I can see you don't want to sell, good-bye!"

"Excuse me, excuse me," said Sobakevich, not letting go of his hands and stepping on his foot, for our hero had forgotten his caution, in punishment for which he had to hiss and jump about on one foot.

"I beg your pardon! I seem to have inconvenienced you. Do sit down here! Please!" Whereupon he seated him in an armchair even with a certain dexterity, like a bear that has had some training and knows how to turn somersaults and perform various tricks in response to questions like: "Show us, Misha, how peasant women take a steam bath" or "Misha, how do little children steal peas?"

"Really, I'm wasting my time, I must hurry."

"Stay for one little minute, I'm going to tell you something right now that you'll find very pleasant." Here Sobakevich sat down closer to Chichikov and said softly in his ear, as if it were a secret: "Want a quarter?"

"You mean twenty-five roubles? No, no, no, not even a quarter of a quarter, I won't add a single kopeck."

Sobakevich fell silent. Chichikov also fell silent. The silence lasted about two minutes. From the wall, Bagration with his aquiline nose looked extremely attentively upon this purchasing.

"So what's your final price?" Sobakevich said at last.

"Two-fifty."

"Really, for you a human soul is the same as a stewed turnip. Give me three roubles at least!" I can’t.

"Well, there's nothing to do with you, if you please! It's a loss, but I have this beastly character: I can't help gratifying my neighbor. And I expect we'll have to draw up a deed of purchase, so that everything will be in order."

"Certainly."

"Well, that means going to town."

Thus the deal was concluded. They both decided to be in town the next day and take care of the deed of purchase. Chichikov asked for a little list of the peasants. Sobakevich agreed willingly, straightaway went to his bureau, and began writing them all down with his own hand, not only by name but with mention of their laudable qualities.

And Chichikov, having nothing to do, occupied himself, while standing behind him, with an examination of his entire vast frame. As he gazed at his back, broad as a squat Vyatka horse's, and his legs, which resembled iron hitching posts set along the sidewalk, he could not help exclaiming inwardly: "Eh, God really endowed you well! Just as they say, crudely cut but stoutly stitched! . . . Were you born such a bear, or did you get bearified by the backwoods life, sowing grain, dealing with muzhiks, and turn through all that into what's known as a pinchfist? But no, I think you'd be just the same even if you'd been raised according to fashion, got your start and lived in Petersburg, and not in this backwoods. The whole difference is that now you tuck away half a rack of lamb with groats, followed by a cheesecake as big as a plate, and then you'd eat some sort of cutlets with truffles. Yes, and now you have muzhiks under your rule: you get along with them and, of course, wouldn't mistreat them, because they're yours and it would be the worse for you; and then you'd have officials, whom you could knock about roughly, realizing that they're not your serfs, or else you could rob the treasury! No, if a man's a pinchfist, he'll never open his hand! And if you get him to open one or two fingers, it will come out still worse. If he slightly grazes the tips of some science, he'll let it be known later, when he occupies some prominent post, to all those who actually do know some science. What's more, he may later say: 'Why don't I just show myself!' And he'll think up such a wise decree that lots of people will find themselves in a pickle . . . Eh, if all these pinch-fists ..."

"The list's ready," said Sobakevich, turning around.

"Ready? Let me have it, please!" He ran down it with his eyes and marveled at its accuracy and precision: not only were trade, name, age, and family situation thoroughly indicated, but there were even special marginal notes concerning behavior, sobriety– in short, it was lovely to look at.

"And now a little down payment, please!" said Sobakevich.

"Why a little down payment? You'll get all the money at once, in town."

"You know, that's how it's always done," objected Sobakevich.

"I don't know how I can give it to you, I didn't bring any money with me. Wait, here's ten roubles."

"What's ten roubles! Give me fifty at least!"

Chichikov started telling him no, he could not do that; but Sobakevich said so affirmatively that he did have money, that he brought out another banknote, saying:

"Oh, well, here's another fifteen for you, twenty-five in all. Only give me a receipt, please."

"But why do you need a receipt?"

"You know, it's always better with a receipt. If perchance something should happen."

"All right, give me the money then."

"Why the money? It's right here in my hand! As soon as you've written the receipt, you can take it that same moment."

"Excuse me, but how am I to write the receipt? I have to see the money first."

Chichikov let the paper notes go from his hand to Sobakevich, who, approaching the table, covered them with the fingers of his left hand, and with the other wrote on a scrap of paper that a down payment of twenty-five roubles in government banknotes for the bought souls had been received in full. Having written the receipt, he once again examined the banknotes.

"The paper's a bit old!" he said, studying one of them in the light, "and slightly torn—well, but among friends that's nothing to look at."

"A pinchfist, a real pinchfist!" Chichikov thought to himself, "and a knave to boot!"

"You don't want any of the female sex?"

"No, thank you."

"I wouldn't ask much. One little rouble apiece, for the sake of acquaintance."

"No, I have no need of the female sex."

"Well, if you have no need, there's nothing to talk about. Taste knows no rules: one man loves the parson, another the parsoness, as the proverb says."

"I also wanted to ask you to keep this deal between us," Chichikov said as he was taking his leave.

"But that goes without saying. No point mixing a third person up in it; what takes place between close friends in all sincerity ought to be kept to their mutual friendship. Good-bye! Thank you for coming; I beg you not to forget us in the future: if you happen to have a free moment, come for dinner and spend some time. Maybe we'll chance to be of service to each other again."

"Oh, sure thing!" Chichikov thought to himself, getting into his britzka. "Hustled me out of two-fifty for a dead soul, the devil's pinchfist!"

He was displeased with Sobakevich's behavior. After all, one way or another he was still an acquaintance, they had met at the governor's and at the police chief's, but he had acted like a complete stranger, had taken money for trash! As the britzka drove out of the yard, he looked back and saw that Sobakevich was still standing on the porch and seemed to be watching, as if he wished to know where the guest would go.

"The scoundrel, he's still standing there!" he said through his teeth, and told Selifan to turn towards the peasants' cottages and drive off in such a way that the carriage could not be seen from the master's yard. He wished to go and see Plyushkin, whose people, in Sobakevich's words, were dying like flies, but he did not wish Sobakevich to know of it. When the britzka was already at the end of the village, he beckoned to the first muzhik they met, who, having chanced upon a really stout beam somewhere on the road, was dragging it on his shoulder, like an indefatigable ant, back to his cottage.

"Hey, graybeard! how can I get from here to Plyushkin's, so as not to go past the master's house?"

The muzhik seemed to have difficulty with the question.

"What, you don't know?"

"No, your honor, I don't."

"Eh, you! And with all your gray hairs, you don't know the niggard Plyushkin, the one who feeds his people so badly?"

"Ah! the patchy one, the patchy one!" the muzhik cried.

He added a noun to the word "patchy," a very felicitous one, but not usable in polite conversation, and therefore we shall omit it. However, one could tell that the expression was very apt, because, although the muzhik had long disappeared from view and they had driven a good way on, Chichikov still sat chuckling in the britzka. Strongly do the Russian folk express themselves! and if they bestow a little word on someone, it will go with him and his posterity for generations, and he will drag it with him into the service, and into retirement, and to Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth. And no matter how clever you are in ennobling your nickname later, even getting little scriveners to derive it for hire from ancient princely stock, nothing will help: the nickname will caw itself away at the top of its crow's voice and tell clearly where the bird has flown from. [25]25
  The line "caw itself away at the top of its crow's voice" flew here from the fable The Crow and the Fox,by Ivan Krylov (1769-1844). It is proverbial in Russia.


[Закрыть]Aptly uttered is as good as written, an axe cannot destroy it. And oh, how apt is everything that comes from deep Russia, where there are no German, or Finnish, or any other tribes, but all is native natural-born, lively and pert Russian wit, which does not fish for a word in its pockets, does not brood on it like a hen on her chicks, but pastes it on at once, like a passport, for eternal wear, and there is no point in adding later what sort of nose or lips you have—in one line you are portrayed from head to foot!

As a numberless multitude of churches and monasteries with their cupolas, domes, and crosses is scattered over holy, pious Russia, so a numberless multitude of tribes, generations, peoples also throngs, ripples, and rushes over the face of the earth. And each of these peoples, bearing within itself the pledge of its strength, filled with the creative capacity of the soul, with its own marked peculiarity and other gifts of God, is in an original fashion distinguished by its own word, which, whatever subject it may express, reflects in that expression a portion of its character. A knowledge of hearts and a wise comprehension of life resound in the word of the Briton; like a nimble fop the short-lived word of the Frenchman flashes and scatters; whimsically does the German contrive his lean, intelligent word, not accessible to all; but there is no word so sweeping, so pert, so bursting from beneath the very heart, so ebullient and vibrant with life, as an aptly spoken Russian word.