Dead Souls: A Novel

by Nikolai Gogol

  “You robber, what did you do with that paper?”

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

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

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

  “Lies, you took it to the beadle’s boy: he knows how to scribble, so you took it to him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “And how many might there be?”

  “Oh, they’d also add up to about seventy.”

  “No!”

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

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

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

  “I’d give twenty-five kopecks per soul.”

  “And how would you buy them, for cash?”

  “Yes, ready money.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “No. It comes to seventy-eight in all.”

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

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

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

  “Yes, it’s time!” he said, picking up his hat.

  “And a spot of tea?”

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

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

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

  But our hero, even without the watch, was in the merriest spirits. Such an unexpected acquisition was a real gift. Indeed, whatever you say, not just dead souls alone, but runaways as well, and over two hundred persons in all! Of course, while still approaching Plyushkin’s estate, he had had a presentiment of some pickings, but he had never expected anything so profitable. For the whole way he was extraordinarily merry, kept whistling, played on his lips, putting his fist to his mouth as if he were blowing a trumpet, and finally broke into some sort of song, extraordinary to such a degree that Selifan himself listened, listened, and then, shaking his head slightly, said: “Just look how the master’s singing!” It was thick dusk by the time they drove up to the town. Shadow and light were thoroughly mingled, and objects themselves also seemed to mingle. The particolored tollgate took on some indefinite hue; the mustache of the soldier standing sentry seemed to be on his forehead, way above his eyes, and his nose was as if not there at all. A rumbling and jolting made it known that the britzka had come to the pavement. The streetlamps were not yet burning, only here and there the windows of the houses were beginning to light up, and in nooks and crooks there occurred scenes and conversations inseparable from that time of day in all towns where there are many soldiers, coachmen, workers, and beings of a special kind, in the form of ladies in red shawls and shoes without stockings, who flit about like bats at the street-corners. Chichikov paid them no notice, and even did not notice the many slim clerks with canes, who were probably returning home after taking a stroll out of town. From time to time there reached his ears certain, apparently feminine, exclamations: “Lies, you drunkard! I never allowed him no such rudeness!” or “Don’t fight, you boor, go to the police, I’ll prove it to you there!…” In short, words which suddenly pour like boiling pitch over some dreamy twenty-year-old youth, when he is returning from the theater, carrying in his head a street in Spain, night, the wondrous image of a woman with a guitar and curls. Is there anything, any dream, not in his head? He is in heaven and has come calling on Schiller30—and suddenly over him there resound, like thunder, the fatal words, and he sees that he is back on earth, and even on Haymarket Square, and even near a pot-house, and workaday life again goes strutting before him.

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

  “You’ve been off on a long one, sir,” said the floorboy, lighting the stairway.

  “Yes,” said Chichikov, as he went up the stairs. “And how’s with you?”

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

  “A lieutenant?”

  “Some unknown kind, from Ryazan, bay horses.”

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

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

  Chapter Seven

  Happy the wayfarer who, after a long, boring journey with its cold, slush, dirt, sleepy stationmasters, clanking bells, repairs, altercations, coachmen, blacksmiths, and all sorts of scoundrels of the road, sees at last the familiar roof with its lights rushing to meet him, and before him stand familiar rooms, the joyful shout of his people running to meet him, the noise and scampering of children, and soothing soft speech, interrupted by burning kisses with the power to wipe out all that is mournful from the memory. Happy the family man who has such a corner, but woe to the bachelor!

  Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of daily whirling images has chosen only the rare exceptions, who has never once betrayed the exalted tuning of his lyre, nor descended from his height to his poor, insignificant brethren, and, without touching the ground, has given the whole of himself to his elevated images so far removed from it. Twice enviable is his beautiful lot: he is among them as in his own family; and meanwhile his fame spreads loud and far. With entrancing smoke he has clouded people’s eyes; he has flattered them wondrously, concealing what is mournful in life, showing them a beautiful man. Everything rushes after him, applauding, and flies off following his triumphal chariot. Great world poet they name him, soaring high above all other geniuses in the world, as the eagle soars above other high fliers. At the mere mention of his name, young ardent hearts are filled with trembling, responsive tears shine in all eyes … No one equals him in power—he is God! But such is not the lot, and other is the destiny of the writer who has dared to call forth all that is before our eyes every moment and which our indifferent eyes do not see—all the terrible, stupendous mire of trivia in which our life is entangled, the whole depth of cold, fragmented, everyday characters that swarm over our often bitter and boring earthly path, and with the firm strength of his implacable chisel dares to present them roundly and vividly before the eyes of all people! It is not for him to win people’s applause, not for him to behold the grateful tears and unanimous rapture of the souls he has stirred; no sixteen-year-old girl will come flying to meet him with her head in a whirl and heroic enthusiasm; it is not for him to forget himself in the sweet enchantment of sounds he himself has evoked; it is not for him, finally, to escape contemporary judgment, hypocritically callous contemporary judgment, which will call insignificant and mean the creations he has fostered, will allot him a contemptible corner in the ranks of writers who insult mankind, will ascribe to him the qualities of the heroes he has portrayed, will deny him heart, and soul, and the divine flame of talent. For contemporary judgment does not recognize that equally wondrous are the glasses that observe the sun and those that look at the movements of inconspicuous insects; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse, and that a whole abyss separates it from the antics of the street-fair clown! This contemporary judgment does not recognize; and will turn it all into a reproach and abuse of the unrecognized writer; with no sharing, no response, no sympathy, like a familyless wayfarer, he will be left alone in the middle of the road. Grim is his path, and bitterly will he feel his solitude.

  And for a long time still I am destined by a wondrous power to walk hand in hand with my strange heroes, to view the whole of hugely rushing life, to view it through laughter visible to the world and tears invisible and unknown to it! And still far off is the time when, in a different key, a fearsome tempest of inspiration will rise from a head wreathed in sacred awe and radiance, and in confused trepidation will be heard the majestic thunder of a different speech …

  Onward! onward! away with the wrinkle that furrows the brow and the stern gloom of the face! At once and suddenly let us plung
e into life with all its noiseless clatter and little bells and see what Chichikov is doing.

  Chichikov woke up, stretched his arms and legs, and felt he had had a good sleep. After lying on his back for a minute or two, he snapped his fingers and remembered with a beaming face that he now owned nearly four hundred souls. He straightaway jumped out of bed, not even looking at his face, which he sincerely loved and in which, it seemed, he found the chin most attractive of all, for he quite often boasted of it to one or another of his friends, especially if it was while shaving. “Just look,” he would usually say, stroking it with his hand, “what a chin I’ve got: quite round!” But this time he did not glance either at his chin or at his face, but directly, just as he was, put on his morocco boots with multicolor appliqué, an object of brisk trade in Torzhok thanks to the lounge-robe inclinations of the Russian nature, and, Scottish-fashion, in nothing but a short shirt, forgetting his staid and decorous middle age, performed two leaps across the room, smacking himself quite adroitly with his heel. Then at that same moment he got down to business: facing the chest, he rubbed his hands with the same pleasure as the incorruptible circuit court, having come for an inquest, does when approaching the hors d’oeuvres, and instantly took the papers out of it. He wanted to finish everything quickly, without letting it simmer. He decided to draw up the deeds himself, writing them out and copying them, so as to pay nothing to scriveners. He knew the formal order perfectly. Briskly he set forth in big letters: “The year one thousand eight hundred and such-and-such,” then in smaller letters following that: “The landowner so-and-so,” and everything else necessary. In two hours it was all done. Afterwards, as he looked at these papers, at these muzhiks who, indeed, had been muzhiks once, had worked, ploughed, drunk, driven, deceived their masters, or perhaps had simply been good muzhiks, some strange feeling, incomprehensible to himself, took hold of him. It was as if each list had some peculiar character, and as if through it the muzhiks themselves acquired a character of their own. The muzhiks who had belonged to Korobochka almost all had additions and nicknames. Plyushkin’s list was distinguished by brevity of style: often only the initial letters of names and patronymics were put down, and then two dots. Sobakevich’s register was striking in its extraordinary fullness and thoroughness; not one of the muzhik’s qualities was omitted: “good cabinetmaker” was said of one; “knows what he’s about, and never touches the liquor” was added to another. It was also thoroughly noted who the father and mother were and how they had behaved themselves; only for a certain Fedotov it was written: “father unknown, was born of the serf girl Capitolina, but is of good character and not a thief.” All these details gave off a peculiar air of freshness: it seemed the muzhiks had been alive only yesterday. Looking at their names for a long time, he was moved in his spirit and, sighing, said: “My heavens, there’s so many of you crammed in here! What did you do in your lives, dear hearts, how did you get by?” And his eyes involuntarily paused on one family name: it was our acquaintance, Pyotr Saveliev Disrespect-Trough, who had once belonged to the landowner Korobochka. Again he could not keep from saying: “Eh, what a long one, stretched over a whole line! Were you a craftsman, or simply a peasant, and what sort of death took you? In a pot-house, was it, or did some clumsy train of carts drive over you while you were asleep in the middle of the road? Cork Stepan, carpenter, of exemplary sobriety. Ah! here he is, Stepan Cork, that mighty man, fit to serve in the guards! I expect you walked over all the provinces, an axe tucked into your belt, boots slung over your shoulders, eating a half-kopeck’s worth of bread and a kopeck’s worth of dried fish, and I expect each time you brought home up to a hundred silver roubles in your pouch, or maybe had a thousand-rouble banknote sewn into your hempen britches or stuck in your boot. Where were you when you got taken? Did you hoist yourself for greater gain up under the church cupola, or maybe drag yourself all the way to the cross, slip from the crossbeam, and fall flop to the ground, and only some Uncle Mikhei standing there, after scratching the back of his head, observed: ‘Eh, Vanya, you sure came a cropper!’—and, tying the rope on, went up himself to replace you? Maxim Telyatnikov, cobbler. Hah, a cobbler! ‘Drunk as a cobbler!’ the saying goes. I know, I know you, my sweet fellow; I’ll tell your whole story if you like: you were apprenticed to a German, who fed you all together, beat you on the back with a belt for sloppiness, and wouldn’t let you out for any rascality, and you were a wonder, not a cobbler, and the German couldn’t praise you enough when he was talking with his wife or a comrade. And when your apprenticeship was up, you said: ‘And now I’ll open shop, and not do like some German, pulling himself out of a kopeck, but get rich all at once.’ And so, having offered your master a handsome quitrent, you started a little shop, got yourself a pile of orders, and set to work. Procured some rotten leather dirt-cheap somewhere, and in fact made double your money on each boot, but in two weeks your boots all popped apart, and you were abused in the meanest way. And so your little shop fell into neglect, and you took to drinking and lying about in the streets, saying all the while: ‘No, it’s a bad world! There’s no life for a Russian man, the Germans keep getting in the way.’ What sort of muzhik is this? Elizaveta Sparrow. Pah, drat it all—a female! How did she get in there? That scoundrel Sobakevich has hoodwinked me here, too!” Chichikov was right: it was, in fact, a female. How she got there no one knows, but she was so artfully written that from a distance she could be taken for a muzhik, and her name even had a masculine ending, that is, not Elizaveta, but Elizavet. However, he did not pay her any respect, and straightaway crossed her out. “Grigory Go-never-get! What sort of man were you? Did you set up as a hauler and, having got yourself a troika and a bast-covered wagon, renounce your house, your native den, forever and go dragging yourself with merchants to the fairs? Did you give up the ghost on the road, or did your own companions do you in over some fat and red-cheeked soldier’s wife, or did some forest tramp take a liking to your leather-palmed mittens and your troika of squat but brawny horses, or maybe you yourself, lying on your plank bed, kept thinking and thinking, and for no reason at all steered for a pot-house, and then straight into a hole in the ice, and so made your exit. Eh, Russian folk! they don’t like dying a natural death! And how about you, my sweet ones!” he went on, shifting his eyes to the paper on which Plyushkin’s runaway souls were listed. “Though you’re still alive, what’s the use of you! you’re as good as dead, and where are your quick feet taking you now? Was it so bad for you at Plyushkin’s, or are you simply roaming the forests of your own will, fleecing passersby? Are you locked up in prisons, or are you with other masters, tilling the soil? Yeremei Karyakin, Vitaly Dillydally, his son Anton Dillydally—these are good runners, you can even tell by their nicknames. Popov, a house serf, must be a literate one: you didn’t take up the knife, I expect, but went around stealing in a noble fashion. But here you are now, caught by the police captain without a passport. You stand cheerfully at the confrontation. ‘Whose are you?’ the police captain says, using this sure opportunity to put in some strong epithet for you. ‘Landowner so-and-so’s,’ you reply pertly. ‘What are you doing here?’ the police captain says. ‘I’m free on quitrent,’ you reply without a hitch. ‘Where’s your passport?’ ‘With my landlord, the tradesman Pimenov.’ ‘Summon Pimenov! Are you Pimenov?’ ‘I’m Pimenov.’ ‘Did he give you his passport?’ ‘No, he never gave me any passport.’ ‘Why are you lying?’ the police captain says, with the addition of some strong epithet. ‘Exactly right,’ you reply pertly, ‘I didn’t give it to him, because I came home late, so I gave it to Antip Prokhorov, the bell ringer, for safekeeping.’ ‘Summon the bell ringer! Did he give you his passport?’ ‘No, I never got any passport from him.’ ‘So you’re lying again!’ says the police captain, clinching his speech with some strong epithet. ‘So where is your passport?’ ‘I had it,’ you say briskly, ‘but it seems I must somehow have dropped it in the road.’ ‘And how is it,’ says the police captain, again tacking on some strong epithet for you,
‘that you filched a soldier’s greatcoat? And a priest’s chest with copper money in it?’ ‘No, sir,’ you say, without budging, ‘I’ve never yet found myself in any thievish dealings.’ ‘And why, then, was the soldier’s greatcoat found with you?’ ‘I can’t say: someone else must have brought it.’ ‘Ah, you knave, you!’ says the police captain, shaking his head, arms akimbo. ‘Put the clogs on him and take him to prison.’ ‘As you like! It’s my pleasure!’ you reply. And so, taking a snuffbox from your pocket, you amiably treat the pair of invalids who are putting the clogs on you, asking them how long they’ve been retired and what war they were in. And so there you are now living in prison, while your case is being processed in court. And the court writes that you are to be transferred from Tsarevokokshaisk to the prison in such-and-such town, and the court there writes that you are to be transferred to some Vesyegonsk, and so you keep moving from prison to prison, saying, as you look over your new abode: ‘No, the Vesyegonsk prison is a bit better, there’s at least room enough to play knucklebones, and the company’s bigger!’ Abakum Fyrov! What about you, brother? Where, in which parts, are you hanging about? Did you get blown as far as the Volga, and join the boatmen there, having come to love the life of freedom?…” Here Chichikov paused and pondered a little. Over what was he pondering? Was he pondering over Abakum Fyrov’s lot, or was he pondering just like that, as any Russian falls to pondering, whatever his age, rank, or fortune, when he begins to reflect on the revels of a broad life? And, indeed, where is Fyrov now? He is carousing noisily and merrily on the grain wharf, after striking a bargain with the merchants. Flowers and ribbons on their hats, the whole gang of boatmen are making merry, taking leave of their lovers and wives, tall, well-built, in necklaces and ribbons; round dances, songs, the whole square is seething, and meanwhile the stevedores, with shouts, curses, and heave-ho’s, hoist as much as three hundred pounds on their backs with a hook, noisily pour peas and wheat into the deep holds, pile up bags of oats and groats, and farther off, all over the square, one can see sacks piled up like cannonballs in pyramids, and the whole grain arsenal stands enormous, until it has all been loaded into the deep Sura boats, and the endless flotilla rushes off in file together with the spring ice! There will be work enough for you, boatmen! And in unison, just as you reveled and rioted before, you will start to toil and sweat, hauling the line to one song as endless as Russia.