Dead Souls: A Novel

by Nikolai Gogol

  But the hard thing is not that readers will be displeased with my hero, what is hard is that there lives in my soul an irrefutable certainty that they might have been pleased with this same hero, this same Chichikov. If the author had not looked deeply into his soul, had not stirred up from its bottom that which flees and hides from the light, had not revealed his secret thoughts which no man entrusts to another, but had shown him such as he appeared to the whole town, to Manilov and the others, everyone would have been happy as can be and would have taken him for an interesting man. Never mind that neither his face nor his whole image would have hovered as if alive before their eyes; instead, once the reading was over, the soul would not be troubled by anything, and one could turn back to the card table, the solace of all Russia. Yes, my good readers, you would prefer not to see human poverty revealed. Why, you ask, what for? Do we not know ourselves that there is much in life that is contemptible and stupid? Even without that, one often chances to see things which are by no means comforting. Better present us with something beautiful, captivating. Better let us become oblivious! “Why, brother, are you telling me that things aren’t going well with the management of the estate?” says the landowner to his steward. “I know that without you, brother, haven’t you got something else to talk about? You ought to let me forget it, not know it, then I’ll be happy.” And so the money that would have helped somehow to straighten things out is spent on the means for making oneself oblivious. The mind sleeps, the mind that might find some unexpected fount of great means; and then, bang! the estate gets auctioned, and the landowner takes his oblivion and goes begging, his soul ready in its extremity for such baseness as once would have horrified him.

  Accusation will also fall upon the author from the side of the so-called patriots, who sit quietly in their corners, occupied with completely unrelated matters, and stash away small fortunes for themselves, arranging their lives at the expense of others; but as soon as something happens which in their opinion is insulting to the fatherland, if some book appears in which the sometimes bitter truth is told, they rush out of all corners like spiders seeing a fly tangled in their web, and suddenly raise a cry: “But is it good to bring it to light, to proclaim about it? Because all this that’s written here, all this is ours—is that nice? And what will foreigners say? Is it cheery to hear a bad opinion of oneself? Do they think it doesn’t hurt? Do they think we’re not patriots?” To these wise observations, especially concerning the opinion of foreigners, I confess it is impossible to find an answer. Unless it is this: in a remote corner of Russia there lived two inhabitants. One was a father of a family, Kifa Mokievich by name, a man of meek character who spent his life in a dressing-gown way. He did not occupy himself with his family; his existence was turned more in a contemplative direction and was occupied with the following, as he called it, philosophical question: “Take, for instance, a beast,” he would say, pacing the room, “a beast is born naked. And why precisely naked? Why not like a bird, why not hatched from an egg? So you see: the deeper you go into nature, the less you understand her!” Thus reasoned the inhabitant Kifa Mokievich. But that is still not the main thing. The other inhabitant was Moky Kifovich, his own son. He was what is known in Russia as a mighty man, and all the while that his father was occupied with the birth of a beast, his broad-shouldered twenty-year-old nature kept wanting to display itself. He could not go about anything lightly: it was always someone’s arm broken or a bump swelling on someone’s nose. In and around the house everything, from the serf wench to the yard bitch, ran away from him on sight; he even broke his own bed to pieces in the bedroom. Such was Moky Kifovich, who nevertheless had a good heart. But that is still not the main thing. The main thing is the following: “For pity’s sake, dear master, Kifa Mokievich,” his own and other house serfs used to say to the father, “what’s with your Moky Kifovich? He won’t leave anyone in peace, he’s such a roughneck.” “Yes, a prankster, a prankster,” the father usually replied to that, “but what can I do? It’s too late to beat him, and I’d be the one accused of cruelty; then, too, he’s a proud man, if I reproached him in front of just a couple of people, he’d calm down, but publicity—there’s the trouble! They’d find out in town and call him a downright dog. What do they think, really, that it doesn’t hurt me? that I’m not a father? That I occupy myself with philosophy and sometimes have no time, and so I’m not a father anymore? No, I’m a father all right! a father, devil take them, a father! I’ve got Moky Kifovich sitting right here in my heart!” Here Kifa Mokievich beat himself quite hard on the breast with his fist and flew into a complete passion. “Let him even remain a dog, but let them not find it out from me, let it not be me who betrays him.” Then, having shown such paternal feeling, he would leave Moky Kifovich to go on with his mighty deeds, and himself turn again to his favorite subject, suddenly asking himself some such question as: “Well, and if an elephant was born from an egg, then I suppose the shell would be mighty thick, a cannonball couldn’t break it; some new firearms would have to be invented.” So they spent their life, these two inhabitants of a peaceful corner, who have suddenly peeked out, as from a window, at the end of our poem, peeked out in order to respond modestly to accusations on the part of certain ardent patriots, who for the moment are quietly occupied with some sort of philosophy or with augmentations at the expense of their dearly beloved fatherland, and think not about not doing wrong, but only about having no one say they are doing wrong. But no, neither patriotism nor primal feeling is the cause of these accusations, something else is hidden behind them. Why conceal the word? Who, then, if not an author, must speak the sacred truth? You fear the deeply penetrating gaze, you are afraid to penetrate anything deeply with your own gaze, you like to skim over everything with unthinking eyes. You will even have a hearty laugh over Chichikov, will perhaps even praise the author, saying: “He did cleverly catch a thing or two, though; must be a man of merry temperament!” And after these words you will turn to yourself with redoubled pride, a self-satisfied smile will appear on your face, and you will add: “One can’t help agreeing, the most strange and ridiculous people turn up in some provinces, and no small scoundrels at that!” And who among you, filled with Christian humility, not publicly, but in quiet, alone, in moments of solitary converse with himself, will point deeply into his own soul this painful question: “And isn’t there a bit of Chichikov in me, too?” Perish the thought! But if some acquaintance of yours should pass by just then, a man of neither too high nor too low a rank, you will straightaway nudge your neighbor and tell him, all but snorting with laughter: “Look, look, there goes Chichikov, it’s Chichikov!” And then, like a child, forgetting all decorum incumbent upon your age and station, you will run after him, taunting him from behind and repeating: “Chichikov! Chichikov! Chichikov!”

  But we have begun talking rather loudly, forgetting that our hero, asleep all the while his story was being told, is now awake and can easily hear his last name being repeated so often. He is a touchy man and does not like it when he is spoken of disrespectfully. The reader can hardly care whether Chichikov gets angry with him or not, but as for the author, he must in no case quarrel with his hero: they still have many a road to travel together hand in hand; two big parts lie ahead—no trifling matter.

  “Hey, hey! what’s with you!” said Chichikov to Selifan, “eh?”

  “What?” said Selifan in a slow voice.

  “What do you mean, what? You goose! is that any way to drive? Get a move on!”

  And indeed Selifan had long been driving with his eyes closed, only occasionally, through sleep, snapping the reins against the flanks of the horses, who were also dozing; and Petrushka’s cap had long since flown off at some unknown place, and he himself was leaning back, resting his head on Chichikov’s knee, so that he had to give it a flick. Selifan perked up and, slapping the dapple-gray on the back a few times, which made him break into a trot, and brandishing his whip over them all, added in a thin, singsong voice: “Never fear!”
The horses got moving and pulled the light britzka along like a bit of fluff. Selifan just kept brandishing and shouting “Hup! hup! hup!” bouncing smoothly on his box, as the troika now flew up and now rushed full-tilt down a hummock, such as were scattered the whole length of the high road, which ran down a barely noticeable slope. Chichikov just smiled, jouncing slightly on his leather cushion, for he loved fast driving. And what Russian does not love fast driving? How can his soul, which yearns to get into a whirl, to carouse, to say sometimes: “Devil take it all!”—how can his soul not love it? Not love it when something ecstatically wondrous is felt in it? It seems an unknown force has taken you on its wing, and you are flying, and everything is flying: milestones go flying by, merchants come flying at you on the boxes of their kibitkas, the forest on both sides is flying by with its dark ranks of firs and pines, with axes chopping and crows cawing, the whole road is flying off no one knows where into the vanishing distance, and there is something terrible in this quick flashing, in which the vanishing object has no time to fix itself—only the sky overhead, and the light clouds, and the moon trying to break through, they alone seem motionless. Ah, troika! bird troika, who invented you? Surely you could only have been born among a brisk people, in a land that cares not for jokes, but sweeps smoothly and evenly over half the world, and you can go on counting the miles until it all dances before your eyes. And you are no clever traveling outfit, it seems, held together by an iron screw, but some dextrous Yaroslav muzhik fitted you out and put you together slapdash, with only an axe and a chisel. The driver wears no German top boots: a beard, mittens, and devil knows what he sits on; but when he stands up, waves, and strikes up a song—the steeds go like the wind, the spokes of the wheels blend to a smooth disc, the road simply shudders, and the passerby stops and cries out in fright—there she goes racing, racing, racing! … And already far in the distance you see something raising dust and drilling the air.

  And you, Rus, are you not also like a brisk, unbeatable troika racing on? The road smokes under you, bridges rumble, everything falls back and is left behind. Dumbstruck by the divine wonder, the contemplator stops: was it a bolt of lightning thrown down from heaven? what is the meaning of this horrific movement? and what unknown force is hidden in these steeds unknown to the world? Ah, steeds, steeds, what steeds! Are there whirlwinds in your manes? Is a keen ear burning in your every nerve? Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you strain your bronze chests and, hooves barely touching the ground, turn into straight lines flying through the air, and all inspired by God it rushes on! … Rus, where are you racing to? Give answer! She gives no answer. Wondrously the harness bell dissolves in ringing; the air rumbles, shattered to pieces, and turns to wind; everything on earth flies by, and, looking askance, other nations and states step aside to make way.

  VOLUME TWO

  Chapter One

  Why, then, make a show of the poverty of our life and our sad imperfection, unearthing people from the backwoods, from remote corners of the state? But what if this is in the writer’s nature, and his own imperfection grieves him so, and the makeup of his talent is such, that he can only portray the poverty of our life, unearthing people from the backwoods, from remote corners of the state! So here we are again in the backwoods, again we have come out in some corner!

  Yes, but what a backwoods and what a corner!

  Over a thousand miles and more raced the meandering mountain heights. Like the giant rampart of some endless fortress they rose above the plains, now as a yellowish cliff, a gullied and pitted wall in appearance, now as a rounded green prominence covered, as if with lambswool, with young shrubs growing from the stumps of cut trees, or, finally, with dark forest so far spared the axe. The river, sometimes faithful to its high banks, followed them in their angles and bends over the whole expanse, but at other times abandoned them to go into the meadows, meandering there through several meanders, flashing like fire in the sun, then vanished in groves of birches, aspens, and alders, to rush out again in triumph, accompanied by bridges, mills, and dams that seemed to pursue it at every turn.

  In one place the steep side of the heights heaved itself higher than the rest, and was decked out from top to bottom in a greenery of thickly crowding trees. Everything was there together: maples, pear trees, low-growing willows, gorse, birches, firs, and mountain ash all twined with hops; here flashed the red roofs of manor buildings, the fretwork cornices of cottages hiding behind them, and the upper story added to the manor house itself, and over this whole heap of trees and roofs the ancient church raised aloft its five gleaming tops. On each of them stood a gold openwork cross, attached to the cupola by gold openwork chains, so that the gold shone from afar as if it were suspended in air, not attached to anything. And this whole heap of trees and roofs, together with the church, turned upside down, was reflected in the river, where picturesquely ugly old willows, some standing on the bank, some right in the water, trailing their branches and leaves in it, were as if gazing at this picture, which they could not get their fill of admiring through all their long lives.

  The view was not bad at all, but the view from above, from the upper story of the house, onto the plains and the distance, was better still. No guest or visitor could long stand indifferently on the balcony. His breath would be taken away, and he would only be able to say: “Lord, how spacious it is!” The space opened out endlessly. Beyond the meadows strewn with copses and water mills, thick forests stood green and blue, like seas or mist spreading far away. Beyond the forests, through the hazy air, showed yellowing sands. Beyond the sands, a ridge against the far curve of the sky, lay chalk mountains, their dazzling whiteness gleaming even in rainy spells, as if an eternal sun shone on them. Here and there upon them, light misty blue spots smoked. These were remote villages, but the human eye could no longer make them out. Only the golden dome of a church, flashing like a spark, made known that it was a large, populous village. All this was wrapped in imperturbable silence, which was not broken even by the barely audible echoes of the aerial singers that filled the air. In short, no guest or visitor could long stand indifferently on the balcony, and after some two hours of contemplation he would utter the same exclamation as in the first minute: “Heavenly powers, how spacious it is!”

  Who, then, was the occupant of this estate, which, like an impregnable fortress, could not even be approached from here, but had to be approached from the other side—through meadows, wheat fields, and, finally, a sparse oak grove, spread picturesquely over the green, right up to the cottages and the master’s house? Who was the occupant, the master and owner of this estate? To what happy man did this remote corner belong?

  To Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov, landowner of the Tremalakhan district, a young gentleman, thirty-three years old, a collegiate secretary, an unmarried man.

  And what sort of man, then, of what disposition, what qualities and character, was the landowner Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov?

  To be sure, these inquiries ought to be addressed to his neighbors. One neighbor, who belonged to the race of retired staff officers and firebrands, expressed himself about him in a laconic expression: “A natural-born brute!” The general who lived six miles away used to say: “A young man, no fool, but with too many ideas in his head. I could be useful to him, because I have in Petersburg, and even at the …” The general never finished his speech. The district captain of police observed: “No, but his rank is—trash; and what if I come by tomorrow to collect the arrears!” A muzhik from his estate, if asked what sort of master he had, usually gave no answer. In short, the public opinion of him was rather unfavorable than favorable.