Dead Souls: A Novel

by Nikolai Gogol

  At this Chichikov thought: “Well, it’s unlikely that such a time will ever come. Here I am a literate man, and I’ve yet to read The Countess La Vallière.”

  “Terrible ignorance!” said Colonel Koshkarev in conclusion. “The darkness of the Middle Ages, and no way to remedy it … Believe me, there is none! And I could remedy it all; I know of one way, the surest way.”

  “What is it?”

  “To dress every last man in Russia the way they go about in Germany. Nothing more than that, and I promise you everything will go swimmingly: learning will rise, trade will develop, a golden age will come to Russia.”

  Chichikov was looking at him intently, thinking: “Well, it seems there’s no point in standing on ceremony with this one.” Not leaving matters in the bottom drawer, he straightaway explained to the colonel thus and so: there was a need for such and such souls, with the drawing up of such and such deeds.

  “As far as I can see from your words,” said the colonel, not embarrassed in the least, “this is a request—is that so?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “In that case, put it in writing. It will go to the commission for divers petitions. The commission for divers petitions, having made note of it, will forward it to me. From me it will go on to the village affairs committee, where all sorts of decisions and revisions will be made concerning the matter. The steward-in-chief together with the whole office will give his resolution in the soon-most time, and the matter will be settled.”

  Chichikov was dumbstruck.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “things will take too long that way.”

  “Ah!” the colonel said with a smile, “there’s the benefit of paperwork! It will indeed take longer, but nothing will escape: every little detail will be in view.”

  “But, excuse me … How can one present it in writing? It’s the sort of matter that … The souls are in a certain sense … dead.”

  “Very well. So you write that the souls are in a certain sense dead.”

  “But how can I—dead? It’s impossible to write that. They’re dead, but it must seem as if they’re alive.”

  “Well, then, you write: ‘But it must seem or it is required that they seem as if alive.’ ”

  What was to be done with the colonel? Chichikov decided to go and see for himself what these commissions and committees were; and what he found there was not only amazing, but decidedly exceeded all understanding. The commission for divers petitions existed only on a signboard. Its chairman, a former valet, had been transferred to the newly formed village construction committee. He had been replaced by the clerk Timoshka, who had been dispatched on an investigation—to sort things out between the drunken steward and the village headman, a crook and a cheat. No official anywhere.

  “But where is … but how am I to get any sense?” Chichikov said to his companion, an official for special missions, whom the colonel had given him as a guide.

  “You won’t get any sense,” said the guide, “everything here is senseless. Here, you may be pleased to note, the building commission directs everything, disrupts everybody’s work, sends people wherever it likes. The only ones who profit from it are those on the building commission.” He was obviously displeased with the building commission. “It’s customary here for everybody to lead the master by the nose. He thinks everything’s as it ought to be, but it’s so in name only.”

  “He ought, however, to be told that,” thought Chichikov, and, having come to the colonel, he announced that his estate was in a muddle, and one could not get any sense, and that the building commission was stealing right and left.

  The colonel seethed with noble indignation. Seizing pen and paper he straightaway wrote eight most severe inquiries: on what grounds had the building commission arbitrarily disposed of officials outside its jurisdiction? How could the steward-in-chief have allowed the chairman to go on an investigation without handing over his post? And how could the village affairs committee regard with indifference the fact that the committee for petitions did not even exist?

  “Well, here comes mayhem,” Chichikov thought, and he began to bow out.

  “No, I won’t let you go. In two hours, no more, you will be satisfied in everything. I will now put your matter in the charge of a special man who has just finished a course at the university. Sit in my library meanwhile. Here there is everything you might need: books, paper, pens, pencils—everything. Help yourself, help yourself, you are the master.”

  So spoke Koshkarev as he led him into the library. It was a huge room, with books from floor to ceiling. There were even stuffed animals. Books in all fields—forestry, cattle breeding, pig breeding, gardening, thousands of assorted journals, guidebooks, and a multitude of journals presenting the latest developments and improvements in horse breeding and natural science. There were such titles as: Pig Breeding as a Science. Seeing that these things were not for the pleasant passing of time, he turned to another bookcase. From the frying pan into the fire. They were all books of philosophy. One bore the title: Philosophy in a Scientific Sense. There was a row of six volumes entitled: A Preparatory Introduction to the Theory of Thinking in Their Entirety, Totality, Essence, and Application to the Comprehension of the Organic Principles of the Mutual Divarication of Social Production. Whichever book Chichikov opened, there was on every page a manifestation, a development, an abstract, enclosures, disclosures, and devil knows what was not there. “No, this is all not for me,” Chichikov said, and turned to the third bookcase, which contained everything in the line of the arts. Here he pulled out some huge book with immodest mythological pictures and began studying them. This was to his taste. Middle-aged bachelors like such pictures. They say that recently they have begun to be liked even by little old men who have refined their taste at the ballet. What can be done about it, in our age mankind likes spicy roots. Having finished studying this book, Chichikov was already pulling out another of the same sort, when suddenly Colonel Koshkarev appeared with a beaming face and a paper.

  “It’s all done and done splendidly. This man alone decidedly understands enough for all of them. For that I’ll set him over them: I’ll establish a special higher board and make him president. This is what he has written …”

  “Well, thank God,” thought Chichikov, and he got ready to listen. The colonel began to read:

  “Setting about the consideration of the assignment I have been charged with by Your Honor, I have the privilege herewith to report on the above: (1) The very request of Mister Collegiate Councillor Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, Esquire, contains a certain misunderstanding: in the explanation of the demand for registered souls overtaken by various unexpectednesses, those who have died were also included. This was most probably meant to indicate those nearing death, and not those who have died; for those who have died are not purchasable. What is there to purchase, if there’s nothing? Logic itself tells us as much. And in literary sciences, as is obvious, he never got very far …” Here Koshkarev paused momentarily and said: “At this point, the sly-boots … he needles you a little. But consider what a glib pen—the style of a state secretary; and he was at the university only three years, and hasn’t even finished the course.” Koshkarev went on: “… in literary sciences, as is obvious, he never got very far, for he speaks of the souls as dead, while anyone who has taken a course in human knowledge knows for a certainty that the soul is immortal. (2) Of the above-mentioned registered souls, prescribed, or prescinded, or, as he is pleased to put it incorrectly, dead, there are none present who are not mortgaged, for they are not only all mortgaged without exception, in their totality, but they are also re-mortgaged for an additional hundred and fifty roubles per soul, except for the small village of Gurmailovka, which is in dispute on occasion of the lawsuit of the landowner Predishchev, and therefore can be neither purchased nor mortgaged.”

  “Why, then, did you not declare that to me before? Why have you detained me over nothing?” Chichikov said vexedly.

  “But how could I know
beforehand? That’s the benefit of paperwork, that everything can now be plainly seen in front of our eyes.”

  “What a fool you are, you stupid brute!” Chichikov thought to himself. “You’ve rummaged in books, and what have you learned?” Bypassing all courtesy and decency, he grabbed his hat—and left. The coachman stood holding the droshky ready and with the horses still harnessed: to feed them a written request would have been called for, and the decision—to give the horses oats—would have been received only the next day. Rude and discourteous though Chichikov was, Koshkarev, despite all, was remarkably courteous and delicate with him. He squeezed his hand forcibly and pressed it to his heart, and thanked him for giving him an occasion for seeing the course of the paper procedure at work; that a dressing-down and tongue-lashing were undoubtedly needed, because everything was capable of falling asleep, and the springs of estate management would then slacken and rust; that, owing to this event, he had had a happy thought: to set up a new commission which would be called the commission for supervision of the building commission, so that no one would then dare to steal.

  “Ass! Fool!” thought Chichikov, angry and displeased all the way back. He was already riding under the stars. Night was in the sky. There were lights in the villages. Driving up to the porch, he saw through the windows that the table was already laid for supper.

  “How is it you’re so late?” said Kostanzhoglo, when he appeared at the door.

  “What were you talking about so long?” said Platonov.

  “He’s done me in!” said Chichikov. “I’ve never seen such a fool in all my born days.”

  “That’s still nothing!” said Kostanzhoglo. “Koshkarev is a comforting phenomenon. He’s necessary, because the follies of clever people are made more obvious by the caricature of their reflection in him. They’ve set up offices, and institutions, and managers, and manufactures, and factories, and schools, and commissions, and devil knows what else. As if they had some sort of state of their own! How do you like this, I ask you? A landowner who has arable land and not enough peasants to work it, started a candle factory, invited master candlemakers from London, and became a merchant! There’s an even bigger fool: he started a silk factory!”

  “But you, too, have factories,” Platonov observed.

  “And who started them? They started of themselves: wool accumulated, there was nowhere to sell it, so I started weaving broadcloth, simple, heavy broadcloth; I have it all sold for a low price at the markets. Fish scales, for example, have been thrown away on my bank for six years in a row; what was I to do with them? I started boiling them for glue and made forty thousand. With me everything’s like that.”

  “What a devil!” Chichikov thought, staring at him with all his eyes, “he just rakes it in!”

  “And I don’t build buildings for that; I have no houses with columns and pediments. I don’t invite master craftsmen from abroad. And I’ll never tear peasants away from tilling the soil. I have people work in my factories only in lean years, and only those from elsewhere, for the sake of bread. There can be many such factories. Just study your management a bit more closely and you’ll see—every rag can be of use, every bit of trash can bring income, so much that later you’ll just push it away, saying: no need.”

  “That’s amazing! And what’s most amazing is that every bit of trash can bring income!” said Chichikov.

  “Hm! and not only that!…” Kostanzhoglo did not finish what he was saying: the bile rose in him, and he wanted to abuse his neighboring landowners. “There’s still another clever fellow—what do you think he set up for himself? An almshouse, a stone building on his estate! A pious enterprise! … But if you wish to help, help everyone to do his duty, don’t tear them away from their Christian duty. Help the son to care for his sick father, don’t give him the chance of getting him off his back. Better give him the means of sheltering his neighbor and brother, give him money for that, help him with all your powers, and don’t pull him away, or else he’ll give up all Christian obligations entirely. Don Quixotes in every sense! … It comes to two hundred roubles a year for a man in an almshouse! … On that money I could keep ten people on my estate!” Kostanzhoglo got angry and spat.

  Chichikov was not interested in the almshouse: he wanted to talk about how every bit of trash could bring income. But Kostanzhoglo was angry now, his bile was seething, and the words came pouring out.

  “And here’s another Don Quixote of enlightenment: he’s set up schools! Now, what, for instance, is more useful to a man than literacy? And how did he handle it? Muzhiks from his estate come to me. ‘What’s going on, my dear?’ they say. ‘Our sons have got completely out of hand, don’t want to help us work, they all want to become scriveners, but there’s need for only one scrivener.’ That’s what came of it!”

  Chichikov had no use for schools either, but Platonov took up the subject:

  “But that should be no hindrance, that there’s no need for scriveners now: there will be later. We must work for posterity.”

  “But you at least be intelligent, brother! What do you care about this posterity? Everyone thinks he’s some kind of Peter the Great! Look under your feet, don’t gaze into posterity; make it so that the muzhik is well off, even rich, so that he has time to study of his own will, but don’t take a stick in your hand and say: ‘Study!’ Devil knows which end they start from! … Listen, now, I’ll let you be the judge now …” Here Kostanzhoglo moved closer to Chichikov and, to give him a better grasp of the matter, boarded him with a grapnel—in other words, put a finger in the buttonhole of his tailcoat. “Now, what could be clearer? You have peasants, so you should foster them in their peasant way of life. What is this way of life? What is the peasant’s occupation? Ploughing? Then see to it that he’s a good ploughman. Clear? No, clever fellows turn up who say: ‘He should be taken out of this condition. The life he leads is too crude and simple: he must be made acquainted with the objects of luxury.’ They themselves, owing to this luxury, have become rags instead of people, and got infested with devil knows what diseases, and there’s no lad of eighteen left who hasn’t already tried everything: he’s toothless and bald behind—so now they want to infect these others with it all. Thank God we have at least this one healthy stratum left, as yet unacquainted with such whimsies! We must simply be grateful to God for that. Yes, for me the ploughmen are worthiest of all. God grant that all become ploughmen!”

  “So you suppose that ploughing is the most profitable occupation?” asked Chichikov.

  “The most rightful, not the most profitable. Till the soil in the sweat of your face.4 That is said to us all; it is not said in vain. Age-old experience has proven that man in his agricultural quality has the purest morals. Where ploughing lies at the basis of social life, there is abundance and well-being; there is neither poverty nor luxury, but there is well-being. Till the soil, man was told, labor … no need to be clever about it! I say to the muzhik: ‘Whoever you work for, whether me, or yourself, or a neighbor, just work. If you’re active, I’ll be your first helper. You have no livestock, here’s a horse for you, here’s a cow, here’s a cart … Whatever you need, I’m ready to supply you with, only work. It kills me if your management is not well set up, and I see disorder and poverty there. I won’t suffer idleness. I am set over you so that you should work.’ Hm! they think to increase their income with institutions and factories! But think first of all to make every one of your muzhiks rich, and then you yourself will be rich without factories, mills, or foolish fancies.”

  “The more one listens to you, most honored Konstantin Fyodorovich,” said Chichikov, “the more one has a wish to listen. Tell me, my esteemed sir: if, for example, I should have the intention of becoming a landowner in, say, this province, what should I pay most attention to? what should I do, how should I act in order to become rich in a short period of time, and thereby, so to speak, fulfill the essential duty of a citizen?”

  “What you should do in order to become rich? Here’s what …�
� said Kostanzhoglo.

  “Time for supper!” said the mistress, rising from the sofa, and she stepped into the middle of the room, wrapping a shawl around her chilled young limbs.

  Chichikov popped up from his chair with the adroitness of an almost military man, flew over to the mistress with the soft expression of a delicate civilian in his smile, offered her the crook of his arm, and led her gala-fashion through two rooms into the dining room, all the while keeping his head agreeably inclined a bit to one side. The servant took the lid off the tureen; they all moved their chairs up to the table, and the slurping of soup began.

  Having polished off his soup and washed it down with a glass of liqueur (the liqueur was excellent), Chichikov spoke thus to Kostanzhoglo:

  “Allow me, most honored sir, to bring you back to the subject of our interrupted conversation. I was asking you what to do, how to act, how best to go about …”*

  … …

  “An estate for which, if he were to ask even forty thousand, I’d count it out to him at once.”

  “Hm!” Chichikov fell to pondering. “And why is it,” he spoke somewhat timidly, “that you don’t buy it yourself?”

  “But one needs finally to know one’s limits. I have plenty to keep me busy around my own properties without that. Besides, our gentry are shouting at me without that, saying I supposedly take advantage of their extremities and their ruined estates to buy up land for next to nothing. I’m sick of it, finally.”