Dead Souls, Page 38

  "Order them to take it, then, my dear!" the muzhik said, bowing.

  "No, brother, I've already told you twenty times: don't bring any more. I've got so much material stored up that I don't know what to do with it."

  "With you, dear Konstantin Fyodorovich, it will all be put to use. Such a clever man as you is not to be found in the whole world. Your healthfulness will find a place for anything. So give orders to take it."

  "I need hands, brother; bring me workers, not materials."

  "But you won't lack for workers. Whole villages of ours will come to be hired: the breadlessness was such that no one remembers the like of it. It's a pity you won't just take us, you'd get tried and true service from us, by God you would. With you one gets ever wiser, Konstantin Fyodorovich. So give orders to take it for the last time."

  "But you said before that it would be the last time, and now you've brought it again."

  "For the last time, Konstantin Fyodorovich. If you don't accept it, no one will. So order them to take it, my dear."

  "Well, listen, this time I'll take it, and that only out of pity, so that you won't have brought it in vain. But if you bring it next time, you can whine for three weeks—I won't take it."

  "Yes, sir, Konstantin Fyodorovich; rest assured, next time I won't ever bring it. I humbly thank you." The muzhik went away pleased. He was lying, however, he would bring it again: "maybe" is a great little word.

  "Now then, Konstantin Fyodorovich, sir, do me a kindness . . . knock off a bit," said the itinerant dealer in the blue sibirka, who was walking on the other side of him.

  "You see, I told you from the very start. I'm not fond of bargaining. I tell you again: I'm not like some other landowner whom you get at just as his mortgage payment is due. Don't I know you all! You've got the lists and know who has to pay and when. So, what could be simpler? He's pressed, he gives it to you for half the price. But what's your money to me? My things can go on lying there for three years! I have no mortgage to pay ..."

  "It's real business, Konstantin Fyodorovich. No, sir, it's so that I . . . it's only so as to have dealings with you in the future, and not for anything mercenary. Kindly accept a little deposit of three thousand."

  The dealer took a wad of greasy bills from his breast pocket.

  Kostanzhoglo took them with great coolness, and put them into the back pocket of his frock coat without counting them.

  "Hm," thought Chichikov, "just as if it were a handkerchief!"

  A moment later Kostanzhoglo appeared in the doorway of the drawing room.

  "Hah, brother, you're here!" he said, seeing Platonov. They embraced and kissed each other. Platonov introduced Chichikov. Chichikov reverently approached the host, planted a kiss on his cheek, and received from him the impression of a kiss.

  Kostanzhoglo's face was very remarkable. It betrayed its southern origin. His hair and eyebrows were dark and thick, his eyes eloquent, brightly gleaming. Intelligence shone in every expression of his face, and there was nothing sleepy in it. One could notice, however, an admixture of something bilious and embittered. What, in fact, was his nationality? There are many Russians in Russia who are of non-Russian origin but are nevertheless Russians in their souls. Kostanzhoglo was not interested in his origins, finding the question beside the point and quite useless for the household. Besides, he knew no other language than Russian.

  "Do you know what has occurred to me, Konstantin?" said Platonov.

  "What?"

  "It has occurred to me to take a trip over various provinces; maybe it will cure my spleen."

  "Why not? It's quite possible."

  "Together with Pavel Ivanovich here."

  "Wonderful! And to what parts," Kostanzhoglo asked, addressing Chichikov affably, "do you now purpose to travel?"

  "I confess," said Chichikov, inclining his head to one side and grasping the armrest of the chair with his hand, "I am traveling, for the moment, not so much on my own necessity as on another's. General Betrishchev, a close friend and, one might say, benefactor, asked me to visit his relatives. Relatives are relatives, of course, but it is partly, so to speak, for my own self as well; because, indeed, to say nothing of the good that may come from it in the hemorrhoidal respect, the fact alone that one sees the world, the circulation of people . . . whatever they may say, it is, so to speak, a living book, the same as learning."

  "Yes, it does no harm to peek into certain corners."

  "An excellent observation, if you please," Chichikov adverted, "indeed, it does no harm. You see things you wouldn't see otherwise; you meet people you wouldn't meet otherwise. Conversing with some people is as good as gold. Teach me, my most esteemed Konstantin Fyodorovich, teach me, I appeal to you. I wait for your sweet words as for manna."

  Kostanzhoglo was embarrassed.

  "What, though? . . . teach you what? I have only a pennyworth of education myself."

  "Wisdom, my most esteemed sir, wisdom! the wisdom for managing an estate as you do; for obtaining an assured income as you have; for acquiring property as you do, not dreamlike, but substantial, and thereby fulfilling the duty of a citizen and earning the respect of one's compatriots."

  "You know what?" said Kostanzhoglo, "stay with me for a day. I'll show you all my management and tell you about everything. There isn't any wisdom involved, as you'll see."

  "Stay for this one day, brother," the hostess said, turning to Platonov.

  "Why not, it makes no difference to me," the man said indifferently, "what about Pavel Ivanovich?"

  "I, too, with the greatest pleasure . . . But there's this one circumstance—I must visit General Betrishchev's relative. There's a certain Colonel Koshkarev..."

  "But he's . . . don't you know? He's a fool and quite mad."

  "That I've heard already. I have no business with him myself. But since General Betrishchev is my close friend and even, so to speak, benefactor . . . it's somehow awkward."

  "In that case, I tell you what," said Kostanzhoglo, "go to him right now. I have a droshky standing ready. It's even less than six miles away, you'll fly there and back in no time. You'll even get back before supper."

  Chichikov gladly took advantage of the suggestion. The droshky was brought, and he drove off at once to see the colonel, who amazed him as he had never been amazed before. Everything at his place was extraordinary. The village was scattered all over: construction sites, reconstruction sites, piles of lime, brick, and logs everywhere in the streets. There were some houses built that looked like institutions. On one there was written in gold letters: Farm Implement Depot, on another: Main Accounting Office, on a third: Village Affairs Commitee; School of Normal Education of Settlers—in short, devil knows what was not there! He thought he might have entered a provincial capital. The colonel himself was somehow stiff. His face was somehow formal, shaped like a triangle. His side-whiskers stretched in a line down his cheeks; his hair, hairstyling, nose, lips, chin— everything was as if it had just been taken from a press. He began speaking as if he were a sensible man. From the very beginning he began to complain of the lack of learning among the surrounding landowners, of the great labors that lay ahead of him. He received Chichikov with the utmost kindness and cordiality, took him entirely into his confidence, and with self-delight told him what labor, oh, what labor it had cost him to raise his estate to its present prosperity; how hard it was to make a simple muzhik understand the lofty impulses that enlightened luxury and the fine arts give a man; how necessary it was to combat the Russian muzhik's ignorance, so as to get him to dress in German trousers and make him feel, at least to some extent, man's lofty dignity; that, despite all his efforts, he had so far been unable to make the peasant women put on corsets, whereas in Germany, where his regiment had been stationed in the year 'fourteen, a miller's daughter could even play the piano, speak French, and curtsy. Regretfully, he told how great was the lack of learning among the neighboring landowners; how little they thought of their subjects; how they even laughed when he tried to explain
how necessary it was for good management to set up a record office, commission offices, and even committees, so as to prevent all theft, so that every object would be known, so that the scrivener, the steward, and the bookkeeper would not be just educated somehow, but finish their studies at the university; how, despite all persuasions, he was unable to convince the landowners of how profitable it would be for their estates if every peasant were so well educated that, while following the plough, he could at the same time read a book about lightning rods.

  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 VOlliere."

  "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 slyboots ... 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 a
dditional 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!"