Dead Souls, Page 40

  "In that case I'll get rich," said Chichikov, "because I'm beginning, so to speak, from almost nothing."

  He had in mind the dead souls.

  "Konstantin, it's time we let Pavel Ivanovich rest and get some sleep," said the mistress, "but you keep babbling."

  "And you will certainly get rich," said Kostanzhoglo, not listening to the mistress. "Rivers, rivers of gold will flow to you. You won't know what to do with such money."

  Pavel Ivanovich sat as one enchanted, and his thoughts were whirling in a golden realm of growing dreams and reveries.

  "Really, Konstantin, it's time Pavel Ivanovich slept."

  "But what is it to you? Go yourself, if you want to," the host said, and stopped: loudly, through the whole room, came the snoring of Platonov, after whom Yarb began to snore even louder. For a long time already a distant banging on iron rails had been heard. It was getting past midnight. Kostanzhoglo observed that it was indeed time to retire. They all wandered off, having wished each other good night and hastening to make use of the wish.

  Only Chichikov was unable to sleep. His thoughts were wakeful. He was pondering how to become a landowner like Kostanzhoglo. After his conversation with the host, everything had become so clear; the possibility of getting rich seemed so obvious. The difficult matter of management had now become so plain and simple, and seemed so suited to his very nature, that he began to have serious thoughts of acquiring not an imaginary but a real estate; he decided then and there that with the money he would get from the bank for mortgaging his fantastic souls, he would acquire a by no means fantastic estate. He already saw himself acting and managing precisely as Kostanzhoglo instructed—efficiently, prudently, not introducing anything new before learning thoroughly everything old, examining everything with his own eyes, getting to know all the muzhiks, spurning all excesses, giving himself only to work and management. He already anticipated beforehand the pleasure he would feel when a harmonious order was established and all the springs of management began working briskly, energetically pushing each other. Work would be at the boil, and just as a well-running mill swiftly produces flour from grain, so all sorts of trash and rubbish would start producing pure gold, pure gold. The wondrous proprietor stood before him every moment. He was the first man in the whole of Russia for whom he felt personal respect. Until now he had respected men either for their high rank or for their great wealth! He had never yet respected any man for his intelligence proper. Kostanzhoglo was the first. Chichikov also understood that there was no point in talking with such a man about dead souls, and that the mere mention of it would be inappropriate. He was now occupied with another project—to buy Khlobuev's estate. He had ten thousand: another ten thousand he meant to borrow from Kostanzhoglo, who had just himself announced his readiness to help anyone who wished to get rich and take up estate management. The remaining ten thousand he could pledge to pay later, once the souls had been mortgaged. He could not yet mortgage all the souls he had bought, because there was still no land for him to resettle them on. Though he averred that he had land in Kherson province, it as yet existed mostly in intent. The intention was still to buy up land in Kherson province because it was sold there for next to nothing and was even given away free, if only people would settle there. He also thought about the need to hurry up and buy whatever runaway and dead souls could be found, because landowners were hastening to mortgage their estates, and it might soon be that in all Russia there was no corner left not mortgaged to the treasury. All these thoughts filled his head one after another and kept him from sleeping. Finally sleep, which for four full hours had held the whole house, as they say, in its embrace, finally took Chichikov into its embrace as well. He fell fast asleep.

  Chapter Four

  The next day everything was arranged in the best possible way. Kostanzhoglo gladly gave him the ten thousand without interest, without security—simply with a receipt. So ready he was to assist anyone on the path to acquisition. Not only that: he himself undertook to accompany Chichikov to Khlobuev's, so as to look the estate over. After a substantial breakfast, they all set out, having climbed all three into Pavel Ivanovich's carriage; the host's droshky followed empty behind. Yarb ran ahead, chasing birds off the road. In a little over an hour and a half, they covered ten miles and saw a small estate with two houses. One of them, big and new, was unfinished and had remained in that rough state for several years; the other was small and old. They found the owner disheveled, sleepy, just awakened; there was a patch on his frock coat and a hole in his boot.

  He was God knows how glad of the visitors' arrival. As if he were seeing brothers from whom he had been parted for a long time.

  "Konstantin Fyodorovich! Platon Mikhailovich!" he cried out. "Dear friends! I'm much obliged! Let me rub my eyes! I really thought no one would ever come to see me. Everyone flees me like the plague: they think I'll ask them to lend me money. Oh, it's hard, hard, Konstantin Fyodorovich! I see that it's all my fault! What can I do? I live like a swinish pig. Excuse me, gentlemen, for receiving you in such attire: my boots, as you see, have holes in them. And what may I offer you, tell me?"

  "Please, no beating around the bush. We've come to see you on business," said Kostanzhoglo. "Here's a purchaser for you—Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov."

  "I'm heartily pleased to meet you. Let me press your hand."

  Chichikov gave him both.

  "I should very much like, my most esteemed Pavel Ivanovich, to show you an estate worthy of attention . . . But, gentlemen, allow me to ask, have you had dinner?"

  "We have, we have," said Kostanzhoglo, wishing to get out of it. "Let's not tarry but go right now."

  "In that case, let's go."

  Khlobuev picked up his peaked cap. The visitors put their caps on their heads, and they all set out on foot to look over the estate.

  "Let's go and look at my disorder and dissipation," Khlobuev said. "Of course, you did well to have your dinner. Would you believe it, Konstantin Fyodorovich, there isn't a chicken in the house—that's what I've come to. I behave like a swine, just like a swine!"

  He sighed deeply and, as if sensing there would be little sympathy on Konstantin Fyodorovich's part and that his heart was on the callous side, he took Platonov under the arm and went ahead with him, pressing him close to his breast. Kostanzhoglo and Chichikov remained behind and, taking each other's arm, followed them at a distance.

  "It's hard, Platon Mikhalych, hard!" Khlobuev was saying to Platonov. "You can't imagine how hard! Moneylessness, breadlessness, bootlessness! It all wouldn't matter a straw to me if I were young and alone. But when all these adversities start breaking over you as you're approaching old age, and there's a wife at your side, and five children—one feels sad, willy-nilly, one feels sad ...”

  Platonov was moved to pity.

  "Well, and if you sell the estate, will that set you to rights?" he asked.

  "To rights, hah!" said Khlobuev, waving his hand. "It will all go to pay the most necessary debts, and then I won't have even a thousand left for myself."

  "Then what are you going to do?"

  "God knows," Khlobuev said, shrugging.

  Platonov was surprised.

  "How is it you don't undertake anything to extricate yourself from such circumstances?"

  "What should I undertake?"

  "Are there no ways?"

  "None."

  "Well, look for a position, take some post?"

  "But I'm a provincial secretary. They can't give me any lucrative post. The salary would be tiny, and I have a wife and five children."

  "Well, some private position, then. Go and become a steward."

  "But who would entrust an estate to me! I've squandered my own."

  "Well, if you're threatened with starvation and death, you really must undertake something. I'll ask my brother whether he can solicit some position in town through someone."

  "No, Platon Mikhailovich," said Khlobuev, sighing and squeezing his hand hard, "I'm not good for anything now.
I became decrepit before my old age, and there's lower-back pain on account of my former sins, and rheumatism in my shoulder. I'm not up to it! Why squander government money! Even without that there are many who serve for the sake of lucrative posts. God forbid that because of me, because my salary must be paid, the taxes on poorer folk should be raised: it's hard for them as it is with this host of bloodsuckers. No, Platon Mikhailovich, forget it."

  "What a fix!" thought Platonov. "This is worse than my hibernation."

  Meanwhile, Kostanzhoglo and Chichikov, walking a good distance behind them, were speaking thus with each other:

  "Look how he's let everything go!" Kostanzhoglo said, pointing a finger. "Drove his muzhiks into such poverty! If there's cattle plague, it's no time to look after your own goods. Go and sell what you have, and supply the muzhiks with cattle, so that they don't go even for one day without the means of doing their work. But now it would take years to set things right: the muzhiks have all grown lazy, drunk, and rowdy."

  "So that means it's not at all profitable to buy such an estate now?" asked Chichikov.

  Here Kostanzhoglo looked at him as if he wanted to say: "What an ignoramus you are! Must I start you at the primer level?"

  "Unprofitable! but in three years I'd be getting twenty thousand a year from this estate. That's how unprofitable it is! Ten miles away. A trifle! And what land! just look at the land! It's all water meadows. No, I'd plant flax and produce some five thousand worth of flax alone; I'd plant turnips, and make some four thousand on turnips. And look over there—rye is growing on the hillside; it all just seeded itself. He didn't sow rye, I know that. No, this estate's worth a hundred and fifty thousand, not forty."

  Chichikov began to fear lest Khlobuev overhear them, and so he dropped still farther behind.

  "Look how much land he's left waste!" Kostanzhoglo was saying, beginning to get angry. "At least he should have sent word beforehand, some volunteers would have trudged over here. Well, if you've got nothing to plough with, then dig a kitchen garden. You'd have a kitchen garden anyway. He forced his muzhiks to go without working for four years. A trifle! But that alone is enough to corrupt and ruin them forever! They've already grown used to being ragamuffins and vagabonds! It's already become their way of life." And, having said that, Kostanzhoglo spat, a bilious disposition overshadowed his brow with a dark cloud . . .

  "I cannot stay here any longer: it kills me to look at this disorder and desolation! You can finish it with him on your own now. Quickly take the treasure away from this fool. He only dishonors the divine gift!"

  And, having said this, Kostanzhoglo bade farewell to Chichikov, and, catching up with the host, began saying good-bye to him, too.

  "Good gracious, Konstantin Fyodorovich," the surprised host said, "you've just come—and home!"

  "I can't. It's necessary for me to be at home," Kostanzhoglo said, took his leave, got into his droshky, and drove off.

  Khlobuev seemed to understand the cause of his departure.

  "Konstantin Fyodorovich couldn't stand it," he said. "I feel that it's not very cheery for such a proprietor as he to look at such wayward management. Believe me, I cannot, I cannot, Pavel Ivanovich ... I sowed almost no grain this year! On my honor. I had no seed, not to mention nothing to plough with. Your brother, Platon Mikhailovich, is said to be an extraordinary man; and of Konstantin Fyodorovich it goes without saying—he's a Napoleon of sorts. I often think, in fact: 'Now, why is so much intelligence given to one head? Now, if only one little drop of it could get into my foolish pate, if only so that I could keep my house! I don't know how to do anything, I can't do anything!' Ah, Pavel Ivanovich, take it into your care! Most of all I pity the poor muzhiks. I feel that I was never able to be . . .[v] what do you want me to do, I can't be exacting and strict. And how could I get them accustomed to order if I myself am disorderly! I'd set them free right now, but the Russian man is somehow so arranged, he somehow can't do without being prodded . . . He'll just fall asleep, he'll just get moldy."

  "That is indeed strange," said Platonov. "Why is it that with us, unless you keep a close eye on the simple man, he turns into a drunkard and a scoundrel?"

  "Lack of education," observed Chichikov.

  "Well, God knows about that. We were educated, and how do we live? I went to the university and listened to lectures in all fields, yet not only did I not learn the art and order of living, but it seems I learned best the art of spending more money on various new refinements and comforts, and became better acquainted with the objects for which one needs money. Is it because there was no sense in my studies? Not really: it's the same with my other comrades. Maybe two or three of them derived something truly useful for themselves from it, and maybe that was because they were intelligent to begin with, but the rest only tried to learn what's bad for one's health and fritters away one's money. By God!

  We went and studied only so as to applaud the professors, to hand them out awards, and not to receive anything from them. And so we choose from education that which, after all, is on the mean side; we snatch the surface, but the thing itself we don't take. No, Pavel Ivanovich, it's because of something else that we don't know how to live, but what it is, by God, I don't know."

  "There must be reasons," said Chichikov.

  Poor Khlobuev sighed deeply and spoke thus:

  "Sometimes, really, it seems to me that the Russian is somehow a hopeless man. There's no willpower in him, no courage for constancy. You want to do everything—and can do nothing. You keep thinking—starting tomorrow you'll begin a new life, starting tomorrow you'll begin doing everything as you ought to, starting tomorrow you'll go on a diet—not a bit of it: by the evening of that same day you overeat so much that you just blink your eyes and can't move your tongue, you sit like an owl staring at everybody—and it's the same with everything."

  "One needs a supply of reasonableness," said Chichikov, "one must consult one's reasonableness every moment, conduct a friendly conversation with it."

  "Come, now!" said Khlobuev. "Really, it seems to me that we're not born for reasonableness at all. I don't believe any of us is reasonable. If I see that someone is even living decently, collecting money and putting it aside—I still don't believe it. When he's old, the devil will have his way with him—he'll blow it all at once! We're all the same: noblemen and muzhiks, educated and uneducated. There was one clever muzhik: made a hundred thousand out of nothing, and, once he'd made the hundred thousand, he got the crazy idea of taking a bath in champagne, so he took a bath in champagne. But I think we've looked it all over. There isn't any more. Unless you want to glance at the mill? It has no wheel, however, and the building is good for nothing."

  "Then why look at it!" said Chichikov.

  "In that case, let's go home." And they all turned their steps towards the house.

  The views were all the same on the way back. Untidy disorder kept showing its ugly appearance everywhere. Everything was unmended and untended. Only a new puddle had got itself added to the middle of the street. An angry woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor girl half to death and cursing all devils up and down. Two muzhiks stood at a distance, gazing with stoic indifference at the drunken wench's wrath. One was scratching his behind, the other was yawning. Yawning was evident in the buildings as well. The roofs were also yawning. Platonov, looking at them, yawned. "My future property—my muzhiks," thought Chichikov, "hole upon hole, and patch upon patch!" And, indeed, on one of the cottages a whole gate had been put in place of the roof; the fallen-in windows were propped with laths filched from the master's barn. In short, it seemed that the system of Trishka's caftan[64] has been introduced into the management: the cuffs and skirts were cut off to patch the elbows.

  They went into the house. Chichikov was rather struck by the mixture of destitution with some glittering knickknacks of the latest luxury. Amid tattered utensils and furnishings—new bronze. Some Shakespeare was sitting on an inkstand; a fashionable ivory hand for scratching one's own back l
ay on the table. Khlobuev introduced the mistress of the house, his wife. She was topnotch. Even in Moscow she would have shown herself well. She was dressed fashionably, with taste. She preferred talking about the town and the theater that was being started there. Everything made it obvious that she liked the country even less than did her husband, and that she yawned more than Platonov when she was left alone. Soon the room was full of children, girls and boys. There were five of them. A sixth was carried in. They were all beautiful. The boys and girls were a joy to behold. They were dressed prettily and with taste, were cheerful and frisky. And that made it all the sadder to look at them. It would have been better if they had been dressed poorly, in skirts and shorts of simple ticking, running around in the yard, no different in any way from peasant children! A visitor came to call on the mistress. The ladies went to their half of the house. The children ran after them. The men were left by themselves.

  Chichikov began the purchase. As is customary with all purchasers, he started by running down the estate he was purchasing. And, having run it down on all sides, he said:

  "What, then, will your price be?"

  "Do you know?" said Khlobuev. "I'm not going to ask a high price from you, I don't like that: it would also be unscrupulous on my part. Nor will I conceal from you that of the hundred souls registered on the census lists of my estate, not even fifty are actually there: the rest either died of epidemics or absented themselves without passports, so you ought to count them as dead. And therefore I ask you for only thirty thousand in all."