Chapter Chapter 11 · Chapter XI

Nevertheless events did not turn out as Chichikov had intended they

should. In the first place, he overslept himself. That was check number

one. In the second place, on his rising and inquiring whether the

britchka had been harnessed and everything got ready, he was informed

that neither of those two things had been done. That was check number

two. Beside himself with rage, he prepared to give Selifan the wigging

of his life, and, meanwhile, waited impatiently to hear what the

delinquent had got to say in his defence. It goes without saying that

when Selifan made his appearance in the doorway he had only the usual

excuses to offer--the sort of excuses usually offered by servants when a

hasty departure has become imperatively necessary.

“Paul Ivanovitch,” he said, “the horses require shoeing.”

“Blockhead!” exclaimed Chichikov. “Why did you not tell me of that

before, you damned fool? Was there not time enough for them to be shod?”

“Yes, I suppose there was,” agreed Selifan. “Also one of the wheels is

in want of a new tyre, for the roads are so rough that the old tyre is

worn through. Also, the body of the britchka is so rickety that probably

it will not last more than a couple of stages.”

“Rascal!” shouted Chichikov, clenching his fists and approaching Selifan

in such a manner that, fearing to receive a blow, the man backed and

dodged aside. “Do you mean to ruin me, and to break all our bones on the

road, you cursed idiot? For these three weeks past you have been doing

nothing at all; yet now, at the last moment, you come here stammering

and playing the fool! Do you think I keep you just to eat and to drive

yourself about? You must have known of this before? Did you, or did you

not, know it? Answer me at once.”

“Yes, I did know it,” replied Selifan, hanging his head.

“Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Selifan had no reply immediately ready, so continued to hang his head

while quietly saying to himself: “See how well I have managed things! I

knew what was the matter, yet I did not say.”

“And now,” continued Chichikov, “go you at once and fetch a blacksmith.

Tell him that everything must be put right within two hours at the most.

Do you hear? If that should not be done, I, I--I will give you the best

flogging that ever you had in your life.” Truly Chichikov was almost

beside himself with fury.

Turning towards the door, as though for the purpose of going and

carrying out his orders, Selifan halted and added:

“That skewbald, barin--you might think it well to sell him, seeing that

he is nothing but a rascal? A horse like that is more of a hindrance

than a help.”

“What? Do you expect me to go NOW to the market-place and sell him?”

“Well, Paul Ivanovitch, he is good for nothing but show, since by nature

he is a most cunning beast. Never in my life have I seen such a horse.”

“Fool! Whenever I may wish to sell him I SHALL sell him. Meanwhile,

don’t you trouble your head about what doesn’t concern you, but go and

fetch a blacksmith, and see that everything is put right within two

hours. Otherwise I will take the very hair off your head, and beat you

till you haven’t a face left. Be off! Hurry!”

Selifan departed, and Chichikov, his ill-humour vented, threw down

upon the floor the poignard which he always took with him as a means of

instilling respect into whomsoever it might concern, and spent the next

quarter of an hour in disputing with a couple of blacksmiths--men who,

as usual, were rascals of the type which, on perceiving that something

is wanted in a hurry, at once multiplies its terms for providing the

same. Indeed, for all Chichikov’s storming and raging as he dubbed

the fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could make no

impression upon the pair, since, true to their character, they declined

to abate their prices, and, even when they had begun their work, spent

upon it, not two hours, but five and a half. Meanwhile he had the

satisfaction of experiencing that delightful time with which all

travellers are familiar--namely, the time during which one sits in a

room where, except for a litter of string, waste paper, and so forth,

everything else has been packed. But to all things there comes an end,

and there arrived also the long-awaited moment when the britchka had

received the luggage, the faulty wheel had been fitted with a new tyre,

the horses had been re-shod, and the predatory blacksmiths had departed

with their gains. “Thank God!” thought Chichikov as the britchka rolled

out of the gates of the inn, and the vehicle began to jolt over the

cobblestones. Yet a feeling which he could not altogether have defined

filled his breast as he gazed upon the houses and the streets and the

garden walls which he might never see again. Presently, on turning a

corner, the britchka was brought to a halt through the fact that along

the street there was filing a seemingly endless funeral procession.

Leaning forward in his britchka, Chichikov asked Petrushka whose

obsequies the procession represented, and was told that they represented

those of the Public Prosecutor. Disagreeably shocked, our hero hastened

to raise the hood of the vehicle, to draw the curtains across the

windows, and to lean back into a corner. While the britchka remained

thus halted Selifan and Petrushka, their caps doffed, sat watching the

progress of the cortege, after they had received strict instructions not

to greet any fellow-servant whom they might recognise. Behind the hearse

walked the whole body of tchinovniks, bare-headed; and though, for a

moment or two, Chichikov feared that some of their number might discern

him in his britchka, he need not have disturbed himself, since their

attention was otherwise engaged. In fact, they were not even exchanging

the small talk customary among members of such processions, but

thinking exclusively of their own affairs, of the advent of the new

Governor-General, and of the probable manner in which he would take up

the reins of administration. Next came a number of carriages, from

the windows of which peered the ladies in mourning toilets. Yet the

movements of their hands and lips made it evident that they were

indulging in animated conversation--probably about the Governor-General,

the balls which he might be expected to give, and their own eternal

fripperies and gewgaws. Lastly came a few empty drozhkis. As soon as the

latter had passed, our hero was able to continue on his way. Throwing

back the hood of the britchka, he said to himself:

“Ah, good friend, you have lived your life, and now it is over! In the

newspapers they will say of you that you died regretted not only by

your subordinates, but also by humanity at large, as well as that, a

respected citizen, a kind father, and a husband beyond reproach, you

went to your grave amid the tears of your widow and orphans. Yet, should

those journals be put to it to name any particular circumstance which

justified this eulogy of you, they would be forced to fall back upon the

fact that you grew a pair of exceptionally thick eyebrows!”

With that Chichikov bid Selifan quicken his pace, and concluded: “After

all, it is as well that I encountered the procession, for they say that

to meet a funeral is lucky.”

Presently the britchka turned into some less frequented streets, lines

of wooden fencing of the kind which mark the outskirts of a town began

to file by, the cobblestones came to an end, the macadam of the highroad

succeeded to them, and once more there began on either side of the

turnpike a procession of verst stones, road menders, and grey villages;

inns with samovars and peasant women and landlords who came running out

of yards with seivefuls of oats; pedestrians in worn shoes which, it

might be, had covered eight hundred versts; little towns, bright with

booths for the sale of flour in barrels, boots, small loaves, and other

trifles; heaps of slag; much repaired bridges; expanses of field to

right and to left; stout landowners; a mounted soldier bearing a green,

iron-clamped box inscribed: “The --th Battery of Artillery”; long strips

of freshly-tilled earth which gleamed green, yellow, and black on the

face of the countryside. With it mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of

elm-tops amid mist, the far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks,

and the illimitable line of the horizon.

Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still

see you! In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you

the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which

a yet more temerarious art has conquered; in you one beholds no cities

with lofty, many-windowed mansions, lofty as crags, no picturesque

trees, no ivy-clad ruins, no waterfalls with their everlasting spray and

roar, no beetling precipices which confuse the brain with their stony

immensity, no vistas of vines and ivy and millions of wild roses and

ageless lines of blue hills which look almost unreal against the clear,

silvery background of the sky. In you everything is flat and open; your

towns project like points or signals from smooth levels of plain, and

nothing whatsoever enchants or deludes the eye. Yet what secret, what

invincible force draws me to you? Why does there ceaselessly echo and

re-echo in my ears the sad song which hovers throughout the length and

the breadth of your borders? What is the burden of that song? Why does

it wail and sob and catch at my heart? What say the notes which

thus painfully caress and embrace my soul, and flit, uttering their

lamentations, around me? What is it you seek of me, O Russia? What is

the hidden bond which subsists between us? Why do you regard me as you

do? Why does everything within you turn upon me eyes full of

yearning? Even at this moment, as I stand dumbly, fixedly, perplexedly

contemplating your vastness, a menacing cloud, charged with gathering

rain, seems to overshadow my head. What is it that your boundless

expanses presage? Do they not presage that one day there will arise in

you ideas as boundless as yourself? Do they not presage that one day you

too will know no limits? Do they not presage that one day, when again

you shall have room for their exploits, there will spring to life

the heroes of old? How the power of your immensity enfolds me, and

reverberates through all my being with a wild, strange spell, and

flashes in my eyes with an almost supernatural radiance! Yes, a strange,

brilliant, unearthly vista indeed do you disclose, O Russia, country of

mine!

“Stop, stop, you fool!” shouted Chichikov to Selifan; and even as he

spoke a troika, bound on Government business, came chattering by, and

disappeared in a cloud of dust. To Chichikov’s curses at Selifan for not

having drawn out of the way with more alacrity a rural constable with

moustaches of the length of an arshin added his quota.

What a curious and attractive, yet also what an unreal, fascination

the term “highway” connotes! And how interesting for its own sake is

a highway! Should the day be a fine one (though chilly) in mellowing

autumn, press closer your travelling cloak, and draw down your cap over

your ears, and snuggle cosily, comfortably into a corner of the britchka

before a last shiver shall course through your limbs, and the ensuing

warmth shall put to flight the autumnal cold and damp. As the horses

gallop on their way, how delightfully will drowsiness come stealing upon

you, and make your eyelids droop! For a while, through your somnolence,

you will continue to hear the hard breathing of the team and the

rumbling of the wheels; but at length, sinking back into your corner,

you will relapse into the stage of snoring. And when you awake--behold!

you will find that five stages have slipped away, and that the moon is

shining, and that you have reached a strange town of churches and old

wooden cupolas and blackened spires and white, half-timbered houses! And

as the moonlight glints hither and thither, almost you will believe that

the walls and the streets and the pavements of the place are spread with

sheets--sheets shot with coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs

look all the brighter under the slanting beams of the pale luminary.

Nowhere is a soul to be seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet

no. In a solitary window a light is flickering where some good burgher

is mending his boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night

and powers of heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite

vault--how lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies

spread in an intangible, yet audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling

breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into

snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as

he begins to be conscious of your weight. Then again you awake, but

this time to find yourself confronted with only fields and steppes.

Everywhere in the ascendant is the desolation of space. But suddenly the

ciphers on a verst stone leap to the eye! Morning is rising, and on the

chill, gradually paling line of the horizon you can see gleaming a faint

gold streak. The wind freshens and grows keener, and you snuggle closer

in your cloak; yet how glorious is that freshness, and how marvellous

the sleep in which once again you become enfolded! A jolt!--and for the

last time you return to consciousness. By now the sun is high in the

heavens, and you hear a voice cry “gently, gently!” as a farm waggon

issues from a by-road. Below, enclosed within an ample dike, stretches

a sheet of water which glistens like copper in the sunlight. Beyond, on

the side of a slope, lie some scattered peasants’ huts, a manor house,

and, flanking the latter, a village church with its cross flashing

like a star. There also comes wafted to your ear the sound of peasants’

laughter, while in your inner man you are becoming conscious of an

appetite which is not to be withstood.

Oh long-drawn highway, how excellent you are! How often have I in

weariness and despondency set forth upon your length, and found in you

salvation and rest! How often, as I followed your leading, have I been

visited with wonderful thoughts and poetic dreams and curious, wild

impressions!

At this moment our friend Chichikov also was experiencing visions of a

not wholly prosaic nature. Let us peep into his soul and share them.

At first he remained unconscious of anything whatsoever, for he was too

much engaged in making sure that he was really clear of the town; but

as soon as he saw that it had completely disappeared, with its mills and

factories and other urban appurtenances, and that even the steeples

of the white stone churches had sunk below the horizon, he turned his

attention to the road, and the town of N. vanished from his thoughts as

completely as though he had not seen it since childhood. Again, in its

turn, the road ceased to interest him, and he began to close his eyes

and to loll his head against the cushions. Of this let the author

take advantage, in order to speak at length concerning his hero; since

hitherto he (the author) has been prevented from so doing by Nozdrev and

balls and ladies and local intrigues--by those thousand trifles which

seem trifles only when they are introduced into a book, but which, in

life, figure as affairs of importance. Let us lay them aside, and betake

ourselves to business.

Whether the character whom I have selected for my hero has pleased my

readers is, of course, exceedingly doubtful. At all events the ladies

will have failed to approve him for the fair sex demands in a hero

perfection, and, should there be the least mental or physical stain

on him--well, woe betide! Yes, no matter how profoundly the author may

probe that hero’s soul, no matter how clearly he may portray his figure

as in a mirror, he will be given no credit for the achievement. Indeed,

Chichikov’s very stoutness and plenitude of years may have militated

against him, for never is a hero pardoned for the former, and the

majority of ladies will, in such case, turn away, and mutter to

themselves: “Phew! What a beast!” Yes, the author is well aware of this.

Yet, though he could not, to save his life, take a person of virtue for

his principal character, it may be that this story contains themes

never before selected, and that in it there projects the whole boundless

wealth of Russian psychology; that it portrays, as well as Chichikov,

the peasant who is gifted with the virtues which God has sent him, and

the marvellous maiden of Russia who has not her like in all the world

for her beautiful feminine spirituality, the roots of which lie buried

in noble aspirations and boundless self-denial. In fact, compared with

these types, the virtuous of other races seem lifeless, as does an

inanimate volume when compared with the living word. Yes, each time that

there arises in Russia a movement of thought, it becomes clear that the

movement sinks deep into the Slavonic nature where it would but have

skimmed the surface of other nations.--But why am I talking like this?

Whither am I tending? It is indeed shameful that an author who long

ago reached man’s estate, and was brought up to a course of severe

introspection and sober, solitary self-enlightenment, should give way to

such jejune wandering from the point. To everything its proper time

and place and turn. As I was saying, it does not lie in me to take a

virtuous character for my hero: and I will tell you why. It is because

it is high time that a rest were given to the “poor, but virtuous”

individual; it is because the phrase “a man of worth” has grown into a

by-word; it is because the “man of worth” has become converted into a

horse, and there is not a writer but rides him and flogs him, in and out

of season; it is because the “man of worth” has been starved until he

has not a shred of his virtue left, and all that remains of his body is

but the ribs and the hide; it is because the “man of worth” is for ever

being smuggled upon the scene; it is because the “man of worth” has at

length forfeited every one’s respect. For these reasons do I reaffirm

that it is high time to yoke a rascal to the shafts. Let us yoke that

rascal.

Our hero’s beginnings were both modest and obscure. True, his parents

were dvoriane, but he in no way resembled them. At all events, a short,

squab female relative who was present at his birth exclaimed as she

lifted up the baby: “He is altogether different from what I had expected

him to be. He ought to have taken after his maternal grandmother,

whereas he has been born, as the proverb has it, ‘like not father nor

mother, but like a chance passer-by.’” Thus from the first life

regarded the little Chichikov with sour distaste, and as through a dim,

frost-encrusted window. A tiny room with diminutive casements which were

never opened, summer or winter; an invalid father in a dressing-gown

lined with lambskin, and with an ailing foot swathed in bandages--a man

who was continually drawing deep breaths, and walking up and down the

room, and spitting into a sandbox; a period of perpetually sitting on

a bench with pen in hand and ink on lips and fingers; a period of being

eternally confronted with the copy-book maxim, “Never tell a lie, but

obey your superiors, and cherish virtue in your heart;” an everlasting

scraping and shuffling of slippers up and down the room; a period of

continually hearing a well-known, strident voice exclaim: “So you have

been playing the fool again!” at times when the child, weary of the

mortal monotony of his task, had added a superfluous embellishment

to his copy; a period of experiencing the ever-familiar, but

ever-unpleasant, sensation which ensued upon those words as the boy’s

ear was painfully twisted between two long fingers bent backwards at

the tips--such is the miserable picture of that youth of which, in later

life, Chichikov preserved but the faintest of memories! But in this

world everything is liable to swift and sudden change; and, one day in

early spring, when the rivers had melted, the father set forth with

his little son in a teliezshka [37] drawn by a sorrel steed of the kind

known to horsy folk as a soroka, and having as coachman the diminutive

hunchback who, father of the only serf family belonging to the elder

Chichikov, served as general factotum in the Chichikov establishment.

For a day and a half the soroka conveyed them on their way; during which

time they spent the night at a roadside inn, crossed a river, dined off

cold pie and roast mutton, and eventually arrived at the county town. To

the lad the streets presented a spectacle of unwonted brilliancy, and

he gaped with amazement. Turning into a side alley wherein the mire

necessitated both the most strenuous exertions on the soroka’s part and

the most vigorous castigation on the part of the driver and the barin,

the conveyance eventually reached the gates of a courtyard which,

combined with a small fruit garden containing various bushes, a couple

of apple-trees in blossom, and a mean, dirty little shed, constituted

the premises attached to an antiquated-looking villa. Here there lived

a relative of the Chichikovs, a wizened old lady who went to market in

person and dried her stockings at the samovar. On seeing the boy, she

patted his cheek and expressed satisfaction at his physique; whereupon

the fact became disclosed that here he was to abide for a while, for

the purpose of attending a local school. After a night’s rest his father

prepared to betake himself homeward again; but no tears marked the

parting between him and his son, he merely gave the lad a copper or two

and (a far more important thing) the following injunctions. “See here,

my boy. Do your lessons well, do not idle or play the fool, and above

all things, see that you please your teachers. So long as you observe

these rules you will make progress, and surpass your fellows, even if

God shall have denied you brains, and you should fail in your studies.

Also, do not consort overmuch with your comrades, for they will do you

no good; but, should you do so, then make friends with the richer of

them, since one day they may be useful to you. Also, never entertain or

treat any one, but see that every one entertains and treats YOU. Lastly,

and above all else, keep and save your every kopeck. To save money is

the most important thing in life. Always a friend or a comrade may fail

you, and be the first to desert you in a time of adversity; but never

will a KOPECK fail you, whatever may be your plight. Nothing in the

world cannot be done, cannot be attained, with the aid of money.” These

injunctions given, the father embraced his son, and set forth on his

return; and though the son never again beheld his parent, the latter’s

words and precepts sank deep into the little Chichikov’s soul.

The next day young Pavlushka made his first attendance at school. But no

special aptitude in any branch of learning did he display. Rather, his

distinguishing characteristics were diligence and neatness. On the other

hand, he developed great intelligence as regards the PRACTICAL aspect

of life. In a trice he divined and comprehended how things ought to

be worked, and, from that time forth, bore himself towards his

school-fellows in such a way that, though they frequently gave him

presents, he not only never returned the compliment, but even on

occasions pocketed the gifts for the mere purpose of selling them again.

Also, boy though he was, he acquired the art of self-denial. Of the

trifle which his father had given him on parting he spent not a kopeck,

but, the same year, actually added to his little store by fashioning

a bullfinch of wax, painting it, and selling the same at a handsome

profit. Next, as time went on, he engaged in other speculations--in

particular, in the scheme of buying up eatables, taking his seat in

class beside boys who had plenty of pocket-money, and, as soon as such

opulent individuals showed signs of failing attention (and, therefore,

of growing appetite), tendering them, from beneath the desk, a roll of

pudding or a piece of gingerbread, and charging according to degree

of appetite and size of portion. He also spent a couple of months in

training a mouse, which he kept confined in a little wooden cage in his

bedroom. At length, when the training had reached the point that, at the

several words of command, the mouse would stand upon its hind legs,

lie down, and get up again, he sold the creature for a respectable sum.

Thus, in time, his gains attained the amount of five roubles; whereupon

he made himself a purse and then started to fill a second receptacle of

the kind. Still more studied was his attitude towards the authorities.

No one could sit more quietly in his place on the bench than he. In the

same connection it may be remarked that his teacher was a man who, above

all things, loved peace and good behaviour, and simply could not

abide clever, witty boys, since he suspected them of laughing at him.

Consequently any lad who had once attracted the master’s attention with

a manifestation of intelligence needed but to shuffle in his place, or

unintentionally to twitch an eyebrow, for the said master at once to

burst into a rage, to turn the supposed offender out of the room, and

to visit him with unmerciful punishment. “Ah, my fine fellow,” he would

say, “I’LL cure you of your impudence and want of respect! I know you

through and through far better than you know yourself, and will take

good care that you have to go down upon your knees and curb your

appetite.” Whereupon the wretched lad would, for no cause of which he

was aware, be forced to wear out his breeches on the floor and go hungry

for days. “Talents and gifts,” the schoolmaster would declare, “are so

much rubbish. I respect only good behaviour, and shall award full marks

to those who conduct themselves properly, even if they fail to learn a

single letter of their alphabet: whereas to those in whom I may perceive

a tendency to jocularity I shall award nothing, even though they should

outdo Solon himself.” For the same reason he had no great love of the

author Krylov, in that the latter says in one of his Fables: “In my

opinion, the more one sings, the better one works;” and often the

pedagogue would relate how, in a former school of his, the silence had

been such that a fly could be heard buzzing on the wing, and for the

space of a whole year not a single pupil sneezed or coughed in class,

and so complete was the absence of all sound that no one could have

told that there was a soul in the place. Of this mentor young Chichikov

speedily appraised the mentality; wherefore he fashioned his behaviour

to correspond with it. Not an eyelid, not an eyebrow, would he stir

during school hours, howsoever many pinches he might receive from

behind; and only when the bell rang would he run to anticipate his

fellows in handing the master the three-cornered cap which that

dignitary customarily sported, and then to be the first to leave the

class-room, and contrive to meet the master not less than two or three

times as the latter walked homeward, in order that, on each occasion,

he might doff his cap. And the scheme proved entirely successful.

Throughout the period of his attendance at school he was held in high

favour, and, on leaving the establishment, received full marks for every

subject, as well as a diploma and a book inscribed (in gilt letters)

“For Exemplary Diligence and the Perfection of Good Conduct.” By this

time he had grown into a fairly good-looking youth of the age when the

chin first calls for a razor; and at about the same period his father

died, leaving behind him, as his estate, four waistcoats completely worn

out, two ancient frockcoats, and a small sum of money. Apparently he had

been skilled only in RECOMMENDING the saving of kopecks--not in ACTUALLY

PRACTISING the art. Upon that Chichikov sold the old house and its

little parcel of land for a thousand roubles, and removed, with his

one serf and the serf’s family, to the capital, where he set about

organising a new establishment and entering the Civil Service.

Simultaneously with his doing so, his old schoolmaster lost (through

stupidity or otherwise) the establishment over which he had hitherto

presided, and in which he had set so much store by silence and good

behaviour. Grief drove him to drink, and when nothing was left, even

for that purpose, he retired--ill, helpless, and starving--into a

broken-down, cheerless hovel. But certain of his former pupils--the same

clever, witty lads whom he had once been wont to accuse of impertinence

and evil conduct generally--heard of his pitiable plight, and collected

for him what money they could, even to the point of selling their own

necessaries. Only Chichikov, when appealed to, pleaded inability, and

compromised with a contribution of a single piatak [38]: which his

old schoolfellows straightway returned him--full in the face, and

accompanied with a shout of “Oh, you skinflint!” As for the poor

schoolmaster, when he heard what his former pupils had done, he buried

his face in his hands, and the tears gushed from his failing eyes as

from those of a helpless infant. “God has brought you but to weep over

my death-bed,” he murmured feebly; and added with a profound sigh, on

hearing of Chichikov’s conduct: “Ah, Pavlushka, how a human being may

become changed! Once you were a good lad, and gave me no trouble; but

now you are become proud indeed!”

Yet let it not be inferred from this that our hero’s character had grown

so blase and hard, or his conscience so blunted, as to preclude his

experiencing a particle of sympathy or compassion. As a matter of fact,

he was capable both of the one and the other, and would have been glad

to assist his old teacher had no great sum been required, or had he not

been called upon to touch the fund which he had decided should remain

intact. In other words, the father’s injunction, “Guard and save every

kopeck,” had become a hard and fast rule of the son’s. Yet the youth had

no particular attachment to money for money’s sake; he was not possessed

with the true instinct for hoarding and niggardliness. Rather, before

his eyes there floated ever a vision of life and its amenities and

advantages--a vision of carriages and an elegantly furnished house and

recherche dinners; and it was in the hope that some day he might attain

these things that he saved every kopeck and, meanwhile, stinted both

himself and others. Whenever a rich man passed him by in a splendid

drozhki drawn by swift and handsomely-caparisoned horses, he would halt

as though deep in thought, and say to himself, like a man awakening

from a long sleep: “That gentleman must have been a financier, he has so

little hair on his brow.” In short, everything connected with wealth and

plenty produced upon him an ineffaceable impression. Even when he left

school he took no holiday, so strong in him was the desire to get to

work and enter the Civil Service. Yet, for all the encomiums contained

in his diploma, he had much ado to procure a nomination to a Government

Department; and only after a long time was a minor post found for him,

at a salary of thirty or forty roubles a year. Nevertheless, wretched

though this appointment was, he determined, by strict attention to

business, to overcome all obstacles, and to win success. And, indeed,

the self-denial, the patience, and the economy which he displayed

were remarkable. From early morn until late at night he would, with

indefatigable zeal of body and mind, remain immersed in his sordid task

of copying official documents--never going home, snatching what sleep he

could on tables in the building, and dining with the watchman on duty.

Yet all the while he contrived to remain clean and neat, to preserve

a cheerful expression of countenance, and even to cultivate a certain

elegance of movement. In passing, it may be remarked that his fellow

tchinovniks were a peculiarly plain, unsightly lot, some of them having

faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding chins, and

cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was

handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of

sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and

by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there

remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the

Director’s room itself they would invade while still licking their lips,

and since their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room

grew not over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man

like Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in

everything--in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and

in complete neglect of the use of strong potions--he was the absolute

antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread,

for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief

Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia.

Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in

his life have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance’s health.

Nor had any one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his

own home from what he was in the office, or showing the least interest

in anything whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in

his cups, or indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when

intoxicated, even a burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was

there in him. Nor, for that matter, was there in him a particle of

anything at all, whether good or bad: which complete negativeness

of character produced rather a strange effect. In the same way, his

wizened, marble-like features reminded one of nothing in particular, so

primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous pockmarks and dimples

with which they were pitted placed him among the number of those over

whose faces, to quote the popular saying, “The Devil has walked by night

to grind peas.” In short, it would seem that no human agency could have

approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet Chichikov made the

effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the other’s convenience

in all manner of insignificant trifles--to cleaning his pens carefully,

and, when they had been prepared exactly to the Chief Clerk’s liking,

laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and sweeping from his table

all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to procuring a new mat for his

inkstand; to looking for his hat--the meanest-looking hat that ever

the world beheld--and having it ready for him at the exact moment when

business came to an end; to brushing his back if it happened to become

smeared with whitewash from a wall. Yet all this passed as unnoticed

as though it had never been done. Finally, Chichikov sniffed into his

superior’s family and domestic life, and learnt that he possessed a

grown-up daughter on whose face also there had taken place a nocturnal,

diabolical grinding of peas. HERE was a quarter whence a fresh attack

might be delivered! After ascertaining what church the daughter attended

on Sundays, our hero took to contriving to meet her in a neat suit and a

well-starched dickey: and soon the scheme began to work. The surly Chief

Clerk wavered for a while; then ended by inviting Chichikov to tea. Nor

could any man in the office have told you how it came about that before

long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk’s house, and become a

person necessary--indeed indispensable--to the household, seeing that he

bought the flour and the sugar, treated the daughter as his betrothed,

called the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” and occasionally kissed “Papenka’s”

hand. In fact, every one at the office supposed that, at the end of

February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent) there would take place

a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to agitate with the

authorities on Chichikov’s behalf, and so enabled our hero, on a vacancy

occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk. Apparently this marked

the consummation of Chichikov’s relations with his host, for he hastened

stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day, figured in a fresh

lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk “Papenka,” or to kiss

his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as abrupt a termination

as though it had never been mooted. Yet also he never failed to press

his late host’s hand, whenever he met him, and to invite him to tea;

while, on the other hand, for all his immobility and dry indifference,

the Chief Clerk never failed to shake his head with a muttered, “Ah, my

fine fellow, you have grown too proud, you have grown too proud.”

The foregoing constituted the most difficult step that our hero had to

negotiate. Thereafter things came with greater ease and swifter

success. Everywhere he attracted notice, for he developed within

himself everything necessary for this world--namely, charm of manner

and bearing, and great diligence in business matters. Armed with these

resources, he next obtained promotion to what is known as “a fat post,”

and used it to the best advantage; and even though, at that period,

strict inquiry had begun to be made into the whole subject of bribes,

such inquiry failed to alarm him--nay, he actually turned it to account

and thereby manifested the Russian resourcefulness which never fails to

attain its zenith where extortion is concerned. His method of working

was the following. As soon as a petitioner or a suitor put his hand into

his pocket, to extract thence the necessary letters of recommendation

for signature, Chichikov would smilingly exclaim as he detained his

interlocutor’s hand: “No, no! Surely you do not think that I--? But no,

no! It is our duty, it is our obligation, and we do not require rewards

for doing our work properly. So far as YOUR matter is concerned, you may

rest easy. Everything shall be carried through to-morrow. But may I

have your address? There is no need to trouble yourself, seeing that the

documents can easily be brought to you at your residence.” Upon which

the delighted suitor would return home in raptures, thinking: “Here, at

long last, is the sort of man so badly needed. A man of that kind is

a jewel beyond price.” Yet for a day, for two days--nay, even for

three--the suitor would wait in vain so far as any messengers with

documents were concerned. Then he would repair to the office--to find

that his business had not so much as been entered upon! Lastly, he would

confront the “jewel beyond price.” “Oh, pardon me, pardon me!” Chichikov

would exclaim in the politest of tones as he seized and grasped the

visitor’s hands. “The truth is that we have SUCH a quantity of business

on hand! But the matter shall be put through to-morrow, and in the

meanwhile I am most sorry about it.” And with this would go the most

fascinating of gestures. Yet neither on the morrow, nor on the day

following, nor on the third would documents arrive at the suitor’s

abode. Upon that he would take thought as to whether something more

ought not to have been done; and, sure enough, on his making inquiry,

he would be informed that “something will have to be given to the

copyists.” “Well, there can be no harm in that,” he would reply. “As a

matter of fact, I have ready a tchetvertak [39] or two.” “Oh, no, no,”

the answer would come. “Not a tchetvertak per copyist, but a rouble,

is the fee.” “What? A rouble per copyist?” “Certainly. What is there to

grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a tchetvertak

apiece, and the rest will go to the Government.” Upon that the

disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought

about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks

and their uppish, insolent behaviour. “Once upon a time,” would the

suitor lament, “one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the

Director a bank-note, one’s affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But

now one has to pay a rouble per copyist after waiting a week because

otherwise it was impossible to guess how the wind might set! The devil

fly away with all ‘disinterested’ and ‘trustworthy’ tchinovniks!” And

certainly the aggrieved suitor had reason to grumble, seeing that,

now that bribe-takers had ceased to exist, and Directors had uniformly

become men of honour and integrity, secretaries and clerks ought not

with impunity to have continued their thievish ways. In time there

opened out to Chichikov a still wider field, for a Commission was

appointed to supervise the erection of a Government building, and, on

his being nominated to that body, he proved himself one of its most

active members. The Commission got to work without delay, but for a

space of six years had some trouble with the building in question.

Either the climate hindered operations or the materials used were of the

kind which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the

basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for each

member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official style of

architecture. Clearly the foundation afforded by the soil of those parts

was better than that where the Government building was still engaged

in hanging fire! Likewise the members of the Commission began to look

exceedingly prosperous, and to blossom out into family life; and, for

the first time in his existence, even Chichikov also departed from the

iron laws of his self-imposed restraint and inexorable self-denial, and

so far mitigated his heretofore asceticism as to show himself a man not

averse to those amenities which, during his youth, he had been capable

of renouncing. That is to say, certain superfluities began to make their

appearance in his establishment. He engaged a good cook, took to wearing

linen shirts, bought for himself cloth of a pattern worn by no one else

in the province, figured in checks shot with the brightest of reds and

browns, fitted himself out with two splendid horses (which he drove with

a single pair of reins, added to a ring attachment for the trace horse),

developed a habit of washing with a sponge dipped in eau-de-Cologne, and

invested in soaps of the most expensive quality, in order to communicate

to his skin a more elegant polish.

But suddenly there appeared upon the scene a new Director--a military

man, and a martinet as regarded his hostility to bribe-takers and

anything which might be called irregular. On the very day after his

arrival he struck fear into every breast by calling for accounts,

discovering hosts of deficits and missing sums, and directing his

attention to the aforesaid fine houses of civilian architecture. Upon

that there ensued a complete reshuffling. Tchinovniks were retired

wholesale, and the houses were sequestrated to the Government, or else

converted into various pious institutions and schools for soldiers’

children. Thus the whole fabric, and especially Chichikov, came crashing

to the ground. Particularly did our hero’s agreeable face displease the

new Director. Why that was so it is impossible to say, but frequently,

in cases of the kind, no reason exists. However, the Director conceived

a mortal dislike to him, and also extended that enmity to the whole of

Chichikov’s colleagues. But inasmuch as the said Director was a military

man, he was not fully acquainted with the myriad subtleties of the

civilian mind; wherefore it was not long before, by dint of maintaining

a discreet exterior, added to a faculty for humouring all and sundry,

a fresh gang of tchinovniks succeeded in restoring him to mildness, and

the General found himself in the hands of greater thieves than before,

but thieves whom he did not even suspect, seeing that he believed

himself to have selected men fit and proper, and even ventured to

boast of possessing a keen eye for talent. In a trice the tchinovniks

concerned appraised his spirit and character; with the result that the

entire sphere over which he ruled became an agency for the detection of

irregularities. Everywhere, and in every case, were those irregularities

pursued as a fisherman pursues a fat sturgeon with a gaff; and to such

an extent did the sport prove successful that almost in no time each

participator in the hunt was seen to be in possession of several

thousand roubles of capital. Upon that a large number of the former band

of tchinovniks also became converted to paths of rectitude, and were

allowed to re-enter the Service; but not by hook or by crook could

Chichikov worm his way back, even though, incited thereto by sundry

items of paper currency, the General’s first secretary and principal

bear leader did all he could on our hero’s behalf. It seemed that the

General was the kind of man who, though easily led by the nose (provided

it was done without his knowledge) no sooner got an idea into his head

than it stuck there like a nail, and could not possibly be extracted;

and all that the wily secretary succeeded in procuring was the tearing

up of a certain dirty fragment of paper--even that being effected only

by an appeal to the General’s compassion, on the score of the unhappy

fate which, otherwise, would befall Chichikov’s wife and children (who,

luckily, had no existence in fact).

“Well,” said Chichikov to himself, “I have done my best, and now

everything has failed. Lamenting my misfortune won’t help me, but only

action.” And with that he decided to begin his career anew, and once

more to arm himself with the weapons of patience and self-denial. The

better to effect this, he had, of course to remove to another town. Yet

somehow, for a while, things miscarried. More than once he found himself

forced to exchange one post for another, and at the briefest of notice;

and all of them were posts of the meanest, the most wretched, order.

Yet, being a man of the utmost nicety of feeling, the fact that he found

himself rubbing shoulders with anything but nice companions did not

prevent him from preserving intact his innate love of what was decent

and seemly, or from cherishing the instinct which led him to hanker

after office fittings of lacquered wood, with neatness and orderliness

everywhere. Nor did he at any time permit a foul word to creep into

his speech, and would feel hurt even if in the speech of others there

occurred a scornful reference to anything which pertained to rank and

dignity. Also, the reader will be pleased to know that our hero changed

his linen every other day, and in summer, when the weather was very

hot, EVERY day, seeing that the very faintest suspicion of an unpleasant

odour offended his fastidiousness. For the same reason it was his

custom, before being valeted by Petrushka, always to plug his nostrils

with a couple of cloves. In short, there were many occasions when his

nerves suffered rackings as cruel as a young girl’s, and so helped to

increase his disgust at having once more to associate with men who set

no store by the decencies of life. Yet, though he braced himself to the

task, this period of adversity told upon his health, and he even grew a

trifle shabby. More than once, on happening to catch sight of himself

in the mirror, he could not forbear exclaiming: “Holy Mother of God,

but what a nasty-looking brute I have become!” and for a long while

afterwards could not with anything like sang-froid contemplate his

reflection. Yet throughout he bore up stoutly and patiently--and ended

by being transferred to the Customs Department. It may be said that the

department had long constituted the secret goal of his ambition, for

he had noted the foreign elegancies with which its officials always

contrived to provide themselves, and had also observed that invariably

they were able to send presents of china and cambric to their sisters

and aunts--well, to their lady friends generally. Yes, more than once

he had said to himself with a sigh: “THAT is the department to which I

ought to belong, for, given a town near the frontier, and a sensible set

of colleagues, I might be able to fit myself out with excellent linen

shirts.” Also, it may be said that most frequently of all had his

thoughts turned towards a certain quality of French soap which imparted

a peculiar whiteness to the skin and a peerless freshness to the cheeks.

Its name is known to God alone, but at least it was to be procured only

in the immediate neighbourhood of the frontier. So, as I say, Chichikov

had long felt a leaning towards the Customs, but for a time had been

restrained from applying for the same by the various current advantages

of the Building Commission; since rightly he had adjudged the latter to

constitute a bird in the hand, and the former to constitute only a bird

in the bush. But now he decided that, come what might, into the Customs

he must make his way. And that way he made, and then applied himself

to his new duties with a zeal born of the fact that he realised that

fortune had specially marked him out for a Customs officer. Indeed,

such activity, perspicuity, and ubiquity as his had never been seen or

thought of. Within four weeks at the most he had so thoroughly got his

hand in that he was conversant with Customs procedure in every detail.

Not only could he weigh and measure, but also he could divine from

an invoice how many arshins of cloth or other material a given piece

contained, and then, taking a roll of the latter in his hand, could

specify at once the number of pounds at which it would tip the scale. As

for searchings, well, even his colleagues had to admit that he possessed

the nose of a veritable bloodhound, and that it was impossible not

to marvel at the patience wherewith he would try every button of the

suspected person, yet preserve, throughout, a deadly politeness and an

icy sang-froid which surpass belief. And while the searched were raging,

and foaming at the mouth, and feeling that they would give worlds to

alter his smiling exterior with a good, resounding slap, he would

move not a muscle of his face, nor abate by a jot the urbanity of his

demeanour, as he murmured, “Do you mind so far incommoding yourself as

to stand up?” or “Pray step into the next room, madam, where the wife

of one of our staff will attend you,” or “Pray allow me to slip this

penknife of mine into the lining of your coat” (after which he would

extract thence shawls and towels with as much nonchalance as he

would have done from his own travelling-trunk). Even his superiors

acknowledged him to be a devil at the job, rather than a human being, so

perfect was his instinct for looking into cart-wheels, carriage-poles,

horses’ ears, and places whither an author ought not to penetrate even

in thought--places whither only a Customs official is permitted to go.

The result was that the wretched traveller who had just crossed the

frontier would, within a few minutes, become wholly at sea, and, wiping

away the perspiration, and breaking out into body flushes, would be

reduced to crossing himself and muttering, “Well, well, well!” In fact,

such a traveller would feel in the position of a schoolboy who, having

been summoned to the presence of the headmaster for the ostensible

purpose of being given an order, has found that he receives, instead, a

sound flogging. In short, for some time Chichikov made it impossible

for smugglers to earn a living. In particular, he reduced Polish

Jewry almost to despair, so invincible, so almost unnatural, was the

rectitude, the incorruptibility which led him to refrain from converting

himself into a small capitalist with the aid of confiscated goods and

articles which, “to save excessive clerical labour,” had failed to be

handed over to the Government. Also, without saying it goes that

such phenomenally zealous and disinterested service attracted general

astonishment, and, eventually, the notice of the authorities; whereupon

he received promotion, and followed that up by mooting a scheme for

the infallible detection of contrabandists, provided that he could be

furnished with the necessary authority for carrying out the same. At

once such authority was accorded him, as also unlimited power to conduct

every species of search and investigation. And that was all he

wanted. It happened that previously there had been formed a well-found

association for smuggling on regular, carefully prepared lines, and

that this daring scheme seemed to promise profit to the extent of

some millions of money: yet, though he had long had knowledge of it,

Chichikov had said to the association’s emissaries, when sent to buy him

over, “The time is not yet.” But now that he had got all the reins into

his hands, he sent word of the fact to the gang, and with it the remark,

“The time is NOW.” Nor was he wrong in his calculations, for, within

the space of a year, he had acquired what he could not have made during

twenty years of non-fraudulent service. With similar sagacity he had,

during his early days in the department, declined altogether to enter

into relations with the association, for the reason that he had then

been a mere cipher, and would have come in for nothing large in the way

of takings; but now--well, now it was another matter altogether, and

he could dictate what terms he liked. Moreover, that the affair might

progress the more smoothly, he suborned a fellow tchinovnik of the type

which, in spite of grey hairs, stands powerless against temptation;

and, the contract concluded, the association duly proceeded to business.

Certainly business began brilliantly. But probably most of my readers

are familiar with the oft-repeated story of the passage of Spanish sheep

across the frontier in double fleeces which carried between their outer

layers and their inner enough lace of Brabant to sell to the tune of

millions of roubles; wherefore I will not recount the story again beyond

saying that those journeys took place just when Chichikov had become

head of the Customs, and that, had he not a hand in the enterprise, not

all the Jews in the world could have brought it to success. By the time

that three or four of these ovine invasions had taken place, Chichikov

and his accomplice had come to be the possessors of four hundred

thousand roubles apiece; while some even aver that the former’s gains

totalled half a million, owing to the greater industry which he had

displayed in the matter. Nor can any one but God say to what a figure

the fortunes of the pair might not eventually have attained, had not an

awkward contretemps cut right across their arrangements. That is to

say, for some reason or another the devil so far deprived these

tchinovnik-conspirators of sense as to make them come to words with

one another, and then to engage in a quarrel. Beginning with a heated

argument, this quarrel reached the point of Chichikov--who was,

possibly, a trifle tipsy--calling his colleague a priest’s son; and

though that description of the person so addressed was perfectly

accurate, he chose to take offence, and to answer Chichikov with the

words (loudly and incisively uttered), “It is YOU who have a priest for

your father,” and to add to that (the more to incense his companion),

“Yes, mark you! THAT is how it is.” Yet, though he had thus turned the

tables upon Chichikov with a tu quoque, and then capped that exploit

with the words last quoted, the offended tchinovnik could not remain

satisfied, but went on to send in an anonymous document to the

authorities. On the other hand, some aver that it was over a woman that

the pair fell out--over a woman who, to quote the phrase then current

among the staff of the Customs Department, was “as fresh and as strong

as the pulp of a turnip,” and that night-birds were hired to assault our

hero in a dark alley, and that the scheme miscarried, and that in any

case both Chichikov and his friend had been deceived, seeing that the

person to whom the lady had really accorded her favours was a certain

staff-captain named Shamsharev. However, only God knows the truth of the

matter. Let the inquisitive reader ferret it out for himself. The fact

remains that a complete exposure of the dealings with the contrabandists

followed, and that the two tchinovniks were put to the question,

deprived of their property, and made to formulate in writing all that

they had done. Against this thunderbolt of fortune the State Councillor

could make no headway, and in some retired spot or another sank into

oblivion; but Chichikov put a brave face upon the matter, for, in

spite of the authorities’ best efforts to smell out his gains, he had

contrived to conceal a portion of them, and also resorted to every

subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an

experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows.

Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving

oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of

a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was

retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual

trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of all his capital,

stripped of his imported effects, stripped of everything. That is to

say, all that remained to him consisted of ten thousand roubles which he

had stored against a rainy day, two dozen linen shirts, a small britchka

of the type used by bachelors, and two serving-men named Selifan and

Petrushka. Yes, and an impulse of kindness moved the tchinovniks of the

Customs also to set aside for him a few cakes of the soap which he had

found so excellent for the freshness of the cheeks. Thus once more our

hero found himself stranded. And what an accumulation of misfortunes had

descended upon his head!--though, true, he termed them “suffering in the

Service in the cause of Truth.” Certainly one would have thought that,

after these buffetings and trials and changes of fortune--after this

taste of the sorrows of life--he and his precious ten thousand roubles

would have withdrawn to some peaceful corner in a provincial town,

where, clad in a stuff dressing-gown, he could have sat and listened to

the peasants quarrelling on festival days, or (for the sake of a breath

of fresh air) have gone in person to the poulterer’s to finger chickens

for soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly useless, existence;

but nothing of the kind took place, and therein we must do justice to

the strength of his character. In other words, although he had undergone

what, to the majority of men, would have meant ruin and discouragement

and a shattering of ideals, he still preserved his energy. True,

downcast and angry, and full of resentment against the world in general,

he felt furious with the injustice of fate, and dissatisfied with

the dealings of men; yet he could not forbear courting additional

experiences. In short, the patience which he displayed was such as to

make the wooden persistency of the German--a persistency merely due to

the slow, lethargic circulation of the Teuton’s blood--seem nothing at

all, seeing that by nature Chichikov’s blood flowed strongly, and

that he had to employ much force of will to curb within himself those

elements which longed to burst forth and revel in freedom. He thought

things over, and, as he did so, a certain spice of reason appeared in

his reflections.

“How have I come to be what I am?” he said to himself. “Why has

misfortune overtaken me in this way? Never have I wronged a poor person,

or robbed a widow, or turned any one out of doors: I have always been

careful only to take advantage of those who possess more than their

share. Moreover, I have never gleaned anywhere but where every one else

was gleaning; and, had I not done so, others would have gleaned in my

place. Why, then, should those others be prospering, and I be sunk as

low as a worm? What am I? What am I good for? How can I, in future, hope

to look any honest father of a family in the face? How shall I escape

being tortured with the thought that I am cumbering the ground? What,

in the years to come, will my children say, save that ‘our father was a

brute, for he left us nothing to live upon?’”

Here I may remark that we have seen how much thought Chichikov devoted

to his future descendants. Indeed, had not there been constantly

recurring to his mind the insistent question, “What will my children

say?” he might not have plunged into the affair so deeply. Nevertheless,

like a wary cat which glances hither and thither to see whether its

mistress be not coming before it can make off with whatsoever first

falls to its paw (butter, fat, lard, a duck, or anything else), so our

future founder of a family continued, though weeping and bewailing

his lot, to let not a single detail escape his eye. That is to say,

he retained his wits ever in a state of activity, and kept his brain

constantly working. All that he required was a plan. Once more he pulled

himself together, once more he embarked upon a life of toil, once more

he stinted himself in everything, once more he left clean and decent

surroundings for a dirty, mean existence. In other words, until

something better should turn up, he embraced the calling of an ordinary

attorney--a calling which, not then possessed of a civic status, was

jostled on very side, enjoyed little respect at the hands of the minor

legal fry (or, indeed, at its own), and perforce met with universal

slights and rudeness. But sheer necessity compelled Chichikov to face

these things. Among commissions entrusted to him was that of placing in

the hands of the Public Trustee several hundred peasants who belonged

to a ruined estate. The estate had reached its parlous condition through

cattle disease, through rascally bailiffs, through failures of the

harvest, through such epidemic diseases that had killed off the best

workmen, and, last, but not least, through the senseless conduct of the

owner himself, who had furnished a house in Moscow in the latest style,

and then squandered his every kopeck, so that nothing was left for

his further maintenance, and it became necessary to mortgage the

remains--including the peasants--of the estate. In those days mortgage

to the Treasury was an innovation looked upon with reserve, and, as

attorney in the matter, Chichikov had first of all to “entertain” every

official concerned (we know that, unless that be previously done, unless

a whole bottle of madeira first be emptied down each clerical throat,

not the smallest legal affair can be carried through), and to explain,

for the barring of future attachments, that half of the peasants were

dead.

“And are they entered on the revision lists?” asked the secretary.

“Yes,” replied Chichikov. “Then what are you boggling at?” continued the

Secretary. “Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time grow

up to take the first one’s place.” Upon that there dawned on our hero

one of the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human brain. “What

a simpleton I am!” he thought to himself. “Here am I looking about for

my mittens when all the time I have got them tucked into my belt. Why,

were I myself to buy up a few souls which are dead--to buy them before

a new revision list shall have been made, the Council of Public Trust

might pay me two hundred roubles apiece for them, and I might find

myself with, say, a capital of two hundred thousand roubles! The present

moment is particularly propitious, since in various parts of the country

there has been an epidemic, and, glory be to God, a large number of

souls have died of it. Nowadays landowners have taken to card-playing

and junketting and wasting their money, or to joining the Civil Service

in St. Petersburg; consequently their estates are going to rack and

ruin, and being managed in any sort of fashion, and succeeding in paying

their dues with greater difficulty each year. That being so, not a man

of the lot but would gladly surrender to me his dead souls rather than

continue paying the poll-tax; and in this fashion I might make--well,

not a few kopecks. Of course there are difficulties, and, to avoid

creating a scandal, I should need to employ plenty of finesse; but man

was given his brain to USE, not to neglect. One good point about the

scheme is that it will seem so improbable that in case of an accident,

no one in the world will believe in it. True, it is illegal to buy or

mortgage peasants without land, but I can easily pretend to be buying

them only for transferment elsewhere. Land is to be acquired in the

provinces of Taurida and Kherson almost for nothing, provided that one

undertakes subsequently to colonise it; so to Kherson I will ‘transfer’

them, and long may they live there! And the removal of my dead souls

shall be carried out in the strictest legal form; and if the authorities

should want confirmation by testimony, I shall produce a letter signed

by my own superintendent of the Khersonian rural police--that is to

say, by myself. Lastly, the supposed village in Kherson shall be called

Chichikovoe--better still Pavlovskoe, according to my Christian name.”

In this fashion there germinated in our hero’s brain that strange scheme

for which the reader may or may not be grateful, but for which the

author certainly is so, seeing that, had it never occurred to Chichikov,

this story would never have seen the light.

After crossing himself, according to the Russian custom, Chichikov set

about carrying out his enterprise. On pretence of selecting a place

wherein to settle, he started forth to inspect various corners of the

Russian Empire, but more especially those which had suffered from

such unfortunate accidents as failures of the harvest, a high rate of

mortality, or whatsoever else might enable him to purchase souls at the

lowest possible rate. But he did not tackle his landowners haphazard: he

rather selected such of them as seemed more particularly suited to his

taste, or with whom he might with the least possible trouble conclude

identical agreements; though, in the first instance, he always tried, by

getting on terms of acquaintanceship--better still, of friendship--with

them, to acquire the souls for nothing, and so to avoid purchase at all.

In passing, my readers must not blame me if the characters whom they

have encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their

liking. The fault is Chichikov’s rather than mine, for he is the master,

and where he leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me

for a certain dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters

and actors, that will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad

tendency and the general scope of a work become immediately apparent.

Similarly does the entry to every town--the entry even to the Capital

itself--convey to the traveller such an impression of vagueness that

at first everything looks grey and monotonous, and the lines of smoky

factories and workshops seem never to be coming to an end; but in time

there will begin also to stand out the outlines of six-storied mansions,

and of shops and balconies, and wide perspectives of streets, and a

medley of steeples, columns, statues, and turrets--the whole framed in

rattle and roar and the infinite wonders which the hand and the brain of

men have conceived. Of the manner in which Chichikov’s first purchases

were made the reader is aware. Subsequently he will see also how the

affair progressed, and with what success or failure our hero met,

and how Chichikov was called upon to decide and to overcome even more

difficult problems than the foregoing, and by what colossal forces the

levers of his far-flung tale are moved, and how eventually the horizon

will become extended until everything assumes a grandiose and a lyrical

tendency. Yes, many a verst of road remains to be travelled by a party

made up of an elderly gentleman, a britchka of the kind affected by

bachelors, a valet named Petrushka, a coachman named Selifan, and

three horses which, from the Assessor to the skewbald, are known to us

individually by name. Again, although I have given a full description of

our hero’s exterior (such as it is), I may yet be asked for an inclusive

definition also of his moral personality. That he is no hero compounded

of virtues and perfections must be already clear. Then WHAT is he? A

villain? Why should we call him a villain? Why should we be so hard upon

a fellow man? In these days our villains have ceased to exist. Rather

it would be fairer to call him an ACQUIRER. The love of acquisition, the

love of gain, is a fault common to many, and gives rise to many and many

a transaction of the kind generally known as “not strictly honourable.”

True, such a character contains an element of ugliness, and the same

reader who, on his journey through life, would sit at the board of a

character of this kind, and spend a most agreeable time with him, would

be the first to look at him askance if he should appear in the guise of

the hero of a novel or a play. But wise is the reader who, on meeting

such a character, scans him carefully, and, instead of shrinking from

him with distaste, probes him to the springs of his being. The human

personality contains nothing which may not, in the twinkling of an eye,

become altogether changed--nothing in which, before you can look round,

there may not spring to birth some cankerous worm which is destined to

suck thence the essential juice. Yes, it is a common thing to see not

only an overmastering passion, but also a passion of the most petty

order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and lead him both

to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and to see only in

the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy. For human passions are as

numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his most

insistent of masters. Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from

among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will

that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by

hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his

soul. But there are passions of which a man cannot rid himself, seeing

that they are born with him at his birth, and he has no power to abjure

them. Higher powers govern those passions, and in them is something

which will call to him, and refuse to be silenced, to the end of his

life. Yes, whether in a guise of darkness, or whether in a guise which

will become converted into a light to lighten the world, they will and

must attain their consummation on life’s field: and in either case they

have been evoked for man’s good. In the same way may the passion

which drew our Chichikov onwards have been one that was independent of

himself; in the same way may there have lurked even in his cold essence

something which will one day cause men to humble themselves in the dust

before the infinite wisdom of God.

Yet that folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing. What

matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their approval

could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to say, had not

the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov’s soul, nor stirred up in

its depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light, nor disclosed

those of his hero’s thoughts which that hero would have not have

disclosed even to his most intimate friend; had the author, indeed,

exhibited Chichikov just as he exhibited himself to the townsmen of

N. and Manilov and the rest; well, then we may rest assured that every

reader would have been delighted with him, and have voted him a most

interesting person. For it is not nearly so necessary that Chichikov

should figure before the reader as though his form and person were

actually present to the eye as that, on concluding a perusal of this

work, the reader should be able to return, unharrowed in soul, to that

cult of the card-table which is the solace and delight of all good

Russians. Yes, readers of this book, none of you really care to see

humanity revealed in its nakedness. “Why should we do so?” you say.

“What would be the use of it? Do we not know for ourselves that human

life contains much that is gross and contemptible? Do we not with our

own eyes have to look upon much that is anything but comforting?

Far better would it be if you would put before us what is comely and

attractive, so that we might forget ourselves a little.” In the same

fashion does a landowner say to his bailiff: “Why do you come and tell

me that the affairs of my estate are in a bad way? I know that without

YOUR help. Have you nothing else to tell me? Kindly allow me to forget

the fact, or else to remain in ignorance of it, and I shall be much

obliged to you.” Whereafter the said landowner probably proceeds to

spend on his diversion the money which ought to have gone towards the

rehabilitation of his affairs.

Possibly the author may also incur censure at the hands of those

so-called “patriots” who sit quietly in corners, and become capitalists

through making fortunes at the expense of others. Yes, let but something

which they conceive to be derogatory to their country occur--for

instance, let there be published some book which voices the bitter

truth--and out they will come from their hiding-places like a spider

which perceives a fly to be caught in its web. “Is it well to proclaim

this to the world, and to set folk talking about it?” they will cry.

“What you have described touches US, is OUR affair. Is conduct of that

kind right? What will foreigners say? Does any one care calmly to sit

by and hear himself traduced? Why should you lead foreigners to suppose

that all is not well with us, and that we are not patriotic?” Well, to

these sage remarks no answer can really be returned, especially to such

of the above as refer to foreign opinion. But see here. There once lived

in a remote corner of Russia two natives of the region indicated. One of

those natives was a good man named Kifa Mokievitch, and a man of kindly

disposition; a man who went through life in a dressing-gown, and paid no

heed to his household, for the reason that his whole being was centred

upon the province of speculation, and that, in particular, he was

preoccupied with a philosophical problem usually stated by him thus:

“A beast,” he would say, “is born naked. Now, why should that be? Why

should not a beast be born as a bird is born--that is to say, through

the process of being hatched from an egg? Nature is beyond the

understanding, however much one may probe her.” This was the substance

of Kifa Mokievitch’s reflections. But herein is not the chief point.

The other of the pair was a fellow named Mofi Kifovitch, and son to the

first named. He was what we Russians call a “hero,” and while his

father was pondering the parturition of beasts, his, the son’s, lusty,

twenty-year-old temperament was violently struggling for development.

Yet that son could tackle nothing without some accident occurring. At

one moment would he crack some one’s fingers in half, and at another

would he raise a bump on somebody’s nose; so that both at home

and abroad every one and everything--from the serving-maid to the

yard-dog--fled on his approach, and even the bed in his bedroom became

shattered to splinters. Such was Mofi Kifovitch; and with it all he had

a kindly soul. But herein is not the chief point. “Good sir, good Kifa

Mokievitch,” servants and neighbours would come and say to the father,

“what are you going to do about your Moki Kifovitch? We get no rest from

him, he is so above himself.” “That is only his play, that is only his

play,” the father would reply. “What else can you expect? It is too late

now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one would accuse

me of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but, were I to reprove

him in public, the whole thing would become common talk, and folk would

begin giving him a dog’s name. And if they did that, would not their

opinion touch me also, seeing that I am his father? Also, I am busy with

philosophy, and have no time for such things. Lastly, Moki Kifovitch

is my son, and very dear to my heart.” And, beating his breast, Kifa

Mokievitch again asserted that, even though his son should elect

to continue his pranks, it would not be for HIM, for the father,

to proclaim the fact, or to fall out with his offspring. And, this

expression of paternal feeling uttered, Kifa Mokievitch left Moki

Kifovitch to his heroic exploits, and himself returned to his beloved

subject of speculation, which now included also the problem, “Suppose

elephants were to take to being hatched from eggs, would not the

shell of such eggs be of a thickness proof against cannonballs, and

necessitate the invention of some new type of firearm?” Thus at the end

of this little story we have these two denizens of a peaceful corner of

Russia looking thence, as from a window, in less terror of doing what

was scandalous than of having it SAID of them that they were acting

scandalously. Yes, the feeling animating our so-called “patriots” is not

true patriotism at all. Something else lies beneath it. Who, if not an

author, is to speak aloud the truth? Men like you, my pseudo-patriots,

stand in dread of the eye which is able to discern, yet shrink from

using your own, and prefer, rather, to glance at everything unheedingly.

Yes, after laughing heartily over Chichikov’s misadventures, and perhaps

even commending the author for his dexterity of observation and pretty

turn of wit, you will look at yourselves with redoubled pride and a

self-satisfied smile, and add: “Well, we agree that in certain parts of

the provinces there exists strange and ridiculous individuals, as well

as unconscionable rascals.”

Yet which of you, when quiet, and alone, and engaged in solitary

self-communion, would not do well to probe YOUR OWN souls, and to put

to YOURSELVES the solemn question, “Is there not in ME an element of

Chichikov?” For how should there not be? Which of you is not liable at

any moment to be passed in the street by an acquaintance who, nudging

his neighbour, may say of you, with a barely suppressed sneer: “Look!

there goes Chichikov! That is Chichikov who has just gone by!”

But here are we talking at the top of our voices whilst all the time our

hero lies slumbering in his britchka! Indeed, his name has been repeated

so often during the recital of his life’s history that he must almost

have heard us! And at any time he is an irritable, irascible fellow when

spoken of with disrespect. True, to the reader Chichikov’s displeasure

cannot matter a jot; but for the author it would mean ruin to quarrel

with his hero, seeing that, arm in arm, Chichikov and he have yet far to

go.

“Tut, tut, tut!” came in a shout from Chichikov. “Hi, Selifan!”

“What is it?” came the reply, uttered with a drawl.

“What is it? Why, how dare you drive like that? Come! Bestir yourself a

little!”

And indeed, Selifan had long been sitting with half-closed eyes, and

hands which bestowed no encouragement upon his somnolent steeds save an

occasional flicking of the reins against their flanks; whilst Petrushka

had lost his cap, and was leaning backwards until his head had come to

rest against Chichikov’s knees--a position which necessitated his being

awakened with a cuff. Selifan also roused himself, and apportioned to

the skewbald a few cuts across the back of a kind which at least had the

effect of inciting that animal to trot; and when, presently, the other

two horses followed their companion’s example, the light britchka moved

forwards like a piece of thistledown. Selifan flourished his whip and

shouted, “Hi, hi!” as the inequalities of the road jerked him vertically

on his seat; and meanwhile, reclining against the leather cushions

of the vehicle’s interior, Chichikov smiled with gratification at the

sensation of driving fast. For what Russian does not love to drive fast?

Which of us does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and

to let them go, and to cry, “To the devil with the world!”? At such

moments a great force seems to uplift one as on wings; and one flies,

and everything else flies, but contrariwise--both the verst stones, and

traders riding on the shafts of their waggons, and the forest with

dark lines of spruce and fir amid which may be heard the axe of the

woodcutter and the croaking of the raven. Yes, out of a dim, remote

distance the road comes towards one, and while nothing save the sky and

the light clouds through which the moon is cleaving her way seem halted,

the brief glimpses wherein one can discern nothing clearly have in them

a pervading touch of mystery. Ah, troika, troika, swift as a bird, who

was it first invented you? Only among a hardy race of folk can you have

come to birth--only in a land which, though poor and rough, lies spread

over half the world, and spans versts the counting whereof would leave

one with aching eyes. Nor are you a modishly-fashioned vehicle of the

road--a thing of clamps and iron. Rather, you are a vehicle but shapen

and fitted with the axe or chisel of some handy peasant of Yaroslav.

Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed in German livery, but by a man

bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts, and flourishes his whip, and

breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the wind go the horses, and

the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent circles, and the

road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of

astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on

its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon--a speck amid a

cloud of dust!

And you, Russia of mine--are not you also speeding like a troika which

nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and

the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in

the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder

whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that

awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force

which lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves

must abide in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an

ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids them, with

iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the earth as

they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? Whither, then, are

you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer

comes--only the weird sound of your collar-bells. Rent into a thousand

shreds, the air roars past you, for you are overtaking the whole world,

and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside, to give

you way!

1841.

PART II