Dead Souls—A Poem/Book One/Chapter IX

by Nikolai Gogol

CHAPTER IX

In the morning, earlier than the hour usually fixed for calls in the town of N., a lady in a smart checked cloak darted out of the door of an orange-coloured wooden house with a mezzanine and blue columns. She was escorted by a footman in a livery coat, with many collars and gold braid on his round, shining hat. With unusual haste the lady at once skipped up the lowered steps of a carriage that stood at the door. The footman instantly slammed the carriage door, pulled up the steps and catching hold of a strap at the back of the carriage, shouted to the coachman: 'Off!' The lady was taking with her a piece of news she had only just heard, and was conscious of an irresistible longing to communicate it as soon as possible. She was every minute looking out of the window and seeing to her unspeakable vexation that they had only gone half-way. Every house seemed longer than usual; the white almshouse with its narrow windows seemed interminable, so that at last she could not resist saying: 'The confounded building, there is no end to it.' Already twice the coachman had received the order: 'Make haste, make haste, Andryushka! You are insufferably slow to-day.' At last the goal was reached. The carriage stopped before a dark grey wooden house of one storey, with little white bas-reliefs above the windows, and high trellis fences just in front of the windows, and a narrow little front garden, in which the slender trees were always white with the dust of the town that covered their leaves.

In the windows could be seen pots of flowers, a parrot swinging in a cage and holding the ring in its beak, and two lap-dogs asleep in the sun. In this house lived the lady's bosom friend. The author is extremely perplexed how to name these ladies in such a way as to avoid exciting an outburst of anger, as he has done in the past. To call them by a fictitious surname is dangerous. Whatever name one thinks of, in some corner of our empire—well called great—some one is sure to be found bearing it, and he is bound to be not slightly but mortally offended, and will declare that the author has secretly paid a visit to the neighbourhood on purpose to find out what he is like, and what sort of a sheepskin he wears, and what Agrafena Ivanovna he visits, and what he likes best to eat. As for speaking of them by their rank in the service, God forbid, that is more dangerous still. All grades and classes now are so mortally sensitive, that everything they find in a book seems to them a personality: apparently this sensitiveness is in the air. It is enough to say that in a certain town there is a stupid man—even that is a personality: a gentleman of respectable appearance will pop up at once and cry out, 'Why, I am a man too, so it seems I am stupid'; in fact he perceives at once what is meant. And so in order to avoid all this I will call the lady to whom the visit was made, as she was almost unanimously called in the town of N., that is, a lady agreeable in every respect. She had gained this appellation quite legitimately, for she certainly spared no effort to be obliging in the extreme, although of course through that amiability there stole a glimpse of—oh! what a swift rush of femininity!—and even in her most agreeable phrase would be thrust—oh! what a sharp pin! And God forbid that she should be moved to fury against some one who had somehow poked herself in some way in front of her. But all this would be wrapped up in the most refined politeness such as is only found in provincial towns. Every movement she made was with good taste, she was even fond of poetry; and could hold her head pensively, and every one agreed that she really was a lady agreeable in every respect.

The other lady, that is, the visitor, had not a character so many-sided, and so we will call her the simply agreeable lady. The arrival of the visitor woke the dogs that were sleeping in the sun: shaggy Adèle, always entangled in her own coat, and thin-legged Potpourri. Both began describing circles with their tails in the hall where the visitor, divested of her cloak, appeared in a dress of fashionable design and colour with long streamers from her neck; a scent of jasmine was wafted all over the hall. As soon as the lady agreeable in all respects heard of the arrival of the simply agreeable lady, she ran out into the hall. The ladies grasped each other's hands, kissed each other and screamed as schoolgirls scream on meeting again after a holiday, before their mothers have managed to explain to them that one is poorer and of a lower rank than another. The kiss was a noisy one, for the dogs began barking again, and were flicked with a handkerchief for doing so, and both of the ladies went off into the drawing-room, which was, of course, pale blue, with a sofa, an oval table and even a little screen with ivy climbing up it; shaggy Adèle and tall Potpourri on his slender legs ran in after them growling. 'This way, this way, sit in this corner!' said the lady of the house, installing her friend in the corner of the sofa. 'That's right, that's right, and here is a cushion for you.' Saying this, she stuffed a cushion in behind her, on which there was a knight worked in wool, as such figures always are worked on canvas, with a nose looking like a ladder and lips forming a square. 'How glad I am that it's you. … I heard some one drive up and I wondered who it could be so early. Parasha said, "It's the vice-president's lady," and I said, "There, here's that silly creature come to bore me again," and I was on the point of telling them to say I was not at home.'

The visitor was meaning to communicate her piece of news without delay, but an exclamation uttered at that instant by the lady agreeable in all respects gave another turn to the conversation.

'What a sweet bright little print!' exclaimed the lady agreeable in all respects, looking at the dress of the simply agreeable lady.

'Yes, it is very sweet, but Praskovya Fyodorovna thinks it would have been nicer if the checks had been smaller, and if the spots had been pale blue instead of brown. I sent my sister a piece of material: it was so absolutely fascinating, it's simply beyond all words. Just fancy, narrow, narrow little stripes, beyond anything the human fancy can imagine, and a pale blue ground, and all over the stripes, spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs … in fact quite unique! One may really say there has never been anything like it in the world.'

'My dear, that's too gaudy!'

'Oh no, it's not gaudy!'

'Oh, it must be gaudy.'

It must be noted that the lady who was agreeable in all respects was something of a materialist, disposed to doubts and scepticism, and there were a great many things she refused to believe in.

Here the simply agreeable lady protested that it was not at all gaudy, and exclaimed: 'Oh, I congratulate you, flounces are not to be worn.'

'Not worn?'

'Little festoons are coming in instead.'

'Oh, that's not nice—little festoons!'

'Little festoons, it's all festoons: a pelerine made of festoons, festoons on the sleeves, epaulettes of little festoons, festoons below and festoons everywhere.'

'It's not nice, Sofya Ivanovna, if it's all festoons.'

'It's sweet, Anna Grigoryevna, you would never believe how sweet. It's made with two seams, there are wide armholes, and above … but now, now you will be astonished, now you will say … well, you may wonder: only fancy, the waists are longer than ever, coming down to a point in front, and the front busk is more extreme than ever; the skirt is gathered all round just as in the old-fashioned farthingale, they even stick on a little padding at the back to make you quite a belle-femme.'

'Well, that really is … I must say!' said the lady who was agreeable in all respects, tossing her head with a sense of her own dignity.

'Yes, precisely so; I must say!' answered the simply agreeable lady.

'Do what you like, I shall never follow that fashion.'

'I feel just the same. … Really, when you come to think what extremes fashion will sometimes go to … it's beyond anything! I asked my sister to send me the pattern just for fun; my Melanya undertook to make it.'

'Why, have you actually got the pattern!' cried the lady agreeable in all respects, with a perceptible throbbing of her heart.

'Yes, my sister brought it.'

'My darling, do let me have it, for the sake of all that's holy.'

'Oh, I have already promised it to Praskovya Fyodorovna. When she has done with it, perhaps.'

'Who is going to wear it after Praskovya Fyodorovna? It is very odd on your part to put strangers before your friends.'

'But you know she is my own cousin.'

'A queer sort of cousin, only on your husband's side. … No, Sofya Ivanovna, you needn't talk to me; it seems you want to put a slight upon me. … It's clear that you are tired of me; I see you want to give up being friends with me.'

Poor Sofya Ivanovna did not know what to do. She felt she had put herself between the devil and the deep sea. That is what comes of bragging! She felt ready to bite off her silly tongue.

'Well, what news of our charming gentleman?' the lady agreeable in all respects asked.

'Ah, my goodness! Why am I sitting here like this! What an idea! Do you know what I have come to you about, Anna Grigoryevna?' Here the visitor took a deep breath, the words were ready to fly like hawks one after another out of her mouth, and no one less inhuman than her bosom friend could have been so ruthless as to stop her.

'You may praise him up and say all sorts of nice things of him,' she said with more vivacity than usual, 'but I tell you straight out and I will tell him to his face, that he is a good-for-nothing fellow, good-for-nothing, good-for-nothing.'

'But only listen to what I have to tell you …'

'They spread rumours that he was a nice man, but he is not a nice man at all, not at all, and his nose is … a most unattractive nose.'

'Do let me, do let me only tell you … my love, Anna Grigoryevna, let me tell you! Why it's a scandal, do you understand: it's a story, skonapel eestwah,' said the visitor in a voice of entreaty, with an expression almost of despair. I may as well mention that the ladies introduced many foreign words into their conversation, and sometimes whole French sentences. But great as is the author's reverence for the inestimable benefits conferred by the French language on Russia, and great as is his respect for the praiseworthy custom in our aristocratic society of expressing themselves at all hours in that language, entirely, of course, through their love for their fatherland, yet he cannot bring himself to introduce sentences in any foreign language into this Russian poem. And so we will continue in Russian.

'What story?'

'O my precious Anna Grigoryevna! If you could only imagine the state I am in! Only fancy. Father Kirill's wife came to see me this morning, and what do you think? Our visitor who seems so meek, he is a fine one, isn't he?'

'What, do you mean to say he has been making advances to the priest's wife?'

'Ah, Anna Grigoryevna, if it were no worse than that, that would be nothing. Just listen to what she told me. She says that Madame Korobotchka, a lady from the country, came to her, panic-stricken and pale as death, and told her a tale, such a tale! Only listen, it's a regular novel: all at once at dead of night when every one was asleep there came a knock at the gate more awful than anything you could imagine; there was a shout of "Open, open, or we'll smash open the gate!" … What do you think of that? He's a charming fellow after that, isn't he?'

'And what's this Korobotchka like? Is she young and good-looking?'

'Not at all, she's an old lady.'

'Oh, how charming! So he's after an old lady? It speaks well for the taste of our ladies; they have pitched on a nice person to fall in love with.'

'Well no, Anna Grigoryevna, it's not at all as you suppose. Only imagine, he makes his appearance armed to the teeth like some Rinaldo Rinaldini, and demands: "Sell me all your souls that are dead." Korobotchka answers him very reasonably, saying: "I can't sell them because they are dead." "No," he said, "they are not dead, they are mine, it's my business to know whether they are dead or not," says he. "They are not dead, not dead," he shouts, "not dead!" In fact he makes a fearful scene; all the village rushes up, the children cry, everybody is shouting, no one can make out what's the matter, it was simply an horreur, horreur, horreur! … You simply can't imagine, Anna Grigoryevna, how upset I was when I heard all this. "Mistress darling," my Mashka said to me, "look in the looking-glass and see how pale you are." "Don't talk to me of looking-glasses," said I, "I must go and tell Anna Grigoryevna." I instantly ordered the carriage to be brought round; my coachman Andryushka asked me where to drive and I couldn't speak a word, I simply stared in his face like a fool; I do believe he thought I had gone mad. Oh, Anna Grigoryevna, if you could only fancy how upset I was!'

'It certainly is odd,' said the lady agreeable in all respects. 'What can be the meaning of these dead souls? I can't make it out, I must own. This is the second time I have heard of these dead souls; though my husband still declares that Nozdryov's lying, there must be something in it.'

'But just fancy, Anna Grigoryevna, what a state I was in when I heard of it. "And now," Korobotchka says, "I don't know," she says, "what I'm to do. He made me sign some forged document, threw down fifteen roubles in notes; I am a helpless and inexperienced widow," she says, "I know nothing about it. …" You see what things are happening! If you could only imagine how upset I am!'

'But, say what you like, it's not a question of dead souls, there's something behind all this.'

'I confess I think so too,' the simply agreeable lady pronounced, not without surprise, and was instantly aware of an intense desire to find out what it could be that was behind it. She even articulated hesitatingly: 'Why, what do you suppose is behind it?'

'Well, what do you think?'

'What do I think? I must own I am completely at a loss.'

'All the same, I should like to know what you think about it.'

But the agreeable lady could think of nothing to say. She was only capable of being upset, but was quite incapable of forming a coherent hypothesis, and that is why she, more than most, stood in need of tender affection and advice.

'Well, let me tell you what's the meaning of these dead souls,' said the lady agreeable in all respects, and at these words her visitor was all attention; her ears seemed to prick up of themselves, she rose up in her seat, scarcely touching the sofa, and though she was a somewhat solid lady, seemed to grow slimmer, and as light as a feather which might fly off into the air at a puff of wind.

So when a hare, startled by the beaters, darts out of the forest, the sportsman with his horse and his riding whip is suddenly like powder waiting for the match to be applied. He gazes into the murky air and is already with faultless aim striking at the beast, has already slain it, however the whirling snowy steppe may rise up against him, scattering silvery stars on his lips, his moustache, his eyes, his brows, and on his beaver cap.

'The dead souls …' pronounced the lady agreeable in all respects.

'Well, well!' cried her visitor, all excitement.

'The dead souls!' …

'Oh, speak, for God's sake!'

'They are simply a cover, but this is what he is really after: he is trying to elope with the governor's daughter.'

This conclusion was indeed utterly unexpected and in every way extraordinary. The agreeable lady, on hearing it, was simply petrified, she turned pale, she turned pale as death, and certainly was upset in earnest. 'Oh dear!' she cried, clasping her hands, 'that I never should have supposed!'

'But as soon as you opened your mouth, I saw what was in the wind,' answered the lady who was agreeable in all respects.

'Well, what is one to think of boarding-school education after this, Anna Grigoryevna! So this is their innocence!'

'Innocence, indeed! I have heard her say such things as I could not bring myself to repeat!'

'It's heartrending, you know, Anna Grigoryevna, to see what lengths depravity can go to.'

'And the men are all wild over her, though for my part I must own I can see nothing in her. … She is insufferably affected.'

'Ah, my precious, Anna Grigoryevna! she's a statue, if only she had a little expression in her face.'

'Ah, how affected she is! Ah, how affected! My goodness, how affected! Who taught her to behave like that I don't know; but I have never seen a girl give herself such airs.'

'My darling, she is like a statue and deathly pale.'

'Oh, don't talk to me, Sofya Ivanovna, she rouges shamelessly.'

'What do you mean, Anna Grigoryevna? she is like chalk, chalk, simply chalk.'

'My dear, I was sitting beside her, the rouge was as thick as my finger and kept peeling off like plaster. The mother has set her an example; she is a coquette and the daughter is worse than the mother!'

'Oh, excuse me, come, I'll swear by anything you like, I'll wager my children, my husband, all my property this minute, if there is a single drop, a grain, a shadow of rouge upon her!'

'Oh, what are you saying, Sofya Ivanovna!' said the lady agreeable in all respects, and she clasped her hands.

'Oh, what a woman you are, Anna Grigoryevna, really! I wonder at you!' said the agreeable lady, and she too clasped her hands.

The reader must not be surprised that the ladies were not agreed about what they had both seen almost at the same moment. There are indeed many things in the world, which have the peculiar property of appearing absolutely white when one lady looks at them, and as red as a cranberry in the eyes of another.

'Well, here's another proof for you that she is pale,' the agreeable lady went on. 'I remember as though it were now, how I was sitting beside Manilov and said to him: "Just look how pale she is." Any one must be as senseless as our gentlemen here to be so fascinated by her. And our charming gentleman … How hateful I thought him! You can't imagine, Anna Grigoryevna, how hateful I thought him.'

'Yet there were ladies who were quite taken with him.'

'I, Anna Grigoryevna? No, you can never say that, never, never!'

'But I am not talking about you, as though there were nobody but you.'

'Never, never, Anna Grigoryevna! Allow me to tell you what I know myself very well indeed! Perhaps there may have been something on the part of some ladies who give themselves out as so unapproachable.'

'I beg your pardon, Sofya Ivanovna! Allow me to tell you that there has never been any scandalous gossip about me. About any one else, perhaps, but not about me, allow me to tell you.'

'What are you taking offence for? There were other ladies there, you know, such as those who made a rush for the chairs by the door so as to sit near him.'

It might have seemed inevitable that a storm should follow these observations of the agreeable lady, but, marvellous to relate, both ladies suddenly subsided and nothing whatever followed. The lady agreeable in all respects remembered that the pattern of the new fashion was not yet in her possession, and the simply agreeable lady reflected that she had not yet succeeded in extracting any details of the affair that her bosom friend had just revealed to her, and so peace was very quickly restored. It could not be said, however, of either of the ladies that the desire to make herself disagreeable was characteristic; indeed there was nothing spiteful in their disposition, it was simply that in conversation a slight inclination to stick pins in one another sprang up of itself unconsciously. It was simply that each derived some slight gratification from slipping in a sharp word at the expense of the other, as much as to say: 'That's one for you!' 'Take that to yourself!' There are all sorts of impulses in the hearts of the feminine as well as of the masculine sex.

'The only thing I can't understand, though,' said the simply agreeable lady, 'is how Tchitchikov, a stranger in these parts, could venture to attempt such an audacious proceeding. There surely must be others implicated in the affair.'

'Why, did you suppose there were not?'

'Why, who do you think can be assisting him?'

'Well, Nozdryov anyway.'

'Nozdryov! really?'

'Why, it is just in his line. You know that he tried to sell his own father, or worse still, staked him at cards.'

'Oh dear, what interesting things you tell me! I never could have imagined that Nozdryov was mixed up in this affair.'

'I always took it for granted.'

'Really, the things that do happen in the world, when you come to think of it; who could have supposed when Tchitchikov first came among us, do you remember, that he would make such a strange upset in the world. O Anna Grigoryevna, if only you knew how upset I feel! If it were not for your friendship and affection … I should really be on the brink of despair. What are we coming to! My Mashka saw I was as pale as death; "Mistress, darling!" said she, "you are as pale as death." "Mashka," I said, "I can't think of that now." What a thing to happen! So Nozdryov's in it! Well I declare!'

The agreeable lady was very eager to hear further details concerning the elopement, that is, at what o'clock it would take place and so on, but she wanted too much. The lady agreeable in all respects professed her entire ignorance of all this. She was incapable of lying: to assume the truth of a supposition was a different matter, but even then the supposition must be founded on her inner conviction; if she were conscious of an inner conviction she was quite capable of defending her position, and any lawyer renowned for his power of turning other people's opinions might have tried his powers on her and he would have seen what an inner conviction means.

That both ladies were in the end fully convinced of what they had at first assumed as a mere supposition is nothing out of the way. We learned people, as we call ourselves, behave in almost the same way, and our learned theories are a proof of it. At first our savants approach them in almost a cringing spirit, they begin timidly, discreetly, they begin with the humblest suggestion: 'Is not this the origin? Does not such a country derive its name from such and such a spot? or, 'Is not this document connected with another of a later period?' or, 'Should we not take such and such a people to mean this or that other people?' He immediately quotes such and such ancient writers, and if he can only detect a hint or what he takes for a hint, he grows audacious and confident, talks to the writers of antiquity without ceremony, asks them questions and himself supplies the answers, quite forgetting that he had begun with a timid hypothesis; he soon fancies that he sees it, that it is clear, and his argument is concluded with the words, 'This is how it was: so this is the people that is meant by this name! This is how we must look at the subject!' Then it is proclaimed to all from the platform—and the newly discovered truth is sent on its travels round the world, gathering to itself followers and disciples.

While the two ladies were so cleverly and successfully interpreting this intricate affair, the public prosecutor with his invariably immobile face, his thick eyebrows and winking eyelid, walked into the room. The ladies vied with each other in explaining the whole episode, they told him of the purchase of the dead souls, and of the plot to carry off the governor's daughter, and completely bewildered him, so that in spite of his standing on the same spot winking with his left eye, and flicking his beard with his handkerchief to brush off some snuff from it, he was utterly unable to make head or tail of it. And so the two ladies left him standing and went each on her way to rouse the town. They succeeded in carrying out this enterprise in a little over half an hour. The town certainly was roused; everything was in a ferment and no one knew what to think. The ladies succeeded in throwing such a mist over the eyes of every one, that all, and especially the officials, were for a time completely overwhelmed. They found themselves for the first moment in the position of a schoolboy whose schoolfellows have thrust a twist of paper full of snuff up his nose while he is asleep. Breathing up all the snuff with the energy of sleep, he wakes and jumps up, looks about him like an idiot with his eyes starting out of his head and cannot grasp where he is, what has happened to him, and then recognises the walls lighted up by the slanting rays of the sun, the laughter of his companions hiding in the corners, and glancing out of window, sees the early morning with the awakening forest resounding with the notes of a thousand birds, and the shining river, lost here and there in gleaming zigzags among the slender reeds, and dotted with naked boys calling each other to bathe—and last of all perceives what has been put in his nose.

Such was exactly the position of the inhabitants and officials of the town for the first moment. Each one of them stood like a sheep with his eyes starting out of his head. Dead souls, the governor's daughter and Tchitchikov were mixed together in the strangest confusion in their brains; and only later on, after the first stupefaction had passed, they began as it were to disentangle and separate them, they began to demand explanations and to be vexed, seeing that the affair refused to become intelligible. 'What is the meaning of it really, what is the meaning of these dead souls? There is no sense in dead souls, how can one buy dead souls? Who would be such a fool as to accept them? And queer sort of money one would pay for them! And to what purpose, to what use could dead souls be put? And why is the governor's daughter mixed up in it? If he wanted to elope with her, why should he buy dead souls? If he wanted to buy dead souls, why should he run away with the governor's daughter? Does he want to make her a present of these dead souls or what? What nonsensical stories they do spread about the town. What are things coming to when you can hardly turn round before there is some scandal going about you, and not a word of sense in it either. … The story is going about though, so there must be some reason for it. What reason could there be for dead souls? There is positively no reason for it. It's all fiddlesticks, nonsense rhymes, soft-boiled boots! It's simply the deuce! …' In short, the discussions were endless, and all the town was talking of dead souls and the governor's daughter, of Tchitchikov and dead souls, of the governor's daughter and Tchitchikov, and everything was in a stir. The town that till then had been wrapped in slumber was boiling like a whirlpool. All the sluggards and lazybones who had been for years lounging at home in dressing-gowns, abusing the shoemaker for making their boots too narrow, or the tailor or the drunken coachman, crept out of their holes; all who had dropped all their acquaintances years ago and whose only friends, to use the popular expression, were Mr. Slugabed and Mr. Sleepyhead (characters as well known all over Russia as the phrase, 'visiting Mr. Snooze and Mr. Snore,' which signifies to sleep like the dead on the side, or the back, or in any other position to the accompaniment of snoring, wheezing and so on); all those who could not have been lured out of their houses even by an invitation to taste a fish soup costing five hundred roubles, with sturgeon six feet long, and all sorts of fish-pasties which melt in the mouth, turned out now; in fact it seemed as though the town were busy and important and very well populated. A Sysoy Pafnutevitch and a Makdonald Karlovitch who had never been heard of before appeared in public. A long lanky gentleman with his arm in a sling, taller than any one who had been seen before, was conspicuous in the drawing-rooms. Closed chaises, unfamiliar wagonettes, all sorts of turn-outs, rattling and squeaking, appeared in the street—and there was soon a fine to-do. At another time and under other circumstances, such rumours would perhaps not have attracted attention, but it was a long time since the town of N. had heard any news at all. In fact for the last three months there had not been in the town of N. what in Petersburg is called Commérages, which, as we all know, is as important for a town as the van that brings its provisions. Two quite opposite points of view were at once apparent in the discussions in the town, and two opposing parties, masculine and feminine, were immediately formed. The masculine party, the more irrational, concentrated their attention on the dead souls. The feminine party were completely absorbed by the abduction of the governor's daughter.

To the credit of the ladies, in the latter party there was far more discipline and watchfulness. It was evidently their vocation to be good managers and organisers. With them everything soon took a vivid, definite shape, and clothed in clear and distinct forms, was explained and classified, and the result was a finished picture. It appeared that Tchitchikov had been in love for months, and that they used to meet in the garden by moonlight, that the governor would have given his consent to the match as Tchitchikov was as rich as a Jew, had it not been for his wife, whom he had abandoned (how they had learned that Tchitchikov was married no one could say), and that his wife, who was broken-hearted and hopelessly in love with him, had written the most touching letter to the governor, and that Tchitchikov, seeing that the father and mother would never give their consent, had determined on an elopement. In other houses the story was told a little differently: that Tchitchikov had not a wife at all, but as a subtle man, who liked to be sure of his ground, he had, in order to win the daughter, begun by laying siege to the mother, and had a secret amour with her, and that he had made a proposal for the hand of the daughter; but the mother, horrified at the thought of so criminal and impious a proceeding, and suffering from pangs of conscience, had refused point blank, and this was why Tchitchikov had planned an elopement. Many variations and additions were tacked on to this, as the rumours penetrated into the more remote corners of the town. In Russia, the lower ranks of society are very fond of discussing the scandals that take place among their betters, and so all this began to be talked about in little houses in which no one had ever set eyes on Tchitchikov, or knew anything about him, fresh complications were added and further explanations were made. The subject became more interesting every minute, and took a more definite form every day, and at last was brought to the ears of the governor's wife herself in its final shape. As the mother of a family, as the leading lady in the town, as a lady in fact quite unsuspicious of anything of the sort, she was deeply wounded by this tittle-tattle, and was moved to an indignation which was, indeed, perfectly justified. The poor schoolgirl had to endure one of the most unpleasant interviews to which a girl of sixteen has ever been exposed. A perfect torrent of questions, inquiries, upbraidings, threats, reproaches, admonitions were poured out, so that the girl burst into tears, sobbed, and could not understand a word. The porter received the strictest orders never on any pretext or under any circumstances to admit Tchitchikov.

Having done their duty by the governor's wife, the ladies attacked the men's party, trying to bring them over to their side, and maintaining that the dead souls were a mere pretext only made up to avert suspicion and to enable the elopement to be carried out more successfully. Many of the men were brought over and joined the ladies' party, although they were exposed to severe censure from their fellows, who called them old women and petticoats—names, as we all know, most insulting to the male sex.

But in spite of the defence and resistance put up by the men, there was by no means the same discipline in their party as in the women's. With them everything was crude, unpolished, inharmonious, untidy and poor; there was a discordance, a chaos, an incoherence, a muddle in their thoughts—in fact it exemplified the worthless character of man, his coarse dense nature, incapable of domestic management, and of genuine convictions, lacking in faith, slothful, always full of doubts and everlasting apprehensions. They said that this was all nonsense, that eloping with the governor's daughter was more in a hussar's line than in a civilian's, that Tchitchikov would not do that, that women talked nonsense, that a woman was a sack—she would swallow anything; that the important point to take notice of was the purchase of the dead souls, and what the devil that meant there was no saying, though there was certainly something very nasty and unpleasant about it. Why the men thought there was something very nasty and unpleasant about it we shall learn immediately. A new governor-general had been appointed for the province, an event as every one knows that always throws the local officials into great perturbation: it is invariably followed by dismissals, reprimands, punishments, and the various official treats with which higher officers regale their subordinates. 'Why,' thought the local officials, 'if he finds out that these stupid rumours are going about the town, his fury may be a matter of life and death.' The inspector of the medical board suddenly turned pale: he imagined, God knows why, that the words 'dead souls' might be a reference to the patients, who had died in considerable numbers in the hospitals and infirmaries of an epidemic fever, against which no proper precautions had been taken, and that Tchitchikov might have been sent by the governor-general to gather secret information. He mentioned this to the president of the court. The president answered that this was absurd, and then grew pale himself, as he wondered whether the souls bought by Tchitchikov were really dead, and he had allowed the deed of purchase to be drawn up and had even acted for Plyushkin in the matter, and if this were to come to the governor-general's knowledge, what would happen? He did no more than mention this to one or two others, and those one or two others instantly turned pale too; fear is more contagious than the plague and is instantly communicated. They all discovered in themselves even sins they had not committed. The phrase 'dead souls' was so vaguely suggestive, that they began to suspect that there might be in it an allusion to corpses buried in haste, in consequence of two incidents which had occurred not long before. The first incident was connected with some merchants who had come from another district to the fair and, after selling their goods, had given to other merchants a banquet on the Russian scale with German concoctions: orgeats, punches, balsams and so on. The banquet ended as usual in a fight. The merchants who gave the entertainment beat their guests to death, though they suffered violent treatment at their hands, blows in the ribs, in the pit of the stomach and elsewhere, that testified to the size of the fists with which nature had endowed their deceased opponents. One of the successful party had his 'beak broken off' as the combatants expressed it, that is, his nose so completely smashed, that there was not more than a half finger's breadth left on his face. At their trial the merchants pleaded guilty, explaining that they had had just a drop. There were rumours that while on their trial they had offered four imperial notes each to the judges. The case was very obscure, however; from the inquiry and the report that was made, it appeared that the merchants had been suffocated by charcoal fumes and as such they were buried. The other event, which had taken place only recently, was as follows: the Crown peasants of the village of Vshivaya-Spyess in conjunction with the Crown peasants of the village of Borovka, otherwise Zadirailovo, were accused of having made away with the rural police in the shape of one Drobyazhkin, a tax assessor; it was said that the rural police, that is Drobyazhkin, had taken to visiting their village with excessive frequency, which in some cases is as bad as a pestilence, and the reason of his doing so was that the 'rural police,' having a weakness for the fair sex, ran after the village girls and women. This was not known for certain, however, though in their evidence the peasants plainly stated that the 'rural police' was as wanton as a tom-cat, and that they had lain in wait for him more than once and on one occasion had kicked him stark naked out of a hut where he lay hidden. The 'rural police,' of course, did deserve to be punished for his amatory propensities. But the peasants of both villages were on their side, too, certainly guilty of taking the law into their own hands, that is, if they really committed the murder. But the facts were not clear. The 'rural police' was found on the road, the uniform or coat on the 'rural police' was nothing but a rag, and even his face was unrecognisable.

The case went through the local courts and was brought at last before the high court, where it was at first deliberated on in private, to this effect: since it was not known which of the peasants had taken part in the crime, and since there were many of them; since Drobyazhkin was dead, so that it would not be much advantage to him, even if he did win the case, while the peasants were still alive, so that a decision in their favour was very important for them, it was therefore decided that Drobyazhkin was himself responsible, since he had been guilty of oppressive treatment of the peasants, and that he had died in his sledge of an apoplectic stroke. The case, it would seem, had been neatly settled; but the officials, for some inexplicable reason, began to think that these were the dead souls in question.

As ill luck would have it, just when the officials were in this difficult position, two communications to the governor arrived at the same time. The first informed him that, from evidence and reports received, it appeared that a forger of counterfeit notes was in their province, concealed under various aliases, and that a very strict search was to be made at once. The other was a despatch from the governor of a neighbouring province, and was concerned with the escape from justice of a brigand, and directed that if any suspicious person who could not produce a passport or give a good account of himself were to be found in the province, he was to be at once arrested. These two documents had a shattering effect on everyone. Their previous conclusions and surmises were completely checkmated. Of course it could not be supposed that there was any reference to Tchitchikov; all of them, however, as they pondered, each from his own point of view, realised that they did not know what sort of man Tchitchikov was, that he had been very vague in his account of himself, that he had indeed said that he had suffered in the cause of justice, but that was all very indefinite, and when they remembered at the same time that he had actually said that he had many enemies who had attempted his life, they wondered all the more: his life, then, was in danger; he was, then, being pursued; so he must have done something. … And who was he in reality? Of course it could not be thought that he had forged counterfeit notes and still less that he was a brigand—his appearance was most respectable; but with all that, what sort of person could he be? And now the officials asked themselves the question which they ought to have asked themselves in the first chapter of my poem. It was decided to make inquiries of the persons from whom the dead souls had been bought, so as to find out at least what sort of transaction it was, and what was to be understood by dead souls, and whether he had not perhaps explained to some one casually in some chance word what was his real intention, and whether he had not told some one who he really was. First of all they went to Madame Korobotchka, but they did not get much out of her: he had bought them, she said, for fifteen roubles and was going to buy poultry feathers too, and had promised to buy a great many things, to take fat pork for a government contract, and so he was certainly a rogue, for she had a fellow before buy poultry feathers and fat pork for the government, and he took every one in and cheated the head priest's wife out of a hundred roubles. Everything else she said was almost a repetition of the same thing, and the officials gathered nothing from it but that she was a foolish old woman. Manilov replied that he was ready to answer for Pavel Ivanovitch as for himself, that he would give his whole estate for a hundredth part of Pavel Ivanovitch's good qualities, and altogether used the most flattering expressions of him, adding some reflections in regard to friendship, while his eyes almost closed with emotion. No doubt these reflections satisfactorily explained the tender emotions of his heart, but they threw no light on the matter in question. Sobakevitch replied that in his opinion Tchitchikov was a good man, and that he had sold him peasants to be settled in another province, and they were living in every respect; but that he could not answer for what would happen in the future, that if they were to die during transportation from the hardships of the journey, it would not be his fault, that was in God's hands, and that there were plenty of fevers and dangerous illnesses, and that there were instances of whole villages dying of them at once. The official gentlemen had recourse to one other method which was not perfectly honourable perhaps, but which is however sometimes employed, that is, through various acquaintances in the servants' quarters to question privately Tchitchikov's serfs, and to find out whether they knew anything of their master's past life or circumstances: but again they got very little. From Petrushka they got nothing but the smell of a stuffy room, while from Selifan they heard that: 'he was engaged in the Imperial Service, and before that was in the Revenue Department'—and nothing more. Persons of this class have a very strange habit. If they are asked a direct question they are utterly unable to remember anything, cannot put their thoughts in order, and even answer simply that they do not know, but if they are questioned about something different, they immediately complicate it with ever so many details that you do not want to hear. All the investigations made by the officials revealed to them nothing but that they did not know what Tchitchikov was, and at the same time that Tchitchikov certainly must be something. They resolved at last to discuss the subject thoroughly, and to decide at least what they were to do, how they were to act and what steps they were to take, and what he was precisely, whether he was the sort of person who was to be seized and detained as a suspicious character, or whether he was the sort of person who might seize and detain all of them as suspicious characters. To do all this it was proposed to meet together at the house of the police-master, who is already known to the reader as the father and benefactor of the town.