Next morning, before the usual hour
for paying calls, there tripped from the portals of
an orange-coloured wooden house with an attic storey
and a row of blue pillars a lady in an elegant plaid
cloak. With her came a footman in a many-caped
greatcoat and a polished top hat with a gold band.
Hastily, but gracefully, the lady ascended the steps
let down from a koliaska which was standing before
the entrance, and as soon as she had done so the footman
shut her in, put up the steps again, and, catching
hold of the strap behind the vehicle, shouted to the
coachman, “Right away!” The reason of
all this was that the lady was the possessor of a
piece of intelligence that she was burning to communicate
to a fellow-creature. Every moment she kept looking
out of the carriage window, and perceiving, with almost
speechless vexation, that, as yet, she was but half-way
on her journey. The fronts of the houses appeared
to her longer than usual, and in particular did the
front of the white stone hospital, with its rows of
narrow windows, seem interminable to a degree which
at length forced her to ejaculate: “Oh,
the cursed building! Positively there is no end
to it!” Also, she twice adjured the coachman
with the words, “Go quicker, Andrusha! You
are a horribly long time over the journey this morning.”
But at length the goal was reached, and the koliaska
stopped before a one-storied wooden mansion, dark grey
in colour, and having white carvings over the windows,
a tall wooden fence and narrow garden in front of
the latter, and a few meagre trees looming white with
an incongruous coating of road dust. In the windows
of the building were also a few flower pots and a parrot
that kept alternately dancing on the floor of its
cage and hanging on to the ring of the same with its
beak. Also, in the sunshine before the door two
pet dogs were sleeping. Here there lived the
lady’s bosom friend. As soon as the bosom
friend in question learnt of the newcomer’s arrival,
she ran down into the hall, and the two ladies kissed
and embraced one another. Then they adjourned
to the drawing-room.
“How glad I am to see you!”
said the bosom friend. “When I heard some
one arriving I wondered who could possibly be calling
so early. Parasha declared that it must be the
Vice-Governor’s wife, so, as I did not want
to be bored with her, I gave orders that I was to be
reported ’not at home.’”
For her part, the guest would have
liked to have proceeded to business by communicating
her tidings, but a sudden exclamation from the hostess
imparted (temporarily) a new direction to the conversation.
“What a pretty chintz!”
she cried, gazing at the other’s gown.
“Yes, it is pretty,”
agreed the visitor. “On the other hand,
Praskovia Thedorovna thinks that ”
In other words, the ladies proceeded
to indulge in a conversation on the subject of dress;
and only after this had lasted for a considerable
while did the visitor let fall a remark which led her
entertainer to inquire:
“And how is the universal charmer?”
“My God!” replied the
other. “There has been such a business!
In fact, do you know why I am here at all?”
And the visitor’s breathing became more hurried,
and further words seemed to be hovering between her
lips like hawks preparing to stoop upon their prey.
Only a person of the unhumanity of a “true friend”
would have had the heart to interrupt her; but the
hostess was just such a friend, and at once interposed
with:
“I wonder how any one can see
anything in the man to praise or to admire. For
my own part, I think and I would say the
same thing straight to his face that he
is a perfect rascal.”
“Yes, but do listen to what I have got to tell
you.”
“Oh, I know that some people
think him handsome,” continued the hostess,
unmoved; “but I say that he is nothing
of the kind that, in particular, his nose
is perfectly odious.”
“Yes, but let me finish what
I was saying.” The guest’s tone was
almost piteous in its appeal.
“What is it, then?”
“You cannot imagine my state
of mind! You see, this morning I received a visit
from Father Cyril’s wife the Archpriest’s
wife you know her, don’t you?
Well, whom do you suppose that fine gentleman visitor
of ours has turned out to be?”
“The man who has built the Archpriest a poultry-run?”
“Oh dear no! Had that been
all, it would have been nothing. No. Listen
to what Father Cyril’s wife had to tell me.
She said that, last night, a lady landowner named
Madame Korobotchka arrived at the Archpriest’s
house arrived all pale and trembling and
told her, oh, such things! They sound like a
piece out of a book. That is to say, at dead of
night, just when every one had retired to rest, there
came the most dreadful knocking imaginable, and some
one screamed out, ’Open the gates, or we will
break them down!’ Just think! After this,
how any one can say that the man is charming I cannot
imagine.”
“Well, what of Madame Korobotchka?
Is she a young woman or good looking?”
“Oh dear no! Quite an old woman.”
“Splendid indeed! So he
is actually engaged to a person like that? One
may heartily commend the taste of our ladies for having
fallen in love with him!”
“Nevertheless, it is not as
you suppose. Think, now! Armed with weapons
from head to foot, he called upon this old woman, and
said: ’Sell me any souls of yours which
have lately died.’ Of course, Madame Korobotchka
answered, reasonably enough: ’I cannot sell
you those souls, seeing that they have departed this
world;’ but he replied: ’No, no!
They are not dead. ’Tis I who tell
you that I who ought to know the truth of
the matter. I swear that they are still alive.’
In short, he made such a scene that the whole village
came running to the house, and children screamed,
and men shouted, and no one could tell what it was
all about. The affair seemed to me so horrible,
so utterly horrible, that I trembled beyond belief
as I listened to the story. ‘My dearest
madam,’ said my maid, Mashka, ’pray look
at yourself in the mirror, and see how white you are.’
‘But I have no time for that,’ I replied,
’as I must be off to tell my friend, Anna Grigorievna,
the news.’ Nor did I lose a moment in ordering
the koliaska. Yet when my coachman, Andrusha,
asked me for directions I could not get a word out I
just stood staring at him like a fool, until I thought
he must think me mad. Oh, Anna Grigorievna, if
you but knew how upset I am!”
“What a strange affair!”
commented the hostess. “What on earth can
the man have meant by ‘dead souls’?
I confess that the words pass my understanding.
Curiously enough, this is the second time I have heard
speak of those souls. True, my husband avers that
Nozdrev was lying; yet in his lies there seems to
have been a grain of truth.”
“Well, just think of my state
when I heard all this! ‘And now,’
apparently said Korobotchka to the Archpriest’s
wife, ’I am altogether at a loss what to do,
for, throwing me fifteen roubles, the man forced me
to sign a worthless paper yes, me, an inexperienced,
defenceless widow who knows nothing of business.’
That such things should happen! Try and
imagine my feelings!”
“In my opinion, there is in
this more than the dead souls which meet the eye.”
“I think so too,” agreed
the other. As a matter of fact, her friend’s
remark had struck her with complete surprise, as well
as filled her with curiosity to know what the word
“more” might possibly signify. In
fact, she felt driven to inquire: “What
do you suppose to be hidden beneath it all?”
“No; tell me what you suppose?”
“What I suppose? I am at a loss
to conjecture.”
“Yes, but tell me what is in your mind?”
Upon this the visitor had to confess
herself nonplussed; for, though capable of growing
hysterical, she was incapable of propounding any rational
theory. Consequently she felt the more that she
needed tender comfort and advice.
“Then this is what I think
about the dead souls,” said the hostess.
Instantly the guest pricked up her ears (or, rather,
they pricked themselves up) and straightened herself
and became, somehow, more modish, and, despite her
not inconsiderable weight, posed herself to look like
a piece of thistledown floating on the breeze.
“The dead souls,” began the hostess.
“Are what, are what?” inquired the guest
in great excitement.
“Are, are ”
“Tell me, tell me, for heaven’s sake!”
“They are an invention to conceal
something else. The man’s real object is,
is to abduct the governor’s
daughter.”
So startling and unexpected was this
conclusion that the guest sat reduced to a state of
pale, petrified, genuine amazement.
“My God!” she cried, clapping
her hands, “I should never have guessed
it!”
“Well, to tell you the truth,
I guessed it as soon as ever you opened your mouth.”
“So much, then, for educating
girls like the Governor’s daughter at school!
Just see what comes of it!”
“Yes, indeed! And they
tell me that she says things which I hesitate even
to repeat.”
“Truly it wrings one’s
heart to see to what lengths immorality has come.”
“Some of the men have quite
lost their heads about her, but for my part I think
her not worth noticing.”
“Of course. And her manners
are unbearable. But what puzzles me most is how
a travelled man like Chichikov could come to let himself
in for such an affair. Surely he must have accomplices?”
“Yes; and I should say that
one of those accomplices is Nozdrev.”
“Surely not?”
“Certainly I should say
so. Why, I have known him even try to sell his
own father! At all events he staked him at cards.”
“Indeed? You interest me.
I should never had thought him capable of such things.”
“I always guessed him to be so.”
The two ladies were still discussing
the matter with acumen and success when there walked
into the room the Public Prosecutor bushy
eyebrows, motionless features, blinking eyes, and
all. At once the ladies hastened to inform him
of the events related, adducing therewith full details
both as to the purchase of dead souls and as to the
scheme to abduct the Governor’s daughter; after
which they departed in different directions, for the
purpose of raising the rest of the town. For the
execution of this undertaking not more than half an
hour was required. So thoroughly did they succeed
in throwing dust in the public’s eyes that for
a while every one more especially the army
of public officials was placed in the position
of a schoolboy who, while still asleep, has had a bag
of pepper thrown in his face by a party of more early-rising
comrades. The questions now to be debated resolved
themselves into two namely, the question
of the dead souls and the question of the Governor’s
daughter. To this end two parties were formed the
men’s party and the feminine section. The
men’s party the more absolutely senseless
of the two devoted its attention to the
dead souls: the women’s party occupied
itself exclusively with the alleged abduction of the
Governor’s daughter. And here it may be
said (to the ladies’ credit) that the women’s
party displayed far more method and caution than did
its rival faction, probably because the function in
life of its members had always been that of managing
and administering a household. With the ladies,
therefore, matters soon assumed vivid and definite
shape; they became clearly and irrefutably materialised;
they stood stripped of all doubt and other impedimenta.
Said some of the ladies in question, Chichikov had
long been in love with the maiden, and the pair had
kept tryst by the light of the moon, while the Governor
would have given his consent (seeing that Chichikov
was as rich as a Jew) but for the obstacle that Chichikov
had deserted a wife already (how the worthy dames
came to know that he was married remains a mystery),
and the said deserted wife, pining with love for her
faithless husband, had sent the Governor a letter
of the most touching kind, so that Chichikov, on perceiving
that the father and mother would never give their
consent, had decided to abduct the girl. In other
circles the matter was stated in a different way.
That is to say, this section averred that Chichikov
did not possess a wife, but that, as a man of
subtlety and experience, he had bethought him of obtaining
the daughter’s hand through the expedient of
first tackling the mother and carrying on with her
an ardent liaison, and that, thereafter, he had made
an application for the desired hand, but that the
mother, fearing to commit a sin against religion, and
feeling in her heart certain gnawings of conscience,
had returned a blank refusal to Chichikov’s
request; whereupon Chichikov had decided to carry
out the abduction alleged. To the foregoing, of
course, there became appended various additional proofs
and items of evidence, in proportion as the sensation
spread to more remote corners of the town. At
length, with these perfectings, the affair reached
the ears of the Governor’s wife herself.
Naturally, as the mother of a family, and as the first
lady in the town, and as a matron who had never before
been suspected of things of the kind, she was highly
offended when she heard the stories, and very justly
so: with the result that her poor young daughter,
though innocent, had to endure about as unpleasant
a tete-a-tete as ever befell a maiden of sixteen,
while, for his part, the Swiss footman received orders
never at any time to admit Chichikov to the house.
Having done their business with the
Governor’s wife, the ladies’ party descended
upon the male section, with a view to influencing it
to their own side by asserting that the dead souls
were an invention used solely for the purpose of diverting
suspicion and successfully affecting the abduction.
And, indeed, more than one man was converted, and joined
the feminine camp, in spite of the fact that thereby
such seceders incurred strong names from their late
comrades names such as “old women,”
“petticoats,” and others of a nature peculiarly
offensive to the male sex.
Also, however much they might arm
themselves and take the field, the men could not compass
such orderliness within their ranks as could the women.
With the former everything was of the antiquated and
rough-hewn and ill-fitting and unsuitable and badly-adapted
and inferior kind; their heads were full of nothing
but discord and triviality and confusion and slovenliness
of thought. In brief, they displayed everywhere
the male bent, the rude, ponderous nature which is
incapable either of managing a household or of jumping
to a conclusion, as well as remains always distrustful
and lazy and full of constant doubt and everlasting
timidity. For instance, the men’s party
declared that the whole story was rubbish that
the alleged abduction of the Governor’s daughter
was the work rather of a military than of a civilian
culprit; that the ladies were lying when they accused
Chichikov of the deed; that a woman was like a money-bag whatsoever
you put into her she thenceforth retained; that the
subject which really demanded attention was the dead
souls, of which the devil only knew the meaning, but
in which there certainly lurked something that was
contrary to good order and discipline. One reason
why the men’s party was so certain that the
dead souls connoted something contrary to good order
and discipline, was that there had just been appointed
to the province a new Governor-General an
event which, of course, had thrown the whole army
of provincial tchinovniks into a state of great excitement,
seeing that they knew that before long there would
ensue transferments and sentences of censure, as well
as the series of official dinners with which a Governor-General
is accustomed to entertain his subordinates. “Alas,”
thought the army of tchinovniks, “it is probable
that, should he learn of the gross reports at present
afloat in our town, he will make such a fuss that
we shall never hear the last of them.” In
particular did the Director of the Medical Department
turn pale at the thought that possibly the new Governor-General
would surmise the term “dead folk” to
connote patients in the local hospitals who, for want
of proper preventative measures, had died of sporadic
fever. Indeed, might it not be that Chichikov
was neither more nor less than an emissary of the said
Governor-General, sent to conduct a secret inquiry?
Accordingly he (the Director of the Medical Department)
communicated this last supposition to the President
of the Council, who, though at first inclined to ejaculate
“Rubbish!” suddenly turned pale on propounding
to himself the theory. “What if the souls
purchased by Chichikov should really be dead
ones?” a terrible thought considering
that he, the President, had permitted their transferment
to be registered, and had himself acted as Plushkin’s
representative! What if these things should reach
the Governor-General’s ears? He mentioned
the matter to one friend and another, and they, in
their turn, went white to the lips, for panic spreads
faster and is even more destructive, than the dreaded
black death. Also, to add to the tchinovniks’
troubles, it so befell that just at this juncture
there came into the local Governor’s hands two
documents of great importance. The first of them
contained advices that, according to received evidence
and reports, there was operating in the province a
forger of rouble-notes who had been passing under various
aliases and must therefore be sought for with the utmost
diligence; while the second document was a letter
from the Governor of a neighbouring province with
regard to a malefactor who had there evaded apprehension a
letter conveying also a warning that, if in the province
of the town of N. there should appear any suspicious
individual who could produce neither references nor
passports, he was to be arrested forthwith. These
two documents left every one thunderstruck, for they
knocked on the head all previous conceptions and theories.
Not for a moment could it be supposed that the former
document referred to Chichikov; yet, as each man pondered
the position from his own point of view, he remembered
that no one really knew who Chichikov was; as
also that his vague references to himself had yes! included
statements that his career in the service had suffered
much to the cause of Truth, and that he possessed
a number of enemies who were seeking his life.
This gave the tchinovniks further food for thought.
Perhaps his life really did stand in danger?
Perhaps he really was being sought for by some
one? Perhaps he really had done something
of the kind above referred to? As a matter of
fact, who was he? not that it could actually
be supposed that he was a forger of notes, still less
a brigand, seeing that his exterior was respectable
in the highest degree. Yet who was he? At
length the tchinovniks decided to make enquiries among
those of whom he had purchased souls, in order that
at least it might be learnt what the purchases had
consisted of, and what exactly underlay them, and whether,
in passing, he had explained to any one his real intentions,
or revealed to any one his identity. In the first
instance, therefore, resort was had to Korobotchka.
Yet little was gleaned from that source merely
a statement that he had bought of her some souls for
fifteen roubles apiece, and also a quantity of feathers,
while promising also to buy some other commodities
in the future, seeing that, in particular, he had
entered into a contract with the Treasury for lard,
a fact constituting fairly presumptive proof that
the man was a rogue, seeing that just such another
fellow had bought a quantity of feathers, yet had cheated
folk all round, and, in particular, had done the Archpriest
out of over a hundred roubles. Thus the net result
of Madame’s cross-examination was to convince
the tchinovniks that she was a garrulous, silly old
woman. With regard to Manilov, he replied that
he would answer for Chichikov as he would for himself,
and that he would gladly sacrifice his property in
toto if thereby he could attain even a tithe of the
qualities which Paul Ivanovitch possessed. Finally,
he delivered on Chichikov, with acutely-knitted brows,
a eulogy couched in the most charming of terms, and
coupled with sundry sentiments on the subject of friendship
and affection in general. True, these remarks
sufficed to indicate the tender impulses of the speaker’s
heart, but also they did nothing to enlighten his
examiners concerning the business that was actually
at hand. As for Sobakevitch, that landowner replied
that he considered Chichikov an excellent fellow,
as well as that the souls whom he had sold to his
visitor had been in the truest sense of the word alive,
but that he could not answer for anything which might
occur in the future, seeing that any difficulties
which might arise in the course of the actual transferment
of souls would not be his fault, in view of the
fact that God was lord of all, and that fevers and
other mortal complaints were so numerous in the world,
and that instances of whole villages perishing through
the same could be found on record.
Finally, our friends the tchinovniks
found themselves compelled to resort to an expedient
which, though not particularly savoury, is not infrequently
employed namely, the expedient of getting
lacqueys quietly to approach the servants of the person
concerning whom information is desired, and to ascertain
from them (the servants) certain details with regard
to their master’s life and antecedents.
Yet even from this source very little was obtained,
since Petrushka provided his interrogators merely
with a taste of the smell of his living-room, and Selifan
confined his replies to a statement that the barin
had “been in the employment of the State, and
also had served in the Customs.”
In short, the sum total of the results
gathered by the tchinovniks was that they still stood
in ignorance of Chichikov’s identity, but that
he must be some one; wherefore it was decided
to hold a final debate on the subject on what ought
to be done, and who Chichikov could possibly be, and
whether or not he was a man who ought to be apprehended
and detained as not respectable, or whether he was
a man who might himself be able to apprehend and detain
them as persons lacking in respectability.
The debate in question, it was proposed, should be
held at the residence of the Chief of Police, who
is known to our readers as the father and the general
benefactor of the town.