“All that I am proposing to do,” replied Chichikov, “is to purchase the dead peasants who, at the last census, were returned by you as alive.”
Manilov dropped his pipe on the floor, and sat gaping. Yes, the two friends who had just been discussing the joys of camaraderie sat staring at one another like the portraits which, of old, used to hang on opposite sides of a mirror. At length Manilov picked up his pipe, and, while doing so, glanced covertly at Chichikov to see whether there was any trace of a smile to be detected on his lips—whether, in short, he was joking. But nothing of the sort could be discerned. On the contrary, Chichikov’s face looked graver than usual. Next, Manilov wondered whether, for some unknown reason, his guest had lost his wits; wherefore he spent some time in gazing at him with anxious intentness. But the guest’s eyes seemed clear—they contained no spark of the wild, restless fire which is apt to wander in the eyes of madmen. All was as it should be. Consequently, in spite of Manilov’s cogitations, he could think of nothing better to do than to sit letting a stream of tobacco smoke escape from his mouth.
“So,” continued Chichikov, “what I desire to know is whether you are willing to hand over to me—to resign—these actually nonliving, but legally living, peasants; or whether you have any better proposal to make?”
Manilov felt too confused and confounded to do aught but continue staring at his interlocutor.
“I think that you are disturbing yourself unnecessarily,” was Chichikov’s next remark.
“I? Oh no! Not at all!” stammered Manilov. “Only—pardon me—I do not quite comprehend you. You see, never has it fallen to my lot to acquire the brilliant polish which is, so to speak, manifest in your every movement. Nor have I ever been able to attain the art of expressing myself well. Consequently, although there is a possibility that in the—er—utterances which have just fallen from your lips there may lie something else concealed, it may equally be that—er—you have been pleased so to express yourself for the sake of the beauty of the terms wherein that expression found shape?”
“Oh, no,” asserted Chichikov. “I mean what I say and no more. My reference to such of your pleasant souls as are dead was intended to be taken literally.”
Manilov still felt at a loss—though he was conscious that he must do something, he must propound some question. But what question? The devil alone knew! In the end he merely expelled some more tobacco smoke—this time from his nostrils as well as from his mouth.
“So,” went on Chichikov, “if no obstacle stands in the way, we might as well proceed to the completion of the purchase.”
“What? Of the purchase of the dead souls?”
“Of the ‘dead’ souls? Oh dear no! Let us write them down as living ones, seeing that that is how they figure in the census returns. Never do I permit myself to step outside the civil law, great though has been the harm which that rule has wrought me in my career. In my eyes an obligation is a sacred thing. In the presence of the law I am dumb.”
These last words reassured Manilov not a little: yet still the meaning of the affair remained to him a mystery. By way of answer, he fell to sucking at his pipe with such vehemence that at length the pipe began to gurgle like a bassoon. It was as though he had been seeking of it inspiration in the present unheard-of juncture. But the pipe only gurgled, et praeterea nihil.
“Perhaps you feel doubtful about the proposal?” said Chichikov.
“Not at all,” replied Manilov. “But you will, I know, excuse me if I say (and I say it out of no spirit of prejudice, nor yet as criticising yourself in any way)—you will, I know, excuse me if I say that possibly this—er—this, er, scheme of yours, this—er—transaction of yours, may fail altogether to accord with the Civil Statutes and Provisions of the Realm?”
And Manilov, with a slight gesture of the head, looked meaningly into Chichikov’s face, while displaying in his every feature, including his closely-compressed lips, such an expression of profundity as never before was seen on any human countenance—unless on that of some particularly sapient Minister of State who is debating some particularly abstruse problem.
Nevertheless Chichikov rejoined that the kind of scheme or transaction which he had adumbrated in no way clashed with the Civil Statutes and Provisions of Russia; to which he added that the Treasury would even benefit by the enterprise, seeing it would draw therefrom the usual legal percentage.
“What, then, do you propose?” asked Manilov.
“I propose only what is aboveboard, and nothing else.”
“Then, that being so, it is another matter, and I have nothing to urge against it,” said Manilov, apparently reassured to the full.
“Very well,” remarked Chichikov. “Then we need only to agree as to the price.”
“As to the price?” began Manilov, and then stopped. Presently he went on: “Surely you cannot suppose me capable of taking money for souls which, in one sense at least, have completed their existence? Seeing that this fantastic whim of yours (if I may so call it?) has seized upon you to the extent that it has, I, on my side, shall be ready to surrender to you those souls unconditionally, and to charge myself with the whole expenses of the sale.”
I should be greatly to blame if I were to omit that, as soon as Manilov had pronounced these words, the face of his guest became replete with satisfaction. Indeed, grave and prudent a man though Chichikov was, he had much ado to refrain from executing a leap that would have done credit to a goat (an animal which, as we all know, finds itself moved to such exertions only during moments of the most ecstatic joy). Nevertheless the guest did at least execute such a convulsive shuffle that the material with which the cushions of
