family name: it was our acquaintance, Pyotr Saveliev Disrespect-Trough, who had once belonged to the landowner Korobochka. Again he could not keep from saying: 'Eh, what a long one, stretched over a whole line! Were you a craftsman, or simply a peasant, and what sort of death took you? In a pot-house, was it, or did some clumsy train of carts drive over you while you were asleep in the middle of the road? Cork Stepan, carpenter, of exemplary sobriety. Ah! here he is, Stepan Cork, that mighty man, fit to serve in the guards! I expect you walked over all the provinces, an axe tucked into your belt, boots slung over your shoulders, eating a half-kopeck's worth of bread and a kopeck's worth of dried fish, and I expect each time you brought home up to a hundred silver roubles in your pouch, or maybe had a thousand-rouble banknote sewn into your hempen britches or stuck in your boot. Where were you when you got taken? Did you hoist yourself for greater gain up under the church cupola, or maybe drag yourself all the way to the cross, slip from the crossbeam, and fall flop to the ground, and only some Uncle Mikhei standing there, after scratching the back of his head, observed: 'Eh, Vanya, you sure came a cropper!'—and, tying the rope on, went up himself to replace you? Maxim Telyatnikov, cobbler. Hah, a cobbler! 'Drunk as a cobbler!' the saying goes. I know, I know you, my sweet fellow; I'll tell your whole story if you like: you were apprenticed to a German, who fed you all together, beat you on the back with a belt for sloppiness, and wouldn't let you out for any rascality, and you were a wonder, not a cobbler, and the German couldn't praise you enough when he was talking with his wife or a comrade. And when your apprenticeship was up, you said: 'And now I'll open shop, and not do like some German, pulling himself out of a kopeck, but get rich all at once.' And so, having offered your master a handsome quitrent, you started a little shop, got yourself a pile of orders, and set to work. Procured some rotten leather dirt- cheap somewhere, and in fact made double your money on each boot, but in two weeks your boots all popped apart, and you were abused in the meanest way. And so your little shop fell into neglect, and you took to drinking and lying about in the streets, saying all the while: 'No, it's a bad world! There's no life for a Russian man, the Germans keep getting in the way' What sort of muzhik is this? Elizaveta Sparrow. Pah, drat it all—a female! How did she get in there? That scoundrel Sobakevich has hoodwinked me here, too!' Chichikov was right: it was, in fact, a female. How she got there no one knows, but she was so artfully written that from a distance she could be taken for a muzhik, and her name even had a masculine ending, that is, not Elizaveta, but Elizavet. However, he did not pay her any respect, and straightaway crossed her out. 'Grigory Go-never-get! What sort of man were you? Did you set up as a hauler and, having got yourself a troika and a bast-covered wagon, renounce your house, your native den, forever and go dragging yourself with merchants to the fairs? Did you give up the ghost on the road, or did your own companions do you in over some fat and red-cheeked soldier's wife, or did some forest tramp take a liking to your leather-palmed mittens and your troika of squat but brawny horses, or maybe you yourself, lying on your plank bed, kept thinking and thinking, and for no reason at all steered for a pot-house, and then straight into a hole in the ice, and so made your exit. Eh, Russian folk! they don't like dying a natural death! And how about you, my sweet ones!' he went on, shifting his eyes to the paper on which Plyushkin's runaway souls were listed. 'Though you're still alive, what's the use of you! you're as good as dead, and where are your quick feet taking you now? Was it so bad for you at Plyushkin's, or are you simply roaming the forests of your own will, fleecing passersby? Are you locked up in prisons, or are you with other masters, tilling the soil? Yeremei Karyakin, Vitaly Dillydally, his son Anton Dillydally—these are good runners, you can even tell by their nicknames. Popov, a house serf, must be a literate one: you didn't take up the knife, I expect, but went around stealing in a noble fashion. But here you are now, caught by the police captain without a passport. You stand cheerfully at the confrontation. 'Whose are you?' the police captain says, using this sure opportunity to put in some strong epithet for you. 'Landowner so-and-so's,' you reply pertly. 'What are you doing here?' the police captain says. 'I'm free on quitrent,' you reply without a hitch. 'Where's your passport?' 'With my landlord, the tradesman Pimenov.' 'Summon Pimenov! Are you Pimenov?' 'I'm Pimenov.' 'Did he give you his passport?' 'No, he never gave me any passport.' 'Why are you lying?' the police captain says, with the addition of some strong epithet. 'Exactly right,' you reply pertly, 'I didn't give it to him, because I came home late, so I gave it to Antip Prokhorov, the bell ringer, for safekeeping.' 'Summon the bell ringer! Did he give you his passport?' 'No, I never got any passport from him.' 'So you're lying again!' says the police captain, clinching his speech with some strong epithet. 'So where is your passport?' 'I had it,' you say briskly, 'but it seems I must somehow have dropped it in the road.' And how is it,' says the police captain, again tacking on some strong epithet for you, 'that you filched a soldier's greatcoat? And a priest's chest with copper money in it?' 'No, sir,' you say, without budging, 'I've never yet found myself in any thievish dealings.' And why, then, was the soldier's greatcoat found with you?' 'I can't say: someone else must have brought it.' Ah, you knave, you!' says the police captain, shaking his head, arms akimbo. 'Put the clogs on him and take him to prison.' 'As you like! It's my pleasure!' you reply. And so, taking a snuffbox from your pocket, you amiably treat the pair of invalids who are putting the clogs on you, asking them how long they've been retired and what war they were in. And so there you are now living in prison, while your case is being processed in court. And the court writes that you are to be transferred from Tsarevokokshaisk to the prison in such-and-such town, and the court there writes that you are to be transferred to some Vesye-gonsk, and so you keep moving from prison to prison, saying, as you look over your new abode: 'No, the Vesyegonsk prison is a bit better, there's at least room enough to play knucklebones, and the company's bigger!' Abakum Fyrov! What about you, brother? Where, in which parts, are you hanging about? Did you get blown as far as the Volga, and join the boatmen there, having come to love the life of freedom? ...' Here Chichikov paused and pondered a little. Over what was he pondering? Was he pondering over Abakum Fyrov's lot, or was he pondering just like that, as any Russian falls to pondering, whatever his age, rank, or fortune, when he begins to reflect on the revels of a broad life? And, indeed, where is Fyrov now? He is carousing noisily and merrily on the grain wharf, after striking a bargain with the merchants. Flowers and ribbons on their hats, the whole gang of boatmen are making merry, taking leave of their lovers and wives, tall, well-built, in necklaces and ribbons; round dances, songs, the whole square is seething, and meanwhile the stevedores, with shouts, curses, and heave-ho's, hoist as much as three hundred pounds on their backs with a hook, noisily pour peas and wheat into the deep holds, pile up bags of oats and groats, and farther off, all over the square, one can see sacks piled up like cannonballs in pyramids, and the whole grain arsenal stands enormous, until it has all been loaded into the deep Sura boats, and the endless flotilla rushes off in file together with the spring ice! There will be work enough for you, boatmen! And in unison, just as you reveled and rioted before, you will start to toil and sweat, hauling the line to one song as endless as Russia.
'Oh-oh! twelve o'clock!' Chichikov said at last, glancing at his watch. 'What am I doing dawdling like this? It wouldn't matter if I was getting something done, but first I started pouring out drivel for no reason at all, and then I fell to pondering. Eh, what a fool I am, really!' Having said this, he changed his Scottish costume for a European one, drew the belt buckle tight over his plump belly, sprinkled himself with eau de cologne, took a warm cap in his hand and the papers under his arm, and set out for the government offices to execute his deeds. He was hurrying not because he was afraid of being late—he was not afraid of being late, for the head magistrate was a man of his acquaintance, and could lengthen or shorten his office hours at will, like the ancient Zeus of Homer, who prolonged days or sent quicker nights when he wanted to stop the combat of heroes dear to him or give them the means to finish their fight—but he felt in himself a desire to bring the business to a close as soon as possible; until then everything seemed uneasy and uncomfortable to him; it kept occurring to him that, after all, the souls were not quite real, and that in such cases one must hasten to get the burden off one's shoulders. No sooner had he gone out, reflecting upon all this and at the same time dragging onto his shoulders a bear covered with brown flannel, when just at the corner of the lane he ran into a gentleman also in a bear covered with brown flannel and a warm cap with ear flaps. The gentleman uttered a cry: it was Manilov. They straightaway locked each other in an embrace and stood that way in the street for about five minutes. The kisses were so hard on both sides that both men had an ache in their front teeth for almost the whole day. Manilov's eyes disappeared completely from joy, leaving only the nose and lips on his face. For about a quarter of an hour he held Chichikov's hand in both of his hands and made it terribly warm. In the most refined and pleasant turns of phrase he told how he had flown to embrace Pavel Ivanovich; the speech was concluded with a compliment such as is perhaps fitting only for a girl one is taking to a dance. Chichikov opened his mouth, still not knowing how to thank him, when suddenly Manilov took from under his fur coat a piece of paper rolled into a tube and tied with a pink ribbon, and deftly held it out with two fingers.
'What's this?'
'My little muzhiks.'
'Ah!' He unrolled it straightaway, ran his eyes over it, and marveled at the neatness and beauty of the handwriting. 'So nicely written,' he said, 'no need even to copy it. And a border around it! Who made such an artful border?'
