Dead Souls

letters as had never even been seen before in the Russian alphabet. The familiar Ivan Antonovich managed quite deftly: the deeds were recorded, marked, entered in the register and wherever else necessary, with a charge of half a percent plus the notice in the Gazette, and so Chichikov had to pay the smallest sum. The magistrate even ordered that he be charged only half the tax money, while the other half, in some unknown fashion, was transferred to the account of some other petitioner.

'And so,' said the magistrate, when everything was done, 'it only remains now to wet this tidy little purchase.'

'I'm ready,' said Chichikov. 'It's for you to name the time. It would be a sin on my part if I didn't uncork two or three bottles of fizz for such a pleasant company.'

'No, you're mistaking me: we'll provide the fizz ourselves,' said the magistrate, 'it's our obligation, our duty. You're our guest: we must treat you. Do you know what, gentlemen? For the time being this is what we'll do: we'll all go, just as we are, to the police chief's. He's our wonder-worker, he has only to wink as he passes a fish market or a cellar, and you know what a snack we'll have! And also, for the occasion, a little game of whist!'

To such a suggestion no one could object. The witnesses felt hungry at the mere mention of the fish market; they all straightaway picked up their hats and caps, and the session was ended. As they passed through the chancellery, Ivan Antonovich, the jug mug, with a courteous bow, said softly to Chichikov:

'You bought up a hundred thousand worth of peasants and gave me just one twenty-fiver for my labors.'

'But what sort of peasants?' Chichikov answered him, also in a whisper. 'The most empty and paltry folk, not worth even half that.'

Ivan Antonovich understood that the visitor was of firm character and would not give more.

'And how much per soul did you pay Plyushkin?' Sobakevich whispered in his other ear.

'And why did you stick in that Sparrow?' Chichikov said in reply to that.

'What Sparrow?' said Sobakevich.

'That female, Elizaveta Sparrow, and what's more you took the a off the end.'

'No, I never stuck in any Sparrow,' said Sobakevich, and he went over to the other guests.

The guests finally arrived in a crowd at the police chief's house. The police chief was indeed a wonder- worker: having only just heard what was going on, he sent that same moment for a policeman, a perky fellow in patent leather jackboots, and seemed to whisper just two words in his ear, adding only: 'Understand!'— and there, in the other room, while the guests were hard at their whist, there appeared on the table beluga, sturgeon, salmon, pressed caviar, freshly salted caviar, herring, red sturgeon, cheeses, smoked tongues and balyks—all from the fish market side. Then there appeared additions from the host's side, products of his own kitchen: a fish-head pie into which went the cheeks and cartilage of a three-hundred-pound sturgeon, another pie with mushrooms, fritters, dumplings, honey-stewed fruit. The police chief was in a certain way the father and benefactor of the town. Among the townspeople he was completely as in his own family, and stopped in at shops and on merchants' row as if visiting his own larder. Generally, he was, as they say, suited to his post, and understood his job to perfection. It was even hard to decide whether he had been created for the post or the post for him. The business was handled so intelligently that he received double the income of all his predecessors, and at the same time earned the love of the whole town. The merchants were the first to love him, precisely because he was not haughty; in fact, he stood godfather to their children, was chummy with them, and though he occasionally fleeced them badly, he did it somehow extremely deftly: he would pat the man on the shoulder, and laugh, and stand him to tea, and promise to come for a game of checkers, asking about everything: how's he doing, this and that. If he learned that a young one was a bit sick, he would suggest some medicine—in short, a fine fellow! He drove around in his droshky, keeping order, and at the same time dropping a word to one man or another: 'Say, Mikheych, we ought to finish that card game some day.' 'Yes, Alexei Ivanovich,' the man would reply, doffing his hat, 'so we ought.' 'Well, Ilya Paramonych, stop by and have a look at my trotter: he'll outrun yours, brother; harness up your racing droshky, and we'll give it a try.' The merchant, who was crazy about his own trotter, smiled at that with especial eagerness, as they say, and, stroking his beard, said: 'Let's give it a try, Alexei Ivanovich!' At which point even the shop clerks usually took off their hats and glanced with pleasure at each other, as if wishing to say: 'Alexei Ivanovich is a good man!' In short, he managed to win universal popularity, and the merchants' opinion of Alexei Ivanovich was that 'though he does take, on the other hand he never gives you up.'

Noticing that the hors d'oeuvres were ready, the police chief suggested that his guests finish their whist after lunch, and everyone went into the other room, the smell wafting from which had long ago begun pleasantly to tickle the nostrils of the guests, and into which Sobakevich had long been peeking through the door, aiming from afar at the sturgeon that lay to one side on a big platter. The guests, having drunk a glass of vodka of the dark olive color that occurs only in those transparent Siberian stones from which seals are carved in Russia, accosted the table from all sides with forks and began to reveal, as they say, each his own character and inclinations, applying themselves one to the caviar, another to the salmon, another to the cheese. Sobakevich, letting all these trifles go unnoticed, stationed himself by the sturgeon, and while the others were drinking, talking, and eating, he, in a little over a quarter of an hour, went right through it, so that when the police chief remembered about it, and with the words: 'And what, gentlemen, do you think of this work of nature?' approached it, fork in hand, along with the others, he saw that the only thing left of this work of nature was the tail; and Sobakevich scrooched down as if it was not him, and, coming to a plate some distance away, poked his fork into some little dried fish. After polishing off the sturgeon, Sobakevich sat in an armchair and no longer ate or drank, but only squinted and blinked his eyes. The police chief, it seemed, did not like to stint on wine; the toasts were innumerable. The first toast was drunk, as our readers might guess for themselves, to the health of the new Kherson landowner, then to the prosperity of his peasants and their happy resettlement, then to the health of his future wife, a beauty, which drew a pleasant smile from our hero's lips. They accosted him on all sides and began begging him insistently to stay in town for at least two weeks:

'No, Pavel Ivanovich! say what you will, in and out just makes the cottage cold! No, you must spend some time with us! We'll get you married: isn't that right, Ivan Grigorievich, we'll get him married?'

'Married, married!' the magistrate picked up. 'Even if you resist hand and foot, we'll get you married! No, my dear, you landed here, so don't complain. We don't like joking.'

'Come now, why should I resist hand and foot,' said Chichikov, grinning, 'marriage isn't the sort of thing, that is, as long as there's a bride.'

'There'll be a bride, how could there not be, there'll be everything, everything you want! ...'

'Well, if there'll be...'

'Bravo, he's staying!' they all shouted. 'Viva, hurrah, Pavel Ivanovich! hurrah!' And they all came up with glasses in their hands to clink with him.

Chichikov clinked with everyone. 'No, no, again!' said the more enthusiastic ones, and clinked again all around; then they came at him to clink a third time, and so they all clinked a third time. In a short while everyone was feeling extraordinarily merry. The magistrate, who was the nicest of men when he got merry, embraced Chichikov several times, uttering in heartfelt effusion: 'My dear soul! my sweetie pie!' and, snapping his fingers, even went around him in a little dance, singing the well-known song: 'Ah, you blankety-blank Komarinsky muzhik.'^[32] After the champagne a Hungarian wine was broached, which raised their spirits still more and made the company all the merrier. Whist was decidedly forgotten; they argued, shouted, discussed everything— politics, even military affairs—expounded free thoughts for which, at another time, they would have whipped their own children. Resolved on the spot a host of the most difficult questions. Chichikov had never felt himself in so merry a mood, already imagined himself a real Kherson landowner, talked of various improvements—the three-field system, the happiness and bliss of twin souls—and began reciting to Sobakevich Werther's letter in verse to Charlotte,^[33] at which the man only blinked from his armchair, for after the sturgeon he felt a great urge to sleep. Chichikov himself realized that he was beginning to get much too loose, asked about a carriage, and availed himself of the prosecutor's droshky. The prosecutor's coachman, as it turned out on the way, was an experienced fellow, because he drove with one hand only, while holding up the master behind him with the other. Thus, on the prosecutor's droshky, he reached his inn, where for a long time still he had all sorts of nonsense on the tip of his tongue: a fair- haired bride, blushing and with a dimple on her right cheek, Kherson estates, capital. Selifan was even given some