Dead Souls

and Adelheida Gavrilovna; at Fyodor Fyodorovich Perekroev's in Ryazan province; at Frol Vassilievich Pobedonosny's in Penza province, and at his brother Pyotr Vassilievich's, where were his sister-in-law Katerina Mikhailovna and her second cousins Rosa Fyodorovna and Emilia Fyodorovna; in Vyatka province at Pyotr Varsonofievich's, where Pelageya Yegorovna, his daughter-in-law's sister, was with her niece Sofya Rostislavovna and two half sisters, Sofya Alexandrovna and Maklatura Alexandrovna.

The ladies were all thoroughly displeased with Chichikov's behavior. One of them purposely walked past him to make him notice it, and even brushed against the blond girl rather carelessly with the thick rouleau of her dress, and managed the scarf that fluttered about her shoulders so that its end waved right in her face; and at the same time, from behind him, along with the scent of violets, a rather pointed and caustic remark wafted from one lady's lips. But either he actually did not hear, or he pretended not to hear, though that was not good, because the opinion of the ladies must be appreciated: he repented of it, but only afterwards, and therefore too late.

Indignation, justified in all respects, showed on many faces. However great Chichikov's weight in society might be, though he were a millionaire and with an expression of majesty, even of something Mars-like and military, in his face, still there are things that ladies will not forgive anyone, whoever he may be, and then he can simply be written off. There are cases when a woman, however weak and powerless of character in comparison with a man, suddenly becomes harder, not only than a man, but than anything else in the world. The scorn displayed almost inadvertently by Chichikov even restored the harmony among the ladies, which had been on the brink of ruin since the occasion of the capturing of the chair. Certain dry and ordinary words that he chanced to utter were found to contain pointed allusions. To crown the disaster, one of the young men made up some satirical verses about the dancers, which, as we know, almost no provincial ball can do without. These verses were straightaway ascribed to Chichikov. The indignation was mounting, and ladies in different corners began to speak of him in a most unfavorable way; while the poor boarding-school graduate was totally annihilated and her sentence was already sealed.

And meanwhile a most unpleasant surprise was being prepared for our hero: while the girl yawned, and he went on telling her little stories of some sort that had happened at various times, even touching on the Greek philosopher Diogenes, Nozdryov emerged from the end room. Whether he had torn himself away from the buffet or from the small green sitting room, where a game a bit stiffer than ordinary whist was under way, whether it was of his own free will or he had been pushed out, in any case he appeared gay, joyful, grasping the arm of the prosecutor, whom he had probably been dragging about for some time, because the poor prosecutor was turning his bushy eyebrows in all directions, as if seeking some way to get out of this friendly arm-in-arm excursion. Indeed, it was insufferable. Nozdryov, having sipped up some swagger in two cups of tea, not without rum, of course, was lying unmercifully. Spotting him from afar, Chichikov resolved even upon sacrifice, that is, upon abandoning his enviable place and withdrawing at all possible speed: for him their meeting boded no good. But, as ill luck would have it, at that same moment the governor turned up, expressing extraordinary joy at having found Pavel Ivanovich, and stopped him, asking him to arbitrate in his dispute with two ladies over whether woman's love is lasting or not; and meanwhile Nozdryov had already seen him and was walking straight to meet him.

'Ah, the Kherson landowner, the Kherson landowner!' he shouted, approaching and dissolving in laughter, which caused his cheeks, fresh and ruddy as a rose in spring, to shake. 'So, have you bought up a lot of dead ones? You don't even know, Your Excellency,' he went on bawling, addressing the governor, 'he deals in dead souls! By God! Listen, Chichikov! you really—I'm telling you out of friendship, all of us here are your friends, yes, and His Excellency here, too—I'd hang you, by God, I'd hang you!'

Chichikov simply did not know where he was.

'Would you believe it, Your Excellency,' Nozdryov went on, 'when he said 'Sell me dead souls,' I nearly split with laughter. I come here, and they tell me he's bought up three million worth of peasants for resettlement— resettlement, hah! he was trying to buy dead ones from me. Listen, Chichikov, you're a brute, by God, a brute, and His Excellency here, too, isn't that right, prosecutor?'

But the prosecutor, and Chichikov, and the governor himself were so nonplussed that they were utterly at a loss what to reply, and meanwhile Nozdryov, without paying the least attention, kept pouring out his half-sober speech:

'And you, brother, you, you ... I won't leave your side till I find out why you were buying dead souls. Listen, Chichikov, you really ought to be ashamed, you know you have no better friend than me. And His Excellency here, too, isn't that right, prosecutor? You wouldn't believe, Your Excellency, how attached we are to one another, that is, if you simply said—I'm standing here, see, and you say: 'Nozdryov, tell me in all conscience, who is dearer to you, your own father or Chichikov?' I'd say: 'Chichikov,' by God . . . Allow me, dear heart, to plant one baiser on you. You will allow me to kiss him, Your Excellency. So, Chichikov, don't resist now, allow me to print one bitsy baiser^[40] on your snow-white cheek!'

Nozdryov was pushed away with his baisers, so hard that he almost went sprawling on the floor: everyone left him and no longer listened to him; but all the same his words about the buying of dead souls had been uttered at the top of his voice and accompanied by such loud laughter that they had attracted the attention even of those in the farthest corners of the room. This news seemed so strange that everyone stopped with some sort of wooden, foolishly quizzical expression. Chichikov noticed that many of the ladies winked at each other with a sort of spiteful, caustic grin, and certain faces bore an expression of something so ambiguous that it further increased his confusion. That Nozdryov was an inveterate liar everyone knew, and there was no wonder at all in hearing decided balderdash from him; but mortal man—truly, it is hard to understand how your mortal man is made: however banal the news may be, as long as it is news, he will not fail to pass it on to some other mortal, even if it is precisely with the purpose of saying: 'See what a lie they're spreading!' and the other mortal will gladly incline his ear, though afterwards he himself will say: 'Yes, that is a perfectly banal lie, not worthy of any attention!' and thereupon he will set out at once to look for a third mortal, so that, having told him, they can both exclaim with noble indignation: 'What a banal lie!' And it will not fail to make the rounds of the whole town, and all mortals, however many there are, will have their fill of talking and will then admit that it is unworthy of attention and not worth talking about.

This apparently absurd occurrence noticeably upset our hero. However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man. He began to feel uneasy, ungainly—exactly as if he had suddenly stepped with a beautifully polished shoe into a dirty, stinking puddle; in short, not good, not good at all! He tried not to think about it, tried to get diverted, distracted, sat down to whist, but it all went like a crooked wheel: twice he played into his opponents' strong suit, and, forgetting that one does not double trump, he swung his arm and, like a fool, took his own trick. The magistrate simply could not understand how Pavel Ivanovich, who had such a good and, one might say, subtle understanding of the game, could make such mistakes and even put under the axe his king of spades, in which, to use his own words, he trusted as in God. Of course, the postmaster and the magistrate, and even the police chief himself, kept poking fun at our hero, as is customary, suggesting that he might be in love, and don't we know that Pavel Ivanovich's heart has been smitten, and don't we know who shot the dart; but all this was no comfort, however much he tried to smile and laugh it off. At supper, too, he was quite unable to be expansive, though the company at table was pleasant and Nozdryov had long ago been taken out; for even the ladies themselves finally noticed that his behavior was becoming much too scandalous. In the midst of the cotillion, he got down on the floor and started grabbing the dancers by their skirt hems, which was really beyond everything, as the ladies put it. The supper was very gay, all the faces flitting before the three-stemmed candlesticks, flowers, sweets, and bottles radiated the most unconstrained pleasure. Officers, ladies, tailcoats— everything became courteous, even to the point of cloying. Men jumped up from their chairs and ran to take dishes from the servants in order to offer them, with extraordinary adroitness, to the ladies. One colonel offered a dish of sauce to a lady on the tip of his bare sword. The men of respectable age, among whom Chichikov sat, were arguing loudly, following their sensible words with fish or beef dipped unmercifully in mustard, and arguing about subjects he had even always been interested in; but he was like a man worn-out or broken by a long journey, whose mind is closed to everything and who is unable to enter into anything. He did not even wait until supper was over, and went home incomparably earlier than was his custom.

There, in that little room so familiar to the reader, with the door blocked up by a chest of drawers, and cockroaches occasionally peeking from the corners, the state of his mind and spirit was uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as the armchair in which he sat. His heart felt unpleasant, troubled; some burdensome emptiness lingered in it. 'Devil take all of you who thought up these balls!' he said in vexation. 'What are the fools so glad