Dead Souls

Platonov felt ashamed for Chichikov.

'Buy it, Pavel Ivanovich,' he said. 'Any estate is worth that price. If you won't give thirty thousand for it, my brother and I will get together and buy it.'

Chichikov got frightened . . .

'All right!' he said. 'I'll pay you thirty thousand. Here, I'll give you two thousand now as a deposit, eight thousand in a week, and the remaining twenty thousand in a month.'

'No, Pavel Ivanovich, only on condition that I get the money as soon as possible. Give me at least fifteen thousand now, and the rest no later than two weeks from now.'

'But I don't have fifteen thousand! I have only ten thousand now. Let me get it together.'

In other words, Chichikov was lying: he had twenty thousand.

'No, Pavel Ivanovich, if you please! I tell you that I must have fifteen thousand.'

'But, really, I'm short five thousand. I don't know where to get it myself.'

'I'll lend it to you,' Platonov picked up.

'Perhaps, then!' said Chichikov, and he thought to himself: 'Quite opportune, however, that he should lend it to me: in that case I can bring it tomorrow.' The chest was brought in from the carriage, and ten thousand were taken from it for Khlobuev; the remaining five were promised for the next day: promised, yes; but the intention was to bring three; and the rest later, in two or three days, and, if possible, to delay a bit longer still. Pavel Ivanovich somehow especially disliked letting money leave his hands. And if there was an extreme necessity, still it seemed better to him to hand over the money tomorrow and not today. That is, he acted as we all do! We enjoy showing the petitioner the door. Let him cool his heels in the anteroom! As if he couldn't wait! What do we care that every hour, perhaps, is dear to him, and his affairs are suffering for it! 'Come tomorrow, brother, today I somehow have no time.'

'And where are you going to live afterwards?' Platonov asked Khlobuev. 'Have you got another little estate?'

'No little estate, but I'll move to town. That had to be done in any case, not for ourselves but for the children. They'll need teachers of catechism, music, dance. One can't get that in the country.'

'Not a crust of bread, and he wants to teach his children to dance!' thought Chichikov.

'Strange!' thought Platonov.

'Well, we must drink to the deal,' said Khlobuev. 'Hey, Kiryushka, bring us a bottle of champagne, brother.'

'Not a crust of bread, yet he's got champagne!' thought Chichikov.

Platonov did not know what to think.

The champagne was brought. They drank three glasses each and got quite merry. Khlobuev relaxed and became intelligent and charming. Witticisms and anecdotes poured ceaselessly from him. There turned out to be much knowledge of life and the world in his talk! He saw many things so well and so correctly, he sketched his neighboring landowners in a few words, so aptly and so cleverly, saw so clearly everyone's defects and mistakes, knew so well the story of the ruined gentry—why, and how, and for what reason they had been ruined—was able to convey so originally and aptly their smallest habits, that the two men were totally enchanted by his talk and were ready to acknowledge him a most intelligent man.

'Listen,' said Platonov, seizing his hand, 'how is it that with such intelligence, experience, and knowledge of life, you cannot find ways of getting out of your difficult position?'

'Oh, there are ways!' said Khlobuev, and forthwith unloaded on them a whole heap of projects. They were all so absurd, so strange, so little consequent upon a knowledge of people and the world, that it remained only to shrug one's shoulders and say: 'Good lord! what an infinite distance there is between knowledge of the world and the ability to use that knowledge!' Almost all the projects were based on the need for suddenly procuring a hundred or two hundred thousand somewhere. Then, it seemed to him, everything could be arranged properly, and the management would get under way, and all the holes would be patched, and the income would be quadrupled, and it would be possible for him to repay all his debts. And he would end with the words: 'But what do you want me to do? There simply is no such benefactor as would decide to lend me two hundred or at least one hundred thousand! Clearly, God is against it.'

'What else,' thought Chichikov. 'As if God would send such a fool two hundred thousand!'

'There is this aunt of mine who's good for three million,' said Khlobuev, 'a pious little old lady: she gives to churches and monasteries, but she's a bit tight about helping her neighbor. And she's a very remarkable little old lady. An aunt from olden times, worth having a look at. She has some four hundred canaries alone. Lapdogs, and lady companions, and servants such as don't exist nowadays. The youngest of her servants is about sixty, though she shouts 'Hey, boy!' to him. If a guest behaves improperly somehow, she orders him bypassed one course at dinner. And they actually do it.'

Platonov laughed.

'And what is her last name, and where does she live?' asked Chichikov.

'She lives here in town—Alexandra Ivanovna Khanasarova.'

'Why don't you turn to her?' Platonov said sympathetically.

'It seems to me, if she just entered a little more into the situation of your family, she'd be unable to refuse you, however tight she is.'

'Ah, no, quite able! My aunt has a hard character. This little old lady is a rock, Platon Mikhalych! And there are already enough toadies hanging around her without me. There's one there who is after a governorship, foisted himself off as her relative . . . God help him! maybe he'll succeed! God help them all! I never knew how to fawn, and now less than ever: my back doesn't bend anymore.'

'Fool!' thought Chichikov. 'I'd look after such an aunt like a nanny looking after a child!'

'Well, now, such talk makes one dry,' said Khlobuev. 'Hey, Kiryushka! bring us another bottle of champagne.'

'No, no, I won't drink any more,' said Platonov.

'Nor I,' said Chichikov. And they both declined resolutely.

'Then at least give me your word that you'll visit me in town: on the eighth of June I'm giving a dinner for our town dignitaries.'

'For pity's sake!' exclaimed Platonov. 'In this situation, completely ruined—and still giving dinners?'

'What can I do? I must. It's my duty,' said Khlobuev. 'They've also invited me.'

'What's to be done with him?' thought Platonov. He still did not know that in Russia, in Moscow and other cities, there are such wizards to be found, whose life is an inexplicable riddle. He seems to have spent everything, is up to his ears in debt, has no resources anywhere, and the dinner that is being given promises to be the last; and the diners think that by the next day the host will be dragged off to prison. Ten years pass after that—the wizard is still holding out in the world, is up to his ears in debt more than ever, and still gives a dinner in the same way, and everybody thinks it will be the last, and everybody is sure that the next day the host will be dragged off to prison. Khlobuev was such a wizard. Only in Russia can one exist in such a way. Having nothing, he welcomed visitors, gave parties, and even patronized and encouraged all sorts of actors passing through town, boarded them and lodged them in his house. If someone were to peek into the house he had in town, he would never know who the owner was. One day a priest in vestments served a molieben^[65] there, the next day French actors were having a rehearsal. Once someone unknown to nearly everyone in the house installed himself in the drawing room with his papers and set up an office there, without embarrassing or troubling anyone in the house, as if it were an ordinary thing. Sometimes there was not a crumb in the house for whole days, and sometimes such dinners were given as would satisfy the taste of the most refined gastronome. The host would appear festive, gay, with the bearing of a wealthy gentleman, with the step of a man whose life is spent amid ease and plenty. At times, on the other hand, there were such hard moments that someone else in his place would have hanged or shot himself. But he was saved by a religious sense, which was strangely combined in him with his wayward life. In these hard, bitter moments he would open a book and read the lives of those toilers and sufferers who trained their spirit to rise above sufferings and misfortunes. His soul softened at such times, his spirit became tender, and his eyes filled with tears. And— strange thing!—at such moments unexpected help would always come to him from somewhere. Either one of his old friends would remember him and send him money; or some unknown lady traveler, chancing to hear his story, would, with the impetuous magnanimity of a woman's heart, send him a generous donation; or some lawsuit, of