which he had never heard, would be won in his favor. With reverence, with gratitude, he would then acknowledge the boundless mercy of Providence, have a
'I'm sorry for him, really, I am!' Platonov said to Chichikov, when, after saying good-bye, they left him.
'A prodigal son!' said Chichikov. 'There's no point in being sorry for such people.'
And soon they both stopped thinking about him. Platonov, because he looked upon people's situations lazily and half-sleepily, just as upon everything else in the world. His heart commiserated and was wrung at the sight of others' suffering, but the impressions somehow did not get deeply impressed on his soul. He did not think about Khlobuev because he also did not think about himself. Chichikov did not think about Khlobuev because all his thoughts were taken up with the acquired property. He counted, calculated, and figured out all the profits of the purchased estate. And however he considered it, whichever side of the deal he looked at, he saw that the purchase was in any case profitable. He might do it in such a way that the estate got mortgaged. He might do it in such a way that only the dead and the runaways got mortgaged. He could also do it so that all the best parts were sold off first, and only then mortgage it. He could also arrange it so that he himself managed the estate and became a landowner after the fashion of Kostanzhoglo, drawing on his advice as a neighbor and benefactor. He could even do it in such a way that the estate was resold into private hands (if he did not feel like managing it himself, of course), and keep the runaway and dead ones for himself. Then another profit presented itself: he could slip away from those parts altogether without paying this Kostanzhoglo the borrowed money. In short, whichever way he turned the deal, he saw that in any case the purchase was profitable. He felt pleasure—pleasure at having now become a landowner, not a fantastic landowner, but a real one, a landowner who already had land, and forests, and people— not dream people, who dwell in imagination, but existing ones. And gradually he began hopping up and down, and rubbing his hands, and humming, and mumbling, and he trumpeted out some march on his fist, putting it to his lips like a trumpet, and even uttered several encouraging words and appellations for himself, in the genre of snookums and sweetie pie. But then, remembering that he was not alone, he suddenly quieted down, and tried to stifle somehow this immoderate fit of inspiration, and when Platonov, taking some of these sounds for speech addressed to him, asked him: 'What?'—he replied: 'Nothing.'
Only here, looking around him, did he notice that they were driving through a beautiful grove; a comely fence of birches stretched to right and left of them. Between the trees flashed a white stone church. At the end of the street a gentleman appeared, coming to meet them, in a peaked cap, with a knobby stick in his hand. A sleek English hound was running on long legs in front of him.
'Stop!' Platonov said to the coachman, and jumped out of the carriage.
Chichikov also got out of the carriage behind him. They went on foot to meet the gentleman. Yarb had already managed to exchange kisses with the English hound, with whom he had obviously been long acquainted, because he offered his fat muzzle indifferently to receive a lively kiss from Azor (so the English hound was called). The frisky hound named Azor, having kissed Yarb, ran up to Platonov, licked his hands with his frisky tongue, leaped up at Chichikov's chest intending to lick his lips, did not make it, and, having been pushed away, ran again to Platonov, to try at least to lick him on the ear.
Platon and the gentleman who was coming to meet them came together at that moment and embraced each other.
'For pity's sake, brother Platon! what are you doing to me?' the gentleman asked animatedly.
'What do you mean?' Platon replied indifferently.
'What, indeed! For three days not a word, not a peep from you! The stableboy brought your horse from Petukh. 'He went off with some gentleman,' he said. Well, send word at least: where, why, and how long? For pity's sake, brother, how could you do such a thing? God knows what I've been thinking all these days!'
'Well, what can I do? I forgot,' said Platonov. 'We stopped at Konstantin Fyodorovich's . . . He sends his respects to you, and sister does, too. Allow me to introduce Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. Pavel Ivanovich—my brother Vassily. I beg you to love him as you do me.'
Brother Vassily and Chichikov took off their caps and kissed each other.
'Who might this Chichikov be?' thought brother Vassily. 'Brother Platon isn't fastidious about his acquaintances, he certainly did not find out what sort of man he is.' And he looked Chichikov over as far as decency allowed, and saw that he was standing with his head slightly inclined, and had an agreeable look on his face.
For his part, Chichikov also looked brother Vassily over as far as decency allowed. He was shorter than Platon, his hair was darker, and his face far less handsome; but in the features of his face there was much life and animation. One could see that he did not dwell in drowsiness and hibernation.
'You know what I've decided, Vassily?' brother Platon said.
'What?' asked Vassily.
'To take a trip around holy Russia with Pavel Ivanovich here: it may just loosen and limber up my spleen.'
'How did you decide so suddenly ... ?' Vassily started to say, seriously perplexed by such a decision, and he almost added: 'And, what's more, think of going with a man you've never seen before, who may be trash or devil knows what!' And, filled with mistrust, he began studying Chichikov out of the corner of his eye, and saw that he behaved with extraordinary decency, keeping his head agreeably inclined a bit to one side, and with the same respectfully cordial expression on his face, so that there was no way of knowing what sort of man Chichikov was.
Silently the three of them walked down the road, to the left of which there was a white stone church flashing among the trees, and to the right the buildings of the master's house, which were also beginning to appear among the trees. At last the gates appeared. They entered the courtyard, where stood the old manor house under its high roof. Two enormous lindens growing in the middle of the courtyard covered almost half of it with their shade. Through their low-hanging, bushy branches the walls of the house barely flickered from behind. Under the lindens stood several long benches. Brother Vassily invited Chichikov to be seated. Chichikov sat down, and Platonov sat down. The whole courtyard was filled with the fragrance of flowering lilacs and bird cherry, which, hanging from the garden into the yard on all sides over the very pretty birch fence that surrounded it, looked like a flowering chain or a bead necklace crowning it.
An adroit and deft lad of about seventeen, in a handsome pink cotton shirt, brought and set down before them carafes of water and a variety of many-colored kvasses that fizzed like lemonade. Having set the carafes down before them, he went over to a tree and, taking the hoe that was leaning against it, went to the garden. All the household serfs of the Platonov brothers worked in the garden, all the servants were gardeners, or, better, there were no servants, but the gardeners sometimes performed their duties. Brother Vassily always maintained that one could do without servants. Anyone can bring anything, and it was not worth having a special class of people for that; the Russian man is good, efficient, handsome, nimble, and hardworking only as long as he goes about in a shirt and homespun jacket, but as soon as he gets into a German frock coat, he becomes awkward, uncomely, inefficient, and lazy. He maintained that he keeps himself clean only so long as he wears a shirt and homespun jacket, but as soon as he gets into a German frock coat, he stops changing his shirt, does not go to the bathhouse, sleeps in the frock coat, and under it breeds bedbugs, fleas, and devil knows what. In this he may even have been right. The people on their estate dressed somehow especially neatly and nattily, and one would have had to go far to find such handsome shirts and jackets.
'Would you care for some refreshment?' brother Vassily said to Chichikov, pointing to the carafes. 'These are kvasses of our own making; our house has long been famous for them.'
Chichikov poured a glass from the first carafe—just like the linden mead he used to drink in Poland: bubbly as champagne, and it went in a pleasant fizz right up his nose.
'Nectar!' said Chichikov. He drank a glass from another carafe—even better.
'In what direction and to what places are you thinking mainly of going?' brother Vassily asked.
'I'm going,' said Chichikov, rubbing his knee with his hand to accompany the slight rocking of his whole body and inclining his head to one side, 'not so much on my own necessity as on another man's. General Betrishchev, a close friend and, one might say, benefactor, has asked me to visit his relatives. Relatives, of course, are relatives, but it is partly, so to speak, for my own sake as well, for—to say nothing of the benefit in the hemorrhoidal respect—to see the world and the circulation of people—is already in itself, so to speak, a living book and a second education.'
Brother Vassily lapsed into thought. 'The man speaks somewhat ornately, but there's truth in his words,' he
