Dead Souls

But, however the men armed themselves and resisted, their party still lacked the order of the women's. Everything with them was somehow crude, unpolished, unformed, uncomely, unattuned, none too good, in their heads a jumble, a muddle, a scramble, untidiness in their thoughts—in short, everything pointed to man's empty nature, his coarse, heavy nature, incapable of good management, or of heartfelt convictions, pusillanimous, lazy, filled with ceaseless doubt and eternal fear. They said it was all nonsense, that the abduction of the governor's daughter was more a hussar's affair than a civilian's, that Chichikov would not do it, that the women were lying, that a woman is like a sack—it holds whatever you put in it, that the main subject to pay attention to was the dead souls, which, however, meant devil knows what, but anyhow there was something quite nasty and none too good about them. Why it seemed to the men that there was something nasty and none too good about them, we shall learn at once: a new Governor-general had been appointed to the province—an event known to put officials into a state of alarm: there would be reshuffling, reprimanding, lambasting, and all the official belly-wash to which a superior treats his subordinates. "And what," thought the officials, "if he just simply finds out the strange sort of rumors that are going around town, for that alone he can give us a boiling that'll be the life of us." The inspector of the board of health suddenly turned pale: he imagined God knows what: might the "dead souls" not refer to the sick who had died in considerable numbers in the infirmaries and other places from epidemic fever, against which due measures had not been taken, and might not Chichikov be an official sent from the Governor-general's office to conduct a secret investigation? He informed the head magistrate of this. The magistrate replied that it was nonsense, and then suddenly he, too, turned pale, having asked himself the question: "And what if the souls bought by Chichikov are indeed dead, and he had allowed the deed to be drawn up for them and had himself acted as Plyushkin's agent, and it should come to the knowledge of the Governor-general—what then?" He did no more than tell this to one or two others, and suddenly the one or two others turned pale—fear is more catching than the plague and communicates itself instantly. Everybody suddenly discovered in themselves such sins as did not even exist. The words "dead souls" sounded so indefinite that there was even a suspicion that they might contain an allusion to some bodies hastily buried following two quite recent incidents. The first incident had occurred with some Solvychegodsk merchants, who came to town for the fair and when their dealings were finished threw a party for their friends, the merchants from Ustsysolsk, a party on a real Russian footing, with German trimmings: orgeats, punches, cordials, and so on. The party ended, as usual, with a fight. The Solvychegodsks did in the Ustsysolsks, though they, too, suffered a good drubbing on the sides, under the ribs, and in the solar plexus, which testified to the inordinate size of the fists with which the deceased were furnished. One of the triumphant even "had his pump lopped off entirely," as the combatants put it, meaning that his nose was smashed to a pulp, so that there was not even a half finger's width of it left on his face. The merchants confessed to the affair, explaining that they had been up to a bit of mischief; rumor had it that they added four thousand each to their confession; however, the affair was all too obscure; it turned out from the inquest and investigation undertaken that the Ustsysolsk boys had died of fume poisoning, and so as fume-poisoned they were buried. The other incident that had occurred recently was the following: the state peasants of the hamlet called Lousy Arrogance, joining with their fellows from the hamlet of Borovki, alias Cockyville, supposedly wiped from the face of the earth the local police force, in the person of the assessor, a certain Drobyazhkin, this local police force—that is, the assessor Drobyazhkin—having gotten into the habit of coming to their village far too often, which in some cases is as good as epidemic fever, and the reason for it, they said, was that the local police force, owing to certain weaknesses on the amorous side, had his eyes on the women and village girls. This was not known for certain, however, though the peasants stated directly in their evidence that the local police force was as lecherous as a tomcat, and had already been spared more than once, and on one occasion had even been driven naked out of some cottage he had made his way into. Of course, the local police force deserved to be punished for his amorous weaknesses, but the muzhiks of Lousy Arrogance and alias-Cockyville could not be justified for such summary justice, if they had indeed participated in the slaying.