Dead Souls

"You'll allow me to dress in your presence, eh, my boy?" said the general, throwing off his dressing gown and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt on his mighty arms.

"Good gracious, not only to dress, you may do anything Your Excellency pleases in my presence," said Chichikov.

The general began to wash, splashing and snorting like a duck. Soapy water flew in all directions.

"How did it go?" he said, wiping his fat neck on all sides, “‘love us white . . .'?"

"Black, Your Excellency."

" 'Love us black, anyone can love us white.' Very, very good!"

Chichikov was in extraordinarily high spirits; he felt some sort of inspiration.

"Your Excellency!" he said.

"What?" said the general.

"There's another story."

"What sort?"

"Also an amusing story, only I don't find it amusing. Even if Your Excellency..."

"How so?"

"Here's how, Your Excellency! ..." At this point Chichikov looked around and, seeing that the valet with the basin had left, began thus: "I have an uncle, a decrepit old man. He owns three hundred souls and has no heirs except me. He himself, being decrepit, cannot manage the estate, yet he won't hand it over to me. And he gives such a strange reason: 'I don't know my nephew,' he says, 'maybe he's a spendthrift. Let him first prove to me that he's a reliable man, let him first acquire three hundred souls himself, then I'll give him my three hundred souls as well.’“

"What a fool!"

"Quite a correct observation, if you please, Your Excellency. But imagine my position now ..." Here Chichikov, lowering his voice, began speaking as if in secret: "He has a housekeeper in his house, Your Excellency, and she has children. Just you watch, everything will go to them."

"The stupid old man's gone dotty, that's all," said the general. "Only I don't see how I can be of use to you."

"Here's what I've thought up. Right now, before the new census lists have been turned in, the owners of big estates may have, along with their living souls, also some that are departed and dead ... So that if, for instance, Your Excellency were to hand them over to me as if they were alive, with a deed of purchase, I could then present this deed to the old man, and he, dodge as he may, will have to give me my inheritance."

Here the general burst into such laughter as hardly a man has ever laughed: he collapsed just as he was into his armchair; he threw his head back and nearly choked. The whole house became alarmed. The valet appeared. The daughter came running in, frightened.

"Papa, what's happened to you?"

"Nothing, my dear. Ha, ha, ha! Go to your room, we'll come to dinner presently. Ha, ha, ha!"

And, having run out of breath several times, the general's guffaw would burst out with renewed force, ringing throughout the general's high-ceilinged, resonant apartments from the front hall to the last room.

Chichikov waited worriedly for this extraordinary laughter to end.

"Well, brother, excuse me: the devil himself got you to pull such a trick. Ha, ha, ha! To give the old man a treat, to slip him the dead ones! Ha, ha, ha, ha! And the uncle, the uncle! Made such a fool of! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Chichikov's position was embarrassing: the valet was standing right there with gaping mouth and popping eyes.

"Your Excellency, it was tears that thought up this laughter," he said.

"Excuse me, brother! No, it's killing! But I'd give five hundred thousand just to see your uncle as you present him with the deed for the dead souls. And what, is he so old? What's his age?"

"Eighty, Your Excellency. But this is in the closet, I'd. . . so that..." Chichikov gave a meaning look into the general's face and at the same time a sidelong glance at the valet.

"Off with you, my lad. Come back later," the general said to the valet. The mustachio withdrew.

"Yes, Your Excellency . . . This, Your Excellency, is such a matter, that I'd prefer to keep it a secret..."

"Of course, I understand very well. What a foolish old man! To come up with such foolishness at the age of eighty! And what, how does he look? is he hale? still on his feet?"

"Yes, but with difficulty."

"What a fool! And he's got his teeth?"

"Only two, Your Excellency."

"What an ass! Don't be angry, brother . . . he's an ass..."

"Correct, Your Excellency. Though he's my relative, and it's hard to admit it, he is indeed an ass."

However, as the reader can guess for himself, it was not hard for Chichikov to admit it, the less so since it is unlikely he ever had any uncle.

"So if you would be so good, Your Excellency, as to ...”

"As to give you the dead souls? But for such an invention I'll give them to you with land, with lodgings! Take the whole cemetery! Ha, ha, ha, ha! The old man, oh, the old man! Ha, ha, ha, ha! Made such a fool of! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"