Dead Souls

The light-wheeled coach meanwhile went lightly wheeling along. Lightly it went uphill, though the road was occasionally uneven; lightly it also went downhill, though the descents of country roads are worrisome. They descended the hill. The road went through meadows, across the bends of the river, past the mills. Far away flashed sands, aspen groves emerged picturesquely one from behind the other; willow bushes, slender alders, and silvery poplars flew quickly past them, their branches striking Selifan and Petrushka as they sat on their box. The latter had his peaked cap knocked off every moment. The stern servitor would jump down from the box, scold the stupid tree and the owner who had planted it, but never thought of tying the cap on or at least of holding it with his hand, still hoping that maybe it would not happen again. Then the trees became thicker: aspens and alders were joined by birches, and soon a forest thicket formed around them. The light of the sun disappeared. Pines and firs darkled. The impenetrable gloom of the endless forest became denser, and, it seemed, was preparing to turn into night. And suddenly among the trees—light, here and there among the branches and trunks, like a mirror or like quicksilver. The forest began to brighten, trees became sparser, shouts were heard—and suddenly before them was a lake. A watery plain about three miles across, with trees around it, and cottages behind them. Some twenty men, up to their waists, shoulders, or chins in water, were pulling a dragnet towards the opposite shore. In the midst of them, swimming briskly, shouting, fussing enough for all of them, was a man nearly as tall as he was fat, round all around, just like a watermelon. Owing to his fatness he might not possibly drown, and if he wanted to dive, he could flip over all he liked, but the water would keep buoying him up; and if two more men had sat on his back, he would have gone on floating with them like a stubborn bubble on the surface of the water, only groaning slightly under the weight and blowing bubbles from his nose and mouth.

"That one, Pavel Ivanovich," said Selifan, turning around on the box, "must be the master, Colonel Koshkarev."

"Why so?"

"Because his body, if you'll be pleased to notice, is a bit whiter than the others', and he's respectably portly, as a master should be."

The shouts meanwhile were getting more distinct. The squire-watermelon was shouting in a ringing patter:

"Hand it over, Denis, hand it over to Kozma! Kozma, take the tail from Denis! You, Big Foma, push there along with Little Foma! Go around to the right, the right! Stop, stop, devil take you both! You've got me tangled in the net! You've caught me, I tell you, damn it, you've caught me by the navel!"

The draggers on the right flank stopped, seeing that an unforeseen mishap had indeed occurred: the master was caught in the net.

"Just look," Selifan said to Petrushka, "they've dragged in the master like a fish."

The squire floundered and, wishing to disentangle himself, turned over on his back, belly up, getting still more tangled in the net. Fearful of tearing it, he was floating together with the caught fish, only ordering them to tie a rope around him. When they had tied a rope around him, they threw the end to shore. Some twenty fishermen standing on the shore picked it up and began carefully to haul him in. On reaching a shallow spot, the squire stood up, all covered with the meshes of the net, like a lady's hand in a net glove in summer—looked up, and saw the visitor driving onto the dam in his coach. Seeing the visitor, he nodded to him. Chichikov took off his cap and bowed courteously from his coach.

"Had dinner?" shouted the squire, climbing onto the shore with the caught fish, holding one hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, and the other lower down in the manner of the Medici Venus stepping from her bath.

"No," said Chichikov.

"Well, then you can thank God."

"Why?" Chichikov asked curiously, holding his cap up over his head.

"Here's why!" said the squire, winding up on shore with the carp and bream thrashing around his feet leaping a yard high off the ground. "This is nothing, don't look at this: that's the real thing over there! . . . Show us the sturgeon, Big Foma." Two stalwart muzhiks dragged some sort of monster from a tub. "What a princeling! strayed in from the river!"

"No, that's a full prince!" said Chichikov.

"You said it. Go on ahead now, and I'll follow. You there, coachman, take the lower road, through the kitchen garden. Run, Little Foma, you dolt, and take the barrier down. I'll follow in no time, before you ..."