Dead Souls

In return, they were rewarded with a remarkable spring evening. The host arranged a party on the river. Twelve rowers, manning twenty-four oars, with singing, swept them across the smooth back of the mirrory lake. From the lake they swept on to the river, boundless, with gently sloping banks on both sides. No current stirred the water. They drank tea with kalatchi on the boat, constantly passing under cables stretched across the river for net fishing. Still before tea the host had already managed to undress and jump into the river, where he spent about half an hour with the fishermen, splashing about and making a lot of noise, shouting at Big Foma and Kozma, and, having had his fill of shouting, bustling, freezing in the water, he came back aboard with an appetite and drank his tea in a manner enviable to see. Meanwhile the sun went down. Brightness lingered in the sky. The echoes of shouting grew louder. Instead of fishermen, groups of bathing children appeared on the banks everywhere, splashing in the water, laughter echoed far away. The rowers, setting twenty-four oars in motion, would all at once raise them, and the boat would glide by itself, like a light bird, over the moveless mirror surface. A healthy stalwart, fresh as a young wench, the third from the tiller, led the singing alone, working in a clear, ringing voice; five picked it up, six carried it on—and the song poured forth as boundlessly as all Rus; and, hand on ear, the singers themselves were as if lost in its boundlessness. It felt somehow free, and Chichikov thought: "Eh, really, someday I'm going to get me a little country estate!" "Well, where's the good in it," thought Platonov, "in this mournful song? It makes one still more sick at heart."

It was already dusk as they were coming back. In the darkness the oars struck waters that no longer reflected the sky. Barely visible were the little lights on the shores of the lake. The moon was rising when they pulled in to shore. Everywhere fishermen were cooking fish soup on tripods, all of ruff, the fish still quiveringly alive. Everything was already home. Geese, cows, and goats had been driven home long ago, and the very dust they raised had long settled, and their herdsmen stood by the gates waiting for a crock of milk and an invitation for fish soup. Here and there some human chatter and clatter could be heard, the loud barking of dogs from this village, and distant barking from villages farther away. The moon was rising, the darkness began to brighten, and finally everything became bright—lake and cottages; the lights in the windows paled; one could now see the smoke from the chimneys, silvered by moonbeams. Nikolasha and Alexasha swept past them just then on two dashing steeds, racing each other; they raised as much dust as a flock of sheep. "Eh, really, someday I'm going to get me a little country estate!" Chichikov was thinking. A young wench and little Chichikies again rose in his imagination. Who could help being warmed by such an evening?

And at supper they again ate too much. When Pavel Ivanovich came to the room where he was to sleep, and, getting into bed, felt his tummy: "A drum!" he said, "no governor could possibly get in!" Just imagine such a coincidence: on the other side of the wall was the host's study. The wall was thin and one could hear everything that was being said there. The host was ordering the cook to prepare for the next day, in the guise of an early lunch, a decided dinner. And how he was ordering it! It was enough to make a dead man hungry. He sucked and smacked his lips. One heard only: "And fry it, and then let it stew nice and long!" And the cook kept saying in a thin falsetto: "Yes, sir. It can be done, sir. That can be done, too, sir."

"And make a covered pie, a four-cornered one. In one corner put sturgeon cheeks and cartilage, and stuff another with buckwheat and mushrooms with onions, and sweet milt, and brains, and something else as well, whatever you know ..."

"Yes, sir. That could be done, sir."

"And so that on one side, you understand, it gets nice and brown, but on the other let it be a bit lighter. From the bottom, from the bottom, you understand, bake it from the bottom, so that it gets all crumbly, so that it gets all juicy through and through, so that you don't feel it in your mouth—it should melt like snow."

"Devil take it!" thought Chichikov, tossing and turning. "He just won't let me sleep."

"And make me a pig haggis. Put a piece of ice in the middle so that it plumps up nicely. And put things around the sturgeon, garnishes, more garnishes! Surround it with crayfish, and little fried fish, and layer it with a stuffing of smelts with some finely minced horseradish, and mushrooms, and turnips, and carrots, and beans, and isn't there some other root?"

"Some kohlrabi or star-cut beets could be put in," said the cook.

"Put in both kohlrabi and beets. And for the roast you'll make me a garnish like this ..."