Dead Souls

"Setting about the consideration of the assignment I have been charged with by Your Honor, I have the privilege herewith to report on the above: (1) The very request of Mister Collegiate Councillor Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, Esquire, contains a certain misunderstanding: in the explanation of the demand for registered souls overtaken by various unexpectednesses, those who have died were also included. This was most probably meant to indicate those nearing death, and not those who have died; for those who have died are not purchasable. What is there to purchase, if there's nothing? Logic itself tells us as much. And in literary sciences, as is obvious, he never got very far ...” Here Koshkarev paused momentarily and said: "At this point, the slyboots ... he needles you a little. But consider what a glib pen— the style of a state secretary; and he was at the university only three years, and hasn't even finished the course." Koshkarev went on: "... in literary sciences, as is obvious, he never got very far, for he speaks of the souls as dead, while anyone who has taken a course in human knowledge knows for a certainty that the soul is immortal. (2) Of the above-mentioned registered souls, prescribed, or prescinded, or, as he is pleased to put it incorrectly, dead, there are none present who are not mortgaged, for they are not only all mortgaged without exception, in their totality, but they are also re-mortgaged for an additional hundred and fifty roubles per soul, except for the small village of Gurmailovka, which is in dispute on occasion of the lawsuit of the landowner Predishchev, and therefore can be neither purchased nor mortgaged."

"Why, then, did you not declare that to me before? Why have you detained me over nothing?" Chichikov said vexedly.

"But how could I know beforehand? That's the benefit of paperwork, that everything can now be plainly seen in front of our eyes."

"What a fool you are, you stupid brute!" Chichikov thought to himself. "You've rummaged in books, and what have you learned?" Bypassing all courtesy and decency, he grabbed his hat—and left. The coachman stood holding the droshky ready and with the horses still harnessed: to feed them a written request would have been called for, and the decision—to give the horses oats—would have been received only the next day. Rude and discourteous though Chichikov was, Koshkarev, despite all, was remarkably courteous and delicate with him. He squeezed his hand forcibly and pressed it to his heart, and thanked him for giving him an occasion for seeing the course of the paper procedure at work; that a dressing-down and tongue-lashing were undoubtedly needed, because everything was capable of falling asleep, and the springs of estate management would then slacken and rust; that, owing to this event, he had had a happy thought: to set up a new commission which would be called the commission for supervision of the building commission, so that no one would then dare to steal.

"Ass! Fool!" thought Chichikov, angry and displeased all the way back. He was already riding under the stars. Night was in the sky. There were lights in the villages. Driving up to the porch, he saw through the windows that the table was already laid for supper.

"How is it you're so late?" said Kostanzhoglo, when he appeared at the door.

"What were you talking about so long?" said Platonov.

"He's done me in!" said Chichikov. "I've never seen such a fool in all my born days."

"That's still nothing!" said Kostanzhoglo. "Koshkarev is a comforting phenomenon. He's necessary, because the follies of clever people are made more obvious by the caricature of their reflection in him. They've set up offices, and institutions, and managers, and manufactures, and factories, and schools, and commissions, and devil knows what else. As if they had some sort of state of their own! How do you like this, I ask you? A landowner who has arable land and not enough peasants to work it, started a candle factory, invited master candlemakers from London, and became a merchant! There's an even bigger fool: he started a silk factory!"

"But you, too, have factories," Platonov observed.

"And who started them? They started of themselves: wool accumulated, there was nowhere to sell it, so I started weaving broadcloth, simple, heavy broadcloth; I have it all sold for a low price at the markets. Fish scales, for example, have been thrown away on my bank for six years in a row; what was I to do with them? I started boiling them for glue and made forty thousand. With me everything's like that."

"What a devil!" Chichikov thought, staring at him with all his eyes, "he just rakes it in!"