Dead Souls

Later, when they were all settled in a snug little candle-lit room across from the glass balcony door that served as a window, Chichikov felt cozier than he had felt for a long time. It was as if after long peregrinations he had now been received under his own roof, and to crown it all, had now obtained all that he desired and had dropped his pilgrim's staff, saying: "Enough!" So enchanting was the mood brought upon his soul by the host's reasonable talk. For every man there are certain words that are as if closer and more intimate to him than any others. And often, unexpectedly, in some remote, forsaken backwater, some deserted desert, one meets a man whose warming conversation makes you forget the pathlessness of your paths, the homelessness of your nights, and the contemporary world full of people's stupidity, of deceptions for deceiving man. Forever and always an evening spent in this way will vividly remain with you, and all that was and that took place then will be retained by the faithful memory: who was there, and who stood where, and what he was holding—the walls, the corners, and every trifle.

So, too, did everything remain in Chichikov's memory that evening: this unpretentiously furnished little room, and the good-natured expression that settled on the host's face, and the pipe brought to Platonov, with its amber mouthpiece, and the smoke that he began blowing into Yarb's fat muzzle, and Yarb's snorting, and the comely mistress's laughter, interrupted by the words: "Enough, don't torment him," and the cheery candles, and the cricket in the corner, and the glass door, and the spring night looking in at them through it, leaning its elbow on the tree-tops, where in the thicket spring nightingales were whistling away.

"Sweet is your talk to me, my esteemed Konstantin Fyodorovich," said Chichikov. "I may say that in the whole of Russia I have never met a man to equal you in intelligence."

He smiled.

"No, Pavel Ivanovich," he said, "if you want to know an intelligent man, then we do indeed have one of whom it may truly be said, 'This is an intelligent man,' and of whom I am not worth the shoe sole."

"Who is he?" Chichikov asked in amazement.

"Our tax farmer, Murazov."

"This is the second time I'm hearing about him!" Chichikov exclaimed.

"He's a man who could manage not just a landowner's estate, but a whole country. If I had a country, I'd make him minister of finance at once."

"I've heard. They say he's a man who surpasses all belief, he's made ten million, they say."

"Ten, nothing! it's way over forty. Soon half of Russia will be in his hands."

"You don't say!" Chichikov exclaimed, dumbfounded.

"Quite certainly. His capital must be growing now at an incredible rate. That's clear. Wealth grows slowly only when you have just a few hundred thousand; a man with millions has a big radius; whatever he gets hold of becomes two or three times more than it was. The field, the range is all too vast. There are no rivals here. No one can vie with him. Whatever price he assigns to a thing, so it stays: there's no one to bid higher."

Pop-eyed and openmouthed, Chichikov gazed into Kostanzhoglo's eyes as if rooted to the spot. There was no breath in him.

"The mind boggles!" he said, recovering himself slightly. "Thought is petrified with fear. People are amazed at the wisdom of Providence as they examine a little bug; for me it is more amazing that such enormous sums can pass through a mortal's hands!

Allow me to put a question to you concerning one circumstance; tell me, this, to be sure, was originally acquired not quite sinlessly?"

"In the most irreproachable fashion, and by the most correct means."

"I can't believe it, my esteemed sir, excuse me, but I can't believe it. If it were thousands, very well, but millions . . . excuse me, but I can't believe it."

"Quite the contrary, with thousands it's hard to be quite sinless, but to make millions is easy. A millionaire has no need to resort to crooked ways. Just go on and take the straight road, take all that lies before you! No one else will pick it up."

"The mind boggles! And what's most mind-boggling is that the whole thing started from a kopeck!"