Dead Souls

The next day everything was arranged in the best possible way. Kostanzhoglo gladly gave him the ten thousand without interest, without security—simply with a receipt. So ready he was to assist anyone on the path to acquisition. Not only that: he himself undertook to accompany Chichikov to Khlobuev's, so as to look the estate over. After a substantial breakfast, they all set out, having climbed all three into Pavel Ivanovich's carriage; the host's droshky followed empty behind. Yarb ran ahead, chasing birds off the road. In a little over an hour and a half, they covered ten miles and saw a small estate with two houses. One of them, big and new, was unfinished and had remained in that rough state for several years; the other was small and old. They found the owner disheveled, sleepy, just awakened; there was a patch on his frock coat and a hole in his boot.

He was God knows how glad of the visitors' arrival. As if he were seeing brothers from whom he had been parted for a long time.

"Konstantin Fyodorovich! Platon Mikhailovich!" he cried out. "Dear friends! I'm much obliged! Let me rub my eyes! I really thought no one would ever come to see me. Everyone flees me like the plague: they think I'll ask them to lend me money. Oh, it's hard, hard, Konstantin Fyodorovich! I see that it's all my fault! What can I do? I live like a swinish pig. Excuse me, gentlemen, for receiving you in such attire: my boots, as you see, have holes in them. And what may I offer you, tell me?"

"Please, no beating around the bush. We've come to see you on business," said Kostanzhoglo. "Here's a purchaser for you—Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov."

"I'm heartily pleased to meet you. Let me press your hand."

Chichikov gave him both.

"I should very much like, my most esteemed Pavel Ivanovich, to show you an estate worthy of attention . . . But, gentlemen, allow me to ask, have you had dinner?"

"We have, we have," said Kostanzhoglo, wishing to get out of it. "Let's not tarry but go right now."

"In that case, let's go."

Khlobuev picked up his peaked cap. The visitors put their caps on their heads, and they all set out on foot to look over the estate.

"Let's go and look at my disorder and dissipation," Khlobuev said. "Of course, you did well to have your dinner. Would you believe it, Konstantin Fyodorovich, there isn't a chicken in the house—that's what I've come to. I behave like a swine, just like a swine!"

He sighed deeply and, as if sensing there would be little sympathy on Konstantin Fyodorovich's part and that his heart was on the callous side, he took Platonov under the arm and went ahead with him, pressing him close to his breast. Kostanzhoglo and Chichikov remained behind and, taking each other's arm, followed them at a distance.

"It's hard, Platon Mikhalych, hard!" Khlobuev was saying to Platonov. "You can't imagine how hard! Moneylessness, breadlessness, bootlessness! It all wouldn't matter a straw to me if I were young and alone. But when all these adversities start breaking over you as you're approaching old age, and there's a wife at your side, and five children—one feels sad, willy-nilly, one feels sad ...”

Platonov was moved to pity.

"Well, and if you sell the estate, will that set you to rights?" he asked.

"To rights, hah!" said Khlobuev, waving his hand. "It will all go to pay the most necessary debts, and then I won't have even a thousand left for myself."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"God knows," Khlobuev said, shrugging.

Platonov was surprised.

"How is it you don't undertake anything to extricate yourself from such circumstances?"

"What should I undertake?"

"Are there no ways?"

"None."

"Well, look for a position, take some post?"

"But I'm a provincial secretary. They can't give me any lucrative post. The salary would be tiny, and I have a wife and five children."

"Well, some private position, then. Go and become a steward."

"But who would entrust an estate to me! I've squandered my own."

"Well, if you're threatened with starvation and death, you really must undertake something. I'll ask my brother whether he can solicit some position in town through someone."

"No, Platon Mikhailovich," said Khlobuev, sighing and squeezing his hand hard, "I'm not good for anything now. I became decrepit before my old age, and there's lower-back pain on account of my former sins, and rheumatism in my shoulder. I'm not up to it! Why squander government money! Even without that there are many who serve for the sake of lucrative posts. God forbid that because of me, because my salary must be paid, the taxes on poorer folk should be raised: it's hard for them as it is with this host of bloodsuckers. No, Platon Mikhailovich, forget it."

"What a fix!" thought Platonov. "This is worse than my hibernation."

Meanwhile, Kostanzhoglo and Chichikov, walking a good distance behind them, were speaking thus with each other: