Dead Souls

"Look how he's let everything go!" Kostanzhoglo said, pointing a finger. "Drove his muzhiks into such poverty! If there's cattle plague, it's no time to look after your own goods. Go and sell what you have, and supply the muzhiks with cattle, so that they don't go even for one day without the means of doing their work. But now it would take years to set things right: the muzhiks have all grown lazy, drunk, and rowdy."

"So that means it's not at all profitable to buy such an estate now?" asked Chichikov.

Here Kostanzhoglo looked at him as if he wanted to say: "What an ignoramus you are! Must I start you at the primer level?"

"Unprofitable! but in three years I'd be getting twenty thousand a year from this estate. That's how unprofitable it is! Ten miles away. A trifle! And what land! just look at the land! It's all water meadows. No, I'd plant flax and produce some five thousand worth of flax alone; I'd plant turnips, and make some four thousand on turnips. And look over there—rye is growing on the hillside; it all just seeded itself. He didn't sow rye, I know that. No, this estate's worth a hundred and fifty thousand, not forty."

Chichikov began to fear lest Khlobuev overhear them, and so he dropped still farther behind.

"Look how much land he's left waste!" Kostanzhoglo was saying, beginning to get angry. "At least he should have sent word beforehand, some volunteers would have trudged over here. Well, if you've got nothing to plough with, then dig a kitchen garden. You'd have a kitchen garden anyway. He forced his muzhiks to go without working for four years. A trifle! But that alone is enough to corrupt and ruin them forever! They've already grown used to being ragamuffins and vagabonds! It's already become their way of life." And, having said that, Kostanzhoglo spat, a bilious disposition overshadowed his brow with a dark cloud . . .

"I cannot stay here any longer: it kills me to look at this disorder and desolation! You can finish it with him on your own now. Quickly take the treasure away from this fool. He only dishonors the divine gift!"

And, having said this, Kostanzhoglo bade farewell to Chichikov, and, catching up with the host, began saying good-bye to him, too.

"Good gracious, Konstantin Fyodorovich," the surprised host said, "you've just come—and home!"

"I can't. It's necessary for me to be at home," Kostanzhoglo said, took his leave, got into his droshky, and drove off.

Khlobuev seemed to understand the cause of his departure.

"Konstantin Fyodorovich couldn't stand it," he said. "I feel that it's not very cheery for such a proprietor as he to look at such wayward management. Believe me, I cannot, I cannot, Pavel Ivanovich ... I sowed almost no grain this year! On my honor. I had no seed, not to mention nothing to plough with. Your brother, Platon Mikhailovich, is said to be an extraordinary man; and of Konstantin Fyodorovich it goes without saying—he's a Napoleon of sorts. I often think, in fact: 'Now, why is so much intelligence given to one head? Now, if only one little drop of it could get into my foolish pate, if only so that I could keep my house! I don't know how to do anything, I can't do anything!' Ah, Pavel Ivanovich, take it into your care! Most of all I pity the poor muzhiks. I feel that I was never able to be . . . [One word is illegible in the manuscript.—Trans.] what do you want me to do, I can't be exacting and strict. And how could I get them accustomed to order if I myself am disorderly! I'd set them free right now, but the Russian man is somehow so arranged, he somehow can't do without being prodded . . . He'll just fall asleep, he'll just get moldy."

"That is indeed strange," said Platonov. "Why is it that with us, unless you keep a close eye on the simple man, he turns into a drunkard and a scoundrel?"

"Lack of education," observed Chichikov.

"Well, God knows about that. We were educated, and how do we live? I went to the university and listened to lectures in all fields, yet not only did I not learn the art and order of living, but it seems I learned best the art of spending more money on various new refinements and comforts, and became better acquainted with the objects for which one needs money. Is it because there was no sense in my studies? Not really: it's the same with my other comrades. Maybe two or three of them derived something truly useful for themselves from it, and maybe that was because they were intelligent to begin with, but the rest only tried to learn what's bad for one's health and fritters away one's money. By God!

We went and studied only so as to applaud the professors, to hand them out awards, and not to receive anything from them. And so we choose from education that which, after all, is on the mean side; we snatch the surface, but the thing itself we don't take. No, Pavel Ivanovich, it's because of something else that we don't know how to live, but what it is, by God, I don't know."