Dead Souls

"There must be reasons," said Chichikov.

Poor Khlobuev sighed deeply and spoke thus:

"Sometimes, really, it seems to me that the Russian is somehow a hopeless man. There's no willpower in him, no courage for constancy. You want to do everything—and can do nothing. You keep thinking—starting tomorrow you'll begin a new life, starting tomorrow you'll begin doing everything as you ought to, starting tomorrow you'll go on a diet—not a bit of it: by the evening of that same day you overeat so much that you just blink your eyes and can't move your tongue, you sit like an owl staring at everybody—and it's the same with everything."

"One needs a supply of reasonableness," said Chichikov, "one must consult one's reasonableness every moment, conduct a friendly conversation with it."

"Come, now!" said Khlobuev. "Really, it seems to me that we're not born for reasonableness at all. I don't believe any of us is reasonable. If I see that someone is even living decently, collecting money and putting it aside—I still don't believe it. When he's old, the devil will have his way with him—he'll blow it all at once! We're all the same: noblemen and muzhiks, educated and uneducated. There was one clever muzhik: made a hundred thousand out of nothing, and, once he'd made the hundred thousand, he got the crazy idea of taking a bath in champagne, so he took a bath in champagne. But I think we've looked it all over. There isn't any more. Unless you want to glance at the mill? It has no wheel, however, and the building is good for nothing."

"Then why look at it!" said Chichikov.

"In that case, let's go home." And they all turned their steps towards the house.

The views were all the same on the way back. Untidy disorder kept showing its ugly appearance everywhere. Everything was unmended and untended. Only a new puddle had got itself added to the middle of the street. An angry woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor girl half to death and cursing all devils up and down. Two muzhiks stood at a distance, gazing with stoic indifference at the drunken wench's wrath. One was scratching his behind, the other was yawning. Yawning was evident in the buildings as well. The roofs were also yawning. Platonov, looking at them, yawned. "My future property—my muzhiks," thought Chichikov, "hole upon hole, and patch upon patch!" And, indeed, on one of the cottages a whole gate had been put in place of the roof; the fallen-in windows were propped with laths filched from the master's barn. In short, it seemed that the system of Trishka's caftan[64] has been introduced into the management: the cuffs and skirts were cut off to patch the elbows.

They went into the house. Chichikov was rather struck by the mixture of destitution with some glittering knickknacks of the latest luxury. Amid tattered utensils and furnishings—new bronze. Some Shakespeare was sitting on an inkstand; a fashionable ivory hand for scratching one's own back lay on the table. Khlobuev introduced the mistress of the house, his wife. She was topnotch. Even in Moscow she would have shown herself well. She was dressed fashionably, with taste. She preferred talking about the town and the theater that was being started there. Everything made it obvious that she liked the country even less than did her husband, and that she yawned more than Platonov when she was left alone. Soon the room was full of children, girls and boys. There were five of them. A sixth was carried in. They were all beautiful. The boys and girls were a joy to behold. They were dressed prettily and with taste, were cheerful and frisky. And that made it all the sadder to look at them. It would have been better if they had been dressed poorly, in skirts and shorts of simple ticking, running around in the yard, no different in any way from peasant children! A visitor came to call on the mistress. The ladies went to their half of the house. The children ran after them. The men were left by themselves.

Chichikov began the purchase. As is customary with all purchasers, he started by running down the estate he was purchasing. And, having run it down on all sides, he said:

"What, then, will your price be?"

"Do you know?" said Khlobuev. "I'm not going to ask a high price from you, I don't like that: it would also be unscrupulous on my part. Nor will I conceal from you that of the hundred souls registered on the census lists of my estate, not even fifty are actually there: the rest either died of epidemics or absented themselves without passports, so you ought to count them as dead. And therefore I ask you for only thirty thousand in all."

"Come, now—thirty thousand! The estate is neglected, people have died, and you want thirty thousand! Take twenty-five."

"Pavel Ivanovich! I could mortgage it for twenty-five thousand, you see? Then I'd get the twenty-five thousand and the estate would stay mine. I'm selling only because I need money quickly, and mortgaging means red tape, I'd have to pay the clerks, and I have nothing to pay them."