Dead Souls

"Why invent, if there are troubles at every step even without that?" said Vassily "Have you heard what trick Lenitsyn has played on us? He's appropriated the waste land where our people celebrate Krasnaya Gorka."[66]

"He doesn't know, so he seized it," said Platon. "The man's new here, just come from Petersburg. He must be told, and have it explained to him."

"He knows, he knows very well. I sent to tell him, but he responded with rudeness."

"You must go yourself and explain it. Have a personal talk with him."

"Ah, no. He puts on too many airs. I won't go to him. You can go if you like."

"I'd go, but I don't want to mix in it. He may deceive me and swindle me."

"I'll go, if you like," said Chichikov.

Vassily glanced at him and thought: "He loves going places, this one!"

"Just give me an idea of what sort of man he is," said Chichikov, "and what it's about."

"I'm ashamed to charge you with such an unpleasant mission, because merely to talk with such a man is already an unpleasant mission for me. I must tell you that he is from simple, petty-landowning nobility of our province, got his rank serving in Petersburg, set himself up somehow by marrying someone's illegitimate daughter, and puts on airs. He sets the tone here. But, thank God, in our province people aren't so stupid: for us fashion is no order, and Petersburg is no church."

"Of course," said Chichikov, "and what is it about?"

"It's nonsense, in fact. He hasn't got enough land, so he appropriated our waste land—that is, he reckoned that it wasn't needed and that the owners had forgotten about it, but it so happens that from time immemorial our peasants have gathered there to celebrate Krasnaya Gorka. For that reason, I'm better prepared to sacrifice other, better land than to give up this piece. Custom is sacred to me."

"So you're prepared to let him have other land?"

"I would have been, if he hadn't acted this way with me; but he wants, as I can see, to do it through the courts. Very well, we'll see who wins. Though it's not so clear on the map, there are still witnesses—old people who are living and who remember."

"Hm!" thought Chichikov. "I see they're both a bit off." And he said aloud:

"But it seems to me that the business can be handled peaceably. Everything depends on the mediator. In writ...” [Two pages are missing from the manuscript.—Trans.]

". . . that for you yourself it would also be very profitable to transfer, to my name, for instance, all the dead souls registered on your estates in the last census lists, so that I pay the tax on them. And to avoid causing any offense, you can perform the transfer through a deed of purchase, as if the souls were alive."

"Well, now!" Lenitsyn thought. "This is something most strange." And he even pushed his chair back, so entirely puzzled he was.

"I have no doubts that you will agree entirely to this," Chichikov said, "because this is entirely the same sort of thing we've just been talking about. It'll be completed between solid people, in private, and there'll be no offense to anyone."

What to do here? Lenitsyn found himself in a difficult position. He could never have foreseen that an opinion he had just formulated would be so quickly brought to realization. The offer was highly unexpected. Of course, there could be no harm for anyone in this action: the landowners would mortgage these souls anyway, the same as living ones, so there could be no loss for the treasury; the difference was that they would all be in one hand rather than in several. But all the same he was at a loss. He knew the law and was a businessman—a businessman in a good sense: he would not decide a case unjustly for any bribe. But here he hesitated, not knowing what name to give to this action—was it right or wrong? If someone else had addressed him with such an offer, he would have said: "This is nonsense! trifles! I have no wish to fool around or play with dolls." But he liked his guest so much, they agreed on so many things with regard to the success of education and learning—how could he refuse? Lenitsyn found himself in a most difficult position.