Dead Souls

Having gone up the narrow wooden steps into the wide front hall, he met a door creaking open and a fat old woman in motley chintzes, who said: "This way, please!" Inside he found all the old friends that everyone finds in little wooden taverns, such as have been built in no small number along the roadsides—namely: a hoary samovar, smoothly scrubbed pinewood walls, a triangular corner cupboard with teapots and cups, gilded porcelain Easter eggs hanging on blue and red ribbons in front of icons, a recently littered cat, a mirror that reflected four eyes instead of two and some sort of pancake instead of a face; finally, bunches of aromatic herbs and cloves stuck around the icons, dried up to such a degree that whoever tried to smell them only sneezed and nothing more.

"Do you have suckling pig?" With this question Chichikov turned to the woman standing there.

"We do."

"With horseradish and sour cream?"

"With horseradish and sour cream."

"Bring it here."

The old woman went poking about and brought a plate, a napkin so starched that it stuck out like dry bark, then a knife, thin-bladed as a penknife, with a yellowed bone handle, a fork with two prongs, and a saltcellar that simply would not stand upright on the table.

Our hero, as usual, entered into conversation with her at once and inquired whether she kept the tavern herself, or was there a proprietor, and how much income it brought, and whether their sons lived with them, and was the eldest son a bachelor or a married man, and what sort of wife he had taken, with a big dowry or not, and was the father-in-law pleased, and was he not angry that he had received too few presents at the wedding—in short, he skipped nothing. It goes without saying that he was curious to find out what landowners there were in the vicinity, and found out that there were all sorts of landowners: Blokhin, Pochitaev, Mylnoy, Cheprakov the colonel, Sobakevich. "Ah! You know Sobakevich?" he asked, and straightaway heard that the old woman knew not only Sobakevich, but also Manilov, and that Manilov was a bit more refeened than Sobakevich: he orders a chicken boiled at once, and also asks for veal; if there is lamb's liver, he also asks for lamb's liver, and just tries a little of everything, while Sobakevich asks for some one thing, but then eats all of it, and will even demand seconds for the same price.

As he was talking in this way, and dining on suckling pig, of which only one last piece now remained, there came a rattle of wheels from a carriage driving up. Peeking out the window, he saw a light britzka, harnessed to a troika of fine horses, standing in front of the tavern. Two men were getting out of it. One was tall and fair-haired, the other a little shorter and dark-haired. The fair-haired one was wearing a navy blue Hungarian jacket, the dark-haired one simply a striped quilted smock. In the distance another wretched carriage was dragging along, empty, drawn by a four-in-hand of shaggy horses with torn collars and rope harness. The fair-haired one went up the steps at once, while the dark-haired one stayed behind and felt around for something in the britzka, talking all the while with a servant and at the same time waving to the carriage coming after them. His voice seemed to Chichikov as if it were slightly familiar. While he was studying him, the fair-haired one had already managed to feel his way to the door and open it. He was a tall man with a lean, or what is known as wasted, face, and a red little mustache. From his tanned face one could deduce that he knew what smoke was—if not of the battlefield, then at least of tobacco. He bowed politely to Chichikov, to which the latter responded in kind. In the course of a few minutes they would probably have struck up a conversation and come to know each other well, because a start had already been made, and almost at one and the same time they had expressed their satisfaction that the dust of the road had been completely laid by yesterday's rain and the driving was now both cool and agreeable, when his dark-haired comrade entered, flinging his peaked cap from his head onto the table, and dashingly ruffling his thick black hair. Of average height and rather well-built, he was a dashing fellow with full, ruddy cheeks, teeth white as snow, and whiskers black as pitch. He was fresh as milk and roses; health, it seemed, was simply bursting from his face.

"Aha!" he cried out suddenly, spreading both arms at the sight of Chichikov. "What brings you here?"

Chichikov recognized Nozdryov, the very one with whom he had dined at the prosecutor's and who within a few minutes had got on such an intimate footing with him that he had even begun to address him familiarly, though, incidentally, he had given no occasion for it on his side.