Dead Souls

"Just look, my dear, what a mug!" Plyushkin said to Chichikov, pointing his finger at Proshka's face. "Stupid as a log, but try putting something down and he'll steal it in a trice! Well, what have you come for, fool, can you tell me that?" Here he produced a small silence, to which Proshka also responded with silence. "Prepare the samovar, do you hear, and take this key and give it to Mavra so she can go to the pantry: there's a rusk of the kulich Alexandra Stepanovna brought on the shelf there, to be served with tea! . . . Wait, where are you going? A tomfool! egad, what a tomfool! Have you got a devil itching in your feet, or what? . . . You listen first: the rusk, I expect, has gone bad on the outside, so have her scrape it with a knife, but don't throw the crumbs out, take them to the henhouse. And look out, brother, don't go into the pantry yourself, or you'll get you know what! with a birch broom, to make it taste better! You've got a nice appetite now, so that'll improve it for you! Just try going into the pantry with me watching out the window all the while. They can't be trusted in anything," he went on, turning to Chichikov, once Proshka had cleared out together with his boots. Then he began glancing suspiciously at Chichikov as well. The traits of such extraordinary magnanimity began to seem incredible to him, and he thought to himself: "Devil knows about him, maybe he's just a braggart, like all those spendthrifts: he'll lie and lie, just to talk and have some tea, and then he'll up and leave!" Hence, as a precaution and at the same time wishing to test him a little, he said it would not be a bad idea to sign the deed as soon as possible, because there's no trusting in man: today he's alive, but tomorrow God knows.

Chichikov expressed a readiness to sign it that very minute and asked only for a list of all the peasants.

This reassured Plyushkin. One could see that he was thinking about doing something, and, in fact, taking his keys, he approached the cupboard and, opening the little door, rummaged for a long time among the glasses and cups and finally said:

"I can't seem to find it, but I did have a splendid little liqueur, unless they drank it! Such thievish folk! Ah, could this be it?" Chichikov saw in his hands a little decanter, all covered with dust as with a fuzzy jacket. "My late wife made it," Plyushkin went on, "the crook of a housekeeper neglected it completely and didn't even put a stopper in it, the slut! Bugs and other trash got into it, but I removed all the bits, and now it's nice and clean; I'll pour you a glass."

But Chichikov tried to decline this nice little liqueur, saying that he already drank and ate.

"Already drank and ate!" said Plyushkin. "Yes, of course, a man of good society is recognizable anywhere: he doesn't eat but is full; but just take one of these little thieves, the more you feed him . . . There's this captain turns up: 'Uncle,' he says, 'give me something to eat!' And I'm as much his uncle as he's my carbuncle. Must have nothing to eat at home, so he hangs around here! Ah, yes, you want a little list of all those parasites? Look here, just as if I'd known, I wrote them all down on a separate piece of paper, so as to cross them off at the next census report."

Plyushkin put on his spectacles and began rummaging among his papers. Untying various bundles, he treated his visitor to so much dust that he sneezed. At last he pulled out a sheet that was written all over. Peasant names covered it as thickly as gnats. Every sort was there: Paramonov, Pimenov, Panteleimonov, even a certain Grigory Go-never-get peeked out—a hundred and twenty-something in all. Chichikov smiled to see such numerousness. Tucking it away in his pocket, he observed to Plyushkin that he would have to go to town to sign the deed.

"To town? But how? . . . how can I leave the house? All my folk are either thieves or crooks: they'll strip the place bare in a day, there'll be nothing left to hang a caftan on."

"Don't you have some acquaintance then?"

"Have I some acquaintance? My acquaintances all either died off or got unacquainted. Ah, my dear! but I do have one, I do!" he cried. "I know the head magistrate himself, he used to come here in the old days, of course I know him! we supped from the same trough, we used to climb fences together! of course we're acquainted! As if we're not acquainted! So mightn't I just write to him?"

"But, of course, write to him."

"Really, as if we're not acquainted! We were friends at school."