Dead Souls

"No, we won't let any friend get a whiff of this," Chichikov said to himself, and then explained that there was no way to find such a friend, that the cost of the procedure alone would be more than it was worth, for one had better cut off the tails of one's caftan and run as far as one can from the courts; but that if he was actually in such straits, then, being moved by compassion, he was ready to give . . . but it was such a trifle that it did not deserve mention.

"And how much would you give?" Plyushkin asked, turning Jew: his hands trembled like quicksilver.

"I'd give twenty-five kopecks per soul."

"And how would you buy them, for cash?"

"Yes, ready money."

"Only, my dear, for the sake of my beggarliness, you might give me forty kopecks."

"Most honorable sir!" said Chichikov, "not only forty kopecks, I would pay you five hundred roubles! With pleasure I would pay it, because I see—an honorable, kindly old man is suffering on account of his own good-heartedness."

"Ah, by God, it's so! by God, it's true!" said Plyushkin, hanging his head down and shaking it ruefully. "All from good-heartedness."

"So, you see, I suddenly grasped your character. And so, why shouldn't I give you five hundred roubles per soul, but ... I haven't got a fortune; five kopecks, if you please, I'm ready to add, so that each soul would, in that case, cost thirty kopecks."

"Well, my dear, as you will, just tack on two kopecks."

"Two little kopecks I will tack on, if you please. How many of them do you have? I believe you were saying seventy?"

"No. It comes to seventy-eight in all."

"Seventy-eight, seventy-eight, at thirty kopecks per soul, that would make ..." Here our hero thought for one second, not more, and said suddenly: "... that would make twenty-four roubles, ninety-six kopecks!"—he was good at arithmetic. Straightaway he made Plyushkin write a receipt and handed him the money, which he received in both hands and carried to his bureau as carefully as if he were carrying some liquid, fearing every moment to spill it. Coming to his bureau, he looked through it once more and then placed it, also with extreme care, in one of the drawers, where it was probably doomed to lie buried until such time as Father Carp and Father Polycarp, the two priests of his village, came to bury him himself, to the indescribable delight of his son-in-law and daughter, and perhaps also of the captain who had enrolled himself among his relatives. Having put the money away, Plyushkin sat down in his armchair, at which point, it seemed, he was unable to find any further matter for conversation.

"What, you're already preparing to go?" he said, noticing a slight movement which Chichikov had made only so as to take his handkerchief from his pocket.

This question reminded him that in fact he had no reason to linger longer.

"Yes, it's time!" he said, picking up his hat.

"And a spot of tea?"

"No, better save the spot of tea for another time."

"Well, there, and I've sent for the samovar. I confess to say, I'm not an avid tea drinker: it's expensive, and the price of sugar has risen unmercifully. Proshka! never mind the samovar! Take the rusk to Mavra, do you hear: let her put it back in the same place—or, no, give it to me, I'd better take it myself. Good-bye, my dear, God bless you, and do give my letter to the magistrate. Yes! let him read it, he's my old acquaintance. Why, of course, we supped from the same trough!"

Whereupon this strange phenomenon, this wizened little old man, saw him off the premises, after which he ordered the gates locked at once, then made the round of the storerooms, to check whether the guards, who stood at every corner, banging with wooden spades on empty barrels instead of iron rails, were all in their places; after that, he peeked into the kitchen, where, on the pretext of testing whether people were being properly fed, he downed a goodly quantity of cabbage soup with groats and, having scolded every last one of them for thievery and bad behavior, returned to his room. Left alone, he even had the thought of somehow rewarding his guest for such indeed unexampled magnanimity. "I'll give him the pocket watch," he thought to himself. "It's a good silver watch, not some sort of pinchbeck or brass one; it's slightly broken, but he can have it repaired; he's still a young man, he needs a pocket watch so his fiancée will like him! Or, no," he added, after some reflection, "I'd better leave it to him after my death, in my will, so that he remembers me."