Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

Everyone went out to the dining room.

"Good-bye, dear little ones!" said Chichikov, seeing Alkides and Themistoclus, who were occupied with some wooden hussar that already lacked an arm and a nose. "Good-bye, my tots. You must excuse me for not bringing you any presents, because, I confess, I didn't even know that you were living in the world, but now I'll be sure to bring something when I come. I'll bring you a sword—want a sword?"

"Yes," replied Themistoclus.

"And you a drum, right? a drum for you?" he went on, bending down to Alkides.

"Dwum," Alkides replied in a whisper, hanging his head.

"Fine, I'll bring you a drum. A real nice drum, it'll go like this: turrr . . . ru . . . tra-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta . . . Good-bye, sweetie, goodbye!" Here he kissed him on the head and turned to Manilov and his spouse with a little laugh, such as one commonly addresses to parents in letting them know the innocence of their children's wishes.

"Stay, really, Pavel Ivanovich!" Manilov said, when everyone had already come out on the porch. "Look, what clouds!"

"Tiny little clouds," replied Chichikov.

"And do you know the way to Sobakevich's?"

"I wanted to ask you about that."

"Allow me, I'll explain to your coachman right now." Here Manilov, with the same courtesy, explained the matter to the coachman and once even said "sir" to him.

The coachman, hearing that he should skip two turns and take the third, said, "We'll do fine, your honor"—and Chichikov left, accompanied for a long time by the bowing and handkerchief waving of his standing-on-tiptoe hosts.

Manilov stood for a long time on the porch, watching the departing britzka, and when it became quite invisible, he still stood there smoking his pipe. Finally he went inside, sat down on a chair, and gave himself over to reflection, rejoicing in his soul at having given his guest some small pleasure. Then his thoughts imperceptibly turned to other subjects and finally went off God knows where. He was thinking about the well-being of a life of friendship, about how nice it would be to live with a friend on the bank of some river, then a bridge began to be built across this river, then an enormous house with such a high belvedere that one could even see Moscow from it and drink tea there of an evening in the open air while discussing agreeable subjects. Then that he and Chichikov arrived together at some gathering in fine carriages, where they enchanted everyone with the agreeableness of their manners, and that the sovereign, supposedly learning there was such friendship between them, made them generals, and beyond that, finally, God knows what, something he himself could no longer figure out. Chichikov's strange request suddenly interrupted all his reveries. The thought of it somehow especially refused to get digested in his head: whichever way he turned it, he simply could not explain it to himself, and all the while he sat and smoked his pipe, which went on right up to suppertime.

And Chichikov in a contented state of mind was sitting in his britzka, which had long been rolling down the high road. From the previous chapter it will already be clear what constituted the chief subject of his taste and inclinations, and therefore it is no wonder that he was soon immersed in it body and soul. The speculations, estimates, and considerations that wandered over his face were, apparently, very agreeable, for at every moment they left behind them traces of a contented smile. Occupied with them, he paid not the slightest attention to his coachman, who, content with his reception by Manilov's household serfs, was making most sensible observations to the dappled gray outrunner harnessed on the right side. This dappled gray horse was extremely sly and only made a show of pulling, while the bay shaft horse and the chestnut outrunner, who was called Assessor because he had been acquired from some assessor, put their whole hearts into it, so that the satisfaction they derived from it could even be read in their eyes. "Fox away, fox away! I'll still outfox you!" Selifan said, rising a little and lashing the lazybones with his whip. "To learn you your business, you German pantaloon! The bay's a respectable horse, he does his duty, and I'll gladly give him an extra measure, because he's a respectable horse, and Assessor's a good horse, too . . . Well, well, why are you twitching your ears? Listen to what you're told, fool! I won't learn you anything bad, you lout! Look at him crawling!" Here he lashed him again with the whip, adding: "Ooh, barbarian! Cursed Bonaparte!" Then he yelled at all of them: "Hup, my gentles!" and whipped all three of them, not with a view to punishment this time, but to show he was pleased with them. Having given them this pleasure, he again addressed his speech to the dapple-gray: "You think you can hide your behavior. No, you must live by the truth, if you want to be shown respect. At that landowner's now, where we were, they were good people. It's a pleasure for me to talk, if it's with a good man; with a good man I'm always friends, fine companions: whether it's having tea, or a bite to eat—I'm game, if it's with a good man. To a good man everybody shows respect. Our master, now, everybody honors him, because he was in the goverman's service, he's a scollegiate councillor ..."

Reasoning thus, Selifan wound up finally in the most remote abstractions. If Chichikov had lent an ear to it, he would have learned many details relating to himself personally; but his thoughts were so occupied with his subject that only a loud clap of thunder made him come to himself and look around: the whole sky was completely covered with dark clouds, and the dusty post road was sprinkled with drops of rain. Finally a clap of thunder came louder and nearer, and it suddenly started pouring buckets. At first, assuming an oblique direction, the rain lashed against one side of the kibitka's body, then against the other, then, changing its manner of attack and becoming completely straight, it drummed straight down on the top; splashes finally started flying as far as his face. This induced him to draw the leather curtains with their two round little windows, intended for the viewing of roadside scenes, and order Selifan to drive faster. Selifan, also interrupted in the middle of his speech, realized that he indeed should not dawdle, straightaway pulled some rag of gray flannel from under his seat, thrust his arms into the sleeves, seized the reins in his hands, and yelled to his troika, which had barely been moving its legs, for it felt agreeably relaxed as a result of his instructive speeches. But Selifan simply could not recall whether he had passed two or three turns. Thinking back and recalling the road somewhat, he realized that there had been many turns, all of which he had skipped. Since a Russian man in a critical moment finds what to do without going into further reasonings, he shouted, after turning right at the next crossroads: "Hup, my honored friends!" and started off at a gallop, thinking little of where the road he had taken would lead him.

It looked, however, as if the rain was not going to let up soon. The dust lying in the road was quickly churned to mud, and it became harder every moment for the horses to pull the britzka. Chichikov was already beginning to worry greatly, going so long without sighting Sobakevich's estate. By his reckoning, they should have arrived long ago. He peered out both sides, but it was as dark as the bottom of a well.

"Selifan!" he said finally, poking himself out of the britzka.

"What, master?" answered Selifan.

"Look around, don't you see the village?"

"No, master, it's nowhere to be seen!" After which Selifan, brandishing his whip, struck up, not really a song, but something so long that there was even no end to it. Everything went into it: every inciting and inviting cry to which horses all over Russia, from one end to the other, are treated; adjectives of every sort without further discrimination, whatever came first to his tongue. In this fashion things reached a point where he finally started calling them secretaries.