Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

"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.

"Where have you been?" Nozdryov said, going on without waiting for an answer: "And I, brother, am coming from the fair. Congratulate me, I blew my whole wad! Would you believe it, never in my life have I blown so much. I even drove here with hired horses! Here, look out the window on purpose!" Whereupon he bent Chichikov's head down himself so that he almost bumped it against the window frame. "See, what trash! They barely dragged themselves here, curse them; I had to climb into his britzka." As he said this, Nozdryov pointed his finger at his comrade. "And you're not acquainted yet? My in-law, Mizhuev! We've been talking about you all morning. 'Well, just watch,' I said, 'we're going to run into Chichikov.' Well, brother, if only you knew how much I blew! Would you believe it, I didn't just dump my four trotters—everything went. There's neither chain nor watch left on me ..." Chichikov glanced and saw that there was indeed neither chain nor watch left on him. It even seemed to him that his side-whiskers on one side were smaller and not as thick as on the other. "If only I had just twenty roubles in my pocket," Nozdryov went on, "precisely no more than twenty, I'd get everything back, I mean, on top of getting everything back, as I'm an honest man, I'd put thirty thousand in my wallet straight off."

"You were saying the same thing then, however," the fairhaired one responded, "but when I gave you fifty roubles, you lost it at once."

"I wouldn't have lost it! By God, I wouldn't have lost it! If I hadn't done a stupid thing myself, I really wouldn't have lost it. If I hadn't bluffed on that cursed seven after the paroli, I could have broken the bank."

"You didn't break it, however," said the fair-haired one.

"I didn't because I bluffed at the wrong time. And you think your major is a good player?"

"Good or not, however, he beat you."

"Eh, who cares!" said Nozdryov. "I could beat him, too, that way! No, let him try doubling, then I'll see, then I'll see what kind of player he is! But still, brother Chichikov, how we caroused those first days! True, the fair was an excellent one. The merchants themselves said there had never been such a gathering. Everything we brought from my estate was sold at the most profitable price. Eh, brother, how we caroused! Even now, when I remember . . . devil take it! I mean, what a pity you weren't there. Imagine, a dragoon regiment was stationed two miles from town. Would you believe it, the officers, all there were of them, forty men just of officers alone, came to town; and, brother, how we started drinking . . . Staff Captain Potseluev . . . what a nice one he is! a mustache, brother, like this! Bordeaux he calls simply brewdeaux. 'Bring us some of that brewdeaux, brother!' he says. Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. . . Ah, brother, what a sweetheart! Him, now, him we can call a carouser by all the rules. We were always together. What wine Ponomaryov brought out for us! You should know that he's a crook and one oughtn't to buy anything in his shop: he mixes all sorts of trash with his wine—sandalwood, burnt cork, he even rubs red elderberry into it, the scoundrel; but to make up for that, if he does go and fetch some bottle from his far-off little room, the special room, he calls it— well, brother, then you're simply in the empyrean. We had such a champagne—what's the governor's next to that? mere kvass. Imagine, not clicquot, but some sort of clicquot-matradura, meaning double clicquot. [10] Clicquot is the name of one of the finest champagnes. Nozdryov uses it in lowercase as an adjective, and combines it superlatively but absurdly with matradura, the name of an old Russian dance. Plebeian kvass is made from fermented rye bread and malt. And he also brought out one little bottle of a French wine called 'bonbon.' Bouquet?—rosebuds and whatever else you like. Oh, did we carouse! . . . After us some prince arrived, sent to a shop for champagne, there wasn't a bottle left in the whole town, the officers drank it all. Would you believe it, I alone, in the course of one dinner, drank seventeen bottles of champagne!"

"No, you couldn't drink seventeen bottles," observed the fair-haired one.

"As I'm an honest man, I say I did," replied Nozdryov.

"You can say whatever you like, but I'm telling you that you couldn't drink even ten."

"Well, let's make a bet on it!"

"Why bet on it?"

"Well, then stake that gun you bought in town."

"I don't want to."

"Well, go on, chance it!"

"I don't want to chance it."

"Right, you'd be without a gun, just as you're without a hat. Eh, brother Chichikov, I mean, how sorry I was that you weren't there. I know you'd never part from Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. How well you'd get along together! A far cry from the prosecutor and all the provincial skinflints in our town, who tremble over every kopeck. That one, brother, will sit down to quinze, or faro, or anything you like. Eh, Chichikov, would it have cost you so much to come? Really, aren't you a little pig after that, you cattle breeder! Kiss me, dear heart, on my life I do love you! Mizhuev, look how fate has brought us together: what is he to me or I to him? He came from God knows where, and I also live here . . . And there were so many carriages, brother, and all that en gros . I spun the wheel of fortune: won two jars of pomade, a porcelain cup, and a guitar; then I staked again, spun it, and lost, confound it, six roubles on top of that. And what a philanderer Kuvshinnikov is, if you only knew! He and I went to nearly all the balls. There was one girl there so decked out, all ruche and truche and devil knows what not... I just thought to myself: 'Devil take it!' But Kuvshinnikov, I mean, he's such a rascal, he sat himself down next to her and started getting at her with all these compliments in the French language . . . Would you believe it, he didn't pass by the simple wenches either. That's what he calls 'going strawberrying.' And the abundance of wonderful fish and balyks ! [11] A balyk is made from a special dorsal section of flesh running the entire length of a salmon or sturgeon, which is removed in one piece and either salted or smoked. It is especially fancied in Russia. I brought one with me; it's a good thing I thought of buying it while I still had money. Where are you going now?"

"Oh, to see a certain little fellow."

"Well, forget your little fellow! let's go to my place!"

"No, I can't, it's to close a deal."

"Well, so it's a deal now! What else will you think up! Ah, you Opodealdoc Ivanovich!" [12] Opodeldoc (originally oppodeltoch) was the name given by the Swiss alchemist and physician Theophrastus Bombastus von Ho-henheim, known as Paracelsus (1493—1541), to various medicinal plasters; it is now applied to soap liniments mixed with alcohol and camphor. Nozdryov applies it to Chichikov in a far-fetched pun on delo, the Russian word for "deal." Hence our spelling.

"A deal, yes, and quite an important one at that."

"I bet you're lying! Well, so tell me, who are you going to see?"

"Well, it's Sobakevich."

Here Nozdryov guffawed with that ringing laughter into which only a fresh, healthy man can dissolve, showing all his teeth, white as sugar, to the last one; his cheeks quiver and shake, and his neighbor, two doors away, in the third room, jumps up from his sleep, goggling his eyes, and saying: "Eh, how he carries on!"

"What's so funny?" said Chichikov, somewhat displeased by this laughter.