Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

"So that's how! That's the way, Pavel Ivanovich! That's how you've acquired!"

"Acquired," replied Chichikov.

"A good thing, truly, a good thing."

"Yes, I myself can see that I could not have undertaken any better thing. However it may be, a man's goal is never defined until he finally sets a firm foot on solid ground, and not on some freethinking chimera of youth." Here he quite appropriately denounced all young people, and rightly so, for liberalism. Yet, remarkably, there was still some lack of firmness in his words, as if he were saying to himself at the same time: "Eh, brother, you're lying, and mightily, too!" He did not even glance at Sobakevich and Manilov, for fear of encountering something on their faces. But he need not have feared: Sobakevich's face did not stir, and Manilov, enchanted by the phrase, just kept shaking his head approvingly, immersed in that state in which a music lover finds himself when the soprano has outdone the fiddle itself and squeaked on such a high note as is even too much for the throat of a bird.

"But why don't you tell Ivan Grigorievich," Sobakevich responded, "precisely what you've acquired; and you, Ivan Grigorievich, why don't you ask what acquisitions he has made? Such folk they are! Pure gold! I even sold him the cartwright Mikheev."

"No, you mean you sold him Mikheev?" said the magistrate. "I know the cartwright Mikheev: a fine craftsman; he rebuilt my droshky. Only, excuse me, but how . . . Didn't you tell me he died ..."

"Who died? Mikheev?" said Sobakevich, not in the least embarrassed. "It's his brother who died, but he's as alive as can be and healthier than ever. The other day he put together such a britzka as they can't make even in Moscow. He ought, in all truth, be working just for the sovereign alone."

"Yes, Mikheev's a fine craftsman," said the magistrate, "and I even wonder that you could part with him."

"As if Mikheev's the only one! There's Cork Stepan, the carpenter, Milushkin, the bricklayer, Telyatnikov Maxim, the cobbler— they all went, I sold them all!" And when the magistrate asked why they had all gone, seeing they were craftsmen and people necessary for the household, Sobakevich replied with a wave of the hand: "Ah! just like that! I've turned foolish: come on, I said, let's sell them—and so I sold them like a fool!" Whereupon he hung his head as if he regretted having done so, and added: "A gray-haired man, and I still haven't grown wise."

"But, excuse me, Pavel Ivanovich," said the magistrate, "how is it you're buying peasants without land? Or is it for resettlement?"

"For resettlement."

"Well, resettlement is something else. And to what parts?"

"What parts ... to Kherson province."

"Oh, there's excellent land there!" said the magistrate, and he spoke in great praise of the size of the grass in that region. "And is there sufficient land?"

"Sufficient, as much as necessary for the peasants I've bought."

"A river or a pond?"

"A river. However, there's also a pond." Having said this, Chichikov glanced inadvertently at Sobakevich, and though Sobakevich was as immobile as ever, it seemed to him as if there were written on his face: "Oh, are you lying! there's nary a river there, nor a pond, nor any land at all!"

While the conversation continued, the witnesses gradually began to appear: the blinking prosecutor, already known to the reader, the inspector of the board of health, Trukhachevsky Be-gushkin, and others who, in Sobakevich's words, were a useless burden on the earth. Many of them were completely unknown to Chichikov: the lacking and the extras were recruited on the spot from among the office clerks. Not only was the archpriest Father Kiril's son brought, but even the archpriest himself. Each of the witnesses put himself down, with all his dignities and ranks, one in backhand script, one slanting forward, one simply all but upside down, putting himself in such letters as had never even been seen before in the Russian alphabet. The familiar Ivan Antonovich managed quite deftly: the deeds were recorded, marked, entered in the register and wherever else necessary, with a charge of half a percent plus the notice in the Gazette, and so Chichikov had to pay the smallest sum. The magistrate even ordered that he be charged only half the tax money, while the other half, in some unknown fashion, was transferred to the account of some other petitioner.

"And so," said the magistrate, when everything was done, "it only remains now to wet this tidy little purchase."

"I'm ready," said Chichikov. "It's for you to name the time. It would be a sin on my part if I didn't uncork two or three bottles of fizz for such a pleasant company."

"No, you're mistaking me: we'll provide the fizz ourselves," said the magistrate, "it's our obligation, our duty. You're our guest: we must treat you. Do you know what, gentlemen? For the time being this is what we'll do: we'll all go, just as we are, to the police chief's. He's our wonder-worker, he has only to wink as he passes a fish market or a cellar, and you know what a snack we'll have! And also, for the occasion, a little game of whist!"

To such a suggestion no one could object. The witnesses felt hungry at the mere mention of the fish market; they all straightaway picked up their hats and caps, and the session was ended. As they passed through the chancellery, Ivan Antonovich, the jug mug, with a courteous bow, said softly to Chichikov:

"You bought up a hundred thousand worth of peasants and gave me just one twenty-fiver for my labors."

"But what sort of peasants?" Chichikov answered him, also in a whisper. "The most empty and paltry folk, not worth even half that."

Ivan Antonovich understood that the visitor was of firm character and would not give more.

"And how much per soul did you pay Plyushkin?" Sobakevich whispered in his other ear.

"And why did you stick in that Sparrow?" Chichikov said in reply to that.

"What Sparrow?" said Sobakevich.

"That female, Elizaveta Sparrow, and what's more you took the a off the end."

"No, I never stuck in any Sparrow," said Sobakevich, and he went over to the other guests.

The guests finally arrived in a crowd at the police chief's house. The police chief was indeed a wonder-worker: having only just heard what was going on, he sent that same moment for a policeman, a perky fellow in patent leather jackboots, and seemed to whisper just two words in his ear, adding only: "Understand!"— and there, in the other room, while the guests were hard at their whist, there appeared on the table beluga, sturgeon, salmon, pressed caviar, freshly salted caviar, herring, red sturgeon, cheeses, smoked tongues and balyks —all from the fish market side. Then there appeared additions from the host's side, products of his own kitchen: a fish-head pie into which went the cheeks and cartilage of a three-hundred-pound sturgeon, another pie with mushrooms, fritters, dumplings, honey-stewed fruit. The police chief was in a certain way the father and benefactor of the town. Among the townspeople he was completely as in his own family, and stopped in at shops and on merchants' row as if visiting his own larder. Generally, he was, as they say, suited to his post, and understood his job to perfection. It was even hard to decide whether he had been created for the post or the post for him. The business was handled so intelligently that he received double the income of all his predecessors, and at the same time earned the love of the whole town. The merchants were the first to love him, precisely because he was not haughty; in fact, he stood godfather to their children, was chummy with them, and though he occasionally fleeced them badly, he did it somehow extremely deftly: he would pat the man on the shoulder, and laugh, and stand him to tea, and promise to come for a game of checkers, asking about everything: how's he doing, this and that. If he learned that a young one was a bit sick, he would suggest some medicine—in short, a fine fellow! He drove around in his droshky, keeping order, and at the same time dropping a word to one man or another: "Say, Mikheych, we ought to finish that card game some day." "Yes, Alexei Ivanovich," the man would reply, doffing his hat, "so we ought." "Well, Ilya Paramonych, stop by and have a look at my trotter: he'll outrun yours, brother; harness up your racing droshky, and we'll give it a try." The merchant, who was crazy about his own trotter, smiled at that with especial eagerness, as they say, and, stroking his beard, said: "Let's give it a try, Alexei Ivanovich!" At which point even the shop clerks usually took off their hats and glanced with pleasure at each other, as if wishing to say: "Alexei Ivanovich is a good man!" In short, he managed to win universal popularity, and the merchants' opinion of Alexei Ivanovich was that "though he does take, on the other hand he never gives you up."