Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

The visitor was about to get down to business and tell her news. But the exclamation that the lady agreeable in all respects let out at that moment suddenly gave a different direction to the conversation.

"What a gay little print!" the lady agreeable in all respects exclaimed, looking at the dress of the simply agreeable lady.

"Yes, very gay. Praskovya Fyodorovna, however, finds that it would be nicer if the checks were a bit smaller and the speckles were not brown but light blue. Her sister was sent a fabric—it's simply charming beyond words; imagine to yourself: narrow little stripes, as narrow as human imagination can possibly conceive, a light blue background, and between the stripes it's all spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs . . . Incomparable, in short! One can say decidedly that nothing comparable has ever existed in the world."

"It's gaudy, my dear."

"Ah, no, not gaudy."

"Ah, gaudy!"

It must be noted that the lady agreeable in all respects was something of a materialist, inclined to negation and doubt, and she rejected quite a lot in life.

Here the simply agreeable lady explained that it was by no means gaudy, and cried out:

"Besides, I congratulate you: flounces are no longer being worn."

"Not worn?"

"It's little festoons now."

"Ah, that's not pretty—little festoons!"

"Little festoons, little festoons all over: a pelerine of little festoons, sleeves with little festoons, epaulettes of little festoons, little festoons below, little festoons everywhere."

"It's not pretty, Sofya Ivanovna, if it's little festoons all over."

"It's sweet, Anna Grigorievna, unbelievably sweet. It's made with double seams: wide armholes and above . . . But here, here is something amazing for you, now you're going to say . . . Well, be amazed: imagine, the bodices are even longer now, vee-shaped in front, and the front busk goes beyond all bounds; the skirt is gathered around as it used to be with the old-fashioned farthingale, and they even pad it out a little behind with cotton batting, so as to make for a perfect belle-femme."

"Now that's just—I declare!" said the lady agreeable in all respects, making a movement of her head expressive of dignity.

"Precisely, it is indeed—I declare!" replied the simply agreeable lady.

"As you like, but I wouldn't follow that for anything."

"Neither would I . . . Really, when you imagine what fashion comes to sometimes . . . it's beyond everything! I begged my sister to give me the pattern just for fun; my Melanya's started sewing."

"So you have the pattern?" the lady agreeable in all respects cried out, not without a noticeable tremor of excitement.

"Of course, my sister brought it."

"Give it to me, dear heart, by all that's holy."

"Ah, I've already promised it to Praskovya Fyodorovna. Perhaps after her."

"Who's going to wear it after Praskovya Fyodorovna? It would be all too strange on your part to prefer others to your own."

"But she's also my aunt twice removed."

"God knows what kind of aunt she is to you: it's on your husband's side . . . No, Sofya Ivanovna, I don't even want to listen, since you intend to hand me such an insult. . . Obviously, I'm already boring to you, obviously you wish to stop all acquaintance with me."

Poor Sofya Ivanovna absolutely did not know what to do. She herself felt that she had put herself between a rock and a hard place. So much for her boasting! She was ready to prick her stupid tongue all over with needles for it.

"Well, and how's our charmer?" the lady agreeable in all respects said meanwhile.

"Ah, my God! why am I sitting in front of you like this? Aren't I a good one! Do you know, Anna Grigorievna, what I've come to you with?" Here the visitor's breath was taken away; words, like hawks, were ready to rush in pursuit of each other, and one had to be as inhuman as her bosom friend to venture to stop her.

"No matter how you go praising and exalting him," she said, with greater animation than usual, "I will say straight out, and say it to his face, that he is a worthless man, worthless, worthless, worthless."

"But just listen to what I'm going to reveal to you ...”

"Word is going around that he's good-looking, but he's not good-looking at all, not at all, and his nose ... a most disagreeable nose."

"But let me tell you, just let me tell you . . . darling Anna Grigorievna, let me tell you! It's a whole story, do you understand, a story, sconapel istwar," [43] A phonetic transcription of mispronounced French, meaning: ce qu'on appelle histoire ("what's known as a story, or scandal"). There will be other such transcriptions in what follows: "orerr" for horreur, "scandaleusities," and the postmaster's "finzerb" for fines herbes, the minced dried herbs used in cooking, which he apparently thinks is the name of some dish. the visitor said with an expression almost of despair and in an utterly imploring voice. It will do no harm to mention that the conversation of the two ladies was interspersed with a great many foreign words and sometimes entire long phrases in French. But filled though the author is with reverence for the saving benefits that the French language brings to Russia, filled though he is with reverence for the praiseworthy custom of our high society which expresses itself in it at all hours of the day—out of a deep feeling of love for the fatherland, of course—for all that he simply cannot bring himself to introduce any phrase from any foreign language whatsoever into this Russian poem of his. And so let us continue in Russian.

"What is the story?"

"Ah, Anna Grigorievna, dear heart, if you could only imagine the position I was in, just fancy: this morning the archpriest's wife comes to me—the wife of the archpriest, Father Kiril—and what do you think: our humble fellow, our visitor here, is quite a one, eh?"

"What, you don't mean he was making sheep's eyes at the arch-priest's wife?"

"Ah, Anna Grigorievna, if it was only sheep it would be nothing; but just listen to what the archpriest's wife said: the lady landowner Korobochka comes to her, she says, all frightened and pale as death, and tells her, and how she tells her, just listen, it's a perfect novel: suddenly, in the dead of night, when the whole house is asleep, there comes a knocking at the gate, the most terrible knocking you could possibly imagine, and a shout: 'Open up, open up, or we'll break down the gate!' How do you like that? What do you think of our charmer after that?"

"And this Korobochka is what, young and good-looking?"

"Not a whit, an old crone."

"Ah, how charming! So he's taken up with an old crone. Talk about our ladies' taste after that! They found who to fall in love with!"

"But no, Anna Grigorievna, it's not at all what you're thinking. Just imagine to yourself how he comes in, armed from head to foot like Rinaldo Rinaldini, [44] Rinaldo Rinaldini, an Italian brigand, is the eponymous hero of a novel by the German writer Christian August Vulpius (1762-1827), which had a resounding success throughout Europe and created the type of the Italian brigand in literature. Vulpius was Goethe's brother-in-law. and demands: 'Sell me all your souls that have died.' And Korobochka answers very reasonably, saying: 'I can't sell them, because they're dead.' 'No,' he says, 'they're not dead, it's my business to know whether they're dead or not, and they're not dead,' he shouts, 'they're not, they're not!'

In short, he caused a terrible scandal: the whole village came running, babies were crying, everything was shouting, no one understood anyone else—well, simply orerr, orerr, orerr! . . . But you cannot imagine to yourself, Anna Grigorievna, how alarmed I was when I heard it all. 'Dearest mistress,' Mashka says to me, 'look in the mirror: you're pale.' 'Who cares about the mirror,' I say, 'I must go and tell Anna Grigorievna.' That same moment I order the carriage readied: the coachman Andryushka asks me where to go, and I cannot even say anything, I just gaze into his eyes like a fool—I think he thought I was mad. Ah, Anna Grigorievna, if you could only imagine how alarmed I was!"