Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

All these discussions, opinions, and rumors, for some unknown reason, affected the poor prosecutor most of all. They affected him to such a degree that, on coming home, he started thinking and thinking, and suddenly, without a by-your-leave, as they say, he died. Whether he was seized by paralysis or by something else, in any case, as he sat there, he simply flopped off his chair onto his back. Clasping their hands, they cried out, as is customary: "Oh, my God!" and sent for the doctor to let his blood, but saw that the prosecutor was already a mere soulless body. Only then did they learn with commiseration that the deceased indeed had had a soul, though in his modesty he had never shown it. And yet the appearance of death was as terrible in a small as in a great man: he who not so long ago had walked, moved, played whist, signed various papers, and was seen so often among the officials with his bushy eyebrows and winking eye, was now lying on the table, his left eye not winking at all, but one eyebrow still raised with some quizzical expression. What the deceased was asking—why he had died, or why he had lived—God alone knows.

But this, however, is incongruous! this is incompatible with anything! this is impossible—that officials should scare themselves so; to create such nonsense, to stray so far from the truth, when even a child could see what the matter was! So many readers will say, reproaching the author for incongruousness or calling the poor officials fools, because man is generous with the word "fool" and is ready to serve it up to his neighbor twenty times a day. It is enough to have one stupid side out of ten to be accounted a fool, aside from the nine good ones. It is easy for the reader to judge, looking down from his comfortable corner at the top, from which the whole horizon opens out, upon all that is going on below, where man can see only the nearest object. And in the world chronicle of mankind there are many whole centuries which, it would seem, should be crossed out and abolished as unnecessary. There have been many errors in the world which, it would seem, even a child would not make now. What crooked, blind, narrow, impassable, far-straying paths mankind has chosen, striving to attain eternal truth, while a whole straight road lay open before it, like the road leading to a magnificent dwelling meant for a king's mansions! Broader and more splendid than all other roads it is, lit by the sun and illumined all night by lamps, yet people have flowed past it in the blind darkness. So many times already, though guided by a sense come down from heaven, they have managed to waver and go astray, have managed in broad daylight to get again into an impassable wilderness, have managed again to blow a blinding fog into each other's eyes, and, dragging themselves after marsh-lights, have managed finally to reach the abyss, only to ask one another in horror: where is the way out, where is the path? The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards.

Chichikov knew nothing whatsoever about all that. As luck would have it, he had caught a slight cold at the time—a swollen tooth and a minor throat infection, which the climate of many of our provincial towns is so generous in dispensing. So that his life should not, God forbid, somehow cease without posterity, he decided he had better stay home for about three days. During these days he constantly rinsed his throat with milk and fig, eating the fig afterwards, and went around with a camomile- and camphor-filled compress tied to his cheek. Wishing to occupy his time with something, he made several new and detailed lists of all the purchased peasants, even read some tome of the Duchess de La Vallière [53] The reference is in all likelihood to the novel entitled The Duchess de La Valliere (referred to in volume 2, chapter 3 of Dead Souls as The Countess La Valliere), the work of the French writer Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis (1746-1830), who was teacher of the children of the duke of Orléans. It may also be to a work of the duchess de La Valliere herself, Louise de La Baume Le Blanc (1644-1710), once a favorite of Louis XIV, who ended her life as a Carmelite nun and wrote pious reflections on her sinful past. that turned up in his trunk, looked through all the objects and little notes in the chest, read some over again, and all of it bored him greatly. He was simply unable to understand what it could mean that not one of the town officials had come even once to inquire after his health, whereas still recently there was a droshky constantly standing in front of the inn—now the postmaster's, now the prosecutor's, now the head magistrate's. He merely shrugged his shoulders as he paced the room. At last he felt better and was God knows how glad when he saw it was possible to go out into the fresh air. Without delay, he set about immediately with his toilet, unlocked his chest, poured hot water into a glass, took out brush and soap, and got down to shaving, for which, incidentally, it was high time and season, because, having felt his chin with his hand and glanced in the mirror, he had declared: "Eh, quite a forest scrawling there!" And, indeed, forest or not, there was a rather thick crop coming up all over his cheeks and chin. After shaving, he turned to dressing, so briskly and quickly that he all but jumped out of his trousers. Finally, dressed, sprinkled with eau de cologne, and wrapped up warmly, he took himself outside, having bound up his cheek as a precaution. His going out, as with any man who has recovered from an illness, was indeed festive. Whatever came his way acquired a laughing look: the houses, the passing muzhiks—who, incidentally, were rather serious, one of them having just managed to give his fellow a cuffing. He intended to pay his first call on the governor. On the way many different thoughts came to his mind; the blonde was whirling through his head, his imagination was even beginning to frolic slightly, and he himself was already starting to joke and chuckle at himself a bit. In this mood he found himself before the governor's entrance. He was already in the front hall, hastily throwing off his overcoat, when the doorkeeper stunned him with the totally unexpected words:

"I am ordered not to admit you!"

"How? what's that? you obviously didn't recognize me? Take a closer look at my face!" Chichikov said to him.

"How should I not recognize you, it's not the first time I'm seeing you," the doorkeeper said. "No, it's precisely you alone that I'm not to let in, all the rest are allowed."

"Look at this, now! But why? What for?"

"Them's the orders, so obviously it's proper," said the doorkeeper, adding to it the word "Yes." After which he stood before him totally at ease, not keeping that benign look with which he formerly used to hasten and take his overcoat from him. He seemed to be thinking, as he looked at him: "Oho! if the masters are showing you the door, then clearly you're some kind of riffraff!"

"Incomprehensible!" Chichikov thought to himself, and set off straightaway for the head magistrate's, but the magistrate got so embarrassed on seeing him that he could not put two words together, and talked such rot that they both even felt ashamed. On leaving him, Chichikov tried his best as he went along to explain and make some sense of what the magistrate had meant and what his words might have referred to, but he was unable to understand anything. After that he called on others—the police chief, the vice-governor, the postmaster—but they all either did not receive him or received him so strangely, made such forced and incomprehensible conversation, were so much at a loss, and such a muddle came of it all, that he doubted the soundness of their brains. He tried calling on one or two others, to find out the reason at least, but he did not get at any reason. Like one half asleep, he wandered the town aimlessly, unable to decide whether he had gone out of his mind or the officials had lost their wits, whether it was all happening in a dream or reality had cooked up a folly worse than any dream. Late, almost at dusk, he returned to his inn, which he had left in such good spirits, and out of boredom ordered tea to be brought. Deep in thought and in some senseless reflection on the strangeness of his position, he began pouring tea, when suddenly the door of his room opened and there, quite unexpectedly, stood Nozdryov.