Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

Who, then, was the occupant of this estate, which, like an impregnable fortress, could not even be approached from here, but had to be approached from the other side—through meadows, wheat fields, and, finally, a sparse oak grove, spread picturesquely over the green, right up to the cottages and the master's house? Who was the occupant, the master and owner of this estate? To what happy man did this remote corner belong?

To Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov, landowner of the Tremalakhan district, a young gentleman, thirty-three years old, a collegiate secretary, an unmarried man.

And what sort of man, then, of what disposition, what qualities and character, was the landowner Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov?

To be sure, these inquiries ought to be addressed to his neighbors. One neighbor, who belonged to the race of retired staff officers and firebrands, expressed himself about him in a laconic expression: "A natural-born brute!" The general who lived six miles away used to say: "A young man, no fool, but with too many ideas in his head. I could be useful to him, because I have in Petersburg, and even at the ..." The general never finished his speech. The district captain of police observed: "No, but his rank is—trash; and what if I come by tomorrow to collect the arrears!" A muzhik from his estate, if asked what sort of master he had, usually gave no answer. In short, the public opinion of him was rather unfavorable than favorable.

And yet in his essence Andrei Ivanovich was neither a good nor a bad being, but simply—a burner of the daylight. Since there are already not a few people in the world occupied with burning the daylight, why should Tentetnikov not burn it as well? However, here in a few words is the full journal of his day, and from it the reader himself can judge what his character was.

In the morning he awoke very late and, sitting up, stayed in bed for a long time rubbing his eyes. His eyes, as ill luck would have it, were small, and therefore the rubbing of them was performed for an extraordinarily long time. All the while the servant Mikhailo would be standing at the door with a washbasin and a towel. This poor Mikhailo would stand there for one hour, two hours, then go to the kitchen, come back again—the master would still be rubbing his eyes and sitting on his bed. Finally he would get up, wash himself, put on his dressing gown, and come out to the drawing room to have tea, coffee, cocoa, and even fresh milk, taking little sips of each, crumbling his bread unmercifully, and shamelessly scattering pipe ashes everywhere. Two hours he would spend over his tea; what's more, he would take a cold cup and with it move to the window looking out on the yard. And at the window the following scene would take place each time.

First of all, the unshaven butler Grigory would bellow, addressing himself to the housekeeper, Perfilyevna, in the following terms:

"You wretched petty-landowning soul, you nonentity! You'd better shut up, vile wench, and that's all!"

"I take no orders from the likes of you, you guzzling gullet!" the nonentity, that is, Perfilyevna, would shout back.

"Nobody can get along with you, you even scrap with the steward, you barnyard piddler!" Grigory would bellow.

"The steward's a thief, just like you!" the nonentity would shout back, so that it could be heard in the village. "You're both drunkards, you're ruining the master, you bottomless barrels! You think the master doesn't know it? There he is, and he can hear you.

"Where is he?"

"He's sitting there in the window; he can see everything."

And indeed the master was sitting in the window and could see everything.

To crown it all, a house serf's brat was yelling his head off, having received a whack from his mother; a borzoi hound was whimpering, crouched on the ground, for reason of being scalded with boiling hot water by the cook, who was peeking out from the kitchen. In short, everything was howling and squealing insufferably. The master could see and hear it all. And only when it became so unbearable that it even prevented the master from doing nothing, would he send to tell them to make their noise more quietly.

Two hours before dinner, Andrei Ivanovich would go to his study in order to occupy himself truly and seriously. The occupation was indeed a serious one. It consisted in pondering a work which had been long and continuously pondered. This work was to embrace Russia from all viewpoints—civic, political, religious, philosophical; to resolve the difficult problems and questions posed for her by the times; and to define clearly her great future—in short, a work of vast scope. But so far it had all ended with the pondering; the pen got well chewed, doodles appeared on the paper, then it was all pushed aside, a book was taken up instead and not put down until dinnertime. The book was read with the soup, the sauce, the stew, and even the pastry, so that some dishes got cold as a result, while others were sent back quite untouched. Then came a pipe and the sipping of a cup of coffee, then a game of chess with himself. What was done from then until suppertime it is really quite difficult to say. It seems that simply nothing was done.

And thus, as alone as could be in the whole world, this young man of thirty-three spent his time, sitting around in a dressing gown without a tie. He did not feel like strolling, like walking, did not even want to go upstairs and have a look at the distances and views, did not even want to open the windows and let some fresh air into his room, and the beautiful view of the countryside, which no visitor could admire with indifference, was as if it did not exist for the owner himself.

From this journal the reader can see that Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov belonged to that race of people, so numerous in Russia, who are known as sluggards, lie-abeds, sloths, and the like.

Whether such characters are born that way or become that way later on—who can answer? I think that, instead of an answer, it would be better to tell the story of Andrei Ivanovich's childhood and upbringing.

In childhood he was a clever, talented boy, now lively, now pensive. By a lucky or unlucky chance, he landed in a school of which the director was, in his own way, a remarkable man, despite certain whimsicalities. Alexander Petrovich possessed the gift of sensing the nature of the Russian man and knew the language in which to speak to him. No child left his presence crestfallen; on the contrary, even after a severe reprimand, he would feel a certain cheerfulness and a desire to smooth over the nastiness or trespass committed. The crowd of his charges seemed to look so mischievous, casual, and lively that one might have taken them for disorderly, unbridled freebooters. But that would have been a mistake: one man's power was felt only too well by these freebooters. There was no mischief maker or prankster who would not come to him on his own and tell all the mischief he had done. The least movement of their thoughts was known to him. In all things he acted extraordinarily. He used to say that one ought first of all to awaken ambition in a man—he called ambition the force that pushes a man forward—without which he cannot be moved to activity. Many times he did not restrain playfulness and prankishness at all: in elementary playfulness he saw the awakening development of the soul's qualities. He needed it in order to see precisely what lay hidden in a child. So an intelligent doctor looks calmly at the temporary fits approaching and the rashes appearing on the body, not combatting them, but studying them attentively, so as to find out for certain precisely what is concealed inside the man.

He did not have many teachers: the majority of the subjects he taught himself. And, truth to tell, he knew how to convey the very soul of a subject in a few words, without any of the pedantic terminology, the enormous views and opinions that young professors like to flaunt, so that even a young child could see clearly the precise need for this subject. He maintained that what man needed most was the science of life, that once he knew that, he would then know for himself what he must occupy himself with predominantly.