Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

Where will one not find pleasures? They also live in Petersburg, despite its stern, somber appearance. A biting twenty below zero outside, a witch-blizzard shrieking like a desperate demon, pulling the collars of fur coats and greatcoats over heads, powdering men's mustaches and animals' muzzles, but friendly is the light in a window somewhere high up, perhaps even on the fourth floor; in a cozy room, by the light of modest stearin candles, to the hum of the samovar, a heart- and soul-warming conversation goes on, a bright page from an inspired Russian poet, such as God has bestowed upon His Russia, is being read, and a youth's young heart flutters so ardently and loftily, as never happens in any other lands, even under splendid southern skies.

Tentetnikov soon got accustomed to the service, only it became not the first thing or aim, as he had thought at the start, but something secondary. It served to organize his time, making him better cherish the remaining minutes. The uncle, the actual state councillor, was already beginning to think that something good would come of his nephew, when the nephew suddenly mucked things up. It must be said that among Andrei Ivanovich's friends there were two of what are known as disgruntled men. They were the sort of troublesomely strange characters who are unable to bear with equanimity not only injustice, but even anything that in their eyes looks like injustice. Basically kind, but disorderly in their actions, they were full of intolerance towards others. Their ardent talk and loftily indignant manner influenced him greatly. Arousing the nerves and the spirit of vexation in him, they made him notice all the trifles he had never even thought of paying attention to before. He suddenly took a dislike to Fyodor Fyodorovich Lenitsyn, the head of the department he worked in, a man of most agreeable appearance. He began to find myriads of faults in him, and came to hate him for having such a sugary expression when talking to a superior, and straightaway becoming all vinegar when addressing a subordinate. "I could forgive him," said Tentetnikov, "if the change in his face did not occur so quickly; but it's right there in front of my eyes, both sugar and vinegar at once!" After that he started noticing every step. It seemed to him that Fyodor Fyodorovich gave himself far too many airs, that he had all the ways of a minor official, to wit: making note of all those who did not come to congratulate him on festive occasions, even taking revenge on all those whose names were not found on the doorkeeper's list, and a host of other sinful accessories which neither a good nor a wicked man can do without. He felt a nervous loathing for him. Some evil spirit prompted him to do something unpleasant to Fyodor Fyodorovich. He sought it out with some special enjoyment, and he succeeded. Once he exchanged such words with him that the authorities declared he must either apologize or retire. He sent in his resignation. His uncle, the actual state councillor, came to him all frightened and beseeching.

"For Christ's sake! have mercy, Andrei Ivanovich, what are you doing? Leaving a career that has begun so profitably, only because the superior happens to be not so . . . What is this? If one looked at such things, there would be no one left in the service. Be reasonable, be reasonable! There's still time! Renounce your pride and your amour propre, go and talk with him!"

"That's not the point, dear uncle," said the nephew. "It's not hard for me to apologize, the more so as I am indeed to blame. He is my superior, and I should never have spoken to him in that way. But the point is this: you forget that I have a different service; I have three hundred peasant souls, my estate is in disorder, and the steward is a fool. It will be no great loss to the state if someone else sits in the office copying papers instead of me, but it will be a great loss if three hundred men don't pay their taxes. I am a landowner: the title is not a worthless one. If I take care to preserve, protect, and improve the lot of the people entrusted to me, and present the state with three hundred fit, sober, and industrious subjects—will my service be in any way worse than the service of some department chief Lenitsyn?"

The actual state councillor stood gaping in astonishment. He had not expected such a torrent of words. After a moment's thought, he began in the following vein:

"But all the same ... all the same . . . why go perish yourself in the country? What sort of society is there among muzhiks? Here, after all, you can come across a general or a prince in the street. If you wish, you can walk past some handsome public buildings, or else go and look at the Neva, but there whatever comes along is either a muzhik or a wench. Why condemn yourself to ignorance for the rest of your life?"

So spoke his uncle, the actual state councillor. He himself had never once in his life walked any other street than the one that led to his place of service, where there were no handsome public buildings; he never noticed anyone he met, either general or prince; he had not the foggiest notion of the fancies that are the attraction of a capital for people greedy for license, and had never once in his life even been in a theater. He said all this solely in order to stir up the young man's ambition and work on his imagination. In this, however, he did not succeed: Tentetnikov stubbornly held his own. He had begun to weary of the departments and the capital. The countryside had begun to appear as a sort of haven of freedom, a nourisher of thoughts and intentions, the only path for useful activity. Some two weeks after this conversation, he was already in the vicinity of the places where his childhood had flown by. How it all started coming back to him, how his heart began to beat when he felt he was nearing his father's estate! He had already completely forgotten many places and gazed curiously, like a newcomer, at the beautiful views. When the road raced through a narrow ravine into the thick of a vast, overgrown forest, and he saw above, below, over, and under himself three-century-old oaks of enormous girth, mixed with silver firs, elms, and black poplars that overtopped the white, and when, to the question, "Whose forest?" he was told, "Tentetnikov's"; when, emerging from the forest, the road raced across meadows, past aspen groves, willows, and vines young and old, with a view of the distant mountains, and flew over bridges which in various places crossed one and the same river, leaving it now to the right, now to the left of him, and when, to the question, "Whose fields and water meadows?" he was answered, "Tentetnikov's"; when, after that, the road went uphill and over a level elevation past unharvested fields of wheat, rye, and oats on one side, and on the other past all the places he had just driven by, which all suddenly appeared in the picturesque distance, and when, gradually darkening, the road started to enter and then did enter under the shade of wide-spreading trees, scattered over a green carpet right up to the estate, and before him peasant cottages and red-roofed manor buildings began to flash; when the ardently pounding heart knew even without asking where it had come to—the constantly accumulating feelings finally burst out in almost these words: "Well, haven't I been a fool all this while? Destiny appointed me the owner of an earthly paradise, a prince, and I got myself enslaved as a scrivener in an office! After studying, being educated, enlightened, laying up quite a large store of information necessary precisely in order to direct people, to improve the whole region, to fulfill the manifold duties of a landowner as judge, manager, keeper of order, I entrusted this place to an ignorant steward! And instead of that chose what?—copying papers, which a cantonist who never went to any school can do incomparably better!" And once again Andrei Ivanovich Tentetnikov called himself a fool.