Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

"Well, some private position, then. Go and become a steward."

"But who would entrust an estate to me! I've squandered my own."

"Well, if you're threatened with starvation and death, you really must undertake something. I'll ask my brother whether he can solicit some position in town through someone."

"No, Platon Mikhailovich," said Khlobuev, sighing and squeezing his hand hard, "I'm not good for anything now. I became decrepit before my old age, and there's lower-back pain on account of my former sins, and rheumatism in my shoulder. I'm not up to it! Why squander government money! Even without that there are many who serve for the sake of lucrative posts. God forbid that because of me, because my salary must be paid, the taxes on poorer folk should be raised: it's hard for them as it is with this host of bloodsuckers. No, Platon Mikhailovich, forget it."

"What a fix!" thought Platonov. "This is worse than my hibernation."

Meanwhile, Kostanzhoglo and Chichikov, walking a good distance behind them, were speaking thus with each other:

"Look how he's let everything go!" Kostanzhoglo said, pointing a finger. "Drove his muzhiks into such poverty! If there's cattle plague, it's no time to look after your own goods. Go and sell what you have, and supply the muzhiks with cattle, so that they don't go even for one day without the means of doing their work. But now it would take years to set things right: the muzhiks have all grown lazy, drunk, and rowdy."

"So that means it's not at all profitable to buy such an estate now?" asked Chichikov.

Here Kostanzhoglo looked at him as if he wanted to say: "What an ignoramus you are! Must I start you at the primer level?"

"Unprofitable! but in three years I'd be getting twenty thousand a year from this estate. That's how unprofitable it is! Ten miles away. A trifle! And what land! just look at the land! It's all water meadows. No, I'd plant flax and produce some five thousand worth of flax alone; I'd plant turnips, and make some four thousand on turnips. And look over there—rye is growing on the hillside; it all just seeded itself. He didn't sow rye, I know that. No, this estate's worth a hundred and fifty thousand, not forty."

Chichikov began to fear lest Khlobuev overhear them, and so he dropped still farther behind.

"Look how much land he's left waste!" Kostanzhoglo was saying, beginning to get angry. "At least he should have sent word beforehand, some volunteers would have trudged over here. Well, if you've got nothing to plough with, then dig a kitchen garden. You'd have a kitchen garden anyway. He forced his muzhiks to go without working for four years. A trifle! But that alone is enough to corrupt and ruin them forever! They've already grown used to being ragamuffins and vagabonds! It's already become their way of life." And, having said that, Kostanzhoglo spat, a bilious disposition overshadowed his brow with a dark cloud . . .

"I cannot stay here any longer: it kills me to look at this disorder and desolation! You can finish it with him on your own now. Quickly take the treasure away from this fool. He only dishonors the divine gift!"

And, having said this, Kostanzhoglo bade farewell to Chichikov, and, catching up with the host, began saying good-bye to him, too.

"Good gracious, Konstantin Fyodorovich," the surprised host said, "you've just come—and home!"

"I can't. It's necessary for me to be at home," Kostanzhoglo said, took his leave, got into his droshky, and drove off.

Khlobuev seemed to understand the cause of his departure.

"Konstantin Fyodorovich couldn't stand it," he said. "I feel that it's not very cheery for such a proprietor as he to look at such wayward management. Believe me, I cannot, I cannot, Pavel Ivanovich ... I sowed almost no grain this year! On my honor. I had no seed, not to mention nothing to plough with. Your brother, Platon Mikhailovich, is said to be an extraordinary man; and of Konstantin Fyodorovich it goes without saying—he's a Napoleon of sorts. I often think, in fact: 'Now, why is so much intelligence given to one head? Now, if only one little drop of it could get into my foolish pate, if only so that I could keep my house! I don't know how to do anything, I can't do anything!' Ah, Pavel Ivanovich, take it into your care! Most of all I pity the poor muzhiks. I feel that I was never able to be . . . [v] what do you want me to do, I can't be exacting and strict. And how could I get them accustomed to order if I myself am disorderly! I'd set them free right now, but the Russian man is somehow so arranged, he somehow can't do without being prodded . . . He'll just fall asleep, he'll just get moldy."

"That is indeed strange," said Platonov. "Why is it that with us, unless you keep a close eye on the simple man, he turns into a drunkard and a scoundrel?"

"Lack of education," observed Chichikov.

"Well, God knows about that. We were educated, and how do we live? I went to the university and listened to lectures in all fields, yet not only did I not learn the art and order of living, but it seems I learned best the art of spending more money on various new refinements and comforts, and became better acquainted with the objects for which one needs money. Is it because there was no sense in my studies? Not really: it's the same with my other comrades. Maybe two or three of them derived something truly useful for themselves from it, and maybe that was because they were intelligent to begin with, but the rest only tried to learn what's bad for one's health and fritters away one's money. By God!

We went and studied only so as to applaud the professors, to hand them out awards, and not to receive anything from them. And so we choose from education that which, after all, is on the mean side; we snatch the surface, but the thing itself we don't take. No, Pavel Ivanovich, it's because of something else that we don't know how to live, but what it is, by God, I don't know."

"There must be reasons," said Chichikov.

Poor Khlobuev sighed deeply and spoke thus:

"Sometimes, really, it seems to me that the Russian is somehow a hopeless man. There's no willpower in him, no courage for constancy. You want to do everything—and can do nothing. You keep thinking—starting tomorrow you'll begin a new life, starting tomorrow you'll begin doing everything as you ought to, starting tomorrow you'll go on a diet—not a bit of it: by the evening of that same day you overeat so much that you just blink your eyes and can't move your tongue, you sit like an owl staring at everybody—and it's the same with everything."

"One needs a supply of reasonableness," said Chichikov, "one must consult one's reasonableness every moment, conduct a friendly conversation with it."

"Come, now!" said Khlobuev. "Really, it seems to me that we're not born for reasonableness at all. I don't believe any of us is reasonable. If I see that someone is even living decently, collecting money and putting it aside—I still don't believe it. When he's old, the devil will have his way with him—he'll blow it all at once! We're all the same: noblemen and muzhiks, educated and uneducated. There was one clever muzhik: made a hundred thousand out of nothing, and, once he'd made the hundred thousand, he got the crazy idea of taking a bath in champagne, so he took a bath in champagne. But I think we've looked it all over. There isn't any more. Unless you want to glance at the mill? It has no wheel, however, and the building is good for nothing."

"Then why look at it!" said Chichikov.

"In that case, let's go home." And they all turned their steps towards the house.

The views were all the same on the way back. Untidy disorder kept showing its ugly appearance everywhere. Everything was unmended and untended. Only a new puddle had got itself added to the middle of the street. An angry woman in greasy sackcloth was beating a poor girl half to death and cursing all devils up and down. Two muzhiks stood at a distance, gazing with stoic indifference at the drunken wench's wrath. One was scratching his behind, the other was yawning. Yawning was evident in the buildings as well. The roofs were also yawning. Platonov, looking at them, yawned. "My future property—my muzhiks," thought Chichikov, "hole upon hole, and patch upon patch!" And, indeed, on one of the cottages a whole gate had been put in place of the roof; the fallen-in windows were propped with laths filched from the master's barn. In short, it seemed that the system of Trishka's caftan [64] has been introduced into the management: the cuffs and skirts were cut off to patch the elbows.