Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

They went into the house. Chichikov was rather struck by the mixture of destitution with some glittering knickknacks of the latest luxury. Amid tattered utensils and furnishings—new bronze. Some Shakespeare was sitting on an inkstand; a fashionable ivory hand for scratching one's own back lay on the table. Khlobuev introduced the mistress of the house, his wife. She was topnotch. Even in Moscow she would have shown herself well. She was dressed fashionably, with taste. She preferred talking about the town and the theater that was being started there. Everything made it obvious that she liked the country even less than did her husband, and that she yawned more than Platonov when she was left alone. Soon the room was full of children, girls and boys. There were five of them. A sixth was carried in. They were all beautiful. The boys and girls were a joy to behold. They were dressed prettily and with taste, were cheerful and frisky. And that made it all the sadder to look at them. It would have been better if they had been dressed poorly, in skirts and shorts of simple ticking, running around in the yard, no different in any way from peasant children! A visitor came to call on the mistress. The ladies went to their half of the house. The children ran after them. The men were left by themselves.

Chichikov began the purchase. As is customary with all purchasers, he started by running down the estate he was purchasing. And, having run it down on all sides, he said:

"What, then, will your price be?"

"Do you know?" said Khlobuev. "I'm not going to ask a high price from you, I don't like that: it would also be unscrupulous on my part. Nor will I conceal from you that of the hundred souls registered on the census lists of my estate, not even fifty are actually there: the rest either died of epidemics or absented themselves without passports, so you ought to count them as dead. And therefore I ask you for only thirty thousand in all."

"Come, now—thirty thousand! The estate is neglected, people have died, and you want thirty thousand! Take twenty-five."

"Pavel Ivanovich! I could mortgage it for twenty-five thousand, you see? Then I'd get the twenty-five thousand and the estate would stay mine. I'm selling only because I need money quickly, and mortgaging means red tape, I'd have to pay the clerks, and I have nothing to pay them."

"Well, take the twenty-five thousand anyway."

Platonov felt ashamed for Chichikov.

"Buy it, Pavel Ivanovich," he said. "Any estate is worth that price. If you won't give thirty thousand for it, my brother and I will get together and buy it."

Chichikov got frightened . . .

"All right!" he said. "I'll pay you thirty thousand. Here, I'll give you two thousand now as a deposit, eight thousand in a week, and the remaining twenty thousand in a month."

"No, Pavel Ivanovich, only on condition that I get the money as soon as possible. Give me at least fifteen thousand now, and the rest no later than two weeks from now."

"But I don't have fifteen thousand! I have only ten thousand now. Let me get it together."

In other words, Chichikov was lying: he had twenty thousand.

"No, Pavel Ivanovich, if you please! I tell you that I must have fifteen thousand."

"But, really, I'm short five thousand. I don't know where to get it myself."

"I'll lend it to you," Platonov picked up.

"Perhaps, then!" said Chichikov, and he thought to himself: "Quite opportune, however, that he should lend it to me: in that case I can bring it tomorrow." The chest was brought in from the carriage, and ten thousand were taken from it for Khlobuev; the remaining five were promised for the next day: promised, yes; but the intention was to bring three; and the rest later, in two or three days, and, if possible, to delay a bit longer still. Pavel Ivanovich somehow especially disliked letting money leave his hands. And if there was an extreme necessity, still it seemed better to him to hand over the money tomorrow and not today. That is, he acted as we all do! We enjoy showing the petitioner the door. Let him cool his heels in the anteroom! As if he couldn't wait! What do we care that every hour, perhaps, is dear to him, and his affairs are suffering for it! "Come tomorrow, brother, today I somehow have no time."

"And where are you going to live afterwards?" Platonov asked Khlobuev. "Have you got another little estate?"

"No little estate, but I'll move to town. That had to be done in any case, not for ourselves but for the children. They'll need teachers of catechism, music, dance. One can't get that in the country."

"Not a crust of bread, and he wants to teach his children to dance!" thought Chichikov.

"Strange!" thought Platonov.

"Well, we must drink to the deal," said Khlobuev. "Hey, Kiryushka, bring us a bottle of champagne, brother."

"Not a crust of bread, yet he's got champagne!" thought Chichikov.

Platonov did not know what to think.

The champagne was brought. They drank three glasses each and got quite merry. Khlobuev relaxed and became intelligent and charming. Witticisms and anecdotes poured ceaselessly from him. There turned out to be much knowledge of life and the world in his talk! He saw many things so well and so correctly, he sketched his neighboring landowners in a few words, so aptly and so cleverly, saw so clearly everyone's defects and mistakes, knew so well the story of the ruined gentry—why, and how, and for what reason they had been ruined—was able to convey so originally and aptly their smallest habits, that the two men were totally enchanted by his talk and were ready to acknowledge him a most intelligent man.

"Listen," said Platonov, seizing his hand, "how is it that with such intelligence, experience, and knowledge of life, you cannot find ways of getting out of your difficult position?"

"Oh, there are ways!" said Khlobuev, and forthwith unloaded on them a whole heap of projects. They were all so absurd, so strange, so little consequent upon a knowledge of people and the world, that it remained only to shrug one's shoulders and say: "Good lord! what an infinite distance there is between knowledge of the world and the ability to use that knowledge!" Almost all the projects were based on the need for suddenly procuring a hundred or two hundred thousand somewhere. Then, it seemed to him, everything could be arranged properly, and the management would get under way, and all the holes would be patched, and the income would be quadrupled, and it would be possible for him to repay all his debts. And he would end with the words: "But what do you want me to do? There simply is no such benefactor as would decide to lend me two hundred or at least one hundred thousand! Clearly, God is against it."

"What else," thought Chichikov. "As if God would send such a fool two hundred thousand!"

"There is this aunt of mine who's good for three million," said Khlobuev, "a pious little old lady: she gives to churches and monasteries, but she's a bit tight about helping her neighbor. And she's a very remarkable little old lady. An aunt from olden times, worth having a look at. She has some four hundred canaries alone. Lapdogs, and lady companions, and servants such as don't exist nowadays. The youngest of her servants is about sixty, though she shouts 'Hey, boy!' to him. If a guest behaves improperly somehow, she orders him bypassed one course at dinner. And they actually do it."

Platonov laughed.

"And what is her last name, and where does she live?" asked Chichikov.

"She lives here in town—Alexandra Ivanovna Khanasarova."

"Why don't you turn to her?" Platonov said sympathetically.

"It seems to me, if she just entered a little more into the situation of your family, she'd be unable to refuse you, however tight she is."

"Ah, no, quite able! My aunt has a hard character. This little old lady is a rock, Platon Mikhalych! And there are already enough toadies hanging around her without me. There's one there who is after a governorship, foisted himself off as her relative . . . God help him! maybe he'll succeed! God help them all! I never knew how to fawn, and now less than ever: my back doesn't bend anymore."