Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

For his part, Chichikov also looked brother Vassily over as far as decency allowed. He was shorter than Platon, his hair was darker, and his face far less handsome; but in the features of his face there was much life and animation. One could see that he did not dwell in drowsiness and hibernation.

"You know what I've decided, Vassily?" brother Platon said.

"What?" asked Vassily.

"To take a trip around holy Russia with Pavel Ivanovich here: it may just loosen and limber up my spleen."

"How did you decide so suddenly ... ?" Vassily started to say, seriously perplexed by such a decision, and he almost added: "And, what's more, think of going with a man you've never seen before, who may be trash or devil knows what!" And, filled with mistrust, he began studying Chichikov out of the corner of his eye, and saw that he behaved with extraordinary decency, keeping his head agreeably inclined a bit to one side, and with the same respectfully cordial expression on his face, so that there was no way of knowing what sort of man Chichikov was.

Silently the three of them walked down the road, to the left of which there was a white stone church flashing among the trees, and to the right the buildings of the master's house, which were also beginning to appear among the trees. At last the gates appeared. They entered the courtyard, where stood the old manor house under its high roof. Two enormous lindens growing in the middle of the courtyard covered almost half of it with their shade. Through their low-hanging, bushy branches the walls of the house barely flickered from behind. Under the lindens stood several long benches. Brother Vassily invited Chichikov to be seated. Chichikov sat down, and Platonov sat down. The whole courtyard was filled with the fragrance of flowering lilacs and bird cherry, which, hanging from the garden into the yard on all sides over the very pretty birch fence that surrounded it, looked like a flowering chain or a bead necklace crowning it.

An adroit and deft lad of about seventeen, in a handsome pink cotton shirt, brought and set down before them carafes of water and a variety of many-colored kvasses that fizzed like lemonade. Having set the carafes down before them, he went over to a tree and, taking the hoe that was leaning against it, went to the garden. All the household serfs of the Platonov brothers worked in the garden, all the servants were gardeners, or, better, there were no servants, but the gardeners sometimes performed their duties. Brother Vassily always maintained that one could do without servants. Anyone can bring anything, and it was not worth having a special class of people for that; the Russian man is good, efficient, handsome, nimble, and hardworking only as long as he goes about in a shirt and homespun jacket, but as soon as he gets into a German frock coat, he becomes awkward, uncomely, inefficient, and lazy. He maintained that he keeps himself clean only so long as he wears a shirt and homespun jacket, but as soon as he gets into a German frock coat, he stops changing his shirt, does not go to the bathhouse, sleeps in the frock coat, and under it breeds bedbugs, fleas, and devil knows what. In this he may even have been right. The people on their estate dressed somehow especially neatly and nattily, and one would have had to go far to find such handsome shirts and jackets.

"Would you care for some refreshment?" brother Vassily said to Chichikov, pointing to the carafes. "These are kvasses of our own making; our house has long been famous for them."

Chichikov poured a glass from the first carafe—just like the linden mead he used to drink in Poland: bubbly as champagne, and it went in a pleasant fizz right up his nose.

"Nectar!" said Chichikov. He drank a glass from another carafe—even better.

"In what direction and to what places are you thinking mainly of going?" brother Vassily asked.

"I'm going," said Chichikov, rubbing his knee with his hand to accompany the slight rocking of his whole body and inclining his head to one side, "not so much on my own necessity as on another man's. General Betrishchev, a close friend and, one might say, benefactor, has asked me to visit his relatives. Relatives, of course, are relatives, but it is partly, so to speak, for my own sake as well, for—to say nothing of the benefit in the hemorrhoidal respect—to see the world and the circulation of people—is already in itself, so to speak, a living book and a second education."

Brother Vassily lapsed into thought. "The man speaks somewhat ornately, but there's truth in his words," he thought. "My brother Platon lacks knowledge of people, the world, and life." After a short silence, he spoke aloud thus:

"I am beginning to think, Platon, that a journey may indeed stir you up. Your mind is hibernating. You've simply fallen asleep, and you've fallen asleep not from satiety or fatigue, but from a lack of living impressions and sensations. I, for instance, am quite the contrary. I'd very much like not to feel so keenly and not to take so closely to heart all that happens."

"Who makes you take it all so closely to heart?" said Platon. "You seek out worries and invent anxieties for yourself."

"Why invent, if there are troubles at every step even without that?" said Vassily "Have you heard what trick Lenitsyn has played on us? He's appropriated the waste land where our people celebrate Krasnaya Gorka." [66]

"He doesn't know, so he seized it," said Platon. "The man's new here, just come from Petersburg. He must be told, and have it explained to him."

"He knows, he knows very well. I sent to tell him, but he responded with rudeness."

"You must go yourself and explain it. Have a personal talk with him."

"Ah, no. He puts on too many airs. I won't go to him. You can go if you like."

"I'd go, but I don't want to mix in it. He may deceive me and swindle me."

"I'll go, if you like," said Chichikov.

Vassily glanced at him and thought: "He loves going places, this one!"

"Just give me an idea of what sort of man he is," said Chichikov, "and what it's about."

"I'm ashamed to charge you with such an unpleasant mission, because merely to talk with such a man is already an unpleasant mission for me. I must tell you that he is from simple, petty-landowning nobility of our province, got his rank serving in Petersburg, set himself up somehow by marrying someone's illegitimate daughter, and puts on airs. He sets the tone here. But, thank God, in our province people aren't so stupid: for us fashion is no order, and Petersburg is no church."

"Of course," said Chichikov, "and what is it about?"

"It's nonsense, in fact. He hasn't got enough land, so he appropriated our waste land—that is, he reckoned that it wasn't needed and that the owners had forgotten about it, but it so happens that from time immemorial our peasants have gathered there to celebrate Krasnaya Gorka. For that reason, I'm better prepared to sacrifice other, better land than to give up this piece. Custom is sacred to me."

"So you're prepared to let him have other land?"

"I would have been, if he hadn't acted this way with me; but he wants, as I can see, to do it through the courts. Very well, we'll see who wins. Though it's not so clear on the map, there are still witnesses—old people who are living and who remember."

"Hm!" thought Chichikov. "I see they're both a bit off." And he said aloud:

"But it seems to me that the business can be handled peaceably. Everything depends on the mediator. In writ...” [vi]

". . . that for you yourself it would also be very profitable to transfer, to my name, for instance, all the dead souls registered on your estates in the last census lists, so that I pay the tax on them. And to avoid causing any offense, you can perform the transfer through a deed of purchase, as if the souls were alive."