Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

"Well, now!" Lenitsyn thought. "This is something most strange." And he even pushed his chair back, so entirely puzzled he was.

"I have no doubts that you will agree entirely to this," Chichikov said, "because this is entirely the same sort of thing we've just been talking about. It'll be completed between solid people, in private, and there'll be no offense to anyone."

What to do here? Lenitsyn found himself in a difficult position. He could never have foreseen that an opinion he had just formulated would be so quickly brought to realization. The offer was highly unexpected. Of course, there could be no harm for anyone in this action: the landowners would mortgage these souls anyway, the same as living ones, so there could be no loss for the treasury; the difference was that they would all be in one hand rather than in several. But all the same he was at a loss. He knew the law and was a businessman—a businessman in a good sense: he would not decide a case unjustly for any bribe. But here he hesitated, not knowing what name to give to this action—was it right or wrong? If someone else had addressed him with such an offer, he would have said: "This is nonsense! trifles! I have no wish to fool around or play with dolls." But he liked his guest so much, they agreed on so many things with regard to the success of education and learning—how could he refuse? Lenitsyn found himself in a most difficult position.

But at that moment, just as if to help him in his woe, the young, pug-nosed mistress, Lenitsyn's wife, came into the room, pale, thin, small, and dressed tastefully, like all Petersburg ladies. Following her came a nurse carrying a baby in her arms, the firstborn fruit of the tender love of the recently married couple. Chichikov naturally approached the lady at once and, to say nothing of the proper greeting, simply by the agreeable inclining of his head to one side, disposed her greatly in his favor. Then he ran over to the baby. The baby burst into howls; nevertheless, by means of the words: "Goo, goo, darling!" and by flicking his fingers and the carnelian seal on his watch chain, Chichikov managed to lure him into his arms. Taking him into his arms, he started tossing him up, thereby provoking the baby's pleasant smile, which made both parents very happy.

Whether from pleasure or from something else, the baby suddenly misbehaved. Lenitsyn's wife cried out:

"Ah, my God! he's spoiled your whole tailcoat."

Chichikov looked: the sleeve of the brand new tailcoat was all spoiled. "Blast it, the cursed little devil!" he muttered vexedly to himself.

The host, the hostess, and the nurse all ran to fetch some eau de cologne; they began wiping him on all sides.

"It's nothing, nothing at all," Chichikov was saying. "What can an innocent baby do?" At the same time thinking to himself: "And so well aimed, the cursed little canaille!" "A golden age!" he said when he was well wiped off and the agreeable expression had returned to his face again.

"And indeed," the host said, addressing Chichikov, also with an agreeable smile, "what can be more enviable than the age of infancy: no cares, no thoughts of the future ..."

"A state one would immediately exchange for one's own," said Chichikov.

"At a glance," said Lenitsyn.

But it seems they were both lying: had they been offered such an exchange, they would straightaway have backed out of it. And what fun is it, indeed, sitting in a nurse's arms and spoiling tailcoats!

The young mistress and the firstborn withdrew with the nurse, because something on him had to be put right: having rewarded Chichikov, he had not forgotten himself either.

This apparently insignificant circumstance won the host over completely to satisfying Chichikov. How, indeed, refuse a guest who has been so tender to his little one and paid for it magnanimously with his own tailcoat? Lenitsyn reflected thus: "Why, indeed, not fulfill his request, if such is his wish?" [vii]

At the very moment when Chichikov, in a new Persian dressing gown of gold satin, sprawling on the sofa, was bargaining with an itinerant smuggler-merchant of Jewish extraction and German enunciation, and before them already lay a purchased piece of the foremost Holland shirt linen and two pasteboard boxes with excellent soap of first-rate quality (this was precisely the soap he used to acquire at the Radziwill customs; it indeed had the property of imparting an amazing tenderness and whiteness to the cheeks)—at the moment when he, as a connoisseur, was buying these products necessary for a cultivated man, there came the rumble of a carriage driving up, echoed by a slight reverberation of the windows and walls, and in walked His Excellency Alexei Ivanovich Lenitsyn.

"I lay it before Your Excellency's judgment: what linen, what soap, and how about this little thing I bought yesterday!" At which Chichikov put on his head a skullcap embroidered with gold and beads, and acquired the look of a Persian shah, filled with dignity and majesty.

But His Excellency, without answering the question, said with a worried look:

"I must talk with you about an important matter."

One could see by his face that he was upset. The worthy merchant of German enunciation was sent out at once, and they were left alone.

"Do you know what trouble is brewing? They've found another will of the old woman's, made five years ago. Half of the estate goes to the monastery, and the other half is divided equally between the two wards, and nothing to anyone else."

Chichikov was dumbfounded.

"Well, that will is nonsense. It means nothing, it is annulled by the second one."

"But it's not stated in the second will that it annuls the first."

"It goes without saying: the second annuls the first. The first will is totally worthless. I know the will of the deceased woman very well. I was with her. Who signed it? Who were the witnesses?"

"It was certified in the proper manner, in court. The witnesses were the former probate judge Burmilov and Khavanov."

"That's bad," thought Chichikov, "they say Khavanov's an honest man; Burmilov is an old hypocrite, reads the epistle in church on feast days."

"Nonsense, nonsense," he said aloud, and at once felt himself prepared for any trick. "I know better: I shared the deceased woman's last minutes. I'm informed better than anyone. I'm ready to testify personally under oath."

These words and his resoluteness set Lenitsyn at ease for the moment. He was very worried and had already begun to suspect the possibility of some fabrication on Chichikov's part with regard to the will. Now he reproached himself for his suspicions. The readiness to testify under oath was clear proof that Chichikov was innocent. We do not know whether Pavel Ivanovich would have had the courage to swear on the Bible, but he did have the courage to say it.

"Rest assured, I'll discuss the matter with several lawyers. There's nothing here that needs doing on your part; you must stay out of it entirely. And I can now live in town as long as I like."

Chichikov straightaway ordered the carriage readied and went to see a lawyer. This lawyer was a man of extraordinary experience. For fifteen years he had been on trial himself, but he had managed so that it was quite impossible to remove him from his post. Everyone knew him, and knew that he ought to have been sent into exile six times over for his deeds. There were suspicions of him all around and on every side, yet it was impossible to present any clear and proven evidence. Here there was indeed something mysterious, and he might have been boldly recognized as a sorcerer if the story we are telling belonged to the times of ignorance.

The lawyer struck him with the coldness of his looks and the greasiness of his dressing gown, in complete contrast to the good mahogany furniture, the golden clock under its glass case, the chandelier visible through the muslin cover protecting it, and generally to everything around him, which bore the vivid stamp of brilliant European cultivation.