Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

"Manilovka, maybe, and not Zamanilovka?"

"Manilovka, then."

"Manilovka! Just keep on another half mile, and there you are, I mean, straight to the right."

"To the right?" the coachman responded.

"To the right," said the muzhik. "That'll be your road to Manilovka; and there's no such place as Zamanilovka. That's her name, I mean, she's called Manilovka, and there's no Zamanilovka at all hereabouts. Right there on the hill you'll see a house, a stone house, two stories, a master's house, I mean, where the master himself lives. That's your Manilovka, and there's never been any such Zamanilovka around here at all."

They drove on in search of Manilovka. Having gone a mile, they came upon a turnoff to a side road, but after going another mile, a mile and a half, maybe two miles, there was still no two-storied stone house in sight. Here Chichikov remembered that if a friend invites you to an estate ten miles away, it means a sure twenty. The village of Manilovka would not entice many by its situation. The master's house stood all alone on a knob, that is, on a rise, open to every wind that might decide to blow; the slope of the hill it stood upon was clad in mowed turf. Over it were strewn, English-fashion, two or three flower beds with bushes of lilac and yellow acacia. Five or six birches in small clumps raised their skimpy, small-leaved tops here and there. Beneath two of them could be seen a gazebo with a flat green cupola, blue wooden columns, and an inscription: the temple of solitary reflection; further down there was a pond covered with green scum, which, however, is no wonder in the English gardens of Russian landowners. At the foot of this rise, and partway up the slope, gray log cottages darkled to right and left, which our hero, for some unknown reason, began that same moment to count, counting up more than two hundred; among them grew not a single tree or anything green; only log looked at you everywhere. The scene was enlivened by two peasant women who, picturesquely gathering their skirts and tucking them up on all sides, waded knee-deep into the pond with two wooden poles, pulling a torn dragnet in which could be seen two entangled crayfish and the gleam of a caught shiner; the women seemed to be engaged in a quarrel and were exchanging abuse over something. Off to one side darkled a pine forest of some boring bluish color. Even the weather itself was most appropriately serviceable: the day was neither bright nor gloomy, but of some light gray color such as occurs only on the old uniforms of garrison soldiers—a peaceful enough army at that, though somewhat unsober on Sundays. Nor was there lacking, to complete the picture, a cock, herald of changing weather, who, though his head had been pecked right to the brain by the beaks of other cocks in the well-known business of philandering, was shouting very loudly and even flapping his wings, ragged as old bast mats. Driving up to the premises, Chichikov noticed the master himself on the porch, standing in a green shalloon frock coat, his hand held to his forehead like an umbrella, the better to see the approaching carriage. As the britzka drew near the porch, his eyes grew merrier and his smile broadened more and more.

"Pavel Ivanovich!" he cried out at last, as Chichikov climbed out of the britzka. "You've remembered us after all!"

The two friends kissed very warmly, and Manilov led his guest inside. Though the time it will take them to pass through the entryway, the front hall, and the dining room is somewhat shortish, let us try and see if we cannot somehow make use of it to say something about the master of the house. But here the author must confess that this undertaking is a very difficult one. It is much easier to portray large-size characters: just whirl your arm and fling paint on the canvas, dark scorching eyes, beetling brows, a furrow-creased forehead, a cloak, black or fiery scarlet, thrown over one shoulder—and the portrait is done; but now all these gentlemen, who are so many in the world, who resemble each other so much, yet, once you look closer, you see many most elusive peculiarities—these gentlemen are terribly difficult to portray. Here one must strain one's attention greatly, until all the fine, almost invisible features are made to stand out before one, and generally one must further deepen one's gaze, already experienced in the science of elicitation.

God alone perhaps could tell what Manilov's character was. There is a sort of people known by the name of so-so people, neither this nor that, neither Tom of the hill nor Jack of the mill, as the saying goes. It may be that Manilov ought to be put with them. He was a fine man to look at; the features of his face were not lacking in agreeableness, but this agreeableness had, it seemed, too much sugar in it; his ways and manners had about them a certain currying of favor and friendship. He smiled enticingly, was fair-haired, had blue eyes. At the first moment of conversation with him, you cannot help saying: "What an agreeable and kindly man!" The next moment you do not say anything, and the third moment you say: "Devil knows what this is!"—and walk away; or, if you do not walk away, you feel a deadly boredom. You will never get from him any sort of lively or even merely provoking word, such as can be heard from almost anyone, if you touch upon a subject that grips him. Everyone is gripped by something: for one it is borzoi hounds; another fancies himself a great lover of music and wonderfully sensitive to all its profundities; a third is an expert in hearty meals; a fourth in playing a role at least an inch above the one assigned him; a fifth, of more limited desires, sleeps and dreams of taking a stroll with an aide-de-camp, showing off in front of his friends, acquaintances, even non-acquaintances; a sixth is gifted with the sort of hand that feels a supernatural desire to turn down the corner of some ace or deuce of diamonds, while the hand of a seventh is simply itching to establish order somewhere, to get closer to the person of some stationmaster or cabdriver—in short, each has his own, but Manilov had nothing. At home he spoke very little and for the most part reflected and thought, but what he thought about, again, God only knows. One could not say he was occupied with management, he never even went out to the fields, the management somehow took care of itself. When the steward said: "Might be a good thing, master, to do such and such." "Yes, not bad," he would usually reply, smoking his pipe—a habit he had formed while still serving in the army, where he had been considered a most modest, most delicate, and most educated officer. "Yes, indeed, not bad," he would repeat. When a muzhik came to him and, scratching the back of his head, said: "Master, give me leave to go and work, so I can pay my taxes," "Go," he would say, smoking his pipe, and it would never even enter his head that the muzhik was going on a binge. Sometimes, as he gazed from the porch at the yard and pond, he would talk about how good it would be suddenly to make an underground passage from the house, or to build a stone bridge across the pond, and have shops on both sides of it, and shopkeepers sitting in the shops selling all sorts of small goods needed by peasants. At that his eyes would become exceedingly sweet and his face would acquire a most contented expression; however, all these projects ended only in words. In his study there was always some book lying, with a bookmark at the fourteenth page, which he had been reading constantly for the past two years. In his house something was eternally lacking: fine furniture stood in the drawing room, upholstered in stylish silk fabric, which must have been far from inexpensive; but there had not been enough for two of the armchairs, and so these armchairs were left upholstered in simple burlap; however, for several years the host had cautioned his guests each time with the words: "Don't sit on these armchairs, they're not ready yet." In some rooms there was no furniture at all, though it had been said in the first days of their marriage: "Sweetie, we must see to it that furniture is put in this room tomorrow, at least for the time being." In the evening a very stylish candlestick was placed on the table, made of dark bronze with the three Graces of antiquity and a stylish mother-of-pearl shield, while next to it was set some sort of plain copper invalid, lame, hunched over on one side, all covered with tallow, though this was noticed neither by the master, nor by the mistress, nor by the servants. His wife . . . however, they were perfectly satisfied with each other. Though it was already eight years since their wedding, they would still bring each other a little bit of apple, a piece of candy, or a nut, and say in a touchingly tender voice expressive of perfect love: "Open up your little mouth, sweetie, I'll put this tidbit in for you." Needless to say, the little mouth would on these occasions be very gracefully opened. For birthdays, surprises were prepared: some sort of bead-embroidered little toothbrush case. And quite often, as they were sitting on the sofa, suddenly, for perfectly unknown reasons, one would abandon his pipe, and the other her needlework, if she happened to be holding it in her hands at the moment, and they would plant on each other's lips such a long and languid kiss that one could easily have smoked a small cheroot while it lasted. In short, they were what is called happy Of course, it might be noted that there were many other things besides prolonged kisses and surprises to be done in the house, and many different questions might be asked. Why, for instance, was the cooking in the kitchen done stupidly and witlessly? why was the larder nearly empty? why was the housekeeper a thief? why were the servants so slovenly and drunk? why did the house serfs all sleep so unmercifully and spend the rest of the time carrying on? But these are all low subjects, and Mrs. Manilov had received a good education. And one gets a good education, as we know, in a boarding school. And in boarding schools, as we know, three main subjects constitute the foundation of human virtue: the French language, indispensable for a happy family life; the pianoforte, to afford a husband agreeable moments; and, finally, the managerial part proper: the crocheting of purses and other surprises. However, various improvements and changes in method occur, especially in our time; all this depends largely on the good sense and ability of the boarding school's headmistress. In some boarding schools it even occurs that the pianoforte comes first, then the French language, and only after that the managerial part. And sometime it also occurs that the managerial part, that is, the crocheting of surprises, comes first, then the French language, and only after that the pianoforte. Various methods occur. There will be no harm in making a further observation, that Mrs. Manilov . . . but, I confess, I am very afraid of talking about ladies, and, besides, it is time I returned to our heroes, who have already been standing at the drawing-room door for several minutes, mutually entreating each other to go in first.