Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls

"Destroyer, destroyer," said Chichikov. "He'll destroy my soul, slaughter me, like a wolf a lamb!"

"I spared you, I allowed you to remain in town, when you ought to have been put in jail; and again you've besmirched yourself with the most dishonest swindling a man has yet besmirched himself with."

The prince's lips were trembling with wrath.

"What is this most dishonest action and swindling, Your Excellency?" asked Chichikov, trembling all over.

"The woman," said the prince, stepping closer and looking straight into Chichikov's eyes, "the woman who signed the will at your dictation, has been seized and will confront you."

Chichikov turned pale as a sheet.

"Your Excellency! I'll tell you the whole truth of the matter. I am guilty, indeed, guilty; but not so guilty. I've been maligned by my enemies."

"No one can malign you, because there is many times more vileness in you than the worst liar could invent. In all your life, I suppose, you've never done anything that was not dishonest. Every kopeck you earned was earned dishonestly, and is a theft and a dishonest thing deserving of the knout and Siberia. No, it's enough now! This very minute you will be taken to jail, and there, together with the worst scoundrels and robbers, you must wait for your fate to be decided. And this is still merciful, because you are many times worse than they are: they dress in wool jerkins and sheepkins, while you ...”

He glanced at the tailcoat of the flames and smoke of Navarino and, taking hold of the bellpull, rang.

"Your Excellency," Chichikov cried out, "be merciful! You are the father of a family. Don't spare me—but spare my old mother!"

"You're lying!" the prince cried wrathfully. "You pleaded with me the same way before, by your children and family, which you never had, and now—your mother!"

"Your Excellency, I am a scoundrel and an utter blackguard," said Chichikov, in a voice . . . [x] "I was indeed lying, I have no children or family; but, as God is my witness, I always wanted to have a wife, to fulfill the duty of a man and a citizen, so as later to earn indeed the respect of citizens and authorities . . . But what calamitous coincidences! With my blood, Your Excellency, with my blood I had to procure my daily sustenance. Temptations and seductions at every step . . . enemies, and destroyers, and thieves. My whole life has been like a violent storm or a ship amidst the waves at the will of the winds. I am a man, Your Excellency!"

Tears suddenly poured in streams from his eyes. He collapsed at the prince's feet just as he was, in his tailcoat of the flames and smoke of Navarino, in his velvet waistcoat and satin tie, new trousers and hairdo exuding the clean scent of eau de cologne.

"Get away from me! Call the guards to take him away!" the prince said to those who came in.

"Your Excellency!" Chichikov cried, seizing the prince's boot with both hands.

A shuddering sensation ran through the prince's every fiber.

"Get away, I tell you!" he said, trying to tear his foot from Chichikov's embrace.

"Your Excellency! I will not move from this spot before I obtain mercy!" Chichikov said, not letting go of the prince's boot and sliding, together with his foot, across the floor in his tailcoat of the flames and smoke of Navarino.

"Away, I tell you!" he said, with that inexplicable feeling of disgust that a man feels at the sight of an extremely ugly insect that he does not have the courage to crush underfoot. He gave such a shake that Chichikov felt the boot strike his nose, lips, and nicely rounded chin, but he would not let go of the boot and held the leg still harder in his embrace. Two hefty policemen pulled him away by force, and, holding him under his arms, led him through all the rooms. He was pale, crushed, in the insensibly frightful state of a man who sees black, inescapable death before him, that fright which is contrary to our nature . . .

Just at the doorway to the stairs they ran into Murazov. A ray of hope suddenly flickered. Instantly, with unnatural force, he tore from the grip of the two policemen and threw himself at the feet of the amazed old man.

"Pavel Ivanovich, my dear fellow, what's happened?"

"Save me! they're taking me to jail, to death ...”

The policemen seized him and led him away without allowing him to be heard.

A dank, chill closet with the smell of the boots and leg wrappings of garrison soldiers, an unpainted table, two vile chairs, a window with an iron grate, a decrepit woodstove, through the cracks of which smoke came without giving any warmth—this was the dwelling in which they placed our hero, who had just begun to taste the sweetness of life and attract the attention of his compatriots in his fine new tailcoat of the flames and smoke of Navarino. He was not even given time to arrange to take the necessary things with him, to take the chest with the money in it. His papers, the deeds of purchase for the dead souls—the officials now had it all! He collapsed on the ground, and the carnivorous worm of terrible, hopeless sorrow wrapped itself around his heart. With increasing speed it began to gnaw at his heart, all unprotected as it was. Another day like that, another day of such sorrow, and there would be no Chichikov in this world at all. But someone's all-saving hand did not slumber even over Chichikov. An hour later the door of the jail opened: old Murazov came in.

If someone tormented by parching thirst were to have a stream of spring water poured down his dry throat, he would not revive as poor Chichikov did.

"My savior!" said Chichikov, and, suddenly seizing his hand, he quickly kissed it and pressed it to his breast. "May God reward you for visiting an unfortunate man!"

He dissolved in tears.

The old man looked at him with mournfully pained eyes and said only:

"Ah, Pavel Ivanovich! Pavel Ivanovich, what have you done?"

"I am a scoundrel. . . Guilty ... I transgressed . . . But consider, consider, can they treat me like this? I am a nobleman. Without a trial, without an investigation, to throw me into jail, to take away everything—my things, my chest. . . there's money in it, all my property, all my property is in it, Afanasy Vassilyevich—property I acquired by sweating blood ..."

And, unable to restrain the impulse of sorrow again overwhelming his heart, he sobbed loudly, in a voice that pierced the thick walls of the jail and echoed dully in the distance, tore off his satin tie, and, clutching at his collar with his hand, tore his tailcoat of the flames and smoke of Navarino.

"Pavel Ivanovich, it makes no difference: you must bid farewell to your property and to all there is in the world. You have fallen under the implacable law, not under the power of some man."

"I have been my own ruin, I know it—I did not know how to stop in time. But why such a terrible punishment, Afanasy Vassilyevich? Am I a robber? Has anyone suffered from me? Have I made anyone unhappy? By toil and sweat, by sweating blood, I procured my kopeck. Why did I procure this kopeck? In order to live out the rest of my days in comfort, to leave something to my children, whom I intended to acquire for the good, for the service of the fatherland. I erred, I don't deny it, I erred . . . what to do? But I erred because I saw that I'd get nowhere on the straight path, and that to go crookedly was straighten But I toiled, I strained. And these scoundrels who sit in the courts taking thousands from the treasury or robbing people who aren't rich, filching the last kopeck from those who have nothing. . . Afanasy Vassilyevich! I did not fornicate, I did not drink. And so much work, so much iron patience! Yes, it could be said that every kopeck I procured was redeemed with sufferings, sufferings! Let one of them suffer as I did! What has my whole life been: a bitter struggle, a ship amidst the waves. And, Afanasy Vassilyevich, I have lost what was acquired with such struggle ..."