Chapter VIII: Act I: (room in the Burgomaster’s house). SCENE 1. THE BURGOMASTER, (1)

CURATOR OF CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS, INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS, JUDGE,
CAPTAIN OF POLICE, DOCTOR, TWO SERGEANTS OF POLICE

_Burgomaster._ Gentlemen, I have called you together to give you a very disagreeable piece of news: a Revizór is coming.

_Judge._ What, a Revizór?

_Curator._ What, a Revizór?

_Burgomaster._ A Revizór from St. Petersburg, incognito, and with secret instructions, if you please.

_Judge._ I declare!

_Curator._ Things have been too easy with us, so there it is.

_Inspector._ Good gracious! With secret instructions!

_Burgomaster._ I really had a presentiment of it: last night I did nothing but dream of two extraordinary rats. I tell you, I never saw the like of them; they were black and of unusual size. They came, nosed around, and went away. I ’ll read to you the letter I received from Andréy Ivánovich Chmýkhov whom you, Artémi Filíppovich (Curator), know. This is what he writes: “Dear friend, and benefactor” (_mutters in a whisper as he runs down the lines_)----“and to let you know.” Ah, here it is: “among other things I hasten to inform you that an official is here with instructions to inspect the whole Government, and especially our county (_significantly raises his finger_). I have learned this from most trustworthy people, although he passes himself for a private individual. Knowing that, like all people, you have some peccadilloes, for you are a clever fellow and don’t let things slip through your fingers----” (_Stops._) Oh, that ’s private----“I advise you to take the proper precaution, for he is likely to come any hour, if he has not arrived yet and is not living somewhere incognito----Yesterday”----Oh, these are family matters: “sister Anna Kirílovna has been visiting us with her husband; Iván Kirílovich has grown very stout, and is all the time playing the fiddle----” and so forth, and so forth. So that ’s the way it stands!

_Judge._ But that ’s an unusual affair. There must be something back of it.

_Inspector._ But what is that all for, Antón Antónovich (Burgomaster)? Why is the Revizór coming to us?

_Burgomaster_ (_sighing_). Why! It ’s evidently our fate! (_Sighing again._) Thanks to the Lord, they have come down on other towns before this; but now our turn has come.

_Judge._ I think, Antón Antónovich, that there is a delicate reason of a political nature behind all this. It ’s simply this: Russia, you see, is about to wage war, and the Minister has sent a special official to find out whether there is not any treason here.

_Burgomaster._ What a guess! And you call yourself a clever man! Treason in a county town! Does it lie on the border, eh? Why, you ’d have to gallop three years from here to get to another country.

_Judge._ No, let me tell you. You don’t----no, you don’t----The government is pretty shrewd about things: never mind its being far away, but the government is on the lookout.

_Burgomaster._ Let it be or not, but I have given you warning, gentlemen, so take notice! I, for my part, have taken some precautions, and I advise you to do the same. Especially you, Artémi Filíppovich! No doubt, the official will first of all want to inspect the charitable institutions under your charge, and so you had better give everything a decent appearance. Let there be clean caps, and don’t let the patients look like blacksmiths, as they generally appear.

_Curator._ Oh, that is not hard! I see no reason for not putting on clean caps.

_Burgomaster._ Yes. And let there also be written over every bed in Latin, or some other language----that ’s your business, Christian Ivánovich,--the name of every illness: when any of them got ill, what day of the month----It is not right for your patients to smoke such strong tobacco that one has to sneeze upon entering. Yes, it also would be better if there were not so many of them, for it will be ascribed to improper care or the physician’s lack of skill.

_Curator._ Oh, Christian Ivánovich and I have taken our measures in regard to the doctoring: the nearer to nature, the better; we do not employ expensive medicaments. A man is a simple affair: if he is to die, he ’ll die anyway; and if he is to get well, he ’ll get well anyway. Besides, it would not be an easy matter for Christian Ivánovich to carry on a conversation with them, he does not know a word of Russian.

(_Christian Ivánovich emits a sound, somewhere between_ ee _and_ eh.)

_Burgomaster._ I should advise you also, Ammós Fédorovich, to direct your attention to the court-house. In the antechamber, where the people wait with their petitions, your janitors have been raising geese with their goslings that continually get between one’s legs. I admit it is praiseworthy to raise your own geese, and there is no reason why janitors should not rear them; only, don’t you know, it is n’t quite the thing to raise them in that place----I had in mind to tell you that before, but I somehow forgot.

_Judge._ Well, I ’ll order them to be taken to the kitchen this very day. Can’t you come and take dinner with me?

_Burgomaster._ Then again, it ’s wrong for all kinds of rags to be hung out in the court-room to get dry, and on the case with the documents lies a hunting-whip. I know you are fond of the chase; but it would be better for the time being to take it away, and as soon as the Revizór has gone, I don’t see why you can’t hang it back there again. Then again your assessor----, of course, he is a clever fellow; but there is an odour about him as if he had just come out of a still,--that won’t do either. I had intended to tell you about that long ago, but something or other drew my attention away from it. There are means against it, if it is, indeed, as he says, a natural odour with him: you might recommend him to eat garlic, onions, or something else. In this case Christian Ivánovich might help him with some of his medicaments.

(_Christian Ivánovich emits the same sound as before._)

_Judge._ No, you can’t drive it out of him: he says that his nurse once hurt him when he was a baby, and ever since he has had a brandy smell about him.

_Burgomaster._ I only mention it to you. As to the internal disposition and what Andréy Ivánovich in his letter calls “peccadilloes,” I can’t say anything. Strange to say, there is not a man who has not some sin to answer for. God Himself has arranged it so, and the followers of Voltaire are in vain preaching against it.

_Judge._ What do you call peccadilloes, Antón Antónovich? There are peccadilloes and peccadilloes. I tell everybody openly that I take bribes, but what bribes? Greyhound pups. That ’s an entirely different matter.

_Burgomaster._ Pups or anything else, it ’s bribes all the same.

_Judge._ Not at all, Antón Antónovich. But suppose a man’s fur-coat costs five hundred roubles, and his wife’s shawl----

_Burgomaster._ What of it if your bribes consist in greyhound pups? But you don’t believe in God; you never go to church. I am, at least, firm in my faith and attend church regularly every Sunday; whereas you----Oh, I know you: when you begin to talk about the creation of the world, my hair simply stands on end.

_Judge._ I have reasoned it out all by myself, with my own intellect.

_Burgomaster._ Well, in this case much intelligence is worse than none at all. However, I only mentioned the County Court. To tell the truth, there is not much likelihood of anybody’s looking in there: it ’s an enviable place, and God Himself protects it. But you, Lúka Lukích, as Inspector of Schools, must take especial care of the teachers. They are, of course, knowing people, and have been educated in all kinds of colleges, but they have very strange ways about them, no doubt inseparable from their learned profession. One of them, for example,--the one with the fat face, I can’t think of his name,--can’t get along, upon standing on the platform, without making a grimace like this (_imitates him_), then he begins to claw his beard under the necktie. Of course, it does not matter much if he makes such a face to a pupil of his, and maybe that is necessary, for I am not a judge of that; but judge yourself,--if he should do so to a visitor, it might have a bad effect: the Revizór, or someone else, might take it to himself. The devil knows what that might lead to.

_Inspector._ I declare I don’t know what to do. I have talked several times to him about it. Only a few days ago, when the Marshal of the Nobility entered his classroom, he made a face I had never seen before. He did it from the goodness of his heart, but I had a reprimand for instilling radical thoughts into the youths.

_Burgomaster._ I must also draw your attention to the teacher of history. He is a learned man, that ’s evident, and is chockful of knowledge, only he lectures with such fervour that he forgets himself. I once listened to his lecture: as long as he was talking of Assyrians and Babylonians, things went tolerably well; but when he got to Alexander the Great, I can’t tell you what became of him. I thought there was a fire, upon my word! He ran down from the platform and with all his might and main smashed a chair against the floor! I ’ll admit Alexander the Great was a hero, but why break chairs over him? There is only a loss to the Crown from it.

_Inspector._ Yes, he is fiery! I have remarked so to him several times. He says: “I don’t care, I ’ll not spare my life for the sake of science!”

_Burgomaster._ Yes, such is the inexplicable law of fate: a clever fellow is either a drunkard, or he makes faces so that you have to carry out the holy images.

_Inspector._ God preserve us from being schoolmasters. You are afraid of everything! Everybody meddles with you, everybody wants to show that he, too, is a clever fellow.

_Burgomaster._ All that could pass,--but the accursed incognito! He ’ll suddenly poke in his nose: “Ah, there you are, my darling! Who,” will he say, “is the judge here?”--“Lyápkin-Tyápkin.”--“Fetch me in Lyápkin-Tyápkin! And who is the Curator of the Charitable Institutions?”--“Zemlyaníka.”--“Fetch in Zemlyaníka!” That ’s what is bad.

SCENE 2. THE SAME AND THE POSTMASTER

_Postmaster._ Tell me, gentlemen, what is it,--what official is coming?

_Burgomaster._ Have n’t you heard?

_Postmaster._ I have heard from Petr Ivánovich Bobchínski. He was just in my office.

_Burgomaster._ Well, what do you think of it?

_Postmaster._ What I think? Why, there will be a war with Turkey.

_Judge._ That ’s it! I thought so myself.

_Burgomaster._ Well, you ’re both wrong.

_Postmaster._ I insist, with Turkey. It ’s all the Frenchmen’s doing.

_Burgomaster._ Nonsense, war with Turkey! It ’s we who ’ll catch it, not the Turks. So much is certain; I have a letter.

_Postmaster._ If that ’s the case, there will be no war with Turkey.

_Burgomaster._ Well, how do you feel about that, Iván Kuzmích?

_Postmaster._ How I feel? How do you feel, Antón Antónovich?

_Burgomaster._ How I feel? Not exactly afraid, but just a little shaky. The shopkeepers and townspeople worry me. They say I ’ve laid it on to them; but I declare that if I have taken here and there a thing from one, I have done so without any ill-feeling. I even think (_takes his arm and leads him aside_), I even think there might have been some denunciation against me. For why should the Revizór come to us? Listen, Iván Kuzmích, could n’t you, for our common good, you know, just open a little and read every outgoing and incoming letter in your postoffice, to see whether they do not contain some denunciation or simply some report? If there is nothing in them, you may seal the letters again, or for that, you can return the letters unsealed.

_Postmaster._ I know, I know. Don’t teach me; I have been doing it, not exactly as a precaution, but chiefly from curiosity,--I ’m awfully fond of knowing what ’s up in the world. I assure you, it makes most interesting reading! Now and then there is a letter that I read with real pleasure,--there are all kinds of incidents described in them, and they are so edifying,--better than in the Moscow Gazette!

_Burgomaster._ Well, tell me, have n’t you found out from them something about an official from St. Petersburg?

_Postmaster._ No, there ’s nothing in them about anybody from St. Petersburg, but a great deal about Kostromá and Sarátov people. Really, what a pity you do not read letters! There are fine passages in them. For example, there was a lieutenant who in a letter to his friend described a ball in a most playful----yes, very fine: “My life, my dear friend,” says he, “flows in the empyrean: there are plenty of young ladies, music is playing, the flag is flying----” he described it with great, very great feeling. I purposely kept the letter. Do you want me to read it to you?

_Burgomaster._ Well, this is not the right time for it. So do me the favour, Iván Kuzmích: if, by chance, there should be a complaint or denunciation, keep it back without any further ado.

_Postmaster._ With the greatest pleasure.

_Judge._ Look out, you ’ll get into trouble yet.

_Postmaster._ Good gracious!

_Burgomaster._ Not at all, not at all. It would be a different matter, if you were to make a public affair out of it, but this is, so to say, a family matter.

_Judge._ Yes, there ’s mischief brewing! I was really coming to tell you, Antón Antónovich, that I wanted to present to you a puppy, a sister to that dog that you know. You have heard that Chéptovich and Varkhovínski have started a litigation; so I ’m in clover: I hunt hares now on one estate, now on the other.

_Burgomaster._ Lord, what do I care for your hares now! That accursed incognito is running through my head! I am only waiting for the door to open, and----

SCENE 3. THE SAME, BOBCHÍNSKI AND DOBCHÍNSKI ENTER, OUT OF BREATH

_Bobchínski._ An extraordinary occurrence!

_Dobchínski._ An unexpected occurrence!

_All._ What, what is it?

_Dobchínski._ An unforeseen affair: we come to the inn----

_Bobchínski_ (_interrupting him_). Petr Ivánovich and I come to the inn----

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). Eh, permit me, Petr Ivánovich, let me tell it.

_Bobchínski._ Oh no, let me----let me, let me----you are n’t a good speaker----

_Dobchínski._ And you ’ll get confused and you ’ll forget something.

_Bobchínski._ No, I won’t, upon my word, I won’t. Don’t bother me, let me tell it, don’t bother me! Please, gentlemen, do tell Petr Ivánovich not to bother me.

_Burgomaster._ For the Lord’s sake, do tell, what is it? My heart is in my mouth. Sit down, gentlemen! Take seats! Petr Ivánovich, here is a chair for you. (_All sit around the two Petr Ivánovichs._) Well, what is it, what?

_Bobchínski._ Allow me, allow me; I ’ll tell it all in order. No sooner had I the pleasure of leaving you, just as you were disturbed by the letter you had received, yes, I at once ran----now, please don’t interrupt me, Petr Ivánovich! I know it all, truly, I do. So, you see, I ran to Koróbkin’s house. As I did not find him at home I turned in to Rastákovski’s, and as I did not find him at home I stopped at Iván Kuzmích’s house to inform him the piece of news you had received, and as I was going away from there, I fell in with Petr Ivánovich.

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). Near the booth where they sell cakes.

_Bobchínski._ Near the booth where they sell cakes. Yes, and as I fell in with Petr Ivánovich, I said to him: “Have you heard the news that Antón Antónovich has received in a trustworthy letter?” But Petr Ivánovich had already heard that from your housekeeper Avdótya, who had been sent for something or other to Filíp Ivánovich Pochechúev.

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). For a keg of French brandy.

_Bobchínski_ (_warding him off with his hand_). For a keg of French brandy. So Petr Ivánovich and I came to Pochechúev----Now, Petr Ivánovich, please don’t----don’t interrupt me, please, don’t interrupt me!----We went to Pochechúev, and on the way Petr Ivánovich said to me: “Let ’s go,” says he, “to the inn. My stomach,--I have eaten nothing since morning,--why, there ’s a rumbling in my stomach----” Yes, Petr Ivánovich’s stomach---- “In the inn,” says he, “they have received some fresh salmon, so we ’ll have a bite.” No sooner had we entered into the inn, when a young man----

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). Of good appearance and in citizen’s clothes----

_Bobchínski._ Of good appearance and in citizen’s clothes, was walking up and down the room, such an expression in his face----physiognomy----carriage, and up here (_moves his hand around his forehead_) very distinguished. I had a kind of presentiment, and I said to Petr Ivánovich: “There ’s something up here.” Yes. And Petr Ivánovich beckoned to the innkeeper and called him up,--’t was innkeeper Vlas,--his wife had a baby three weeks ago, such a lively creature, he ’ll be an innkeeper like his father. So, calling up Vlas, Petr Ivánovich asked him in a whisper: “Who,” says he, “is that young fellow?” to which Vlas answered: “That,” says he----oh, don’t interrupt me, Petr Ivánovich, I beg you, don’t interrupt me, you won’t be able to tell the story, upon my word you won’t: you lisp, you have a whistling tooth in your mouth, I know---- “That young man,” says he, “is an official,” yes, “he ’s from St. Petersburg, and his name is,” says he, “Iván Aleksándrovich Khlestakóv, sir, and he is on his way,” says he, “to the Government of Sarátov, and,” says he, “he is acting very strangely: he has been here nearly two weeks, he never leaves the inn, takes everything on credit, and won’t pay a kopek.” When he told me that, a light dawned upon me at once. “Oho!” said I to Petr Ivánovich----

_Dobchínski._ No, Petr Ivánovich, it was I who said “Oho!”

_Bobchínski._ First you said it, and then I. “Oho!” said we. “What reason could he have to stay here, when his road is to the Government of Sarátov?” Yes, sir, he is that very official.

_Burgomaster._ Who--what official?

_Bobchínski._ The official about whom you have received that information,--the Revizór.

_Burgomaster_ (_terrified_). Don’t say that, the Lord be with you! it is n’t he.

_Dobchínski._ He! He does n’t pay his bill, and he does n’t leave. Who else could it be, if not he? His passport is made out for Sarátov.

_Bobchínski._ He--he--upon my word, he----He is so observing: he watches everything. He saw Petr Ivánovich and me eating salmon,--mainly because of, on account of, Petr Ivánovich’s stomach----yes, he even looked into our plates. I just trembled with fear.

_Burgomaster._ Lord, have mercy upon us sinners! Where is he staying there?

_Dobchínski._ Number five, under the staircase.

_Bobchínski._ The same room that the transient officers had a fight in last year.

_Burgomaster._ Has he been here long?

_Dobchínski._ Some two weeks. He arrived on the day of St. Basil the Egyptian.

_Burgomaster._ Two weeks! (_Aside._) Friends and saints, help me! Within these two weeks the sergeant’s wife has been flogged! The prisoners have received no provision. Drunkenness and dirt in the streets! Disgraceful! Shameful! (_Tears his hair._)

_Curator._ Antón Antónovich, had we not better make an official call in the inn?

_Judge._ No, no! First send the Mayor, the clergy, the merchants. It says in the book “John the Mason”----

_Burgomaster._ No, no! Let me attend to it! I ’ve had hard cases before in life, and I not only got out of them hale, but even received thanks. Maybe God will succour me now too. (_Turning to Bobchínski._) You say, he is a young man?

_Bobchínski._ Yes, about twenty-three or -four at most.

_Burgomaster._ So much the better: it is easier to get at the bottom of a young fellow. It is a tough job, if you have an old devil to deal with; but a young fellow is all on the surface. You, gentlemen, make your proper arrangements, and I ’ll go myself, or maybe with Petr Ivánovich, privately, just for a walk to see that travellers are properly treated. Here, Svistunóv!

_Svistunóv._ At your service, sir!

_Burgomaster._ Fetch me at once the captain--or, no. I need you. Tell somebody there to fetch me the captain as quickly as possible, and come back here. (_The sergeant runs away._)

_Curator._ Let us go, let us go, Ammós Fédorovich. There might, indeed, happen some misfortune.

_Judge._ What are you afraid of? Put clean nightcaps on the patients, and your deed is done.

_Curator._ Bosh, nightcaps! The patients are supposed to get oat gruel, and instead there is such a smell of cabbage in the corridors that you are compelled to hold your nose.

_Judge._ I am at ease on that score. Indeed, who would think of looking into the County Court? And if he should take it into his head to glance at some papers, he ’ll wish he had not done it. It ’s now fifteen years I have been occupying the bench, but when I look into a brief, I give it up in despair. Solomon himself could not make out what is right and what wrong.

(_The Judge, Curator of Charitable Institutions, Inspector of Schools, and Postmaster go out, and in the door bump against the returning sergeant._)

FROM “DEAD SOULS”

MRS. KORÓBOCHKA

“It ’s a fine village you have there, motherkin. How many souls are there?”

“There are in it nigh upon eighty souls, my friend,” said the proprietress. “The trouble is, times are bad: now, last year there was such a failure of crops; God save us from another!”

“Yet your peasants are rather a fine lot, and their cabins look as if they were in good trim. Oh, please tell me your name! I am so distracted, having arrived here in night time----”

“Koróbochka, college secretary.”

“Much obliged. And your Christian name and patronymic?”

“Nastásya Petróvna.”

“Nastásya Petróvna? It ’s a fine name--Nastásya Petróvna. I have an aunt, my mother’s sister, whose name is Nastásya Petróvna.”

“And what is your name?” asked the proprietress: “you are the tax-collector, if I am not mistaken?”

“No, motherkin!” answered Chíchikov smiling: “not the tax-collector. I am travelling on my own account.”

“Oh, then you are buying things! What a pity that I sold the honey so cheap to the merchants! I am sure, my friend, you would have bought it of me.”

“No, it is n’t honey I am after.”

“What then? Hemp? Why, I have n’t much of it just now,--something like half a pud.”

“No, motherkin, it ’s different goods I want. Tell me, have any of your peasants died?”

“Oh, my friend, eighteen of them?” said the old woman with a sigh. “And it ’s all good workers that have died. There have been born some since, it is true, but what good is there in them? It ’s all small fry. When the tax-collector comes around, I ’ll have to pay for the dead ones all the same as if they were living. Last week my blacksmith was burned; he was such a fine blacksmith, and he was a locksmith too.”

“Have you had a fire, motherkin?”

“God has spared me that misfortune. A fire would have been worse; no, he burnt himself, my friend. There was something inside of him that caught fire: he had been drinking hard. A blue flame came out of him, and he burnt all up, and grew black like coal. Oh, he was such a fine blacksmith! Now I can’t drive out at all, for there is nobody here to shoe the horses.”

“God’s will is in everything, motherkin!” said Chíchikov heaving a sigh: “we must say nothing against the wisdom of God---- Turn them over to me, Nastásya Petróvna!”

“Whom, my friend?”

“I mean all those that have died.”

“How do you mean, to turn them over?”

“Why, just turn them over, or, if you wish, sell them to me. I ’ll pay you for them.”

“How do you mean that? I declare, I can’t see through it. Do you intend to dig them up?”

Chíchikov perceived that she was far from the mark, and it became necessary to explain to her the business. He told her in a few words that the transfer or sale would be only on paper, and that the souls would be mentioned as if they were still alive.

“What do you want them for?” said the old woman, as she stared at him.

“That ’s my affair.”

“But they are dead!”

“Well, who said they were alive? That ’s where your loss comes in, because they are dead. You have been paying for them all this time, and I will deliver you from trouble and expenses. You understand? I will not only deliver you, but I ’ll pay you fifteen roubles to boot. Well, is it clear now?”

“I confess, I don’t know,” said the proprietress deliberately: “I have never before sold dead souls.”

“I guess not! It would, indeed, have been an odd thing if you had. Or do you, really, think there is some use in them?”

“No, I don’t think exactly that. What use can there be in them? There ’s no use in them. The thing that troubles me is, they are dead.”

“I see she is a thick-skulled old woman,” Chíchikov thought. “Listen, motherkin! Just consider well: you are ruining yourself when you pay taxes for them as if they were alive----”

“Oh, my friend, don’t mention it!” the proprietress interrupted him. “It is n’t three weeks yet that I had to pay one hundred and fifty, and to grease the tax-collector besides.”

“That ’s it, motherkin! Now, just consider that you will not have to grease the tax-collector again, for it is I who am going to pay for them, and not you. I take upon myself all obligations. I ’ll even have the deed made out at my expense, do you understand that?”

The old woman became pensive. She saw that the business was indeed advantageous, but so new and unusual that she was growing suspicious, lest the purchaser should get the better of her, especially since God knows where he came from, and that, too, at night time.

“Well, motherkin, is it a bargain?” said Chíchikov.

“Really, my friend, I have never yet had a chance to sell corpses. As for living ones, it ’s only three years hence that I sold some to Protopópov,--two girls at one hundred roubles apiece,--and he ’s been thankful for them: they have turned out to be excellent workers, and they can make even napkins.”

“But we are not concerned about living ones,--God be with them! I am asking for dead ones.”

“Really, I am afraid, to begin with, I might sell them at a sacrifice. Maybe, my friend, you are cheating me. Who knows but what they are worth more?”

“Listen, motherkin,--what a funny woman you are! What worth can they have? Think of it: they are dust. Do you understand?--they are nothing but dust. Take any useless, worthless thing, say, a common rag, and that has some value: it may be, at least, bought in the paper factory, but what are these good for? Say yourself, what are they good for?”

“I ’ll agree, you are right. They are good for nothing. The only thing that bothers me is that they are dead.”

“Confound that club-headed woman!” said Chíchikov to himself, as he was beginning to lose patience. “Go and straighten things out with her! She has made me sweat, accursed woman!” He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe off the perspiration that really had come out on his forehead. In reality, Chíchikov had no special reason to lose his patience: there is many an honourable man, a man of state, who is a fine reproduction of Mrs. Koróbochka. Let him take some notion, and you will not get him away from it; all your proofs in the world, even if they are as clear as daylight, will rebound from him, like a rubber ball from the wall. Having wiped off his perspiration, Chíchikov resolved to try her from another side, hoping to get her at last on the right path.

“Motherkin, either you do not want to understand my words, or you are just talking, to be a-talking. I am offering you money, fifteen roubles in assignats,--do you understand? It is money I am offering you. You can’t pick it up in the street. Now, confess, what did you sell your honey at?”

“Twelve roubles a pud.”

“You are sinning a little, motherkin. You did not sell it at twelve.”

“Upon my word, I did.”

“Well, you see, but it is honey! You have been gathering it probably for a year, with care, and trouble, and worry; you had to be about, to starve the bees, to feed them a whole winter in the cellar--while dead souls are not of this world. Here you have to undergo no trouble: it was God’s will that they should leave this world and cause your estate a loss. There you received a compensation for your labour and your care at the rate of twelve roubles, and here you receive for nothing, and not twelve, but fifteen, and not in silver, but in blue assignats.”

Chíchikov did not doubt that after such convincing proof the old woman would finally capitulate.

“Really,” answered the proprietress, “I am such an inexperienced widow! I think I had better wait a little: maybe some other purchasers will come, and I ’ll get used to the price.”

“Shame, shame, motherkin! Simply, shame! Now, just think what you are saying! Who is going to buy them? Well, what use can anybody make of them?”

“Maybe they are some good on the estate----” retorted the old woman and did not finish her speech. She opened her mouth and looked at him almost with terror, wondering what he would say to that.

“Dead souls on the estate! What a guess you have made! What do you want to do with them? Use them for scarecrows to drive the sparrows out of your garden?”

“The power of the cross be with us! What awful things you say!” muttered the woman, making the sign of the cross.

“Well, where else would you make use of them? Besides, I leave their bones and graves to you: the transfer is only on paper. Well, what do you say? Give me, at least, some kind of an answer.”

The old woman fell again to musing.

“What are you thinking about, Nastásya Petróvna?”

“Really, I can’t quite make it out; let me better sell you some hemp.”

“What do I want with the hemp? I declare, I am asking you for something else, and you foist hemp upon me! The hemp is all right, I ’ll come another time, and will take your hemp. How is it now, Nastásya Petróvna?”

“Upon my word, it ’s such a strange article, and so odd.”

Here Chíchikov’s patience burst all bounds; in his anger he banged a chair against the floor, and sent her to the devil.

The proprietress was dreadfully put out by the devil. “Oh, don’t mention him, God be with him!” she cried out, while growing pale: “Only night before last the accursed one appeared to me in my dream. I had carelessly been laying cards to tell fortune in the evening after prayers, so the Lord evidently sent him to me to punish me. Oh, he looked so horrible: his horns were longer than a bull’s.”

“I wonder how it is they don’t come to you by the dozen. Out of mere Christian charity I wanted to help a poor widow that is suffering want---- Go to perdition with your whole village!----”

“What curses you are uttering!” said the woman, looking at him in terror.

“I can’t find the right words with you! Really, not to use any bad words, you are just like a watchdog that is lying on the hay: he does n’t himself eat any hay, and won’t let anybody else eat it. I had intended to buy all kinds of produce from you, for I am also a government contractor----” He lied here, just in passing, without any further thought, but it came in unexpectedly at the right moment. Government contracts made a strong impression on Nastásya Petróvna; at least she spoke in an almost imploring voice:

“But what has made you so dreadfully angry? If I had known before that you are such an excitable man, I would n’t have contradicted you at all.”

“There is really no cause for anger! The whole business is n’t worth an empty eggshell, and why should I get angry over it?”

“Well, if you want them, I ’ll let you have them for fifteen in assignats! Only, my friend, let me tell you about your government contracts: if you have any occasion to buy up rye, or buckwheat, or grit, or meat,--please don’t forget me.”

“No, motherkin, I won’t,” he said while wiping off the sweat that came down his face in three streaks. He asked her whether she did not have in town some attorney or friend whom she could give the power to make out the deed and everything else that was necessary.

“Certainly! The son of Father Cyril, the protopope, serves in the court-house,” said Koróbochka.

Chíchikov asked her to write a letter to him granting him power of attorney, and, to save more trouble, began to compose the letter himself.

“It would be nice,” Koróbochka said to herself in the meanwhile, “if he bought flour and beef of me for the government. I must get on the good side of him: there is some dough left from last night, so I ’ll go and tell Fetínya to make some griddle cakes.”

Vissarión Grigórevich Byelínski. (1811-1848.)

Few persons have exerted such a far-reaching influence upon Russian
literature as the critic Byelínski, and a whole generation of writers
was cast in the mould of his æsthetic views. Byelínski was the son of
a district physician in the Government of Pénza. His home life was
exceedingly unhappy and his childhood was neglected; from the district
school, to which he was sent up to his fourteenth year, he was
transferred to the Gymnasium and later to the Moscow University, but
he was a very poor student and careless about his person. In Moscow he
joined the Schelling circle of the students and with them devoted his
time to the study of literature, especially of Shakspere, Goethe,
Schiller, and Hoffmann. In 1832 he left the university, and the next
two years he passed in utter wretchedness and poverty. Then he took
his first critical essay, _Literary Dreams_, to a magazine, and his
literary career began. Under Schelling’s influence he denied the
previous importance of Russian literature, and proclaimed the nascent
genius of Gógol, who had just made his appearance. Between 1836 and
1838 Byelínski’s circle of friends vaulted over to Hegel’s philosophy,
and under this new influence Byelínski rejected all lyrics and satire
as not compatible with an unbiased, objective contemplation of the
phenomena of life, and discredited all productions that dealt with the
living questions of the day. In 1839 he was called to St. Petersburg
to take charge of the critical and bibliographical departments of the
Memoirs of the Fatherland. Here began the third and most important
period of his activity: he soon recanted his former æsthetic theories
and evolved the theory of “art for life,” which henceforth became the
criterion for all literary criticisms. Of his many excellent essays of
this period dealing with Russian belles-lettres, the best is _A View
on Russian Literature for the Year 1847_. He died of consumption,
brought about mainly by his many privations.

THE NATURAL SCHOOL

Our literature has been the fruit of conscious thought; it appeared as an innovation, it began by imitation. It did not stop there, but continually strove to be independent, national; from being rhetorical it strove to become simple, _natural_. This tendency has been made perceptible by a continuous progress, and forms the meaning and soul of the history of our literature. We will say without reserve that in no Russian writer has this tendency been crowned by such success as in Gógol. This end was attained only through the exclusive application of art to reality, in spite of all ideals. It became necessary to direct all the attention to the people, the masses, to depict common men, and not merely the pleasant exceptions from the universal rule, that invariably tempt the poets to idealise, and that bear upon themselves a foreign stamp. That was Gógol’s great merit, and it is that precisely which the men of the old culture regard as his crime against the laws of art. By his manner he has completely changed the view on art itself. One may apply to the works of all the Russian poets, by stretching the point a little, the old and obsolete definition of poetry as “Nature adorned”; but it is impossible to do so in relation to Gógol’s works. For these the more appropriate definition is “a reproduction of reality in all its truth.” Here the whole matter is in _types_, and the _ideal_ is here not understood as an adornment (consequently--a lie), but as the correlation of the types created by him, in accordance with the thought which he wishes to develop in his production.

Art has in our days got the better of theory. The old theories have lost all their credit; the very people that had been educated in them follow not them, but a certain strange mixture of old and new conceptions. Thus, for example, some of them, in rejecting the old French theory in the name of Romanticism, were the first to give the aggravating example of introducing into their novels persons from the lower strata, even villains, under the appropriate appellation of Pilferer and Cutter; but they immediately rectified themselves by bringing out moral persons, together with the immoral ones, under the name of Truth-lover, Charitable, etc. In the first case was to be seen the influence of new ideas, in the second, of old conceptions, for according to the recipe of ancient poetics at least one clever fellow must be added to a number of fools, and at least one virtuous man to a number of good-for-nothings. In either case these betweeners left out of sight the main thing, namely, art; for it did not occur to them that their virtuous and vicious persons were not men, not characters, but rhetorical personifications of abstract virtues and vices. That explains better than anything why for them theory, rule, is more important than fact, reality: the latter is inaccessible to their comprehension. However, not even talented writers and geniuses are always able to escape the influence of theory. Gógol belongs to the number of the few who have entirely avoided every influence of any and all theory. Though capable of understanding art and of admiring it in the productions of other poets, he nevertheless proceeded in his own way, following his deep and true artistic instinct with which Nature had endowed him lavishly, and without being tempted to imitate the successes of others. Of course, that did not in itself give him any originality, but enabled him to preserve and express in its entirety that originality which was the part and parcel of his individuality, consequently, like talent, a natural gift. It is for that reason that he appeared to many as having entered Russian literature from without, while, in reality, he was its necessary phenomenon, which was the logical conclusion of all its preceding evolution.

Gógol’s influence on Russian literature has been enormous. Not only did all the young talents throw themselves on the path which he had indicated, but some writers who had already gained a reputation abandoned their old way and proceeded on the new. Gógol wrote nothing after the _Dead Souls_. There is only his school upon the arena of literature. All blame and accusation that formerly was hurled at him is now directed against the natural school, and whatever attack is still made upon him is on account of that school. What is he, then, accused of? There are but few accusations, and they are nearly always the same. At first they attacked the school, they claimed, on account of its eternal attacks upon the officials. In the representation of the life of this class some saw sincerely, others feignedly, evil-minded caricatures. These accusations have been silenced for some time. Now they accuse the writers of the natural school for loving the people of the lower occupations, for making heroes of their novels out of peasants, janitors, coachmen, for describing the purlieus and refuges of naked poverty and frequently of all kind of immorality. To put the new writers to shame, the accusers point with triumph to the beautiful days of Russian literature, refer to the names of Karamzín and Dmítriev, who had chosen for their productions high and noble objects, and adduce as an example of now forgotten prettiness the sentimental song: “Of all the flowerets I loved most the rose!” But we shall remind them that the first noteworthy novel, was written by Karamzín, and its heroine was “Poor Líza,” a peasant girl, who was seduced by a coxcomb---- But, they will say, everything is decent and pure there, and the Moscow peasant girl does not yield to the best-brought-up lady. Now we have, at last, come to the cause of the dispute: you see, the old poetics is to be blamed for it. It does not mind your representing peasants, but not otherwise than masqueraded in theatrical costumes, who display feelings and ideas that are strange to their existence, position, and education, and who express themselves in a language no one speaks, and least of all peasants,--a literary language that is embellished by “wherewith, aforementioned, than which,” and so forth.---- In short, the ancient poetics permits you to represent anything you please, but immediately prescribes so to adorn the subject under discussion as to make it utterly impossible to discover what it is you had intended to represent.

The natural school follows the very opposite rule: the nearest possible resemblance of the persons represented to their prototypes in reality does not form its all, but is its first condition, a non-compliance with which would vitiate anything good there may be in the composition. It is a heavy condition which only a talent can comply with. After that, how can those writers help loving and honouring that ancient poetics, who formerly could without talent insinuate themselves successfully in the field of poetry? How can they help regarding the natural school as their most terrible enemy, since it has introduced a manner of writing which is inaccessible to them? That, of course, refers only to people with whom egotism enters in the discussion of this question; but there will also be found many who in all sincere conviction do not love the natural in art, through the influence of the old poetics upon them. These people, in addition, complain with special bitterness, because art has now forgotten its former purpose. “Poetry,” they say, “used to instruct while amusing, compelled the reader to forget the tribulations and sufferings of life, and represented to him only pleasant and smiling pictures. The former poets used to represent also pictures of poverty, but a poverty that was neat, washed, and expressing itself modestly and with refinement; then, at the end of the novel there always appeared a sentimental young lady or maiden, a daughter of rich and refined parents, or at least a philanthropic young man,--and, in the name of these kind hearts, was enthroned abundance and happiness where there was poverty and misery, and grateful tears watered the beneficent hand,--and the reader involuntarily raised his batiste handkerchief to his eyes and felt that he was growing better and more sentimental----

“But now!--See what they are writing about now! Peasants in bast shoes and gabardines who often smell of brandy; an old woman--a kind of centaur, by whose dress one cannot easily tell of what gender that creature may be; purlieus--refuges of misery, despair, and debauch, which one can reach only by yards knee-deep in mud; some drunkard,--a scribe or a seminarist turned teacher, expelled from service,--all that is described from nature, in the nakedness of terrible truth, so that the reading of it will give you some bad dreams----”

Thus, or in some such manner, speak the intrepid disciples of the ancient poetics. In reality, their complaints are that poetry has quit lying shamelessly, that it has changed from a nursery tale into a not always pleasant narrative, that it has ceased being a rattle, by the sound of which children leap about or fall asleep. Strange people, happy people! They have succeeded in remaining all their life children, and even in their old age to be minors,--and now they demand that all should resemble them! Read your old fairy tales, nobody will keep you from them; but leave to others the occupations that suit those who are of age. For you--the lie; for us--truth: let us divide without quarrelling. You do not want our share, and we will not take yours gratis----

But there is another cause which interferes with this friendly division,--egotism which regards itself as virtue. Indeed, let us take a man who is well-off, or even rich. He has just had a good, savoury dinner (he has an excellent cook), has seated himself in his comfortable arm-chair, with a cup of coffee, in front of a glowing fireplace; he feels good and warm, a feeling of well-being makes him happy; he takes a book and lazily turns its pages; his brow wrinkles over his eyes, the smile disappears from his rosy lips, he is agitated, disturbed, annoyed---- And there is reason for it! The book tells him that not all people in the world live as well as he; that there are purlieus where a whole family shakes with cold under rags, though it had, probably, but lately known of ease; that there are people in the world who by birth and fate are destined for misery,--that the last kopek goes for “green wine” not always from indolence, but also from despair. And our happy man feels ill at ease, and rather ashamed of his comfort. The whole trouble is in that wretched book: he had picked it up for his pleasure, and he had read himself into melancholy and ennui. Away with it! “A book is to give you a pleasant pastime; I do not need it to find out that there is much sorrow and sadness in life, and if I do read, it is to forget it all!” he exclaims.

Yes, dear sybarite, for your peace books ought to lie, and the poor man forget his woe, the hungry his hunger, the groans of suffering must reach your ears as musical notes, lest your appetite be spoiled, your sleep disturbed---- Now let us imagine another lover of pleasant reading in the same situation. He has to give a reception, the time is drawing near, and there is no money. His steward, Nikíta Fédorych, has for some reason been slow in sending the amount. At last the money arrives, the reception can come off. With a cigar in his mouth, happy and satisfied, he is lying on the couch and, having nothing to do, his hands lazily stretch out towards a book. Again the same story! That damnable book tells him the exploits of his Nikíta Fédorych, that low-born churl, who had been accustomed from childhood eagerly to pander to the passions and whims of others, who was married to the ex-sweetheart of his master’s progenitor---- Away with that wretched book!

Now imagine again another man in a comfortable condition, who in his childhood had been running about barefooted, had been a messenger-boy, and at fifty had somehow risen to rank, and who possessed a small competency. Everybody reads, so he must too. But what does he find in the book?--His biography and, at that, correctly told, though no one, but himself, knows anything of the experiences of his life, and no author could possibly have discovered his secret---- He is not merely agitated, he is mad, and with a feeling of dignity he eases his anger by the following consideration: “That’s the way they write nowadays! That’s what Free Thought has come to! Did they write that way before? No! It used to be such a fluent style, and they discussed such tender and elevated subjects that it was a joy to read, and there was no cause for annoyance!”

There is a special class of readers who, from a sentiment of aristocratism, hate to meet people of the lower strata even in books, especially those that have no sense of proprieties and refinement; they despise dirt and misery, as the very opposite of their luxurious parlours, boudoirs, and cabinets. These refer to the natural school only with a haughty contempt and ironical smile---- Who are they, these feudal barons, that they loathe the “low-born mob” that in their eyes is lower than a good horse? Be not in a hurry to learn about them in books of heraldry or at European courts: you will not find their coats-of-arms; they do not go to Court, and if they have seen the fashionable world, it was only in the street, through brilliantly lighted windows, as much as curtains and blinds permitted them to do so. They cannot boast of ancestors: they are generally officials, or new-made nobles that are rich only in plebeian traditions of a grandfather who was a steward, an uncle--a contractor, and, at times, a grandmother--a baker of altar breads, and an aunt--a huckstress.

A contempt for the lower strata of society is in our days no longer a vice of the higher classes; no, it is the disease of upstarts, a monstrous outgrowth of ignorance, and vulgarity of feelings and conceptions. A wise and cultured man would never manifest this disease, if he were at all subject to it, because it does not comport with the spirit of the time, because to proclaim it would be the croaking that announces the raven. It seems to us that, though doublefacedness is contemptible, in this case it is better than a raven sincerity, for it bears witness to cleverness. The peacock that proudly opens his splendid tail before the other birds has the reputation of a beautiful, not clever, animal. What is to be said of the raven that haughtily displays its borrowed plumage? Such haughtiness is always devoid of sense, and is generally a plebeian vice. Where is there more display and pretence than in those classes of society that come right after the lowest? It is so, because there is most ignorance there. See how deeply the lackey despises the peasant who is, in every respect, better, nobler, humaner than he! Whence that pride in the lackey?--He has adopted his master’s vices, and therefore he regards himself as more cultured than the peasant. External lustre is ever taken by coarse natures for culture.

“What sense is there in flooding literature with peasants?” exclaim the aristocrats of a certain category. In their opinion the writer is an artisan who is to furnish work according to order. It does not enter their minds that in the selection of the subject for his composition the author cannot be guided by the will of others, or even his own free choice, for art has its laws that must be complied with in order that one may write well. It demands above all that the writer should be true to his own nature, his talent, his fancy. How are we to explain the fact that one likes to represent happy subjects, another sad ones, if not by the nature, character, and talent of the poet? What one loves and is interested in, that one knows best, and what one knows best, one represents best. That is the most legitimate justification of the poet who is blamed for the selection of his subjects; it is not satisfactory only to those who have no understanding of art and vulgarly confound it with the artisan’s profession.