Nikolai Gogol

“ Two dishes are better than a thousand, provided that one can eat of them as much as one wants."
And he proceeded to put precept into practice by taking half the shoulder of mutton on to his plate, and then devouring it down to the last morsel of gristle and bone.
"My word!" reflected Chichikov. "The fellow has a pretty good holding capacity!"
"None of it for me," repeated Sobakevitch as he wiped his hands on his napkin. "I don't intend to be like a fellow named Plushkin, who owns eight hundred souls, yet dines worse than does my shepherd."
"Who is Plushkin?" asked Chichikov. ”

“ For a while Sobakevitch remained silent, and Chichikov did the same. This lasted for a couple of minutes, and, meanwhile, the aquiline-nosed Bagration gazed from the wall as though much interested in the bargaining.
"What is your outside price?" at length said Sobakevitch.
"Two and a half roubles."
"Then you seem to rate a human soul at about the same value as a boiled turnip. At least give me THREE roubles." ”

“ But have some mutton, friend Chichikov. It is shoulder of mutton, and very different stuff from the mutton which they cook in noble kitchens--mutton which has been kicking about the market-place four days or more. All that sort of cookery has been invented by French and German doctors, and I should like to hang them for having done so. They go and prescribe diets and a hunger cure as though what suits their flaccid German systems will agree with a Russian stomach! Such devices are no good at all." Sobakevitch shook his head wrathfully. "Fellows like those are for ever talking of civilisation. ”

“ Every moment will see her growing timorous and confused lest she be saying too much. Finally, she will develop into a confirmed prevaricator, and end by marrying the devil knows whom!" Chichikov paused awhile. Then he went on: "Yet I should like to know who she is, and who her father is, and whether he is a rich landowner of good standing, or merely a respectable man who has acquired a fortune in the service of the Government. Should he allow her, on marriage, a dowry of, say, two hundred thousand roubles, she will be a very nice catch indeed. ”

“ The matter is a very simple one. The question is: what is a dead soul worth, and is it of any use to any one?"
"It is of use to YOU, or you would not be buying such articles."
Chichikov bit his lip, and stood at a loss for a retort. He tried to saying something about "family and domestic circumstances," but Sobakevitch cut him short with:
"I don't want to know your private affairs, for I never poke my nose into such things. You need the souls, and I am ready to sell them. Should you not buy them, I think you will repent it."
"Two roubles is my price," repeated Chichikov. ”

“ Everywhere through the web of sorrow of which our lives are woven there may suddenly break a clear, radiant thread of joy; even as suddenly along the street of some poor, poverty-stricken village which, ordinarily, sees nought but a farm waggon there may came bowling a gorgeous coach with plated harness, picturesque horses, and a glitter of glass, so that the peasants stand gaping, and do not resume their caps until long after the strange equipage has become lost to sight. ”

“ Even convicts in prison live better than he does. And he starves his servants as well."
"Really?" ejaculated Chichikov, greatly interested. "Should you, then, say that he has lost many peasants by death?"
"Certainly. They keep dying like flies."
"Then how far from here does he reside?"
"About five versts."
"Only five versts?" exclaimed Chichikov, feeling his heart beating joyously. "Ought one, when leaving your gates, to turn to the right or to the left?"
"I should be sorry to tell you the way to the house of such a cur," said Sobakevitch. "A man had far better go to hell than to Plushkin's." ”

“ That is to say, they were brought back to practicalities by coming into violent collision with a six-horsed vehicle, while upon their heads descended both a babel of cries from the ladies inside and a storm of curses and abuse from the coachman. "Ah, you damned fool!" he vociferated. "I shouted to you loud enough! Draw out, you old raven, and keep to the right! Are you drunk?" Selifan himself felt conscious that he had been careless, but since a Russian does not care to admit a fault in the presence of strangers, he retorted with dignity: "Why have you run into US? ”

“ Not a man of the lot is there but would sell Christ. Yet stay: ONE decent fellow there is--the Public Prosecutor; though even HE, if the truth be told, is little better than a pig."
After these eulogia Chichikov saw that it would be useless to continue running through the list of officials--more especially since suddenly he had remembered that Sobakevitch was not at any time given to commending his fellow man. ”

“ At length the participatory efforts of the peasants rose to an unprecedented degree of enthusiasm, and they shouted in an intermittent chorus the advice, "Do you, Andrusha, take the head of the trace horse on the right, while Uncle Mitai mounts the shaft horse. Get up, Uncle Mitai." Upon that the lean, long, and red-bearded Uncle Mitai mounted the shaft horse; in which position he looked like a village steeple or the winder which is used to raise water from wells. The coachman whipped up his steeds afresh, but nothing came of it, and Uncle Mitai had proved useless. ”

“ Meanwhile Sobakevitch sat with his head drooping.
From that Chichikov went on to remark that, according to the statutes of the said Russian Empire (which yielded to none in glory--so much so that foreigners marvelled at it) , peasants on the census lists who had ended their earthly careers were nevertheless, on the rendering of new lists, returned equally with the living, to the end that the courts might be relieved of a multitude of trifling, useless emendations which might complicate the already sufficiently complex mechanism of the State. ”

“ And he did so.
"Indeed?" said Sobakevitch. "Well, my last word upon it is--fifty roubles in assignats. That will mean a sheer loss to me, for nowhere else in the world could you buy better souls than mine."
"The old skinflint!" muttered Chichikov. Then he added aloud, with irritation in his tone: "See here. This is a serious matter. Any one but you would be thankful to get rid of the souls. Only a fool would stick to them, and continue to pay the tax." ”

“ Accordingly, on reaching the further end of the village, he hailed the first peasant whom he saw--a man who was in the act of hoisting a ponderous beam on to his shoulder before setting off with it, ant-like, to his hut.
"Hi!" shouted Chichikov. "How can I reach landowner Plushkin's place without first going past the mansion here?"
The peasant seemed nonplussed by the question.
"Don't you know?" queried Chichikov.
"No, barin," replied the peasant.
"What? You don't know skinflint Plushkin who feeds his people so badly?" ”

“ Chichikov placed the notes in Sobakevitch's hand; whereupon the host moved nearer to the table, and added to the list of serfs a note that he had received for the peasants, therewith sold, the sum of twenty-five roubles, as earnest money. This done, he counted the notes once more.
"This is a very OLD note," he remarked, holding one up to the light. "Also, it is a trifle torn. However, in a friendly transaction one must not be too particular."
"What a kulak!" thought Chichikov to himself. "And what a brute beast!"
"Then you do not want any WOMEN souls?" queried Sobakevitch. ”

“ What a man cannot do, that he cannot do." The speaker ended by advancing another half-rouble per head.
"But why hang back with your money?" said Sobakevitch. "Of a truth I am not asking much of you. Any other rascal than myself would have cheated you by selling you old rubbish instead of good, genuine souls, whereas I should be ready to give you of my best, even were you buying only nut-kernels. For instance, look at wheelwright Michiev. Never was there such a one to build spring carts! ”

“ Though not adjusted with nicety, at least you are strongly built. I wonder whether you were born a bear or whether you have come to it through your rustic life, with its tilling of crops and its trading with peasants? Yet no; I believe that, even if you had received a fashionable education, and had mixed with society, and had lived in St. Petersburg, you would still have been just the kulak [5] that you are. The only difference is that circumstances, as they stand, permit of your polishing off a stuffed shoulder of mutton at a meal ”

“ Chichikov opened his mouth to remark that, nevertheless, the said Michiev had long since departed this world; but Sobakevitch's eloquence had got too thoroughly into its stride to admit of any interruption.
"And look, too, at Probka Stepan, the carpenter," his host went on. "I will wager my head that nowhere else would you find such a workman. What a strong fellow he was! ”

“ Lastly, scorning to plane down the roughness, she sends out that person into the world, saying: "There is another live creature." Sobakevitch was just such a ragged, curiously put together figure--though the above model would seem to have been followed more in his upper portion than in his lower. One result was that he seldom turned his head to look at the person with whom he was speaking, but, rather, directed his eyes towards, say, the stove corner or the doorway. As host and guest crossed the dining-room Chichikov directed a second glance at his companion. ”

“ One of them was that of a woman in a mobcap with features as long and as narrow as a cucumber, and the other that of a man with features as broad and as short as the Moldavian pumpkins (known as gorlianki) whereof balallaiki--the species of light, two-stringed instrument which constitutes the pride and the joy of the gay young fellow of twenty as he sits winking and smiling at the white-necked, white-bosomed maidens who have gathered to listen to his low-pitched tinkling--are fashioned. ”

“ They are flies, not human beings."
"Well," said Chichikov, "they exist, though only in idea."
"But no--NOT only in idea. I tell you that nowhere else would you find such a fellow for working heavy tools as was Michiev. He had the strength of a horse in his shoulders." And, with the words, Sobakevitch turned, as though for corroboration, to the portrait of Bagration, as is frequently done by one of the parties in a dispute when he purports to appeal to an extraneous individual who is not only unknown to him, but wholly unconnected with the subject in hand ”

“ Indeed, had it not been that the person concerned was Chichikov, and not some youth of twenty summers--a hussar or a student or, in general, a man standing on the threshold of life--what thoughts would not have sprung to birth, and stirred and spoken, within him ”

“ Everywhere in life--yes, even in the plainest, the dingiest ranks of society, as much as in those which are uniformly bright and presentable--a man may happen upon some phenomenon which is so entirely different from those which have hitherto fallen to his lot. ”

“ One thing she has in her favour--and that is that she appears only just to have left school, and not to have had time to become womanly in the worser sense. At present, therefore, she is like a child. Everything in her is simple, and she says just what she thinks, and laughs merely when she feels inclined. ”

“ A horse needs his oats--they are his proper fare. Even if you make a man procure a meal at his own expense, don't deny a horse his oats, for he ought always to have them."
An equally poor opinion of Nozdrev seemed to be cherished also by the steeds, for not only were the bay and the Assessor clearly out of spirits, but even the skewbald was wearing a dejected air. True, at home the skewbald got none but the poorer sorts of oats to eat, and Selifan never filled his trough without having first called him a villain ”

“ Persons of this kind--persons to whose designing nature has devoted not much thought, and in the fashioning of whose frames she has used no instruments so delicate as a file or a gimlet and so forth--are not uncommon. Such persons she merely roughhews. ”