Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol

Through the gates of the inn in the provincial town of N. drove a rather handsome, smallish spring britzka, of the sort driven around in by bachelors: retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, landowners possessed of some hundred peasant souls—in short, all those known as gentlemen of the middling sort. In the britzka sat a gentleman, not handsome, but also not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; you could not have said he was old, yet neither was he all that young.

Russian muzhiks

britzka

As the carriage drove into the yard, the gentleman was met by a tavern servant, or floorboy, as they are called in Russian taverns, lively and fidgety to such a degree that it was even impossible to tell what sort of face he had. He ran out nimbly, a napkin in his hand, all long himself and in a long half-cotton frock coat with its back almost up to his nape, tossed his hair, and nimbly led the gentleman up along the entire wooden gallery to show him his god-sent chambers. The chambers were of a familiar kind, for the inn was also of a familiar kind, that is, precisely one of those inns in provincial towns where for two roubles a day the traveler is given a comfortable room, with cockroaches peeking like prunes from every corner, and the door to the adjoining quarters always blocked by a chest of drawers, where a neighbor settles, a taciturn and quiet man, yet an extremely curious one, interested in knowing every little detail about the traveler.

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In the corner shop, or, better, in its window, sat a seller of hot punch with a red copper samovar and a face as red as the samovar, so that from a distance one might have thought there were two samovars in the window, if one samovar had not had a pitch-black beard.

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coachman Selifan,

When all this had been brought in, the coachman Selifan went to the stables to potter with the horses, while the lackey Petrushka began to settle himself in a small anteroom, a very dark closet, where he had already managed to drag his overcoat and with it a certain smell of his own, which had also been imparted to the sack of various lackey toiletries brought in after it. In this closet, he fixed a narrow, three-legged bed to the wall and covered it with a small semblance of a mattress, beaten down and flat as a pancake, and perhaps as greasy as a pancake, which he had managed to extort from the innkeeper.

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wall—in short, the same as everywhere; with the only difference that one painting portrayed a nymph with such enormous breasts as the reader has probably never seen. Such sports of nature occur, however, in various historical paintings, brought to our Russia no one knows at what time, from where, or by whom, on occasion even by our grand dignitaries, lovers of art, who bought them up in Italy on the advice of the couriers that drove them around.

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However, the visitor’s questions were not all idle; he inquired with extreme precision as to who was the governor of the town, who was the head magistrate, who was the prosecutor—in short, he did not skip a single important official; but with still greater precision, even almost concern, he inquired about all the important landowners: how many peasant souls each one had, how far from town he lived, even what his character was and how often he came to town; he inquired attentively into the condition of the area: whether there were any diseases in their province—

The gentleman’s manners had something solid about them, and he blew his nose with an exceeding loudness. It is not known how he did it, only his nose sounded like a trumpet. This apparently quite innocent virtue, however, gained him great esteem on the part of the tavern servant, who, each time he heard this sound, tossed his hair, drew himself up more respectfully, and, bowing his head from on high, asked: was anything required?

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For more than a week already the newly arrived gentleman had been living in the town, driving about to soirées and dinners and thus passing his time, as they say, very pleasantly. At last he decided to transfer his visits outside of town and call on the landowners Manilov and Sobakevich, to whom he had given his word. Perhaps he was impelled to it by some other, more essential reason, some more serious matter, closer to his heart … But of all that the reader will learn gradually and in due time, if only he has patience enough to read the proffered tale, a very long one, which is to expand more widely and vastly later on, as it nears the end that crowns the matter.

britzka

Petr...

a Russian man,

This will not take up much time or space, however, because not much needs to be added to what the reader already knows, to wit, that Petrushka went about in a rather loose brown frock coat from his master’s back and had, as is customary for people of his station in life, a large nose and lips. He was more taciturn than talkative in character; he even had a noble impulse for enlightenment, that is, for reading books, the content of which did not trouble him: it made absolutely no difference to him whether it was the adventures of some amorous hero, a simple primer, or a prayer book—he read everything with equal attention; if they slipped him chemistry, he would not refuse that either. He liked not so much what he was reading about as the reading itself, or, better, the process of reading, the fact that letters are eternally forming some word, which sometimes even means the devil knows what. This reading was accomplished mostly in a recumbent position in the anteroom, on a bed and a mattress which, owing to this circumstance, was beaten down and thin as a flapjack.

sleep without undressing,

peculiar smell,

overcoat and chattels

Chichikov, being a most ticklish man and even on occasion a finical one, when he drew in air through a fresh nose in the morning, would only wince and toss his head, saying: “Devil knows, brother, you’re sweating or something. You ought to go to a bathhouse.” To which Petrushka made no reply and straightaway tried to busy himself somehow: either approaching his master’s hanging tailcoat with a brush, or simply putting things in order. What he was thinking all the while he stood there silently—perhaps he was saying to himself: “And you’re a good one, too, aren’t you sick of repeating the same thing forty times?”—God knows, it is hard to tell what a household serf is thinking while his master admonishes him.

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The coachman Selifan

cranberry-colored tailcoat

into the britzka.

Not without joy was the striped tollgate beheld in the distance, letting it be known that the pavement, like any other torment, would soon come to an end; and after a few more good hard bumps of his head against the sides, Chichikov was at last racing over soft ground. No sooner had the town dropped back than all sorts of stuff and nonsense, as is usual with us, began scrawling itself along both sides of the road: tussocks, fir trees, low skimpy stands of young pines, charred trunks of old ones, wild heather, and similar gibberish.

Several muzhiks

Manilov’s words,

village of Zamanilovka,

Manilovka;

Manilovka,

THE TEMPLE OF SOLITARY REFLECTION;

two peasant women

pine forest

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.

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Chichikov

Chichikov

Manilov

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.

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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.

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borzoi hounds;

hearty meals;

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—

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muzhik

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;

burlap;

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.

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French language,

the pianoforte,

boarding schools

Mrs. Manilov

Chichikov said.

Manilov said