Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol

Sobakevich went on listening in the same way, his head bowed, and nothing in the least resembling expression showed on his face. It seemed there was no soul in this body at all, or if there was, it was not at all where it ought to be, but, as with the deathless Koshchey,23 was somewhere beyond the mountains, and covered with such a thick shell that whatever stirred at the bottom of it produced decidedly no movement on the surface.

😂😂😂

Sobakevich asked

replied Chichikov,

“Devil take it,” Chichikov thought

said Sobakevich.

eighty kopecks per soul

Mikhail Semyonovich,

Sobakevich.

Chichikov opened

Chichikov was again

Chichikov said

Sobakevich said,

These last words he spoke addressing the portraits of Bagration and Colocotronis24 hanging on the wall, as commonly happens when people are conversing and one of them suddenly, for some unknown reason, addresses not the one whom his words concern, but some third who chances to come in, even a total stranger, from whom he knows he will hear neither a reply, nor an opinion, nor a confirmation, but at whom he will nevertheless direct his gaze, as if calling on him to act as intermediary;

said Chichikov.

Chichikov thought to himself,

Chichikov bit his lip

said Chichikov.

Chichikov thought

thought Chichikov,

thought Sobakevich.

said Sobakevich,

Here Sobakevich

Sobakevich fell silent.

Chichikov asked

And Chichikov, having nothing to do, occupied himself, while standing behind him, with an examination of his entire vast frame. As he gazed at his back, broad as a squat Vyatka horse’s, and his legs, which resembled iron hitching posts set along the sidewalk, he could not help exclaiming inwardly: “Eh, God really endowed you well! Just as they say, crudely cut but stoutly stitched! … Were you born such a bear, or did you get bearified by the backwoods life, sowing grain, dealing with muzhiks, and turn through all that into what’s known as a pinchfist?

😂😂😂

you’d have officials,

if a man’s a pinchfist,

said Sobakevich,

said Sobakevich.

but Sobakevich

Chichikov let

a real pinchfist!” Chichikov

Chichikov said

Chichikov thought

Sobakevich’s behavior.

Sobakevich

told Selifan

see Plyushkin,

niggard Plyushkin,

Chichikov still sat chuckling

Strongly do the Russian folk express themselves! and if they bestow a little word on someone, it will go with him and his posterity for generations, and he will drag it with him into the service, and into retirement, and to Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth.

scriv...

Aptly uttered is as good as written, an axe cannot destroy it. And oh, how apt is everything that comes from deep Russia, where there are no German, or Finnish, or any other tribes, but all is native natural-born, lively and pert Russian wit, which does not fish for a word in its pockets, does not brood on it like a hen on her chicks, but pastes it on at once, like a passport, for eternal wear, and there is no point in adding later what sort of nose or lips you have—in one line you are portrayed from head to foot!

Nick names

A knowledge of hearts and a wise comprehension of life resound in the word of the Briton; like a nimble fop the short-lived word of the Frenchman flashes and scatters; whimsically does the German contrive his lean, intelligent word, not accessible to all; but there is no word so sweeping, so pert, so bursting from beneath the very heart, so ebullient and vibrant with life, as an aptly spoken Russian word.

I gazed at the never-before-seen cut of some frock coat, and at the wooden boxes of nails, of sulphur yellowing from afar, of raisins and soap, flashing by in the doorway of a grocer’s shop together with jars of stale Moscow candy, gazed also at an infantry officer walking off to one side, brought from God knows what district capital into provincial boredom, and at a merchant in a tight-waisted coat flashing by in a racing droshky, and mentally I would be carried off with them into their poor lives.

Approaching the estate of some landowner, I looked with curiosity at the tall, narrow wooden belfry or the broad, dark old wooden church.

Now it is with indifference that I approach any unknown estate, and with indifference that I gaze at its trite appearance; my chilled glance finds no refuge, I do not laugh, and that which in earlier days would have awakened a lively movement in my face, laughter and unceasing talk, now flits by, and my motionless lips preserve an impassive silence. Oh, my youth! Oh, my freshness!

Plyushkin,

The windows of the cottages had no glass, some were stopped up with a rag or a jacket; the little roofed balconies with railings, which for unknown reasons are built onto some Russian cottages, were lopsided and blackened, not even picturesquely.

From behind the wheat stacks and dilapidated roofs there soared and flashed in the clear air, now right, now left, according to the turns the britzka made, two village churches, one next to the other: an abandoned wooden one, and a stone one, its yellowed walls all stains and cracks.