Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol

new governor-general,

the head magistrate

the postmaster

Praskovya Fyodorovna,

In the council that gathered this time, the absence of that necessary thing which simple folk call sense was very noticeable. Generally we are somehow not made for representative meetings. In all our gatherings, from the peasant community level up to all possible learned and other committees, unless they have one head to control everything, there is a great deal of confusion. It is even hard to say why this is so; evidently the nation is like that, since the only meetings that succeed are those arranged for the sake of carousing or dining, to wit: clubs and all sorts of vauxhalls on a German footing.

😂😂😂 Reminds me of my own country

However, the meeting that gathered this time was of a completely different sort; it was formed as a result of necessity. The matter did not concern some poor people or strangers, the matter concerned each official personally, it was the matter of a calamity that threatened them all equally; which meant that, willy-nilly, there had to be more unanimity, closeness. But, for all that, it ended with devil knows what. Not to speak of the disagreement common to all councils, the opinions of those assembled displayed some even inconceivable indecisiveness:

“Though, devil knows,

Captain Kopeikin?”

the postmaster said,

Captain Kopeikin,”

the postmaster

Captain Kopeikin

Captain Kopeikin

Captain Kopeikin

Captain Kopeikin,

devil take it!

Captain Kopeikin’s

My Kopeikin

A right little peasant cottage, you understand: shiny glass ten feet wide in the windows, if you can picture it, so the vases and whatnot in the rooms seem as if they’re outside—you could, in a certain way, reach them from the street with your hand; precious marbles on the walls, metal gewgaws, the sort of handle on the door, you know, that you’d have to stop at the grocer’s first and buy a half-kopeck’s worth of soap and rub your hands with it for two hours before you dared take hold of it—in short, there’s such lacquers all over everything, in a certain way, it boggles the mind. The doorkeeper alone already looks like a generalissimo: a gilded mace, a count’s physiognomy, like some sort of fat, overfed pug; cambric collars, rascality!

Description of Kopekin’s cheap and dirty lodgings

My Kopeikin

my Kopeikin

The minister, the great man,

Kopeikin’s turn.

My Kopeikin

My Kopeikin—

The great man,

Kopeikin,

The great man

seeing Kopeikin,

says Kopeikin,

my Kopeikin—

to a great man,

Captain Kopeikin!

my Kopeikin,

Kopeikin thinks,

Captain Kopeikin

Ivan Andreevich,”

the postmaster

Among the many shrewd suggestions of a sort, there was finally one—it is even strange to say it—that Chichikov might be Napoleon in disguise, that the English had long been envious of the greatness and vastness of Russia, and that several caricatures had even been published in which a Russian is shown talking with an Englishman. The Englishman stands and holds a dog behind him on a rope, and the dog represents Napoleon: “Watch out,” he seems to be saying, “if there’s anything wrong, I’ll set this dog on you!”—and so now it might be that they let him go from the island of St. Helena, and now here he is sneaking into Russia as if he were Chichikov, when in fact he is not Chichikov at all.

😂😂😂

Napoleon’s portrait.

Napoleon in person,

However, it must be remembered that all this happened shortly after the glorious expulsion of the French. At that time all our landowners, officials, merchants, shop clerks, literate and even illiterate folk of every sort became sworn politicians for a good eight years at least. The Moscow Gazette and the Son of the Fatherland were mercilessly read to pieces and reached their last reader in shreds unfit for any use whatsoever. Instead of such questions as: “Well, my dear, how much did you get for a measure of oats?” or “Did you avail yourself of yesterday’s snowfall?” people would say: “And what are they writing in the papers, has Napoleon been let go from his island again?”

😂😂😂

certain prophet

Napoleon was the Antichrist

muttering about the Antichrist.

Many of the officials and nobility also kept thinking about it inadvertently and, infected with mysticism, which, as we know, was in great vogue then, saw some special meaning in every letter that made up the word “Napoleon”; many even discovered Apocalyptic numbers in it.51 And so it is nothing surprising that our officials inadvertently kept pondering this point; soon, however, they checked themselves, noticing that their imaginations were galloping away with them, and that all this was not it. They thought and thought, talked and talked, and finally decided that it would not be a bad idea to question Nozdryov a little better.

Reminds me of Pierre

Nozdryov

that Nozdryov was a

What are you going to do with man? He does not believe in God, yet he believes that if the bridge of his nose itches he is sure to die; he will pass by a poet’s work, clear as day, all pervaded with harmony and the lofty wisdom of simplicity, and throw himself precisely on one in which some brave fellow bemuddles, befuddles, distorts, and perverts nature, and he likes it, and he starts shouting: “Here it is, the true knowledge of the heart’s secrets!” All his life he cares not a penny for doctors, and it ends up with him turning finally to some village wench, who treats him with mumbling and spittle, or, better still, he himself invents some decoction of God knows what trash, which, lord knows why, he fancies is precisely the remedy for his ailment.

hundred and fifty pounds,