Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol

To avoid confusion, the name Semen has been transliterated as Semion.

In order to read Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 masterpiece, one must first get past the title page. From the very beginning, the title Dead Souls has been both a stumbling block and a touchstone: an enigma whose solution reveals more about the solver than about itself. There is of course a clear, seemingly mundane referent for the phrase “dead souls”: before 1861, Russia was a serf-owning society; these serfs were sometimes referred to as “souls,” especially when being counted for tax purposes. Serfs who died after one of the periodic censuses were, until the next census, still considered taxable property despite their nonexistence. The hero of Dead Souls, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, makes a series of visits to the landowners in an unnamed provincial town, offering to buy these “dead souls” at a cut-rate price, thus relieving their owners of a tax burden and obtaining for himself property that can later be mortgaged fraudulently. The mundane explanation, however, has never exorcised the title Dead Souls of its disturbing, haunting mystery. One of the earliest readers of the novel, the chairman of the Moscow Censorship Committee, reacted violently to the mocking challenge of Gogol’s title, as Gogol himself recounted in a letter of January 1842: As soon as the chairman heard the title Dead Souls, he began to shout in the voice of an ancient Roman: “No, this I will never permit: the soul is immortal; there cannot be such a thing as a dead soul, the author is taking a stand against immo...

On the mundane level, Chichikov’s day-to-day activity, his obsessive bargaining for “dead souls,” is a constant reminder of the hideous moral ulcer that a society founded on slavery can never hide or heal. Readers of Dead Souls in the decades following its appearance in 1842 tended to choose one of these two aspects of the work to focus on: its portrait of the human soul, especially in the context of Russian Orthodox theology, or its savagely satirical excoriation of the evils of nineteenth-century Russian society. Appropriately enough, the reading of Dead Souls as social commentary predominated in the years immediately following the novel’s publication. The most influential nineteenth-century reader of Gogol, the radical critic Vissarion Belinskii, saw Dead Souls as a work of unflinching realism and social criticism “that mercilessly rips the coverings from reality.”2 A like-minded reader, Alexander Herzen, called the work “a practical course for studying Russia,” a “series of pathological sketches taken from nature.”3 For these critics, Gogol’s examination of the underside of Russian life—what the narrator of Dead Souls calls “all that fearsome, overwhelming slimy morass of minutiae that have bogged down our life”—was the act of a civic-minded patriot as much as of an artist. The reading of Dead Souls as a ruthlessly realistic depiction of Russian society held sway through much of the nineteenth century (and returned in the mid-twentieth century to become the orthodox So...

Belyi perhaps came closest to the mark when he wrote that “Gogol, being a laboratory for linguistic experiments, cannot be closed by a canon.”5 Certainly Dead Souls embodies what the critic Mikhail Bakhtin called “potential,” the capacity for a work of art to change its meaning over time, in fruitful dialogue with its readers. And this is where the phrase “dead souls” acquires a new, radiant significance: the empty space provided by the dead, unknowable peasants inspires creative imaginative play even in the soulless Chichikov, who in Chapter 7, when imagining the lives and deaths of the serfs he has bought, becomes a poet and a teller of tales, if only for a moment. Gogol’s reader is invited to join him—and many do. To return to the problematic title: When Bernard Guilbert Guerney’s brilliant translation of Dead Souls was first published in 1942, the book club that offered it to its readers repeated the action of the Russian censors exactly 100 years before, changing the title to Chichikov’s Journeys; on Home Life in Old Russia. They were not concerned with upholding the immortality of the soul or defending the institution of serfdom, but with preventing their readers from forming a creepy, forbidding impression of the work. In Vladimir Nabokov’s immortal phrase, they feared “suggesting gloomy ideas to rosy-cheeked comic strip fans.”6 Here again the censors have a point. Neither the title nor most critics’ readings give an accurate idea of the work’s magnificent humor, th...

In this translation Guerney more than lives up to his own characteristically pithy description of the translators art: A translator ought to be able to write in his own right; an ability to parody (or mimic ...) is, outside of enormous vocabularies in at least two languages, the prime requisite for the high art. In other words, a translator must know what his author is up to, what his vocabulary is, what his mannerisms are, and carry over his spirit into another tongue. His spirit, for the letter killeth. (The reader will get the letter too, never fear.) A sort of ouija board affair. One lends ones knowledge of English, say, to the original author.10 Guerney’s Dead Souls comes closest to giving the English reader a feeling for the spirit of Gogol—the variegated lexicon, alternately folksy and high-flown; the baroque, sometimes clumsy syntax; and the narrator’s voice—the representation of an oral performance that ranges from the persona of a hilariously deadpan standup comedian to that of a visionary, prophetlike orator.

Gogol uses a number of expressions in which miserliness and dishonesty in business dealings are associated with Jews. Guerney consistently replaced these expressions with neutral ones, and I have preserved his choices.

However, the author is quite conscience-stricken about taking up the time of his readers for so long with people of a low class, knowing by experience how unwilling they are to be introduced to the low strata of society. For that’s how the Russian is: he has an overwhelming passion for scraping up an acquaintance with him who may be but a single step above him in rank, while a nodding acquaintance with a count or a prince is for him a better thing than to be on the most intimate terms with a real friend. The author actually feels dubious about his hero, who is only a mere Collegiate Councilor, after all. There is a likelihood that court councilors, say, may condescend to know him; but as for those who have already clambered up the grades of General This and General That, these, God knows, may even bestow upon him one of those contemptuous looks which man proudly bestows upon anything that may be crawling like vermin at his feet, or, which would be still worse, will pass him by with an unconcern that would be lethal for the author.

Of course, it may be remarked that there are many other things to be done about the house besides preparing surprises and indulging in prolonged kisses, and one could ask a great many questions. Why, for instance, was the kitchen run so stupidly and shiftlessly? Why was the larder rather empty? Why was the housekeeper such a thief? Why were the servants slovenly in person and such drunkards? Why did all the house help sleep so outrageously long and carry on dissolutely all the rest of the time? But all these are low matters, whereas Mrs. Manilova had been well educated. And a good education, as everybody knows, is acquired at boarding schools; and at boarding schools, as everybody knows, there are three major subjects which constitute the basis of all human virtues: the French language, indispensable for domestic happiness; the pianoforte, to afford pleasant moments to ones spouse; and, finally, that which really pertains to domestic science: the knitting of purses and other such surprises.

There’s no enumerating all the shades and refinements of our behavior. The Frenchman or the German could never in a lifetime either surmise or comprehend all its peculiarities and nuances; he will use almost the same tone and the same language in speaking both with the moneybags worth millions and the man who keeps a tiny tobacco shop, even though in soul he will, of course, crawl and cringe and fawn enough before the former. But that’s not the way we do things: we have men so wise and adroit that they will speak to a landowner possessing but two hundred serf-souls in a way altogether different from that in which they will to one who possesses three hundred of them; while to him who possesses three hundred of them they will again speak not in the same way as they would with him that has five hundred souls; while with him that has five hundred souls the manner of their speech will again differ from that used with him that has eight hundred; in brief, even if you were to go up to a million, you would find different shadings for each category.

Chichikov thought to himself, and, after a moment’s reflection, declared that he needed the dead serf-souls to acquire a position in society; that he did not own any large estates, and so, until such time as he did, he ought at least to be able to lay claim to some wretched souls, of any sort.

Everywhere in life, no matter where it may run its course, whether amid its harsh, raspingly poor, and squalidly mildewing lowly ranks, or amid its monotonously frigid and depressingly tidy upper classes— everywhere, if it be but once, man is fated to meet a phenomenon that is unlike all that which he may have chanced to meet hitherto; which, if but once, will awaken within him an emotion that is unlike all those which he is fated to experience all life long. Everywhere, running counter to all the sorrows of which our life is woven, a glittering joy will gaily flash by, as, at times, a glittering equipage with gold on its gear, with its picturesque horses, and sparkling because of its gleaming plate glass will suddenly, unexpectedly, speed by some backwoods poverty-stricken hamlet that had never beheld anything but a country cart, and for a long while will the muzhiks stand there, their mouths gaping and without putting on their doffed headgear again, even though the wondrous equipage has long since whirled away and vanished out of sight. And in much the same way has this blonde suddenly appeared in our narrative, in a perfectly unexpected manner, and has disappeared in the same way. Had there happened to be at the time, instead of Chichikov, some youth of twenty—whether he were a hussar, or a student, or simply one who has just begun the course of his life—Lord! what would not have awakened, what would not have stirred, what would not have found a voice within him! Long w...

“But, if you please,” Chichikov got out at last, amazed by such a copious inundation of speeches, to which, it seemed, there was never an end, “why do you enumerate all their good points? For there’s no good in them now whatsoever—they’re all dead folk. All a dead body is good for is to prop up a fence with, says the proverb.” “Why, of course, they’re dead,” said Sobakevich, as though he had come to his senses and remembered that they were dead in reality, but then added: “However, it may also be said, what good are the people that are now numbered among the living? What sort of people are they? They’re so many flies, and not people.” “Yet, just the same, they are in existence, whereas the others are but a dream.” “Well, no, they’re no dream! Allow me to inform you that you’ll never find such men as Mikheev was; he was such a mountain of a man that he could never get into this room; no, he was no dream! And as for those hams of shoulders he had, there was such a store of strength in them as no horse has. I’d like to know what other place you’d find such a dream in!”

Even as an incomputable host of churches, of monasteries—with cupolas, bulbous domes, and crosses—is scattered all over holy and devout Russia, so does an incomputable multitude of tribes, generations, and peoples swarm, flaunt their motley, and scurry across the face of the earth. And every folk, bearing within itself the pledge of mighty forces, endowed with the creative aptitudes of the soul, with a vivid individuality of its own and with other gifts of God, each folk has become singularly distinguished by some word all its own, through which, expressing any subject whatsoever, it reflects in that expression a part of its own character. With a profound knowledge of the heart and a wise grasp of life will the word of the Briton echo; like an airy dandy will the impermanent word of the Frenchman flash and then burst into smithereens; finickily, intricately, will the German contrive his intellectually gaunt word, which is not within the easy reach of everybody. But there is never a word which can be so sweeping, so boisterous, which can burst out so, from out of the very heart, which can seethe so and quiver and flutter so much like a living thing, as an aptly uttered Russian word!

Happy is the wayfarer who, after a long, tedious journey with its cold spells, slush, mire, stage-post superintendents grumbling from lack of sleep, the jingle-jangling of bells, carriage repairs, heated arguments, coachmen, blacksmiths, and all sorts of scoundrels whom one meets on the road, beholds at last a familiar roof and the little lights that seem to be rushing forward to meet him. And he will see before him the familiar rooms, the joyous shouts of his people running out to meet him, the noise and running of children, and soothing, low-voiced converse constantly interrupted by flaming kisses which have the power to eradicate from memory all that had been disagreeable. Happy is the family man that hath such a retreat—but woe to the bachelor! Happy is the writer, who, after passing by characters that are tedious, repulsive, overwhelming in their sad actuality, chooses the proximity of characters that manifest the high dignity of man; happy the writer who has picked out only the few exceptions from the great slough of everyday figures revolving about him; the writer who has not changed even once the lofty strain of his lyre, has never descended from his aerie to his poor, insignificant brethren, and who, without touching the common earth, has devoted himself wholly to his images and forms, far removed from that earth and magnified to heroic size. Doubly to be envied is his resplendent lot: he dwells amid these images and forms as if in the midst of his own family; and...

detecting something on their faces. But his fears were groundless: Sobakevich’s face did not so much as twitch, and Manilov, bewitched by the apt phrase, was so pleased that he merely kept tossing his head

if a word off the street has crept into a book, it isn’t the writer who’s at fault but the readers; and, first and foremost, the readers of the higher social strata: they are in the van of those from whom one will not hear a single decent Russian word, but when it comes to words in French, German, and English they will, likely as not, dish them out to you in such quantity that you’ll actually get fed up with them, and they’ll dish them out without spilling a drop of all the possible pronunciations: French they’ll snaffle through their noses and with a lisp; English they’ll chirp as well as any bird could, even to the extent of making their physiognomies birdlike, and will even mock him who is unable to assume a birdlike physiognomy. And the only thing they won’t dish out to you is any good, plain Russian thing—save that, out of patriotism, they may build a log cabin in the Russian style for a summer house. That’s the sort readers of the higher social strata are, while all the others who try to number themselves among them simply follow suit! And yet, at the same time, how very persnickety they are! They want, without fail, everything to be written in the most austere language, purified and noble; in a word, they want the Russian language to descend, suddenly and of itself, out of the clouds, all properly finished off, and to have it perch right upon their tongues, with nothing more for them to do than merely to open their mouths wide and thrust their tongues out. Of course...

The author is very hard put to name both ladies in such a way as not to make them angry at him, as they used to be angry in the old days. To give them fictitious names is fraught with danger. No matter what name you think up, there will inevitably be found in some corner or other of our realm, since it is so large, someone who bears it and who will inevitably become incensed to the extent of wishing to beat me not only within an inch of my life but actually to death, who will begin saying that the author had purposely made a secret trip to the town to find out everything about him, just what sort of creature he is, and what sort of wretched little sheepskin jacket he walks around in, and which Agrafena Ivanovna he calls on, and what dishes he is fond of. But if one were to mention ranks—God save us, that would be still more dangerous! Nowadays all our ranks and classes are in so touchy a mood that anything and everything which may be between the covers of a printed book already has the appearance of personalities for them—such, evidently, is the spirit in the air. It suffices merely to say that there’s a stupid man in a certain town, and that’s already a personal reflection: a gentleman of respectable appearance will suddenly pounce upon you and set up a shout: “Why, I, too, am a man, ergo, I, too, am stupid!”—in a word, he’ll surmise in the wink of an eye just what you’re up to.

a woman was like a sack—she’ll take in anything, carry it along, and then pour it out of her mouth;

We will, at the drop of a hat and with all the consistency of a weather-vane, launch societies for philanthropic purposes, for the encouragement of this and that, and for Heaven alone knows what else. The purpose will, every time, be splendid and beautiful, but with all that, nothing will come of it. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we become quickly satisfied at the very beginning and consider that everything has already been accomplished. For instance, having got up some society for the benefit of the poor and duly contributed considerable sums, we will immediately, to mark the occasion of so praiseworthy a deed, launch a banquet for all the leading dignitaries of the town, which banquet, in the nature of things, will eat up half the sums received; with the remaining funds, magnificent quarters will be promptly rented for the committee, complete with the latest heating arrangements and all sorts of attendants. And, in the upshot, there remains for the poor all of five rubles and a half, but even then the members of the committee aren’t in full accord as to the disposition of this sum, and each one proposes as the recipient some worthy person who had been godmother to his child.

Out of a great number of suppositions, shrewd in their own way, one in particular emerged at last (one feels strange even mentioning it): whether Chichikov were not Napoleon in disguise. The Britishers, now, had long been envious because, forsooth, Russia was so great and vast; why, on several occasions caricatures had been actually put out depicting a Russian talking with an Englishman; the Englishman stands there with a dog held on a rope behind him, which dog was supposed to represent Napoleon. “Look here, now,” says the Englishman, “if anything doesn’t go just right, I’ll let the dog loose on you right off.” And so now, maybe, they’d actually let Boney out from the isle of St. Helena, and so there he was now, sneaking into Russia rigged out as Chichikov, but, when you got right down to it, he wasn’t Chichikov at all. Of course, when it came to actually believing this, the bureaucrats did not believe it, yet just the same, they fell into deep thought and, as each one scrutinized this business for himself, they found that Chichikov’s face, were he to turn and stand sideways, did bear a most striking resemblance to a portrait of Napoleon. The Chief of Police, who had served in the campaign of 1812 and had seen Napoleon with his own eyes, also could not but own that the Little Corporal couldn’t possibly be of a greater height than Chichikov and that in bodily build also Napoleon wasn’t what you would call any too stout, even though you couldn’t say he was any too thin, eit...

we have not taken a man of virtue for our hero, after all. And one may even explain why he hasn’t been taken. Because it’s high time to give a rest to the poor man of virtue; because the phrase “man of virtue” is formed all too glibly and idly by all lips; because the man of virtue has been turned into a hack and there isn’t a writer who doesn’t ride him hard, urging him on with a whip or whatever else comes to his hand; because they have overworked the man of virtue to such an extent that now there isn’t even a shadow of virtue about him, and there is nothing but skin and bones left of him instead of flesh and blood; because it is only through hypocrisy that they trot out the man of virtue; because the man of virtue isn’t held in much respect. No, it’s high time, at last, to put an actual scoundrel in harness! And so let us harness a scoundrel.

Yet the best thing of all is that this matter will strike everybody as improbable; no one will believe in its reality. True enough, one can neither buy nor mortgage serfs unless one has land. But then I’ll buy them for resettlement—for resettlement, that’s it! Tracts of land are now being given away, free and for the asking, in the provinces of Tauris and Kherson, just so you settle there. And that’s precisely where I’ll resettle all my dead souls!

Entering any town, even though it be a capital, is always a bleak affair; at first everything is drab and monotonous: one comes upon factories and workshops without number, all blackened with smoke, and only thereafter will one glimpse the angles of six-story houses, and shops, and signs, and streets with tremendous perspectives consisting entirely of belfries, columns, statues, towers, with all of a city’s glitter, din, and thunder, and everything that the hand and mind of man have brought forth for man to wonder at. How the first acquisitions were consummated the reader has already seen; how the affair will go on in the future, what the fortunes and misfortunes of our hero will be, how he will have to resolve and overcome still greater obstacles in store for him, how colossal figures will appear, how the hidden levers of a far-flung narrative will move, while its horizon widens still further and it adopts a majestic lyrical flow, these things the reader will see later on. There is still a long road lying ahead of this whole nomadic outfit consisting of one gentleman of middle age, a light carriage of the sort that bachelors prefer to drive about in, Petrushka the flunky, Selifan the coachman, and the trio of horses, which the reader is now familiar with by name, from Assessor to that scoundrel of a piebald.

Yet which one of you, filled with Christian humility, not aloud, but in silence, when you are all alone, during moments of solitary communion with your own self, will let sink deep into the inward recesses of your own soul this onerous question: “Come, now, isn’t there a bit of Chichikov in me, too?” But there isn’t much likelihood of such a thing ever happening! And yet, if at this point someone or other were to pass by you, even actually a friend of yours, a fellow whose rank is neither too high nor too low, you would that very moment nudge the arm of the man next to you and say, all but snorting from laughter: “Look, look, there’s Chichikov, there goes Chichikov!”

For am I a brigand? Has anybody suffered because of me? Have I brought misfortune upon anybody? With toil and sweat, with bloody sweat did I acquire each copper; it wasn’t as if I robbed anybody or looted public funds. Why did I acquire it? So that I might finish out the remainder of my days in comfort and leave the rest to my wife, to my children, whom I planned to beget for the good, for the service of my fatherland. I went astray, I won’t dispute it, I went astray .. . what’s to be done? But I went astray upon seeing that one couldn’t get anywhere or anything by following the direct path and that cutting a corner was the shortest way. But when I worked, I used my ingenuity. If I took anything, I took it from the rich. But what about those abominable villains who get theirs through courts, perfectly legally, and not from the public funds, mind you, but who rob the poor, who fleece of their last copper those who have nothing! ... Afanasii Vasilievich, I was not dissolute, I did not drink. [Have I not redeemed myself?] ... Why, how many efforts I have made, how much iron fortitude I have shown! Why, one could say that I have paid for every kopeck with sufferings, sufferings! What misfortune is it, then, that dogs me? Tell me! Every time when one begins to see one’s efforts beginning to bear fruits and, so to say, to stretch one’s hand toward them, a storm unexpectedly springs up, or one strikes an underwater reef, or one’s ship is smashed to smithereens.