There was no way to get out of the room. Nikolai gogol - dead souls

Chichikov did not expect the last conclusion.

- It would be better if you just did not appear in my eyes! - said Nozdryov.

In spite of such a disagreement, however, the guest and the host dined together, although this time there were no wines with fancy names on the table. There was only one bottle with some Cypriot, which was what is called sour in all respects. After supper, Nozdryov said to Chichikov, taking him to a side room, where a bed was prepared for him:

- Here's your bed! I don’t want to wish you a good night either!

After Nozdryov left, Chichikov remained in the most unpleasant frame of mind. He was inwardly annoyed with himself, scolded himself for having stopped by and wasted time. But he scolded himself even more for talking to him about the matter, acted carelessly, like a child, like a fool: for the matter is not at all of the kind to be entrusted to Nozdryov ... that, some more gossip will come out - not good, not good. “I'm just a fool,” he said to himself. He slept very badly that night. Some small nimble insects bit him intolerably painful, so he scraped the wounded place with his whole handful, saying: "Oh, the devil take you along with Nozdryov!" He woke up early in the morning. The first thing he did was, putting on a robe and boots, go across the courtyard to the stable and order Selifan to lay the chaise at this very hour. Returning through the courtyard, he met Nozdryov, who was also in a dressing gown, with a pipe in his teeth.

Nozdryov greeted him in a friendly way and asked how he slept.

- So so, - answered Chichikov rather dryly.

- And I, brother, - said Nozdryov, - such an abomination climbed all night that it is disgusting to talk, and in my mouth after yesterday it was like a squadron spent the night. Imagine: I dreamed that I was whipped, she-she! and imagine who? You will never guess: the captain-captain Kisseuyev together with Kuvshinnikov.

"Yes," thought Chichikov to himself, "it would be nice if they ripped you off in reality."

- By God! yes it hurts! I woke up: damn it, something is really scratching - right, witches fleas. Well, go get dressed now, I'll come to you now. You just need to scold the scoundrel of the clerk.

Chichikov went into the room to get dressed and wash. When after that he went into the dining room, there was already a tea set with a bottle of rum on the table. There were traces of yesterday's lunch and dinner in the room; the broom doesn't seem to touch at all. Bread crumbs were scattered on the floor, and tobacco ash was even visible on the tablecloth. The owner himself, who did not hesitate to enter soon, had nothing under his dressing gown, except for an open chest, on which grew some kind of beard. Holding a shank in his hand and sipping from a cup, he was very good for a painter who does not like the fear of gentlemen slicked and curled, like barbarian signs, or cut to fit.

- Well, what do you think? - said Nozdryov, after a little pause. - Do you want to play for the soul?

“I already told you, brother, that I’m not playing; buy - if you please, buy.

- I don’t want to sell it, it will not be friendly. I'm not going to take the hymen off the devil knows what. The banquet is another matter. Let's throw at the waist!

- I already said no.

- Do you want to change?

- I do not want.

- Well, listen, let's play checkers, if you win, it's all yours. After all, I have a lot of those that need to be deleted from the audit. Hey, Porfiry, bring the checker maker here.

- Labor is in vain, I will not play.

- Why, this is not a bank; there can be no happiness or falsehood here: everything is from art; I even anticipate you that I do not know how to play at all, unless you give me something in advance.

“Sem-ka I,” thought Chichikov to himself, “I’ll play checkers with him! I played checkers well, but it is difficult for him to get up on pieces here. "

- If you please, so be it, I'll play checkers.

- Souls go in a hundred rubles!

- Why? it is enough if they go at fifty.

“No, what’s fifty kush?” Better in this amount I will include some puppy for you middle hand or a gold seal for a watch.

- Well, if you please! - said Chichikov.

- How much will you give me in advance? - said Nozdryov.

- For what reason? Nothing of course.

- At least let there be my two moves.

- I don’t want to, I play badly myself.

- It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, also moving a saber.

- We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, acting as a saber.

- It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, moving the sword.

- We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, moving the checker, and at the same time pushed the sleeves and another checker with the cuff.

- It's been a long time since I took it in my hands! .. Eh, eh! this, brother, what? send her back! - said Chichikov.

“Yes, a saber,” said Tchichikov, and at the same time he saw, almost in front of his very nose, another, which, as it seemed, was making its way into the queens; where it came from, only God knew it. - No, - said Chichikov, getting up from the table, - there is no way to play with you! They don't go that way, three checkers all at once.

- Why three? This is by mistake. One moved accidentally, I will move it, if you please.

- Where did the other come from?

- Which one?

- And this one that sneaks into the queens?

- Here's to you, as if you don't remember!

- No, brother, I counted all the moves and remember everything; you just got her in. Her place is where!

- How, where is the place? - said Nozdryov, blushing. - Yes, you, brother, as I see, a writer!

- No, brother, it seems you are a writer, but only unsuccessfully.

- Who do you think I am? - said Nozdryov. - Am I really going to cheat?

“I don’t regard you as anyone, but I’ll never play from now on.”

- No, you cannot refuse, - said Nozdryov, getting hot, - the game has begun!

- I have the right to refuse, because you do not play as it should be for an honest person.

- No, you're lying, you can't say that!

- No, brother, you yourself are lying!

- I did not cheat, and you cannot refuse, you must end the game!

“You cannot force me to do that,” said Chichikov coolly and, going up to the board, mixed the checkers.

Nozdryov flushed and approached Chichikov so close that he took two steps back.

- I'll make you play! It's nothing that you mixed the checkers, I remember all the moves. We will put them back as they were.

- No, brother, it's over, I won't play with you.

- So you don't want to play?

- You yourself see that there is no way to play with you.

- No, tell me bluntly, do you want to play? - said Nozdryov, stepping closer and closer.

- I do not want! - said Chichikov and raised, however, both hands, just in case, closer to his face, for things were getting really hot.

This precaution was quite in place, because Nozdryov waved his hand ... and it could very well happen that one of our hero's pleasant and full cheeks would be covered with indelible dishonor; but, happily deflecting the blow, he grabbed Nozdryov by his both perky hands and held him tightly.

- Porfiry, Pavlushka! - shouted Nozdryov in fury, trying to escape.

Hearing these words, Chichikov, in order not to make the courtyard witnesses of the seductive scene and at the same time feeling that holding Nozdryov was useless, let go of his hands. At that very time Porfiry entered and with him Pavlushka, a hefty guy, with whom it was completely unprofitable to deal with.

- So you don't want to finish the games? - said Nozdryov. - Answer me bluntly!

“There’s no way to finish the game,” Chichikov said and looked out the window. He saw his chaise, which was quite ready, and Selifan was expecting, it seemed, a wave to roll under the porch, but there was no way to get out of the room: there were two hefty serf fools at the door.

- So you don't want to finish the games? - repeated Nozdryov with his face burning as if on fire.

Arriving at the tavern, Chichikov ordered to stop for two reasons. On the one hand, to give the horses a rest, and on the other hand, to have a few bites and refreshments myself. The author must admit that he is very jealous of the appetite and stomach of this kind of people. For him, all the gentlemen of the big hand, living in St. Petersburg and Moscow, who spend time thinking about what to eat tomorrow and what kind of dinner to compose for the day after tomorrow mean absolutely nothing, and who take up this dinner only after having sent a pill into their mouths; swallowing oysters, sea spiders and other miracles, and then going to Carlsbad or the Caucasus. No, these gentlemen never aroused envy in him. But gentlemen of average skill, that at one station they will demand ham, at another a piglet, at a third a slice of sturgeon or some baked sausage with onions and then, as if nothing had happened, they sit down at the table at any time, and sterlet ear with burbot and hisses and grumbles with milk between their teeth, seized with a pie or kulebyaka with catfish, so that it permeates an appetite - these gentlemen, for sure, are using the enviable gift of heaven! Not one gentleman of the big hand would sacrifice this very minute half the souls of the peasants and half of the estates, pledged and not pledged, with all the improvements on a foreign and Russian leg, in order only to have such a stomach as a gentleman of an average hand has; but the trouble is that for no money, below the estate, with improvements and without improvements, it is impossible to acquire such a stomach as a gentleman of average hands.

The darkened wooden tavern received Chichikov under its narrow hospitable canopy on carved wooden posts, similar to old church candlesticks. The inn was something like a Russian hut, somewhat larger. Carved, ornamental cornices of fresh wood around the windows and under the roof sharply and vividly dazzled its dark walls; jugs of flowers were painted on the shutters.

Climbing the narrow wooden staircase up into the wide entrance, he met the door creaking open with a creak and a fat old woman in variegated calico, who said: "Come here!" All the old friends came across in the room, everyone came across in small wooden taverns, of which many were lined up along the roads, namely: a frosty samovar, smoothly scraped pine walls, a triangular cabinet with teapots and cups in the corner, porcelain gilded testicles in front of images, hanging on blue and red ribbons, a recently lambing cat, a mirror showing four eyes instead of two, and some kind of cake instead of a face; Finally, bunches of fragrant herbs and carnations stuck to the images, dried to such an extent that those who wanted to smell them only sneezed and nothing else.

Is there a pig? - with such a question Chichikov turned to the standing woman.

With horseradish and sour cream?

With horseradish and sour cream.

Give it here!

The old woman went to rummage and brought a plate, a napkin, starched to the point that it stood up like dry bark, then a knife with a yellowed bone block, thin as a pen, a two-pronged fork, and a salt shaker that could never be put directly on the table.

Our hero, as usual, has now entered into a conversation with her and asked whether she herself runs the tavern, or is there an owner, and how much income the tavern gives, and whether the sons live with them, and that the eldest son is single or married, and which one he took wife, with a large dowry, or not, and whether the father-in-law was pleased, and whether he was angry that he received few gifts at the wedding - in a word, he did not miss anything. It goes without saying that he was curious to find out what kind of landowners they had in the circle, and learned that there are all kinds of landowners: Blokhin, Pochitaev, Mylnoy, Cheprakov - colonel, Sobakevich. "A! Do you know Sobakevich? " - he asked and immediately heard that the old woman knew not only Sobakevich, but also Manilov, and that Manilov would be more grander than Sobakevich: he ordered to cook chicken at once, and asked for veal; if there is a lamb liver, then he will ask for a lamb liver, and will just taste everything, but Sobakevich will ask one thing, but he will eat everything, even demand a supplement for the same price.

As he talked in this way, eating the piglet, which was already the last piece, the sound of the wheels of the approaching carriage was heard. Looking out the window, he saw a light chaise pulled up by three kind horses, stopped in front of the inn. Two men were climbing out of the chaise. One blond, tall; the other is a little lower, dark-haired. The blond one was in a dark blue Hungarian coat, the dark-haired one was simply in a striped arkhaluk. From a distance there was still a wheelchair, empty, dragged along by some long-haired quadruple with torn clamps and rope harness. The blonde immediately went on the stairs upstairs, meanwhile, as the black eyelid still remained and suggested something in a Brachem, talking immediately with the rug and Mahai at the same time that the stroller was still looking for them. His voice struck Tchichikov as if somewhat familiar. While he was examining it, the blond man had already felt the door and opened it. He was a tall man, with a thin face, or what is called wasted, with a red mustache. From his sunburnt face it was possible to conclude that he knew what smoke is, if not gunpowder, then at least tobacco. He bowed politely to Chichikov, to which the latter replied in kind. In the course of a few minutes, they probably would have started talking and got to know each other well, because the beginning had already been made, and both at almost the same time expressed pleasure that the dust on the road was completely nailed by yesterday's rain and now the ride is cool and pleasantly, as his dark-haired comrade entered, throwing his cap off his head on the table, ruffling his thick black hair with a brave hand. He was of medium height, a very well-built fellow with full, ruddy cheeks, teeth as white as snow, and jet-black sideburns. He was fresh as blood and milk; health seemed to sprinkle from his face.

Ba, ba, ba! he cried suddenly, spreading both hands at the sight of Chichikov. - What are the fates?

Chichikov recognized Nozdrev, the same one with whom he had dined with the prosecutor and who in a few minutes got on such a short leg with him that he began to say "you", although, however, he, on his part, did not give any reason for this.

Where did you go? - said Nozdryov and, without waiting for an answer, continued: - And I, brother, from the fair. Congratulations: blown away! Do you believe that I've never been so blown out in my life. After all, I came to the philistines! Look out the window on purpose! - Here he bent the head of Chichikov himself, so that he almost hit it against the frame. - See what rubbish! They dragged me by force, damned people, I have already climbed into his chaise. - While saying this, Nozdryov pointed his finger at his comrade. - Have you met yet? My son-in-law Mizhuev! He and I have been talking about you all morning. "Well, look, I say, if we don't meet Chichikov." Well, brother, if you only knew how I poured! Would you believe that not only did the four trotters lose their weight - they let everything down. After all, I am not wearing a chain or a watch ... - Chichikov looked and saw for sure that he was not wearing a chain or a watch. It even seemed to him that one sideburn was smaller and not as thick as the other. - But if there were only twenty rubles in my pocket, - continued Nozdryov, - exactly no more than twenty, I would have won everything, that is, apart from what I would have won back, like an honest man, I would now put thirty thousand in my wallet.

However, you said so then, - answered the blond, - and when I gave you fifty rubles, I immediately squandered them.

And I would not have lost! By God, I wouldn't have lost it! If I hadn't done something stupid myself, I really wouldn't have lost it. If I hadn’t bend me after the password on the damn seven duck, I could have broken the whole bank.

However, I didn’t rip it off, ”said the blond.

I didn't pick it because I bent the duck at the wrong time. Do you think your Major plays well?

Good or bad, but he beat you.

What an importance! - said Nozdryov, - that is how I will beat him. No, just try to play with a doublet, and then I'll see, I'll see what kind of player he is! But, brother Chichikov, how we had a drink in the first days! True, the fair was excellent. The merchants themselves say that there has never been such a convention. I sold everything that was brought from the village at the best price. Eh, brother, how they had a drink! Now even, when you remember ... damn it! that is, what a pity you weren't. Imagine that a dragoon regiment was stationed three versts from the city. Do you believe that the officers, no matter how many there were, forty people of some officers were in the city; how we, brother, began to drink ... The staff-captain of Kisses ... so glorious! mustache, brother, such! Bordeaux simply calls it a wineskin. "Bring me, brother, he says, skins!" Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov ... Ah, brother, what a lovely man! here, one might say, in all form, a carousel. We were all together with him. What wine did Ponomarev give us! You need to know that he is a swindler and you cannot take anything in his shop: all kinds of rubbish interfere with the wine: sandalwood, burnt cork, and even an elderberry, a scoundrel, rubs it; but on the other hand, if he pulls out a bottle from a distant room, which he calls special, - well, simply, brother, you are in the empyrean. We had such champagne - what is the governor's before him? just kvass. Imagine, not a clique, but some kind of clique-matradura, which means a double click. And he also took out one bottle of French called Bonbon. Smell? - outlet and whatever you want. They’ve already gone on a meal! .. After us some prince came, sent to the shop for champagne, there is not a single bottle in the whole city, all the officers drank. Do you believe that I alone drank seventeen bottles of champagne during lunch!

Well, you won’t drink seventeen bottles, ”said the blond.

As an honest man, I say that I drank, - answered Nozdryov.

You can tell yourself what you want, and I tell you that you won't drink ten.

Well, you wanna gamble that I'll drink!

Why bet?

Well, put on your gun that you bought in town.

I do not want.

Well, put it on, try it!

And I don’t want to try.

Yes, you would be without a gun, as without a hat. Eh, brother Chichikov, that is, how I regretted that you were not there. I know that you would not part with Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. How would you get along well with him! This is not like the prosecutor and all the provincial curmudgeons in our city, who are shaking for every penny. This one, brother, and in galbik, and in a banchishka, and in whatever you want. Eh, Chichikov, what should you come? You are the right piggy for this, a cattle-breeder! Kiss me, soul, death love you! Mizuev, look, fate has brought it together: what is he to me, or what am I to him? God knows where he came from, I also live here ... And how many, brother, carriages, and all this en gros. He turned it into a fortune: won two cans of lipstick, a porcelain cup and a guitar; then he put it once again and played the channel, more than six rubles. And what, if you only knew, the red tape of Kuvshinnikov! We were with him at almost all balls. One was so dressed up, ruffles on her, and tricks, and the devil knows what was not ... I just think to myself: "Damn it!" And Kuvshinnikov, that is, this is such a beast, sat down next to her and in French let her such compliments ... Believe it, he did not miss ordinary women. This he calls: take advantage of the strawberry. They brought wonderful fish and balyks. I did bring one with me; it's good that I thought of buying it when there was still money. Where are you going now?

And I go to the little man to one, - said Chichikov.

Well, what a little man, leave him! let's go to me!

No, you can't, there is a case.

Well, that's the point! already invented! Oh you, Opodeldock Ivanovich!

Really, business, and even necessary.

I'm betting, you're lying! Well, just tell me, who are you going to?

Well, to Sobakevich.

Here Nozdryov burst out laughing with that ringing laugh, which only a fresh, healthy person is filled with, in whom all to the last show teeth as white as sugar, cheeks tremble and jump, and a neighbor behind two doors, in the third room, jumps up from sleep, goggling and saying: "Eck took it apart!"

What's so funny about that? - said Chichikov, somewhat dissatisfied with such a laugh.

But Nozdryov continued to laugh at the top of his lungs, saying:

Oh, have mercy, really, I'm bursting with laughter!

There’s nothing funny: I gave him my word, ”said Chichikov.

Why, you won't be happy with life when you come to him, it's just a Jew! After all, I know your character. You will be severely taken aback if you think to find a banchishka there and a good bottle of some bonbon. Listen, brother: to hell with Sobakevich, let's go to me! what a balyk I will sweat! Ponomarev, the beast, bowed so much, says: "For you, only, the whole fair, he says, search, you will not find such a thing." The rogue, however, is terrible. I said this to him: "You, I say, are the first swindlers with our tax farmer!" Laughs, beast, stroking his beard. Kuvshinnikov and I had breakfast every day in his shop. Oh, brother, I forgot to tell you: I know that you won't lag behind now, but I won't give it up for ten thousand, I say in advance. Hey Porfiry! - he shouted, going up to the window, at his man, who was holding a knife in one hand, and in the other a crust of bread with a piece of balyk, which he was lucky enough to cut off in passing, taking something out of the chaise. - Hey, Porfiry, - shouted Nozdryov, - bring a puppy! What a puppy! he continued, turning to Chichikov. - Stolen, the owner did not give for himself. I promised him a brown mare, which, you remember, I exchanged with Khvostyrev ... - Chichikov, however, has never seen a brown mare or Khvostyrev when he was born.

Master! do you want to eat anything? - said at this time, going up to him, the old woman.

Nothing. Eh, brother, how have you gone to a party! However, give me a glass of vodka: which one do you have?

Anisova, - answered the old woman.

Well, come on aniseed, - said Nozdryov.

Give me a glass too! - said the blond.

In the theater, one actress, like a canary, sang like a canary! Kuvshinnikov, who was sitting next to me, - "Here, he says, brother, I would like to use about strawberries!" There were fifty booths alone, I think. Fenardi turned the mill for four hours. - Here he took a glass from the hands of the old woman, who bowed deeply to him. - Oh, give it here! he shouted when he saw Porfiry enter with the puppy. Porfiry was dressed, like the master, in some kind of arkhaluk, quilted on cotton, but somewhat more oily.

Come on, put it on the floor here!

Porfiry put the puppy on the floor, which stretched out on all four paws and sniffed the ground.

Here is a puppy! - said Nozdryov, taking him by the back and lifting him with his hand. The puppy let out a rather plaintive howl.

You, however, did not do what I told you, ”said Nozdryov, turning to Porfiry and carefully examining the puppy’s belly,“ and didn’t think about combing it out? ”

No, I combed it out.

Why fleas?

I can not know. Maybe they got out of the chaise somehow.

You lie, you lie, and did not imagine scratching; I think, you fool, he let his own people go too. Look, Chichikov, look what ears, feel it with your hand.

Why, I already see: a good breed! - answered Chichikov.

No, take it on purpose, feel your ears!

Chichikov felt his ears to please him, saying:

Yes, it will be a good dog.

Do you feel how cold your nose is? take it with your hand.

Not wanting to offend him, Chichikov took him by the nose, saying:

Good instinct.

No, brother, don't scold me with a fetish, - answered the son-in-law, - I owe her my life. Such, really, kind, dear, she renders such caresses ... she dismisses them to tears; asks what he saw at the fair, you need to tell everything, such, really, dear.

Well go, lie to her nonsense! Here is your cap.

No, brother, you shouldn't say that about her at all; By this you, one might say, offend me, she is so cute.

Well, get away to her soon!

Yes, brother, I'll go, I'm sorry I can't stay. I would be glad with my soul, but I cannot.

The son-in-law repeated his apologies for a long time, not noticing that he himself had been sitting in the chaise for a long time, had long gone out of the gate and there were only empty fields in front of him for a long time. One must think that the wife hasn't heard much of the details of the fair.

Such rubbish! - said Nozdryov, standing in front of the window and looking at the leaving carriage. - Look how dragged along! the hobbyhorse is not bad, I have long wanted to pick it up. Why, you can't get along with him in any way. Fetyuk, just a fetuk!

Then they entered the room. Porfiry handed in the candles, and Chichikov noticed in the owner's hands a deck of cards that had come from nowhere.

And what, brother, - said Nozdryov, pressing the sides of the deck with his fingers and bending it somewhat, so that the piece of paper cracked and bounced off. - Well, to pass the time, I keep a bank of three hundred rubles!

But Chichikov pretended not to have heard what he was talking about, and said, as if suddenly recalling:

A! so as not to forget: I have a request for you.

First give your word that you will fulfill it.

What request?

Well, give me your word!

Please.

Honestly?

Honestly.

Here's a request: do you have tea, many dead peasants who have not yet been deleted from the revision?

Well there is, but what?

Translate them to me, to my name.

What do you need?

Well, yes, I need it.

What for?

Well, yes, it’s necessary ... it’s my business - in a word, it’s necessary.

Well, really, he started something. Admit it, what?

What's up with you? nothing can be started from such a trifle.

Why do you need them?

Oh, how curious! he would like to touch all the rubbish with his hand, and even smell it!

Why don't you want to say?

But what kind of profit do you know? well, just like that fantasy came.

So here it is: until you tell me, I will not do it!

Well, you see, that's really dishonest of you: you gave your word, and back out.

Well, as you want, but I won't do it until you tell me what to do.

"What can I say to him?" - thought Chichikov and after a moment's reflection announced that he needed dead souls to gain weight in society, that he did not have large estates, so until that time at least some little souls.

You're lying, you're lying! - said Nozdryov, not letting him finish. - You're lying, brother!

Chichikov himself noticed that he hadn't come up with a very clever pretext and that the pretext was rather weak.

Well, I’ll tell you more directly, ”he said, correcting himself,“ but please don’t tell anyone. I decided to get married; but you need to know that the bride's father and mother are preambiguous people. Such, really, a commission: I'm not happy that I contacted, they certainly want the groom to have no less than three hundred souls, and since I have almost a hundred and fifty peasants missing ...

Well, you're lying! you're lying! - Nozdryov shouted again.

Well, here, ”said Chichikov,“ he hasn’t lied so much, ”and showed the smallest part on his little finger with his thumb.

I put my head down that you're lying!

However, this is insulting! what am I really! why am I necessarily lying?

Well, yes, I know you: you are a big swindler, let me tell you this out of friendship! If I were your boss, I would hang you on the first tree.

Chichikov was offended by such a remark. Already any expression, in the least rude or offending decency, was unpleasant to him. He did not even like to allow himself to be treated in any way, unless the person was of too high rank. And so now he was completely offended.

Honestly, I would hang, - repeated Nozdryov, - I tell you this frankly, not in order to offend you, but simply in a friendly way.

Everything has boundaries, - said Chichikov with a sense of dignity. - If you want to flaunt such speeches, then go to the barracks. - And then he added: - If you don't want to give it, then sell it.

Sell! Why, I know you, because you are a scoundrel, because you will not give dearly for them?

Eh, you're good too! look you! that they are diamond, or what?

Well, it is. I already knew you.

Have mercy, brother, what have you got for the Jewish impulse! You should just give them to me.

Well, listen, to prove to you that I am not some kind of skuldy, I will not take anything for them. Buy a stallion from me, I'll give them to you to boot.

Have mercy, what do I need a stallion for? said Chichikov, amazed in fact by such a proposal.

How to what? Why, I paid ten thousand for it, and I'll give it to you for four.

What do I need a stallion for? I do not keep a plant.

But listen, you do not understand: after all, now I will only take from you three thousand, and you can pay me the rest of the thousand later.

Yes, I do not need a stallion, God bless him!

Well, buy the dogs. I’ll sell you such a pair, it’s just the frost on the skin! busty, with a mustache, the coat stands up like bristles. The ribbing of the ribs is incomprehensible to the mind, the paw is all in a ball, the ground will not touch.

Why do I need dogs? I'm not a hunter.

Yes, I wish you had dogs. Listen, if you really don't want dogs, then buy a barrel organ from me, a wonderful barrel organ; myself, as an honest person, it cost fifteen hundred: I'll give it to you for nine hundred rubles.

Why do I need a hurdy-gurdy? After all, I am not a German, so that, dragging along the roads with her, beg for money.

But this is not such a hurdy-gurdy as the Germans wear. It is an organ; let's see on purpose: all mahogany. I'll show it to you again! - Here Nozdryov, seizing Chichikov by the hand, began to drag him into another room, and no matter how he rested his feet on the floor and assured him that he already knew what the organ was, but he had to hear again how Malbrug went on the campaign. “When you don’t want money, so this is what, listen: I’ll give you a barrel organ and everything, no matter how many dead souls I have, and you give me your chaise and three hundred rubles in addition.

Well, here's another, but what am I going to wear?

I'll give you another chaise. Let's go to the barn, I'll show you it! You just repaint it, and there will be a miracle chaise.

"Eck his restless demon as possessed!" - Chichikov thought to himself and decided to get rid of all the chariots, the organ-organs and all possible dogs at all costs, despite the incomprehensible barrel of the ribs and the lumpiness of the paws.

Why, the chaise, the organ and the dead souls, all together!

I don’t want to, ”Chichikov said again.

Why don't you want?

Because I just don’t want to, and it’s complete.

What you really are! with you, as I see, it is impossible, as usual between good friends and comrades, such, really! .. Now it is clear that a two-faced man!

What am I, a fool, or what? judge for yourself: why acquire a thing that is absolutely unnecessary for me?

Please don't tell me. Now I know you very well. Such, really, rakalia! Well, listen, do you want to throw a jar? I will put all the dead on the line, the organ too.

Well, to decide to go to the bank means to be exposed to the unknown, - said Chichikov, and meanwhile he glanced sideways at the cards in his hands. Both waists seemed to him very similar to artificial ones, and the park itself looked very suspicious.

Why is there uncertainty? - said Nozdryov. - No suspense! if only happiness is on your side, you can win the damn abyss. There she is! What happiness! - he said, starting to throw to excite enthusiasm. - What happiness! What happiness! out: so it pounds! here is that damn nine on which I squandered everything! I felt that he would sell, but already, closing my eyes, I thought to myself: "Damn you, sell, damn you!"

When Nozdryov was saying this, Porfiry brought a bottle. But Chichikov resolutely refused to play or drink.

Why don't you want to play? - said Nozdryov.

Well, because it is not located. Yes, I must admit that I am not a gamer at all.

Why not a hunter?

Chichikov shrugged his shoulders and added:

Because not a hunter.

You rubbish!

What can I do? so God created.

Fetyuk is simple! I thought before that you were at least a decent person, but you did not understand any way of addressing. You can’t speak with you as with a loved one ... no straightforwardness, no sincerity! perfect Sobakevich, such a scoundrel!

Why are you scolding me? Am I to blame for not playing? Sell ​​me a shower alone, if you are such a person that you tremble over this nonsense.

You will get a bald devil! I wanted to, it was, I wanted to give it away for nothing, but now you won't get it! Let’s give three kingdoms, I won’t give it up! Such a chilnik, an ugly stove-maker! From now on I don't want to have anything to do with you. Porfiry, go tell the groom not to give oats to his horses, let them eat only hay.

Chichikov did not expect the last conclusion.

It would be better if you just didn't show yourself to my eyes! - said Nozdryov.

In spite of such a disagreement, however, the guest and the host dined together, although this time there were no wines with fancy names on the table. There was only one bottle with some Cypriot, which was what is called sour, in all respects. After supper, Nozdryov said to Chichikov, taking him to a side room, where a bed was prepared for him:

Here's your bed! I don’t want to wish you a good night either!

After Nozdryov left, Chichikov remained in the most unpleasant frame of mind. He was inwardly annoyed with himself, scolded himself for having stopped by and wasted time. But he scolded himself even more for talking to him about the matter, acted carelessly, like a child, like a fool: for the matter is not at all of the kind to be entrusted to Nozdryov ... God knows what, some more gossip will come out - not good, not good. “I'm just a fool,” he said to himself. He slept very badly that night. Some small nimble insects bit him intolerably painful, so he scraped the wounded place with his whole handful, saying: "Oh, the devil take you along with Nozdryov!" He woke up early in the morning. The first thing he did was, putting on a robe and boots, go across the courtyard to the stable and order Selifan to lay the chaise at this very hour. Returning through the courtyard, he met Nozdryov, who was also in a dressing gown, with a pipe in his teeth.

Nozdryov greeted him in a friendly way and asked how he slept.

So so, - answered Chichikov very dryly.

And I, brother, - said Nozdryov, - such an abomination climbed all night that it is disgusting to talk, and in my mouth after yesterday it was like a squadron spent the night. Imagine: I dreamed that I was whipped, she-she! and imagine who? You will never guess: the captain-captain Kisseuyev together with Kuvshinnikov.

"Yes," thought Chichikov to himself, "it would be nice if they ripped you off in reality."

By golly! yes it hurts! I woke up: damn it, something is really scratching - right, witches fleas. Well, go get dressed now, I'll come to you now. You just need to scold the scoundrel of the clerk.

Chichikov went into the room to get dressed and wash. When after that he went into the dining room, there was already a tea set with a bottle of rum on the table. There were traces of yesterday's lunch and dinner in the room; the broom doesn't seem to touch at all. Bread crumbs were scattered on the floor, and tobacco ash was even visible on the tablecloth. The owner himself, who did not hesitate to enter soon, had nothing under his dressing gown, except for an open chest, on which grew some kind of beard. Holding a shank in his hand and sipping from a cup, he was very good for a painter who does not like the fear of gentlemen slicked and curled, like barbarian signs, or cut to fit.

Well, what do you think? - said Nozdryov, after a little pause. - Do you want to play for the soul?

I already told you, brother, that I am not playing; buy - if you please, buy.

I don’t want to sell, it will not be friendly. I'm not going to take the hymen off the devil knows what. The banquet is another matter. Let's estimate the waist!

I already said no.

Don't you want to change?

I do not want.

Well, listen, let's play checkers, if you win, it's all yours. After all, I have a lot of those that need to be deleted from the audit. Hey, Porfiry, bring the checker maker here.

Labor is in vain, I will not play.

Why, this is not a bank; there can be no happiness or falsehood here: after all, everything is from art; I even anticipate you that I do not know how to play at all, unless you give me something in advance.

“Sem-ka I,” thought Chichikov to himself, “I’ll play checkers with him! I played checkers well, but it is difficult for him to get up on pieces here. "

If you please, so be it, I'll play checkers.

Souls go in a hundred rubles!

Why? it is enough if they go at fifty.

No, what kind of kush is fifty? Better in this amount I will include you some medium-sized puppy or a gold signet for your watch.

Well, if you please! - said Chichikov.

How much will you give me in advance? - said Nozdryov.

Why on earth? Nothing of course.

At least let it be my two moves.

I don’t want to, I play badly myself.

It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, also moving a saber.

We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, acting as a saber.

It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, moving the sword.

We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, moving the checker, and at the same time pushed the sleeves and another checker with the cuff.

It's been a long time since I took it in my hands! .. Eh, eh! this, brother, what? send her back! - said Chichikov.

Yes, a saber, ”said Tchichikov, and at the same time saw, almost in front of his very nose, another, which, as it seemed, was making its way into the queens; where it came from, only God knew it. - No, - said Chichikov, getting up from the table, - there is no way to play with you! They don't go that way, suddenly three checkers!

Why three? This is by mistake. One moved accidentally, I will move it, if you please.

Where did the other come from?

What is the other one?

But this one that sneaks into the queens?

Here's to you, as if you don't remember!

No, brother, I counted all the moves and remember everything; you just got her in. Her place is where!

How, where is the place? - said Nozdryov, blushing. - Yes, you, brother, as I see, a writer!

No, brother, it seems you are a writer, but only unsuccessfully.

Who do you think I am? - said Nozdryov. - Am I really going to cheat?

I don’t consider you for anyone, but I’ll never play from now on.

No, you cannot refuse, - said Nozdryov, getting hot, - the game has begun!

I have the right to refuse, because you do not play as well as befitting an honest person.

No, you're lying, you can't say that!

No, brother, you yourself are lying!

I was not cheating, and you cannot refuse, you must end the game!

You won't force me to do that, ”Chichikov said coolly and, going up to the board, mixed the checkers.

Nozdryov flushed and approached Chichikov so close that he took two steps back.

I'll make you play! It's nothing that you mixed the checkers, I remember all the moves. We will put them back as they were.

No, brother, it's over, I won't play with you.

So don't you wanna play?

You can see for yourself that there is no way to play with you.

No, put it bluntly, don't you want to play? - said Nozdryov, stepping even closer.

I do not want! - said Chichikov and raised, however, both hands, just in case, closer to his face, for things were getting really hot.

This precaution was quite in place, because Nozdryov waved his hand ... and it could very well have happened that one of our hero's pleasant and full cheeks would be covered with indelible dishonor; but, happily deflecting the blow, he grabbed Nozdryov by both perky hands and held him tightly.

Porfiry, Pavlushka! - shouted Nozdryov in fury, trying to escape.

Hearing these words, Chichikov, in order not to make the courtyard witnesses to the seductive scene, and at the same time feeling that holding Nozdryov was useless, let go of his hands. At that very time Porfiry entered and with him Pavlushka, a hefty guy, with whom it was completely unprofitable to deal with.

So you don't want to finish the games? - said Nozdryov. - Answer me bluntly!

There is no way to finish the game, ”Chichikov said and looked out the window. He saw his chaise, which was quite ready, and Selifan was expecting, it seemed, a wave to roll under the porch, but there was no way to get out of the room: there were two hefty serf fools at the door.

So you don't want to finish the games? - repeated Nozdryov with his face burning as if on fire.

If you played, as befits an honest man. But now I can't.

A! so you can't, you scoundrel! when you saw that it’s not yours, you can’t! Hit him! - he shouted frantically, turning to Porfiry and Pavlushka, and he himself grabbed a cherry shank in his hand. Chichikov became as pale as a sheet. He wanted to say something, but felt that his lips were moving without a sound!

Hit him! - shouted Nozdryov, struggling forward with a cherry stem, covered in heat, in sweat, as if he was approaching an impregnable fortress. - Hit him! - he shouted in the same voice as during a great attack shouting to his platoon: "Guys, go ahead!" - some desperate lieutenant, whose eccentric bravery has already gained such fame that he gives an express order to hold his hands during hot matters. But the lieutenant had already felt the abusive enthusiasm, everything went round and round in his head; before him rushes Suvorov, he climbs on a great cause. "Guys, go ahead!" - he shouts, struggling, not thinking that he is hurting the already thought out plan of the general attack, that millions of rifle blows have been exposed in the embrasures of the impregnable fortress walls that leave the cloud, that his powerless platoon will fly up like fluff into the air and that a fatal bullet is already whistling, preparing to slam his loud throat. But if Nozdryov expressed himself as a desperate, lost lieutenant who approached the fortress, then the fortress to which he walked did not in any way look like an impregnable one. On the contrary, the fortress felt such fear that its soul hid in its very heels. Already the chair with which he thought to defend himself was snatched out of his hands by the serfs, already, closing his eyes, he was neither alive nor dead, he was preparing to taste his master's Circassian shank, and God knows whatever happened to him; but fate was pleased to save the sides, shoulders and all well-bred parts of our hero. In an unexpected way, suddenly, as from the clouds, the rattling sounds of a bell, there was a clear clatter of the wheels of a cart flying up to the porch, and even in the room itself the heavy snoring and heavy breathlessness of the heated horses of the stopped troika echoed. Everyone involuntarily glanced out the window: someone, with a mustache, in a paramilitary coat, was getting out of the cart. After inquiring in the hall, he entered at the very moment when Chichikov had not yet had time to recover from his fear and was in the most pitiful situation in which a mortal had ever found himself.

Let me know who is Mr. Nozdryov here? - said the stranger, looking in some bewilderment at Nozdryov, who was standing with a shank in his hand, and at Chichikov, who was barely beginning to recover from his disadvantageous position.

Let me first know with whom I have the honor to speak? - said Nozdryov, coming closer to him.

What do you want?

I have come to announce the notice given to me that you are on trial until the end of the decision on your case.

What nonsense, what business? - said Nozdryov.

You were implicated in the story, on the occasion of personal insult to the landowner Maksimov with rods in a drunken state.

You're lying! I have never seen landowner Maksimov!

Your Majesty! let me report to you that I am an officer. You can tell your servant, not me!

Here Chichikov, not waiting for Nozdryov to answer this, rather slipped out onto the porch by the cap and behind the police captain's back, sat in the chaise and ordered Selifan to drive the horses at full speed.

CHAPTER FIVE

Our hero has rotted, however, in order. Although the chaise was rushing all over the place and the village of Nozdryov had long since disappeared from sight, covered by fields, slopes and hillocks, but he still looked back with fear, as if expecting that a chase was about to come. His breath could hardly be translated, and when he tried to put his hand to his heart, he felt that it was beating like a quail in a cage. “What a bath he asked! look what you are! " Here many were promised to Nozdryov of all sorts of difficult and strong desires; even bad words came across. What can I do? Russian people, and even in their hearts. Besides, it was not a joke at all. “Whatever you say,” he said to himself, “but if the captain-police officer had not come in time, perhaps I would not have been able to look at the light of God any more! Would disappear like a blister on the water, without any trace, leaving no descendants, without giving future children neither a fortune nor an honest name! " Our hero took great care of his descendants.

“What a nasty gentleman! Selifan thought to himself. - I have not yet seen such a gentleman. That is, he should spit for it! You better not let the man eat, but you must feed the horse, because the horse loves oats. This is his food: what, as an example, is our kosht, then for him oats, he is his food. "

The horses, too, seemed to think unfavorably of Nozdryov: not only the bay one and the Assessor, but the forelock himself was out of sorts. Although he always got worse oats in part, and Selifan didn’t put it in the trough otherwise, as he had said before: “Oh, you scoundrel!” - but, nevertheless, it was still oats, and not simple hay, he chewed it with pleasure and often thrust his long muzzle into a trough to his comrades to taste what food they had, especially when Selifan was not in the stable, but now one hay ... is not good; everyone was unhappy.

But soon all the dissatisfied were interrupted in the midst of their outpourings in a sudden and completely unexpected way. All, not excluding the coachman himself, came to their senses and woke up only when a carriage with six horses galloped on them and almost over their heads there was a cry from the ladies sitting in the carriage, abuse and threats from another coachman: “Oh, you are such a swindler; After all, I shouted to you in a voice: turn, crow, to the right! Are you drunk or what? " Selifan felt his oversight, but since a Russian person does not like to confess to another that he is guilty, he immediately uttered, sucking up: “Why are you so galloping? Did he lay his eyes in the tavern, or what? " Following this, he began to push back the chaise in order to free himself in this way from someone else's team, but it was not there, everything was messed up. Chubary sniffed his new friends with curiosity, who found themselves on both sides of him. Meanwhile, the ladies sitting in the carriage looked at all this with an expression of fear in their faces. One was an old woman, the other was young, sixteen years old, with golden hair, very deftly and sweetly smoothed over a small head. The pretty oval of her face was round like a fresh egg, and, like it, turned white with a kind of transparent whiteness, when fresh, just cut, it is held against the light in the swarthy hands of a housekeeper who tests him and lets the rays of the shining sun pass through itself; her thin ears also shone through, glowing with warm light penetrating them. At the same time, fright in her open, stopped lips, tears in her eyes - all this in her was so sweet that our hero looked at her for several minutes, not paying any attention to the commotion that had taken place between the horses and the coachmen. "Put away, or something, the Nizhny Novgorod crow!" - shouted someone else's coachman. Selifan pulled the reins back, the foreign coachman did the same, the horses backed up a little and then again collided, stepping over the lines. Under this circumstance, the forelock horse liked the new acquaintance so much that he did not want to get out of the rut, into which he had fallen by unforeseen fates, and, putting his face on the neck of his new friend, it seemed that he was whispering something into his very ear, probably nonsense terrible, because the newcomer was constantly shaking his ears.
However, the peasants from the village, which was, fortunately, nearby, managed to get together for such a confusion. Since such a sight is sheer blessing for a peasant, it's like a newspaper or a club for a German, then soon an abyss of them accumulated around the crew, and only old women and little guys remained in the village. The strings were untied; a few jabs in the face of the forelock horse made him back away; in a word, they were separated and divorced. But whether the vexation felt by the visiting horses for having separated them from their friends, or simply nonsense, only, no matter how much their coachman whipped, they did not move and stood rooted to the spot. The participation of men has increased to an incredible extent. Each of them vied with advice: “Go, Andryushka, guide the attorney on the right side, and let Uncle Mityai sit astride the root! Sit down, Uncle Mityai! " A lean and long uncle Mityai with a red beard climbed on a root horse and became like a village bell tower, or, better, a hook used to get water in wells. The coachman hit the horses, but it didn't work, Uncle Mityai did not help. “Stop, stop! - shouted the men. "Sit down, Uncle Mityai, on the pin, and let Uncle Minyay sit on the root!" Uncle Minyay, a broad-shouldered man with a beard black as coal and a belly similar to that gigantic samovar in which sbiten is brewed for the entire vegetated market, eagerly sat down on the root, which almost bent to the ground under him. “Now it will work! - shouted the men. - Heat it up, heat it up! Sppandor with a whip over there that one, the nightingale, that he is writhing like a coramor! " But, seeing that the situation did not go well and that no incandescence helped, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai both sat on the root, and Andryushka was put on the guard. Finally, the coachman, having lost patience, drove both Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai away, and he did well, because such a steam went from the horses, as if they were grabbing the station without taking a breath. He gave them a minute to rest, after which they went on their own. Throughout this trick Chichikov looked very attentively at the young stranger. He tried several times to talk to her, but somehow he didn't have to. And meanwhile the ladies left, a pretty head with thin features and a slender figure disappeared like something similar to a vision, and again there was a road, a chaise, three horses familiar to the reader, Selifan, Chichikov, the smooth surface and emptiness of the surrounding fields. Everywhere, wherever in life, whether among the callous, rough-poor and untidy-moldy low-lying ranks of it, or among the monotonous cold and boringly tidy classes of the upper classes, everywhere at least once on the way a person will encounter a phenomenon that is not similar to all that what happened to him to see until then, which at least once awakens in him a feeling that is not like those that he is destined to feel all his life. Everywhere, across whatever sorrows, from which our life is woven, shining joy will merrily rush, like sometimes a brilliant carriage with a golden harness, picturesque horses and sparkling glitter of glass suddenly suddenly sweep past some deafened poor village that has seen nothing but a rural carts, and the peasants stood for a long time, yawning, with open mouths, without putting on their hats, although the marvelous carriage had long since vanished and disappeared from sight. So the blonde also suddenly appeared in our story in a completely unexpected way and disappeared in the same way. Get caught at that time, instead of Chichikov, some twenty-year-old boy, whether he is a hussar, a student, or just just starting his life - and God! whatever wakes up, moves, speaks in him! For a long time he would have stood insensibly in one place, gazing senselessly into the distance, forgetting the road, and all the reprimands ahead, and reprimands for delay, forgetting himself, and service, and the world, and everything that is in the world.

But our hero was already middle-aged and of a prudently chilled character. He, too, pondered and thought, but positive, not so unaccountable and even partly very solid were his thoughts. “Glorious babushka! - he said, opening the snuffbox and sniffing the tobacco. - But what, most importantly, is good in her? The good thing is that now, apparently, she has just graduated from some boarding school or institute, that in her, as they say, there is still nothing of a woman's, that is, exactly what they have the most unpleasant. She is now like a child, everything in her is simple, she will say what she pleases, laughs where she wants to laugh. Everything can be done from it, it can be a miracle, or it can come out and rubbish, and it will come out rubbish! Just let the mamas and aunts take care of her now. In one year they will fill her with all kinds of women so that her own father himself does not recognize. Where will the puffiness and stiffness come from, will start tossing and turning according to the confirmed instructions, will begin to puzzle over and think with whom, and how, and how much to talk with, how to look at whom, at any moment he will be afraid, so as not to say more than necessary, he will get confused finally, herself, and it will end with the fact that she will finally begin to lie all my life, and it will come out just the devil knows what! " Here he was silent for a while and then added: “And it’s curious to know whose it is? what, how is her father? Is it a rich landowner of a venerable disposition, or just a good-minded person with capital acquired in the service? After all, if, let’s say, this girl was given two hundred thousand dowries, a very, very tasty morsel could come out of her. It could make up, so to speak, the happiness of a decent person. " Two hundred thousand people began to appear so attractively in his head that he internally began to annoy himself, why, in the course of the trouble around the carriages, did not scout from the postman or coachman who the passing people were. Soon, however, the Sobakevich village that had appeared dispersed his thoughts and made them turn to their constant subject.

The village seemed to him quite large; two forests, birch and pine, like two wings, one darker, the other lighter, were on her right and left; in the middle was a wooden house with a mezzanine, a red roof, and dark gray or, better, wild walls - a house like the ones they build here for military settlements and German colonists. It was noticeable that during its construction the architect was incessantly struggling with the taste of the owner. The architect was a pedant and wanted symmetry, the owner - convenience and, as you can see, as a result, boarded up all the corresponding windows on one side and screwed in place one small one, which was probably needed for a dark closet. The pediment also did not fall in the middle of the house, no matter how the architect struggled, because the owner ordered one column to be thrown out from the side, and therefore there were not four columns, as was appointed, but only three. The courtyard was surrounded by a strong and inordinately thick wooden lattice. The landowner seemed to be fussing a lot about strength. In the stables, sheds and kitchens, full-weight and thick logs were used, determined to stand for centuries. The village huts of the peasants were also cut down wonderfully: there were no chimney walls, carved patterns and other tricks, but everything was fitted tightly and properly. Even the well was finished in such a strong oak that goes only to mills and ships. In a word, everything he looked at was stubborn, without hesitation, in some kind of strong and awkward order. Approaching the porch, he noticed two faces peering out of the window almost at the same time: a woman's, in a cap, narrow, long, like a cucumber, and a man's, round, wide, like Moldovan pumpkins, called gourds, from which balalaikas are made in Russia, two-string light balalaikas, the beauty and fun of a grasping twenty-year-old guy, a blinker and a dandy, and winking and whistling at the white-breasted and white-necked girls who gathered to listen to his quiet-string tinkling. Looking out, both faces hid at the same moment. A footman in a gray jacket with a blue stand-up collar came out onto the porch and led Chichikov into the vestibule, where the owner himself had already gone out. Seeing the guest, he said abruptly: "Please!" - and took him to the inner dwellings.

When Chichikov glanced sideways at Sobakevich, this time he seemed to him very similar to an average-sized bear. To complete the resemblance, the tailcoat he wore was completely bearish, the sleeves were long, the trousers were long, he walked with his feet at random and sideways and stepped incessantly on other people's legs. The complexion was red-hot, hot, as is the case on a copper dime. It is known that there are many such persons in the world over whose decoration nature was not wise for long, did not use any small tools, such as: files, gimbals and other things, but simply chopped from the whole shoulder: I did it with an ax once - my nose came out, I did it in another - lips came out, poked her eyes with a big drill and, without scraping, let her into the light, saying: "He lives!" Sobakevich had the same strong and marvelously stunning image: he held it more downward than upward, did not turn his neck at all, and due to such non-rotation he rarely looked at the one with whom he was talking, but always either at the corner of the stove or at the door. ... Chichikov once again glanced at him sideways as they passed the dining room: bear! perfect bear! Such a strange rapprochement is needed: he was even called Mikhail Semenovich. Knowing the habit of stepping on his feet, he very carefully moved his own and gave him the way forward. The owner, it seemed, felt this sin behind him and immediately asked: "Did I not disturb you?" But Chichikov thanked him, saying that no concern had yet occurred.

Entering the living room, Sobakevich pointed to the armchairs, saying again: "Please!" Sitting down, Chichikov glanced at the walls and at the pictures hanging on them. In the paintings, they were all good fellows, all the Greek generals, engraved to their full height: Mavrocordato in red trousers and a uniform, with glasses on the nose, Miauli, Kanari. All these heroes were with such thick thighs and unheard-of mustaches that shivers went through their bodies. Between the strong Greeks, it is not known how and for what, Bagration was placed, skinny, thin, with small banners and cannons below and in the narrowest frames. Then again followed the Greek heroine Bobelina, to whom one leg seemed more than all the bodies of those dandies who fill today's living rooms. The owner, being a healthy and strong man himself, seemed to want strong and healthy people to decorate his room too. Near Bobelina, at the very window, there was a cage, from which a dark-colored thrush with white specks looked out, very similar to Sobakevich. The guest and the host had not had time to be silent for two minutes when the door to the drawing room opened and the hostess entered, a very tall lady, wearing a cap with ribbons repainted with home paint. She entered gravely, keeping her head as straight as a palm tree.

- This is my Feodulia Ivanovna! - said Sobakevich.

Chichikov went up to Feodulia Ivanovna's hand, which she almost shoved into his lips, and he had occasion to notice that his hands had been washed with cucumber pickle.

Feodulia Ivanovna asked to sit down, saying also: "Please!" - and making a movement with his head, like actresses representing queens. Then she sat down on the sofa, covered herself with her merino handkerchief and no longer moved her eye or eyebrow.

Chichikov again looked up and again saw Canari with thick thighs and an endless mustache, Bobelina and a blackbird in a cage.

For almost a full five minutes, everyone was silent; there was only a knock, made by the thrush's nose against the tree of a wooden cage, at the bottom of which he was fishing for grains of bread. Chichikov once again looked around the room, and everything in it was solid, awkward to the highest degree and bore some strange resemblance to the owner of the house himself; in the corner of the living room stood a pot-bellied walnut bureau on preposterous four legs, a perfect bear. The table, armchairs, chairs - everything was of the heaviest and most restless quality - in a word, every object, every chair seemed to say: "And I, too, Sobakevich!" or: "And I am also very similar to Sobakevich!"

“We remembered about you at the chairman of the chamber, at Ivan Grigorievich’s,” Chichikov said at last, seeing that no one was disposed to start a conversation, “last Thursday. We had a very pleasant time there.

- Yes, I was not then at the chairman, - answered Sobakevich.

- A wonderful person!

- Who it? - said Sobakevich, looking at the corner of the stove.

- Chairman.

- Well, maybe it seemed to you that way: he was just a Freemason, and such a fool that he did not produce light.

Chichikov was a little puzzled by such a somewhat harsh definition, but then, having recovered, continued:

- Of course, every person is not without weaknesses, but what an excellent governor!

- Is the governor an excellent man?

- Yes, isn't it?

- The first robber in the world!

- How, the governor is a robber? - said Chichikov and absolutely could not understand how the governor could get into the robbers. “I confess I would never have thought of that,” he continued. - But allow me, however, to note: his actions are completely different, on the contrary, rather, there is even a lot of softness in him. - Here he even brought up the purses, embroidered by his own hands, as proof, and responded with praise for the gentle expression on his face.

- And a robber's face! - said Sobakevich. - Give him only a knife and let him out on the high road - he will stab him, he will stab him for a penny! He is, moreover, the vice-governor - this is Gog and Magog!

"No, he is at odds with them," thought Chichikov to himself. “But I’ll talk to him about the police chief: he seems to be his friend.”

“As for me, though,” he said, “I confess that I like the police master more than anyone else. Some kind of direct, open character; there is something simple-hearted in the face.

- Scammer! - Said Sobakevich very coolly, - he will sell, deceive, and also dine with you! I know all of them: they are all scammers, the whole city is like that: a swindler sits on a swindler and drives him to a swindler. All Christ sellers. There is only one decent person: the prosecutor; and that, if you tell the truth, a pig.

After such commendable, although several short biographies, Chichikov saw that there was nothing to mention about other officials and remember that Sobakevich did not like to speak well of anyone.

“Well, darling, let's go to dinner,” his wife told Sobakevich.

- I beg! - said Sobakevich.

Then, going up to the table where there was a snack, the guest and the host drank a glass of vodka properly, ate, as the whole vast Russia has a snack in cities and villages, that is, with all kinds of salinity and other exciting graces, and everything poured into the dining room; ahead of them, like a flowing goose, the mistress rushed. A small table was set for four appliances. She came to fourth place very soon, it is difficult to say in the affirmative who she was, a lady or a girl, a relative, a housewife, or simply living in the house: something without a cap, about thirty years old, in a colorful scarf. There are faces that exist in the world not as an object, but as extraneous specks or specks on an object. They sit in the same place, hold their heads in the same way, they are almost ready to be mistaken for furniture, and you think that a word has never come out of such mouths from a young age; and somewhere in the girls' room or in the pantry it will be simple: wow!

The side of a mutton was followed by cheesecakes, each of which was much larger than a plate, then a turkey the size of a calf, stuffed with all sorts of good things: eggs, rice, liver and heaven knows what, everything lay lumpy in the stomach. That was the end of the meal; but when they got up from the table, Chichikov felt a whole pood heavier in himself. They went into the living room, where they found themselves on a saucer of jam - not a pear, not a plum, not another berry, which, however, was not touched by either the guest or the host. The hostess went out in order to put it on other saucers. Taking advantage of her absence, Chichikov turned to Sobakevich, who, lying in an armchair, was only grunting after such a hearty dinner and making some kind of indistinct sounds in his mouth, crossing himself and closing his hand every minute. Chichikov addressed him with the following words:

- I would like to talk with you about a business.

- Here's some more jam, - said the hostess, returning with a saucer, - radish boiled in honey!

- And here we are after! - said Sobakevich. - Now go to your room, Pavel Ivanovich and I will take off our tailcoats, we will have a little rest!

The hostess had already expressed her readiness to send for down jackets and pillows, but the owner said: “Never mind, we will rest in the armchairs,” and the hostess left.

Sobakevich slightly bent his head, preparing to hear what was the matter.

Chichikov began somehow very distantly, touched in general the entire Russian state and responded with great praise about its space, said that even the most ancient Roman monarchy was not so great, and foreigners are justly surprised ... Sobakevich listened to everything, bowing his head. And that according to the existing provisions of this state, in whose glory there is no equal, revision souls, having finished their life, are, however, on a par with the living, before the submission of a new revision tale, so as not to burden the presence places with many petty and useless inquiries and not to increase the complexity of an already very complex state mechanism ... Sobakevich listened to everything, bowing his head - and that, nevertheless, with all the fairness of this measure, it is partly painful for many owners, obliging them to pay taxes as if for a living thing , and that he, feeling personal respect for him, would even partly take on this really heavy duty. As regards the main subject, Chichikov expressed himself very carefully: he did not in any way call the souls dead, but only non-existent.

Sobakevich listened to everything as before, bowing his head, and at least something similar to an expression appeared on his face. It seemed that this body did not have a soul at all, or he had it, but not at all where it should be, but, like an immortal koshchei, somewhere beyond the mountains and covered with such a thick shell that everything that turned and turned at the bottom it produced absolutely no shock on the surface.

“So? ..” said Chichikov, expecting, not without some excitement, for an answer.

- Do you want dead souls? - Asked Sobakevich very simply, without the slightest surprise, as if it were about bread.

“Yes,” replied Chichikov, and again softened his expression, adding, “nonexistent.

- There will be, why not be ... - said Sobakevich.

- And if there are, then you, no doubt ... will be pleased to get rid of them?

“Excuse me, I'm ready to sell,” said Sobakevich, already raising his head a little and realizing that the buyer must surely have some benefit here.

"Damn it," thought Chichikov to himself, "this one is already selling before I gave a hint!" - and said aloud:

- And, for example, what about the price? .. although, by the way, this is such an object ... which is even strange about the price ...

- Yes, so as not to ask too much from you, at a hundred rubles apiece! - said Sobakevich.

- Stu! - Chichikov cried, opening his mouth and looking into his very eyes, not knowing whether he himself had misheard, or the language of Sobakevich, by its heavy nature, not turning so much, blurted out another word instead of one.

- Well, is it dear to you? - said Sobakevich and then added: - But what would be, however, your price?

- My price! We must have somehow made a mistake or do not understand each other, have forgotten what the subject is. For my part, I suppose, in all honesty: eight hryvnia per soul, this is the reddest price!

- Where did you have enough - eight hryvnia!

- Well, in my opinion, as I think, it is no longer possible.

- After all, I'm not selling sandals.

- However, you must agree yourself: after all, these are also not people.

- So you think you will find such a fool who would sell you an auditor's soul for two hryvenones?

- But excuse me: why do you call them revision, after all, the souls have already died long ago, there is only one sound intangible to the senses. However, in order not to enter into further conversations on this part, I will give you one and a half rubles, if you please, but I can’t take it anymore.

- You are ashamed to say such a sum! you bargain, say the real price!

“I can’t, Mikhail Semyonovich, believe my conscience, I can’t: what is really impossible to do, that is impossible to do,” Chichikov said, but he added half a bit more.

Tchichikov again wanted to notice that there was no Cork in the world either; but Sobakevich, as you can see, carried away: such streams of speeches poured out that only needed to be listened to:

- Milushkin, bricklayer! could put a stove in any house. Maxim Telyatnikov, shoemaker: what stabs with an awl, then boots, that boots, then thanks, and at least into the mouth of the intoxicated. And Eremey Sorokoplekhin! Yes, this peasant will be one for everyone, he traded in Moscow, brought one quitrent for five hundred rubles. After all, that's what kind of people! This is not what some Plyushkin will sell you.

“But excuse me,” Chichikov said at last, amazed at such a profuse flood of speeches, which seemed to have no end, “why are you counting all their qualities, because there’s no point in them now, because they’re all dead people.” Support the fence with a dead body, the proverb says.

- Yes, of course, dead, - said Sobakevich, as if thinking better and remembering that they were in fact already dead, and then added: - However, even then say: which of these people who are now listed as living? What kind of people are they? flies, not people.

- Yes, they still exist, and this is a dream.

- Well, no, not a dream! I will tell you what Mikheev was like, so you will not find such people: the machine is such that it will not enter this room; no, this is not a dream! And in his shoulders he had such a strength that a horse does not have; I wish I knew where else you would find such a dream!

He had already said the last words, referring to the portraits of Bagration and Kolokotroni hanging on the wall, as usually happens with people who are talking, when one of them suddenly, for some unknown reason, turns not to the person to whom the words refer, but to some third person who accidentally came , even to a completely unfamiliar, from whom he knows that he will not hear any answer, no opinion, no confirmation, but at whom, however, he will fix his gaze, as if calling him into mediators; and the stranger, who was somewhat confused at the first minute, does not know whether to answer the matter about which he had not heard anything, or to stand there, observing proper decency, and then leave.

“No, I can't give more than two rubles,” said Chichikov.

- Excuse me, so that they do not pretend to me, that I am asking dearly and do not want to do you any favor, if you please - at seventy-five rubles per capita, only in banknotes, right only for acquaintance!

"What is he really, - thought Chichikov to himself," for a fool, is he taking me? " - and then added aloud:

- It’s strange to me, really: it seems that some theatrical performance or comedy is taking place between us, otherwise I cannot explain to myself ... You seem to be a rather clever person, possess knowledge of education. After all, the subject is just fufu. What is he worth? who needs?

- Yes, here you are buying, so you need it.

Here Chichikov bit his lip and could not find what to answer. He began to talk about some family and family circumstances, but Sobakevich answered simply:

“I don’t need to know what your relationship is; I do not interfere with family affairs, this is your business. You needed souls, and I am selling them to you, and you will regret not having bought them.

“Two rubles,” said Chichikov.

- Eck, really, the forty Yakov confirmed one thing about everyone, as the proverb says; as you have settled on two, you don't want to leave them. You give the real price!

"Well, damn him," thought Chichikov to himself, "I'll add a half to him, for a dog, for nuts!"

- If you please, I'll add a half.

- Well, if you please, and I will also tell you my last word: fifty rubles! right, a loss for yourself, you can't buy such a good people cheaper anywhere else!

"What a fist!" Chichikov said to himself, and then went on aloud with some annoyance:

- But really ... as if it were definitely a serious business; Yes, I'll take it anywhere else. Anyone will also willingly get them for me, just to get rid of them as soon as possible. A fool would keep them to himself and pay taxes for them!

- But do you know that such purchases, I say this between us, out of friendship, are not always permissible, and tell me or someone else - such a person will not have any power of attorney regarding contracts or entering into any lucrative obligations.

"See, where he is aiming, you scoundrel!" Thought Chichikov and immediately said with the most cool air:

- As you yourself want, I buy not for any need, as you think, but so, according to the inclinations of my own thoughts. Do not want two and a half - goodbye!

"You can't hit him, he's stubborn!" thought Sobakevich.

- Well, God bless you, give thirty each and take them for yourself!

- No, I see you don't want to sell, goodbye!

- Excuse me, excuse me! - Said Sobakevich, not letting go of his hand and stepping on his foot, for our hero forgot to take care of himself, as a punishment for which he had to hiss and jump on one leg.

- Sorry! I seem to have disturbed you. Please sit down here! I beg! - Here he sat him down in an armchair with some even dexterity, like a bear that has already been in his hands, he knows how to roll over, and do different things to the questions: "And show, Misha, how the women are soaring" or: "And how, Misha , little guys steal peas? "

“Really, I’m wasting my time, I need to hurry.

“Sit down a minute, I'll tell you one word that is pleasant for you,” Sobakevich sat down closer and spoke to him quietly in his ear, as if a secret. - Want a corner?

- That is, twenty-five rubles? No, no, no, I won't even give a quarter of the corner, I won't add a penny.

Sobakevich fell silent. Chichikov also fell silent. Silence lasted for two minutes. Bagration with an aquiline nose looked from the wall extremely attentively at this purchase.

- What will your last price be? - Sobakevich said at last.

- Two and a half.

- Really, your human soul is like a steamed turnip. Give me at least three rubles!

- I can not.

- Well, there is nothing to do with you, if you please! A loss, yes, such a dog's temper: I can not help but please my neighbor. After all, I’m tea, I need to complete the deed of sale so that everything is in order.

- Of course.

- Well, that's the same, you will need to go to the city.

This is how the work was done. Both decided to be in the city tomorrow and deal with the fortress of sale. Chichikov asked for a list of peasants. Sobakevich readily agreed and immediately, going up to the bureau, began to write out all with his own hand, not only by name, but even with the designation of laudable qualities.

And Chichikov, having nothing to do, occupied himself, being behind, examining his entire spacious salary. As he glanced at his back, wide, like those of Vyatka squat horses, and at his legs, which looked like cast-iron pedestals that are placed on the sidewalks, he could not help exclaiming internally: “Eck, God has rewarded you! surely, as they say, it’s wrongly cut, but tightly sewn! .. Was you born like a bear, or meddled with backwater life, grain crops, fussing with the peasants, and through them you have become what they call a man-fist? But no: I think you would all be the same, even if you would even bring you up in fashion, put you in motion and live in Petersburg, and not in the boondocks. The only difference is that now you will eat half a lamb side with porridge, having ate a cheesecake on a plate, and then you would have eaten some cutlets with truffles. But now you have peasants under your rule: you are in harmony with them and, of course, you will not offend them, because they are yours, you will be worse off; and then you would have officials whom you would click strongly, realizing that they were not your serfs, or would you rob the treasury! No, whoever is a fist cannot bend into the palm of your hand! Extend one or two fingers to your fist, it will be even worse. Try it slightly tops of some science, he will let know later, taking a more visible place, to all those who actually learned some science. Moreover, perhaps, he will say later: "Let me show myself!" Yes, such a wise decree will invent that many will have a salty ... Oh, if only all the fists! .. "

“A note is ready,” Sobakevich said, turning.

- Ready? Please welcome her here! - He scanned her eyes and marveled at the accuracy and precision: not only was the trade, title, years and family status written in detail, but even in the margins there were special marks about behavior, sobriety - in a word, it was a pleasure to look.

- Now, please give me a deposit! - said Sobakevich.

- Why do you need a deposit? You will receive all the money in the city at once.

“Everything, you know, is the way it is,” objected Sobakevich.

“I don’t know how to give it to you, I didn’t take money with me. Yes, there are ten rubles.

- Well ten! Give me at least fifty!

Chichikov began to make excuses that he had not; But Sobakevich said in the affirmative that he had money that he took out another piece of paper, saying:

- Perhaps, here's another fifteen for you, a total of twenty-five. Please only give me a receipt.

- Yes, what do you need a receipt for.

- Everything, you know, better than a receipt. It’s not even an hour, anything can happen.

- Well, give me money here!

- What is the money for? I have them in my hand! as soon as you write the receipt, take them the very minute.

- Yes, excuse me, how can I write a receipt? first you have to see money.

Chichikov let go of the pieces of paper to Sobakevich, who, approaching the table and covering them with the fingers of his left hand, wrote with the other on a piece of paper that he had received a deposit of twenty-five rubles in state notes for the souls sold in full. Having written the note, he reviewed the banknotes again.

- An old paper! - he said, examining one of them in the world, - a little torn, but between friends there is nothing to look at.

“Fist, fist! - thought Chichikov to himself, - and even a beast to boot! "

- Do you want a female?

- No, thank you.

- I would take it inexpensively. For acquaintance at a ruble apiece.

- No, I don't need a female field.

“Well, when you don’t need it, there’s nothing to say. There is no law for tastes: who loves the priest, and who will get it, the proverb says.

“I also wanted to ask you to keep this deal between us,” Chichikov said, saying goodbye.

- Yes, it goes without saying. Third, there is nothing to interfere with; what happens between short friends in sincerity should remain in their mutual friendship. Farewell! Thank you for visiting; I ask you not to forget ahead: if you have a free hour, come to have lunch, to spend time. Maybe again it will happen to do something to each other.

“Yes, no matter how it is! Chichikov thought to himself, sitting down in the chaise. - Two and a half tore for a dead soul, damn fist!

He was unhappy with Sobakevich's behavior. All the same, be that as it may, the man is familiar, and the governor and the police chief saw each other, but he acted as if he were a completely stranger, he took money for rubbish! When the chaise drove out of the yard, he looked back and saw that Sobakevich was still standing on the porch and, it seemed, was looking closely, wanting to know where the guest was going.

- Scoundrel, still standing! - he said through clenched teeth and ordered Selifan, turning to the peasant huts, to drive off in such a way that it was impossible to see the carriage from the side of the master's yard. He wanted to visit Plyushkin, who, according to Sobakevich, people were dying like flies, but he didn’t want Sobakevich to know about it. When the chaise was already at the end of the village, he called the first peasant to him, who, picking up a thick log somewhere on the road, dragged it on his shoulder, like an indefatigable ant, to his hut.

- Hey, beard! and how to get from here to Plyushkin, so as not to pass the manor house?

The peasant seemed to be at a loss with this question.

- Well, don't you know?

- No, sir, I don’t know.

- Oh you! And even a gray hair tugged on! Do you know the curmudgeon Plyushkin, that which feeds people poorly?

- Oh, patched, patched! - the man cried out.

He also added a noun to the word "patched", which is very successful, but not used in small talk, and therefore we will skip it. However, one can guess that it was expressed very aptly, because Chichikov, although the peasant had long since disappeared from sight and had gone ahead a lot, was still grinning, sitting in the chaise. The Russian people are strongly expressed! and if he rewards someone with a word, then it will go to his family and posterity, he will drag him with him to the service, and to retirement, and to Petersburg, and to the end of the world. And no matter how cunning and ennobled your nickname later, even make the writing people take him out of the ancient princely family for a hired price, nothing will help: the nickname will croak for itself into all his crow's throat and say clearly where the bird flew from. What is spoken aptly, is the same as what is written, is not cut out with an ax. And where is it aptly everything that came out of the depths of Russia, where there are no German, no Chukhonsk, or any other tribes, and everything is a nugget himself, a lively and lively Russian mind that does not go into his pocket for a word, does not incubate it , like a hen of chickens, but it slips right away, like a passport to an eternal sock, and there is nothing to add later, what kind of nose or lips you have - you are outlined in one line from head to toe!

Just as a myriad of churches, monasteries with domes, heads, and crosses are scattered over holy, pious Russia, so a myriad of tribes, generations, peoples crowd, dazzle and rush across the face of the earth. And every nation that bears within itself the guarantee of strength, full of the creative abilities of the soul, its bright peculiarity and other gifts of God, each has distinguished itself in its own way with its own word, which, expressing any object, reflects the expression of its part of its own character. The word of the Briton will respond to the knowledge of heart and the wise knowledge of life; the short-lived word of the Frenchman will flash and scatter with an easy dandy; the German will intricately come up with his own, not accessible to everyone, cleverly thin word; but there is no word that would be so ambitious, so boldly that would burst out from under the very heart, so boil and lively, like a well-spoken Russian word.

Arriving at the tavern, Chichikov ordered to stop for two reasons. On the one hand, to give the horses a rest, and on the other hand, to have a few bites and refreshments myself. The author must admit that he is very jealous of the appetite and stomach of this kind of people. For him, all the gentlemen of the big hand, living in St. Petersburg and Moscow, who spend time thinking about what to eat tomorrow and what kind of dinner to compose for the day after tomorrow mean absolutely nothing, and who take up this dinner only after having sent a pill into their mouths; swallowing oysters, sea spiders and other miracles, and then going to Carlsbad or the Caucasus. No, these gentlemen never aroused envy in him. But gentlemen of average skill, that at one station they will demand ham, at another a piglet, at a third a slice of sturgeon or some baked sausage with onions and then, as if nothing had happened, they sit down at the table at any time, and sterlet ear with burbot and hisses and grumbles with milk between their teeth, seized with a pie or kulebyaka with catfish, so that it permeates an appetite - these gentlemen, for sure, are using the enviable gift of heaven! Not one gentleman of the big hand would sacrifice this very minute half the souls of the peasants and half of the estates, pledged and not pledged, with all the improvements on a foreign and Russian leg, in order only to have such a stomach as a gentleman of an average hand has; But the trouble is that for no money, lower than property, with improvements and without improvements, it is impossible to acquire such a stomach as a gentleman of average hands.

The darkened wooden tavern received Chichikov under its narrow hospitable canopy on carved wooden posts, similar to old church candlesticks. The inn was something like a Russian hut, somewhat larger. Carved ornamental cornices of fresh wood around the windows and under the roof sharply and vividly dazzled its dark walls; jugs of flowers were painted on the shutters.

Climbing the narrow wooden staircase up into the wide entrance, he met the door creaking open with a creak and a fat old woman in variegated calico, who said: "Come here!" All the old friends came across in the room, everyone came across in small wooden taverns, of which many were lined up along the roads, namely: a frosty samovar, smoothly scraped pine walls, a triangular cabinet with teapots and cups in the corner, porcelain gilded testicles in front of images, hanging on blue and red ribbons, a recently lambing cat, a mirror showing four eyes instead of two, and some kind of cake instead of a face; Finally, bunches of fragrant herbs and carnations stuck to the images, dried to such an extent that those who wanted to smell them only sneezed and nothing else.

Is there a pig? - with such a question Chichikov turned to the standing woman.

With horseradish and sour cream?

With horseradish and sour cream.

Give it here!

The old woman went to rummage and brought a plate, a napkin starched to the point that it reared up like dried bark, then a knife with a yellowed bone block, thin as a pen, a two-pronged fork and a salt shaker that could not be put directly on the table.

Our hero, as usual, has now entered into a conversation with her and asked whether she herself runs the tavern, or is there an owner, and how much income the tavern gives, and whether the sons live with them, and that the eldest son is single or married, and which one he took wife, with a large dowry, or not, and whether the father-in-law was pleased, and whether he was angry that he received few gifts at the wedding - in a word, he did not miss anything. It goes without saying that he was curious to find out what kind of landowners they had in the circle, and learned that there are all kinds of landowners: Blokhin, Pochitaev, Mylnoy, Cheprakov - colonel, Sobakevich. "A! Do you know Sobakevich? " - he asked and immediately heard that the old woman knew not only Sobakevich, but also Manilov, and that Manilov would be more delicate than Sobakevich: he ordered to cook chicken at once, and asked for veal; if there is a lamb liver, then he will ask for a lamb liver, and will just taste everything, but Sobakevich will ask one thing, but he will eat everything, even demand a supplement for the same price.

Nozdrev (ill. P. Boklevsky)

As he talked in this way, eating the piglet, which was already the last piece, the sound of the wheels of the approaching carriage was heard. Looking out the window, he saw a light chaise pulled up by three kind horses, stopped in front of the inn. Two men were climbing out of the chaise. One blond, tall; the other is a little lower, dark-haired. The blond one was in a dark blue Hungarian coat, the dark-haired one was simply in a striped arkhaluk. From a distance there was still a wheelchair, empty, dragged along by some long-haired quadruple with torn clamps and rope harness. The blonde immediately went on the stairs upstairs, meanwhile, as the black eyelid still remained and suggested something in a Brachem, talking immediately with the rug and Mahai at the same time that the stroller was still looking for them. His voice struck Tchichikov as if somewhat familiar. While he was examining it, the blond man had already felt the door and opened it. He was a tall man, with a thin face, or what is called wasted, with a red mustache. From his sunburnt face it was possible to conclude that he knew what smoke is, if not gunpowder, then at least tobacco. He bowed politely to Chichikov, to which the latter replied in kind. In the course of a few minutes, they would probably have talked and got to know each other well, because the beginning had already been made, and both at almost the same time expressed pleasure that the dust on the road was completely nailed by yesterday's rain and now the ride is cool and pleasant. when his dark-haired comrade entered, throwing his cap off his head on the table, ruffling his thick black hair with his hand in a brave manner. He was of medium height, a very well-built fellow with full, ruddy cheeks, teeth as white as snow, and jet-black sideburns. He was fresh as blood and milk; health seemed to sprinkle from his face.

Ba, ba, ba! he cried suddenly, spreading both hands at the sight of Chichikov. - What are the fates?

Chichikov recognized Nozdrev, the same one with whom he had dined with the prosecutor and who in a few minutes got on such a short leg with him that he began to say "you", although, however, he, on his part, did not give any reason for this.

Where did you go? - said Nozdryov and, without waiting for an answer, continued: - And I, brother, from the fair. Congratulations: blown away! Do you believe that I've never been so blown out in my life. After all, I came to the philistines! Look out the window on purpose! - Here he bent the head of Chichikov himself, so that he almost hit it against the frame. - See what rubbish! They dragged me by force, damned people, I have already climbed into his chaise. - While saying this, Nozdryov pointed his finger at his comrade. - Have you met yet? My son-in-law Mizhuev! He and I have been talking about you all morning. "Well, look, I say, if we don't meet Chichikov." Well, brother, if you only knew how I poured! Would you believe that not only did the four trotters lose their weight - they let everything down. After all, I am not wearing a chain or a watch ... - Chichikov looked and saw for sure that he was not wearing a chain or a watch. It even seemed to him that one sideburn was smaller and not as thick as the other. - But if there were only twenty rubles in my pocket, - continued Nozdryov, - exactly no more than twenty, I would have won everything, that is, apart from what I would have won back, like an honest man, I would now put thirty thousand in my wallet.

However, you said so then, - answered the blond, - and when I gave you fifty rubles, I immediately squandered them.

And I would not have lost! By God, I wouldn't have lost it! If I hadn't done something stupid myself, I really wouldn't have lost it. If I hadn’t bend me after the password on the damn seven duck, I could have broken the whole bank.

However, I didn’t rip it off, ”said the blond.

I didn't pick it because I bent the duck at the wrong time. Do you think your Major plays well?

Good or bad, but he beat you.

What an importance! - said Nozdryov, - that is how I will beat him. No, just try to play with a doublet, and then I'll see, I'll see what kind of player he is! But, brother Chichikov, how we had a drink in the first days! True, the fair was excellent. The merchants themselves say that there has never been such a convention. I sold everything that was brought from the village at the best price. Eh, brother, how they had a drink! Now even, when you remember ... damn it! that is, what a pity you weren't. Imagine that a dragoon regiment was stationed three versts from the city. Do you believe that the officers, no matter how many there were, forty people of some officers were in the city; how we, brother, began to drink ... The staff-captain of Kisses ... so glorious! mustache, brother, such! Bordeaux simply calls it a wineskin. "Bring me, brother, he says, skins!" Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov ... Ah, brother, what a lovely man! here, one might say, in all form, a carousel. We were all together with him. What wine did Ponomarev give us! You need to know that he is a swindler and you cannot take anything in his shop: all kinds of rubbish interfere with the wine: sandalwood, burnt cork, and even an elderberry, a scoundrel, rubs it; but on the other hand, if he pulls out a bottle from a distant room, which he calls special, - well, simply, brother, you are in the empyrean. We had such champagne - what is the governor's before him? just kvass. Imagine, not a clique, but some kind of clique-matradura, which means a double click. And he also took out one bottle of French called Bonbon. Smell? - outlet and whatever you want. They’ve already gone on a meal! .. After us some prince came, sent to the shop for champagne, there is not a single bottle in the whole city, all the officers drank. Do you believe that I alone drank seventeen bottles of champagne during lunch!

Well, you won’t drink seventeen bottles, ”said the blond.

As an honest man, I say that I drank, - answered Nozdryov.

You can tell yourself what you want, and I tell you that you won't drink ten.

Well, you wanna gamble that I'll drink!

Why bet?

Well, put on your gun that you bought in town.

I do not want.

Well, put it on, try it!

And I don’t want to try.

Yes, you would be without a gun, as without a hat. Eh, brother Chichikov, that is, how I regretted that you were not there. I know that you would not part with Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. How would you get along well with him! This is not like the prosecutor and all the provincial curmudgeons in our city, who are shaking for every penny. This one, brother, and in galbik, and in a banchishka, and in whatever you want. Eh, Chichikov, what should you come? Really, you piggy for this, a cattle-breeder! Kiss me, darling, death love you! Mizuev, look, fate has brought it together: what is he to me, or what am I to him? He came, God knows where, I also live here ... And how many, brother, there were carriages, and all this en gros. He turned it into a fortune: won two cans of lipstick, a porcelain cup and a guitar; then he put it once again and played the channel, more than six rubles. And what, if you only knew, the red tape of Kuvshinnikov! We were with him at almost all balls. One was so dressed up, ruffles on her, and tricks, and the devil knows what was not ... I just think to myself: "Damn it!" And Kuvshinnikov, that is, this is such a beast, sat down next to her and in French let her such compliments ... Believe it, he did not miss ordinary women. This he calls: take advantage of the strawberry. They brought wonderful fish and balyks. I did bring one with me; it's good that I thought of buying it when there was still money. Where are you going now?

And I go to the little man to one, - said Chichikov.

Well, what a little man, leave him! let's go to me!

No, you can't, there is a case.

Well, that's the point! already invented! Oh you, Opodeldock Ivanovich!

Really, business, and even necessary.

I'm betting, you're lying! Well, just tell me, who are you going to?

Well, to Sobakevich.

Here Nozdryov burst out laughing with that ringing laugh, which only a fresh, healthy person is filled with, in whom all to the last show teeth as white as sugar, cheeks tremble and jump, and a neighbor behind two doors, in the third room, jumps up from sleep, goggling and saying: "Eck took it apart!"

What's so funny about that? - said Chichikov, somewhat dissatisfied with such a laugh.

But Nozdryov continued to laugh at the top of his lungs, saying:

Oh, have mercy, really, I'm bursting with laughter!

There’s nothing funny: I gave him my word, ”said Chichikov.

Why, you won't be happy with life when you come to him, it's just a Jew! After all, I know your character. You will be severely taken aback if you think to find a banchishka there and a good bottle of some bonbon. Listen, brother: to hell with Sobakevich, let's go to me! what a balyk I will sweat! Ponomarev, the beast, bowed so much, says: "For you, only, the whole fair, he says, search, you will not find such a thing." The rogue, however, is terrible. I said this to him: "You, I say, are the first swindlers with our tax farmer!" Laughs, beast, stroking his beard. Kuvshinnikov and I had breakfast every day in his shop. Oh, brother, I forgot to tell you: I know that you won't lag behind now, but I won't give it up for ten thousand, I say in advance. Hey Porfiry! - he shouted, going up to the window, at his man, who was holding a knife in one hand, and in the other a crust of bread with a piece of balyk, which he was lucky enough to cut off in passing, taking something out of the chaise. - Hey, Porfiry, - shouted Nozdryov, - bring a puppy! What a puppy! he continued, turning to Chichikov. - Stolen, the owner did not give for himself. I promised him a brown mare, which, you remember, I exchanged with Khvostyrev ... - Chichikov, however, has never seen a brown mare or Khvostyrev when he was born.

Master! do you want to eat anything? - said at this time, going up to him, the old woman.

Nothing. Eh, brother, how have you gone to a party! However, give me a glass of vodka: which one do you have?

Anisova, - answered the old woman.

Well, come on aniseed, - said Nozdryov.

Give me a glass too! - said the blond.

In the theater, one actress, like a canary, sang like a canary! Kuvshinnikov, who was sitting next to me, - "Here, he says, brother, I would like to use about strawberries!" There were fifty booths alone, I think. Fenardi turned the mill for four hours. - Here he took a glass from the hands of the old woman, who bowed deeply to him. - Oh, give it here! he shouted when he saw Porfiry enter with the puppy. Porfiry was dressed, like the master, in some kind of arkhaluk, quilted on cotton, but somewhat more oily.

Come on, put it on the floor here!

Porfiry put the puppy on the floor, which stretched out on all four paws and sniffed the ground.

Here is a puppy! - said Nozdryov, taking him by the back and lifting him with his hand. The puppy let out a rather plaintive howl.

You, however, did not do what I told you, ”said Nozdryov, turning to Porfiry and carefully examining the puppy’s belly,“ and didn’t think about combing it out? ”

No, I combed it out.

Why fleas?

I can not know. Maybe they got out of the chaise somehow.

You lie, you lie, and did not imagine scratching; I think, you fool, he let his own people go too. Look, Chichikov, look what ears, feel it with your hand.

Why, I already see: a good breed! - answered Chichikov.

No, take it on purpose, feel your ears!

Chichikov felt his ears to please him, saying:

Yes, it will be a good dog.

Do you feel how cold your nose is? take it with your hand.

Not wanting to offend him, Chichikov took him by the nose, saying:

Good instinct.

A real face, - continued Nozdryov, - I, I confess, have been sharpening my teeth for a long time. Here, Porfiry, take it!

Porfiry, taking the puppy under the belly, carried him into the chaise.

Listen, Chichikov, you must certainly come to me now, five miles in total, we will be rushing in spirit, and there, perhaps, you can also see Sobakevich.

“Well,” thought Chichikov to himself, “I’ll really drop by to see Nozdryov. Why is he worse than others, the same person, and even lost. Apparently, he goes for everything, so you can get something from him for free. "

Let’s go, ”he said,“ but don’t mind delaying, time is precious to me.

Well, soul, that's it! This is good, wait, I'll kiss you for that. - Here Nozdryov and Chichikov kissed. - And it's nice: three of us and ride!

No, you, please, let me go, - said the blond, - I need to go home.

Trifles, trifles, brother, I won't let it go.

Really, the wife will be angry; now you can change into their chaise.

Neither, nor, nor! And don't think.

The blond was one of those people whose character, at first glance, has some kind of stubbornness. Before you have time to open your mouth, they are already ready to argue and, it seems, will never agree to something that is clearly opposite to their way of thinking, that they will never call a stupid smart and that in particular they will not agree to dance on someone else's tune; and it will always end with the fact that their character will turn out to be gentle, that they will agree exactly to what they rejected, they will call the stupid smart and then go to dance as best as possible to someone else's tune - in a word, they will start in smoothness, and end up like a bastard.

Nonsense! - said Nozdryov in response to some kind of presentation of the blond, put a cap on his head, and - the blond went after them.

They didn't pay for the vodka, sir ... - said the old woman.

Ah, good, good, mother! Listen, son-in-law! please pay. I don't have a dime in my pocket.

How old are you? - said the son-in-law.

But what, father, two-cents of everything, - said the old woman.

You're lying, you're lying. Give her half a dollar, as much as she can.

Not enough, sir, ”said the old woman, but she took the money with gratitude and ran in haste to open the door for them. She was not at a loss, because she asked four times the price of vodka.

The newcomers sat down. Chichikov's chaise was driving next to the chaise in which Nozdryov and his son-in-law were sitting, and therefore all three of them could talk freely to each other as the journey continued. They were followed, incessantly lagging behind, by Nozdryov's small carriage on skinny common horses. Porfiry sat in it with a puppy.

Since the conversation that the travelers had among themselves was not very interesting for the reader, we will do better if we say something about Nozdryov himself, who, perhaps, will have a chance to play an important role in our poem.

The face of Nozdryov is already somewhat familiar to the reader. Everyone had to meet a lot of such people. They are called broken-hearted little ones, they are known even in childhood and at school for good comrades, and for all that, they are very painfully beaten. Something open, direct, daring is always visible in their faces. They will soon get to know each other, and before you have time to look back, “you” are already telling you. Friendship will be established, it seems, forever: but it almost always happens that the friend will fight with them that evening at a friendly feast. They are always talkers, revelers, reckless people, prominent people. At thirty-five, Nozdryov was as perfect as he was at eighteen and twenty: a hunter to take a walk. The marriage did not change him at all, especially since his wife soon went to the next world, leaving two children who were decidedly unnecessary for him. The children, however, were looked after by a cute nanny. At home, he could not sit for more than a day. A sensitive nose heard him for several tens of miles, where there was a fair with all sorts of congresses and balls; he was already there in the blink of an eye, arguing and causing confusion at the green table, for he, like all such, had a passion for cards. In the game of cards, as we have already seen from the first chapter, he did not play completely sinlessly and cleanly, knowing many different overexposures and other subtleties, and therefore the game very often ended in another game: either they beat him with boots, or they asked him to overexpose him with a thick and very good sideburns, so that he sometimes returned home with only one sideburn, and that was rather liquid. But his healthy and plump cheeks were so well made and contained so much plant power that the sideburns soon grew again, even better than before. And what is the strangest thing that can only happen in Russia alone, after a while, he already met again with those friends who were playing with him, and met as if nothing had happened, and he, as they say, is nothing, and they are nothing.

Nozdryov was in some respects a historical person. Not a single meeting he attended was complete without history. Some story certainly happened: either the gendarmes would take him out of the hall under the arms, or they were forced to push him out by their own friends. If this does not happen, then all the same, something will happen that will not happen to the other: either it will be cut in the buffet in such a way that it only laughs, or it will be drunk in the most cruel way, so that at last it will become ashamed of itself. And he will lie completely unnecessarily: he will suddenly tell that he had a horse of some kind of blue or pink wool, and that kind of nonsense, so that the listeners finally all leave, saying: “Well, brother, you seem to have already started shedding bullets ". There are people who have a passion to spoil their neighbors, sometimes for no reason at all. Someone, for example, even a person in rank, with a noble appearance, with a star on his chest, will shake your hand, talk to you about deep things that cause you to think, and then, you look, right there, before your eyes, and shit you. And he will shit like a simple collegiate receptionist, and not at all like a man with a star on his chest, talking about subjects that provoke thought, so that you just stand there wondering, shrugging your shoulders, and nothing more. Nozdryov had the same strange passion. The closer he got to him, the closer he was to everyone: he let loose a fable, which is more stupid than it is difficult to invent, upset the wedding, the bargain, and did not consider himself your enemy at all; on the contrary, if the occasion brought him to meet with you again, he treated himself again in a friendly way and even said: "You are such a scoundrel, you will never come to see me." In many ways, Nozdryov was a versatile person, that is, a man of all trades. At that very moment, he suggested that you go anywhere, even to the ends of the world, enter whatever enterprise you want, change everything you want for everything you want. A gun, a dog, a horse - everything was an object of exchange, but not at all in order to win: it simply came from some kind of restless agility and agility of character. If he was lucky enough to attack a simpleton at the fair and beat him, he bought a bunch of everything that had previously caught his eye in the shops: clamps, smoking candles, nanny shawls, a stallion, raisins, a silver washstand, Dutch canvas, large flour, tobacco, pistols, herrings, paintings, a sharpening tool, pots, boots, earthenware - how much money was enough. It rarely happened, however, that it was brought home; almost on the same day, it all went down to another, happiest player, sometimes even a pipe with a pouch and a mouthpiece was added, and at other times the whole quadruple with everything: with a carriage and a coachman, so that the owner himself went in a short frock coat or arhaluk to look for what - some buddy to use his crew. That's what Nozdryov was! Maybe they will call him a beaten character, they will say that Nozdryov is no longer there. Alas! those who say so will be unjust. Nozdryov will not be out of the world for a long time. He is everywhere between us and, perhaps, only wears a different caftan; but people are frivolous and unperceptive, and a person in a different caftan seems to them a different person.

Meanwhile, three carriages had already rolled up to the porch of Nozdryov's house. There was no preparation at home to receive them. In the middle of the dining room stood wooden trestles, and two peasants, standing on them, whitewashed the walls, dragging on some kind of endless song; the floor was sprinkled with whitewash. Nozdryov ordered the peasants and the goats out the same hour and ran into another room to give orders. The guests heard him ordering dinner for the cook; realizing this, Chichikov, who was already beginning to feel a little appetite, saw that before five o'clock they would not sit down at the table. Returning, Nozdryov led the guests to inspect everything that was in his village, and at a little over two o'clock showed absolutely everything, so that there was nothing left to show. First of all, they went to inspect the stable, where they saw two mares, one gray with apples, the other kauruya, then a chestnut stallion, seemingly unprepossessing, but for which Nozdryov swore that he had paid ten thousand.

You didn’t give ten thousand for it, ”said the son-in-law. - He's not worth one.

By God, I gave ten thousand, - said Nozdryov.

You can swear to yourself as much as you want, - answered the son-in-law.

Well, you want, we bet! - said Nozdryov.

The son-in-law didn’t want to fight.

Then Nozdryov showed the empty stalls, where there were also good horses before. In the same stable, they saw a goat, which, according to the old belief, was considered necessary to keep with the horses, which, as it seemed, was in harmony with them, walked under their bellies, as if at home. Then Nozdryov took them to look at the wolf cub, which was on a leash. “Here is a wolf cub! - he said. “I’m feeding him raw meat on purpose.” I want him to be a perfect beast! " We went to look at the pond, in which, according to Nozdryov, there was a fish of such a size that two people could hardly pull the piece, which, however, the relative did not fail to doubt. "I will show you, Chichikov," said Nozdryov, "I will show you an excellent pair of dogs: the strength of the black meat is simply astonishing, the shield is a needle!" - and led them to a very beautifully built small house, surrounded by a large courtyard fenced off on all sides. Entering the courtyard, we saw all sorts of dogs, both thick-topped and pure-toothed, of all possible colors and stripes: murug, black and tan, half-piebald, murug-piebald, red-piebald, black-eared, gray-eared ... There were all the nicknames, all imperative moods: shoot, curse, flutter, fire, mow, scribble, bake, bake, severga, killer whale, reward, guardian. Nozdryov was among them just like a father among a family; all of them, immediately throwing their tails up, calling the dogs for the rules, flew straight towards the guests and began to greet them. About ten of them put their paws on Nozdryov's shoulders. The swearing showed the same friendship to Chichikov and, rising to his hind legs, licked him with his tongue on the very lips, so that Chichikov immediately spat it out. We examined the dogs, astonishing at the strength of the black meats - they were good dogs. Then we went to inspect the Crimean bitch, who was already blind and, according to Nozdryov, was about to die, but two years ago she was a very good bitch; they also examined the bitch - the bitch, for sure, was blind. Then we went to inspect the water mill, which lacked a flutter, into which the upper stone, rapidly rotating on a spindle, “flutter”, in the wonderful expression of the Russian peasant, was established.

And here will soon be a smithy! - said Nozdryov.

After a little past, they saw, for sure, a smithy, and examined the smithy.

Here in this field, - said Nozdryov, pointing his finger at the field, - the death of the hares is such that the land is not visible; I myself caught one by the hind legs with my own hands.

Well, you can't catch a hare with your hand! - said the son-in-law.

But I caught it, I caught it on purpose! - answered Nozdryov. “Now I’ll take you to see,” he continued, turning to Chichikov, “the border where my land ends.

Nozdryov led his guests over a field, which in many places consisted of hummocks. The guests had to make their way between fallows and furrowed fields. Chichikov was beginning to feel tired. In many places, their feet squeezed out the water under them, to such an extent the place was low. At first they were careful and stepped over carefully, but then, seeing that it was useless, they walked straight ahead, not making out where there was more and where less dirt. Having walked a decent distance, they saw, for sure, the border, which consisted of a wooden post and a narrow ditch.

Here is the border! - said Nozdryov. - Everything that you see on this side, everything is mine, and even on the other side, all this forest, which is turning blue over there, and everything beyond the forest, everything is mine.

But when did this forest become yours? - asked the son-in-law. - Did you buy it recently? After all, he was not yours.

Yes, I bought it recently, - answered Nozdryov.

When did you manage to buy it so soon?

Why, I bought it the day before yesterday, and it was damn expensive, I gave it.

Why, you were at the fair at that time.

Oh you, Sofron! Isn't it possible to be at the same time and at the fair and buy land? Well, I was at the fair, and my salesman bought it here without me.

Yes, well, perhaps a clerk! - said the son-in-law, but even then he doubted and shook his head.

The guests returned the same disgusting road to the house. Nozdryov took them to his office, in which, however, there were no noticeable traces of what happens in offices, that is, books or paper; there were only sabers and two guns - one three hundred and the other eight hundred rubles. The son-in-law, having examined, shook his head only. Then Turkish daggers were shown, on one of which was carved by mistake: "Master Savely Sibiryakov." After that, a hurdy-gurdy appeared to the guests. Nozdryov immediately checked something in front of them. The hurdy-gurdy played not without pleasantness, but in the middle of it, it seemed, something happened, for the mazurka ended with the song: "Malbrug went on a campaign," and "Malbrug went on a campaign" unexpectedly ended with some familiar waltz. Already Nozdryov had long ceased to twirl, but in the barrel organ there was one very lively pipe, which did not want to calm down in any way, and for a long time afterwards she was whistling alone. Then pipes appeared - wooden, earthen, mech, stoned and unstuffed, covered with suede and not covered, a shank with an amber mouthpiece, recently won, a tobacco pouch embroidered by some countess, somewhere at the post station I fell in love with him head over heels, with handles , according to him, were the most submissive syuperflu, a word that probably meant his highest point of perfection. Having ate some balyk, they sat down at the table at about five o'clock. Lunch, as you can see, was not the main thing in Nozdryov's life; the dishes did not play a big role: some of them were burnt, some were not cooked at all. It can be seen that the cook was more guided by some kind of inspiration and put the first thing that came to hand: whether there was pepper near him - he sprinkled pepper, whether he got a cabbage - popped the cabbage, stuffed milk, ham, peas, - in a word, go ahead and go, it would be hot, but some taste will surely come out. On the other hand, Nozdryov leaned heavily on wine: the soup had not yet been served, he had already poured a large glass of port for the guests and a different kind of state house, because in provincial and district cities there is no simple sautern. Then Nozdryov ordered to bring a bottle of Madeira, better than which the field marshal himself did not drink. Madeira, for sure, even burned in her mouth, for the merchants, already knowing the taste of the landowners who loved the good Madeira, ruthlessly refueled her with rum, and sometimes they poured royal vodka into it, in the hope that Russian stomachs would take everything out. Then Nozdryov ordered another special bottle to be brought, which, according to him, was both burgundy and champagnon together. He poured very diligently into both glasses, both to the right and to the left, to his son-in-law and Chichikov; Chichikov noticed, however, somehow in passing, that he was not adding much to himself. This forced him to be careful, and as soon as Nozdryov somehow started talking or poured out to his son-in-law, at the same moment he threw his glass into a plate. In a short time, brandy was brought to the table, which, according to Nozdryov, had a perfect taste of cream, but in which, to amazement, one could hear the fuzzies in all their strength. Then they drank some kind of balm, which bore such a name that it was even difficult to remember, and the owner himself called it by a different name on another occasion. Dinner had long since ended, and the wines had been tasted, but the guests were still seated at the table. Chichikov did not want to talk to Nozdryov in front of his son-in-law about the main subject. Still, the son-in-law was a stranger, and the subject demanded a solitary and friendly conversation. However, the son-in-law could hardly be a dangerous person, because he seemed to be loaded up to his fullest and, sitting on a chair, pecked his nose every minute. Noticing himself that he was not in a reliable condition, he finally began to ask for leave to go home, but in such a lazy and sluggish voice, as if, in the Russian expression, he was pulling a clamp on a horse with a pair of pincers.

And no, no! won't let go! - said Nozdryov.

No, don't offend me, my friend, really, I'll go, - said the son-in-law, - you will offend me very much.

Trifles, trifles! we will build a banchishka this very minute.

No, build it yourself, brother, but I can't, my wife will have a big claim, really, I must tell her about the fair. It is necessary, brother, truly, it is necessary to please her. No, you don't hold me!

Well, her, his wife, to ...! you will actually do the important thing together!

No brother! she is so respectable and loyal! It provides such services ... believe me, I have tears in my eyes. No, you don't hold me; as an honest person, I'll go. I assure you of this with a true conscience.

Let him go, what's the use of him! Chichikov said quietly to Nozdrev.

And really! - said Nozdryov. “I don’t like death like this! - and added aloud: - Well, the devil with you, go babysit with your wife, fetuk!

No, brother, don't scold me with a fetish, - answered the son-in-law, - I owe her my life. Such, really, kind, dear, she renders such caresses ... she dismisses them to tears; asks what he saw at the fair, you need to tell everything, such, really, dear.

Well go, lie to her nonsense! Here is your cap.

No, brother, you shouldn't say that about her at all; By this you, one might say, offend me, she is so cute.

Well, get away to her soon!

Yes, brother, I'll go, I'm sorry I can't stay. I would be glad with my soul, but I cannot.

The son-in-law repeated his apologies for a long time, not noticing that he himself had been sitting in the chaise for a long time, had long gone out of the gate and there were only empty fields in front of him for a long time. One must think that the wife hasn't heard much of the details of the fair.

Such rubbish! - said Nozdryov, standing in front of the window and looking at the leaving carriage. - Look how dragged along! the hobbyhorse is not bad, I have long wanted to pick it up. Why, you can't get along with him in any way. Fetyuk, just a fetuk!

Then they entered the room. Porfiry handed in the candles, and Chichikov noticed in the owner's hands a deck of cards that had come from nowhere.

And what, brother, - said Nozdryov, pressing the sides of the deck with his fingers and bending it somewhat, so that the piece of paper cracked and bounced off. - Well, to pass the time, I keep a bank of three hundred rubles!

But Chichikov pretended not to have heard what he was talking about, and said, as if suddenly recalling:

A! so as not to forget: I have a request for you.

First give your word that you will fulfill it.

What request?

Well, give me your word!

Honestly?

Honestly.

Here's a request: do you have tea, many dead peasants who have not yet been deleted from the revision?

Well there is, but what?

Translate them to me, to my name.

What do you need?

Well, yes, I need it.

What for?

Well, yes, it’s necessary ... it’s my business - in a word, it’s necessary.

Well, really, he started something. Admit it, what?

What's up with you? nothing can be started from such a trifle.

Why do you need them?

Oh, how curious! he would like to touch all the rubbish with his hand, and even smell it!

Why don't you want to say?

But what kind of profit do you know? well, just like that fantasy came.

So here it is: until you tell me, I will not do it!

Well, you see, that's really dishonest of you: you gave your word, and back out.

Well, as you want, but I won't do it until you tell me what to do.

"What can I say to him?" - thought Chichikov and after a moment's reflection announced that he needed dead souls to gain weight in society, that he did not have large estates, so until that time at least some little souls.

You're lying, you're lying! - said Nozdryov, not letting him finish. - You're lying, brother!

Chichikov himself noticed that he hadn't come up with a very clever pretext and that the pretext was rather weak.

Well, I’ll tell you more directly, ”he said, correcting himself,“ but please don’t tell anyone. I decided to get married; but you need to know that the bride's father and mother are preambiguous people. Such, rightly, a commission: I'm not happy that I contacted, they certainly want the groom to have no less than three hundred souls, and since I have almost a hundred and fifty peasants missing ...

Well, you're lying! you're lying! - Nozdryov shouted again.

Well, here, ”said Chichikov,“ he hasn’t lied so much, ”and showed the smallest part on his little finger with his thumb.

I put my head down that you're lying!

However, this is insulting! what am I really! why am I necessarily lying?

Well, yes, I know you: you are a big swindler, let me tell you this out of friendship! If I were your boss, I would hang you on the first tree.

Chichikov was offended by such a remark. Already any expression, in the least rude or offending decency, was unpleasant to him. He did not even like to allow himself to be treated in any way, unless the person was of too high rank. And so now he was completely offended.

Honestly, I would hang, - repeated Nozdryov, - I tell you this frankly, not in order to offend you, but simply in a friendly way.

Everything has boundaries, - said Chichikov with a sense of dignity. - If you want to flaunt such speeches, then go to the barracks. - And then he added: - If you don't want to give it, then sell it.

Sell! Why, I know you, because you are a scoundrel, because you will not give dearly for them?

Eh, you're good too! look you! that they are diamond, or what?

Well, it is. I already knew you.

Have mercy, brother, what have you got for the Jewish impulse! You should just give them to me.

Well, listen, to prove to you that I am not some kind of skuldy, I will not take anything for them. Buy a stallion from me, I'll give them to you to boot.

Have mercy, what do I need a stallion for? said Chichikov, amazed in fact by such a proposal.

How to what? Why, I paid ten thousand for it, and I'll give it to you for four.

What do I need a stallion for? I do not keep a plant.

But listen, you do not understand: after all, now I will only take from you three thousand, and you can pay me the rest of the thousand later.

Yes, I do not need a stallion, God be with him!

Well, buy a brown mare.

And you don't need a mare.

For the mare and the gray horse that you saw with me, I will only take from you two thousand.

I don’t need horses.

You sell them, you will be given three times more for them at the first fair.

So you better sell them yourself, when you are sure that you will win three times.

I know that I will win, but I want you to benefit too.

Chichikov thanked for the location and flatly refused both the gray horse and the cow mare.

Well, buy the dogs. I’ll sell you such a pair, it’s just the frost on the skin! busty, with a mustache, the coat stands up like bristles. The ribbing of the ribs is incomprehensible to the mind, the paw is all in a ball, the ground will not touch.

Why do I need dogs? I'm not a hunter.

Yes, I wish you had dogs. Listen, if you really don't want dogs, then buy a barrel organ from me, a wonderful barrel organ; myself, as an honest person, it cost fifteen hundred: I'll give it to you for nine hundred rubles.

Why do I need a hurdy-gurdy? After all, I am not a German, so that, dragging along the roads with her, beg for money.

But this is not such a hurdy-gurdy as the Germans wear. It is an organ; look on purpose: all mahogany. I'll show it to you again! - Here Nozdryov, seizing Chichikov by the hand, began to drag him into another room, and no matter how he rested his feet on the floor and assured him that he already knew what the organ was, but he had to hear again how Malbrug went on the campaign. “When you don’t want money, so this is what, listen: I’ll give you a barrel organ and everything, no matter how many dead souls I have, and you give me your chaise and three hundred rubles in addition.

Well, here's another, but what am I going to wear?

I'll give you another chaise. Let's go to the barn, I'll show you it! You just repaint it, and there will be a miracle chaise.

"Eck his restless demon as possessed!" - Chichikov thought to himself and decided to get rid of all the chariots, the organ-organs and all possible dogs at all costs, despite the incomprehensible barrel of the ribs and the lumpiness of the paws.

Why, the chaise, the organ and the dead souls, all together!

I don’t want to, ”Chichikov said again.

Why don't you want?

Because I just don’t want to, and it’s complete.

What you really are! with you, as I see, it is impossible, as is usual between good friends and comrades, such, really! .. Now it is clear that he is a two-faced man!

What am I, a fool, or what? judge for yourself: why acquire a thing that is absolutely unnecessary for me?

Please don't tell me. Now I know you very well. Such, really, rakalia! Well, listen, do you want to throw a jar? I will put all the dead on the line, the organ too.

Well, to decide to go to the bank means to be exposed to the unknown, 'said Chichikov, and meanwhile he glanced sideways at the cards in his hands. Both waists seemed to him very similar to artificial ones, and the park itself looked very suspicious.

Why are there unknowns? - said Nozdryov. - No suspense! if only happiness is on your side, you can win the damn abyss. There she is! What happiness! - he said, starting to throw to excite enthusiasm. - What happiness! What happiness! out: so it pounds! here is that damn nine on which I squandered everything! I felt that he would sell, but already, closing my eyes, I thought to myself: "Damn you, sell, damn you!"

When Nozdryov was saying this, Porfiry brought a bottle. But Chichikov resolutely refused to play or drink.

Why don't you want to play? - said Nozdryov.

Well, because it is not located. Yes, I must admit that I am not a gamer at all.

Why not a hunter?

Chichikov shrugged his shoulders and added:

Because not a hunter.

You rubbish!

What can I do? so God created.

Fetyuk is simple! I thought before that you were at least a decent person, but you did not understand any way of addressing. You can’t speak with you as with a loved one ... no straightforwardness, no sincerity! perfect Sobakevich, such a scoundrel!

Why are you scolding me? Am I to blame for not playing? Sell ​​me a shower alone, if you are such a person that you tremble over this nonsense.

You will get a bald devil! I wanted to, it was, I wanted to give it away for nothing, but now you won't get it! Let’s give three kingdoms, I won’t give it up! Such a chilnik, an ugly stove-maker! From now on I don't want to have anything to do with you. Porfiry, go tell the groom not to give oats to his horses, let them eat only hay.

Chichikov did not expect the last conclusion.

It would be better if you just didn't show yourself to my eyes! - said Nozdryov.

In spite of such a disagreement, however, the guest and the host dined together, although this time there were no wines with fancy names on the table. There was only one bottle with some Cypriot, which was what is called sour in all respects. After supper, Nozdryov said to Chichikov, taking him to a side room, where a bed was prepared for him:

Here's your bed! I don’t want to wish you a good night either!

After Nozdryov left, Chichikov remained in the most unpleasant frame of mind. He was inwardly annoyed with himself, scolded himself for having stopped by and wasted time. But he scolded himself even more for talking to him about the matter, acted carelessly, like a child, like a fool: for the matter is not at all of the kind to be entrusted to Nozdryov ... God knows what, some more gossip will come out - not good, not good. “I'm just a fool,” he said to himself. He slept very badly that night. Some small nimble insects bit him intolerably painful, so he scraped the wounded place with his whole handful, saying: "Oh, the devil take you along with Nozdryov!" He woke up early in the morning. The first thing he did was, putting on a robe and boots, go across the courtyard to the stable and order Selifan to lay the chaise at this very hour. Returning through the courtyard, he met Nozdryov, who was also in a dressing gown, with a pipe in his teeth.

Nozdryov greeted him in a friendly way and asked how he slept.

So so, - answered Chichikov very dryly.

And I, brother, - said Nozdryov, - such an abomination climbed all night that it is disgusting to talk, and in my mouth after yesterday it was like a squadron spent the night. Imagine: I dreamed that I was whipped, she-she! and imagine who? You will never guess: the captain-captain Kisseuyev together with Kuvshinnikov.

"Yes," thought Chichikov to himself, "it would be nice if they ripped you off in reality."

By God! yes it hurts! I woke up: damn it, something is really scratching - right, witches fleas. Well, go get dressed now, I'll come to you now. You just need to scold the scoundrel of the clerk.

Chichikov went into the room to get dressed and wash. When after that he went into the dining room, there was already a tea set with a bottle of rum on the table. There were traces of yesterday's lunch and dinner in the room; the broom doesn't seem to touch at all. Bread crumbs were scattered on the floor, and tobacco ash was even visible on the tablecloth. The owner himself, who did not hesitate to enter soon, had nothing under his dressing gown, except for an open chest, on which grew some kind of beard. Holding a shank in his hand and sipping from a cup, he was very good for a painter who does not like the fear of gentlemen slicked and curled, like barbarian signs, or cut to fit.

Well, what do you think? - said Nozdryov, after a little pause. - Do you want to play for the soul?

I already told you, brother, that I am not playing; buy - if you please, buy.

I don’t want to sell, it will not be friendly. I'm not going to take the hymen off the devil knows what. The banquet is another matter. Let's throw at the waist!

I already said no.

Don't you want to change?

I do not want.

Well, listen, let's play checkers, if you win, it's all yours. After all, I have a lot of those that need to be deleted from the audit. Hey, Porfiry, bring the checker maker here.

Labor is in vain, I will not play.

Why, this is not a bank; there can be no happiness or falsehood here: after all, everything is from art; I even anticipate you that I do not know how to play at all, unless you give me something in advance.

“Sem-ka I,” thought Chichikov to himself, “I’ll play checkers with him! I played checkers well, but it is difficult for him to get up on pieces here. "

If you please, so be it, I'll play checkers.

Souls go in a hundred rubles!

Why? it is enough if they go at fifty.

No, what kind of kush is fifty? Better in this amount I will include you some medium-sized puppy or a gold signet for your watch.

Well, if you please! - said Chichikov.

How much will you give me in advance? - said Nozdryov.

Why on earth? Nothing of course.

At least let it be my two moves.

I don’t want to, I play badly myself.

It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, also moving a saber.

We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, acting as a saber.

It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, moving the sword.

We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, moving the checker, and at the same time pushed the sleeves and another checker with the cuff.

It's been a long time since I took it in my hands! .. Eh, eh! this, brother, what? send her back! - said Chichikov.

Yes, a saber, ”said Tchichikov, and at the same time saw, almost in front of his very nose, another, which, as it seemed, was making its way into the queens; where it came from, only God knew it. - No, - said Chichikov, getting up from the table, - there is no way to play with you! They don't go that way, suddenly three checkers!

Why three? This is by mistake. One moved accidentally, I will move it, if you please.

Where did the other come from?

What is the other one?

But this one that sneaks into the queens?

Here's to you, as if you don't remember!

No, brother, I counted all the moves and remember everything; you just got her in. Her place is where!

How, where is the place? - said Nozdryov, blushing. - Yes, you, brother, as I see, a writer!

No, brother, it seems you are a writer, but only unsuccessfully.

Who do you think I am? - said Nozdryov. - Am I really going to cheat?

I don’t consider you for anyone, but I’ll never play from now on.

No, you cannot refuse, - said Nozdryov, getting hot, - the game has begun!

I have the right to refuse, because you do not play as well as befitting an honest person.

No, you're lying, you can't say that!

No, brother, you yourself are lying!

I was not cheating, and you cannot refuse, you must end the game!

You won't force me to do that, ”Chichikov said coolly and, going up to the board, mixed the checkers.

Nozdryov flushed and approached Chichikov so close that he took two steps back.

I'll make you play! It's nothing that you mixed the checkers, I remember all the moves. We will put them back as they were.

No, brother, it's over, I won't play with you.

So don't you wanna play?

You can see for yourself that there is no way to play with you.

No, put it bluntly, don't you want to play? - said Nozdryov, stepping even closer.

I do not want! - said Chichikov and raised, however, both hands, just in case, closer to his face, for things were getting really hot.

This precaution was quite in place, because Nozdryov waved his hand ... and it could very well have happened that one of our hero's pleasant and full cheeks would be covered with indelible dishonor; but, happily deflecting the blow, he grabbed Nozdryov by his both perky hands and held him tightly.

Porfiry, Pavlushka! - shouted Nozdryov in fury, trying to escape.

Hearing these words, Chichikov, in order not to make the courtyard witnesses to the seductive scene, and at the same time feeling that holding Nozdryov was useless, let go of his hands. At that very time Porfiry entered and with him Pavlushka, a hefty guy, with whom it was completely unprofitable to deal with.

So you don't want to finish the games? - said Nozdryov. - Answer me bluntly!

There is no way to finish the game, ”Chichikov said and looked out the window. He saw his chaise, which was quite ready, and Selifan was expecting, it seemed, a wave to roll under the porch, but there was no way to get out of the room: there were two hefty serf fools at the door.

So you don't want to finish the games? - repeated Nozdryov with his face burning as if on fire.

If you played, as befits an honest man. But now I can't.

A! so you can't, you scoundrel! when you saw that it’s not yours, you can’t! Hit him! - he shouted frantically, turning to Porfiry and Pavlushka, and he himself grabbed a cherry shank in his hand. Chichikov became as pale as a sheet. He wanted to say something, but felt his lips move without a sound.

Hit him! - shouted Nozdryov, struggling forward with a cherry stem, covered in heat, in sweat, as if he was approaching an impregnable fortress. - Hit him! - he shouted in the same voice as during a great attack shouting to his platoon: "Guys, go ahead!" - some desperate lieutenant, whose eccentric courage has already gained such fame that a special order is given to hold his hands during hot matters. But the lieutenant had already felt the abusive enthusiasm, everything went round and round in his head; before him rushes Suvorov, he climbs on a great cause. "Guys, go ahead!" - he shouts, struggling, not thinking that he is hurting the already thought out plan of a general attack, that millions of rifle blows were exposed in the embrasures of the impregnable fortress walls that go beyond the clouds, that his powerless platoon will fly up like fluff into the air and that a fatal bullet is already whistling, preparing to slam his loud throat. But if Nozdryov expressed himself as a desperate, lost lieutenant who approached the fortress, then the fortress to which he walked did not in any way look like an impregnable one. On the contrary, the fortress felt such fear that its soul hid in its very heels. Already the chair with which he decided to defend himself was snatched out of his hands by the serfs, already, closing his eyes, he was neither alive nor dead, he was preparing to taste his master's Circassian shank, and God knows no matter what happened to him; but fate was pleased to save the sides, shoulders and all well-bred parts of our hero. In an unexpected way, suddenly, as from the clouds, the rattling sounds of a bell, there was a clear clatter of the wheels of a cart flying up to the porch, and even in the room itself the heavy snoring and heavy breathlessness of the heated horses of the stopped troika echoed. Everyone involuntarily glanced out the window: someone, with a mustache, in a paramilitary coat, was getting out of the cart. After inquiring in the hall, he entered at the very moment when Chichikov had not yet had time to recover from his fear and was in the most pitiful situation in which a mortal had ever found himself.

Let me know who is Mr. Nozdryov here? - said the stranger, looking in some bewilderment at Nozdryov, who was standing with a shank in his hand, and at Chichikov, who was barely beginning to recover from his disadvantageous position.

Let me first know with whom I have the honor to speak? - said Nozdryov, coming closer to him.

Police captain.

What do you want?

I have come to announce the notice given to me that you are on trial until the end of the decision on your case.

What nonsense, what business? - said Nozdryov.

You were implicated in the story, on the occasion of personal insult to the landowner Maksimov with rods in a drunken state.

You're lying! I have never seen landowner Maksimov!

Your Majesty! let me report to you that I am an officer. You can tell your servant, not me!

Here Chichikov, not waiting for Nozdryov to answer this, rather slipped out onto the porch by the cap and behind the police captain's back, sat in the chaise and ordered Selifan to drive the horses at full speed.

No, you're lying, you can't say that!

No, brother, you yourself are lying!

I was not cheating, and you cannot refuse, you must end the game!

You won't force me to do that, ”Chichikov said coolly and, going up to the board, mixed the checkers.

Nozdryov flushed and approached Chichikov so close that he took two steps back.

I'll make you play! It's nothing that you mixed the checkers, I remember all the moves. We will put them back as they were.

No, brother, it's over, I won't play with you.

So don't you wanna play?

You can see for yourself that there is no way to play with you.

No, put it bluntly, don't you want to play? - said Nozdryov, stepping even closer.

I do not want! - said Chichikov and raised, however, both hands, just in case, closer to his face, for things were getting really hot.

This precaution was quite in place, because Nozdryov waved his hand ... and it could very well happen that one of our hero's pleasant and full cheeks would be covered with indelible dishonor; but, happily deflecting the blow, he grabbed Nozdryov by his both perky hands and held him tightly.

Porfiry, Pavlushka! - shouted Nozdryov in fury, trying to escape.

Hearing these words, Chichikov, in order not to make the courtyard witnesses of the seductive scene and at the same time feeling that holding Nozdryov was useless, let go of his hands. At that very time Porfiry entered and with him Pavlushka, a hefty guy, with whom it was completely unprofitable to deal with.

So you don't want to finish the games? - said Nozdryov. - Answer me bluntly!

There is no way to finish the game, ”Chichikov said and looked out the window. He saw his chaise, which was quite ready, and Selifan was expecting, it seemed, a wave to roll under the porch, but there was no way to get out of the room: there were two hefty serf fools at the door.

So you don't want to finish the games? - repeated Nozdryov with his face burning as if on fire.

If you played like it should be for an honest person. But now I can't.

A! so you can't, you scoundrel! when you saw that it’s not yours, you can’t! Hit him! - he shouted frantically, turning to Porfiry and Pavlushka, and he himself grabbed a cherry shank in his hand. Chichikov became as pale as a sheet. He wanted to say something, but felt his lips move without a sound.

Hit him! - shouted Nozdryov, struggling forward with a cherry stem, covered in heat, in sweat, as if he was approaching an impregnable fortress. - Hit him! - he shouted in the same voice as during a great attack shouting to his platoon: "Guys, go ahead!" some desperate lieutenant, whose eccentric bravery has already gained such fame that a special order is given to hold his hands during hot matters. But the lieutenant had already felt the abusive enthusiasm, everything went round and round in his head; before him rushes Suvorov, he climbs on a great cause. "Guys, go ahead!" - he shouts, struggling, not thinking that it is harmful to the already thought out plan of a general attack, that millions of rifle blows were exposed in the embrasures of the impregnable fortress walls that go beyond the clouds, that his powerless platoon will fly up like fluff into the air and that a fatal bullet is already whistling preparing to slam his loud throat. But if Nozdryov expressed himself as a desperate, lost lieutenant who approached the fortress, then the fortress to which he walked did not in any way look like an impregnable one. On the contrary, the fortress felt such fear that its soul hid in its very heels. Already the chair with which he thought to defend himself was snatched out of his hands by the serfs, already, closing his eyes, he was neither alive nor dead, he was preparing to taste his master's Circassian shank, and God knows whatever happened to him; but fate was pleased to save the sides, shoulders and all well-bred parts of our hero. In an unexpected way, suddenly, as from the clouds, the rattling sounds of a bell, there was a clear clatter of the wheels of a cart flying up to the porch, and even in the room itself the heavy snoring and heavy breathlessness of the heated horses of the stopped troika echoed. Everyone involuntarily glanced out the window: someone, with a mustache, in a paramilitary coat, was getting out of the cart. After inquiring in the hall, he entered at the very moment when Chichikov had not yet had time to recover from his fear and was in the most pitiful situation in which a mortal had ever found himself.

Let me know who is Mr. Nozdryov here? - said the stranger, looking in some bewilderment at Nozdryov, who was standing with a shank in his hand, and at Chichikov, who was barely beginning to recover from his disadvantageous position.

Let me first know with whom I have the honor to speak? - said Nozdryov, coming closer to him.

Police captain.

What do you want?

I have come to announce the notice given to me that you are on trial until the end of the decision on your case.

What nonsense, what business? - said Nozdryov.

You were implicated in the story, on the occasion of personal insult to the landowner Maksimov with rods in a drunken state.

You're lying! I have never seen landowner Maksimov!

Your Majesty! let me report to you that I am an officer. You can tell your servant, not me!

Here Chichikov, not waiting for Nozdryov to answer this, rather slipped out onto the porch by the cap and behind the police captain's back, sat in the chaise and ordered Selifan to drive the horses at full speed.

Chapter five

Our hero has rotted, however, in order. Although the chaise was rushing into all the lost and the village of Nozdryov had long ago disappeared from sight, closed by fields, slopes and hillocks, but he still looked back with fear, as if expecting that a chase was about to come. His breath could hardly be translated, and when he tried to put his hand to his heart, he felt that it was beating like a quail in a cage. “What a bath he asked! look what you are! " Here many were promised to Nozdryov of all sorts of difficult and strong desires; even bad words came across. What can I do? Russian people, and even in their hearts. Besides, it was not a joke at all. “Say what you like,” he said to himself, “but if the police captain had not come in time, I might not have been able to look at the light of day again! Would disappear like a blister on the water, without any trace, leaving no descendants, without giving future children neither a fortune nor an honest name! " Our hero took great care of his descendants.

Page 27 of 129: Back [ 27 ]

He spoke to himself. He slept very badly that night. Some small nimble insects bit him intolerably painful, so he scraped the wounded place with his whole handful, saying: "Oh, the devil take you along with Nozdryov!" He woke up early in the morning. The first thing he did was, putting on a robe and boots, go across the courtyard to the stable and order Selifan to lay the chaise at this very hour. Returning through the courtyard, he met Nozdryov, who was also in a dressing gown, with a pipe in his teeth.

Nozdryov greeted him in a friendly way and asked how he slept.

So so, - answered Chichikov very dryly.

And I, brother, - said Nozdryov, - such an abomination climbed all night that it is disgusting to talk, and in my mouth after yesterday it was like a squadron spent the night. Imagine: I dreamed that I was whipped, she-she! and imagine who? You will never guess: the captain-captain Kisseuyev together with Kuvshinnikov.

"Yes," thought Chichikov to himself, "it would be nice if they ripped you off in reality."

By golly! yes it hurts! I woke up: damn it, something is really scratching - right, witches fleas. Well, go get dressed now, I'll come to you now. You just need to scold the scoundrel of the clerk.

Chichikov went into the room to get dressed and wash. When after that he went into the dining room, there was already a tea set with a bottle of rum on the table. There were traces of yesterday's lunch and dinner in the room; the broom doesn't seem to touch at all. Bread crumbs were scattered on the floor, and tobacco ash was even visible on the tablecloth. The owner himself, who did not hesitate to enter soon, had nothing under his dressing gown, except for an open chest, on which grew some kind of beard. Holding a shank in his hand and sipping from a cup, he was very good for a painter who does not like the fear of gentlemen slicked and curled, like barbarian signs, or cut to fit.

Well, what do you think? - said Nozdryov, after a little pause. - Do you want to play for the soul?

I already told you, brother, that I am not playing; buy - if you please, buy.

I don’t want to sell, it will not be friendly. I'm not going to take the hymen off the devil knows what. The bow is another matter. Let's throw at the waist!

I already said no.

Don't you want to change?

I do not want.

Well, listen, let's play checkers, if you win, it's all yours. After all, I have a lot of those that need to be deleted from the audit. Hey, Porfiry, bring the checker maker here.

Labor is in vain, I will not play.

Why, this is not a bank; there can be no happiness or falsehood here: after all, everything is from art; I even anticipate you that I do not know how to play at all, unless you give me something in advance.

“Sem-ka I,” thought Chichikov to himself, “I’ll play checkers with him! I played checkers well, but it is difficult for him to get up on pieces here. "

If you please, so be it, I'll play checkers.

Souls go in a hundred rubles!

Why? it is enough if they go at fifty.

No, what kind of kush is fifty? Better in this amount I will include you some medium-sized puppy or a gold signet for your watch.

Well, if you please! - said Chichikov.

How much will you give me in advance? - said Nozdryov.

Why on earth? Nothing of course.

At least let it be my two moves.

I don’t want to, I play badly myself.

It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, also moving a saber.

We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, acting as a saber.

It's been a long time since I took checkers in my hands! - said Chichikov, moving the sword.

We know you, how bad you play! - said Nozdryov, moving the checker, and at the same time pushed the sleeves and another checker with the cuff.

It's been a long time since I took it in my hands! .. Eh, eh! this, brother, what? send her back! - said Chichikov.

Yes, a saber, ”said Tchichikov, and at the same time saw in front of his very nose another, which, as it seemed, was making its way into the queens; where it came from it only God knew. - No, - said Chichikov, getting up from the table, - there is no way to play with you! They don't go that way, suddenly three checkers!

Why three? This is by mistake. One moved accidentally, I will move it, if you please.

Where did the other come from?

What is the other one?

But this one that sneaks into the queens?

Here's to you, as if you don't remember!

No, brother, I counted all the moves and remember everything; you just got her in. Her place is where!

How, where is the place? - said Nozdryov, blushing. - Yes, you, brother, as I see it, a writer!

No, brother, it seems you are a writer, but only unsuccessfully.

Who do you think I am? - said Nozdryov. - Am I really going to cheat?

I don’t consider you for anyone, but I’ll never play from now on.

No, you cannot refuse, - said Nozdryov, getting hot, - the game has begun!

I have the right to refuse, because you do not play as well as befitting an honest person.

No, you're lying, you can't say that!

No, brother, you yourself are lying!

I was not cheating, and you cannot refuse, you must end the game!

You won't force me to do that, ”Chichikov said coolly and, going up to the board, mixed the checkers.

Nozdryov flushed and approached Chichikov so close that he took two steps back.

I'll make you play! It's nothing that you mixed the checkers, I remember all the moves. We will put them back as they were.

No, brother, it's over, I won't play with you.

So don't you wanna play?

You can see for yourself that there is no way to play with you.

No, put it bluntly, don't you want to play? - said Nozdryov, stepping even closer.

I do not want! - said Chichikov and raised, however, both hands, just in case, closer to his face, for things were getting really hot.

This precaution was quite in place, because Nozdryov waved his hand ... and it could very well happen that one of our hero's pleasant and full cheeks would be covered with indelible dishonor; but, happily deflecting the blow, he grabbed Nozdryov by his both perky hands and held him tightly.

Porfiry, Pavlushka! - shouted Nozdryov in fury, trying to escape.

Hearing these words, Chichikov, in order not to make the courtyard witnesses of the seductive scene and at the same time feeling that holding Nozdryov was useless, let go of his hands. At that very time Porfiry entered and with him Pavlushka, a hefty guy, with whom it was completely unprofitable to deal with.

So you don't want to finish the games? - said Nozdryov. - Answer me bluntly!

There is no way to finish the game, ”Chichikov said and looked out the window. He saw his chaise, which was quite ready, and Selifan was expecting, it seemed, a wave to roll under the porch, but there was no way to get out of the room: there were two hefty serf fools at the door.

So you don't want to finish the games? - repeated Nozdryov with his face burning as if on fire.

If you played like it should be for an honest person. But now I can't.

A! so you can't, you scoundrel! when you saw that it’s not yours, you can’t! Hit him! - he shouted frantically, turning to Porfiry and Pavlushka, and he himself grabbed a cherry shank in his hand. Chichikov became as pale as a sheet. He wanted to say something, but felt his lips move without a sound.

Hit him! - shouted Nozdryov, struggling forward with a cherry stem, covered in heat, in sweat, as if he was approaching an impregnable fortress. - Hit him! - he shouted in the same voice as during a great attack shouting to his platoon: "Guys, go ahead!" some desperate lieutenant, whose eccentric bravery has already gained such fame that a special order is given to hold his hands during hot matters. But the lieutenant had already felt the abusive enthusiasm, everything went round and round in his head; before him rushes Suvorov, he climbs on a great cause. "Guys, go ahead!" - he shouts, struggling, not thinking that it is harmful to the already thought out plan of a general attack, that millions of rifle blows were exposed in the embrasures of the impregnable fortress walls that go beyond the clouds, that his powerless platoon will fly up like fluff into the air and that a fatal bullet is already whistling preparing to slam his loud throat. But if Nozdryov expressed himself as a desperate, lost lieutenant who approached the fortress, then the fortress to which he walked did not in any way look like an impregnable one. On the contrary, the fortress felt such fear that its soul hid in its very heels. Already the chair with which he thought to defend himself was snatched out of his hands by the serfs, already, closing his eyes, he was neither alive nor dead, he was preparing to taste his master's Circassian shank, and God knows whatever happened to him; but fate was pleased to save the sides, shoulders and all well-bred parts of our hero. In an unexpected way, suddenly, as from the clouds, the rattling sounds of a bell, there was a clear clatter of the wheels of a cart flying up to the porch, and even in the room itself the heavy snoring and heavy breathlessness of the heated horses of the stopped troika echoed. Everyone involuntarily glanced out the window: someone, with a mustache, in a paramilitary coat, was getting out of the cart. After inquiring in the hall, he entered at the very moment when Chichikov had not yet had time to recover from his fear and was in the most pitiful situation in which a mortal had ever found himself.

Let me know who is Mr. Nozdryov here? - said the stranger, looking in some bewilderment at Nozdryov, who was standing with a shank in his hand, and at Chichikov, who was barely beginning to recover from his disadvantageous position.

Let me first know with whom I have the honor to speak? - said Nozdryov, coming closer to him.

Police captain.

What do you want?

I have come to announce the notice given to me that you are on trial until the end of the decision on your case.

What nonsense, what business? - said Nozdryov.

You were implicated in the story, on the occasion of personal insult to the landowner Maksimov with rods in a drunken state.

You're lying! I have never seen landowner Maksimov!

Your Majesty! let me report to you that I am an officer. You can tell your servant, not me!

Here Chichikov, not waiting for Nozdryov to answer this, rather slipped out onto the porch by the cap and behind the police captain's back, sat in the chaise and ordered Selifan to drive the horses at full speed.

Chapter five

Our hero has rotted, however, in order. Although the chaise was rushing into all the lost and the village of Nozdryov had long ago disappeared from sight, closed by fields, slopes and hillocks, but he still looked back with fear, as if expecting that a chase was about to come. His breath could hardly be translated, and when he tried to put his hand to his heart, he felt that it was beating like a quail in a cage. “What a bath he asked! look what you are! " Here many were promised to Nozdryov of all sorts of difficult and strong desires; even bad words came across. What can I do? Russian people, and even in their hearts. Besides, it was not a joke at all. “Say what you like,” he said to himself, “but if the police captain had not come in time, I might not have been able to look at the light of day again! Would disappear like a blister on the water, without any trace, leaving no descendants, without giving future children neither a fortune nor an honest name! " Our hero took great care of his descendants.

“What a nasty gentleman! Selifan thought to himself. - I have not yet seen such a gentleman. That is, he should spit for it! You better not let the man eat, but you must feed the horse, because the horse loves oats. This is his food: what, by example, we want, then for him oats, he is his food. "

The horses, too, seemed to think unfavorably of Nozdryov: not only the bay one and the Assessor, but the forelock himself was out of sorts. Although he always got a bit tighter oats and Selifan didn’t put it in the trough in any other way, as he had said before: “Oh, you scoundrel!” - but, nevertheless, it was still oats, and not simple hay, he chewed it with pleasure and often thrust his long muzzle into the troughs of his comrades to taste what food they had, especially when Selifan was not in the stable, but now one hay ... is not good; everyone was unhappy.

But soon all the dissatisfied were interrupted in the midst of their outpourings in a sudden and completely unexpected way. All, not excluding the coachman himself, came to their senses and woke up only when a carriage with six horses galloped on them and almost over their heads there was a cry from the ladies sitting in the carriage, abuse and threats from another coachman: “Oh, you are such a swindler; After all, I shouted to you in a voice: turn, crow, to the right! Are you drunk or what? " Selifan felt his oversight, but since a Russian person does not like to confess to another that he is guilty, he immediately uttered, sucking up: “Why are you so galloping? Did he lay his eyes in the tavern, or what? " Following this, he began to push the chaise back in order to free himself in this way from someone else's harness, but it didn't work, everything was messed up. Chubary sniffed his new friends with curiosity, who found themselves on both sides of him. Meanwhile, the ladies sitting in the carriage looked at all this with an expression of fear in their faces. One was an old woman, the other a young, sixteen-year-old, with golden hair very deftly and sweetly smoothed over a small head. The pretty oval of her face was round like a fresh egg, and, like it, turned white with a kind of transparent whiteness, when fresh, just cut, it is held against the light in the swarthy hands of a housekeeper who tests him and lets the rays of the shining sun pass through itself; her thin ears also shone through, glowing with warm light penetrating them. At the same time, fright in her open, stopped lips, tears in her eyes - all this in her was so sweet that our hero looked at her for several minutes, not paying any attention to the commotion that had taken place between the horses and the coachmen. "Put away, or something, the Nizhny Novgorod crow!" - shouted someone else's coachman. Selifan pulled the reins back, the foreign coachman did the same, the horses backed up a little and then again collided, stepping over the lines. Under this circumstance, the forelock horse liked the new acquaintance so much that he did not want to get out of the rut, into which he had fallen by unforeseen fates, and, putting his face on the neck of his new friend, it seemed that he was whispering something into his very ear, probably nonsense terrible, because the newcomer was constantly shaking his ears.

However, the peasants from the village, which was, fortunately, nearby, managed to get together for such a confusion. Since such a sight is sheer blessing for a peasant, it's like a newspaper or a club for a German, then soon an abyss of them accumulated around the crew, and only old women and little guys remained in the village. The strings were untied; a few jabs in the face of the forelock horse made him back away; in a word, they were separated and divorced. But whether the vexation felt by the visiting horses for separating them from their friends, or simply nonsense, only, no matter how much the coachman whipped them, they did not move and stood rooted to the spot. The participation of men has increased to an incredible extent. Each of them vied with advice: “Go, Andryushka, guide the attorney on the right side, and let Uncle Mityai sit astride the root! Sit down, Uncle Mityai! " A lean and long uncle Mityai with a red beard climbed on a root horse and became like a village bell tower, or, better, a hook used to get water in wells. The coachman hit the horses, but it didn't work, Uncle Mityai did not help. “Stop, stop! - shouted the men. "Sit down, Uncle Mityai, on the pin, and let Uncle Minyay sit on the root!" Uncle Minyay, a broad-shouldered man with a beard as black as coal and a belly similar to that gigantic samovar in which sbiten is brewed for the entire vegetated market, eagerly sat down on the root, which almost bent down under him to the ground. “Now it will work! - shouted the men. - Heat it up, heat it up! Sppandor with a whip that one, the nightingale, who is hot as coramor! " But, seeing that the situation did not go well and that no incandescence helped, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai both sat on the root, and Andryushka was put on the guard. Finally, the coachman, having lost patience, drove both Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai away, and he did well, because such a steam went from the horses, as if they were grabbing the station without taking a breath. He gave them a minute to rest, after which they went on their own. Throughout this trick Chichikov looked very attentively at the young stranger. He tried several times to talk to her, but somehow he didn't have to. And meanwhile the ladies left, a pretty head with thin features and a slender figure disappeared like something similar to a vision, and again there was a road, a chaise, three horses familiar to the reader, Selifan, Chichikov, the smooth surface and emptiness of the surrounding fields. Everywhere, wherever in life, whether among the callous, rough-poor and untidy-moldy low-lying ranks of it, or among the monotonous cold and boringly tidy classes of the upper classes, everywhere at least once on the way to a person there will be a phenomenon that is not similar to all that what happened to him to see until then, which at least once awakens in him a feeling that is not like those that he is destined to feel all his life. Everywhere, across whatever sorrows, from which our life is woven, shining joy will merrily rush, like sometimes a brilliant carriage with a golden harness, picturesque horses and sparkling glitter of glass suddenly suddenly sweep past some deafened poor village that has seen nothing but a rural carts, and the peasants stood for a long time, yawning, with open mouths, without putting on their hats, although the marvelous carriage had long since vanished and disappeared from sight. So the blonde also suddenly appeared in our story in a completely unexpected way and disappeared in the same way. Catch at that time instead of Chichikov some twenty-year-old boy, whether he is a hussar, a student, or just just starting his life - and God! whatever wakes up, moves, speaks in him! For a long time he would have stood insensibly in one place, gazing senselessly into the distance, forgetting the road, and all the reprimands ahead, and reprimands for delay, forgetting himself, and service, and the world, and everything that is in the world.

But our hero was already middle-aged and of a prudently chilled character. He, too, pondered and thought, but his thoughts were more positive, not so unaccountable and even partly very solid. “Glorious babushka! - he said, opening the snuffbox and sniffing the tobacco. - But what, most importantly, is good in her? The good thing is that now, apparently, she has just graduated from some boarding school or institute, that in her, as they say, there is still nothing of a woman's, that is, exactly what they have the most unpleasant. She is now like a child, everything in her is simple, she will say what she pleases, laughs where she wants to laugh. Everything can be done from it, it can be a miracle, or it can come out and rubbish, and it will come out rubbish! Let the mamas and aunts take care of her now. In one year they will fill her with all kinds of women so that her own father himself does not recognize. Where will the puffiness and stiffness come from, will start tossing and turning according to the confirmed instructions, will begin to puzzle over and think with whom, and how, and how much to talk with, how to look at whom, at any moment he will be afraid, so as not to say more than necessary, he will get confused finally, herself, and it will end with the fact that she will finally begin to lie all my life, and it will come out just the devil knows what! " Here he was silent for a while and then added: “And it’s curious to know whose it is? what, how is her father? Is it a rich landowner of a venerable disposition, or just a good-minded person with capital acquired in the service? After all, if, let’s say, this girl was given two hundred thousand dowries, a very, very tasty morsel could come out of her. It could make up, so to speak, the happiness of a decent person. " Two hundred thousand people began to appear so attractively in his head that he began to feel annoyed with himself inwardly, why, in the course of the trouble around the carriages, did not scout out from the postman or coachman who the passers-by were. Soon, however, the Sobakevich village that had appeared dispersed his thoughts and made them turn to their constant subject.

The village seemed to him quite large; two forests, birch and pine, like two wings, one darker, the other lighter, were on her right and left; in the middle was a wooden house with a mezzanine, a red roof, and dark or, better, wild walls - a house like the ones they build here for military settlements and German colonists. It was noticeable that during its construction the architect was incessantly struggling with the taste of the owner. The architect was a pedant and wanted symmetry, the owner - convenience and, as you can see, as a result of that he boarded up all the corresponding windows on one side and screwed in place one small one, which was probably needed for a dark closet. The pediment also did not fall in the middle of the house, no matter how the architect struggled, because the owner ordered one column to be thrown out from the side, and therefore there were not four columns, as was appointed, but only three. The courtyard was surrounded by a strong and inordinately thick wooden lattice. The landowner seemed to be fussing a lot about strength. In the stables, sheds and kitchens, full-weight and thick logs were used, determined to stand for centuries. The village huts of the peasants were also cut down wonderfully: there were no chimney walls, carved patterns and other tricks, but everything was fitted tightly and properly. Even the well was finished in such a strong oak that goes only to mills and ships. In a word, everything he looked at was stubborn, without hesitation, in some kind of strong and awkward order. Approaching the porch, he noticed two faces peering out of the window almost at the same time: a woman, wearing a crown, narrow, long, like a cucumber, and a man's, round, wide, like Moldavian pumpkins, called gourds, from which balalaikas are made in Russia, two-string light balalaikas, the beauty and fun of a grasping twenty-year-old guy, a blinker and a dandy, and winking and whistling at the white-breasted and white-necked girls who gathered to listen to his quiet-string tinkling. Looking out, both faces hid at the same moment. A footman in a gray jacket with a blue stand-up collar came out onto the porch and led Chichikov into the vestibule, where the owner himself had already gone out. Seeing the guest, he said abruptly: "Please," and led him into the inner dwellings.

When Chichikov glanced sideways at Sobakevich, this time he seemed to him very similar to an average-sized bear. To complete the resemblance, the tailcoat he wore was completely bearish, the sleeves were long, the pantaloons were long, he walked with his feet at random and sideways and stepped incessantly on other people's legs. The complexion was red-hot, hot, as is the case on a copper dime. It is known that there are many such persons in the world, over whose decoration nature was not wise for long, did not use any small tools, such as: files, gimbals and other things, but simply chopped off my shoulder: I did it with an ax once - my nose came out, I did it in another - lips came out, poked her eyes with a big drill and, without scraping, let her into the light, saying: "He lives!" Sobakevich had the same strong and marvelously stunning image: he held it more downward than upward, did not turn his neck at all, and due to such non-rotation he rarely looked at the one with whom he was talking, but always either at the corner of the stove or at the door. ... Chichikov once again glanced at him sideways as they passed the dining room: bear! perfect bear! Such a strange rapprochement is needed: he was even called Mikhail Semyonovich. Knowing the habit of stepping on his feet, he very carefully moved his own and gave him the way forward. The owner, it seemed, felt this sin behind him and immediately asked: "Did I not disturb you?" But Chichikov thanked him, saying that no concern had yet occurred.

I entered the living room, Sobakevich pointed to the armchairs, saying again: "Please!" Sitting down, Chichikov glanced at the walls and at the pictures hanging on them. In the paintings, they were all good fellows, all the Greek generals, engraved to their full height: Mavrocordato in red trousers and a uniform, with glasses on the nose, Miauli, Kanami. All these heroes were with such thick thighs and unheard-of mustaches that shivers went through their bodies. Between the strong Greeks, it is not known how and for what, Bagration was placed, skinny, thin, with small banners and cannons below and in the narrowest frames. Then again followed the Greek heroine Bobelina, to whom one leg seemed more than all the bodies of those dandies who fill today's living rooms. The owner, being a healthy and strong man himself, seemed to want strong and healthy people to decorate his room too. Near Bobelina, at the very window, there was a cage, from which a dark-colored thrush with white specks looked out, very similar to Sobakevich. The guest and the host had not had time to be silent for two minutes, when the door to the drawing-room opened and the hostess entered, a very tall lady, wearing a cap with ribbons repainted with home paint. She entered gravely, keeping her head as straight as a palm tree.

This is my Feodulia Ivanovna! - said Sobakevich.

Chichikov went up to Feodulia Ivanovna's hand, which she almost shoved into his lips, and he had occasion to notice that his hands had been washed with cucumber pickle.

Feodulia Ivanovna asked to sit down, saying also: "Please!" - and making a movement with his head, like actresses representing queens. Then she sat down on the sofa, covered herself with her merino handkerchief and no longer moved her eye or eyebrow.

Chichikov again looked up and again saw Canari with thick thighs and an endless mustache, Bobelina and a blackbird in a cage.

For almost a full five minutes, everyone was silent; there was only a knock, made by the thrush's nose against the tree of a wooden cage, at the bottom of which he was fishing for grains of bread. Chichikov once again looked around the room, and everything in it was solid, awkward to the highest degree and bore some strange resemblance to the owner of the house himself; in the corner of the living room stood a pot-bellied walnut bureau on preposterous four legs, a perfect bear. The table, armchairs, chairs - everything was of the heaviest and most restless quality - in a word, every object, every chair seemed to say: "And I, too, Sobakevich!" or: "And I am also very similar to Sobakevich!"

We remembered about you at the chairman of the chamber, at Ivan Grigorievich's, ”Chichikov finally said, seeing that no one was disposed to start a conversation,“ last Thursday. We had a very pleasant time there.

Yes, I was not at the chairman's place then, - answered Sobakevich.

And a wonderful person!

Who it? - said Sobakevich, looking at the corner of the stove.

Chairman.

Well, maybe it seemed to you that way: he was just a Freemason, and such a fool that he did not produce any light.

Chichikov was a little puzzled by such a somewhat harsh definition, but then, having recovered, continued:

Of course, every person is not without weaknesses, but what an excellent governor!

Is the Governor an excellent man?

Yes, isn't it?

The first robber in the world!

How, the governor is a robber? - said Chichikov and absolutely could not understand how the governor could get into the robbers. “I confess I would never have thought of that,” he continued. - But allow me, however, to note: his actions are completely different, on the contrary, rather, there is even a lot of softness in him. - Here he even brought up the purses, embroidered by his own hands, as proof, and responded with praise for the gentle expression on his face.

And a robber's face! - said Sobakevich. - Give him only a knife and let him out on the high road - he will stab him, he will stab him for a penny! He is, moreover, the vice-governor - this is Gog and Magog!

"No, he is at odds with them," thought Chichikov to himself. “But I’ll talk to him about the police chief: he seems to be his friend.”

However, as for me, ”he said,“ I confess that I like the police master more than anyone else. Some kind of direct, open character; there is something simple-hearted in the face.

Scammer! - Said Sobakevich very coolly, - he will sell, deceive, and also dine with you! I know all of them: they are all scammers, the whole city is like that: a swindler sits on a swindler and drives him to a swindler. All Christ sellers. There is only one decent person there: the prosecutor; and that, if you tell the truth, a pig.

After such commendable, although several short biographies, Chichikov saw that there was nothing to mention about other officials and remembered that Sobakevich did not like to speak well of anyone.

Well, darling, let's go to dinner, ”his wife told Sobakevich.

I beg! - said Sobakevich.

Then, going up to the table, where there was a snack, the guest and the host drank a glass of vodka properly, ate, as the whole vast Russia has a snack in cities and villages, that is, with all sorts of pickles and other exciting blessings, and everything flowed into the dining room; ahead of them, like a flowing goose, the mistress rushed. A small table was set for four appliances. She came to fourth place very soon, it is difficult to say in the affirmative who she was, a lady or a girl, a relative, a housewife, or simply living in the house: something without a cap, about thirty years old, in a colorful scarf. There are faces that exist in the world not as an object, but as extraneous specks or specks on an object. They sit in the same place, hold their heads in the same way, they are almost ready to be mistaken for furniture, and you think that a word has never come out of such mouths from a young age; and somewhere in the girls' room or in the pantry it will be simple: wow!

Cabbage soup, my soul, is very good today! - Said Sobakevich, taking a sip of the cabbage soup and dumping a huge piece of the nanny from the dish, a well-known dish that is served with cabbage soup and consists of a mutton stomach stuffed with buckwheat porridge, brain and legs. - Such a nanny, - he continued, turning to Chichikov, - you will not eat in the city, the devil knows what they will serve you there!

The governor, however, does not have a bad table, ”said Chichikov.

Do you know what all this is made of? you won't eat when you know.

I don’t know how it’s prepared, I can’t judge about that, but the pork cutlets and boiled fish were excellent.

It seemed so to you. After all, I know what they are buying on the market. The chef who learned from the Frenchman will buy a cat, he will strip him, and he will serve him instead of a hare.

Ugh! what a nuisance you are talking about, - said Sobakevich's wife.

Well, darling, that's how they do it, it's not my fault, that's how they all do it. Everything that is unnecessary that Akulka throws, if I may say so, into the garbage can, they put it into the soup! yes to the soup! go there!

You will always tell such things at the table! - objected again the wife of Sobakevich.