Before, long ago, in the summers of my youth, in the summers of my childhood that flashed irrevocably, it was fun for me to drive up to an unfamiliar place for the first time: it didn’t matter whether it was a village, a poor county town, a village, a suburb - I discovered a lot of curious things in it childish curiosity. Every building, everything that bore only the imprint of some noticeable feature, everything stopped and amazed me. Is it a stone government house, famous architecture with a half of false windows, all alone sticking out among a log hewn heap of one-story philistine houses, whether a round regular dome, all upholstered with sheet white iron, elevated above a new church whitened like snow, whether a market, or a district dandy, caught in the middle of the city, - nothing escaped my fresh, subtle attention, and, sticking my nose out of my traveling cart, I looked at the hitherto unknown cut of some frock coat, and at wooden boxes with nails, with gray, yellowing in the distance, with raisins and soap, flickering from the door of a vegetable shop, along with cans of dried-up Moscow confections, looked at the infantry officer walking aside, brought God knows from what province to district boredom, and at the merchant who flashed in a Siberian on a racing droshky, and mentally carried away behind them into their poor life. District official, pass by - I was already wondering where he was going, whether to visit some of his brothers in the evening, or straight to his house, so that after sitting for half an hour on the porch, before dusk had yet fallen, sit down to an early supper with mother, wife, wife’s sister and the whole family, and what will be discussed with them at a time when a yard girl in monks or a boy in a thick jacket brings a tallow candle after soup in a durable home candlestick. Approaching the village of some landowner, I looked curiously at a tall narrow wooden bell tower or a wide dark wooden old church. The red roof and white chimneys of the landowner's house flashed enticingly to me from a distance through the greenery of the trees, and I waited impatiently until the gardens that protected it would part on both sides and he would show himself all with his own, then, alas! not at all vulgar, appearance, I tried to guess from him who the landowner himself was, whether he was fat, and whether he had sons, or as many as six daughters with ringing girlish laughter, games and the eternal beauty of the little sister, and whether they were black-eyed, and whether he himself is merry, or gloomy, like September in the last days, looks at the calendar and talks about rye and wheat, boring for youth. Now I indifferently drive up to any unfamiliar village and look indifferently at its vulgar appearance; my chilled gaze is uncomfortable, it’s not funny to me, and what in previous years would have awakened a lively movement in the face, laughter and incessant speeches, now slips by, and my motionless lips keep an indifferent silence. O my youth! oh my freshness! While Chichikov was thinking and inwardly laughing at the nickname bestowed by the peasants on Plyushkin, he did not notice how he drove into the middle of a vast village with many huts and streets. Soon, however, this remarkable jolt, produced by a log pavement, made him notice it, before which the city's stone pavement was nothing. These logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the careless rider acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead, or it happened with his own teeth to bite off painfully the tail of his own tongue. He noticed some special dilapidation on all the village buildings: the log on the huts was dark and old; many roofs blew through like a sieve; on others there was only a ridge at the top and poles on the sides in the form of ribs. It seems that the owners themselves took down the rags and the hemp from them, arguing, and, of course, it’s fair that they don’t cover the hut in the rain, and they don’t drop into the bucket themselves, there’s no need to fumble in it when there is room both in the tavern and on high road, in a word, wherever you want. The windows in the huts were without glass, others were plugged up with a rag or zipun; balconies under roofs with railings, for unknown reasons, made in other Russian huts, squinted and turned black, not even picturesquely. Behind the huts in many places stretched rows of huge stacks of bread, which, apparently, had stagnated for a long time; they looked like old, poorly baked bricks in color, all sorts of rubbish grew on their top, and even bushes clung to the side. The bread, apparently, was master's. From behind the grain hoards and dilapidated roofs, two rural churches, one next to the other: empty wooden and stone, with yellowish walls, stained, cracked. Partially, the master's house began to show itself, and finally the whole thing looked in the place where the chain of huts was broken and instead of them there was a wasteland of a vegetable garden or a skit, surrounded by a low, in some places broken city. This strange castle looked like some kind of decrepit invalid, long, unreasonably long. In some places it was one story, in other places it was two; on the dark roof, which did not reliably protect his old age everywhere, two belvederes stuck out, one opposite the other, both already tottering, deprived of the paint that once covered them. The walls of the house slitted bare stucco grating in places and, apparently, suffered a lot from all sorts of bad weather, rains, whirlwinds and autumn changes. Of the windows, only two were open; the rest were shuttered or even boarded up. These two windows, for their part, were also half-sighted; one of them had a dark blue sugar paper triangle pasted on. The old, vast garden stretching behind the house, overlooking the village and then disappearing into the field, overgrown and decayed, it seemed that alone refreshed this vast village and alone was quite picturesque in its picturesque desolation. Green clouds and irregular quivering domes lay on the celestial horizon, the connected tops of trees that had grown in freedom. A colossal white birch trunk, devoid of a top broken off by a storm or a thunderstorm, rose from this green thicket and rounded in the air, like a regular marble sparkling column; its oblique pointed break, with which it ended upward instead of a capital, darkened against its snowy whiteness, like a hat or a black bird. The hops, which choked the bushes of elderberry, mountain ash and hazel below, and then ran along the top of the entire palisade, finally ran up and twisted halfway around the broken birch. Having reached the middle of it, it hung down from there and already began to cling to the tops of other trees, or hung in the air, tying its thin tenacious hooks in rings, easily shaken by the air. In places green thickets parted, illuminated by the sun, and showed an unlit depression between them, gaping like a dark mouth; it was all shrouded in shadow, and barely flickered in its black depths: a running narrow path, a collapsed railing, a staggering arbor, a hollow, decrepit trunk of a willow, a gray-haired chapyzhnik, poking out from behind a willow withered from a terrible wilderness, tangled and crossed and branches, and, finally, a young branch of a maple, stretching out its green paws-leaves to the side, under one of which, climbing God knows how, the sun suddenly turned it into a transparent and fiery one, shining wonderfully in this thick darkness. To one side, at the very edge of the garden, several tall aspens, not equal to the others, raised huge crows' nests to their quivering peaks. Some of them had upturned and not quite detached branches hanging down along with withered leaves. In a word, everything was fine, as neither nature nor art can invent, but as happens only when they are united together, when, according to the heaped up, often useless, labor of man, nature will pass with its final cutter, lighten the heavy masses, destroy the grossly tangible correctness and beggarly gaps through which an unconcealed, naked plan peeps through, and will give wonderful warmth to everything that has been created in the coldness of measured cleanliness and tidiness. Having made one or two turns, our hero finally found himself in front of the house, which now seemed even sadder. Green mold has already covered the decayed wood on the fence and gate. A crowd of buildings: human buildings, barns, cellars, apparently dilapidated, filled the yard; near them, to the right and to the left, gates to other courtyards were visible. Everything said that farming here had once flowed on a vast scale, and everything looked cloudy now. Nothing was noticeable to enliven the picture: no doors opening, no people coming out from somewhere, no living troubles and worries at home! Only one main gate was open, and that was because a muzhik drove in with a loaded cart covered with matting, appearing, as if on purpose, to revive this extinct place; at other times, they were also locked tightly, for a giant lock hung in an iron loop. At one of the buildings, Chichikov soon noticed some figure who began to quarrel with a peasant who had arrived in a cart. For a long time he could not recognize what gender the figure was: a woman or a man. Her dress was completely indefinite, very similar to a woman's hood, on her head was a cap, such as village yard women wear, only one voice seemed to him somewhat hoarse for a woman. "Oh, grandma! he thought to himself, and immediately added: “Oh, no!” - "Of course, baba!" he finally said, looking more closely. The figure, for its part, looked at him intently, too. It seemed that the guest was a novelty for her, because she examined not only him, but also Selifan and the horses, from tail to muzzle. From the keys hanging from her belt and from the fact that she scolded the peasant with rather obnoxious words, Chichikov concluded that this must be the housekeeper. “Listen, mother,” he said, leaving the britzka, “what is the master? .. “Not at home,” the housekeeper interrupted, without waiting for the end of the question, and then, after a minute, she added: “What do you need?”- There is a case! — Go to the rooms! said the housekeeper, turning away and showing him her back, stained with flour, with a large hole at the bottom. He stepped into the wide, dark hallway, from which a cold breeze blew, as from a cellar. From the passage he got into a room, also dark, slightly illuminated by the light that led out from under the wide crack at the bottom of the door. Opening this door, he at last found himself in the light and was struck by the disorder that presented itself. It seemed as if the floors were being washed in the house and all the furniture had been piled up here for a while. On one table there was even a broken chair, and next to it was a clock with a stopped pendulum, to which a spider had already attached a web. Right there, leaning sideways against the wall, was a cupboard filled with antique silver, decanters, and Chinese china. On the bure, lined with mother-of-pearl mosaics, which had already fallen out in places and left behind only yellowish grooves filled with glue, lay a lot of all sorts of things: a pile of small papers covered with a greenish marble press with an egg on top, some old book bound in leather with red cut, a lemon, all dried up, not more than a hazelnut, a broken off armchair, a glass with some liquid and three flies, covered with a letter, a piece of sealing wax, a piece of a rag raised somewhere, two feathers stained with ink, dried up, as in consumption, a toothpick, completely yellowed, with which the owner, perhaps, picked his teeth even before the French invasion of Moscow. Several paintings were hung very closely and stupidly on the walls: a long, yellowed engraving of some battle, with huge drums, screaming soldiers in three-cornered hats and drowning horses, without glass, inserted in a mahogany frame with thin bronze stripes and bronze circles in the corners. . In a row with them occupied half the wall a huge blackened picture, painted oil paints, depicting flowers, fruits, a cut watermelon, a boar's face and a duck hanging head down. From the middle of the ceiling hung a chandelier in a linen bag, the dust made it look like a silk cocoon in which a worm sits. In the corner of the room there was piled on the floor a heap of things that were coarser and unworthy to lie on tables. What exactly was in the heap, it was difficult to decide, because the dust on it was in such abundance that the hands of everyone who touched it became like gloves; more noticeable than anything else protruded from there was a broken piece of a wooden shovel and an old boot sole. It would have been impossible to say that a living creature lived in this room, if the old, worn cap, lying on the table, did not herald his presence. While he was examining all the strange decoration, a side door opened and the same housekeeper whom he met in the yard came in. But then he saw that it was rather a housekeeper than a housekeeper: at least the housekeeper does not shave his beard, but this one, on the contrary, shaved, and it seemed quite rarely, because his entire chin with the lower part of the cheek looked like a comber from iron wire, which is used to clean horses in the stable. Chichikov, putting on an inquiring expression on his face, waited impatiently for what the housekeeper wanted to tell him. The key keeper, for his part, also expected what Chichikov wanted to tell him. Finally, the latter, surprised by such a strange bewilderment, ventured to ask: - What's the sir? at home, right? “The master is here,” said the key-keeper. - Where? Chichikov repeated. - What, father, are they blind, or what? the keymaster said. - Ehwa! And I'm the owner! Here our hero involuntarily stepped back and looked at him intently. He happened to see many different kinds of people, even such as the reader and I may never have to see; but he had never seen anything like it. His face was nothing special; it was almost the same as that of many thin old men, only one chin protruded very far forward, so that he had to cover it with a handkerchief every time so as not to spit; little eyes had not yet gone out and were running from under high-growing eyebrows like mice when, sticking out their pointed muzzles from dark holes, pricking up their ears and blinking their mustaches, they look out for a cat or a naughty boy hiding somewhere, and suspiciously sniffing the very air. Much more remarkable was his attire: no means and efforts could have got to the bottom of what his dressing gown was concocted from: the sleeves and upper floors were so greasy and shiny that they looked like yuft, which is used for boots; behind, instead of two, four floors dangled, from which cotton paper climbed in flakes. He also had something tied around his neck that could not be made out: whether it was a stocking, a garter, or an underbelly, but not a tie. In a word, if Chichikov had met him, dressed up like that, somewhere at the church doors, he would probably have given him a copper penny. For to the honor of our hero, it must be said that his heart was compassionate and he could not resist in any way not to give the poor man a copper penny. But before him stood not a beggar, before him stood a landowner. This landowner had more than a thousand souls, and whoever would have tried to find from anyone else so much bread in grain, flour and just in the luggage, who would have pantries, barns and dryers cluttered with such a multitude of canvases, cloths, dressed and rawhide sheepskins, dried fish and any vegetable, or gubin. If someone had looked into his working yard, where every kind of wood and utensils that had never been used had been prepared for a supply, it would have seemed to him that he had somehow ended up in Moscow on a wood chip yard, where quick mothers-in-law and mother-in-law, with the cooks behind, to make their household supplies and where every tree whitens like mountains - sewn, chiselled, laid and wicker: barrels, crossed, tubs, lagoons, jugs with stigmas and without stigmas, brothers, baskets, mykolniki, where the women put their lobes and other squabbles, boxes made of thin bent aspen, beetroots made of wicker birch bark, and a lot of everything that goes to the needs of rich and poor Russia. Why would Plyushkin, it seemed, need such a destruction of such products? in his whole life he would not have had to use them even on two such estates as he had - but even this seemed to him not enough. Not content with this, he walked every day through the streets of his village, looked under the bridges, under the crossbars and everything that came across to him: an old sole, a woman's rag, an iron nail, a clay shard - he dragged everything to himself and put it in that pile , which Chichikov noticed in the corner of the room. “There already the fisherman went hunting!” - the peasants said when they saw him going to prey. And in fact, after him there was no need to sweep the street: a passing officer happened to lose his spur, this spur immediately went into a known heap; if a woman, somehow gaping at the well, forgot the bucket, he dragged the bucket away. However, when the peasant who noticed him caught him right there, he did not argue and gave the stolen thing back; but as soon as it got into a pile, then it was all over: he swore that the thing was his, bought by him then, from someone, or inherited from his grandfather. In his room, he picked up everything he saw from the floor: sealing wax, a piece of paper, a feather, and put it all on a bureau or on a window. But there was a time when he was only a thrifty owner! He was married and a family man, and a neighbor came to dine with him, listen to him and learn from him housekeeping and wise stinginess. Everything flowed vividly and took place at a measured pace: mills, felters were moving, cloth factories, carpentry machines, spinning mills were working; everywhere the keen eye of the owner entered into everything and, like an industrious spider, he ran troublesomely, but quickly, along all ends of his economic web. Too much strong feelings were not reflected in the features of his face, but the mind was visible in the eyes; his speech was permeated with experience and knowledge of the world, and it was pleasant for the guest to listen to him; the friendly and talkative hostess was famous for her hospitality; two pretty daughters came out to meet them, both blond and fresh as roses; the son ran out, a broken boy, and kissed everyone, paying little attention to whether the guest was happy or not happy about this. All the windows in the house were open, the mezzanines were occupied by the apartment of a French teacher, who had a nice shave and was a great shooter: he always brought black grouse or ducks for dinner, and sometimes only sparrow eggs, from which he ordered scrambled eggs, because no one else in the whole house didn't eat it. His compatriot, the mentor of two girls, also lived on the mezzanine. The owner himself appeared at the table in a frock coat, although somewhat worn, but neat, the elbows were in order: there was no patch anywhere. But the good mistress died; part of the keys, and with them minor worries, passed to him. Plyushkin became more restless and, like all widowers, more suspicious and stingy. He could not rely on his eldest daughter Alexandra Stepanovna in everything, and he was right, because Alexandra Stepanovna soon ran away with the staff captain, God knows what cavalry regiment, and married him somewhere hastily in village church , knowing that the father does not like officers due to a strange prejudice, as if all military gamblers and motishki. Her father sent a curse to her on the road, but did not care to pursue. The house became even more empty. In the owner, stinginess began to be more noticeable, his gray hair, her faithful friend, sparkling in his coarse hair, helped her to develop even more; the French teacher was released because it was time for his son to serve; Madame was driven away, because she turned out to be not without sin in the abduction of Alexandra Stepanovna; the son, being sent to a provincial town in order to find out in the ward, in the opinion of his father, an essential service, decided instead to join the regiment and wrote to his father already in his own determination, asking for money for uniforms; it is quite natural that he learned for this what is called shish in the common people. Finally, the last daughter who remained with him in the house died, and the old man found himself alone the watchman, keeper and owner of his wealth. A solitary life has given nourishing food to stinginess, which, as you know, has a ravenous hunger and the more it devours, the more insatiable it becomes; human feelings, which were already not deep in him, grew shallow every minute, and every day something was lost in this worn-out ruin. If it happened at such a moment, as if on purpose to confirm his opinion about the military, that his son lost at cards; he sent him his father's curse from the bottom of his heart, and was never interested in knowing whether he existed in the world or not. Every year the windows in his house were pretended to be, finally only two remained, of which one, as the reader has already seen, was sealed with paper; every year more and more of the main parts of the household went out of sight, and his petty glance turned to the pieces of paper and feathers that he collected in his room; he became more uncompromising to the buyers who came to take away his household works; the buyers bargained, bargained, and finally abandoned him altogether, saying that he was a demon and not a man; hay and bread rotted, stacks and haystacks turned into clean manure, even plant cabbage on them, flour in the cellars turned into stone, and it was necessary to chop it, it was terrible to touch the cloth, canvas and household materials: they turned into dust. He himself had already forgotten how much he had, and he only remembered where in his closet there was a decanter with the remainder of some kind of tincture, on which he himself made a mark so that no one thieves would drink it, and where the feather lay. or wax. Meanwhile, income was collected on the farm as before: the peasant had to bring the same amount of quitrent, every woman was blessed with the same bringing of nuts, the weaver had to weave the same amount of linen - all this fell into the pantries, and everything became rotten and torn , and he himself turned at last into some kind of tear in humanity. Alexandra Stepanovna once came a couple of times with her little son, trying to see if she could get something; Evidently, life on the march with the staff captain was not as attractive as it had seemed before the wedding. Plyushkin, however, forgave her and even gave her little granddaughter a button to play with, which was lying on the table, but did not give her any money. Another time, Alexandra Stepanovna came with two little ones and brought him an Easter cake for tea and a new dressing gown, because the father had such a dressing gown, which was not only ashamed to look at, but even ashamed. Plyushkin caressed both grandchildren and, placing them one on his right knee and the other on his left, shook them in exactly the same way as if they were riding horses, took the Easter cake and dressing gown, but gave absolutely nothing to his daughter; with that Alexandra Stepanovna left. And so, what kind of landowner stood before Chichikov! It must be said that such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Russia, where everything likes to turn around rather than shrink, and it is all the more striking that right there in the neighborhood a landowner will turn up, reveling in the full breadth of Russian prowess and nobility, burning, as they say, through life . An unprecedented traveler will stop in amazement at the sight of his dwelling, wondering what a sovereign prince suddenly found himself among small, dark owners: his white stone houses with countless chimneys, gazebos, weathercocks, surrounded by a herd of outbuildings and all sorts of rooms for visiting guests look like palaces. What doesn't he have? Theatres, balls; all night long, the garden adorned with lights and bowls, resounding with the thunder of music, shines. Half the province is dressed up and merrily walks under the trees, and no one appears wild and threatening in this forced illumination, when theatrically jumps out of the tree thick a branch illuminated by fake light, deprived of its bright greenery, and above it is darker and more severe, and twenty times more menacing is through that night sky and, far trembling with leaves in the sky, going deeper into the unbreakable darkness, the stern tops of the trees are indignant at this tinsel shine, illuminating their roots from below. Plyushkin had been standing for several minutes without saying a word, but Chichikov was still unable to start a conversation, entertained both by the sight of the owner himself and by everything that was in his room. For a long time he could not think of any words to explain the reason for his visit. He was about to express himself in such a spirit that, having heard a lot about virtue and the rare properties of his soul, he considered it his duty to personally pay tribute, but he caught himself and felt that this was too much. Throwing another sidelong glance at everything that was in the room, he felt that the words "virtue" and "rare properties of the soul" could be successfully replaced by the words "economy" and "order"; and therefore, thus transforming his speech, he said that, having heard a lot about his economy and rare management of estates, he considered it a duty to make acquaintance and pay his respects personally. Of course, one could bring another the best reason but nothing else came to mind then. To this, Plyushkin muttered something through his lips, for there were no teeth, what exactly is unknown, but probably the meaning was this: “And the devil would have taken you with your respect!” But since our hospitality is in such a way that even a miser is not able to transgress its laws, he immediately added somewhat more clearly: “I ask you to sit down most humbly!” “I haven’t seen guests for a long time,” he said, “yes, I must admit, I see little use in them. They started an obscene custom of visiting each other, but there are omissions in the household ... and feed their horses with hay! I dined a long time ago, but my kitchen is low, nasty, and the chimney has completely fallen apart: if you start to heat, you will make another fire. “Wow, how it is! Chichikov thought to himself. “It’s good that I intercepted a cheesecake and a chunk of lamb side from Sobakevich.” - And such a nasty anecdote that even a tuft of hay in the whole farm! Plyushkin continued. "And really, how do you save it?" small country, the peasant is lazy, does not like to work, he thinks, as if in a tavern ... and look, you will go around the world in your old age! “However, they told me,” Chichikov remarked modestly, “that you have more than a thousand souls. — Who said that? And you, father, would spit in the eyes of the one who said this! He, the mockingbird, apparently wanted to play a joke on you. Here, they say, there are thousands of souls, but go and count, and you won’t count anything! For the past three years, the damned fever has exhausted a hefty jackpot of peasants from me. - Tell! and exhausted a lot? Chichikov exclaimed with sympathy. Yes, many have been demolished. “May I ask how many?” - Eighty souls.- Not? “I won’t lie, father. “Allow me to ask again: after all, these souls, I believe, you count from the date of submission of the last revision?” “Thank God,” said Plyushkin, “but it’s not bad that since that time there will be up to a hundred and twenty.” — Really? A whole hundred and twenty? Chichikov exclaimed, and even opened his mouth several times in astonishment. - I'm old, father, to lie: I live in my seventh decade! Plyushkin said. He seemed offended by such an almost joyful exclamation. Chichikov noticed that, in fact, it was indecently similar to indifference to someone else's grief, and therefore he immediately sighed and said that he was sorry. "But you can't put condolences in your pocket," said Plyushkin. “The captain lives near me; the devil knows where he came from, says - a relative: "Uncle, uncle!" - and kisses on the hand, and as soon as he begins to sympathize, he will raise such a howl that take care of your ears. All red from the face: penniku, tea, adheres to death. It's true, he lost money while serving as an officer, or the theater actress lured him out, and so now he sympathizes! Chichikov tried to explain that his condolences were not at all of the same kind as the captain's, and that he was ready to prove it not with empty words, but with deeds, and, without postponing the matter further, without any hesitation, he immediately expressed his readiness to assume the obligation to pay taxes for all peasants who died in such accidents. The proposal seemed to completely astonish Plyushkin. He looked at him for a long time, wide-eyed, and finally asked: - Yes, you, father, didn’t you serve in military service? "No," Chichikov replied rather slyly, "he served as a civilian." - According to the state? repeated Plyushkin, and began to chew with his lips, as if he were eating something. — Yes, how is it? After all, this is at your own expense, isn't it? - For your pleasure, ready and at a loss. — Ah, father! ah, my benefactor! cried Plyushkin, not noticing with joy that tobacco peeped out of his nose in a very unpictorial way, like a sample of thick coffee, and the hem of the dressing gown, opening up, showed a dress that was not very decent for examination. “They consoled the old man!” Oh, my God, You are mine! ah, you are my saints! .. - Plyushkin could not speak further. But not even a minute passed, when this joy, which appeared so instantly on his wooden face, passed just as instantly, as if it had not happened at all, and his face again took on a solicitous expression. He even wiped himself with a handkerchief and, rolling it into a ball, began to drag himself along his upper lip with it. - How, with your permission, so as not to anger you, you undertake to pay tax for them every year? and will you give money to me or to the treasury? “Yes, this is how we will do it: we will make a bill of sale for them, as if they were alive and how you would sell them to me. "Yes, a bill of lading..." said Plyushkin, thoughtfully, and began to eat again with his lips. “After all, the fortress of the bill of sale is all expenses. The clerks are so shameless! Before, it used to be that you could get away with half a copper and a sack of flour, but now send a whole cartload of cereals, and add a red piece of paper, such a love of money! I don't know how the priests don't pay attention to it; I would say some kind of teaching: after all, no matter what you say, you will not stand against the word of God. "Well, I think you can resist!" Chichikov thought to himself, and immediately said that, out of respect for him, he was ready to accept even the costs of the bill of sale on his own account. Hearing that he even bears the costs of the bill of sale, Plyushkin concluded that the guest must be completely stupid and only pretends to have served as a civilian, but, it’s true, he was an officer and dragged himself behind the actresses. For all that, however, he could not hide his joy and wished all kinds of consolations not only to him, but even to his children, without asking whether he had any or not. Going to the window, he tapped his fingers on the glass and shouted: “Hey, Proshka!” A minute later it was heard that someone ran in a hurry into the passage, fussed there for a long time and clattered with their boots, finally the door opened, and Proshka entered, a boy of about thirteen, in such big boots that, as he stepped, he almost took his legs out of them. Why Proshka had such big boots, one can find out right away: Plyushkin had only boots for the whole household, no matter how many there were in the house, which should always be in the hallway. Anyone called to the master's chambers usually danced across the entire courtyard barefoot, but, entering the entrance hall, put on boots and in this way already appeared in the room. Leaving the room, he left his boots again in the entryway and set off again on his own soles. If someone looked out of the window in autumn, and especially when small frosts begin in the morning, he would see that the whole household made such leaps that the most lively dancer is unlikely to be able to make in theaters. - Look, father, what a mug! Plyushkin said to Chichikov, pointing his finger at Proshka's face. - Stupid as a tree, but try to put something, instantly steal it! Well, why did you come, fool, tell me what? - Here he made a slight silence, to which Proshka also answered with silence. “Put down the samovar, you hear, but take the key and give it to Mavra so she can go to the pantry: there is a cracker from the Easter cake on the shelf, which Alexandra Stepanovna brought to be served with tea! .. Wait, where are you going? Fool! Ehwa, fool! The devil is itching in your legs, or something? .. you listen first: the cracker on top, the tea, has gone bad, so let him scrape it off with a knife and don’t throw crumbs, but take it to the chicken coop. Yes, look, you, brother, do not enter the pantry, otherwise I know you! a birch broom, to taste something! Now you have a glorious appetite, so that it was even better! Here, try to go to the pantry, and in the meantime I will look out of the window. You can't trust them with anything," he continued, turning to Chichikov after Proshka had tucked away with his boots. Thereupon he began to look at Chichikov suspiciously. The traits of such extraordinary generosity began to seem incredible to him, and he thought to himself: “After all, the devil knows, maybe he’s just a braggart, like all these little moths: he’ll tell lies, tell lies to talk and drink tea, and then he’ll leave!” And therefore, out of precaution, and at the same time wanting to test him a little, he said that it would not be bad to make a bill of sale as soon as possible, because, de, he is not sure of a person: today he is alive, and tomorrow God knows. Chichikov expressed his readiness to carry it out even this very minute and demanded only a list of all the peasants. This calmed Plyushkin. It was noticeable that he was thinking of doing something, and as if, taking the keys, he approached the cupboard and, unlocking the door, rummaged for a long time between the glasses and cups, and finally said: “You won’t find it, but I had a nice liquor, if only they didn’t drink it!” people are such thieves! But isn't that him? - Chichikov saw in his hands a decanter, which was covered in dust, as in a sweatshirt. “The dead woman did it,” Plyushkin continued, “the swindler housekeeper almost abandoned it and didn’t even clog it, rascal!” The boogers and all sorts of rubbish were stuffed there, but I took out all the rubbish, and now it’s clean; I'll pour you a glass. But Chichikov tried to refuse such a liquor, saying that he had already drunk and eaten. - We ate and drank! Plyushkin said. - Yes, of course, you can recognize a good company of a person anywhere: he does not eat, but is full; but like some kind of thief, but no matter how much you feed him ... After all, the captain will come: “Uncle, he says, give me something to eat!” And I am the same uncle to him as he is my grandfather. At home there is, it’s true, nothing, and so he staggers! Yes, because you need a register of all these parasites? Well, I, as I knew, wrote off all of them on a special piece of paper, so that at the first submission of the revision, all of them should be deleted. Plyushkin put on his glasses and began to rummage through the papers. Untying all sorts of bundles, he regaled his guest with such dust that he sneezed. Finally he pulled out a piece of paper, all covered in circles. Peasant names strewn her closely, like midges. There were all sorts of people there: Paramonov, and Pimenov, and Panteleimonov, and even some Grigory looked out. there were over a hundred and twenty in all. Chichikov smiled at the sight of such a large number. Putting it in his pocket, he noticed Plyushkin that he would need to come to the city to complete the fortress. - In town? But how? .. but how to leave the house? After all, my people are either a thief or a swindler: in a day they will rob you so much that there will be nothing to hang a caftan on. "So you don't know anyone?" - Whom do you know? All my friends died or got to know each other. Ah, father! how not to have, I have! he cried. - After all, the chairman himself is familiar, even in the old days he went to me, how not to know! they were odnokorytnikov, they climbed fences together! how unfamiliar? so familiar! so why not write to him? And, of course, to him. - How so familiar! I had friends at school. And on this wooden face a warm ray suddenly glided, it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of pale reflection of a feeling, a phenomenon similar to the unexpected appearance of a drowning man on the surface of the water, producing a joyful cry in the crowd surrounding the shore. But in vain, the brothers and sisters, rejoicing, throw a rope from the shore and wait for a glimpse of the back or hands weary from the struggle - the appearance was the last. Everything is deaf, and the surface of the unrequited element becomes even more terrible and desolate after that. So Plyushkin's face, following the feeling that instantly slipped over him, became even more insensible and even more vulgar. “There was a quarter of clean paper lying on the table,” he said, “but I don’t know where it disappeared: my people are so useless!” - Here he began to look both under the table and on the table, rummaged around everywhere and finally shouted: - Mavra! and Maura! A woman came to the call with a plate in her hands, on which lay a cracker, already familiar to the reader. And there was this conversation between them: - Where are you going, robber, paper? “Honest to God, sir, I haven’t seen, besides a small patch, with which they deigned to cover a glass. “But I can see in my eyes that I’ve shrugged it off.” - Yes, what would I podtibril? After all, I have no use with her; I don't know how to read. - You're lying, you demolished the sexton: he maraca, so you demolished him. - Yes, the sexton, if he wants, he will get himself papers. He did not see your shred! - Wait a minute: at the Last Judgment, the devils will burn you with iron slingshots for this! look how they bake! - But what will they bake for, if I didn’t even take a quarter in my hands? It’s more like some other woman’s weakness, and no one has yet reproached me with theft. - But the devils will bake you! they will say: “Here you are, swindler, for the fact that the master was deceiving!” - yes, they will bake you hot! - And I will say: “No way! by God, for nothing, I didn’t take it ... ”Yes, there she is on the table. You always reproach in vain! Plyushkin saw, for sure, a quarter and stopped for a minute, chewed his lips and said: - Well, why did you disperse like that? What a stingy one! Say only one word to her, and she will answer a dozen! Go get a light to seal the letter. Yes, stop, you grab a tallow candle, lard is a foul business: it will burn - yes and no, only a loss, and you bring me a splinter! Mavra went away, and Plyushkin, sitting down in an armchair and taking a pen in his hand, for a long time tossed the quarter in all directions, wondering whether it was possible to separate another eight from it, but at last he was convinced that it was absolutely impossible; put his pen into an inkwell with some kind of moldy liquid and a lot of flies at the bottom and began to write, putting out letters that looked like musical notes, holding constantly the agility of the hand that was bouncing all over the paper, sparingly sculpting line upon line and thinking, not without regret, that there would still be a lot of pure space left. And a person could descend to such insignificance, pettiness, disgust! could have changed! And does it look like it's true? Everything seems to be true, everything can happen to a person. The current fiery young man would jump back in horror if they showed him his own portrait in old age. Take with you on your journey, emerging from your soft youthful years into a stern, hardening courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, do not pick them up later! Terrible, terrible is the coming old age ahead, and gives nothing back and back! The grave is more merciful than her, on the grave it will be written: “A man is buried here!” — but nothing can be read in the cold, unfeeling features of inhuman old age. “But don’t you know any of your friends,” said Plyushkin, folding up the letter, “who would need runaway souls?” “Do you have fugitives, too?” Chichikov asked quickly, waking up. - That's just the point, that there is. The son-in-law made corrections: he says that the trail has caught a cold, but he is a military man: a master of stamping with a spur, and if he were to go to court ... - And how many of them will there be? - Yes, dozens of up to seven, too, will be typed.- Not? - And by God, yes! After all, I have a year, then they run. The people are painfully gluttonous, from idleness they got into the habit of cracking, but I have nothing myself ... And I would take anything for them. So advise your friend something: if you find only a dozen, then he has a nice money. After all, the audit soul costs five hundred rubles. “No, we won’t even let a friend sniff that,” Chichikov said to himself, and then explained that there was no way to find such a friend, that the costs alone in this case would cost more, because you need to cut off the skirts of your own caftan from the courts and go further away; but that if he is already really so squeezed, then, being moved by participation, he is ready to give ... but that this is such a trifle, which is not even worth talking about. - How much would you give? Plyushkin asked and waited himself: his hands trembled like quicksilver. "I'd give twenty-five kopecks a soul." - And how do you buy, on clean ones? Yes, money now. - Only, father, for the sake of my poverty, they would have already given forty kopecks. - Most respected one! - said Chichikov, - I would pay not only forty kopecks, but five hundred rubles! I would gladly pay, because I see that a respectable, kind old man endures because of his own good nature. - And by God, yes! by God, really! said Plyushkin, hanging his head down and shaking it crushingly. - It's all about kindness. “Well, you see, I suddenly comprehended your character. So, why not give me five hundred rubles per soul, but ... there is no fortune; five kopecks, if you please, I'm ready to add, so that each soul would cost, in this way, thirty kopecks. - Well, father, it's your choice, fasten at least two kopecks. - I’ll fasten two kopecks, if you please. How many do you have? You seem to have said seventy? - Not. There are seventy-eight in total. “Seventy-eight, seventy-eight, thirty kopecks per capita, that will be…” our hero here thought for a second, no more, and suddenly said: “that will be twenty-four rubles ninety-six kopecks,” he was strong in arithmetic. He immediately forced Plyushkin to write a receipt and gave him the money, which he accepted in both hands and carried it to the bureau with the same caution, as if he were carrying some kind of liquid, constantly afraid of spilling it. Going up to the bureau, he looked at them again and put them, also extremely carefully, in one of the boxes, where, probably, they were destined to be buried until Father Carp and Father Polycarp, two priests of his village, buried him himself, to the indescribable joy of the son-in-law and daughter, and perhaps the captain, who was assigned to him as a relative. Having hidden the money, Plyushkin sat down in an armchair and, it seemed, could no longer find matter to talk about. - What, are you going to go? he said, noticing the slight movement that Chichikov made just to get a handkerchief out of his pocket. The question reminded him that there really was no need to delay any longer. Yes, I have to go! he said, taking hold of his hat.— And the seagull? - No, it’s better to have a cup of tea some other time. - Well, I ordered a samovar. To be honest, I am not a fan of tea: the drink is expensive, and the price of sugar has risen mercilessly. Proshka! no samovar needed! Take the cracker to Mavra, you hear: let him put it in the same place, or not, give it here, I'll take it down myself. Farewell, father, may God bless you, and give the letter to the chairman. Yes! let him read, he is my old friend. How! were with him odnokoritelnyh! Therefore, this strange phenomenon, this cowering old man escorted him out of the yard, after which he ordered the gates to be locked at the same time, then went around the pantries in order to see if the guards, who stood at all corners, were in their places, pounding with wooden spatulas into an empty keg, instead of a cast-iron board; after that he looked into the kitchen, where, under the guise of trying to see if people were eating well, he ate a lot of cabbage soup with porridge and, having scolded everyone to the last for theft and bad behavior, returned to his room. Left alone, he even thought about how he could thank the guest for such truly unparalleled generosity. “I’ll give him,” he thought to himself, “a pocket watch: it’s a good one, a silver watch, and not exactly some kind of tombac or bronze; a little spoiled, but he will forward himself; he is still a young man, so he needs a pocket watch to please his bride! Or not,” he added after some reflection, “it’s better I leave them to him after my death, in the spiritual, so that he remembers me.” But our hero, even without a watch, was in the most cheerful frame of mind. Such an unexpected acquisition was a real gift. In fact, whatever you say, not only dead souls, but also fugitives, and more than two hundred people in all! Of course, even approaching the village of Plyushkin, he already had a presentiment that there would be some profit, but he did not expect such a profitable one. All the way he was extraordinarily cheerful, whistling, playing with his lips, putting his fist to his mouth, as if playing a trumpet, and finally struck up some song, so unusual that Selifan himself listened, listened, and then, shaking his head slightly, said : "You see how the master sings!" It was already thick twilight when they drove up to the city. The shadow and the light were completely mixed up, and it seemed that the objects themselves were mixed up too. The motley barrier took on some indefinite color; the mustache of the soldier standing on the watch seemed to be on the forehead and much higher than the eyes, and it was as if there was no nose at all. Thunder and jumps made it possible to notice that the chaise had driven up onto the pavement. The lanterns were not yet lit, in some places the windows of houses were just beginning to be lit, and in the alleys and back streets there were scenes and conversations that are inseparable from this time in all cities, where there are many soldiers, cabbies, workers and a special kind of creatures, in the form of ladies in red shawls. and shoes without stockings, which, like the bats, darting around the intersections. Chichikov did not notice them, and did not even notice the many slender officials with walking sticks, who, having probably taken a walk outside the city, were returning home. From time to time some, it seemed, feminine exclamations reached his ears: “You're lying, you drunkard! I never allowed him to be so rude!” - or: “Don’t fight, ignoramus, but go to the unit, I’ll prove it to you there!” in the head of the Spanish street, night, wonderful female image with guitar and curls. What is not and what does not dream in his head? he is in heaven and visits Schiller - and suddenly fatal words are heard over him, like thunder, and he sees that he has again found himself on earth, and even on Sennaya Square, and further near the tavern, and again went to flaunt in everyday fashion life before him. Finally, the britzka, having made a decent leap, sank, as if into a pit, through the gates of the hotel, and Chichikov was met by Petrushka, who held the hem of his coat with one hand, for he did not like the hem to part, and with the other began to help him get out of the britzka. The floorman also ran out, with a candle in his hand and a napkin on his shoulder. Whether Petrushka was delighted at the master's arrival is not known, at least they exchanged winks with Selifan, and this time his usually stern appearance seemed to brighten somewhat. "They deigned to take a long walk," said the floorman, lighting up the stairs. "Yes," said Chichikov, when he went up the stairs. - Well, what about you? "Thank God," the clerk answered, bowing. - Yesterday a lieutenant of some kind of military man arrived, took the sixteenth number.— Lieutenant? - It is not known what, from Ryazan, bay horses. “Good, good, behave yourself and go well!” said Chichikov and went into his room. As he passed the hall, he twisted his nose and said to Petrushka: "You should at least unlock the windows!" “Yes, I unlocked them,” said Petrushka, and he lied. However, the master himself knew that he was lying, but he did not want to object to anything. After the trip, he felt very tired. Having demanded the lightest supper, which consisted only of a pig, he immediately undressed and, crawling under the covers, fell deeply, soundly, fell asleep miraculously, as only those lucky ones sleep who know neither hemorrhoids, nor fleas, nor too strong mental abilities.

A room in Marya Alexandrovna's house.

I

Marya Alexandrovna, an elderly lady, and Michal Andreevich, her son.

Marya Alexandrovna. Listen, Misha, I have long wanted to talk to you: you should change your job. Misha. Perhaps even tomorrow. Marya Alexandrovna. You must serve in the military. Misha (goggling eyes). In the military? Marya Alexandrovna. Yes. Misha. What are you, mother? in the military? Marya Alexandrovna. Well, why are you so surprised? Misha. Excuse me, but don't you know: after all, you have to start with the junkers? Marya Alexandrovna. Well, yes, you serve a year as a cadet, and then they will make you an officer - that's my business. Misha. What did you see in me as a military man? and my figure is completely non-military. Think, mother! Really, you completely amazed me with such words, so I, I ... I just don’t know what to think ... Thank God, I’m a little plump, but when I put on a cadet uniform with short ponytails, I’ll even be ashamed to look . Marya Alexandrovna. No need. They will make you an officer, you will wear a uniform with long tails and completely cover your thickness, so that nothing will be noticeable. Besides, it's better that you're a little fat - the production will go faster: they will be ashamed that they have such a fat ensign in their regiment. Misha. But, mother, I'm a year old, only a year left before a collegiate assessor. I have been in the rank of titular adviser for two years now. Marya Alexandrovna. Stop it, stop it! This word "titular" tyrannizes my ears; That's what God knows what comes to my mind. I want my son to serve in the guard. I just can’t even look at the shtafirka now! Misha. But judge me, mother, take a good look at me and my appearance as well: back in school they called me a hamster. In military service, it is still necessary that he ride a horse famously, and have a sonorous voice, and have a heroic height, and a waist. Marya Alexandrovna. Get it, get it all. I want you to serve without fail; there is a very important reason for this. Misha. What is the reason? Marya Alexandrovna. Well, the reason is important. Misha. But tell me, what is the reason? Marya Alexandrovna. Such a reason... I don't even know if you will understand well. Gubomazova, that fool, has been talking at the Rogozhinskys for three days, and on purpose so that I can hear. And I am sitting third, in front of me is Sophie Votrushkova, Princess Alexandrina, and now I am behind Princess Alexandrina. What do you think this worthless woman dared to say?.. I really wanted to get up from my seat; and if it weren't for Princess Alexandrina, I wouldn't know what I did. He says: “I am very glad that civilians are not allowed at court balls. It's all like that, he says, mauvais genre, something ignoble responds to them. I'm glad, says my Alexis doesn't wear that nasty tailcoat." And she said all this with such affectation, with such a tone ... so, really ... I don’t know what I would have done with her. And her son is just a fool full of: all he knows how to do is lift his leg. Such a nasty bastard! Misha. How, mother, is this the whole reason? Marya Alexandrovna. Yes, I want out of spite that my son also served in the guard and would be at all court balls. Misha. Pardon me, mother, just because she's a fool... Marya Alexandrovna. No, I've made up my mind. Let her crack herself with vexation, let her rage. Misha. However... Marya Alexandrovna. O! I'll show her! As she wishes, I will do my best, and my son will also be in the guard. Even though through this he will lose, but he will certainly be. So that I would allow every scoundrel to sulk in front of me and raise my already snub-nosed nose! No, this will never happen! How do you want yourself, Natalya Andreevna! Misha. Will you annoy her with this? Marya Alexandrovna. Oh, I won't let that happen! Misha. If you demand it, mother, I will transfer to the military; only, really, it will be funny to me myself when I see myself in a uniform. Marya Alexandrovna. Already, at least, much nobler than this little frat. Now the second: I want to marry you. Misha. At one time - and change the service and marry? Marya Alexandrovna. What? As if it is impossible to change the service and marry? Misha. Well, I didn't have any intentions yet. I don't want to get married yet. Marya Alexandrovna. You want, if you only know on whom. By this marriage you will bring happiness to yourself both in the service and in family life. In a word, I want to marry you to Princess Shlepokhvostova. Misha. Why, mother, she is a first-class fool. Marya Alexandrovna. Not at all first-class, but the same as all the others. Beautiful girl; it's just that there is no memory: sometimes it is forgotten, it will say out of place; but this is from absent-mindedness, and on the other hand, she is not a gossip at all and will never invent anything bad. Misha. For mercy, where should she gossip! She can hardly bind a word, and even such that you only spread your hands as soon as you hear it. You know yourself, mother, that marriage is a matter of the heart: it is necessary that the soul ... Marya Alexandrovna. Well, like this! It's like I had a premonition. Look, stop being liberal. It didn't fit you, it didn't fit you, I've already told you twenty times. It suits another somehow, but it doesn't suit you at all. Misha. Ah, mother, but when and in what way was I disobedient to you? I am almost thirty years old, and meanwhile, like a child, I am submissive to you in everything. You tell me to go where I would not like to go to death - and I'm going, not even showing the appearance that it's hard for me. You order me to rub myself in the hall of such and such - and I jostle in the hall of such and such, even though it is not at all to my liking. You tell me to dance at balls - and I dance, even though everyone laughs at me and at my figure. You, finally, order me to change my service - and I change my service, at the age of thirty I go to the junker; at thirty I am reborn as a child to please you! And for all that, every day you prick my eyes with liberalism. Not a minute will pass without you calling me a liberal. Listen, mother, it hurts! I swear to you, it hurts! I am worthy for my sincere love and affection for you the best fate... Marya Alexandrovna. Please don't say it! Like I don't know you're a liberal; and I even know who inspires you with all this: all this nasty Sobachkin. Misha. No, mother, this is already too much for me to even begin to obey Sobachkin. Dog bastard, gambler and whatever you want. But here he is innocent. I will never let him have even a shadow of influence over me. Marya Alexandrovna. Oh, my God, what a terrible man! I was scared when I recognized him. Without rules, without virtue - what a vile, what a vile man! If you only knew what he said about me!.. For three months I couldn't show my nose anywhere: that I was served tallow stubs; that in my rooms the carpets are not brushed for whole weeks; that I went out for a walk in a harness made of simple ropes on cab yokes ... I blushed all over, I was ill for more than a week; I don't know how I could bear all this. Truly, faith in Providence alone strengthened me. Misha. And such a person, you think, can have power over me? and you think I'll let you? Marya Alexandrovna. I said that he should not dare to show himself before my eyes, and you alone can justify yourself when, without any persistence, you make a déclaration to the princess today. Misha. But, mother, what if you can't do it? Marya Alexandrovna. How can you not, why? Misha (aside). Well, the decisive moment! .. (Aloud.) Allow me to have my voice here, even though in a matter on which the happiness of my future life depends. You haven't asked me yet... well, if I'm in love with another? Marya Alexandrovna. This, I confess, is news to me. I haven't heard anything about this yet. But who is this other one? Misha. Oh, mother, I swear, there has never been anything like it! Angel, angel, face and soul! Marya Alexandrovna. But whose is she, who is her father? Misha. Father - Alexander Alexandrovich Odoshimov. Marya Alexandrovna. Odosimov? surname unheard! I don't know anything about Odosimov... but what is he, a rich man? Misha. A rare person, an amazing person! Marya Alexandrovna. And rich? Misha. How can you tell? You need to see him. You will not find such virtues of the soul in the world. Marya Alexandrovna. But what is he like, what is his rank, property? Misha. I understand, mother, what you want. Let me speak frankly on this account of my thoughts. After all, now, be that as it may, perhaps in all of Russia there is no groom who would not look for a rich bride. Everyone wants to get better at the expense of the wife's dowry. Well, let it be excusable in some respects: I understand that a poor person who is unlucky in his job or in something else, who, perhaps, excessive honesty prevented from making a fortune - in a word, whatever it was, but I understand that he has the right to seek a rich bride; and, perhaps, the parents would have been unjust if they had not paid tribute to his merits and had not given his daughter to him. But you judge whether a rich man is just, who will also look for rich brides - then what will happen in the world? After all, it’s like putting on an overcoat over a fur coat when it’s already hot, when this overcoat, perhaps, would cover someone’s shoulders. No, mother, it's not fair! The father donated all his property to raise his daughter. Marya Alexandrovna. Pretty, pretty! I can no longer listen. I know everything, everything: I fell in love with a slut, the daughter of some fourier, who, perhaps, is engaged in a public craft. Misha. Mother... Marya Alexandrovna. Father is a drunkard, mother is a cook, relatives are quarters or employees in the drinking department ... And I must hear all this, endure all this, endure from my own son, for whom I did not spare my life! .. No, I will not survive this ! Misha. But mother, let me... Marya Alexandrovna. My God, what morality do young people have now! No, I won't survive this! I swear I won't survive this... Ah! what is this? I got dizzy! (She screams.) Oh, there's colic in my side!... Masha, Masha, a bottle!... I don't know if I'll live until evening. Cruel son! Misha (rushing). Mother, calm down! you create for yourself... Marya Alexandrovna. And all this was done by this nasty Sobachkin. I don't know how this plague hasn't been kicked out yet. Footman (at the door). Sobachkin has arrived. Marya Alexandrovna. How is Sobachkin? Refuse, refuse, so that even his spirit is not here!

II

The same and Sobachkin.

Sobachkin. Maria Alexandrovna! sorry for being so long gone. By God, I couldn't! You can't believe how many cases; I knew that you would be angry, really, I knew ... (Seeing Misha.) Hello, brother! How do you? Marya Alexandrovna(to the side) . I just don't have words! What? He also apologizes for not being there for a long time! Sobachkin. How glad I am that you, judging by your face, are so fresh and healthy. And how is your brother? I thought, I confess, that you would also find him. Marya Alexandrovna. To do this, you could go to him, not to me. Sobachkin (grinning). I came to tell you an interesting anecdote. Marya Alexandrovna. I'm not a joke hunter. Sobachkin. About Natalya Andreevna Gubomazova. Marya Alexandrovna. How about Gubomazova!.. (Trying to hide his curiosity.) So this happened recently, didn't it? Sobachkin. The other day. Marya Alexandrovna. What is it? Sobachkin. Do you know that she flogs her girls herself? Marya Alexandrovna. Not! what are you talking about? Ah, what fear! is it possible? Sobachkin. Here is your cross! Let me tell you. Only once did she tell the guilty girl to lie down properly on the bed, while she herself went into another room - I don’t remember for something, it seems for the rods. At this time, the girl leaves the room for something, and Natalya Andreevna's husband comes in her place, lies down and falls asleep. Natalya Andreevna appears, as it should, with rods, orders one girl to sit on his feet, covered her with a sheet and - whipped her husband! Marya Alexandrovna (clapping hands). Oh, my God, what a fear! How is it that I didn't know about this until now? I will tell you that I was almost always sure that she was able to do it. Sobachkin. Naturally! I told the whole world this. Interpret: " exemplary wife, sits at home, takes care of raising children, she teaches them in English!” What upbringing! He whips her husband every day like a cat!.. How sorry I am, really, that I cannot stay longer with you. (Bows.) Marya Alexandrovna. Where are you going, Andrey Kondratievich? Aren't you ashamed that I haven't had so much time ... I've always got used to seeing you as a friend at home; stay! I wanted to talk to you about something else. Listen, Misha, the coachman is waiting in my room; please talk to him. Ask if he will undertake to remake the carriage by the first day. The color should be blue with light cleaning, in the manner of Gubomazova's carriage.

Misha leaves.

I sent my son on purpose to talk to you alone. Tell me, do you really know: there is some kind of Alexander Alexandrovich Odoshimov?

Sobachkin. Odosimov?.. Odosimov... Odosimov... I know there is Odosimov somewhere; however, I can handle it. Marya Alexandrovna. You are welcome. Sobachkin. I remember, I remember, there is Odoshimov - the clerk or the head of the department ... exactly, there is. Marya Alexandrovna. Imagine going out alone funny story... You can do me a big favor. Sobachkin. You just have to order. I am ready for anything for you, you yourself know this. Marya Alexandrovna. Here's the thing: my son fell in love, or, better, didn't fall in love, but madness just entered his head... Well, young man... In a word, he's delirious about the daughter of this Odosimov. Sobachkin. Delirious? And yet he didn't tell me anything about it. Yes, however, of course, delirious, if you say so. Marya Alexandrovna. I want a great service from you, Andrey Kondratievich: I know women like you. Sobachkin. He, he, he! Yes, why do you think that? But for sure! Imagine: there are six bills of sale on the buttered... maybe you think that I, for my part, somehow dragged myself along or something else... I swear, I didn’t even look! Yes, that's even better: you know how you call him, Yermolai, Yermolai ... Oh, God! Yermolai, that's what he lived on Liteinaya, not far from Kirochnaya? Marya Alexandrovna. I don't know anyone there. Sobachkin. Oh my god! Ermolai Ivanovich, it seems, for the life of me, I forgot my last name. Even his wife five years ago got into history. Well, yes, you know her: Sylphide Petrovna. Marya Alexandrovna. Not at all; I don't know any Yermolai Ivanovich or Sylphide Petrovna. Sobachkin. My God! he still lived not far from Kuropatkino. Marya Alexandrovna. And I don't know Kuropatkin either. Sobachkin. Yes, you remember later. Daughter, a terrible rich woman, up to two hundred thousand dowry; and not exactly with a puff, but even before the wedding, a pawn ticket in hand. Marya Alexandrovna. What are you? not married? Sobachkin. Did not marry. Father stood on his knees for three days, begging; and the daughter could not bear it, now she is sitting in the monastery. Marya Alexandrovna. Why didn't you get married? Sobachkin. Yes, somehow. I think to myself: father is a farmer, relatives - whatever. Believe me, you yourself, really, it was a pity later. Damn it, right, how the world works: all the conditions and decency. How many people have already been killed! Marya Alexandrovna. Well, why are you looking at the world? (Aside.) I humbly ask! Now every little booger already thinks that he is an aristocrat. Here is just some titular one, but listen to how he says! Sobachkin. Well, it’s impossible, Marya Alexandrovna, really, it’s impossible, everything is somehow ... Well, you understand ... They will begin to say: “Well, the devil knows who he married ...” Yes, with me, however, there are always such stories . Sometimes, really, it’s not at all to blame, there’s absolutely nothing on my part ... well, what do you want to do? (He speaks softly.) After all, when the Neva is opened up, two or three drowned women are always found - I just keep quiet, because you can still get mixed up in such a story! .. Yes, they love; but for what, it seems? face can not be said to be very ... Marya Alexandrovna. It's like you don't know how good you are. Sobachkin (laughs). But imagine that, even as a boy, not a single one used to pass without hitting a finger under the chin and saying: “You rascal, how good!” Marya Alexandrovna(to the side) . I humbly ask! After all, about beauty, too - after all, the pug is perfect, but imagines that he is good. (Aloud.) Well, listen, Andrei Kondratievich, with your appearance you can do it. My son is foolishly in love and imagines her to be perfect goodness and innocence. Is it possible somehow, you know, to present it in the wrong form, somehow, as they say, to mess it up a little? If, let's say, you don't act on her and she doesn't go crazy with you... Sobachkin. Marya Alexandrovna, come down! Don't argue, it'll do! I'll cut off my head if it doesn't work. I'll tell you, Marya Alexandrovna, stories like this didn't happen to me ... Just the other day ... Marya Alexandrovna. Well, be that as it may, it will or won't, it just needs to get the word out around town that you're involved with her... and let it reach my son. Sobachkin. To your son? Marya Alexandrovna. Yes, to my son. Sobachkin. Yes. Marya Alexandrovna. What "yes"? Sobachkin. Nothing, I just said yes. Marya Alexandrovna. Do you find it difficult for you? Sobachkin. Oh no, nothing. But all these lovers ... you won't believe what incongruities, inappropriate childishness they have, different: either pistols, or ... the devil knows what it is ... Of course, I'm not that somehow ... but, you know , indecent in a good society. Marya Alexandrovna. O! about this be calm. Rely on me, I won't let him get to that. Sobachkin. However, I just noticed. Believe me, Marya Alexandrovna, I am for you, if I had to risk my life exactly where, then with pleasure, by God, with pleasure ... I love you so much that, to confess, I’m even ashamed - you might think God knows what and that is just the deepest respect. Ah, that's good that I remembered! I will ask you, Marya Alexandrovna, to lend me two thousand rubles for the shortest possible time. God knows what a stupid memory! As he was dressing, he kept thinking how not to forget the book; he purposely put it on the table in front of his eyes. Whatever you want: I took everything - I took the snuffbox, I even took an extra handkerchief, but the book remained on the table. Marya Alexandrovna(to the side) . What to do with him? If you give it, it will wind it up, but if you don’t give it, it will spread such nonsense around the city that I won’t be able to show my nose anywhere. And I like that he also says: I forgot the book! You have a book, I know it's empty. And there is nothing to do, you need to give. (Aloud.) Excuse me, Andrey Kondratievich; just wait here, I'll bring them to you now. Sobachkin. Very well, I'll sit here. Marya Alexandrovna (walking away). Without money, you bastard can't do anything. Sobachkin (one). Yes, these two thousand will be very useful to me now. I won’t pay back my debts: the shoemaker will wait, and the tailor will wait, and Anna Ivanovna will also wait; Of course, he will scream, but what can you do? you can’t waste money on everything, she’s had enough of my love, but she’s lying, she has a dress. And I will do this: soon there will be a walk; although my little carriage is new, well, everyone has already seen and knows it, but, they say, Joachim has it, it just came out, the latest fashion, he doesn’t even show it to anyone. If I add these two thousand to my carriage, then I can exchange it very much. So I, you know, what I'll ask then the effect! Maybe there will be only one or two such strollers in the whole walk! So they talk about me everywhere. In the meantime, you need to think about Marya Alexandrovna's instructions. I think the wisest place to start is with love letters. Write a letter on behalf of this girl, and somehow accidentally drop it in his presence or forget it on the table in his room. Of course, it can turn out somehow bad. Yes, but so what? after all, he gives only aces. Aces, of course, hurt, but still not to such an extent that ... Why, I can run away, and if anything - into Marya Alexandrovna's bedroom and right under the bed; and let him get me out of there! But, most importantly, how to write a letter? Death do not like to write! that is, just at least slaughter! The devil knows, it seems that he would explain everything nicely in words, but if you take up the pen, it’s just as if someone gave a slap in the face. Confusion, confusion, - no hand is raised, and it's full. Is that what? I have some letters that were recently written to me: choose which one is better, scrape off the last name, and write another one in its place ... Well, why is that not good? right! Fumble in your pocket - maybe you will immediately be lucky enough to find exactly what you need. (He takes out a bunch of letters from his pocket.) Well, if only this, for example (reads): “I’m very healthy, thank God, but I can’t get sick from pain. Ali you darling completely forgot. Ivan Danilovich saw you darling in the teater and they would have come to reassure you with the cheerfulness of the conversation. Hell! there seems to be no spelling. No, I don't think this will work. (Continues.) "I embroidered a garter for you, my dear." Well, and carried with tenderness! There is a lot of something bucolic, it smells like Chateaubriand. But, maybe there will be something here? (Unfolds another and squints his eye, trying to make out.)"Loveless friend!" No, this, however, is not a kind friend; what, however? The most tender, dearest? No, and not dearest, no, no. (Reads.) "Me, me, e ... rzavets." Hm! (Compresses his lips.) “If you, the insidious seducer of my innocence, do not return the money I owe to a petty shop, which I, out of inexperience of my heart, for you, a bad mug (he reads the last word almost through his teeth)... then I will take you to the police.” God knows what! That's just what the hell! There is really nothing in this letter. Of course, everything can be said, but it can be said decently, with such expressions that would not offend a person. No, no, all these letters, I see, are somehow not right ... they are not at all suitable. You need to look for something strong, where boiling water is visible, boiling water, as they say. Here, let's see this. (Reads.) "The cruel tyrant of my soul!" Ah, that's a good thing, though. "To be touched by my heart's fate!" And noble! oh my god, awesome! After all, you can see the upbringing! From the very beginning you can see who behaves how. That's how to write! Sensitive, but meanwhile the person is not offended. This is the letter I will send him. There is no need to read further; I just don't know how to scrape it off without being noticeable. (Looks at signature.) E, e! that's good, even the name is not exposed! Perfectly! This and sign. What a business has done by itself! But they say that appearance is nonsense: well, if you weren’t cute, you wouldn’t fall in love with you, and if you didn’t fall in love, you wouldn’t write letters, and if you didn’t have letters, you wouldn’t know how to take up this business. (Going to the mirror.) Even today he somehow sank, otherwise sometimes there’s even something significant in his face ... It’s only a pity that his teeth are bad, otherwise he would have looked like Bagration. I don’t know how to start sideburns: is it so that there is decidedly fringe all around, as they say - sheathed with cloth, or shave everything with nakedness, and put something under the lip, huh?

I am posting excerpts from the wonderful poem by Nikolai Vasilyevich, which I managed to do by filling in the gaps school curriculum, read. I must say that the passages below touched me personally, were made by me, and therefore have a subjective assessment. They in no way detract from other passages of the poem, to which, due to my "merits", I simply did not pay attention. You can comment, add your subjective observations. Are the thoughts of the classic still relevant today? How accurately is the soul of the nation reflected in the thoughts of the author of the poem? Has much changed in the time that has passed?

“But the man is strange: he was greatly upset by the dislike of those whom he did not respect and about whom he spoke sharply, vilifying their vanity and outfits. This was all the more annoying to him because, having examined the matter clearly, he saw how the cause of this was partly himself. With himself, however, he was not angry, and in that, of course, he was right. We all have a little weakness to spare ourselves a little, but we will try better to find some neighbor on whom to take out our annoyance, for example, on a servant, on an official, on a subordinate who turned up just in time, on his wife, or, finally, on a chair that will be thrown ... to the very doors, so that the handle and back will fly off from him: let him, they say, know what anger is ”(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk. Rabochiy, 1984. - 188 p. )

“Strange people, these gentlemen officials, and behind them all the reason for the title: after all, they knew very well that Nozdryov was a liar, that he could not be trusted in a single word, not in the trifle itself, but meanwhile they resorted to him. Come and get along with the man! He does not believe in God, but believes that if the bridge of his nose itches, he will certainly die; he will let the creation of a poet pass by, clear as day, all imbued with harmony and the high wisdom of simplicity, and he will rush exactly where some daring confuses, twists, breaks, twists nature, and he will like it, and he will begin to shout: “Here it is Here is the true knowledge of the secrets of the heart!” All his life he doesn’t put a penny on doctors, but ends up turning to a woman who heals with whispers and spitting, or, even better, he invents some kind of dekocht himself out of god knows what rubbish, which, for some unknown reason, will imagine to him just a remedy for his illness "(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk.worker, 1984. - 223s.)

“Human passions are countless, like the sands of the sea, and all are not alike, and all of them, low and beautiful, are at the beginning obedient to man and then become his terrible rulers” (Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: Poem. - M.: Mosk.worker, 1984. - 261s.)

“... and that money, which would somehow improve the matter, goes to various means to bring oneself into oblivion. The mind sleeps, perhaps having found a great spring of great means; and there the estate bukh, from the auction, and the landowner went to be forgotten in the world with his soul, from the extreme. Ready for baseness, which he himself would have been horrified of before ”(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk. Rabochiy, 1984. - 262 p.)

“... in order to respond modestly to the accusation from some ardent patriots, until the time they are engaged in some kind of philosophy or increments at the expense of the sums of their dearly beloved fatherland, thinking not about not doing bad things, but about not only saying that they do bad things ”(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk. Rabochiy, 1984. - 264 p.)
V.U. compare with 2 Corinthians 13:7 “We pray to God that you do no evil, not in order to seem to us what you should be; but that you do good, even though we appear not to be what we ought to be.”

“But youth is happy that it has a future. As the time for graduation neared, his heart began to beat. He said to himself: “After all, this is not life yet; this is only preparation for life; real life in service. There are feats ”(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk.worker, 1984. - 277s.)

“- They think how to enlighten a man! Yes, you make him rich first and good host and there he will learn. After all, how now, at this time, the whole world has become stupid, so you cannot imagine. What are the clickers writing now! Some milk-drinker (?) will let in a book, and so everyone will rush at her. This is what they began to say: “The peasant leads a very simple life; you need to acquaint him with luxury items, instill in him a need beyond the state ... "That thanks to this luxury they themselves became rags, and not people, and diseases ... which they picked up, and there is no eighteen-year-old boy who has not tried everything: he has no teeth, and bald like a bubble - so now they want to infect these too. Yes, thank God that we have at least one more healthy class left. Who did not get acquainted with these whims! For that we just have to thank God. Yes, the cultivators are more respectable to me than all - why are you touching him? God forbid that everyone be cultivators ”(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk. Rabochiy, 1984. - 335s.)

“We were not born for prudence at all. I don't believe that any of us are sensible. If I see that another even lives decently, collects and saves money, I do not believe even that. In old age, the devil will confuse him: then he will suddenly lower everything. And everything is so, right: both enlightened and unenlightened. No, something else is missing, but I don’t know what myself ”(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk. Rabochiy, 1984. - 350s.)

Listen, Semyon Semyonovich, but you pray, you go to church, you don't miss, I know, either Matins or Vespers. Although you do not want to get up early, you get up and go, - you go at four o'clock in the morning, when no one gets up so early.
- That's another matter, Afanasy Vasilyevich. I know that I am doing this not for a person, but for the One who ordered us all to be in the world. What to do? I believe that He is merciful to me, that no matter how vile or vile I am, He can forgive and accept, while people will push me away with their foot and the best of friends will sell me, and even later say that he sold for a good purpose ... "(Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk.worker, 1984. - 368s.)

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SOURCE Gogol N.V. Dead Souls: A Poem. - M .: Mosk.worker, 1984. - 399s., illust
Read the poem 10/08/2011

Read the excerpts from the sixth chapter of the first volume given in the appendix. "Dead Souls" by N.V. Gogol and answer questions.

1. What elements of the composition are found in these passages? On what basis did you identify them?

2. Compare the descriptions of the village, the manor house, the room and appearance of Plyushkin. To what extent do these descriptions correspond to each other? Highlight in these descriptions the main and secondary features of the described objects.

3. Plyushkin's appearance through the eyes of the protagonist is described twice. What is it connected with? What epithets and comparisons does the author resort to, depicting appearance Plushkin? Does this help the reader understand the character of this character?

4. Compare two portrait characteristics of Plyushkin - in old age and youth. How has the hero changed? What internal traits of the hero and external circumstances contributed to his change? Could this hero, in other circumstances, retain those qualities that were inherent in him from a young age? What do you think it would take him to develop these qualities for the better?

5. How true, in your opinion, are the author's reasoning about old age in the last paragraph of the passage? How does this reasoning resonate with the lyrical digression at the beginning of the passage? On what basis can such reasoning be based? Why are they presented in the chapter devoted to Plushkin? To what extent can they be accepted as generalizing and extended to a wider circle of people?

6. Do you know examples (from literary works, your relatives and friends) of noble old age, when a person not only retains all the best qualities that he had in his youth and mature years, but also multiplies them? What do you think contributed to this?

7. Find examples obsolete words and expressions. Write out archaisms and historicisms in a notebook, explain their meanings. Are there words among historicisms that have been revived in modern Russian? What words and expressions in the text indicate the time, place of action, the social status of the characters?

8. Irony is a constant companion of N.V. Gogol. Give examples of irony in these passages. What linguistic means does the writer use to create irony? To what extent does irony help the author to depict the described situation and reveal the character of both characters?

9. Explain the meaning of the adjective vulgar in the text. What is its origin? What did it signify? How has its meaning changed? When answering this question, use " Dictionary living Great Russian language" by Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl.

10. Pluralize a noun year. What form used by N.V. Gogol, corresponds to this modern form? Can we say that in the modern Russian literary language in the plural there are two forms for the word year?

11. What is the difference between words small village and small town from words village and city? What kind of words village, town? What in the text indicates the gender of these nouns?

12. Find words in the text imprinted, led, intervening, silent, for the time being, to speak out, in place, to examine, and replace them with cognates that are more common in modern speech than those used by the author.

13. What do phrases mean state house, tail of the tongue, flow in a vast amount(about the economy), swear words, cotton paper. Is it possible to replace these phrases with modern ones?

14. From what words words are formed petty-bourgeois, landowner, what words do they come from? How have the original meanings of these words changed?

15. Explain the meaning of the sentence County official, pass by - I was already wondering where he was going. What is unusual in the expression of the predicate in the first simple sentence this complex sentence?

16. What comparisons does N.V. Gogol use? What do these comparisons give the reader?

17. What is common in the use of words log and vegetable in sentences Log the huts were dark and old; Storerooms, barns and dryers were cluttered with dried fish and all kinds ofvegetable ?

18. Find a word in the text the Bureau. What is unusual for the modern reader in use given word? What do the words have in common coat, movie, bureau, chimpanzee in modern Russian?

19. What is the meaning of the word flat?

20. How an adjective is formed friendly? Give as an example an adjective formed in the same way using the same morphemes.

21. What nouns used in the text, except for the word decanter, refer to diminutive derivatives?

22. Write down the words used in the text denoting kinship. Such words are called kinship terms. Are terms of kinship words husband, wife? What kinship terms, other than those used by the author in this text, do you know?

24. Write down all the names of clothes found in the text. Are there old words among them?

25. What are the morphological and syntactic signs of lyrical digressions encountered in the passage you read.

subject.

26. The main character did not immediately recognize in Plyushkin not only a gentleman, but also a man. What signs (appearance, behavior) misled Chichikov? What features, in your opinion, should the main character have an idea of ​​the landowner?

27. Are the contents of the concepts "master" and "landowner" the same? How has the content and scope of the concept of "master" changed in the modern language? Are there any other words in the texts you have read with a changed content and scope of the concept?

28. About the character of a person, his behavior, attitude towards other people, a lot can be said about his habitat and the objects surrounding him. These are also signs on the basis of which we develop (in any case, the first

initial) impression of a person. To what extent do you think these signs are significant? By what we make a more complete picture of a person. Remember proverb on this topic. Try to characterize Plyushkin based on the description of his house and the room where he received Chichikov.

29. In the read text, the names of residential and service buildings are given. What is the content of the relevant concepts? On what grounds are they opposed to each other?

30. Write out from the text verbs denoting movements. Compare their meanings and name the signs by which these verbs differ.

How do verbs differ in pairs? go - walk, run - run, fly - fly, carry - wear, lead - carry, carry - carry, roll - roll, crawl - crawl?

31. With a capital or small letter, you should write the names of literary characters, used in the plural (And now the Chichikovs and Plushkin)?

N.V. Gogol. Dead Souls (excerpt)

Before, long ago, in the summers of my youth, in the summers of my irretrievably flashed childhood, it was fun for me to drive up to an unfamiliar place for the first time: it doesn’t matter whether it was a village, a poor county town, a village, a suburb - I discovered a lot of curious things in it childish curiosity. Every building, everything that bore only the imprint of some noticeable feature, everything stopped and amazed me. Is it a stone state-owned house, of well-known architecture with half false windows, sticking out all alone among a hewn log heap of one-story philistine houses, is it a regular dome, all upholstered with white sheet iron, elevated above a new church whitened like snow, is it a market, is it a dandy county, caught in the middle of the city - nothing escaped the fresh, subtle attention, and, sticking my nose out of my traveling cart, I looked at the cut of some frock coat that had never been seen before, and at wooden boxes with nails, with gray, yellowing in the distance, with raisins and soap, flickering from the doors of a vegetable shop along with cans of dried Moscow sweets, he looked at an infantry officer walking aside, brought in God knows what province to county boredom, and at a merchant who flickered in a Siberian on a racing droshky, and mentally carried away them into their poor life. District official, pass by - I was already wondering where he was going, whether to the evening to some of his brother,

or straight to your house, so that, after sitting for half an hour on the porch, while twilight has not yet deepened, sit down for an early supper with your mother, with your wife, with your wife's sister and the whole family, and about what they will talk about at that time, when a yard girl in monists or a boy in a thick jacket brings a tallow candle in a long-lasting home candlestick after the soup.

Approaching the village of some landowner, I looked curiously at a tall narrow wooden bell tower or a wide dark wooden old church. The red roof and white chimneys of the landowner's house flashed enticingly to me from a distance through the greenery of the trees, and I waited impatiently until the gardens that protected it would part on both sides and he would show himself all with his own, then, alas! not at all a vulgar appearance, and from it I tried to guess who the landowner himself was, whether he was fat, and whether he had sons, or as many as six daughters with ringing girlish laughter, games and an eternal beauty, a younger sister, and whether they were black-eyed, and a merry fellow whether he himself, or gloomy, like September in the last days, looks at the calendar and talks about rye and wheat, boring for youth.

Now I indifferently drive up to any unfamiliar village and look indifferently at its vulgar appearance; my chilled gaze is uncomfortable, it’s not funny to me, and what in previous years would have awakened a lively movement in the face, laughter and incessant speeches, now slips by, and my motionless lips keep an indifferent silence. O my youth! oh my freshness!

While Chichikov was thinking and inwardly laughing at the nickname bestowed by the peasants on Plyushkin, he did not notice how he drove into the middle of a vast village with many huts and streets. Soon, however, he noticed this remarkable jolt, produced by a log pavement, in front of which the city stone was nothing. These logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the unwary rider acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead, or it happened with his own teeth to bite off painfully the tail of his own tongue. He noticed some special dilapidation on all the village buildings: the log on the huts was dark and old; many roofs blew through like a sieve; on others, there was only a ridge on top and poles on the sides in the form of ribs. It seems that the owners themselves took down the rags and hemp from them, arguing, and, of course, it’s fair that they don’t cover the hut in the rain, and they don’t drop into the bucket themselves, but there’s no need to fumble in it when there is room both in the tavern and on the big road, in a word, wherever you want. The windows in the huts were without glass, others were plugged with a rag or zipun; balconies under roofs with railings, for unknown reasons, made in other Russian huts, squinted and turned black, not even picturesquely. Behind the huts in many places stretched rows of huge stacks of bread, which, apparently, had stagnated for a long time; they looked like old, poorly baked bricks in color, all sorts of rubbish grew on their top, and even bushes clung to the side. The bread, apparently, was master's. From behind grain stores and dilapidated roofs, two village churches, one near the other, rose and flashed in the clear air, now to the right, then to the left, as the britzka made turns: an empty wooden one and a stone one, with yellowish walls, stained, cracked. Partially, the master's house began to show itself, and finally looked all in the place where the chain of huts was broken and instead of them there was a wasteland of a vegetable garden or a bush, surrounded by a low, in some places broken city. This strange castle looked like some kind of decrepit invalid, long, unreasonably long. In some places it was one story, in other places it was two; on the dark roof, which did not reliably protect his old age everywhere, two belvederes stuck out, one opposite the other, both already tottering, deprived of the paint that once covered them. The walls of the house slitted bare stucco grating in places and, apparently, suffered a lot from all sorts of bad weather, rains, whirlwinds and autumn changes. Of the windows, only two were open; the rest were shuttered or even boarded up. These two windows, for their part, were also half-sighted; on one of them a pasted triangle of

blue sugar paper. [...]

Having made one or two turns, our hero finally found himself in front of the house, which now seemed even sadder. Green mold has already covered the decayed wood on the fence and gate. A crowd of buildings: human buildings, barns, cellars, apparently dilapidated, filled the yard; near them, to the right and to the left, gates to other courtyards were visible. Everything said that farming had once flown here on a vast scale, and everything looked cloudy now. Nothing was noticeable to enliven the picture: no doors opening, no people coming out from somewhere, no living troubles and worries at home! Only one main gate was open, and that was because a muzhik drove in with a loaded cart covered with matting, appearing, as if on purpose, to revive this extinct place; at other times, they were also locked tightly, for a giant lock hung in an iron loop. At one of the buildings, Chichikov soon noticed some figure who began to quarrel with a peasant who had arrived in a cart. For a long time he could not recognize what gender the figure was: a woman or a man. Her dress was completely indefinite, very similar to a woman's bonnet, on her head was a cap, such as village yard women wear, only one voice seemed to him somewhat hoarse for a woman. "Oh, woman!" he thought to himself, and immediately added: "Oh, no!" - "Of course, woman!" he finally said, looking at

closer. The figure, for its part, looked at him intently, too. It seemed that the guest was a novelty for her, because she examined not only him, but also Selifan and the horses, from tail to muzzle. From the keys hanging from her belt and from the fact that she scolded the peasant with rather obnoxious words, Chichikov concluded that this must be the housekeeper.

Listen, mother, - he said, leaving the britzka, - what about Barin? ..

Not at home, - the housekeeper interrupted, without waiting for the end of the question, and then, after a minute, she added: - What do you need?

There is a thing!

Go to the rooms! - said the housekeeper, turning away and showing him her back, stained with flour, with a large hole below.

He stepped into the dark wide passage, from which a cold breeze blew, as from a cellar. From the passage he got into a room, also dark, slightly illuminated by light coming out from under a wide crack at the bottom of the door. Opening this door, he finally found himself in the light and was struck by the disorder that presented itself. It seemed as if the floors were being washed in the house and all the furniture had been piled up here for a while. On one table there was even a broken chair, and next to it was a clock with a stopped pendulum, to which a spider had already attached a web. Right there, leaning sideways against the wall, was a cupboard filled with antique silver, decanters, and Chinese porcelain. On the bure, lined with mother-of-pearl mosaics, which had already fallen out in places and left behind only yellowish grooves filled with glue, lay a lot of all sorts of things: a bunch of finely written papers covered with a greenish marble press with an egg on top, some old book bound in leather with red cut, a lemon, all dried up, not more than a hazelnut, a broken off armchair, a glass with some liquid and three flies, covered with a letter, a piece of sealing wax, a piece of a rag raised somewhere, two feathers stained with ink, dried up, as in consumption, a toothpick, completely yellowed, with which the owner, perhaps, picked his teeth even before the French invasion of Moscow.[...]

It would have been impossible to say that a living creature lived in this room, if the old, worn cap, lying on the table, did not herald his presence. While he was examining all the strange decoration, a side door opened, and the same housekeeper, whom he had met in the yard, entered. But then he saw that it was rather a housekeeper than a housekeeper: at least the housekeeper does not shave his beard, but this one, on the contrary, shaved, and it seemed quite rarely, because his entire chin with the lower part of the cheek looked like a comber from iron wire, which is used to clean horses in the stable. Chichikov, putting on an inquiring expression on his face, waited impatiently for what the housekeeper wanted to tell him. The key keeper, for his part, also expected what Chichikov wanted to tell him. Finally, the last, surprised ta-

With strange bewilderment, he decided to ask:

What is the barin? at home, right?

The owner is here, - said the keykeeper.

Where? Chichikov repeated.

What, father, are they blind, or what? - said the key. - Ehwa! And I'm the owner!

Here our hero involuntarily stepped back and looked at him intently. He happened to see many different kinds of people, even such as the reader and I may never have to see; but he had never seen anything like it. His face was nothing special; it was almost the same as that of many thin old men, only one chin protruded very far forward, so that he had to cover it with a handkerchief every time so as not to spit; little eyes had not yet gone out and were running from under high-growing eyebrows like mice when, sticking out their pointed muzzles from dark holes, pricking up their ears and blinking their mustaches, they look out for a cat or a naughty boy hiding somewhere, and suspiciously smell the very air. Much more remarkable was his attire: no means or efforts would have been possible to get to the bottom of what his dressing gown was concocted from: the sleeves and upper floors were so greasy and shiny that they looked like yuft, which is used for boots; behind, instead of two, four floors dangled, from which cotton paper climbed in flakes. He also had something tied around his neck that could not be made out: whether it was a stocking, a garter, or an underbelly, but not a tie. In a word, if Chichikov had met him, dressed up like that, somewhere at the church doors, he would probably have given him a copper penny. For to the honor of our hero, it must be said that his heart was compassionate and he could not resist in any way not to give the poor man a copper penny. But before him stood not a beggar, before him stood a landowner. This landowner had more than a thousand souls, and anyone else would have tried to find so much bread in grain, flour and just in the luggage, who would have pantries, barns and dryers cluttered with such a multitude of canvases, cloths, dressed sheepskins and rawhide, dried fish and any vegetable, or gubin. If someone had looked into his working yard, where it was prepared for a supply of all kinds of wood and utensils that had never been used, it would have seemed to him that he had somehow ended up in Moscow on a wood chip yard, where quick mothers-in-law and mother-in-law, with cooks behind, to make their household supplies and where every tree whitens like mountains - sewn, chiseled, laid and wicker: barrels, crossed, tubs, lagoons, jugs with stigmas and without stigmas, brothers, baskets, mykolniki, where the women put their lobes and other squabbles, boxes made of thin bent aspen, beetroots made of wicker birch bark, and a lot of everything that goes to the needs of rich and poor Russia. Why would Plyushkin, it seemed, need such a destruction of such products? in his whole life he would not have had to use them even on two such estates as he had - but even this seemed to him not enough. Not satisfied with this, he still walked every day through the streets of his village, looked under the bridges, under the crossbeams and everything that came across to him: an old sole, a woman's rag, an iron nail, a clay shard - he dragged everything to himself and put it in the pile that Chichikov noticed in the corner of the room. "There already the fisherman went hunting!" - the peasants said when they saw him going to prey. And in fact, after him there was no need to sweep the street: a passing officer happened to lose his spur, this spur immediately went into a known heap; if a woman, somehow gaping at the well, forgot the bucket, he dragged the bucket away. however, when the peasant who noticed him caught him right there, he did not argue and handed over the stolen thing; but as soon as it got into a pile, then it was all over: he swore that the thing was his, bought by him then, from someone, or inherited from his grandfather. In his room, he picked up everything he saw from the floor: sealing wax, a piece of paper, a feather, and put it all on a bureau or on a window.

But there was a time when he was only a thrifty owner! He was married and a family man, and a neighbor came to dine with him, listen to him and learn from him housekeeping and wise stinginess. Everything flowed vividly and took place at a measured pace: mills, felters were moving, cloth factories, carpentry machines, spinning mills were working; everywhere the keen glance of the owner entered into everything and, like an industrious spider, he ran troublesomely, but quickly, along all ends of his economic web. Too strong feelings were not reflected in his features, but intelligence was visible in his eyes; his speech was permeated with experience and knowledge of the world, and it was pleasant for the guest to listen to him; the friendly and talkative hostess was famous for her hospitality; two pretty daughters came out to meet them, both blond and fresh as roses; the son ran out, a broken boy, and kissed everyone, paying little attention to whether the guest was happy or not happy about this. All the windows in the house were open, the mezzanines were occupied by the apartment of a French teacher, who had a nice shave and was a great shooter: he always brought black grouse and ducks for dinner, and sometimes only sparrow eggs, from which he ordered scrambled eggs, because no one else in the house did not eat. His compatriot, the mentor of two girls, also lived on the mezzanine. The owner himself appeared at the table in a frock coat, although somewhat worn, but neat, the elbows were in order: there was no patch anywhere. But the good mistress died; part of the keys, and with them minor worries, passed to him. Plyushkin became more restless and, like all widowers, more suspicious and stingy. He could not rely on his eldest daughter Alexandra Stepanovna in everything, and he was right, because Alexandra Stepanovna soon ran away with the staff captain, God knows what cavalry regiment, and married him somewhere hastily in the village church, knowing that her father does not like officers due to a strange prejudice, as if all military gamblers and motishki. Her father sent a curse to her on the road, but did not care to pursue. The house became even more empty. In the owner, stinginess became more noticeable, his gray hair sparkling in his coarse hair, her faithful friend, helped her to develop even more; the French teacher was released because it was time for his son to serve; Madame was driven away, because she turned out to be not without sin in the abduction of Alexandra Stepanovna; the son, being sent to the provincial town, in order to find out in the ward, in the opinion of his father, an essential service, decided instead to join the regiment and wrote to his father already in his own definition, asking for money for uniforms; it is quite natural that he received for this what is called shish in the common people. Finally, the last daughter who remained with him in the house died, and the old man found himself alone the watchman, keeper and owner of his wealth. A solitary life has given nourishment to avarice, which, as you know, has a ravenous hunger, and the more it devours, the more insatiable it becomes; human feelings, which were already not deep in him, grew shallow every minute, and every day something was lost in this worn-out ruin. If it happened at such a moment, as if on purpose to confirm his opinion about the military, that his son lost at cards; he sent him his father's curse from the bottom of his heart and was never interested in knowing whether he existed in the world or not. Every year the windows in his house were pretended to be, finally only two remained, of which one, as the reader has already seen, was sealed with paper; every year more and more of the main parts of the household went out of sight, and his petty glance turned to the pieces of paper and feathers that he collected in his room; he became more uncompromising to the buyers who came to take away his household works; the buyers bargained and bargained and finally abandoned him altogether, saying that he was a demon and not a man; hay and bread rotted, stacks and haystacks turned into clean carts, even plant cabbage on them, flour in the cellars turned into stone, and it was necessary to chop it, it was terrible to touch the cloth, canvas and household materials: they turned into dust. He himself had already forgotten how much he had, and he only remembered where in his closet there was a decanter with the rest of some kind of tincture, on which he himself made a mark so that no one thieves would drink it, and where the feather lay. or wax. Meanwhile, income was collected on the farm as before: the peasant had to bring the same amount of quitrent, every woman had to pay the same amount of nuts, the weaver had to weave the same amount of linen - all this fell into the pantries, and everything became rotten and torn , and he himself turned at last into some kind of tear in humanity. [...]

And so, what kind of landowner stood before Chichikov! It must be said that such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Russia, where everything likes to turn around rather than shrink, and it is all the more striking that right there in the neighborhood a landowner will turn up, reveling in the full breadth of Russian prowess and nobility, burning, as they say, through life . [...]

And a person could descend to such insignificance, pettiness, disgust! could have changed! And does it look like it's true? Everything seems to be true, everything can happen to a person. The current fiery young man would jump back in horror if they showed him his own portrait in old age. Take with you on your journey, emerging from your soft youthful years into a stern, hardening courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, do not pick them up later! Terrible, terrible is the coming old age ahead, and gives nothing back and back! The grave is more merciful than her, on the grave it will be written: "A man is buried here!" - but nothing can be read in the cold, insensitive features of inhuman old age.

Glossary

Mezzanine, pl. - The top floor of the house.

bang, nesov. - To bask.

Gazebo, m. - A small structure towering above the roof.

Beetroot, m. - A box of birch bark.

squabble, m. - Small items; trash.

Zipun, m. - Peasant working caftan.

Flat, well. - Housing, place of residence.

compatriot, well. - Compatriot.

madam, well. - A French governess.

lobe, well. - Thread, fiber, yarn.

Mykolnik, m. - Lukoshko.

crossed, m. - A barrel sawn in half.

twin brother, g - Large foot, a vessel for drinking.

Siberia, well. - A kind of short caftan.

frock coat, m. - Men's top double-breasted clothing at the waist in long floors.

Staff captain, m. - Officer rank in the pre-revolutionary Russian army, as well as

face in this rank.

Pitched yard.- A market where they sold wooden carved, turning utensils.

Yuft, well. - Bull or cow leather dressed with tar.