Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol [best biographies to read .TXT] 📗

word, and also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can these things be procured in the country.”

“Nothing to eat, yet dancing lessons for his children!” reflected Chichikov.

“An extraordinary man!” was Platon’s unspoken comment.

“However, we must contrive to wet our bargain somehow,” continued Khlobuev. “Hi, Kirushka! Bring that bottle of champagne.”

“Nothing to eat, yet champagne to drink!” reflected Chichikov. As for Platon, he did not know what to think.

In Khlobuev’s eyes it was de rigueur that he should provide a guest with champagne; but, though he had sent to the town for some, he had been met with a blank refusal to forward even a bottle of kvass on credit. Only the discovery of a French dealer who had recently transferred his business from St. Petersburg, and opened a connection on a system of general credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev under the obligation of patronising him.

The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful. In particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and friendliness, and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left. What knowledge of men and the world did his utterances display! How well and accurately could he divine things! With what appositeness did he sketch the neighbouring landowners! How clearly he exposed their faults and failings! How thoroughly he knew the story of certain ruined gentry⁠—the story of how, why, and through what cause they had fallen upon evil days! With what comic originality could he describe their little habits and customs!

In short, his guests found themselves charmed with his discourse, and felt inclined to vote him a man of first-rate intellect.

“What most surprises me,” said Chichikov, “is how, in view of your ability, you come to be so destitute of means or resources.”

“But I have plenty of both,” said Khlobuev, and with that went on to deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and mentally exclaim: “Good Lord! What a difference between worldly wisdom and the capacity to use it!” In every case the projects in question were based upon the imperative necessity of at once procuring from somewhere two hundred⁠—or at least one hundred⁠—thousand roubles. That done (so Khlobuev averred), everything would fall into its proper place, the holes in his pockets would become stopped, his income would be quadrupled, and he would find himself in a position to liquidate his debts in full. Nevertheless he ended by saying: “What would you advise me to do? I fear that the philanthropist who would lend me two hundred thousand roubles or even a hundred thousand, does not exist. It is not God’s will that he should.”

“Good gracious!” inwardly ejaculated Chichikov. “To suppose that God would send such a fool two hundred thousand roubles!”

“However,” went on Khlobuev, “I possess an aunt worth three millions⁠—a pious old woman who gives freely to churches and monasteries, but finds a difficulty in helping her neighbour. At the same time, she is a lady of the old school, and worth having a peep at. Her canaries alone number four hundred, and, in addition, there is an army of pug-dogs, hangers-on, and servants. Even the youngest of the servants is sixty, but she calls them all ‘young fellows,’ and if a guest happens to offend her during dinner, she orders them to leave him out when handing out the dishes. There’s a woman for you!”

Platon laughed.

“And what may her family name be?” asked Chichikov. “And where does she live?”

“She lives in the county town, and her name is Alexandra Ivanovna Khanasarov.”

“Then why do you not apply to her?” asked Platon earnestly. “It seems to me that, once she realised the position of your family, she could not possibly refuse you.”

“Alas! nothing is to be looked for from that quarter,” replied Khlobuev. “My aunt is of a very stubborn disposition⁠—a perfect stone of a woman. Moreover, she has around her a sufficient band of favourites already. In particular is there a fellow who is aiming for a Governorship, and to that end has managed to insinuate himself into the circle of her kinsfolk. By the way,” the speaker added, turning to Platon, “would you do me a favour? Next week I am giving a dinner to the associated guilds of the town.”

Platon stared. He had been unaware that both in our capitals and in our provincial towns there exists a class of men whose lives are an enigma⁠—men who, though they will seem to have exhausted their substance, and to have become enmeshed in debt, will suddenly be reported as in funds, and on the point of giving a dinner! And though, at this dinner, the guests will declare that the festival is bound to be their host’s last fling, and that for a certainty he will be haled to prison on the morrow, ten years or more will elapse, and the rascal will still be at liberty, even though, in the meanwhile, his debts will have increased!

In the same way did the conduct of Khlobuev’s ménage afford a curious phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te Deum, performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play performed by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again, one day would see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day a banquet and generous largesse given to a party of artists and sculptors. During these seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to have led anyone but Khlobuev to seek suicide by hanging or shooting), the master of the house would be preserved from rash action by his strongly religious disposition, which, contriving in some curious way to conform with his irregular mode of life, enabled him to fall back upon reading the lives of saints, ascetics, and others