Essential Novelists - Nikolai Gogol. Nikolai Gogol
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seizing Chichikov by the hand, Nozdrev drew him towards the other room, where, in spite of the fact that Chichikov, with his feet planted firmly on the floor, assured his host, again and again, that he knew exactly what the organ was like, he was forced once more to hear how Marlborough went to the war.
“Then, since you don’t care to give me any money for it,” persisted Nozdrev, “listen to the following proposal. I will give you the barrel-organ and all the dead souls which I possess, and in return you shall give me your britchka, and another three hundred roubles into the bargain.”
“Listen to the man! In that case, what should I have left to drive in?”
“Oh, I would stand you another britchka. Come to the coach-house, and I will show you the one I mean. It only needs repainting to look a perfectly splendid britchka.”
“The ramping, incorrigible devil!” thought Chichikov to himself as at all hazards he resolved to escape from britchkas, organs, and every species of dog, however marvellously barrel-ribbed and tucked up of paw.
“And in exchange, you shall have the britchka, the barrel-organ, and the dead souls,” repeated Nozdrev.
“I must decline the offer,” said Chichikov.
“And why?”
“Because I don’t WANT the things—I am full up already.”
“I can see that you don’t know how things should be done between good friends and comrades. Plainly you are a man of two faces.”
“What do you mean, you fool? Think for yourself. Why should I acquire articles which I don’t want?”
“Say no more about it, if you please. I have quite taken your measure. But see here. Should you care to play a game of banker? I am ready to stake both the dead souls and the barrel-organ at cards.”
“No; to leave an issue to cards means to submit oneself to the unknown,” said Chichikov, covertly glancing at the pack which Nozdrev had got in his hands. Somehow the way in which his companion had cut that pack seemed to him suspicious.
“Why ‘to the unknown’?” asked Nozdrev. “There is no such thing as ‘the unknown.’ Should luck be on your side, you may win the devil knows what a haul. Oh, luck, luck!” he went on, beginning to deal, in the hope of raising a quarrel. “Here is the cursed nine upon which, the other night, I lost everything. All along I knew that I should lose my money. Said I to myself: ‘The devil take you, you false, accursed card!’”
Just as Nozdrev uttered the words Porphyri entered with a fresh bottle of liquor; but Chichikov declined either to play or to drink.
“Why do you refuse to play?” asked Nozdrev.
“Because I feel indisposed to do so. Moreover, I must confess that I am no great hand at cards.”
“WHY are you no great hand at them?”
Chichikov shrugged his shoulders. “Because I am not,” he replied.
“You are no great hand at ANYTHING, I think.”
“What does that matter? God has made me so.”
“The truth is that you are a Thetuk, and nothing else. Once upon a time I believed you to be a good fellow, but now I see that you don’t understand civility. One cannot speak to you as one would to an intimate, for there is no frankness or sincerity about you. You are a regular Sobakevitch—just such another as he.”
“For what reason are you abusing me? Am I in any way at fault for declining to play cards? Sell me those souls if you are the man to hesitate over such rubbish.”
“The foul fiend take you! I was about to have given them to you for nothing, but now you shan’t have them at all—not if you offer me three kingdoms in exchange. Henceforth I will have nothing to do with you, you cobbler, you dirty blacksmith! Porphyri, go and tell the ostler to give the gentleman’s horses no oats, but only hay.”
This development Chichikov had hardly expected.
“And do you,” added Nozdrev to his guest, “get out of my sight.”
Yet in spite of this, host and guest took supper together—even though on this occasion the table was adorned with no wines of fictitious nomenclature, but only with a bottle which reared its solitary head beside a jug of what is usually known as vin ordinaire. When supper was over Nozdrev said to Chichikov as he conducted him to a side room where a bed had been made up:
“This is where you are to sleep. I cannot very well wish you good-night.”
Left to himself on Nozdrev’s departure, Chichikov felt in a most unenviable frame of mind. Full of inward vexation, he blamed himself bitterly for having come to see this man and so wasted valuable time; but even more did he blame himself for having told him of his scheme—for having acted as carelessly as a child or a madman. Of a surety the scheme was not one which ought to have been confided to a man like Nozdrev, for he was a worthless fellow who might lie about it, and append additions to it, and spread such stories as would give rise to God knows what scandals. “This is indeed bad!” Chichikov said to himself. “I have been an absolute fool.” Consequently he spent an uneasy night—this uneasiness being increased by the fact that a number of small, but vigorous, insects so feasted upon him that he could do nothing but scratch the spots and exclaim, “The devil take you and Nozdrev alike!” Only when morning was approaching did he fall asleep. On rising, he made it his first business (after donning dressing-gown and slippers) to cross the courtyard to the stable, for the purpose of ordering Selifan to harness the britchka. Just as he was returning from his errand he encountered Nozdrev, clad in a dressing-gown, and holding a pipe between his teeth.
Host and guest greeted one another in friendly fashion, and Nozdrev inquired how Chichikov had slept.
“Fairly well,” replied Chichikov, but with a touch of dryness in his tone.
“The same with myself,” said Nozdrev. “The truth is that such a lot of nasty brutes kept crawling over me that even to speak of it gives me the shudders. Likewise, as the effect of last night’s doings, a whole squadron of soldiers seemed to be camping on my chest, and giving me a flogging. Ugh! And whom also do you think I saw in a dream? You would never guess. Why, it was Staff-Captain Potsieluev and Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov!”
“Yes,” though Chichikov to himself, “and I wish that they too would give you a public thrashing!”
“I felt so ill!” went on Nozdrev. “And just after I had fallen asleep something DID come and sting me. Probably it was a party of hag fleas. Now, dress yourself, and I will be with you presently. First of all I must give that scoundrel of a bailiff a wigging.”
Chichikov departed to his own room to wash and dress; which process completed, he entered the dining-room to find the table laid with tea-things and a bottle of rum. Clearly no broom had yet touched the place, for there remained traces of the previous night’s dinner and supper in the shape of crumbs thrown over the floor and tobacco ash on the tablecloth. The host himself, when he entered, was still clad in a dressing-gown exposing a hairy chest; and as he sat holding his pipe in his hand, and drinking tea from a cup, he would have made a model for the sort of painter who prefers to portray gentlemen of the less curled and scented order.
“What think you?” he asked of Chichikov after a short silence. “Are you willing NOW to play me for those souls?”
“I have told you that I never play cards. If the souls are for sale, I will buy them.”
“I decline to sell them. Such would not be the course proper between friends. But a game of banker would be quite another matter. Let us deal the cards.”
“I have told you that I decline to play.”
“And you will not agree to an exchange?”
“No.”
“Then look