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Updated: June 5, 2025
"She seems a truly obstinate old woman!" was Chichikov's inward comment. "Look here, madam," he added aloud. "You reason well, but you are simply ruining yourself by continuing to pay the tax upon dead souls as though they were still alive." "Oh, good sir, do not speak of it!" the lady exclaimed. "Three weeks ago I took a hundred and fifty roubles to that Assessor, and buttered him up, and "
Presently, when Proshka and the boots had departed, he fell to gazing at his guest with an equally distrustful air, since certain features in Chichikov's benevolence now struck him as a little open to question, and he had begin to think to himself: "After all, the devil only knows who he is whether a braggart, like most of these spendthrifts, or a fellow who is lying merely in order to get some tea out of me."
Never once did Sobakevitch's face move a muscle, and, as for Manilov, he was too much under the spell of Chichikov's eloquence to do aught beyond nod his approval at intervals, and strike the kind of attitude which is assumed by lovers of music when a lady singer has, in rivalry of an accompanying violin, produced a note whereof the shrillness would exceed even the capacity of a bird's throstle.
Finally Chichikov's gratitude led him to plunge into a stream of acknowledgement of a vehemence which caused his host to grow confused, to blush, to shake his head in deprecation, and to end by declaring that the concession was nothing, and that, his one desire being to manifest the dictates of his heart and the psychic magnetism which his friend exercised, he, in short, looked upon the dead souls as so much worthless rubbish.
"Yes, damn it! And since that date I have been bled for taxes upon a hundred and twenty souls in all." "Indeed? Upon a hundred and twenty souls in all!" And Chichikov's surprise and elation were such that, this said, he remained sitting open-mouthed. "Yes, good sir," replied Plushkin. "I am too old to tell you lies, for I have passed my seventieth year."
Indeed, for all Chichikov's storming and raging as he dubbed the fellows robbers and extortioners and thieves, he could make no impression upon the pair, since, true to their character, they declined to abate their prices, and, even when they had begun their work, spent upon it, not two hours, but five and a half.
In the end Chichikov's dispatch-box was brought from the koliaska, and Khlobuev received thence ten thousand roubles, together with a promise that the remaining five thousand should be forthcoming on the morrow; though the promise was given only after Chichikov had first proposed that THREE thousand should be brought on the day named, and the rest be left over for two or three days longer, if not for a still more protracted period.
"Why have you gone and purchased souls from Plushkin?" whispered Sobakevitch in Chichikov's other ear. "Why did YOU go and add the woman Vorobei to your list?" retorted Chichikov. "Vorobei? Who is Vorobei?" "The woman 'Elizabet' Vorobei 'Elizabet, not 'Elizabeta?" "I added no such name," replied Sobakevitch, and straightway joined the other guests.
First, he had rebuked the gendarmes guarding Chichikov's effects for lack of vigilance, and then sent word to the Superintendent that additional men were required for the purpose; after which he had taken the dispatch-box into his own charge, removed from it every paper which could possibly compromise Chichikov, sealed up the rest in a packet, and ordered a gendarme to convey the whole to their owner on the pretence of forwarding him sundry garments necessary for the night.
Is not that so?" Everything in life fulfils its function, and Chichikov's tour in search of a fortune was carried out so successfully that not a little money passed into his pockets. The system employed was a good one: he did not steal, he merely used.
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