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Updated: May 21, 2025
Yes, my dear boy, no low lout, no cook's son has given us literature, science, art, law, conceptions of honour and duty . . . . For all these things mankind is indebted exclusively to the aristocracy, and from that point of view, the point of view of natural history, an inferior Sobakevitch by the very fact of his blue blood is superior and more useful than the very best merchant, even though the latter may have built fifteen museums.
Like everything else in the apartment, it bore a strong resemblance to Sobakevitch. When host and guest had been conversing for two minutes or so the door opened, and there entered the hostess a tall lady in a cap adorned with ribands of domestic colouring and manufacture. She entered deliberately, and held her head as erect as a palm. "This is my wife, Theodulia Ivanovna," said Sobakevitch.
"But why not tell Ivan Grigorievitch precisely what you have bought?" inquired Sobakevitch of Chichikov. "And why, Ivan Grigorievitch, do YOU not ask Monsieur Chichikov precisely what his purchases have consisted of? What a splendid lot of serfs, to be sure! I myself have sold him my wheelwright, Michiev." "What? You have sold him Michiev?" exclaimed the President. "I know the man well.
Yet stay: ONE decent fellow there is the Public Prosecutor; though even HE, if the truth be told, is little better than a pig." After these eulogia Chichikov saw that it would be useless to continue running through the list of officials more especially since suddenly he had remembered that Sobakevitch was not at any time given to commending his fellow man.
"Ought one, when leaving your gates, to turn to the right or to the left?" "I should be sorry to tell you the way to the house of such a cur," said Sobakevitch. "A man had far better go to hell than to Plushkin's." "Quite so," responded Chichikov. "My only reason for asking you is that it interests me to become acquainted with any and every sort of locality." There the meal ended.
"I am merely wasting my time, and must be off." "Oh, sit down just for a moment. I have something more agreeable to say." And, drawing closer to his guest, Sobakevitch whispered in his ear, as though communicating to him a secret: "How about twenty-five roubles?" "No, no, no!" exclaimed Chichikov. "I won't give you even a QUARTER of that. I won't advance another kopeck."
Chichikov, like the rest, had never before felt so gay, and, imagining himself really and truly to be a landowner of Kherson, spoke of various improvements in agriculture, of the three-field system of tillage , and of the beatific felicity of a union between two kindred souls. Also, he started to recite poetry to Sobakevitch, who blinked as he listened, for he greatly desired to go to sleep.
Somehow he seemed secretly to be saying to himself, "My good sir, you are talking the most absolute rubbish, and nothing but rubbish." Nor did he even throw a glance at Sobakevitch and Manilov. It was as though he were uncertain what he might not encounter in their expression. Yet he need not have been afraid.
On perceiving the feast to be ready, the host proposed that his guests should finish their whist after luncheon; whereupon all proceeded to the room whence for some time past an agreeable odour had been tickling the nostrils of those present, and towards the door of which Sobakevitch in particular had been glancing since the moment when he had caught sight of a huge sturgeon reposing on the sideboard.
After this reply Chichikov involuntarily threw a glance at Sobakevitch; and though that landowner's face was as motionless as every other, the other seemed to detect in it: "You liar! Don't tell ME that you own both a river and a lake, as well as the land which you say you do." Whilst the foregoing conversation had been in progress, various witnesses had been arriving on the scene.
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