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"No, for I see that you are unwilling to sell. I must say good-day to you." "Hold on, hold on!" exclaimed Sobakevitch, retaining his guest's hand, and at the same moment treading heavily upon his toes so heavily, indeed, that Chichikov gasped and danced with the pain. "I BEG your pardon!" said Sobakevitch hastily. "Evidently I have hurt you. Pray sit down again." "No," retorted Chichikov.
At length they reached the drawing-room, where Sobakevitch pointed to an armchair, and invited his guest to be seated. Chichikov gazed with interest at the walls and the pictures.
They consisted of the constantly blinking Public Prosecutor, the Inspector of the Medical Department, and others all, to quote Sobakevitch, "men who cumbered the ground for nothing." With some of them, however, Chichikov was altogether unacquainted, since certain substitutes and supernumeraries had to be pressed into the service from among the ranks of the subordinate staff.
"Here is he selling the goods before I have even had time to utter a word!" "And what about the price?" he added aloud. "Of course, the articles are not of a kind very easy to appraise." "I should be sorry to ask too much," said Sobakevitch. "How would a hundred roubles per head suit you?" "What, a hundred roubles per head?"
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.
Truly it was a pleasure to look at it. "And do you mind handing me the earnest money?" said Sobakevitch? "Yes, I do. Why need that be done? You can receive the money in a lump sum as soon as we visit the town." "But it is always the custom, you know," asserted Sobakevitch. "Then I cannot follow it, for I have no money with me. However, here are ten roubles." "Ten roubles, indeed?
As for Sobakevitch, that landowner replied that he considered Chichikov an excellent fellow, as well as that the souls whom he had sold to his visitor had been in the truest sense of the word alive, but that he could not answer for anything which might occur in the future, seeing that any difficulties which might arise in the course of the actual transferment of souls would not be HIS fault, in view of the fact that God was lord of all, and that fevers and other mortal complaints were so numerous in the world, and that instances of whole villages perishing through the same could be found on record.
Also, the tables and the chairs were of the same ponderous, unrestful order, and every single article in the room appeared to be saying either, "I, too, am a Sobakevitch," or "I am exactly like Sobakevitch." "I heard speak of you one day when I was visiting the President of the Council," said Chichikov, on perceiving that no one else had a mind to begin a conversation. "That was on Thursday last.
Chichikov approached and took her hand. The fact that she raised it nearly to the level of his lips apprised him of the circumstance that it had just been rinsed in cucumber oil. "My dear, allow me to introduce Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov," added Sobakevitch. "He has the honour of being acquainted both with our Governor and with our Postmaster."
However, Chichikov duly thanked the President, and then, turning to Sobakevitch, inquired after HIS health. "Thank God, I have nothing to complain of," replied Sobakevitch: which was true enough, seeing that a piece of iron would have caught cold and taken to sneezing sooner than would that uncouthly fashioned landowner.
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