Russian Classics Ultimate Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ all means.”

      “Yes, him I know well, for we were friends together at school.”

      Over Plushkin’s wooden features there had gleamed a ray of warmth — a ray which expressed, if not feeling, at all events feeling’s pale reflection. Just such a phenomenon may be witnessed when, for a brief moment, a drowning man makes a last re-appearance on the surface of a river, and there rises from the crowd lining the banks a cry of hope that even yet the exhausted hands may clutch the rope which has been thrown him — may clutch it before the surface of the unstable element shall have resumed for ever its calm, dread vacuity. But the hope is short-lived, and the hands disappear. Even so did Plushkin’s face, after its momentary manifestation of feeling, become meaner and more insensible than ever.

      “There used to be a sheet of clean writing paper lying on the table,” he went on. “But where it is now I cannot think. That comes of my servants being such rascals.”

      Whit that he fell to looking also under the table, as well as to hurrying about with cries of “Mavra, Mavra!” At length the call was answered by a woman with a plateful of the sugar of which mention has been made; whereupon there ensued the following conversation.

      “What have you done with my piece of writing paper, you pilferer?”

      “I swear that I have seen no paper except the bit with which you covered the glass.”

      “Your very face tells me that you have made off with it.”

      “Why should I make off with it? ‘Twould be of no use to me, for I can neither read nor write.”

      “You lie! You have taken it away for the sexton to scribble upon.”

      “Well, if the sexton wanted paper he could get some for himself. Neither he nor I have set eyes upon your piece.”

      “Ah! Wait a bit, for on the Judgment Day you will be roasted by devils on iron spits. Just see if you are not!”

      “But why should I be roasted when I have never even TOUCHED the paper? You might accuse me of any other fault than theft.”

      “Nay, devils shall roast you, sure enough. They will say to you, ‘Bad woman, we are doing this because you robbed your master,’ and then stoke up the fire still hotter.”

      “Nevertheless I shall continue to say, ‘You are roasting me for nothing, for I never stole anything at all.’ Why, THERE it is, lying on the table! You have been accusing me for no reason whatever!”

      And, sure enough, the sheet of paper was lying before Plushkin’s very eyes. For a moment or two he chewed silently. Then he went on:

      “Well, and what are you making such a noise about? If one says a single word to you, you answer back with ten. Go and fetch me a candle to seal a letter with. And mind you bring a TALLOW candle, for it will not cost so much as the other sort. And bring me a match too.”

      Mavra departed, and Plushkin, seating himself, and taking up a pen, sat turning the sheet of paper over and over, as though in doubt whether to tear from it yet another morsel. At length he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to do so, and therefore, dipping the pen into the mixture of mouldy fluid and dead flies which the ink bottle contained, started to indite the letter in characters as bold as the notes of a music score, while momentarily checking the speed of his hand, lest it should meander too much over the paper, and crawling from line to line as though he regretted that there was so little vacant space left on the sheet.

      “And do you happen to know any one to whom a few runaway serfs would be of use?” he asked as subsequently he folded the letter.

      “What? You have some runaways as well?” exclaimed Chichikov, again greatly interested.

      “Certainly I have. My son-in-law has laid the necessary information against them, but says that their tracks have grown cold. However, he is only a military man — that is to say, good at clinking a pair of spurs, but of no use for laying a plea before a court.”

      “And how many runaways have you?”

      “About seventy.”

      “Surely not?”

      “Alas, yes. Never does a year pass without a certain number of them making off. Yet so gluttonous and idle are my serfs that they are simply bursting with food, whereas I scarcely get enough to eat. I will take any price for them that you may care to offer. Tell your friends about it, and, should they find even a score of the runaways, it will repay them handsomely, seeing that a living serf on the census list is at present worth five hundred roubles.”

      “Perhaps so, but I am not going to let any one but myself have a finger in this,” thought Chichikov to himself; after which he explained to Plushkin that a friend of the kind mentioned would be impossible to discover, since the legal expenses of the enterprise would lead to the said friend having to cut the very tail from his coat before he would get clear of the lawyers.

      “Nevertheless,” added Chichikov, “seeing that you are so hard pressed for money, and that I am so interested in the matter, I feel moved to advance you — well, to advance you such a trifle as would scarcely be worth mentioning.”

      “But how much is it?” asked Plushkin eagerly, and with his hands trembling like quicksilver.

      “Twenty-five kopecks per soul.”

      “What? In ready money?”

      “Yes — in money down.”

      “Nevertheless, consider my poverty, dear friend, and make it FORTY kopecks per soul.”

      “Venerable sir, would that I could pay you not merely forty kopecks, but five hundred roubles. I should be only too delighted if that were possible, since I perceive that you, an aged and respected gentleman, are suffering for your own goodness of heart.”

      “By God, that is true, that is true.” Plushkin hung his head, and wagged it feebly from side to side. “Yes, all that I have done I have done purely out of kindness.”

      “See how instantaneously I have divined your nature! By now it will have become clear to you why it is impossible for me to pay you five hundred roubles per runaway soul: for by now you will have gathered the fact that I am not sufficiently rich. Nevertheless, I am ready to add another five kopecks, and so to make it that each runaway serf shall cost me, in all, thirty kopecks.”

      “As you please, dear sir. Yet stretch another point, and throw in another two kopecks.”

      “Pardon me, but I cannot. How many runaway serfs did you say that you possess? Seventy?”

      “No; seventy-eight.”

“Seventy-eight souls at thirty kopecks each will amount to — to —” only for a moment did our hero halt, since he was strong in his arithmetic, “— will amount to twenty-four roubles, ninety-six kopecks.”²⁸

²⁸ Nevertheless Chichikov would appear to have erred, since most people would make the sum amount to twenty-three roubles, forty kopecks. If so, Chichikov cheated himself of СКАЧАТЬ