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

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      The material met with the customer’s approval, a price was agreed upon, and with incredible celerity the vendor made up the purchase into a brown-paper parcel, and stowed it away in Chichikov’s koliaska.

      At this moment a voice asked to be shown a black frockcoat.

      “The devil take me if it isn’t Khlobuev!” muttered our hero, turning his back upon the newcomer. Unfortunately the other had seen him.

      “Come, come, Paul Ivanovitch!” he expostulated. “Surely you do not intend to overlook me? I have been searching for you everywhere, for I have something important to say to you.”

      “My dear sir, my very dear sir,” said Chichikov as he pressed Khlobuev’s hand, “I can assure you that, had I the necessary leisure, I should at all times be charmed to converse with you.” And mentally he added: “Would that the Evil One would fly away with you!”

      Almost at the same time Murazov, the great landowner, entered the shop. As he did so our hero hastened to exclaim: “Why, it is Athanasi Vassilievitch! How ARE you, my very dear sir?”

      “Well enough,” replied Murazov, removing his cap (Khlobuev and the shopman had already done the same). “How, may I ask, are YOU?”

      “But poorly,” replied Chichikov, “for of late I have been troubled with indigestion, and my sleep is bad. I do not get sufficient exercise.”

      However, instead of probing deeper into the subject of Chichikov’s ailments, Murazov turned to Khlobuev.

      “I saw you enter the shop,” he said, “and therefore followed you, for I have something important for your ear. Could you spare me a minute or two?”

      “Certainly, certainly,” said Khlobuev, and the pair left the shop together.

      “I wonder what is afoot between them,” said Chichikov to himself.

      “A wise and noble gentleman, Athanasi Vassilievitch!” remarked the tradesman. Chichikov made no reply save a gesture.

      “Paul Ivanovitch, I have been looking for you everywhere,” Lienitsin’s voice said from behind him, while again the tradesman hastened to remove his cap. “Pray come home with me, for I have something to say to you.”

      Chichikov scanned the speaker’s face, but could make nothing of it. Paying the tradesman for the cloth, he left the shop.

      Meanwhile Murazov had conveyed Khlobuev to his rooms.

      “Tell me,” he said to his guest, “exactly how your affairs stand. I take it that, after all, your aunt left you something?”

      “It would be difficult to say whether or not my affairs are improved,” replied Khlobuev. “True, fifty souls and thirty thousand roubles came to me from Madame Khanasarova, but I had to pay them away to satisfy my debts. Consequently I am once more destitute. But the important point is that there was trickery connected with the legacy, and shameful trickery at that. Yes, though it may surprise you, it is a fact that that fellow Chichikov —”

      “Yes, Semen Semenovitch, but, before you go on to speak of Chichikov, pray tell me something about yourself, and how much, in your opinion, would be sufficient to clear you of your difficulties?”

      “My difficulties are grievous,” replied Khlobuev. “To rid myself of them, and also to have enough to go on with, I should need to acquire at least a hundred thousand roubles, if not more. In short, things are becoming impossible for me.”

      “And, had you the money, what should you do with it?”

      “I should rent a tenement, and devote myself to the education of my children. Not a thought should I give to myself, for my career is over, seeing that it is impossible for me to re-enter the Civil Service and I am good for nothing else.”

      “Nevertheless, when a man is leading an idle life he is apt to incur temptations which shun his better-employed brother.”

      “Yes, but beyond question I am good for nothing, so broken is my health, and such a martyr I am to dyspepsia.”

      “But how to you propose to live without working? How can a man like you exist without a post or a position of any kind? Look around you at the works of God. Everything has its proper function, and pursues its proper course. Even a stone can be used for one purpose or another. How, then, can it be right for a man who is a thinking being to remain a drone?”

      “But I should not be a drone, for I should employ myself with the education of my children.”

      “No, Semen Semenovitch — no: THAT you would find the hardest task of all. For how can a man educate his children who has never even educated himself? Instruction can be imparted to children only through the medium of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a profitable example — a life which has been spent in idleness and the playing of cards? No, Semen Semenovitch. You had far better hand your children over to me. Otherwise they will be ruined. Do not think that I am jesting. Idleness has wrecked your life, and you must flee from it. Can a man live with nothing to keep him in place? Even a journeyman labourer who earns the barest pittance may take an interest in his occupation.”

      “Athanasi Vassilievitch, I have tried to overcome myself, but what further resource lies open to me? Can I who am old and incapable re-enter the Civil Service and spend year after year at a desk with youths who are just starting their careers? Moreover, I have lost the trick of taking bribes; I should only hinder both myself and others; while, as you know, it is a department which has an established caste of its own. Therefore, though I have considered, and even attempted to obtain, every conceivable post, I find myself incompetent for them all. Only in a monastery should I—”

      “Nay, nay. Monasteries, again, are only for those who have worked. To those who have spent their youth in dissipation such havens say what the ant said to the dragonfly — namely, ‘Go you away, and return to your dancing.’ Yes, even in a monastery do folk toil and toil — they do not sit playing whist.” Murazov looked at Khlobuev, and added: “Semen Semenovitch, you are deceiving both yourself and me.”

      Poor Khlobuev could not utter a word in reply, and Murazov began to feel sorry for him.

      “Listen, Semen Semenovitch,” he went on. “I know that you say your prayers, and that you go to church, and that you observe both Matins and Vespers, and that, though averse to early rising, you leave your bed at four o’clock in the morning before the household fires have been lit.”

      “Ah, Athanasi Vassilievitch,” said Khlobuev, “that is another matter altogether. That I do, not for man’s sake, but for the sake of Him who has ordered all things here on earth. Yes, I believe that He at least can feel compassion for me, that He at least, though I be foul and lowly, will pardon me and receive me when all men have cast me out, and my best friend has betrayed me and boasted that he has done it for a good end.”

      Khlobuev’s face was glowing with emotion, and from the older man’s eyes also a tear had started.

      “You will do well to hearken unto Him who is merciful,” he said. “But remember also that, in the eyes of the All-Merciful, honest toil is of equal merit with a prayer. Therefore take unto yourself whatsoever task you may, and do it as though you were doing it, not unto man, СКАЧАТЬ