Dead Souls (45 page)

"Never mind," said Kostanzhoglo. "Koshkarev is a most reassuring
phenomenon. He is necessary in that in him we see expressed in
caricature all the more crying follies of our intellectuals—of the
intellectuals who, without first troubling to make themselves
acquainted with their own country, borrow silliness from abroad. Yet
that is how certain of our landowners are now carrying on. They have
set up 'offices' and factories and schools and 'commissions,' and the
devil knows what else besides. A fine lot of wiseacres! After the
French War in 1812 they had to reconstruct their affairs: and see how
they have done it! Yet so much worse have they done it than a
Frenchman would have done that any fool of a Peter Petrovitch Pietukh
now ranks as a good landowner!"

"But he has mortgaged the whole of his estate?" remarked Chichikov.

"Yes, nowadays everything is being mortgaged, or is going to be." This
said, Kostanzhoglo's temper rose still further. "Out upon your
factories of hats and candles!" he cried. "Out upon procuring
candle-makers from London, and then turning landowners into hucksters!
To think of a Russian pomiestchik
^[49]
, a member of the noblest of
callings, conducting workshops and cotton mills! Why, it is for the
wenches of towns to handle looms for muslin and lace."

"But you yourself maintain workshops?" remarked Platon.

"I do; but who established them? They established themselves. For
instance, wool had accumulated, and since I had nowhere to store it, I
began to weave it into cloth—but, mark you, only into good, plain
cloth of which I can dispose at a cheap rate in the local markets, and
which is needed by peasants, including my own. Again, for six years on
end did the fish factories keep dumping their offal on my bank of the
river; wherefore, at last, as there was nothing to be done with it, I
took to boiling it into glue, and cleared forty thousand roubles by
the process."

"The devil!" thought Chichikov to himself as he stared at his host.
"What a fist this man has for making money!"

"Another reason why I started those factories," continued
Kostanzhoglo, "is that they might give employment to many peasants who
would otherwise have starved. You see, the year happened to have been
a lean one—thanks to those same industry-mongering landowners, in
that they had neglected to sow their crops; and now my factories keep
growing at the rate of a factory a year, owing to the circumstance
that such quantities of remnants and cuttings become so accumulated
that, if a man looks carefully to his management, he will find every
sort of rubbish to be capable of bringing in a return—yes, to the
point of his having to reject money on the plea that he has no need of
it. Yet I do not find that to do all this I require to build a mansion
with facades and pillars!"

"Marvellous!" exclaimed Chichikov. "Beyond all things does it surprise
me that refuse can be so utilised."

"Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays
every one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an
instrument instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England.
Yes, THAT is the thing to do. What folly!" Kostanzhoglo spat and
added: "Yet when he returns from abroad he is a hundred times more
ignorant than when he went."

"Ah, Constantine," put in his wife anxiously, "you know how bad for
you it is to talk like this."

"Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too
closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character
should be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort
of Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man
get a little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote,
and establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would
never have dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who
is good for nothing, whether in the country or in the town—a fellow
who drinks and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our
landowners keep taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into
philanthropic knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless
hospitals and institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning
their families adrift. Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy."

Chichikov's business had nothing to do with the spread of
enlightenment, he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further
concerning the putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo
would not let him get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow
of sarcastic comment pour from the speaker's lips.

"Yes," went on Kostanzhoglo, "folk are always scheming to educate the
peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will
educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown
stupid to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our
present-day scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and
at once you will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will
you find folk saying: 'The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought
to be familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above
his station.' And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant
will become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only
knows what diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of
eighteen who will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and
found himself left with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate.
Yes, that is what will come of infecting the peasant with such
rubbish. But, thank God, there is still one healthy class left to
us—a class which has never taken up with the 'advantages' of which I
speak. For that we ought to be grateful. And since, even yet, the
Russian agriculturist remains the most respect-worthy man in the land,
why should he be touched? Would to God every one were an
agriculturist!"

"Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of
occupations?" said Chichikov.

"The best, at all events—if not the most profitable. 'In the sweat of
thy brow shalt thou till the land.' To quote that requires no great
wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the
agricultural calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure,
more noble than in any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no
other calling ought to be practised: simply that the calling in
question lies at the root of all the rest. However much factories
may be established privately or by the law, there will still lie ready
to man's hand all that he needs—he will still require none of those
amenities which are sapping the vitality of our present-day folk, nor
any of those industrial establishments which make their profit, and
keep themselves going, by causing foolish measures to be adopted
which, in the end, are bound to deprave and corrupt our unfortunate
masses. I myself am determined never to establish any manufacture,
however profitable, which will give rise to a demand for 'higher
things,' such as sugar and tobacco—no not if I lose a million by my
refusing to do so. If corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it shall
not be through my hands. And I think that God will justify me in my
resolve. Twenty years have I lived among the common folk, and I know
what will inevitably come of such things."

"But what surprises me most," persisted Chichikov, "is that from
refuse it should be possible, with good management, to make such an
immensity of profit."

"And as for political economy," continued Kostanzhoglo, without
noticing him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, "—as
for political economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool
sitting on another fool's back, and flogging him along, even though
the rider can see no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle
will that fool climb—spectacles and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of
such things!" And the speaker spat derisively.

"That may be true," said his wife. "Yet you must not get angry about
it. Surely one can speak on such subjects without losing one's
temper?"

"As I listen to you, most worthy Constantine Thedorovitch," Chichikov
hastened to remark, "it becomes plain to me that you have penetrated
into the meaning of life, and laid your finger upon the essential root
of the matter. Yet supposing, for a moment, we leave the affairs of
humanity in general, and turn our attention to a purely individual
affair, might I ask you how, in the case of a man becoming a
landowner, and having a mind to grow wealthy as quickly as possible
(in order that he may fulfil his bounden obligations as a citizen), he
can best set about it?"

"How he can best set about growing wealthy?" repeated Kostanzhoglo.
"Why,—"

"Let us go to supper," interrupted the lady of the house, rising from
her chair, and moving towards the centre of the room, where she
wrapped her shivering young form in a shawl. Chichikov sprang up with
the alacrity of a military man, offered her his arm, and escorted her,
as on parade, to the dining-room, where awaiting them there was the
soup-toureen. From it the lid had just been removed, and the room was
redolent of the fragrant odour of early spring roots and herbs. The
company took their seats, and at once the servants placed the
remainder of the dishes (under covers) upon the table and withdrew,
for Kostanzhoglo hated to have servants listening to their employers'
conversation, and objected still more to their staring at him all the
while that he was eating.

When the soup had been consumed, and glasses of an excellent vintage
resembling Hungarian wine had been poured out, Chichikov said to his
host:

"Most worthy sir, allow me once more to direct your attention to the
subject of which we were speaking at the point when the conversation
became interrupted. You will remember that I was asking you how best a
man can set about, proceed in, the matter of growing . . ."

(Here from the original two pages are missing.)

. . . "A property for which, had he asked forty thousand, I should
still have demanded a reduction."

"Hm!" thought Chichikov; then added aloud: "But why do you not
purchase it yourself?"

"Because to everything there must be assigned a limit. Already my
property keeps me sufficiently employed. Moreover, I should cause our
local dvoriane to begin crying out in chorus that I am exploiting
their extremities, their ruined position, for the purpose of acquiring
land for under its value. Of that I am weary."

"How readily folk speak evil!" exclaimed Chichikov.

"Yes, and the amount of evil-speaking in our province surpasses
belief. Never will you hear my name mentioned without my being called
also a miser and a usurer of the worst possible sort; whereas my
accusers justify themselves in everything, and say that, 'though we
have wasted our money, we have started a demand for the higher
amenities of life, and therefore encouraged industry with our
wastefulness, a far better way of doing things than that practised by
Kostanzhoglo, who lives like a pig.'"

"Would
I
could live in your 'piggish' fashion!" ejaculated
Chichikov.

"And so forth, and so forth. Yet what are the 'higher amenities of
life'? What good can they do to any one? Even if a landowner of the
day sets up a library, he never looks at a single book in it, but soon
relapses into card-playing—the usual pursuit. Yet folk call me names
simply because I do not waste my means upon the giving of dinners! One
reason why I do not give such dinners is that they weary me; and
another reason is that I am not used to them. But come you to my house
for the purpose of taking pot luck, and I shall be delighted to see
you. Also, folk foolishly say that I lend money on interest; whereas
the truth is that if you should come to me when you are really in
need, and should explain to me openly how you propose to employ my
money, and I should perceive that you are purposing to use that money
wisely, and that you are really likely to profit thereby—well, in
that case you would find me ready to lend you all that you might ask
without interest at all."

"That is a thing which it is well to know," reflected Chichikov.

"Yes," repeated Kostanzhoglo, "under those circumstances I should
never refuse you my assistance. But I do object to throwing my money
to the winds. Pardon me for expressing myself so plainly. To think of
lending money to a man who is merely devising a dinner for his
mistress, or planning to furnish his house like a lunatic, or thinking
of taking his paramour to a masked ball or a jubilee in honour of some
one who had better never have been born!"

And, spitting, he came near to venting some expression which would
scarcely have been becoming in the presence of his wife. Over his face
the dark shadow of hypochondria had cast a cloud, and furrows had
formed on his brow and temples, and his every gesture bespoke the
influence of a hot, nervous rancour.

"But allow me once more to direct your attention to the subject of our
recently interrupted conversation," persisted Chichikov as he sipped a
glass of excellent raspberry wine. "That is to say, supposing I were
to acquire the property which you have been good enough to bring to my
notice, how long would it take me to grow rich?"

"That would depend on yourself," replied Kostanzhoglo with grim
abruptness and evident ill-humour. "You might either grow rich quickly
or you might never grow rich at all. If you made up your mind to grow
rich, sooner or later you would find yourself a wealthy man."

"Indeed?" ejaculated Chichikov.

"Yes," replied Kostanzhoglo, as sharply as though he were angry with
Chichikov. "You would merely need to be fond of work: otherwise you
would effect nothing. The main thing is to like looking after your
property. Believe me, you would never grow weary of doing so. People
would have it that life in the country is dull; whereas, if I were to
spend a single day as it is spent by some folk, with their stupid
clubs and their restaurants and their theatres, I should die of ennui.
The fools, the idiots, the generations of blind dullards! But a
landowner never finds the days wearisome—he has not the time. In his
life not a moment remains unoccupied; it is full to the brim. And with
it all goes an endless variety of occupations. And what occupations!
Occupations which genuinely uplift the soul, seeing that the landowner
walks with nature and the seasons of the year, and takes part in, and
is intimate with, everything which is evolved by creation. For let us
look at the round of the year's labours. Even before spring has
arrived there will have begun a general watching and a waiting for it,
and a preparing for sowing, and an apportioning of crops, and a
measuring of seed grain by byres, and drying of seed, and a dividing
of the workers into teams. For everything needs to be examined
beforehand, and calculations must be made at the very start. And as
soon as ever the ice shall have melted, and the rivers be flowing, and
the land have dried sufficiently to be workable, the spade will begin
its task in kitchen and flower garden, and the plough and the harrow
their tasks in the field; until everywhere there will be tilling and
sowing and planting. And do you understand what the sum of that labour
will mean? It will mean that the harvest is being sown, that the
welfare of the world is being sown, that the food of millions is being
put into the earth. And thereafter will come summer, the season of
reaping, endless reaping; for suddenly the crops will have ripened,
and rye-sheaf will be lying heaped upon rye-sheaf, with, elsewhere,
stocks of barley, and of oats, and of wheat. And everything will be
teeming with life, and not a moment will there need to be lost, seeing
that, had you even twenty eyes, you would have need for them all. And
after the harvest festivities there will be grain to be carted to byre
or stacked in ricks, and stores to be prepared for the winter, and
storehouses and kilns and cattle-sheds to be cleaned for the same
purpose, and the women to be assigned their tasks, and the totals of
everything to be calculated, so that one may see the value of what has
been done. And lastly will come winter, when in every threshing-floor
the flail will be working, and the grain, when threshed, will need to
be carried from barn to binn, and the mills require to be seen to, and
the estate factories to be inspected, and the workmen's huts to be
visited for the purpose of ascertaining how the muzhik is faring (for,
given a carpenter who is clever with his tools, I, for one, am only
too glad to spend an hour or two in his company, so cheering to me is
labour). And if, in addition, one discerns the end to which everything
is moving, and the manner in which the things of earth are everywhere
multiplying and multiplying, and bringing forth more and more fruit to
one's profiting, I cannot adequately express what takes place in a
man's soul. And that, not because of the growth in his wealth—money
is money and no more—but because he will feel that everything is the
work of his own hands, and that he has been the cause of everything,
and its creator, and that from him, as from a magician, there has
flowed bounty and goodness for all. In what other calling will you
find such delights in prospect?" As he spoke, Kostanzhoglo raised his
face, and it became clear that the wrinkles had fled from it, and
that, like the Tsar on the solemn day of his crowning, Kostanzhoglo's
whole form was diffusing light, and his features had in them a gentle
radiance. "In all the world," he repeated, "you will find no joys like
these, for herein man imitates the God who projected creation as the
supreme happiness, and now demands of man that he, too, should act as
the creator of prosperity. Yet there are folk who call such functions
tedious!"