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

inspiration — she had laid hold of the first thing which had happened to come to hand. For instance, had pepper represented the nearest article within reach, she had added pepper wholesale. Had a cabbage chanced to be so encountered, she had pressed it also into the service. And the same with milk, bacon, and peas. In short, her rule seemed to have been “Make a hot dish of some sort, and some sort of taste will result.” For the rest, Nozdrev drew heavily upon the wine. Even before the soup had been served, he had poured out for each guest a bumper of port and another of “haut” sauterne. (Never in provincial towns is ordinary, vulgar sauterne even procurable.) Next, he called for a bottle of madeira —“as fine a tipple as ever a field-marshall drank”; but the madeira only burnt the mouth, since the dealers, familiar with the taste of our landed gentry (who love “good” madeira) invariably doctor the stuff with copious dashes of rum and Imperial vodka, in the hope that Russian stomachs will thus be enabled to carry off the lot. After this bottle Nozdrev called for another and “a very special” brand — a brand which he declared to consist of a blend of burgundy and champagne, and of which he poured generous measures into the glasses of Chichikov and the brother-in-law as they sat to right and left of him. But since Chichikov noticed that, after doing so, he added only a scanty modicum of the mixture to his own tumbler, our hero determined to be cautious, and therefore took advantage of a moment when Nozdrev had again plunged into conversation and was yet a third time engaged in refilling his brother-in-law’s glass, to contrive to upset his (Chichikov’s) glass over his plate. In time there came also to table a tart of mountain-ashberries — berries which the host declared to equal, in taste, ripe plums, but which, curiously enough, smacked more of corn brandy. Next, the company consumed a sort of pasty of which the precise name has escaped me, but which the host rendered differently even on the second occasion of its being mentioned. The meal over, and the whole tale of wines tried, the guests still retained their seats — a circumstance which embarrassed Chichikov, seeing that he had no mind to propound his pet scheme in the presence of Nozdrev’s brother-in-law, who was a complete stranger to him. No, that subject called for amicable and PRIVATE conversation. Nevertheless, the brother-in-law appeared to bode little danger, seeing that he had taken on board a full cargo, and was now engaged in doing nothing of a more menacing nature than picking his nose. At length he himself noticed that he was not altogether in a responsible condition; wherefore he rose and began to make excuses for departing homewards, though in a tone so drowsy and lethargic that, to quote the Russian proverb, he might almost have been “pulling a collar on to a horse by the clasps.”

      “No, no!” cried Nozdrev. “I am NOT going to let you go.”

      “But I MUST go,” replied the brother-in-law. “Don’t dry to hinder me. You are annoying me greatly.”

      “Rubbish! We are going to play a game of banker.”

      “No, no. You must play it without me, my friend. My wife is expecting me at home, and I must go and tell her all about the fair. Yes, I MUST go if I am to please her. Do not try to detain me.”

      “Your wife be —! But have you REALLY an important piece of business with her?”

      “No, no, my friend. The real reason is that she is a good and trustful woman, and that she does a great deal for me. The tears spring to my eyes as I think of it. Do not detain me. As an honourable man I say that I must go. Of that I do assure you in all sincerity.”

      “Oh, let him go,” put in Chichikov under his breath. “What use will he be here?”

“Very well,” said Nozdrev, “though, damn it, I do not like fellows who lose their heads.” Then he added to his brother-in-law: “All right, Thetuk²⁰. Off you go to your wife and your woman’s talk and may the devil go with you!”

²⁰ A jeering appellation which owes its origin to the fact that certain Russians cherish a prejudice against the initial character of the word — namely, the Greek theta, or TH.

      “Do not insult me with the term Thetuk,” retorted the brother-in-law. “To her I owe my life, and she is a dear, good woman, and has shown me much affection. At the very thought of it I could weep. You see, she will be asking me what I have seen at the fair, and tell her about it I must, for she is such a dear, good woman.”

      “Then off you go to her with your pack of lies. Here is your cap.”

      “No, good friend, you are not to speak of her like that. By so doing you offend me greatly — I say that she is a dear, good woman.”

      “Then run along home to her.”

      “Yes, I am just going. Excuse me for having been unable to stay. Gladly would I have stayed, but really I cannot.”

      The brother-in-law repeated his excuses again and again without noticing that he had entered the britchka, that it had passed through the gates, and that he was now in the open country. Permissibly we may suppose that his wife succeeded in gleaning from him few details of the fair.

      “What a fool!” said Nozdrev as, standing by the window, he watched the departing vehicle. “Yet his off-horse is not such a bad one. For a long time past I have been wanting to get hold of it. A man like that is simply impossible. Yes, he is a Thetuk, a regular Thetuk.”

      With that they repaired to the parlour, where, on Porphyri bringing candles, Chichikov perceived that his host had produced a pack of cards.

      “I tell you what,” said Nozdrev, pressing the sides of the pack together, and then slightly bending them, so that the pack cracked and a card flew out. “How would it be if, to pass the time, I were to make a bank of three hundred?”

      Chichikov pretended not to have heard him, but remarked with an air of having just recollected a forgotten point:

      “By the way, I had omitted to say that I have a request to make of you.”

      “What request?”

      “First give me your word that you will grant it.”

      “What is the request, I say?”

      “Then you give me your word, do you?”

      “Certainly.”

      “Your word of honour?”

      “My word of honour.”

      “This, then, is my request. I presume that you have a large number of dead serfs whose names have not yet been removed from the revision list?”

      “I have. But why do you ask?”

      “Because I want you to make them over to me.”

      “Of what use would they be to you?”

      “Never mind. I have a purpose in wanting them.”

      “What purpose?”

      “A purpose which is strictly my own affair. In short, I need them.”

      “You seem to have hatched a very fine scheme. Out with it, now! What is in the wind?”

      “How could I have hatched such a scheme as you say? One could not very well hatch a scheme out of such a trifle as this.”

      “Then for what purpose do you want the serfs?”

      “Oh, the curiosity of the man! He wants to poke his fingers into and smell over every detail!”

      “Why do you decline to say what is in your mind? At all events, until you DO say I shall not move in the matter.”

      “But how would it benefit you to know what my plans are? A whim has seized me. That is all. Nor are you playing fair. You have given me your word of honour, yet now you are trying to back out of it.”

      “No matter what you desire me to do, I decline to do it until you have told me your purpose.”

      “What am I to say to the fellow?” thought Chichikov. He reflected for a moment, and then