“Also,” requested Chichikov, “I should be glad if you would send for the accredited representative of a certain lady landowner with whom I have done business. He is the son of a Father Cyril, and a clerk in your offices.”
“Certainly we shall call him here,” replied the President. “Everything shall be done to meet your convenience, and I forbid you to present any of our officials with a gratuity. That is a special request on my part. No friend of mine ever pays a copper.”
With that he gave Ivan Antonovitch the necessary instructions; and though they scarcely seemed to meet with that functionary’s approval, upon the President the purchase deeds had evidently produced an excellent impression, more especially since the moment when he had perceived the sum total to amount to nearly a hundred thousand roubles. For a moment or two he gazed into Chichikov’s eyes with an expression of profound satisfaction. Then he said:
“Well done, Paul Ivanovitch! You have indeed made a nice haul!”
“That is so,” replied Chichikov.
“Excellent business! Yes, excellent business!”
“I, too, conceive that I could not well have done better. The truth is that never until a man has driven home the piles of his life’s structure upon a lasting bottom, instead of upon the wayward chimeras of youth, will his aims in life assume a definite end.” And, that said, Chichikov went on to deliver himself of a very telling indictment of Liberalism and our modern young men. Yet in his words there seemed to lurk a certain lack of conviction. Somehow he seemed secretly to be saying to himself, “My good sir, you are talking the most absolute rubbish, and nothing but rubbish.” Nor did he even throw a glance at Sobakevitch and Manilov. It was as though he were uncertain what he might not encounter in their expression. Yet he need not have been afraid. Never once did Sobakevitch’s face move a muscle, and, as for Manilov, he was too much under the spell of Chichikov’s eloquence to do aught beyond nod his approval at intervals, and strike the kind of attitude which is assumed by lovers of music when a lady singer has, in rivalry of an accompanying violin, produced a note whereof the shrillness would exceed even the capacity of a bird’s throstle.
“But why not tell Ivan Grigorievitch precisely what you have bought?” inquired Sobakevitch of Chichikov. “And why, Ivan Grigorievitch, do YOU not ask Monsieur Chichikov precisely what his purchases have consisted of? What a splendid lot of serfs, to be sure! I myself have sold him my wheelwright, Michiev.”
“What? You have sold him Michiev?” exclaimed the President. “I know the man well. He is a splendid craftsman, and, on one occasion, made me a drozhki [32]. Only, only—well, lately didn’t you tell me that he is dead?”
“That Michiev is dead?” re-echoed Sobakevitch, coming perilously near to laughing. “Oh dear no! That was his brother. Michiev himself is very much alive, and in even better health than he used to be. Any day he could knock you up a britchka such as you could not procure even in Moscow. However, he is now bound to work for only one master.”