Chapter Nine
In the morning, even earlier than the hour fixed for visits in the town of N., there came fluttering out the doors of an orange wooden house with a mezzanine and light blue columns a lady in a stylish checked cloak, accompanied by a lackey in a greatcoat with several collars and gold braid on his round, glossy hat. The lady, with extraordinary haste, fluttered straight up the folding steps into the carriage standing at the front door. The lackey straightaway slammed the door on the lady, flung up the steps behind her, and, catching hold of the straps at the back of the carriage, shouted “Drive!” to the coachman. The lady was bearing some just-heard news and felt an irresistible urge to communicate it quickly. Every other moment she peeked out the window and saw to her unspeakable vexation that there was still halfway to go. Every house seemed longer than usual to her; the white stone almshouse with its narrow windows dragged on unbearably, so that she finally could not bear it and said: “Cursed building, there’s just no end to it!” The coachman had already twice been given the order: “Faster, faster, Andryushka! You’re taking insufferably long today!” At last the goal was attained. The carriage stopped in front of another one-storied wooden house, of a dark gray color, with little white bas-reliefs over the windows, and just in front of the windows a high wooden lattice and a narrow front garden, the slim trees of which were all white behind the lattice from the ever-abiding dust of the town. In the windows flashed flowerpots, a parrot swinging in his cage, clutching the ring with his beak, and two little dogs asleep in the sun. In this house lived the bosom friend of the arriving lady. The author is in the greatest perplexity how to name the two ladies in such a way that people do not get angry with him again, as they used to in olden times. To refer to them by fictitious names is dangerous. Whatever name one comes up with, there is sure to be found in some corner of our state, given its greatness, someone who bears that name and who is sure to get mortally angry and start saying that the author came secretly with the purpose of ferreting out everything about who he was, what kind of woolly coat he went around in, and what Agrafena Ivanovna he came calling on, and upon what food he liked to dine. To refer to them by their ranks, God forbid, is even more dangerous. Our ranks and estates are so irritated these days that they take personally whatever appears in printed books: such, evidently, is the mood in the air. It is enough simply to say that there is a stupid man in a certain town, and it already becomes personal; suddenly a gentleman of respectable appearance pops up and shouts: “But I, too, am a man, which means that I, too, am stupid”—in short, he instantly grasps the situation. And therefore, to avoid all this, we shall refer to the lady who received the visit as she was referred to almost unanimously in the town of N.—namely, as a lady agreeable in all respects. She acquired this appellation legitimately, for she indeed spared nothing in making herself amiable to the utmost degree, but oh, of course, what nimble alacrity of female character lurked behind this amiableness! and oh, what a pin sometimes pricked through every agreeable word of hers! and God alone knew what seethed in that heart against any woman who might somewhere, somehow creep to the forefront. But all this was clothed in the subtlest worldliness, such as exists only in a provincial capital. Every movement she produced was tasteful, she even loved poetry, she even knew how to hold her head in a dreamy way on occasion—and everyone concurred that she was indeed a lady agreeable in all respects. Now the other lady, that is, the arriving one, was not possessed of so versatile a character, and therefore we shall refer to her as the simply agreeable lady. The arrival of the visitor woke the little dogs that were sleeping in the sun: the shaggy Adèle, ceaselessly entangled in her own fur, and Potpourri on his skinny legs. The one and the other, barking, carried the rings of their tails to the front hall, where the visitor was being freed from her cloak and emerged in a dress of fashionable pattern and color and with long tails around the neck; jasmine wafted through the whole room. The moment the lady agreeable in all respects learned of the arrival of the simply agreeable lady, she rushed to the front hall. The ladies seized each other’s hands, kissed each other, and uttered little cries, as boarding-school girls do when they meet soon after graduation, before their mamas have had time to explain to them that one has a father who is poorer and of lower rank than the other. The kiss was performed noisily, so that the dogs started barking again, for which they received a flick of a shawl, and the two ladies went to the drawing room, a light blue one, naturally, with a sofa, an oval table, and even a little screen covered with ivy; after them, growling, ran shaggy Adèle and tall Potpourri on his skinny legs. “Here, here, in this little corner!” the hostess said as she sat her visitor down in a corner of the sofa. “That’s right! that’s right! here’s a pillow for you!” So saying, she stuffed a pillow behind her back, on which a knight was embroidered in worsted the way things are always embroidered on canvas: the nose came out as a ladder, and the lips as a rectangle. “I’m so glad it’s you … I heard someone drive up and asked myself who it could be so early. Parasha said, ‘The vice-governor’s wife,’ and I said, ‘So that fool is coming to bore me again,’ and I was just about to say I wasn’t home …”
The visitor was about to get down to business and tell her news. But the exclamation that the lady agreeable in all respects let out at that moment suddenly gave a different direction to the conversation.
“What a gay little print!” the lady agreeable in all respects exclaimed, looking at the dress of the simply agreeable lady.
“Yes, very gay. Praskovya Fyodorovna, however, finds that it would be nicer if the checks were a bit smaller and the speckles were not brown but light blue. Her sister was sent a fabric—it’s simply charming beyond words; imagine to yourself: narrow little stripes, as narrow as human imagination can possibly conceive, a light blue background, and between the stripes it’s all spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs, spots and sprigs … Incomparable, in short! One can say decidedly that nothing comparable has ever existed in the world.”
“It’s gaudy, my dear.”
“Ah, no, not gaudy.”
“Ah, gaudy!”
It must be noted that the lady agreeable in all respects was something of a materialist, inclined to negation and doubt, and she rejected quite a lot in life.
Here the simply agreeable lady explained that it was by no means gaudy, and cried out:
“Besides, I congratulate you: flounces are no longer being worn.”
“Not worn?”
“It’s little festoons now.”
“Ah, that’s not pretty—little festoons!”
“Little festoons, little festoons all over: a pelerine of little festoons, sleeves with little festoons, epaulettes of little festoons, little festoons below, little festoons everywhere.”
“It’s not pretty, Sofya Ivanovna, if it’s little festoons all over.”
“It’s sweet, Anna Grigorievna, unbelievably sweet. It’s made with double seams: wide armholes and above … But here, here is something amazing for you, now you’re going to say … Well, be amazed: imagine, the bodices are even longer now, vee-shaped in front, and the front busk goes beyond all bounds; the skirt is gathered around as it used to be with the old-fashioned farthingale, and they even pad it out a little behind with cotton batting, so as to make for a perfect belle-femme.”
“Now that’s just—I declare!” said the lady agreeable in all respects, making a movement of her head expressive of dignity.
“Precisely, it is indeed—I declare!” replied the simply agreeable lady.
“As you like, but I wouldn’t follow that for anything.”
“Neither would I … Really, when you imagine what fashion comes to sometimes … it’s beyond everything! I begged my sister to give me the pattern just for fun; my Melanya’s started sewing.”
“So you have the pattern?” the lady agreeable in all respects cried out, not without a noticeable tremor of excitement.
“Of course, my sister brought it.”
“Give it to me, dear hea
rt, by all that’s holy.”
“Ah, I’ve already promised it to Praskovya Fyodorovna. Perhaps after her.”
“Who’s going to wear it after Praskovya Fyodorovna? It would be all too strange on your part to prefer others to your own.”
“But she’s also my aunt twice removed.”
“God knows what kind of aunt she is to you: it’s on your husband’s side … No, Sofya Ivanovna, I don’t even want to listen, since you intend to hand me such an insult … Obviously, I’m already boring to you, obviously you wish to stop all acquaintance with me.”
Poor Sofya Ivanovna absolutely did not know what to do. She herself felt that she had put herself between a rock and a hard place. So much for her boasting! She was ready to prick her stupid tongue all over with needles for it.
“Well, and how’s our charmer?” the lady agreeable in all respects said meanwhile.
“Ah, my God! why am I sitting in front of you like this? Aren’t I a good one! Do you know, Anna Grigorievna, what I’ve come to you with?” Here the visitor’s breath was taken away; words, like hawks, were ready to rush in pursuit of each other, and one had to be as inhuman as her bosom friend to venture to stop her.
“No matter how you go praising and exalting him,” she said, with greater animation than usual, “I will say straight out, and say it to his face, that he is a worthless man, worthless, worthless, worthless.”
“But just listen to what I’m going to reveal to you …”
“Word is going around that he’s good-looking, but he’s not good-looking at all, not at all, and his nose … a most disagreeable nose.”
“But let me tell you, just let me tell you … darling Anna Grigorievna, let me tell you! It’s a whole story, do you understand, a story, sconapel istwar,”43 the visitor said with an expression almost of despair and in an utterly imploring voice. It will do no harm to mention that the conversation of the two ladies was interspersed with a great many foreign words and sometimes entire long phrases in French. But filled though the author is with reverence for the saving benefits that the French language brings to Russia, filled though he is with reverence for the praiseworthy custom of our high society which expresses itself in it at all hours of the day—out of a deep feeling of love for the fatherland, of course—for all that he simply cannot bring himself to introduce any phrase from any foreign language whatsoever into this Russian poem of his. And so let us continue in Russian.
“What is the story?”
“Ah, Anna Grigorievna, dear heart, if you could only imagine the position I was in, just fancy: this morning the archpriest’s wife comes to me—the wife of the archpriest, Father Kiril—and what do you think: our humble fellow, our visitor here, is quite a one, eh?”
“What, you don’t mean he was making sheep’s eyes at the archpriest’s wife?”
“Ah, Anna Grigorievna, if it was only sheep it would be nothing; but just listen to what the archpriest’s wife said: the lady landowner Korobochka comes to her, she says, all frightened and pale as death, and tells her, and how she tells her, just listen, it’s a perfect novel: suddenly, in the dead of night, when the whole house is asleep, there comes a knocking at the gate, the most terrible knocking you could possibly imagine, and a shout: ‘Open up, open up, or we’ll break down the gate!’ How do you like that? What do you think of our charmer after that?”
“And this Korobochka is what, young and good-looking?”
“Not a whit, an old crone.”
“Ah, how charming! So he’s taken up with an old crone. Talk about our ladies’ taste after that! They found who to fall in love with!”
“But no, Anna Grigorievna, it’s not at all what you’re thinking. Just imagine to yourself how he comes in, armed from head to foot like Rinaldo Rinaldini,44 and demands: ‘Sell me all your souls that have died.’ And Korobochka answers very reasonably, saying: ‘I can’t sell them, because they’re dead.’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘they’re not dead, it’s my business to know whether they’re dead or not, and they’re not dead,’ he shouts, ‘they’re not, they’re not!’ In short, he caused a terrible scandal: the whole village came running, babies were crying, everything was shouting, no one understood anyone else—well, simply orerr, orerr, orerr! … But you cannot imagine to yourself, Anna Grigorievna, how alarmed I was when I heard it all. ‘Dearest mistress,’ Mashka says to me, ‘look in the mirror: you’re pale.’ ‘Who cares about the mirror,’ I say, ‘I must go and tell Anna Grigorievna.’ That same moment I order the carriage readied: the coachman Andryushka asks me where to go, and I cannot even say anything, I just gaze into his eyes like a fool—I think he thought I was mad. Ah, Anna Grigorievna, if you could only imagine how alarmed I was!”
“It is strange, though,” said the lady agreeable in all respects. “What might they mean, these dead souls? I confess, I understand precisely nothing of it. It’s the second time I’ve heard about these dead souls; but my husband still says Nozdryov’s lying. No, there must be something to it.”
“But do imagine, Anna Grigorievna, the position I was in when I heard it. ‘And now,’ says Korobochka, ‘I don’t know what I’m to do. He made me sign some false paper,’ she says, ‘threw down fifteen roubles in banknotes. I’m an inexperienced, helpless widow,’ she says, ‘I know nothing …’ Such goings-on! But if only you could imagine at least slightly to yourself how totally alarmed I was.”
“But, as you will, only it’s not dead souls here, there’s something else hidden in it.”
“I confess, I think so, too,” the simply agreeable lady said, not without surprise, and straightaway felt a strong desire to learn what it was that might be hidden in it. She even said in measured tones: “And what do you think is hidden in it?”
“Well, what do you think?”
“What do I think? … I confess, I’m completely at a loss.”
“But, all the same, I’d like to know your thoughts concerning it.”
But the agreeable lady found nothing to say. She knew only how to be alarmed, but as for arriving at some sort of clever conjecture, she was not equal to the task, and therefore, more than any other woman, she was in need of tender friendship and advice.
“Well, listen then, here’s what it is with these dead souls,” said the lady agreeable in all respects, and at these words the visitor became all attention: her little ears pricked up of themselves, she rose slightly, almost not sitting or holding on to the sofa, and though she was somewhat on the heavy side, she suddenly became slenderer, like a light bit of fluff about to fly into the air with a breath of wind.
Thus a Russian squire, a dog-lover and hunter, approaching the woods from which a hare, startled by the beaters, is just about to leap, turns, all of him, together with his horse and raised crop, for one frozen moment into powder that is just about to be ignited. He is all fastened on the murky air with his eyes, and he will catch the beast, he will finish it off, ineluctably, no matter how the whole rebellious, snowy steppe rises up against him, sending silver stars into his mouth, his mustache, his eyes, his eyebrows, and his beaver hat.
“The dead souls …,” pronounced the lady agreeable in all respects.
“What, what?” the visitor picked up, all excitement.
“The dead souls!…”
“Ah, speak, for God’s sake!”
“That was simply invented as a cover, and here’s the real thing: he wants to carry off the governor’s daughter.”
This conclusion was, indeed, quite unanticipated and in all respects extraordinary. The agreeable lady, on hearing it, simply froze on the spot, turned pale, pale as death, and, indeed, became seriously alarmed.
“Ah, my God!” she cried out, clasping her hands, “that is something I would never have thought.”
“And, I confess, as soon as you opened your mouth, I grasped what it was,” replied the lady agreeable in all respects.
“But what is boarding-school education after that, Anna Grigorievna! There’s innocence for you!”
“Wha
t innocence! I’ve heard her say such things as, I confess, I would never have the courage to utter.”