Dead Souls - By Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol Page 0,34
his hostess to order the britchka to be got ready. In dispatching Fetinia with the necessary instructions, she ordered her to return with a second batch of hot pancakes.
"Your pancakes are indeed splendid," said Chichikov, applying himself to the second consignment of fried dainties when they had arrived.
"Yes, we make them well here," replied Madame. "Yet how unfortunate it is that the harvest should have proved so poor as to have prevented me from earning anything on my—But why should you be in such a hurry to depart, good sir?" She broke off on seeing Chichikov reach for his cap. "The britchka is not yet ready."
"Then it is being got so, madam, it is being got so, and I shall need a moment or two to pack my things."
"As you please, dear sir; but do not forget me in connection with those Government contracts."
"No, I have said that NEVER shall I forget you," replied Chichikov as he hurried into the hall.
"And would you like to buy some lard?" continued his hostess, pursuing him.
"Lard? Oh certainly. Why not? Only, only—I will do so ANOTHER time."
"I shall have some ready at about Christmas."
"Quite so, madam. THEN I will buy anything and everything—the lard included."
"And perhaps you will be wanting also some feathers? I shall be having some for sale about St. Philip's Day."
"Very well, very well, madam."
"There you see!" she remarked as they stepped out on to the verandah. "The britchka is NOT yet ready."
"But it soon will be, it soon will be. Only direct me to the main road."
"How am I to do that?" said Madame. "'Twould puzzle a wise man to do so, for in these parts there are so many turnings. However, I will send a girl to guide you. You could find room for her on the box-seat, could you not?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then I will send her. She knows the way thoroughly. Only do not carry her off for good. Already some traders have deprived me of one of my girls."
Chichikov reassured his hostess on the point, and Madame plucked up courage enough to scan, first of all, the housekeeper, who happened to be issuing from the storehouse with a bowl of honey, and, next, a young peasant who happened to be standing at the gates; and, while thus engaged, she became wholly absorbed in her domestic pursuits. But why pay her so much attention? The Widow Korobotchka, Madame Manilov, domestic life, non-domestic life—away with them all! How strangely are things compounded! In a trice may joy turn to sorrow, should one halt long enough over it: in a trice only God can say what ideas may strike one. You may fall even to thinking: "After all, did Madame Korobotchka stand so very low in the scale of human perfection? Was there really such a very great gulf between her and Madame Manilov—between her and the Madame Manilov whom we have seen entrenched behind the walls of a genteel mansion in which there were a fine staircase of wrought metal and a number of rich carpets; the Madame Manilov who spent most of her time in yawning behind half-read books, and in hoping for a visit from some socially distinguished person in order that she might display her wit and carefully rehearsed thoughts—thoughts which had been de rigeur in town for a week past, yet which referred, not to what was going on in her household or on her estate—both of which properties were at odds and ends, owing to her ignorance of the art of managing them—but to the coming political revolution in France and the direction in which fashionable Catholicism was supposed to be moving? But away with such things! Why need we speak of them? Yet how comes it that suddenly into the midst of our careless, frivolous, unthinking moments there may enter another, and a very different, tendency?—that the smile may not have left a human face before its owner will have radically changed his or her nature (though not his or her environment) with the result that the face will suddenly become lit with a radiance never before seen there?...
"Here is the britchka, here is the britchka!" exclaimed Chichikov on perceiving that vehicle slowly advancing. "Ah, you blockhead!" he went on to Selifan. "Why have you been loitering about? I suppose last night's fumes have not yet left your brain?"
To this Selifan returned no reply.
"Good-bye, madam," added the speaker. "But where is the girl whom you promised me?"