has once or twice come to visit me, for he and I used to be schoolfellows, and to go climbing walls together. Yes, him I do know. Shall I write him a letter?"
"By all means."
"Yes, him I know well, for we were friends together at school."
Over Plushkin's wooden features there had gleamed a ray of warmth—a ray which expressed, if not feeling, at all events feeling's pale reflection. Just such a phenomenon may be witnessed when, for a brief moment, a drowning man makes a last re-appearance on the surface of a river, and there rises from the crowd lining the banks a cry of hope that even yet the exhausted hands may clutch the rope which has been thrown him—may clutch it before the surface of the unstable element shall have resumed for ever its calm, dread vacuity. But the hope is short-lived, and the hands disappear. Even so did Plushkin's face, after its momentary manifestation of feeling, become meaner and more insensible than ever.
"There used to be a sheet of clean writing paper lying on the table," he went on. "But where it is now I cannot think. That comes of my servants being such rascals."
Whit that he fell to looking also under the table, as well as to hurrying about with cries of "Mavra, Mavra!" At length the call was answered by a woman with a plateful of the sugar of which mention has been made; whereupon there ensued the following conversation.
"What have you done with my piece of writing paper, you pilferer?"
"I swear that I have seen no paper except the bit with which you covered the glass."
"Your very face tells me that you have made off with it."
"Why should I make off with it? 'Twould be of no use to me, for I can neither read nor write."
"You lie! You have taken it away for the sexton to scribble upon."
"Well, if the sexton wanted paper he could get some for himself. Neither he nor I have set eyes upon your piece."
"Ah! Wait a bit, for on the Judgment Day you will be roasted by devils on iron spits. Just see if you are not!"
"But why should I be roasted when I have never even TOUCHED the paper? You might accuse me of any other fault than theft."
"Nay, devils shall roast you, sure enough. They will say to you, 'Bad woman, we are doing this because you robbed your master,' and then stoke up the fire still hotter."
"Nevertheless I shall continue to say, 'You are roasting me for nothing, for I never stole anything at all.' Why, THERE it is, lying on the table! You have been accusing me for no reason whatever!"
And, sure enough, the sheet of paper was lying before Plushkin's very eyes. For a moment or two he chewed silently. Then he went on:
"Well, and what are you making such a noise about? If one says a single word to you, you answer back with ten. Go and fetch me a candle to seal a letter with. And mind you bring a TALLOW candle, for it will not cost so much as the other sort. And bring me a match too."
Mavra departed, and Plushkin, seating himself, and taking up a pen, sat turning the sheet of paper over and over, as though in doubt whether to tear from it yet another morsel. At length he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to do so, and therefore, dipping the pen into the mixture of mouldy fluid and dead flies which the ink bottle contained, started to indite the letter in characters as bold as the notes of a music score, while momentarily checking the speed of his hand, lest it should meander too much over the paper, and crawling from line to line as though he regretted that there was so little vacant space left on the sheet.
"And do you happen to know any one to whom a few runaway serfs would be of use?" he asked as subsequently he folded the letter.
"What? You have some runaways as well?" exclaimed Chichikov, again greatly interested.
"Certainly I have. My son-in-law has laid the necessary information against them, but says that their tracks have grown cold. However, he is only a military man—that is to say, good at clinking a pair of spurs, but of no use for laying a plea before a court."
"And how many runaways have you?"
"About seventy."
"Surely not?"
"Alas, yes. Never does a year pass without a certain number of them making off.