“I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my…

“I feel that the scheme is a splendid one, and would gladly bear my part in it were it not likely to exceed my strength.”

“What is there that does NOT exceed your strength?” said Murazov. “Nothing is wholly proportionate to it--everything surpasses it. Help from above is necessary: otherwise we are all powerless. Strength comes of prayer, and of prayer alone. When a man crosses himself, and cries, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me!’ he soon stems the current and wins to the shore. Nor need you take any prolonged thought concerning this matter. All that you need do is to accept it as a commission sent of God. The tilt-waggon can be prepared for you immediately; and then, as soon as you have been to the Archimandrite for your book of accounts and his blessing, you will be free to start on your journey.”

“I submit myself to you, and accept the commission as a divine trust.”

And even as Khlobuev spoke he felt renewed vigour and confidence arise in his soul, and his mind begin to awake to a sense of hopefulness of eventually being able to put to flight his troubles. And even as it was, the world seemed to be growing dim to his eyes....

Meanwhile, plea after plea had been presented to the legal authorities, and daily were relatives whom no one had before heard of putting in an appearance. Yes, like vultures to a corpse did these good folk come flocking to the immense property which Madam Khanasarov had left behind her. Everywhere were heard rumours against Chichikov, rumours with regard to the validity of the second will, rumours with regard to will number one, and rumours of larceny and concealment of funds. Also, there came to hand information with regard both to Chichikov’s purchase of dead souls and to his conniving at contraband goods during his service in the Customs Department. In short, every possible item of evidence was exhumed, and the whole of his previous history investigated. How the authorities had come to suspect and to ascertain all this God only knows, but the fact remains that there had fallen into the hands of those authorities information concerning matters of which Chichikov had believed only himself and the four walls to be aware. True, for a time these matters remained within the cognisance of none but the functionaries concerned, and failed to reach Chichikov’s ears; but at length a letter from a confidential friend gave him reason to think that the fat was about to fall into the fire. Said the letter briefly: “Dear sir, I beg to advise you that possibly legal trouble is pending, but that you have no cause for uneasiness, seeing that everything will be attended to by yours very truly.” Yet, in spite of its tenor, the epistle reassured its recipient. “What a genius the fellow is!” thought Chichikov to himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his tailor arrived with the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a certain sense of pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey shot with flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then try on the breeches--the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves (though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. “Sir,” he said triumphantly, “you may rest assured that the work has been executed exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St. Petersburg, could have done it better.” As a matter of fact, the tailor himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his signboard “Foreign Costumier from London and Paris”--the truth being that by the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to mere “Karlsruhe” and “Copenhagen” he designed to acquire business and cut out his local rivals.

Chichikov graciously settled the man’s account, and, as soon as he had gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an artist of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to look better than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a still more interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while his white collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened the effect of the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie, the rich satin waistcoat emphasised the dickey, and the smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, shining like silk, splendidly rounded off the whole. When he turned to the right he looked well: when he turned to the left he looked even better. In short, it was a costume worthy of a Lord Chamberlain or the species of dandy who shrinks from swearing in the Russian language, but amply relieves his feelings in the language of France. Next, inclining his head slightly to one side, our hero endeavoured to pose as though he were addressing a middle-aged lady of exquisite refinement; and the result of these efforts was a picture which any artist might have yearned to portray. Next, his delight led him gracefully to execute a hop in ballet fashion, so that the wardrobe trembled and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne came crashing to the floor. Yet even this contretemps did not upset him; he merely called the offending bottle a fool, and then debated whom first he should visit in his attractive guise.

Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels, and then the voice of a gendarme saying: “You are commanded to present yourself before the Governor-General!” Turning round, Chichikov stared in horror at the spectacle presented; for in the doorway there was standing an apparition wearing a huge moustache, a helmet surmounted with a horsehair plume, a pair of crossed shoulder-belts, and a gigantic sword! A whole army might have been combined into a single individual! And when Chichikov opened his mouth to speak the apparition repeated, “You are commanded to present yourself before the Governor-General,” and at the same moment our hero caught sight both of a second apparition outside the door and of a coach waiting beneath the window. What was to be done? Nothing whatever was possible. Just as he stood--in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour suit--he had then and there to enter the vehicle, and, shaking in every limb, and with a gendarme seated by his side, to start for the residence of the Governor-General.

And even in the hall of that establishment no time was given him to pull himself together, for at once an aide-de-camp said: “Go inside immediately, for the Prince is awaiting you.” And as in a dream did our hero see a vestibule where couriers were being handed dispatches, and then a salon which he crossed with the thought, “I suppose I am not to be allowed a trial, but shall be sent straight to Siberia!” And at the thought his heart started beating in a manner which the most jealous of lovers could not have rivalled. At length there opened a door, and before him he saw a study full of portfolios, ledgers, and dispatch-boxes, with, standing behind them, the gravely menacing figure of the Prince.

“There stands my executioner,” thought Chichikov to himself. “He is about to tear me to pieces as a wolf tears a lamb.”

Indeed, the Prince’s lips were simply quivering with rage.

“Once before did I spare you,” he said, “and allow you to remain in the town when you ought to have been in prison: yet your only return for my clemency has been to revert to a career of fraud--and of fraud as dishonourable as ever a man engaged in.”

“To what dishonourable fraud do you refer, your Highness?” asked Chichikov, trembling from head to foot.

The Prince approached, and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Let me tell you,” he said, “that the woman whom you induced to witness a certain will has been arrested, and that you will be confronted with her.”

The world seemed suddenly to grow dim before Chichikov’s sight.

“Your Highness,” he gasped, “I will tell you the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I am guilty--yes, I am guilty; but I am not so guilty as you think, for I was led away by rascals.”

“That any one can have led you away is impossible,” retorted the Prince. “Recorded against your name there stand more felonies than even the most hardened liar could have invented. I believe that never in your life have you done a deed not innately dishonourable--that not a kopeck have you ever obtained by aught but shameful methods of trickery and theft, the penalty for which is Siberia and the knut. But enough of this! From this room you will be conveyed to prison, where, with other rogues and thieves, you will be confined until your trial may come on. And this is lenient treatment on my part, for you are worse, far worse, than the felons who will be your companions. THEY are but poor men in smocks and sheepskins, whereas YOU--” Without concluding his words, the Prince shot a glance at Chichikov’s smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour apparel.

Then he touched a bell.

“Your Highness,” cried Chichikov, “have mercy upon me! You are the father of a family! Spare me for the sake of my aged mother!”

“Rubbish!” exclaimed the Prince. “Even as before you besought me for the sake of a wife and children whom you did not even possess, so now you would speak to me of an aged mother!”

“Your Highness,” protested Chichikov, “though I am a wretch and the lowest of rascals, and though it is true that I lied when I told you that I possessed a wife and children, I swear that, as God is my witness, it has always been my DESIRE to possess a wife, and to fulfil all the duties of a man and a citizen, and to earn the respect of my fellows and the authorities. But what could be done against the force of circumstances? By hook or by crook I have ever been forced to win a living, though confronted at every step by wiles and temptations and traitorous enemies and despoilers. So much has this been so that my life has, throughout, resembled a barque tossed by tempestuous waves, a barque driven at the mercy of the winds. Ah, I am only a man, your Highness!”

And in a moment the tears had gushed in torrents from his eyes, and he had fallen forward at the Prince’s feet--fallen forward just as he was, in his smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour frockcoat, his velvet waistcoat, his satin tie, and his exquisitely fitting breeches, while from his neatly brushed pate, as again and again he struck his hand against his forehead, there came an odorous whiff of best-quality eau-de-Cologne.

“Away with him!” exclaimed the Prince to the gendarme who had just entered. “Summon the escort to remove him.”

“Your Highness!” Chichikov cried again as he clasped the Prince’s knees; but, shuddering all over, and struggling to free himself, the Prince repeated his order for the prisoner’s removal.

“Your Highness, I say that I will not leave this room until you have accorded me mercy!” cried Chichikov as he clung to the Prince’s leg with such tenacity that, frockcoat and all, he began to be dragged along the floor.

“Away with him, I say!” once more the Prince exclaimed with the sort of indefinable aversion which one feels at the sight of a repulsive insect which he cannot summon up the courage to crush with his boot. So convulsively did the Prince shudder that Chichikov, clinging to his leg, received a kick on the nose. Yet still the prisoner retained his hold; until at length a couple of burly gendarmes tore him away and, grasping his arms, hurried him--pale, dishevelled, and in that strange, half-conscious condition into which a man sinks when he sees before him only the dark, terrible figure of death, the phantom which is so abhorrent to all our natures--from the building. But on the threshold the party came face to face with Murazov, and in Chichikov’s heart the circumstance revived a ray of hope. Wresting himself with almost supernatural strength from the grasp of the escorting gendarmes, he threw himself at the feet of the horror-stricken old man.

“Paul Ivanovitch,” Murazov exclaimed, “what has happened to you?”

“Save me!” gasped Chichikov. “They are taking me away to prison and death!”

Yet almost as he spoke the gendarmes seized him again, and hurried him away so swiftly that Murazov’s reply escaped his ears.

A damp, mouldy cell which reeked of soldiers’ boots and leggings, an unvarnished table, two sorry chairs, a window closed with a grating, a crazy stove which, while letting the smoke emerge through its cracks, gave out no heat--such was the den to which the man who had just begun to taste the sweets of life, and to attract the attention of his fellows with his new suit of smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour, now found himself consigned. Not even necessaries had he been allowed to bring away with him, nor his dispatch-box which contained all his booty. No, with the indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands of a tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled about the floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and gnaw at his heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that heart so defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind that, should he have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery, there would no longer be a Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over every one, there hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his arrival at the prison, the doors of the gaol opened to admit Murazov.

Compared with poor Chichikov’s sense of relief when the old man entered his cell, even the pleasure experienced by a thirsty, dusty traveller when he is given a drink of clear spring water to cool his dry, parched throat fades into insignificance.

“Ah, my deliverer!” he cried as he rose from the floor, where he had been grovelling in heartrending paroxysms of grief. Seizing the old man’s hand, he kissed it and pressed it to his bosom. Then, bursting into tears, he added: “God Himself will reward you for having come to visit an unfortunate wretch!”

Murazov looked at him sorrowfully, and said no more than “Ah, Paul Ivanovitch, Paul Ivanovitch! What has happened?”

“What has happened?” cried Chichikov. “I have been ruined by an accursed woman. That was because I could not do things in moderation--I was powerless to stop myself in time, Satan tempted me, and drove me from my senses, and bereft me of human prudence. Yes, truly I have sinned, I have sinned! Yet how came I so to sin? To think that a dvorianin--yes, a dvorianin--should be thrown into prison without process or trial! I repeat, a dvorianin! Why was I not given time to go home and collect my effects? Whereas now they are left with no one to look after them! My dispatch-box, my dispatch-box! It contained my whole property, all that my heart’s blood and years of toil and want have been needed to acquire. And now everything will be stolen, Athanasi Vassilievitch--everything will be taken from me! My God!”