Dead Souls quotes

To the last-mentioned inquiry the waiter returned the answer invariably given in such cases—namely, “My master is a terribly hard man, sir.”

Curious that in enlightened Russia so many people cannot even take a meal at an inn without chattering to the attendant and making free with him!

Nevertheless not all the questions which the gentleman asked were aimless ones, for he inquired who was Governor of the town, who President of the Local Council, and who Public Prosecutor.

which is probably the reason why the latter are mostly to be found in the Political Police, or acting as mere ciphers whose existence is a purely hopeless, airy, trivial one.

Again, stout individuals never take a back seat, but always a front one, and, wheresoever it be, they sit firmly, and with confidence, and decline to budge even though the seat crack and bend with their weight.

For comeliness of exterior they care not a rap, and therefore a dress coat sits less easily on their figures than is the case with figures of leaner individuals. Yet invariably fat men amass the greater wealth.

Yet of what was he thinking as he remained thus silent? Perhaps he was saying to himself: “My master is a good fellow, but for him to keep on saying the same thing forty times over is a little wearisome.”

Only God knows and sees all things; wherefore for a mere human being to know what is in the mind of a servant while his master is scolding him is wholly impossible.

However, no more need be said about Petrushka. On the other hand, Coachman Selifan—

And at such moments his eyes would grow winning, and his features assume an expression of intense satisfaction. Yet never did these projects pass beyond the stage of debate.

Likewise there lay in his study a book with the fourteenth page permanently turned down.

It was a book which he had been reading for the past two years! In general, something seemed to be wanting in the establishment.

“Well, most of it,” replied Manilov; “though also we pay occasional visits to the town, in order that we may mingle with a little well-bred society.

One grows a trifle rusty if one lives forever in retirement.

”

“True, true,” agreed Chichikov. “

Without a friend, what are all the treasures in the world?

‘Possess not money,’ a wise man has said, ‘but rather good friends to whom to turn in case of need.’ ”

Every now and again the hostess would turn to Chichikov with the words, “You are eating nothing—you have indeed taken little;” but invariably her guest replied: “Thank you, I have had more than enough.

A pleasant conversation is worth all the dishes in the world.

”

Let us write them down as living ones, seeing that that is how they figure in the census returns. Never do I permit myself to step outside the civil law, great though has been the harm which that rule has wrought me in my career.

In my eyes an obligation is a sacred thing. In the presence of the law I am dumb.

”

He took a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the perspiration from his brow. Yet he need not have flown into such a passion.

More than one respected statesman reveals himself, when confronted with a business matter, to be just such another as Madam Korobotchka, in that, once he has got an idea into his head, there is no getting it out of him⁠—you may ply him with daylight-clear arguments, yet they will rebound from his brain as an india-rubber ball rebounds from a flagstone.

Nevertheless, wiping away the perspiration, Chichikov resolved to try whether he could not bring her back to the road by another path.

… the great folk of whom I have spoken would sacrifice half their serfs and half their mortgaged and non-mortgaged property, with the foreign and domestic improvements thereon, if thereby they could compass such a stomach as is possessed by the folk of the middle class.

But, unfortunately, neither money nor real estate, whether improved or non-improved, can purchase such a stomach.

The little wooden tavern, with its narrow, but hospitable, curtain suspended from a pair of rough-hewn doorposts like old church candlesticks, seemed to invite Chichikov to enter.

Always, however, will there become manifest in their character a soft spot, and in the end they will accept what hitherto they have denied, and call what is foolish sensible, and even dance—yes, better than anyone else will do—to a tune set by someone else.

In short, they generally begin well, but always end badly.

“Rubbish!” said Nozdrev in answer to a further objection on his brother-in-law’s part. And, sure enough, no sooner had Nozdrev clapped his cap upon his head than the flaxen-haired man started to follow him and his companion.

Alas! such as say this will be wrong; for many a day must pass before the Nozdrevs will have disappeared from our ken. Everywhere they are to be seen in our midst—the only difference between the new and the old being a difference of garments.

Persons of superficial observation are apt to consider that a man clad in a different coat is quite a different person from what he used to be.

To continue. The three vehicles bowled up to the steps of Nozdrev’s house, and their occupants alighted.

Persons of this kind—persons to whose designing nature has devoted not much thought, and in the fashioning of whose frames she has used no instruments so delicate as a file or a gimlet and so forth—are not uncommon. Such persons she merely roughhews.

One cut with a hatchet, and there results a nose; another such cut with a hatchet, and there materialises a pair of lips; two thrusts with a drill, and there issues a pair of eyes.

Lastly, scorning to plane down the roughness, she sends out that person into the world, saying: “There is another live creature.”

“He is mean to the core,” remarked Sobakevitch coldly. “

He will sell you and cheat you, and then dine at your table.

Yes, I know them all, and every one of them is a swindler, and the town a nest of rascals engaged in robbing one another. Not a man of the lot is there but would sell Christ. Yet stay:

The small dining-table was found to be laid for four persons—the fourth place being occupied by a lady or a young girl (it would have been difficult to say which exactly) who might have been either a relative, the housekeeper, or a casual visitor.

Certain persons in the world exist, not as personalities in themselves, but as spots or specks on the personalities of others.

Always they are to be seen sitting in the same place, and holding their heads at exactly the same angle, so that one comes within an ace of mistaking them for furniture, and thinks to oneself that never since the day of their birth can …

“Fellows like those are forever talking of civilisation. As if that sort of thing was civilisation! Phew!” (Perhaps the speaker’s concluding exclamation would have been even stronger had he not been seated at table.) “For myself, I will have none of it.

When I eat pork at a meal, give me the whole pig; when mutton, the whole sheep; when goose, the whole of the bird.

Two dishes are better than a thousand, provided that one can eat of them as much as one wants.”

“For myself, I will have none of it. When I eat pork at a meal, give me the whole pig; when mutton, the whole sheep; when goose, the whole of the bird.

Two dishes are better than a thousand, provided that one can eat of them as much as one wants.

”

“I should be sorry to tell you the way to the house of such a cur,” said Sobakevitch. “

A man had far better go to hell than to Plushkin’s.

”

No other explanation would meet the case. Yet you appear to be a man of sense, and possessed of some education. The matter is a very simple one.

The question is: what is a dead soul worth, and is it of any use to anyone?

”

“It is long since I last received a visitor,” he went on. “Also, I feel bound to say that I can see little good in their coming.

Once introduce the abominable custom of folk paying calls, and forthwith there will ensue such ruin to the management of estates that landowners will be forced to feed their horses on hay.

Not for a long, long time have I eaten a meal away from home—although my own kitchen is a poor one, and has its chimney in such a state that, were it to become overheated, it would instantly catch fire.”

No, not even a hint to such an effect was to be dropped. Rather, the proper phrase, in such a case, was, “This glass, or this plate, is not behaving very well”—or some such formula.

In fact, to refine the Russian tongue the more thoroughly, something like half the words in it were cut out: which circumstance necessitated very frequent recourse to the tongue of France, since the same words, if spoken in French, were another matter altogether, and one could use even blunter ones than the ones originally objected to.

So much for the ladies of N., provided that one confines one’s observations to the surface; yet hardly need it be said that, should one penetrate deeper than that, a great deal more would come to light.

… it is due to the term “millionaire” rather than to the character of the person who bears it, that the mere sound of the word exercises upon rascals, upon decent folk, and upon folk who are neither the one nor the other, an undeniable influence.

A millionaire suffers from the disadvantage of everywhere having to behold meanness, including the sort of meanness which, though not actually based upon calculations of self-interest, yet runs after the wealthy man with smiles, and doffs his hat, and begs for invitations to houses where the millionaire is known to be going to dine.

That a similar inclination to meanness seized upon the ladies of N. goes without saying;

Still more, on viewing the matter clearly, he felt vexed to think that he himself had been so largely the cause of the catastrophe.

Yet he was not angry with himself⁠—of that you may be sure, seeing that all of us have a slight weakness for sparing our own faults, and always do our best to find some fellow-creature upon whom to vent our displeasure⁠—whether that fellow-creature be a servant, a subordinate official, or a wife.

In the same way Chichikov sought a scapegoat upon whose shoulders he could lay the blame for all that had annoyed him.

long strips of freshly-tilled earth which gleamed green, yellow, and black on the face of the countryside. With it mingled long-drawn singing, glimpses of elm-tops amid mist, the far-off notes of bells, endless clouds of rocks, and the illimitable line of the horizon.

Ah, Russia, Russia, from my beautiful home in a strange land I can still see you!

In you everything is poor and disordered and unhomely; in you the eye is neither cheered nor dismayed by temerities of nature which a yet more temerarious art has conquered;

Nowhere is a soul to be seen, for everyone is plunged in slumber. Yet no. In a solitary window a light is flickering where some good burgher is mending his boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough.

O night and powers of heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite vault⁠—how lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies spread in an intangible, yet audible, silence!

Freshly does the lulling breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as he begins to be conscious of your weight.

But wise is the reader who, on meeting such a character, scans him carefully, and, instead of shrinking from him with distaste, probes him to the springs of his being.

The human personality contains nothing which may not, in the twinkling of an eye, become altogether changed⁠—nothing in which, before you can look round, there may not spring to birth some cankerous worm which is destined to suck thence the essential juice.

Yes, it is a common thing to see not only an overmastering passion, but also a passion of the most petty order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and lead him both to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and …

… passion, but also a passion of the most petty order, arise in a man who was born to better things, and lead him both to forget his greatest and most sacred obligations, and to see only in the veriest trifles the Great and the Holy.

For human passions are as numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his most insistent of masters.

Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence;

For human passions are as numberless as is the sand of the seashore, and go on to become his most insistent of masters.

Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from among the gamut of human passions one which is noble!

Hour by hour will that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his soul.

… his form and person were actually present to the eye as that, on concluding a perusal of this work, the reader should be able to return, unharrowed in soul, to that cult of the card-table which is the solace and delight of all good Russians.

Yes, readers of this book, none of you really care to see humanity revealed in its nakedness.

“Why should we do so?” you say. “What would be the use of it? Do we not know for ourselves that human life contains much that is gross and contemptible?

Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed in German livery, but by a man bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts, and flourishes his whip, and breaks into a long-drawn song!

Away like the wind go the horses, and the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent circles, and the road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon⁠—a speck amid a cloud of dust!

And you, Russia of mine—are not you also speeding like a troika which nought can overtake?

Indeed, only when the sunlight touches a steeple to gold does one realise that each such patch is a human settlement.

Finally, all is wrapped in an immensity of silence which even the far, faint echoes of persons singing in the void of the plain cannot shatter.

Even after gazing at the spectacle for a couple of hours or so, the visitor would still find nothing to say, save: “Lord of Heaven, but what a prospect!”

In fact, the neighbourhood would seem to have become converted into one great concert of melody.

O Creator, how fair is Thy world where, in remote, rural seclusion, it lies apart from cities and from highways!

But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up in his rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that functionary called with his reports.

Also, that anger would disappear as soon as ever she saw anyone whom she had formerly disliked fall upon evil times, and, at his first request for alms would, without consideration or subsequent regret, hand him her purse and its whole contents.

Yes, her every act was strenuous, and when she spoke her whole personality seemed to be following hotfoot upon her thought⁠—both her expression of face and her diction and the movements of her hands.

Nay, the very folds of her frock had a similar appearance of striving; until one would have thought that all her self were flying in pursuit of her words. Nor did she know reticence:

Every species of creature also seemed to be assembling in concourse, and taking stock of one another.

Suddenly the Earth became populous, the forest had opened its eyes, and the meadows were lifting up their voice in song.

In the same way had choral dances begun to be weaved in the village, and everywhere that the eye turned there was merriment.

And from that he would go on to fancy that a title appended to his rank would not be a bad thing—the title of State Councillor, for instance, which was deserving of all honour and respect.

Ah, it is a common thing for a man who is taking a solitary walk so to detach himself from the irksome realities of the present that he is able to stir and to excite and to provoke his imagination to the conception of things he knows can never really come to pass!

Chichikov’s servants also found the mansion to their taste, and, like their master, speedily made themselves at home in it.

“The truth is you don’t eat enough. Try the plan of making a good dinner.

Weariness of everything is a modern invention.

Once upon a time one never heard of it.”

To the zakuski succeeded the meal itself, and the host became a perfect glutton on his guests’ behalf. Should he notice that a guest had taken but a single piece of a comestible, he added thereto another one, saying: “

Without a mate, neither man nor bird can live in this world.

” Should anyone take two pieces, he added thereto a third, saying: “What is the good of the number 2? God loves a trinity.” Should anyone take three pieces, he would say: “Where do you see a wagon with three wheels?

I myself toil like a bullock, and I force my peasants to do the same, for experience has taught me that that is the only way to get through life.

All the mischief in the world comes through lack of employment.

Now, do you go and consider the matter, and talk it over with your mir.”

“Because it was absolutely necessary that you should view the matter through forms of documentary process. This is no jest on my part.

The inexperienced may see things subconsciously, yet it is imperative that he should also see them consciously.

”

“And as for political economy,” continued Kostanzhoglo, without noticing him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, “—as for political economy, it is a fine thing indeed.

Just one fool sitting on another fool’s back, and flogging him along, even though the rider can see no further than his own nose!

Yet into the saddle will that fool climb—spectacles and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of such things!” And the speaker spat derisively.

He who is born with thousands, and is brought up to thousands, will never acquire a single kopeck more, for he will have been set up with the amenities of life in advance, and so never come to stand in need of anything.

It is necessary to begin from the beginning rather than from the middle; from a kopeck rather than from a rouble; from the bottom rather than from the top.

For only thus will a man get to know the men and conditions among which his career will have to be carved.

“Should you pay too much attention to those things, you might find yourself without crops or view. Utility should be placed first, not beauty. Beauty will come of itself. Take, for example, towns.

The fairest and most beautiful towns are those which have built themselves⁠—those in which each man has built to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than collections of barracks.

Put beauty aside, and look only to what is necessary.”

Thus everything will be multiplied tenfold. I myself have ceased even to have to lift a finger, for whatsoever needs to be done gets done of itself.

Nature loves patience: always remember that.

It is a law given her of God Himself, who has blessed all those who are strong to endure.”

A few of them succeeded in annexing the cream of things, for the reason that they had the wit to do so, and the rest spent their time in doing their best to ruin their health and squander their money.

Often I think there is no hope for the present-day Russian. While desiring to do everything, he accomplishes nothing.

One day he will scheme to begin a new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet before evening he will have so over-eaten himself as to be unable to speak or do aught but sit staring like an owl. The same with everyone.”

Often I think there is no hope for the present-day Russian. While desiring to do everything, he accomplishes nothing.

One day he will scheme to begin a new mode of existence, a new dietary; yet before evening he will have so over-eaten himself as to be unable to speak or do aught but sit staring like an owl.

The same with everyone.”

Yet those projects proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and mentally exclaim: “

Good Lord! What a difference between worldly wisdom and the capacity to use it!

” In every case the projects in question were based upon the imperative necessity of at once procuring from somewhere two hundred—or at least one hundred—thousand roubles.

“Emotion has become a disease with you,” said Platon. “

You seek your own troubles, and make your own anxieties.

”

“No, Semen Semenovitch—no: that you would find the hardest task of all.

For how can a man educate his children who has never even educated himself?

Instruction can be imparted to children only through the medium of example; and would a life like yours furnish them with a profitable example—a life which has been spent in idleness and the playing of cards? No, Semen Semenovitch.

Sincerely do I assure you that, were I myself to be deprived of my property (and my property greatly exceeds yours in magnitude), I should not shed a single tear.

It is not the property of which men can deprive us that matters, but the property of which no one on Earth can deprive or despoil us.

You are a man who has seen something of life—to use your own words, you have been a barque tossed hither and thither by tempestuous waves:

Therefore, if it really be that you have no genuine love for doing good, do good by forcing yourself to do so. Thus you will benefit yourself even more than you will benefit him for whose sake the act is performed.

Only force yourself to do good just once and again, and, behold, you will suddenly conceive the true love for well-doing.

That is so, believe me. ‘A kingdom is to be won only by striving,’ says the proverb.