第48章

"Yes; pray come to table," said Sobakevitch to his guest; whereupon they consumed the customary glass of vodka (accompanied by sundry snacks of salted cucumber and other dainties) with which Russians, both in town and country, preface a meal. Then they filed into the dining-room in the wake of the hostess, who sailed on ahead like a goose swimming across a pond. 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 they have spoken a single word.

"My dear," said Sobakevitch, "the cabbage soup is excellent." With that he finished his portion, and helped himself to a generous measure of niania[4]--the dish which follows shtchi and consists of a sheep's stomach stuffed with black porridge, brains, and other things. "What niania this is!" he added to Chichikov. "Never would you get such stuff in a town, where one is given the devil knows what."[4] Literally, "nursemaid."

"Nevertheless the Governor keeps a fair table," said Chichikov.

"Yes, but do you know what all the stuff is MADE OF?" retorted Sobakevitch. "If you DID know you would never touch it.""Of course I am not in a position to say how it is prepared, but at least the pork cutlets and the boiled fish seemed excellent.""Ah, it might have been thought so; yet I know the way in which such things are bought in the market-place. They are bought by some rascal of a cook whom a Frenchman has taught how to skin a tomcat and then serve it up as hare.""Ugh! What horrible things you say!" put in Madame.

"Well, my dear, that is how things are done, and it is no fault of mine that it is so. Moreover, everything that is left over--everything that WE (pardon me for mentioning it) cast into the slop-pail--is used by such folk for making soup.""Always at table you begin talking like this!" objected his helpmeet.

"And why not?" said Sobakevitch. "I tell you straight that I would not eat such nastiness, even had I made it myself. Sugar a frog as much as you like, but never shall it pass MY lips. Nor would I swallow an oyster, for I know only too well what an oyster may resemble. But have some mutton, friend Chichikov. It is shoulder of mutton, and very different stuff from the mutton which they cook in noble kitchens--mutton which has been kicking about the market-place four days or more. All that sort of cookery has been invented by French and German doctors, and I should like to hang them for having done so.

They go and prescribe diets and a hunger cure as though what suits their flaccid German systems will agree with a Russian stomach! Such devices are no good at all." Sobakevitch shook his head wrathfully.

"Fellows like those are for ever talking of civilisation. As if THATsort 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."And he proceeded to put precept into practice by taking half the shoulder of mutton on to his plate, and then devouring it down to the last morsel of gristle and bone.

"My word!" reflected Chichikov. "The fellow has a pretty good holding capacity!""None of it for me," repeated Sobakevitch as he wiped his hands on his napkin. "I don't intend to be like a fellow named Plushkin, who owns eight hundred souls, yet dines worse than does my shepherd.""Who is Plushkin?" asked Chichikov.

"A miser," replied Sobakevitch. "Such a miser as never you could imagine. Even convicts in prison live better than he does. And he starves his servants as well.""Really?" ejaculated Chichikov, greatly interested. "Should you, then, say that he has lost many peasants by death?""Certainly. They keep dying like flies."

"Then how far from here does he reside?"

"About five versts."

"Only five versts?" exclaimed Chichikov, feeling his heart beating joyously. "Ought one, when leaving your gates, to turn to the right or to the left?""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.""Quite so," responded Chichikov. "My only reason for asking you is that it interests me to become acquainted with any and every sort of locality."To the shoulder of mutton there succeeded, in turn, cutlets (each one larger than a plate), a turkey of about the size of a calf, eggs, rice, pastry, and every conceivable thing which could possibly be put into a stomach. There the meal ended. When he rose from table Chichikov felt as though a pood's weight were inside him. In the drawing-room the company found dessert awaiting them in the shape of pears, plums, and apples; but since neither host nor guest could tackle these particular dainties the hostess removed them to another room. Taking advantage of her absence, Chichikov turned to Sobakevitch (who, prone in an armchair, seemed, after his ponderous meal, to be capable of doing little beyond belching and grunting--each such grunt or belch necessitating a subsequent signing of the cross over the mouth), and intimated to him a desire to have a little private conversation concerning a certain matter. At this moment the hostess returned.