Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/170

158 peasants. Sobakevitch readily agreed, went to his bureau at once, and began writing with his own hand not merely a list of all the names but also an enumeration of their valuable qualities.

And Tchitchikov, having nothing better to do, and being seated behind him, scrutinised his ample frame. As he looked at his back, broad as a thick-set Vyatka horse, and at his legs which looked like the iron posts stuck in pavements, he could not help inwardly exclaiming: 'Ough, God has been bountiful to you! It is a case of what they call, badly cut but strongly sewn! … I wonder whether you were born a bear or have you been turned into a bear by living in the wilds, tilling the cornfields, dealing with peasants, and through all that have you become what they call a "fist"? But no; I believe you would have been just the same if you had had a fashionable education, had gone into society and lived in Petersburg instead of in the wilds. The only difference is, that now you will gorge upon half a saddle of mutton and grain, and eat cheese-cakes as big as a plate, while in Petersburg you would have eaten cutlets with truffles. As it is, you have peasants in your power, you get on well with them and don't ill-treat them because they are yours, and it would be to your disadvantage; but up in town you would have clerks under you whom you would have bullied horribly, reflecting that they were not your serfs, or you would have stolen government money! No, if a man has a close fist there is no making him open it! Or if he does open