Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/193

Rh linen and home-made materials, for they turned to dust at the touch. By now he had himself forgotten how much he had of anything and only remembered the place in the cupboard where he had put a decanter with a little of some liqueur in it, and the mark he had made on it, that no one might thievishly help himself, and the spot where a bit of sealing-wax or a feather had been laid. And meanwhile the revenue from the estate came in as before: the peasants had to pay the same rent in lieu of labour, every peasant woman had to bring the same contribution of nuts, and to furnish so many pieces of the linen she weaved. All this was heaped together in the storehouses, and all was falling into decay and tatters, and he himself was at last turning into a mere tatter of humanity. Alexandra Stepanovna came on one or two occasions to visit him with her little son, in hope of getting a little help from him; evidently a life on active service with the lieutenant was not as attractive as she had fancied before her marriage. Plyushkin forgave her, however, and even gave his little grandson a button that was lying on the table to play with, but he gave her no money. Another time Alexandra Stepanovna came with two little ones and brought him a cake for tea and a new dressing-gown, for her father was wearing a dressing-gown which was not merely a shocking but positively a shameful sight. Plyushkin fondled both his grandsons and, putting one on his right knee and one on his left, jogged them