Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/197

Rh and you'll find nothing of the sort! During the last three years, the cursed fever has carried off a terrible number of my peasants.'

'You don't say so! And have many died?' exclaimed Tchitchikov with sympathy.

'Yes, many are in their graves.'

'And allow me to ask you, how many?'

'Eighty souls.'

'No?'

'I shouldn't tell you a lie, my good sir.'

'Allow me to inquire too: I suppose that you reckon that number from the time the last census was taken?'

'I should be thankful if it were so,' said Plyushkin, 'the number dead since then runs up to a hundred and twenty.'

'Really! a hundred and twenty?' exclaimed Tchitchikov, and he positively gaped with astonishment,

'I am an old man, sir, and not likely to tell you a lie: I am over seventy!' said Plyushkin. He seemed rather offended by Tchitchikov's almost joyful exclamation. Tchitchikov realised that such lack of sympathy with another man's troubles really was shocking, and so he immediately sighed and said that he deeply sympathised.

'But sympathy is nothing you can put in your pocket,' said Plyushkin. 'Here there is a captain living near, the devil knows where he has come from; he says he is a relation. It's "uncle, uncle," all the time, and he kisses my hand; and when he begins sympathising he sets up such a howl