Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/199

Rh that had appeared so instantaneously on his wooden face just as instantaneously passed away, as though it had never been there, and the anxious expression came into his face again. He even wiped his face with his handkerchief and, rolling it up into a ball, began to pass it over his upper lip.

'How do you mean, if I may make bold to inquire without offending you; do you undertake to pay the tax for them every year, and will send the money to me or to the tax collector?'

'Oh, this is what we will do: we will draw up a deed of purchase of them, as though they were alive, and as though you were selling them to me.'

'Yes, a deed of purchase,' said Plyushkin; he sank into thought and began again munching his lips. 'But you see a deed of purchase is an expense. The clerks have no conscience. In old days one could get off with half a rouble in copper and a sack of flour, but now you have to send them a whole cartload of grain, and add a red note too, they are such money-grubbers. I don't know how it is no one notices it. They might at least say a word of admonition to them; you know you can touch any one with a word, say what you like, but there is no resisting a word of admonition.'

'Come, I fancy you would resist it!' Tchitchikov thought to himself, and he at once declared that out of respect for him he was even ready to take the expenses of the purchase upon himself.

Hearing that he was prepared to do this, Plyushkin