Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/250

238 gloves, he'll clap his hands together, pick up his axe and go off to hew logs for his new hut.'

'But, Ivan Grigoryevitch, you have lost sight of one important point; you haven't asked yourself what sort of peasants Tchitchikov's are, you have forgotten that a good man is never sold by his master. I'll stake my head that Tchitchikov's peasants are thieves, hopeless drunkards, sluggards and of unruly behaviour.'

'To be sure, to be sure, I quite agree, that's true, no one will sell good serfs, and Tchitchikov's peasants are drunkards, but you must take into consideration that there is a moral point involved, that it is a moral question; they are good-for-nothing fellows now but, settled on new land, they may become excellent serfs. There are many such instances both in daily life and history.'

'Never, never,' said the superintendent of the government factories, 'believe me, that can never be, for Tchitchikov's peasants will have two terrible foes to face. The first is the proximity of the provinces of Little Russia, where as you all know there is no control of the Liquor Trade. I assure you within a fortnight they will all be as drunk as cobblers. The other danger arises from their inevitably growing used to a wandering life during their migration. They will have to be constantly before Tchitchikov's eyes, and he will have to keep a very tight hold over them, punish them for every trifle, and it will be no good for him to rely on any one else, he must give them a