Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/312

300 character of man, his coarse dense nature, incapable of domestic management, and of genuine convictions, lacking in faith, slothful, always full of doubts and everlasting apprehensions. They said that this was all nonsense, that eloping with the governor's daughter was more in a hussar's line than in a civilian's, that Tchitchikov would not do that, that women talked nonsense, that a woman was a sack—she would swallow anything; that the important point to take notice of was the purchase of the dead souls, and what the devil that meant there was no saying, though there was certainly something very nasty and unpleasant about it. Why the men thought there was something very nasty and unpleasant about it we shall learn immediately. A new governor-general had been appointed for the province, an event as every one knows that always throws the local officials into great perturbation: it is invariably followed by dismissals, reprimands, punishments, and the various official treats with which higher officers regale their subordinates. 'Why,' thought the local officials, 'if he finds out that these stupid rumours are going about the town, his fury may be a matter of life and death.' The inspector of the medical board suddenly turned pale: he imagined, God knows why, that the words 'dead souls' might be a reference to the patients, who had died in considerable numbers in the hospitals and infirmaries of an epidemic fever, against which no proper precautions had been taken, and that Tchitchikov might have been sent by