Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/87

Rh has taken a notion into his head there is no getting over it, anyhow: however many arguments as clear as daylight you put before him, they all rebound from him as an india-rubber ball bounces from a wall.

After mopping his brow Tchitchikov made up his mind to try whether he could not get round her from some other side.

'Either you don't want to understand what I say, ma'am, or you talk like that, simply for the sake of saying something. I'll give you fifteen paper roubles—do you understand? That's money, you know. You won't pick it up in the road. Come, let me know what you sold your honey for?'

'Twelve roubles a pood.'

'You are taking a little sin upon your soul, ma'am, you didn't sell it for twelve roubles.'

'Upon my word, I did.'

'Well, do you see? That was for something—it was honey. You had been collecting it perhaps for about a year with work and trouble and anxiety, you went and killed the bees, and fed the bees in the cellar all the winter. But dead souls are not a thing of this world at all. In this case, you have taken no trouble whatever about them, it was God's will that they should leave this world to the loss of your estate. In the case of the honey, for your work, for your exertions you have received twelve roubles, but in this case you will get gratis, for nothing, not twelve but fifteen roubles, and not in silver but all in blue notes.'