Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/118

108 think better of it, there's still time. Swallow your pride and your amour propre, go and see him!'

'That's not the point, uncle,' said the nephew. 'There's no difficulty about my asking his pardon, especially as I really am to blame. He is my chief and I ought not in any case to have spoken to him as I did. But the real point is this: you have forgotten that I have other duties: I have three hundred peasants, my estate is in disorder and my steward's a fool. It will be no great loss to the state if some one sits in my place copying papers, but it will be a great loss if three hundred men don't pay their taxes. I am a landowner: there's plenty to do in that position also. If I concern myself with the preservation, care and improvement of the people entrusted to me and present the state with three hundred sober, hardworking subjects, in what way will my work be inferior to that of some chief of a department like Lyenitsyn?'

The actual civil councillor was open-mouthed with astonishment: he had not expected such a flood of words. After a moment's reflection he began after this style: 'But all the same … however can you? … How can you vegetate in the country? What society will you have among peasants? Here anyway a general or a prince may pass you in the street, if you like you can walk by the beautiful public buildings, or can go and look at the Neva, but there, whoever you pass will be a peasant. Why condemn yourself to rustic ignorance all your life?'