Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/181

Rh Platon Mihailovitch Platonov was an Achilles and Paris in one, a graceful figure, picturesque height, freshness—everything was combined in him. A pleasant smile with a faint expression of irony, as it were, accentuated his beauty, but, in spite of all that, there was something lifeless and drowsy about him. No passions, no sorrows, no agitations had traced lines on his virginal fresh face, but the absence of them left him lifeless.

'I must confess,' Tchitchikov pronounced, 'I too cannot understand how with an appearance like yours—if you will allow me to say so—you can be bored. Of course there may be other reasons—lack of money or vexations due to evil-minded persons, for indeed there are some such as are ready even to attempt one's life.'

'But the point is that there is nothing of the sort,' said Platonov. 'Would you believe it that sometimes I could wish that it were so, that I had some anxiety and trouble, well, even for instance that some one would make me angry, but no, I am bored and that is all about it!'

'I don't understand it, but perhaps your estate is insufficient and you have only a small number of souls?'

'Oh no. My brother and I have thirty thousand acres of land and a thousand souls of peasants on them.'

'And with all that to be bored, it is incomprehensible! But perhaps your estate is in