Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/208

198 Koshkaryov stopped and said: 'In this passage the rogue certainly scores off you. But he has a smart pen, hasn't he, the language of a state secretary, and yet he has only been three years at the university, in fact he did not finish his education.' Koshkaryov continued: 'He has not gone far, as is evident, in the study of the humanities … for he has used the expression "dead souls," while every one who has completed a course of humane studies, knows for a fact that the soul is immortal. 2. Of the aforementioned souls, acquired by purchase or otherwise, or, as the gentleman incorrectly expresses it, dead, there are none that have not only been mortgaged, seeing that all without exception have been not only mortgaged but re-mortgaged for an additional hundred and fifty roubles a soul, except the little village of 'Gurmailovka,' which is in a doubtful position owing to the lawsuit with the landowner, Predishtchev, and so cannot be sold or mortgaged."'

'Then why did you not tell me before? Why have you delayed me over these trifles?' said Tchitchikov angrily.

'Why, how could I tell that at first? That's the advantage of putting everything on paper, that everything now is perfectly clear.'

'You are a fool, a silly ass,' thought Tchitchikov to himself. 'He has rummaged about in books, but what has he learned?' Regardless of all the rules of propriety and politeness, he seized his cap and rushed out of the house.