Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/217

Rh uttering some unseemly and violent language in the presence of his wife. A shade of gloomy melancholy darkened his lively face. Lines that betrayed the wrathful ferment of his rising spleen furrowed his brow vertically and horizontally.

Tchitchikov emptied a glass of raspberry cordial and said: 'Allow me, my honoured friend, to bring you back again to the point where our conversation broke off. Supposing I were to obtain the estate to which you kindly referred, how long a time or how quickly could I grow as rich as'

'If you want to grow rich quickly,' Skudronzhoglo caught him up suddenly and abruptly, for he was still full of ill-humour, 'you'll never get rich at all: if you want to get rich without caring how long it takes, you'll get rich quickly.'

'You don't say so!' said Tchitchikov.

'Yes,' said Skudronzhoglo abruptly, as though he had been angry with Tchitchikov himself. 'You must have a love for the work: without that you can do nothing. You must like farming. Yes! and believe me it is anything but dull. They have got up an idea that it is depressing in the country … but I should die of depression if I had to spend one day in town as they spend their time. A farmer has no time to be bored. There is no emptiness in his life, it is all fullness. You have only to look at the varied round of the year's work—and what work! Work that does truly elevate the spirit, to say nothing of its variety. In it a man goes hand