Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/232

222 walking at a considerable distance behind, were talking together.

'He has neglected the place beyond everything,' said Skudronzhoglo. 'He has brought his peasants to such poverty! When the cattle plague comes it is no use thinking of what belongs to you. You must sell everything you have to get your peasants cattle so that they shouldn't be left a single day without the means of going on with their work. Now it would take years to reform them; the peasants have grown lazy and taken to drink.'

'So it is not very profitable to buy this estate now,' inquired Tchitchikov.

At that point Skudronzhoglo looked at Tchitchikov, as though he would have said: 'What an ignoramus you are; must one teach you everything from the A B C?'

'Not profitable? Why, in three years I would get an income of twenty thousand from that estate—that's how unprofitable it is. Ten miles across—is a trifle, it seems! And the land, look what the land's like! It's all water meadows. I'd sow flax, and for flax alone I'd get five thousand; I'd sow turnip, and get four thousand for turnip. And now look, the rye has come up; it was all self sown. He did not sow any corn, I know that. Why, that estate is worth a hundred and fifty thousand, not forty.'

Tchitchikov began to be afraid that Hlobuev might overhear, and so dropped even further behind.