Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/234

224 he is, to look at such senseless mismanagement. Would you believe it, Pavel Ivanovitch, that I cannot, that I am not able … that I have hardly sown any wheat at all this year! As I am an honest man I had no seed, let alone the fact that I have nothing to plough with. Your brother is an extraordinary manager I am told, Platon Mihailovitch; but Konstantin Fyodorovitch, there is no denying it, is a Napoleon in that line. I often think indeed: "Why is it that there is so much sense in one head? if only there were one drop of it in my silly brain, just enough to know how to manage my household! I don't know how to do anything: I am no use for anything. Oh, Pavel Ivanovitch, take my land under your care! I feel most sorry for my poor peasants, I feel that I am incapable. … I don't know how to be strict and exacting. And, indeed, how could I train them in order and regularity when I am so disorderly and irregular myself! I should like to give them all their freedom at once, but a Russian's so made that he can't do without a purchaser. … As he drowses so he drowns.'

'Why, that is really strange,' said Platonov. 'Why is it in Russia that if you don't look sharply after the peasant he becomes a drunkard and good-for-nothing?'

'From lack of culture,' said Tchitchikov.

'Well, God knows why. Here we are cultured, and see how we live. I have been to the university and have listened to lectures on all