Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/86

76 them live there! The resettlement can be done properly, in the legal way through the courts. If they want to verify the peasants—by all means, I have nothing against it. Why not? I'll present the verification with a signature of the captain of the police in his own handwriting. The village might be called Tchitchikov's Settlement or from my Christian name, the hamlet of Pavlovskoe.'

And so this was how our hero's mind reached this strange idea, for which I cannot tell whether my readers will be grateful to him, though it would be hard to say how grateful the author is, for had this idea not entered Tchitchikov's head, this poem would not, in any case, have seen the light.

Crossing himself after the Russian fashion he proceeded to carry it out. On the pretence of looking for a place to settle and other pretexts, he went off to look at various corners of our empire, especially those which had suffered more than others from various misfortunes, such as bad harvests, high rate of mortality and so on, where in fact he might most conveniently and cheaply buy the sort of peasants he wanted. He did not apply to every landowner indiscriminately, but selected those who were most to his taste, or those with whom he found less difficulty in making such bargains, trying first to make their acquaintance and gain their good-will, so as to obtain the peasants through friendship rather than by purchase. And so the reader must not be indignant with the author if the characters