"Aha!" he cried out suddenly, spreading both arms at the sight of Chichikov. "What brings you here?"
Chichikov recognized Nozdryov, the very one with whom he had dined at the prosecutor's and who within a few minutes had got on such an intimate footing with him that he had even begun to address him familiarly, though, incidentally, he had given no occasion for it on his side.
"Where have you been?" Nozdryov said, going on without waiting for an answer: "And I, brother, am coming from the fair. Congratulate me, I blew my whole wad! Would you believe it, never in my life have I blown so much. I even drove here with hired horses! Here, look out the window on purpose!" Whereupon he bent Chichikov's head down himself so that he almost bumped it against the window frame. "See, what trash! They barely dragged themselves here, curse them; I had to climb into his britzka." As he said this, Nozdryov pointed his finger at his comrade. "And you're not acquainted yet? My in-law, Mizhuev! We've been talking about you all morning. 'Well, just watch,' I said, 'we're going to run into Chichikov.' Well, brother, if only you knew how much I blew! Would you believe it, I didn't just dump my four trotters—everything went. There's neither chain nor watch left on me ..." Chichikov glanced and saw that there was indeed neither chain nor watch left on him. It even seemed to him that his side-whiskers on one side were smaller and not as thick as on the other. "If only I had just twenty roubles in my pocket," Nozdryov went on, "precisely no more than twenty, I'd get everything back, I mean, on top of getting everything back, as I'm an honest man, I'd put thirty thousand in my wallet straight off."
"You were saying the same thing then, however," the fairhaired one responded, "but when I gave you fifty roubles, you lost it at once."
"I wouldn't have lost it! By God, I wouldn't have lost it! If I hadn't done a stupid thing myself, I really wouldn't have lost it. If I hadn't bluffed on that cursed seven after the paroli, I could have broken the bank."
"You didn't break it, however," said the fair-haired one.
"I didn't because I bluffed at the wrong time. And you think your major is a good player?"
"Good or not, however, he beat you."
"Eh, who cares!" said Nozdryov. "I could beat him, too, that way! No, let him try doubling, then I'll see, then I'll see what kind of player he is! But still, brother Chichikov, how we caroused those first days! True, the fair was an excellent one. The merchants themselves said there had never been such a gathering. Everything we brought from my estate was sold at the most profitable price. Eh, brother, how we caroused! Even now, when I remember . . . devil take it! I mean, what a pity you weren't there. Imagine, a dragoon regiment was stationed two miles from town. Would you believe it, the officers, all there were of them, forty men just of officers alone, came to town; and, brother, how we started drinking . . . Staff Captain Potseluev . . . what a nice one he is! a mustache, brother, like this! Bordeaux he calls simply brewdeaux. 'Bring us some of that brewdeaux, brother!' he says. Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. . . Ah, brother, what a sweetheart! Him, now, him we can call a carouser by all the rules. We were always together. What wine Ponomaryov brought out for us! You should know that he's a crook and one oughtn't to buy anything in his shop: he mixes all sorts of trash with his wine—sandalwood, burnt cork, he even rubs red elderberry into it, the scoundrel; but to make up for that, if he does go and fetch some bottle from his far-off little room, the special room, he calls it— well, brother, then you're simply in the empyrean. We had such a champagne—what's the governor's next to that? mere kvass. Imagine, not clicquot, but some sort of clicquot-matradura, meaning double clicquot. [10]And he also brought out one little bottle of a French wine called 'bonbon.' Bouquet?—rosebuds and whatever else you like. Oh, did we carouse! . . . After us some prince arrived, sent to a shop for champagne, there wasn't a bottle left in the whole town, the officers drank it all. Would you believe it, I alone, in the course of one dinner, drank seventeen bottles of champagne!"
"No, you couldn't drink seventeen bottles," observed the fair-haired one.
"As I'm an honest man, I say I did," replied Nozdryov.
"You can say whatever you like, but I'm telling you that you couldn't drink even ten."
"Well, let's make a bet on it!"
"Why bet on it?"
"Well, then stake that gun you bought in town."
"I don't want to."
"Well, go on, chance it!"
"I don't want to chance it."
"Right, you'd be without a gun, just as you're without a hat. Eh, brother Chichikov, I mean, how sorry I was that you weren't there. I know you'd never part from Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. How well you'd get along together! A far cry from the prosecutor and all the provincial skinflints in our town, who tremble over every kopeck. That one, brother, will sit down to quinze, or faro, or anything you like. Eh, Chichikov, would it have cost you so much to come? Really, aren't you a little pig after that, you cattle breeder! Kiss me, dear heart, on my life I do love you! Mizhuev, look how fate has brought us together: what is he to me or I to him? He came from God knows where, and I also live here . . . And there were so many carriages, brother, and all that en gros.I spun the wheel of fortune: won two jars of pomade, a porcelain cup, and a guitar; then I staked again, spun it, and lost, confound it, six roubles on top of that. And what a philanderer Kuvshinnikov is, if you only knew! He and I went to nearly all the balls. There was one girl there so decked out, all ruche and truche and devil knows what not... I just thought to myself: 'Devil take it!' But Kuvshinnikov, I mean, he's such a rascal, he sat himself down next to her and started getting at her with all these compliments in the French language . . . Would you believe it, he didn't pass by the simple wenches either. That's what he calls 'going strawberrying.' And the abundance of wonderful fish and balyks! [11] I brought one with me; it's a good thing I thought of buying it while I still had money. Where are you going now?"
"Oh, to see a certain little fellow."
"Well, forget your little fellow! let's go to my place!"
"No, I can't, it's to close a deal."
"Well, so it's a deal now! What else will you think up! Ah, you Opodealdoc Ivanovich!" [12]
"A deal, yes, and quite an important one at that."
"I bet you're lying! Well, so tell me, who are you going to see?"
"Well, it's Sobakevich."
Here Nozdryov guffawed with that ringing laughter into which only a fresh, healthy man can dissolve, showing all his teeth, white as sugar, to the last one; his cheeks quiver and shake, and his neighbor, two doors away, in the third room, jumps up from his sleep, goggling his eyes, and saying: "Eh, how he carries on!"
"What's so funny?" said Chichikov, somewhat displeased by this laughter.
But Nozdryov went on guffawing at the top of his lungs, all the while saying:
"Oh, spare me, really, I'll split my sides!"
"There's nothing funny: I gave him my word," said Chichikov.
"But you'll be sorry you were ever born when you get there, he's a real jew-eater! I know your character, you'll be cruelly disconcerted if you hope to find a little game of faro there and a good bottle of some bonbon. Listen, brother: to the devil with Sobakevich, let's go to my place! I'll treat you to such a balyk!Ponomaryov, that rascal, was bowing and scraping so: 'For you alone,' he said. 'Go look around the whole fair, you won't find another like it.' A terrible rogue, though. I told him so to his face: 'You and our tax farmer,' I said, 'are top-notch crooks!' He laughed, the rascal, stroking his beard. Kuvshinnikov and I had lunch in his shop every day. Ah, brother, I forgot to tell you: I know you won't leave me alone now, but I won't let you have it even for ten thousand, I'm telling you beforehand. Hey, Porfiry!" Going to the window, he shouted to his man, who was holding a knife in one hand and in the other a crust of bread and a piece of balyk,which he had luckily cut off in passing as he was getting something from the britzka. "Hey, Porfiry," Nozdryov shouted, "go and fetch the puppy! What a puppy!" he went on, turning to Chichikov. "A stolen one, the owner wouldn't have parted with it even for my own head. I offered him the chestnut mare, remember, the one I took in trade from Khvostyrev ..." Chichikov, however, had never in his born days seen either the chestnut mare or Khvostyrev.
10
Clicquot is the name of one of the finest champagnes. Nozdryov uses it in lowercase as an adjective, and combines it superlatively but absurdly with
11
12
Opodeldoc (originally