Meanwhile, the three carriages had already driven up to the porch of Nozdryov's house. No preparations had been made in the house for receiving them. In the middle of the dining room stood wooden trestles, and two muzhiks were standing on them, whitewashing the walls, intoning some endless song; the floor was all spattered with whitewash. Nozdryov straightaway ordered the muzhiks and trestles out and ran to the other room to give commands. The guests heard him ordering dinner from the cook; realizing this, Chichikov, who was already beginning to feel slightly hungry, understood that they would not sit down to table before five o'clock. Nozdryov, returning to his guests, took them around to look at everything there was to be seen on his estate, and in a little over two hours had shown them decidedly everything, so that there was nothing else left to show. First of all they went to look at the stables, where they saw two mares, one a dapple-gray the other a light chestnut, then a bay stallion, a homely sight, but for whom Nozdryov swore by God he had paid ten thousand.
"You didn't pay ten thousand for him," the in-law observed. "He's not worth even one."
"By God, I paid ten thousand," said Nozdryov.
"You can swear by God all you want," the in-law replied.
"Well, if you want, we can bet on it!" said Nozdryov.
The in-law did not want to bet.
Then Nozdryov showed them the empty stalls where there had also been good horses once. In the same stable they saw a billy goat, which, according to an old belief, it was considered necessary to keep with horses, and who seemed to be getting along well with them, strolling under their bellies as if he was right at home. Then Nozdryov took them to see a wolf cub that he kept tied up. "There's the wolf cub!" he said. "I feed him raw meat on purpose. I want to make an utter beast of him!" They went to look at the pond, in which, according to Nozdryov's words, there lived fish so big that it was hard for two men to pull one out, which the relative, however, did not fail to doubt. "I'm going to show you, Chichikov," said Nozdryov, "a most excellent pair of dogs: the strength of their hunkers simply fills one with amazement, their snouts are like needles!"—and he led them to a very prettily constructed little house, surrounded by a big yard fenced on all sides. Having entered the yard, they saw there all sorts of dogs, longhaired and short-haired, of every possible color and coat: tawny, black and tan, tan-spotted, tawny-spotted, red-spotted, black-eared, gray-eared . . . There were all sorts of names, all sorts of imperatives: Shoot, Scold, Flutter, Fire, Fop, Boast, Roast, Coast, Arrow, Swallow, Prize, Patroness. Nozdryov was amid them just like a father amid his family; they all shot up their tails, which dog fanciers calls sweeps, flew straight to meet the guests, and began to greet them. A good ten of them put their paws on Nozdryov's shoulders. Scold displayed the same friendliness towards Chichikov and, getting up on his hind legs, licked him right on the lips with his tongue, so that Chichikov straightaway spat. They looked at the dogs that filled one with amazement with the strength of their hunkers—fine dogs they were. Then they went to look at a Crimean bitch that was now blind and, according to Nozdryov, would soon die, but some two years ago had been a very fine bitch; they looked at the bitch as well—the bitch was, indeed, blind. Then they went to look at a water mill with a missing flutterer, in which the upper millstone is set and turns rapidly on a spindle—"flutters," in the wonderful expression of the Russian muzhik.
"And soon we'll be coming to the smithy!" said Nozdryov.
Going on a bit further, they indeed saw a smithy; and they looked at the smithy as well.
"In this field here," said Nozdryov, pointing his finger at the field, "it's so thick with hares you can't see the ground; I myself caught one by the hind legs with my bare hands."
"No, you couldn't catch a hare with your bare hands!" observed the in-law.
"But I did catch one, I caught one on purpose!" replied Nozdryov. "Now," he went on, turning to Chichikov, "I'll take you for a look at the boundary where my land ends."
Nozdryov led his guests across the field, which in many places consisted of tussocks. The guests had to make their way between fallow land and ploughed fields. Chichikov was beginning to get tired. In many places water squeezed out from under their feet, so low-lying the place was. At first they were careful and stepped cautiously, but then, seeing that it served no purpose, they plodded straight on without choosing between greater and lesser mud. Having gone a considerable distance, they indeed saw a boundary, which consisted of a wooden post and a narrow ditch.
"There's the boundary!" said Nozdryov. "Everything you see on this side of it is all mine, and even on that side, all that forest bluing over there, and all that's beyond the forest, is all mine."
"And since when is that forest yours?" asked the in-law. "Did you buy it recently? It never used to be yours."
"Yes, I bought it recently," replied Nozdryov.
"When did you manage to buy it so quickly?"
"Well, so I bought it two days ago, and paid a lot for it, too, devil take it."
"But you were at the fair then."
"Eh, you Sophron! [14]Can't a man be at a fair and buy land at the same time? So, I was at the fair, and my steward here bought it without me!"
"Well, the steward maybe!" said the in-law, but here, too, he was doubtful and shook his head.
The guests returned over the same nasty route to the house. Nozdryov led them to his study, in which, however, there was no trace to be seen of what is usually found in studies, that is, books or papers; there hung only sabers and two guns—one worth three hundred and the other eight hundred roubles. The in-law, having examined them, merely shook his head. Then they were shown some Turkish daggers, on one of which there had been mistakenly engraved: Savely Sibiryakov, Cutler.After that, a barrel organ appeared before the guests. Nozdryov straightaway ground something out for them. The barrel organ played not unpleasantly, but something seemed to have happened inside it, for the mazurka ended with the song "Malbrough Went Off to War," [15]and "Malbrough Went Off to War" was unexpectedly concluded by some long-familiar waltz. Nozdryov had long stopped grinding, but there was one very perky reed in the organ that simply refused to quiet down, and for some time afterwards went on tooting all by itself. Then pipes appeared—of wood, clay, meerschaum, broken in and un-broken-in, covered with chamois and not covered, a chibouk with an amber mouthpiece recently won at cards, a tobacco pouch embroidered by some countess who had fallen head over heels in love with him somewhere at a posting station, whose hands, according to him, were most subdiminally superflu—a phrase that for him probably meant the peak of perfection. After a snack of balyk,they sat down to eat at around five o'clock. Dinner, obviously, did not constitute the main thing in Nozdryov's life; the dishes did not play a big role: some were burnt, some were totally underdone. It was obvious that the cook was guided more by some sort of inspiration and put in the first thing he laid his hands on: if pepper was standing there, he poured in pepper; if there happened to be cabbage, he stuck in cabbage; he threw in milk, ham, peas—in short, slapdash, as long as it was hot, and some sort of taste was bound to result. Instead, Nozdryov applied himself to the wines: the soup had not yet been served, and he had already poured his guests a big glass of port, and another of ho-sauterne, [16]because in provincial and district capitals plain sauterne is not to be found. Then Nozdryov called for a bottle of madeira, than which no field marshal ever tasted better. The madeira, indeed, even burned the mouth, for the merchants, knowing the taste of landowners who like fine madeira, doctored it unmercifully with rum, and sometimes even poured aqua regia into it, in hopes that the Russian stomach could endure anything. Then Nozdryov called for some special bottle which, according to him, was burgognon and champagnon in one. He poured very zealously into both glasses, to his right and to his left, for his inlaw and for Chichikov. Chichikov noticed, however, somehow by the way, that he did not pour much for himself. This put him on his guard, and as soon as Nozdryov got somehow distracted, talking or pouring for his in-law, he would at once empty his glass onto his plate. After a short while, a rowanberry liqueur was brought to the table, which, according to Nozdryov, tasted altogether like cream, but which, amazingly, gave off a potent smell of moonshine. They then drank some sort of cordial, which had a name that was even difficult to remember, and which the host himself next time called by some different name. Dinner had long been over, and the wines had all been tried, but the guests were still sitting at the table. Chichikov by no means wanted to begin talking with Nozdryov about the main subject in the inlaw's presence. After all, the in-law was a third party, and the subject called for private and friendly conversation. However, the in-law could hardly be a dangerous man, because he seemed to have gotten fairly loaded, and kept nodding as he sat in his chair. Noticing himself that he was in rather unreliable condition, he finally started asking to go home, but in such a lazy and languid voice as though he were, as the Russian saying goes, pulling a collar on a horse with a pair of pliers.
15
The popular French song "Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre" expressed the pleasure the French took in the misfortunes of John Churchill, duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), who led the English forces in the War of the Spanish Succession in the Low Countries. The duke's name is variously misspelled in French transcriptions as "Malbrough," "Malborough," and even "Malbrouk."
16
Nozdryov probably means