Мертвые души

DeaD SoulS

Translated by D. J. Hogarth

Nikolai GoGol

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
 
Г58

ISBN 978-5-9925-1253-3

 
Гоголь, Николай Васильевич.
Г58  
Мертвые души : книга для чтения на английском языке / Пер. с рус. Д. Дж. Хогарта. — СанктПетербург : КАРО, 2017. — 352 с. (Русская классическая ли тература на иностранных языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1253-3.

Предлагаем вниманию читателей поэму в прозе великого 
русского писателя Н. В. Гоголя «Мертвые души», рассказывающую о похождениях Павла Ивановича Чичикова, авантюриста, скупающего у провинциальных помещиков «мертвые 
души». Перед читателем предстает панорама русской провинциальной жизни середины XIX века.

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2017

Chapter I

To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. 
there drew up a smart britchka — a light spring-carriage 
of the sort affected by bachelors, retired lieutenantcolonels, staff-captains, land-owners possessed of 
about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who 
rank as gentlemen of the intermediate category. In the 
britchka was seated such a gentleman — a man who, 
though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not overfat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, 
he was not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in 
the town, and was accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a couple of peasants who happened 
to be standing at the door of a dramshop exchanged a 
few comments with reference to the equipage rather 
than to the individual who was seated in it. “Look at 
that carriage,” one of them said to the other. “Think 
you it will be going as far as Moscow?” “I think it will,” 
replied his companion. “But not as far as Kazan, eh?” 
“No, not as far as Kazan.” With that the conversation 
ended. Presently, as the britchka was approaching the 

inn, it was met by a young man in a pair of very short, 
very tight breeches of white dimity, a quasi-fashionable 
frockcoat, and a dickey fastened with a pistol-shaped 
bronze tie-pin. The young man turned his head as he 
passed the britchka and eyed it attentively; after which 
he clapped his hand to his cap (which was in danger 
of being removed by the wind) and resumed his way. 
On the vehicle reaching the inn door, its occupant 
found standing there to welcome him the polevoi, or 
waiter, of the establishment — an individual of such 
nimble and brisk movement that even to distinguish 
the character of his face was impossible. Running out 
with a napkin in one hand and his lanky form clad 
in a tailcoat, reaching almost to the nape of his neck, 
he tossed back his locks, and escorted the gentleman 
upstairs, along a wooden gallery, and so to the bedchamber which God had prepared for the gentleman’s 
reception. The said bedchamber was of quite ordinary 
appearance, since the inn belonged to the species to be 
found in all provincial towns — the species wherein, 
for two roubles a day, travellers may obtain a room 
swarming with black-beetles, and communicating by 
a doorway with the apartment adjoining. True, the 
doorway may be blocked up with a wardrobe; yet behind it, in all probability, there will be standing a silent, 
motionless neighbour whose ears are burning to learn 
every possible detail concerning the latest arrival. The 
inn’s exterior corresponded with its interior. Long, 

and consisting only of two storeys, the building had 
its lower half destitute of stucco; with the result that 
the dark-red bricks, originally more or less dingy, had 
grown yet dingier under the influence of atmospheric 
changes. As for the upper half of the building, it was, 
of course, painted the usual tint of unfading yellow. 
Within, on the ground floor, there stood a number 
of benches heaped with horse-collars, rope, and 
sheepskins; while the window-seat accommodated a 
sbitentshik, cheek by jowl with a samovar — the latter 
so closely resembling the former in appearance that, 
but for the fact of the samovar possessing a pitch-black 
lip, the samovar and the sbitentshik might have been 
two of a pair.
During the traveller’s inspection of his room his 
luggage was brought into the apartment. First came 
a portmanteau of white leather whose raggedness indicated that the receptacle had made several previous 
journeys. The bearers of the same were the gentleman’s 
coachman, Selifan (a little man in a large overcoat), 
and the gentleman’s valet, Petrushka — the latter a fellow of about thirty, clad in a worn, over-ample jacket 
which formerly had graced his master’s shoulders, and 
possessed of a nose and a pair of lips whose coarseness 
communicated to his face rather a sullen expression. 
Behind the portmanteau came a small dispatch-box 
of redwood, lined with birch bark, a boot-case, and 
(wrapped in blue paper) a roast fowl; all of which hav

ing been deposited, the coachman departed to look 
after his horses, and the valet to establish himself in the 
little dark anteroom or kennel where already he had 
stored a cloak, a bagful of livery, and his own peculiar 
smell. Pressing the narrow bedstead back against the 
wall, he covered it with the tiny remnant of mattress — 
a remnant as thin and flat (perhaps also as greasy) as 
a pancake — which he had managed to beg of the 
landlord of the establishment.
While the attendants had been thus setting things 
straight the gentleman had repaired to the common 
parlour. The appearance of common parlours of the 
kind is known to every one who travels. Always they 
have varnished walls which, grown black in their upper portions with tobacco smoke, are, in their lower, 
grown shiny with the friction of customers’ backs — 
more especially with that of the backs of such local 
tradesmen as, on market-days, make it their regular 
practice to resort to the local hostelry for a glass of tea. 
Also, parlours of this kind invariably contain smutty 
ceilings, an equally smutty chandelier, a number of 
pendent shades which jump and rattle whenever the 
waiter scurries across the shabby oilcloth with a trayful of glasses (the glasses looking like a flock of birds 
roosting by the seashore), and a selection of oil paintings. In short, there are certain objects which one sees 
in every inn. In the present case the only outstanding 
feature of the room was the fact that in one of the 

paintings a nymph was portrayed as possessing breasts 
of a size such as the reader can never in his life have 
beheld. A similar caricaturing of nature is to be noted 
in the historical pictures (of unknown origin, period, 
and creation) which reach us — sometimes through 
the instrumentality of Russian magnates who profess 
to be connoisseurs of art — from Italy; owing to the 
said magnates having made such purchases solely on 
the advice of the couriers who have escorted them.
To resume, however — our traveller removed his 
cap, and divested his neck of a parti-coloured woollen 
scarf of the kind which a wife makes for her husband 
with her own hands, while accompanying the gift with 
interminable injunctions as to how best such a garment 
ought to be folded. True, bachelors also wear similar 
gauds, but, in their case, God alone knows who may 
have manufactured the articles! For my part, I cannot 
endure them. Having unfolded the scarf, the gentleman ordered dinner, and whilst the various dishes 
were being got ready — cabbage soup, a pie several 
weeks old, a dish of marrow and peas, a dish of sausages and cabbage, a roast fowl, some salted cucumber, 
and the sweet tart which stands perpetually ready for 
use in such establishments; whilst, I say, these things 
were either being warmed up or brought in cold, the 
gentleman induced the waiter to retail certain fragments of tittle-tattle concerning the late landlord of 
the hostelry, the amount of income which the hostelry 

produced, and the character of its present proprietor. 
To the last-mentioned inquiry the waiter returned 
the answer invariably given in such cases — namely, 
“My master is a terribly hard man, sir.” Curious that in 
enlightened Russia so many people cannot even take a 
meal at an inn without chattering to the attendant and 
making free with him! Nevertheless not ALL the questions which the gentleman asked were aimless ones, 
for he inquired who was Governor of the town, who 
President of the Local Council, and who Public Prosecutor. In short, he omitted no single official of note, 
while asking also (though with an air of detachment) 
the most exact particulars concerning the landowners 
of the neighbourhood. Which of them, he inquired, 
possessed serfs, and how many of them? How far from 
the town did those landowners reside? What was the 
character of each landowner, and was he in the habit 
of paying frequent visits to the town? The gentleman 
also made searching inquiries concerning the hygienic condition of the countryside. Was there, he asked, 
much sickness about — whether sporadic fever, fatal 
forms of ague, smallpox, or what not? Yet, though 
his solicitude concerning these matters showed more 
than ordinary curiosity, his bearing retained its gravity 
unimpaired, and from time to time he blew his nose 
with portentous fervour. Indeed, the manner in which 
he accomplished this latter feat was marvellous in the 
extreme, for, though that member emitted sounds 

equal to those of a trumpet in intensity, he could yet, 
with his accompanying air of guileless dignity, evoke 
the waiter’s undivided respect — so much so that, 
whenever the sounds of the nose reached that menial’s 
ears, he would shake back his locks, straighten himself 
into a posture of marked solicitude, and inquire afresh, 
with head slightly inclined, whether the gentleman 
happened to require anything further. After dinner 
the guest consumed a cup of coffee, and then, seating 
himself upon the sofa, with, behind him, one of those 
wool-covered cushions which, in Russian taverns, 
resemble nothing so much as a cobblestone or a brick, 
fell to snoring; whereafter, returning with a start to 
consciousness, he ordered himself to be conducted to 
his room, flung himself at full length upon the bed, 
and once more slept soundly for a couple of hours. 
Aroused, eventually, by the waiter, he, at the latter’s 
request, inscribed a fragment of paper with his name, 
his surname, and his rank (for communication, in 
accordance with the law, to the police): and on that 
paper the waiter, leaning forward from the corridor, 
read, syllable by syllable: “Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov, 
Collegiate Councillor — Landowner — Travelling on 
Private Affairs.” The waiter had just time to accomplish 
this feat before Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov set forth to 
inspect the town. Apparently the place succeeded in 
satisfying him, and, to tell the truth, it was at least up 
to the usual standard of our provincial capitals. Where 

the staring yellow of stone edifices did not greet his eye 
he found himself confronted with the more modest 
grey of wooden ones; which, consisting, for the most 
part, of one or two storeys (added to the range of attics 
which provincial architects love so well), looked almost 
lost amid the expanses of street and intervening medleys of broken or half-finished partition-walls. At other 
points evidence of more life and movement was to be 
seen, and here the houses stood crowded together and 
displayed dilapidated, rain-blurred signboards whereon boots or cakes or pairs of blue breeches inscribed 
“Arshavski, Tailor,” and so forth, were depicted. Over a 
shop containing hats and caps was written “Vassili Thedorov, Foreigner”; while, at another spot, a signboard 
portrayed a billiard table and two players — the latter 
clad in frockcoats of the kind usually affected by actors 
whose part it is to enter the stage during the closing act 
of a piece, even though, with arms sharply crooked and 
legs slightly bent, the said billiard players were taking 
the most careful aim, but succeeding only in making 
abortive strokes in the air. Each emporium of the sort 
had written over it: “This is the best establishment of 
its kind in the town.” Also, al fresco in the streets there 
stood tables heaped with nuts, soap, and gingerbread 
(the latter but little distinguishable from the soap), 
and at an eating-house there was displayed the sign of 
a plump fish transfixed with a gaff. But the sign most 
frequently to be discerned was the insignia of the State,