Dead Souls (New York Review Books Classics) by Nikolai Gogol

Author:Nikolai Gogol [Gogol, Nikolai]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781590176559
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2012-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

10

Eventually, when they assembled at the house of the chief of police, known to the reader as the town’s father and benefactor, the officials had occasion to remark to one another that they had even lost weight because of all these alarms and anxieties. The appointment of a new governor-general and the troubling contents of the documents received, as well as God knows what rumors, had really left noticeable traces on their faces, and many a tailcoat now sat far more loosely on its owner. Nobody seemed exempt: the chief judge had lost weight, so had the medical services inspector, so had the prosecutor, and even a certain Semion Ivanovich, who was never referred to by his surname and who wore on his index finger a ring which he let ladies examine, had lost weight.

Of course, as happens anywhere, there were some people not easily intimidated, who had kept their presence of mind, but they were very few indeed: just the postmaster, in fact. He was the only person who had not changed his constant, imperturbable nature, and in such cases would usually say, “Governor-generals? I’ve seen them all! Three or four of you will come and go, and I, sir, will have spent thirty years in the same job.” Other officials usually responded to this with the words, “It’s all right for you, Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Ivan Andreich, you run the post: you just have to receive and dispatch the mail. The worst you can do is cheat by shutting the office an hour earlier or take money off a merchant who comes too late or out of hours with a letter to mail, or you might forward a package you shouldn’t forward: anyone can do your job and keep his nose clean. But just you imagine some devil milling around you every day, and even if you refuse to take his money, he shoves it in your hand anyway. You’ve got nothing to worry about, of course, you’ve only got one son, but look, pal, my Praskovia’s been so blessed by God that she bears every year either a little Praskovia or a little Piotr. If you had to cope with that, you’d sing a different tune, pal.” That was what the officials were saying, and it’s not the business of the author to say if one can really stand up to the devil. The council that had gathered on this occasion was very noticeably lacking in one indispensable thing, what simple people call common sense. For some reason, we are not particularly well suited for representative committees. All our assemblies, from a peasant communal gathering to every kind of scholarly and other committee, unless they have a chief who runs everything, are plagued by hopeless confusion. It’s hard to say why this is so: it would seem to be the way the nation is inclined: somehow, the only councils that succeed are those that are formed to organize a carousal or a dinner: clubs and other places of amusement in the German style.

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