there was no need of sweeping the streets after he had gone on his rounds; if a passing officer chanced to lose a spur, the spur was forthwith transferred to the familiar heap; if a woman gaped over the well, and forgot her pail, Pliushkin carried off the pail. However, whenever a moujik caught him in the act, he never disputed, but immediately surrendered the stolen article; though if it once fell upon his heap, that was the end of it: he swore that it was his own, that he had bought it at such and such a time, of such or such a person, or that he had inherited it from his grandfather. In his own room he picked up everything he saw—a bit of sealing-wax, a scrap of paper, or a tiny feather—and stuffed everything away in his desk, or on the window ledge.

Of course, there had been a time when he had simply been a careful manager, when he had been a married family man, and when his neighbours had been in the habit of coming to dine with him, and listening to him, and taking lessons from him in wise economy. Everything then went on briskly: grain- mills and fulling-mills were in operation, cloth-mills were running, carpenter’s shops and spinning-rooms were at work; the searching glance of the master penetrated everywhere and into everything; and carefully, but assiduously, like an industrious spider, did he run about attending to domestic matters. In those times his courteous and talkative wife was renowned for her hospitality; two charming daughters, both fair and as fresh as roses, came to greet the guests: the son, a fine, vivacious little boy, ran out and kissed everybody. All the windows in the house were open then: there was a French tutor, who was a great sportsman, and who was always bringing home partridges or ducks for dinner. And there was also a governess for the little girls. But the good housewife died. Pliushkin became restless, and, like all widowers, suspicious and saving. He did not place full confidence in his eldest daughter, Alexandra Stepanovna, and he was right; for Alexandra Stepanovna soon eloped with a staff-captain, belonging to God knows what regiment of cavalry, and she married him in haste in some village church, although she knew that her father did not like officers on account of a strange, prejudiced belief of long standing, that they were all gamblers and spendthrifts. Her father sent his curse after her, and then the house grew more desolate, its owner became more and more miserly. The French tutor was dismissed, because the time had arrived for the son to enter the civil service; the governess was sent about her business, because it appeared that she was not free from guilt in the matter of Alexandra Stepanovna’s elopement; the son, on being despatched to the chief town of the government, in order to learn official routine, according to his father’s wish, enlisted in a regiment instead, and wrote to his father immediately afterwards, asking for some money. Very naturally, he received in reply what the common people call a shish¹. Finally, the last daughter, who had remained at home with the father, died, and the old man found himself the sole guardian, protector, and owner of his wealth.

His lonely life then made him yet more miserly, and as though for the express purpose of confirming him in his opinion of military men, his son ruined himself at cards: he sent him a hearty paternal curse, and never troubled himself afterwards to inquire whether he still existed in the world or not. More windows were shut up every year in the house, until at last only two remained to admit any light, one of which, as the reader has already seen, was pasted up with blue paper. As time went on he paid less and less attention to domestic management, busying himself more about the scraps of paper and feathers which he collected in his room; he became more and more crusty with the people who came to buy the products of his estate; the dealers grew disgusted with him, and finally abandoned him altogether, saying that he was a devil, and not a man; his hay and grain rotted; his ricks and stores of all sorts turned into manure, pure and simple, so that cabbages might have been grown upon them; the flour in his vaults turned to stone, and had to be chopped up: it was terrible to touch the linen, the cloth, and other materials of domestic manufacture; they turned to dust under the hand. He himself had already forgotten what he possessed of any given article. He only remembered the sideboard which contained his decanters of brandy, upon which he had made a mark, in order that no one might thievishly drink the liquor. Meanwhile, however, the revenues of the estate were collected as before: the moujiks had to bring as much obrok as usual, the same tribute of nuts was imposed upon every housewife, and the weaving women were obliged to furnish the same number of webs of linen. Everything finally was piled away in the storerooms and rotted, and he himself became at last scarcely human. His daughter, Alexandra Stepanovna, came a couple of times with her little son, to try whether she could not obtain something: it was evident that a wandering life with a cavalry captain was not so attractive as it had appeared before marriage. However,