of a tiny house; or else, by way of recreation, stroll out into the chicken-yard, and feel each pullet which was destined for the table—indeed, in this manner, lead a noiseless but in its own way, not entirely useless life.
However, this was not the way that things turned out. Justice must be rendered to our hero’s invincible strength of character. After all this, which would have sufficed, if not to annihilate, at least to cool and calm another man for ever, his unconquerable passion was not at all dulled within him. He was grieved, he was vexed, he grumbled against all the world, he was indignant at the injustice of fate, he was enraged by the injustice of men; and yet he could not refrain from fresh attempts. In a word, he displayed a patience in comparison with which that of a plodding German is nothing, since the latter is solely due to the slow, languid circulation of his blood. Tchitchikoff’s blood, on the contrary, flowed briskly; but the exercise of much thoughtful volition was required to enable him to cast out his hook at anything now likely to yield him profit.
He reflected, and his thoughts obviously took this point of view: “Why do I exist? Why has misfortune overwhelmed me? Who cares about one’s duties nowadays? Everybody wins his way. I have not rendered anyone unhappy; I have not plundered the widow; I have not turned anyone adrift penniless on the world; I have merely availed myself of superfluous cash. I accepted it in cases where any one would have taken it; if I had not taken advantage of the chance, other people would have done so. Why do others thrive while I become food for the worm? And what am I now? What am I good for? With what eyes must I now gaze into those of any respectable father of a family? How can I avoid feeling the gnawing of conscience, knowing, as I do, that I am a useless burden on the earth? And what will my children say hereafter? ‘There,’ they will say, ‘is our beast of a father: he will leave us no property at all!”’
It has already been seen that Tchitchikoff worried a great deal over his posterity. Such a tender subject it is! Perhaps even some other man would not have purloined so much if it had not been for the question which, for some unknown reason, springs up of itself, “What will the children say?” So behold the future founder of a race, like a cautious cat, which, with a sidelong glance, observes whether the master be not looking, and then hastily seizes everything which is within its reach, whether it be soap or candles or tallow, or a canary bird, which in short, lets nothing whatever escape it.
Thus, our hero wept and complained: but, in the meantime, he never ceased exercising his wits. Again he retired within himself; again he stinted himself in every way; again he undertook to lead a hard life; again he descended from a clean and respectable existence to dirt and the life of the lowly. And while awaiting something better, he was fain to engage in the calling of a steward—a calling which has not hitherto been largely adopted by our citizen classes, for a steward receives buffets from all quarters, is but little respected by the petty-clerk tribe, or even by confidential agents, is condemned to dance attendance in ante-rooms, and to put up with impertinence and so on; however, necessity obliged our hero to make up his mind to everything.
Among the commissions which fell to him in this new capacity was the mortgaging of several hundred peasants to the Council of Guardians.7 His employer’s estate was ruined to the last degree. It had suffered from murrain among the cattle; from the depredations of rascally overseers; from bad harvests; from epidemic diseases; from the death of the best workmen; and, most of all, from the senseless behaviour of the owner, who had decorated a gorgeous house in Moscow in the latest taste, and had thus spent his very last copeck, so that he had nothing left to purchase food for himself. For this reason, he was finally compelled to mortgage his last remaining serfs. This pawning was a new thing in those days, and it was not decided upon without fear and trembling. Tchitchikoff, in his capacity of agent, after having first rendered all the officials favourable (it is well known that, without conciliating them not an application is ever entertained, not an inquiry answered), having thus acquired the favour of all of them, he explained to the secretary that one-half of the peasants having died, there might be a lot of trouble as regards the security.
“But they are still reckoned on the census-list?” said the secretary.