A joint meal between Plyushkin and Chichikov. Chichikov at Plyushkin (excerpt from the poem Dead Souls, Gogol N.V.)

The last landowner to whom Chichikov ends up is Plyushkin. Finding himself in front of Plyushkin’s house, Chichikov noticed that there had once been an extensive farm here, but now there was nothing but desolation and rubbish all around. The estate lost its life, nothing enlivened the picture, as if everything had died out long ago. All the objects in the space in which Plyushkin lives have turned into trash, become moldy, dilapidated and are in some kind of incomprehensible, strange disorder. Piled up furniture, a broken chair on the table, a wardrobe leaning sideways against the wall, a bureau with fallen mosaics and a bunch of all sorts of unnecessary things on it - such is the collection of things that appeared to Chichikov’s gaze.

Time on Plyushkin’s estate had long stopped flowing: Chichikov saw a “clock with a stopped pendulum”, to which a spider had attached a web: it was somehow strange to hope that in this frozen, frozen and extinct world there lived “ Living being" But it was here, and, having become acquainted with it, Chichikov, out of amazement, “involuntarily stepped back.” Plyushkin's face and entire outfit made a depressing impression on Chichikov. Here the author joins the narrative and tells something that Chichikov could not yet know about: not content with the rubbish already collected in a heap in the corner of the room, Plyushkin, it turns out, walked around the village and looked for every necessary and unnecessary thing left in the household that he “wanted.” I wouldn’t have to... use it all my life...” Having abandoned the estate, the peasants, everything that, it would seem, should bring him income with reasonable management, Plyushkin focused on petty hoarding: “In his room, he picked up from the floor everything he saw: sealing wax, a piece of paper, a feather, and all this put it on the bureau or on the window.”

« Dead Souls" Plyushkin. Artist A. Agin

Plyushkin does not know where his profit is, and finds it not in the careful management that he has abandoned, but in the accumulation of rubbish, in spying on servants, in suspicious checking of decanters. He has lost the high meaning of life and does not understand what he lives for. The content of existence was the collection of various rubbish. Plyushkin's soul is neglected and “cluttered”. She is close to complete mortification, because nothing worries the old man except unnecessary things. Plyushkin almost fell out of time. But the fact of the matter is that it is “almost”, that is, not completely and not completely. Every image and every detail in Gogol’s relation to Plyushkin is symbolic and dual. Plyushkin resembles Manilov. He also fell out of time and space. But Manilov never had anything. And above all, souls. He was born soulless, without and did not acquire any “enthusiasm.” And Plyushkin even now has a passion, albeit a negative one, stinginess that reaches the point of unconsciousness.

In the past, Plyushkin had everything - he had a soul, he had a family. “But there was a time,” Gogol exclaims with elegiac melancholy, “when he was just a thrifty owner!..” A neighbor came to him to learn “from him about farming and wise stinginess.” And Plyushkin’s household flourished, was in motion, the owner himself, “like a hardworking spider, ran, laboriously but efficiently, along all ends of his economic web.” The image of a busy host spider contrasts with the image of an insect that covered Plyushkin’s watch with a web.

It gradually becomes clear that circumstances are to blame for Plyushkin’s transformation into a miser - the death of his wife, the departure of his children and the loneliness that befell him. Plyushkin fell into despondency, stopped paying attention to himself, and only anxiety, suspicion and stinginess developed in him. He drowned out his father's feelings. The light in his house became less and less, the windows were gradually closed, except for two, and even then one was covered with paper. Like windows, the doors of the soul were also closed.

Dead Souls". Plyushkin. Artist P. Boklevsky

Not only circumstances were to blame for the transformation of Plyushkin from a thrifty owner into a petty and extremely stingy old man. “Lonely life,” Gogol wrote, “gave satisfying food to stinginess, which, as you know, has a ravenous hunger and the more it devours, the more insatiable it becomes; human feelings, which were not deep in him anyway, became shallow every minute, and every day something was lost in this worn-out ruin.” Plyushkin’s personal guilt is infinitely great: he, having given in to despondency and become embittered towards fate, his daughter, his son, allowed stinginess to take possession of his soul, set himself a destructive, negative goal and turn “into some kind of hole in humanity.”

And yet Plyushkin had a past, Plyushkin has a biography. Plyushkin has something to remember - without the past, according to Gogol, there is no future. Gradually, Gogol, when describing the almost motionless and dead Plyushkin, makes it clear that not everything is lost in this landowner, that a tiny light is smoldering in him. Chichikov, peering into Plyushkin’s face, noticed that “his little eyes had not yet gone out and were running from under his high eyebrows...”.

Once upon a time, Plyushkin’s daughter, Alexandra Stepanovna, brought him a cake for tea, which was already completely dry. Plyushkin wants to treat Chichikov to them. The detail is very significant and clear. Easter cakes are baked for the holiday of Easter and the Resurrection of Christ. Plyushkin's Easter cake turned into crackers. So Plyushkin’s soul became dead, dried up, and became hard as stone. Plyushkin keeps a dried-out Easter cake - a symbol of the resurrection of the soul. The scene after the deal to sell dead souls also has a double meaning. Plyushkin is afraid to leave the estate without his supervision to certify the deed of sale. Chichikov asks if he has an acquaintance whom he could trust.

Plyushkin recalls that he knows the Chairman of the Chamber - he studied with him: “Why, so familiar! I had friends at school.” This memory revived the hero for a moment. “Some kind of warm ray suddenly slid across his wooden face; it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of pale reflection of a feeling...”. Then everything disappeared again, “and Plyushkin’s face, following the feeling that instantly slid across it, became even more insensitive and even more vulgar.”

At that hour when Chichikov left the old miser’s estate, “the shadow and light were completely mixed up, and it seemed that the very objects were mixed up too.” But the smoldering fire in Plyushkin’s soul is able to flare up, and the character can be transformed into a positive and even ideal hero.

Plyushkin's mortification, the deepest and most obvious among all the characters except Chichikov, is combined not only with negative movements of the soul, but also with the semblances of warm, friendly and human feelings. The more these movements of the heart, the more bile Gogol’s style and the more annoyance, reproaches and preaching pathos in his expressions. Plyushkin’s guilt is immeasurably greater than that of other characters, and therefore his condemnation is stricter: “And to what insignificance, pettiness, and disgust a person could condescend! could have changed so much!

Take it with you on the journey, leaving the soft teenage years into stern, bitter courage, take everything with you human movements, don’t leave them on the road, you won’t pick them up later!” The more a person is promised and the lower he has fallen because of his own unworthy passion, the greater the sin he has committed and the more severely the writer executes him with the impartial judgment of truth: “The grave is more merciful than it, on the grave it will be written: “A man is buried here!”, but nothing you cannot read in the cold, unfeeling features of human old age.”

Thanks to this description, the liveliest of the landowners - Plyushkin - turns into the most punished for his sins. In fact, the degree of death of Plyushkin is much less than the degree of death of the rest of the landowners. The measure of his moral guilt, the measure of personal responsibility is immeasurably greater. Gogol's regret, Gogol's indignation at Plyushkin's betrayal of himself, his human qualities so strong that they create the illusion of Plyushkin’s almost final extinction. In fact, having reached the lowest point of his fall, Plyushkin retains the opportunity to be reborn spiritually and morally. Return trip his transformation was part of Gogol's plan.

While Chichikov was thinking and laughing internally at the nickname given to Plyushkin by the peasants, he did not notice how he drove into the middle of a vast village, with many huts and streets. Soon, however, he was made aware of this by a considerable jolt produced by the log pavement, compared to which the city stone pavement was nothing. These logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the careless rider acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead, or happened to bite off the tail of his own tongue with his own teeth. He noticed some special disrepair in all the village buildings: the logs on the huts were dark and old; many roofs were leaky like a sieve; on others there was only the ridge at the top and poles on the sides in the form of ribs. It seems that the owners themselves tore down the shingles and wood from them, reasoning, and, of course, rightly, that in the rain the huts are not covered, and the bucket itself does not drip, but there is no need to fool around in it when there is space both in the tavern and on the high road: in a word, wherever you want. The windows in the huts were without glass, others were covered with a rag or a zipun; balconies under roofs with railings, built in some Russian huts for unknown reasons, were askew and blackened, not even picturesquely. In many places, behind the huts, huge stacks of grain lay in rows, apparently stagnant for a long time; the color of them was like old, poorly baked brick, all sorts of rubbish grew on their tops, and there was even a bush clinging to the side. The bread, apparently, was the master's. From behind the grain warehouses and dilapidated hut roofs, two rural churches, one next to the other, rose and flashed in the clear air, now to the right, now to the left, as the britzka made turns: an empty wooden one and a stone one, with yellow walls, stained, cracked . Sometimes he began to show himself manor house and finally he looked all over at the place where the chain of huts was broken and in their place there was a wasteland of a vegetable garden or a cabbage garden, surrounded by a low, broken town in places. This strange castle looked like some kind of decrepit invalid, long, immeasurably long. In some places it was one floor, in others it was two; on the dark roof, which did not always reliably protect his old age, two belvederes stuck out one against the other, both already shaky, devoid of the paint that once covered them. The walls of the house were cracked in places by the bare plaster lattice and, apparently, had suffered a lot from all sorts of bad weather, rain, whirlwinds and autumn changes. Only two of the windows were open; the others were covered with shutters or even boarded up. These two windows, for their part, were also weak-sighted; on one of them there was a dark triangle made of blue sugar paper pasted on.

The old, vast garden stretching behind the house, overlooking the village and then disappearing into the field, overgrown and decayed, seemed to alone refresh this vast village and alone was quite picturesque in its picturesque desolation. The connected tops of trees growing in freedom lay on the sky horizon like green clouds and irregular, fluttering-leaved domes. A colossal white birch trunk, devoid of a top, broken off by a storm or thunderstorm, rose from this green thicket and rounded in the air, like a regular sparkling marble column; its oblique, pointed break, with which it ended at the top instead of a capital, darkened against its snowy whiteness, like a hat or a black bird. The hops, which choked the elderberry, rowan and hazel bushes below and then ran along the top of the entire palisade, finally ran up and entwined half the broken birch. Having reached the middle of it, it hung down from there and began to cling to the tops of other trees, or it hung in the air, tying its thin, tenacious hooks with rings, easily swayed by the air. In places, green thickets, illuminated by the sun, diverged and showed an unlit depression between them, gaping like a dark mouth; it was all cast in shadow, and faintly flickered in the black depths of it: a running narrow path, collapsed railings, a swaying gazebo, a hollow, decrepit willow trunk, a gray-haired chap, with thick bristles poking out from behind the willow, withered leaves from the terrible wilderness, tangled and crossed leaves and branches, and, finally, a young maple branch, stretching out its green leaf paws from the side, under one of which, God knows how, the sun suddenly turned it into transparent and fiery, shining wonderfully in this thick darkness. To the side, at the very edge of the garden, several tall aspen trees, no match for the others, raised huge crow's nests to their tremulous tops. Some of them had pulled back and not completely separated branches hanging down along with withered leaves. In a word, everything was somehow deserted and good, as neither nature nor art could imagine, but as happens only when they are united together, when, through piled-up, often useless, work person will pass With its final cutter, nature will lighten the heavy masses, destroy the grossly perceptible correctness and beggarly gaps through which the unhidden, naked plan peeks through, and give wonderful warmth to everything that was created in the cold of measured purity and neatness.

Having made one or two turns, our hero finally found himself in front of the house, which now seemed even sadder. Green mold has already covered the dilapidated wood on the fence and gate. A crowd of buildings: human buildings, barns, cellars, apparently dilapidated, filled the courtyard; near them, to the right and left, gates to other courtyards were visible. Everything said that farming had once taken place here on an extensive scale, and everything now looked gloomy. There was nothing noticeable to enliven the picture, no doors opening, no people coming out from anywhere, no living troubles and worries at home! Only one main gate was open, and that was because a man drove in with a loaded cart covered with matting, appearing as if on purpose to revive this extinct place: at another time they were locked tightly, for a giant lock hung in an iron loop. Near one of the buildings, Chichikov soon noticed a figure who began to quarrel with a man who had arrived in a cart. For a long time he could not recognize what gender the figure was: a woman or a man. The dress she was wearing was completely vague, very similar to a woman's hood; on the head is a cap, the kind worn by village courtyard women; only one voice seemed to him somewhat hoarse for a woman. “Oh, woman!” he thought to himself and immediately added: “Oh, no!” “Of course, woman!” he finally said after taking a closer look. The figure, for its part, also looked at him intently. It seemed that the guest was a novelty for her, because she examined not only him, but also Selifan and the horses, from the tail to the muzzle. Judging by the keys hanging from her belt and the fact that she scolded the man with rather obscene words, Chichikov concluded that this was probably the housekeeper.

“Listen, mother,” he said, getting out of the chaise, “what’s the master?..”

“Not at home,” the housekeeper interrupted, without waiting for the end of the question, and then, after a minute, she added: “What do you need?”

"There's a case."

“Go to the rooms!” said the housekeeper, turning away and showing him her back, stained with flour, with a large hole below.

He entered the dark, wide hallway, from which a cold air blew in, as if from a cellar. From the hallway he found himself in a room, also dark, slightly illuminated by the light coming out from under a wide crack located at the bottom of the door. Having opened this door, he finally found himself in the light and was amazed at the chaos that appeared. It seemed as if the floors were being washed in the house and all the furniture had been piled here for a while. On one table there was even a broken chair and, next to it, a clock with a stopped pendulum, to which the spider had already attached a web. There was also a cupboard leaning sideways against the wall with antique silver, decanters and Chinese porcelain. On the bureau, lined with mother-of-pearl mosaic, which had already fallen out in places and left behind only yellow grooves filled with glue, lay a lot of all sorts of things: a bunch of finely written papers, covered with a green marble press with an egg on top, some kind of old book bound in leather with a red a sawn-off lemon, all dried out, no bigger than a hazelnut, a broken armchair handle, a glass with some liquid and three flies, covered with a letter, a piece of sealing wax, a piece of a rag picked up somewhere, two feathers, stained with ink, dried out as if in consumption , a toothpick, completely yellowed, with which the owner, perhaps, picked his teeth even before the French invasion of Moscow.

Several paintings were hung very crowdedly and awkwardly on the walls: a long, yellowed engraving of some kind of battle, with huge drums, screaming soldiers in three-cornered hats and drowning horses, without glass, inserted into a mahogany frame with thin bronze strips and bronze circles on corners. Along with them, a huge blackened picture, written oil paints, depicting flowers, fruits, a cut watermelon, a boar's face and a duck hanging upside down. From the middle of the ceiling hung a chandelier in a canvas bag, the dust making it look like a silk cocoon in which a worm sits. In the corner of the room there was a heap of things piled up on the floor that were coarser and unworthy to lie on the tables. It was difficult to decide what exactly was in the pile, because there was such an abundance of dust on it that the hands of anyone who touched it became like gloves; More noticeably than anything else protruding from there was a broken piece of a wooden shovel and an old boot sole. It would have been impossible to say that there was a living creature living in this room if its presence had not been announced by the old, worn cap lying on the table. While he was looking at all the strange decorations, a side door opened and the same housekeeper he had met in the yard came in. But then he saw that it was more likely a housekeeper than a housekeeper: the housekeeper, at least, does not shave his beard, but this one, on the contrary, shaved, and, it seemed, quite rarely, because his entire chin with the lower part of his cheek resembled on a comb made of iron wire, which is used to clean horses in a stable. Chichikov, giving a questioning expression to his face, waited impatiently for what the housekeeper wanted to tell him. The housekeeper, for his part, also expected what Chichikov wanted to tell him. Finally the latter, surprised by such a strange bewilderment, decided to ask:

“What about master? at home, or what?”

“The master is here,” said the housekeeper.

"Where?" repeated Chichikov.

“What, father, are they blind, or what?” provided by the key keeper. “Ehwa! And I’m the owner!”

Here our hero involuntarily stepped back and looked at him intently. He happened to see quite a few all kinds of people, even those whom the reader and I may never have to see; but he had never seen anything like this before. His face was nothing special; it was almost the same as that of many thin old men, one chin only protruded very far forward, so that he had to cover it with a handkerchief every time so as not to spit; the small eyes had not yet gone out and ran from under their high eyebrows, like mice, when, sticking their sharp muzzles out of the dark holes, pricking their ears and blinking their whiskers, they look out to see if a cat or a naughty boy is hiding somewhere, and sniff the very air suspiciously. Much more remarkable was his outfit: no amount of effort or effort could have been used to find out what his robe was made of: the sleeves and upper flaps were so greasy and shiny that they looked like the kind of yuft that goes into boots; in the back, instead of two, there were four floors dangling, from which cotton paper came out in flakes. He also had something tied around his neck that could not be made out: a stocking, a garter, or a belly, but not a tie. In a word, if Chichikov had met him, so dressed up, somewhere at the church door, he would probably have given him a copper penny. For to the honor of our hero it must be said that he had a compassionate heart and he could not resist giving the poor man a copper penny. But it was not a beggar who stood before him, a landowner stood before him. This landowner had more than a thousand souls, and if anyone could try to find someone else with so much bread, grain, flour and simply in storerooms, whose storerooms, barns and drying rooms were cluttered with so many linens, cloth, dressed and rawhide sheepskins, dried fish and all kinds of vegetables, or gubina. If someone had looked into his work yard, where there was a stock of all sorts of wood and utensils that had never been used, he would have wondered if he had somehow ended up in Moscow at the chip yard, where efficient mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law, with the cooks behind, make their household supplies, and where every tree, sewn, turned, laminated and wicker, is white in the mountains: barrels, crosses, tubs, lagoons, jugs with and without stigmas, twins, baskets, mykolniks, where women put their lobes and other squabbles, boxes made of thin bent aspen, beetroot made of woven birch bark and a lot of everything that goes to the needs of rich and poor Rus'. Why would Plyushkin seem to need such destruction of such products? in his entire life he would not have had to use it even for two such estates as he had, but even this seemed not enough to him. Not content with this, he walked every day along the streets of his village, looked under the bridges, under the crossbeams, and everything that he came across: an old sole, a woman’s rag, an iron nail, a clay shard - he dragged everything towards him and put it in that a pile that Chichikov noticed in the corner of the room. “There, the fisherman has already gone hunting!” the men said when they saw him going to prey. And in fact, after him there was no need to sweep the street: a passing officer happened to lose his spur, this spur instantly went into the well-known pile; if a woman somehow got lost at the well and forgot the bucket, he would take the bucket away too. However, when the man who noticed him immediately caught him, he did not argue and gave back the stolen item; but if it just ended up in the pile, then it was all over: he swore that the thing was his, bought by him at that time, from such and such, or inherited from his grandfather. In his room, he picked up everything he saw from the floor: sealing wax, a piece of paper, a feather, and put it all on the bureau or on the window.

But there was a time when he was just a thrifty owner! he was married and a family man, and a neighbor stopped by to have a hearty lunch with him, listen and learn from him about housekeeping and wise stinginess. Everything flowed briskly and happened at a measured pace: mills, fulling mills moved, cloth factories, carpentry machines, spinning mills worked; everywhere, in everything, the keen gaze of the owner entered and, like a hardworking spider, ran, laboriously but efficiently, along all ends of his economic web. Too much strong feelings were not reflected in his facial features, but his mind was visible in his eyes; His speech was imbued with experience and knowledge of the world, and the guest was pleased to listen to him; the friendly and talkative hostess was famous for her hospitality; two pretty daughters came out to meet them, both blond and fresh as roses; the son, a broken boy, ran out and kissed everyone, paying little attention to whether the guest was happy or not happy about it. All the windows in the house were open, the mezzanine was occupied by the apartment of a French teacher, who shaved well and was a great shot: he always brought grouse or ducks for dinner, and sometimes just sparrow eggs, from which he ordered himself scrambled eggs, because there were more in the whole house no one ate it. His conpatriot, the mentor of two girls, also lived on the mezzanine. The owner himself came to the table in a frock coat, although somewhat worn, but neat, the elbows were in order: there was no patch anywhere. But the good housewife died; Some of the keys, and with them minor worries, went to him. Plyushkin became more restless and, like all widowers, more suspicious and stingy. On eldest daughter He could not rely on Alexandra Stepanovna for everything, and he was right, because Alexandra Stepanovna soon ran away with the captain of God knows what cavalry regiment, and married him somewhere hastily, in a village church, knowing that her father did not love officers out of a strange prejudice, as if all military gamblers and money-makers. Her father sent a curse on her way, but did not bother to pursue her. The house became even emptier. The owner's stinginess began to be more noticeable; the gray hair that sparkled in his coarse hair, her faithful friend, helped her develop even more; the French teacher was released because it was time for his son to go to work; Madame was driven away because she turned out to be not innocent in the kidnapping of Alexandra Stepanovna; son, having been sent to provincial town in order to find out in the ward, in the opinion of his father, a significant service, he decided instead to join the regiment and wrote to his father, already according to his determination, asking for money for uniforms; It is quite natural that he received for this what is popularly called a shish. Finally last daughter , who remained with him in the house, died, and the old man found himself alone as a watchman, guardian and owner of his wealth. Lonely life has provided satisfying food for stinginess, which, as you know, has a ravenous hunger and the more it devours, the more insatiable it becomes; human feelings, which were not deep in him anyway, grew shallow every minute, and every day something was lost in this worn-out ruin. If it happened at such a moment, as if on purpose to confirm his opinion about the military, that his son lost at cards; he sent him his father's curse from the bottom of his heart and was never interested in knowing whether he existed in the world or not. Every year the windows in his house were closed, until finally only two remained, one of which, as the reader has already seen, was covered with paper; Every year, more and more, the main parts of the household disappeared from sight, and his shallow gaze turned to the pieces of paper and feathers that he collected in his room; He became more unyielding to the buyers who came to take away his economic goods; the buyers haggled and haggled and finally abandoned him altogether, saying that he was a demon, not a man; hay and bread rotted, luggage and stacks turned into pure manure, even if you planted cabbage on them, flour in the cellars turned into stone, and it was necessary to chop it, it was scary to touch cloth, linens and household materials: they turned to dust. He had already forgotten how much of anything he had, and only remembered where in his cupboard there was a decanter with the remainder of some tincture, on which he himself had made a mark so that no one would drink it by stealing, and where the feather lay or sealing wax. Meanwhile, on the farm, income was collected as before: the peasant had to bring the same amount of rent, every woman had to pay the same amount of nuts, the weaver had to weave the same amount of linen - all this was dumped in the storerooms, and everything became rotten and torn, and he himself finally turned into some kind of hole in humanity. Alexandra Stepanovna once came twice with her little son, trying to see if she could get something; Apparently, camp life with a captain-captain was not as attractive as it seemed before the wedding. Plyushkin, however, forgave her and even gave his little grandson a button lying on the table to play with, but he did not give any money. Another time, Alexandra Stepanovna arrived with two little ones and brought him a cake for tea and a new robe, because the priest had such a robe that he was not only ashamed to look at, but even ashamed. Plyushkin caressed both granddaughters and, sitting them one on his right knee and the other on his left, rocked them in exactly the same way as if they were riding horses, took a cake and a robe, but gave absolutely nothing to his daughter; And with that, Alexandra Stepanovna left.

So, this is the kind of landowner who stood before Chichikov! It must be said that such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Rus', where everything likes to unfold rather than shrink, and it is all the more striking that right there in the neighborhood a landowner turns up, carousing to the fullest extent of Russian prowess and nobility, burning, as they say, through life . An unprecedented traveler will stop in amazement at the sight of his home, wondering what kind of sovereign prince suddenly found himself among the small, dark owners: his white stone houses look like palaces with countless chimneys, belvederes, weather vanes, surrounded by a herd of outbuildings and all sorts of rooms for visiting guests. What doesn't he have? Theaters, balls; all night the garden, decorated with lights and bowls, resounding with the thunder of music, shines. Half the province is dressed up and happily walking under the trees, and no one appears wild and threatening in this violent lighting, when a branch, illuminated by a fake light, theatrically jumps out of the thicket of trees, deprived of its bright greenery, and at the top it is darker and more severe, and twenty times more menacing through that night sky, and, far above, the leaves fluttering, going deeper into the impenetrable darkness, the stern tops of the trees are indignant at this tinsel shine that illuminated their roots from below.

Plyushkin had been standing for several minutes without saying a word, but Chichikov still could not start a conversation, entertained both by the sight of the owner himself and by everything that was in his room. For a long time he could not think of any words to explain the reason for his visit. He was about to express himself in such a spirit that, having heard enough about the virtue and rare properties of his soul, he considered it his duty to personally pay tribute, but he caught himself and felt that this was too much. Taking another sidelong glance at everything that was in the room, he felt that the word virtue and rare qualities of the soul could be successfully replaced with the words: economy and order; and therefore, having transformed his speech in this way, he said that, having heard a lot about his economy and rare management of estates, he considered it his duty to make the acquaintance and personally pay his respects. Of course, one could give another, best reason, but nothing else came to mind then.

To this Plyushkin muttered something through his lips, for he had no teeth; what exactly is unknown, but probably the meaning was this: “The devil take you with your respect!” But since our hospitality is in such a state that even a miser is not able to break its laws, he immediately added somewhat more clearly: “Please, most humbly, sit down!”

“I haven’t seen guests for a long time,” he said, “yes, I must admit, I don’t see much use in them. They have established a very indecent custom of visiting each other, but there are omissions in the household... and feed their horses with hay! It’s been a long time since I dined, and my kitchen is so nasty, and the chimney has completely collapsed, if you start heating it, you’ll start a fire.”

“Look there it is!” Chichikov thought to himself. “It’s good that I grabbed a cheesecake and a piece of lamb side from Sobakevich.”

“And such a bad joke that there’s at least a tuft of hay on the whole farm!” Plyushkin continued. “And really, how can you take care of it? the land is small, the man is lazy, doesn’t like to work, thinks he’s going to a tavern... just look, you’ll go around the world in your old age!”

“However, they told me,” Chichikov modestly noted, “that you have more than a thousand souls.”

“Who said this? And you, father, would spit in the eyes of the one who said this! He, the mockingbird, apparently wanted to joke with you. Here they are, thousands of souls, and count the number of souls, but you still won’t count anything! For the last three years, the damned fever has wiped out a hefty sum of men from me.”

"Tell! and starved a lot?” exclaimed Chichikov with participation.

“Yes, they demolished many.”

“Let me ask: how many in number?”

"Eighty souls."

“I won’t lie, father.”

“Let me also ask: after all, I believe you are counting these souls from the day the last revision was submitted?”

“That would be a blessing to God,” said Plyushkin: “but it’s great that from that time on it will reach one hundred and twenty.”

“Really? A hundred and twenty?” exclaimed Chichikov and even opened his mouth somewhat in amazement.

“I’m too old, father, to lie: I’m living in my seventies!” said Plyushkin. He seemed offended by such an almost joyful exclamation. Chichikov noticed that such indifference to someone else’s grief was, in fact, indecent, and therefore he immediately sighed and said that he was sorry.

“But you can’t put condolences in your pocket,” said Plyushkin. “There lives a captain near me, the devil knows where he came from, a relative says: “Uncle, uncle!” and kisses your hand, and when he begins to express condolences, such a howl will arise that you should take care of your ears. The face is all red: foam, tea, sticks to death. That's right, he lost his money while serving as an officer, or theater actress lured him out, so now he’s expressing condolences!”

Chichikov tried to explain that his condolences were not at all of the same kind as the captain’s, and that he was ready to prove it not with empty words, but with deeds, and, without delaying the matter further, without any beating around the bush, he immediately expressed his readiness to accept the obligation to pay taxes for all the peasants who died in such accidents. The proposal seemed to completely astonish Plyushkin. He widened his eyes, looked at him for a long time and finally asked: “Yes, father, didn’t you serve in military service?”

“No,” Chichikov answered rather slyly: “he served as a civilian.”

“In civilian life?” repeated Plyushkin and began to chew with his lips, as if he were eating something. “But how can that be? After all, this is at a loss for you?”

“For your pleasure I am ready to take a loss.”

“Oh, father! oh, my benefactor! Plyushkin cried out, not noticing with joy that tobacco was peeking out of his nose in a very unpicturesque way, like a sample of thick coffee, and the skirts of his robe opened up to reveal a dress that was not very decent to look at. “They consoled the old man! Oh, my goodness! oh, you are my saints!..” Plyushkin could not even speak further. But not even a minute had passed before this joy, which had appeared so instantly on his wooden face, disappeared just as instantly, as if it had never happened at all, and his face again took on a caring expression. He even wiped himself with a handkerchief and, rolling it up into a ball, began to rub it over his upper lip.

“How, with your permission, so as not to anger you, do you undertake to pay for them every year, or what? and will you give the money to me or to the treasury?”

“Yes, this is how we will do it: we will make a deed of sale on them, as if they were alive and as if you sold them to me.”

“Yes, a deed of sale...” said Plyushkin, thought for a moment and began to eat with his lips again. “After all, here is the deed of sale - all the costs. The clerks are so unscrupulous! Previously, you could get away with half a copper and a bag of flour, but now send a whole cart of cereals, and add a red piece of paper, such love of money! I don’t know how the priests don’t pay attention to this, I would say some kind of teaching, because whatever you say, you can’t resist the word of God.”

“Well, I think you can resist!” Chichikov thought to himself and immediately said that, out of respect for him, he was ready to accept even the costs of the bill of sale at his own expense.

Having heard that he was even taking on the costs of the bill of sale, Plyushkin concluded that the guest must be completely stupid and was only pretending that he was serving as a civilian, but, most likely, he was an officer and was chasing after actors. Despite all this, he, however, could not hide his joy and wished all kinds of consolations not only for him, but even for his children, without asking whether he had them or not. Approaching the window, he tapped his fingers on the glass and shouted: “Hey, Proshka!” A minute later you could hear someone running in a hurry into the hallway, fiddling around there for a long time and knocking their boots, finally the door opened, and Proshka, a boy of about thirteen, came in, wearing such big boots that he almost took his feet out of them as he walked. Why Proshka had such big boots, you can find out right away: Plyushkin had only boots for all the servants, no matter how many there were in the house, which were always supposed to be in the entryway. Anyone called to the master's chambers usually danced across the entire courtyard barefoot, but upon entering the hallway, he put on boots and thus entered the room. Leaving the room, he left his boots again in the hallway and set off again on his own soles. If anyone looked at this from the window in autumn time and especially when small frosts begin in the morning, you would see that all the servants were making such high leaps that the most spirited dancer would hardly be able to do in the theaters.

“Look, father, what a face!” Plyushkin said to Chichikov, pointing his finger at Proshka’s face. “You’re as stupid as a tree, but if you try to put anything in, he’ll steal it in an instant!” Well, why did you come, fool, tell me, what?” Here he made a short silence, to which Proshka also responded with silence. “Put on the samovar, do you hear, but take the key and give it to Mavra so she can go to the pantry: there on the shelf there is a cracker from the Easter cake that Alexandra Stepanovna brought to be served for tea!.. Wait, where are you going? Fool! Ehwa, fool! Oh, what a fool you are!.. why are you running away? Is the demon at your feet itching?.. you listen first: the cracker on top, the tea, has spoiled, so let him scrape it off with a knife, but don’t throw the crumbs away, but take them to the chicken coop. Look, don't go into the storeroom, brother, or I'll tell you! with a birch broom, just for taste! Now you have a nice appetite, so it’s even better! Just try and go to the pantry, and in the meantime I’ll look out of the window. “You can’t trust them in anything,” he continued, turning to Chichikov after Proshka had cleared away along with his boots. Following this, he began to look at Chichikov suspiciously. The features of such extraordinary generosity began to seem incredible to him, and he thought to himself: “The devil knows; Maybe he’s just a braggart, like all these little money-makers: he’ll lie and lie to talk and drink tea, and then he’ll leave!” And therefore, out of precaution, and at the same time wanting to test him a little, he said that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to complete the deed of sale as quickly as possible, because he’s not sure about the person: today he’s alive, but God knows tomorrow.

Chichikov expressed his readiness to carry it out even this very minute and demanded only a list for all the peasants.

This calmed Plyushkin. It was noticeable that he was thinking of doing something, and as if, having taken the keys, he approached the cabinet and, having unlocked the door, rummaged for a long time between the glasses and cups and finally said: “You won’t find it, but I had a nice liqueur, if only didn't drink! people, such thieves! But isn’t that him?” Chichikov saw in his hands a decanter, which was covered in dust, like a sweatshirt. “The deceased woman did something else,” Plyushkin continued: “the fraudulent housekeeper completely abandoned it and didn’t even close it, you scoundrel!” Boogers and all sorts of rubbish were stuffed in there, but I took out all the rubbish, and now I’ll pour you a clean glass.”

But Chichikov tried to refuse such liquor, saying that he had already drunk and eaten.

“We already drank and ate!” said Plyushkin. “Yes, of course, you can recognize a person’s good company anywhere: he doesn’t even eat, but he’s full; and like some kind of thief, no matter how much you feed him... After all, the captain will come: “Uncle, he says, give me something to eat!” And I’m as much an uncle to him as he is a grandfather to me. There’s probably nothing to eat at home, so he’s staggering around! Yes, do you need a register of all these parasites? Well, as I knew, I wrote them all down on a special piece of paper so that when I first submitted the revision, I could cross them all out.” Plyushkin put on his glasses and began rummaging through the papers. Untying all sorts of ties, he treated his guest to such dust that he sneezed. Finally he pulled out a piece of paper, all covered with writing. Peasant names they strewn her closely, like midges. There were all sorts of people there: Paramonov, and Pimenov, and Panteleimonov, and even some Grigory looked out; There were more than a hundred and twenty in all. Chichikov smiled at the sight of such numbers. Having hidden it in his pocket, he noticed to Plyushkin that he would need to come to the city to complete the fortress.

"In town? But how?.. and how to leave the house? After all, my people are either a thief or a swindler: they will steal so much in a day that they won’t have anything to hang their caftan on.”

“So don’t you know anyone?”

“Who do you know? All my friends died or fell apart. Ah, fathers! how can I not have it, I have it!” he cried. “After all, the chairman himself is familiar, he even came to see me in the old days, how could you not know! We were teammates and climbed fences together! how can you not be familiar? so familiar! So shouldn’t I write to him?”

“And of course, to him.”

“Why, so familiar! I had friends at school.”

And suddenly some kind of warm ray slid across this wooden face; it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of pale reflection of a feeling, a phenomenon similar to the unexpected appearance of a drowning person on the surface of the waters, which produced a joyful cry in the crowd that surrounded the shore. But in vain the overjoyed brothers and sisters throw the rope from the shore and wait to see if the back or arms tired from the struggle will flash again - this was the last appearance. Everything is silent, and after that the quiet surface of the unresponsive element becomes even more terrible and deserted. So Plyushkin’s face, following the feeling that instantly slid across it, became even more insensitive and even more vulgar.

“There was a quarter of blank paper lying on the table,” he said, “but I don’t know where it went: my people are so worthless!” Then he began to look under and on the table, rummaged everywhere and finally shouted: “Mavra! and Mavra! A woman answered the call with a plate in her hands, on which lay a cracker, already familiar to the reader. And the following conversation took place between them:

“Where are you going, robber, paper?”

“By God, master, I didn’t even see the small piece of paper with which they deigned to cover the glass.”

“But I can see in my eyes that I’ve trimmed myself.”

“But what would I give a little credit for? After all, I have no use with her; I don’t know how to read.”

“You’re lying, you demolished the sexton: he’s messing around, so you demolished it for him.”

“Yes, the sexton, if he wants, can get himself papers. He hasn’t seen your scrap!”

“Just wait a minute: at the Last Judgment the devils will beat you up with iron slingshots for this! You’ll see how they cook!”

“But why will they punish me if I didn’t even pick up a quarter? It’s more likely some other woman’s weakness, but no one has ever reproached me for theft.”

“But the devils will get you!” They’ll say: “Here’s to you, swindler, for deceiving the master!” And they’ll give you a hot roast!”

“And I’ll say: you’re welcome! By God, no way, I didn’t take it... Yes, there she is lying on the table. You always reproach unnecessarily!”

Plyushkin definitely saw a quarter and stopped for a minute, chewed his lips and said: “Well, why did you disagree like that? What a pain! Tell her just one word, and she’ll answer with a dozen! Go and bring the light to seal the letter. Wait, you grab a tallow candle, tallow is a sticky business: it will burn - yes and no, only a loss; and bring me a splinter!”

Mavra left, and Plyushkin, sitting down in an armchair and taking the pen in his hand, spent a long time turning the quarter in all directions, wondering if it was possible to separate another octam from it, but finally he was convinced that it was impossible; stuck the pen into an inkwell with some moldy liquid and a lot of flies at the bottom and began to write, making letters that looked like musical notes, constantly holding his nimble hand, which was scattering all over the paper, sparingly molding line after line, and not without regret thinking that there would still be a lot of blank space left.

And a person could stoop to such insignificance, pettiness, and disgustingness! could have changed so much! And does this seem true? Everything seems to be true, anything can happen to a person. Today's fiery young man would recoil in horror if they showed him his own portrait in old age. Take with you on the journey, emerging from the soft years of youth into stern, embittering courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road: you will not pick them up later! The old age coming ahead is terrible, terrible, and nothing gives back and back! The grave is more merciful than her; on the grave it will be written: a man is buried here! but you can’t read anything in the cold, unfeeling features of inhuman old age.

“Do you know any friend of yours,” said Plyushkin, folding the letter: “who would need runaway souls?”

“Do you have any runaways?” Chichikov quickly asked, waking up.

“That’s the thing, it is. The son-in-law made adjustments: he says that the trace has disappeared, but he is a military man: he is a master of stamping a spur, and if he would bother with the courts...”

“How many of them will there be?”

“Yes, there will also be dozens up to seven.”

“Oh, by God, so! After all, every year I have, they run away. The people are painfully gluttonous, out of idleness they have acquired the habit of cracking food, but I have nothing to eat myself... And I would take whatever they gave for them. So advise your friend: if you only find a dozen, then he’ll have a nice amount of money. After all, a revision soul costs five hundred rubles.”

“No, we won’t even give a friend a sniff of this,” Chichikov said to himself and then explained that there was no way he could find such a friend, that the costs alone for this matter would cost more; for you need to cut off the tails of your own caftan from the ships and move away; but that if he is already really so squeezed, then, being moved by participation, he is ready to give... but that this is such a trifle that is not even worth talking about.”

“How much would you give?” asked Plyushkin and waited; his hands trembled like mercury.

“I would give twenty-five kopecks per soul.”

“How do you buy, with clean ones?”

“Yes, now it’s money.”

“Only, father, for the sake of my poverty, they would have already given forty kopecks.”

“Most Honorable!” said Chichikov: “I would have paid not only forty kopecks, but five hundred rubles!” I would gladly pay, because I see that the venerable, kind old man endures because of his own good nature.”

“Oh, by God, so! By God, it’s true!” said Plyushkin, hanging his head down and shaking it sadly. “Everything is out of good nature.”

“Well, you see, I suddenly understood your character. So, why not give me five hundred rubles per soul, but... there is no fortune; five kopecks, if you please, I’m ready to add so that each soul will cost thirty kopecks.”

“Well, father, it’s your choice, at least fasten two kopecks.”

“I’ll put on two kopecks, if you please. How many do you have? I think you said seventy?”

"No. The total number is seventy-eight.”

“Seventy-eight, seventy-eight, thirty kopecks per soul, it will be...” here our hero thought for one second, no more, and suddenly said: “it will be twenty-four rubles ninety-six kopecks!” He was good at arithmetic. He immediately forced Plyushkin to write a receipt and gave him the money, which he accepted in both hands and carried it to the bureau with the same caution, as if he were carrying some kind of liquid, every minute afraid of spilling it. Approaching the bureau, he looked at them again and also placed them extremely carefully in one of the boxes, where, probably, they were destined to be buried until Father Karp and Father Polycarp, two priests of his village, buried him, to the indescribable the joy of his son-in-law and daughter, and perhaps even the captain, who was considered one of his relatives. Having hidden the money, Plyushkin sat down in an armchair and, it seemed, could no longer find anything to talk about.

“So, are you going to go?” he said, noticing the slight movement that Chichikov made just to take a handkerchief out of his pocket.

This question reminded him that there was really no need to delay any longer. “Yes, I have to go!” he said, taking his hat.

“And some seagull?”

“No, it’s better to have some seagull some other time.”

“Of course, I ordered a samovar. I must admit, I’m not a fan of tea: the drink is expensive, and the price of sugar has risen unmercifully. Proshka! no need for a samovar! Take the cracker to Mavra, you hear: let him put it in the same place, or not, bring it here, I’ll take it down myself. Farewell, father, may God bless you! And you give the letter to the chairman. Yes! let him read it, he’s an old friend of mine. Why! We were friends with him!”

Then this strange phenomenon, this shriveled old man escorted him out of the yard, after which he ordered the gates to be locked immediately, then he walked around the storerooms in order to inspect whether the watchmen, who stood at all corners, were in their places, pounding with wooden shovels into an empty barrel, instead of a cast-iron board; after that he looked into the kitchen, where, under the guise of trying to see if people were eating well, he ate a fair amount of cabbage soup and porridge and, having scolded every last one for theft and bad behavior, returned to his room. Left alone, he even thought about how and how to thank his guest for such, in fact, unprecedented generosity. “I’ll give him,” he thought to himself: “a pocket watch: it’s a good one, a silver watch, not like some Tombak or bronze one, a little damaged, but he’ll send it for himself; He is still a young man, so he needs a pocket watch to please his bride! Or not,” he added, after some reflection: “I’d better leave them to him after my death, in a spiritual way, so that he remembers me.”

Russian history literature of the 19th century century. Part 1. 1800-1830s Lebedev Yuri Vladimirovich

Plyushkin and Chichikov.

Plyushkin and Chichikov.

There is one remarkable feature in the gallery of landowners presented by Gogol to everyone’s shame and ridicule: in the replacement of one hero by another, the feeling of vulgarity grows, into the terrible mud of which modern Russian people are plunging. But as the vulgarity thickens, reaching even the surname Sobakevich to a bestial state, at the limit of its Russian “unrestraint” and “immensity”, in the hopelessly, seemingly deadened souls of the heroes, the “skinny and thin” Bagration begins to appear - a glorious hero Patriotic War 1812. In the depths of its fall, Russian life reveals some still unknown and unrevealed internal reserves that, perhaps, will save it and give it the opportunity to take a straight path.

Gogol says: “And in the world chronicle of humanity there are many entire centuries that, it would seem, he crossed out and destroyed as unnecessary. Many mistakes have been made in the world that, it would seem, even a child would not do now. What crooked, deaf, narrow, impassable roads that lead far to the side have been chosen by humanity, striving to achieve eternal truth, while the straight path was open to them, like the path leading to the magnificent temple assigned to the king’s palace. Wider and more luxurious than all other paths, it was illuminated by the sun and illuminated by lights all night, but people flowed past it in the deep darkness. And how many times already induced by the Meaning descending from heaven, even here they knew how to recoil and stray to the side, they knew how to find themselves again in impenetrable backwaters in broad daylight, they knew how to again cast a blind fog into each other’s eyes and, trailing after the swamp lights, they knew how get to the abyss, and then ask each other in horror: where is the way out? where is the road?

The direct path that the Rus'-troika will take sooner or later is obvious and clear to Gogol. Nineteen centuries ago it was given to humanity through the lips of its Savior: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Gogol's Russia, having let a blind fog into its eyes, rushed along the wrong path of self-interest and bargaining and is moving along it to the very edge of the abyss. But with the entire content of the poem, Gogol shows that the blind have not yet become completely blind, that in the “shaken” souls of the Manilas, Korobochki, Nozdrevs, Sobakevichs, not everything is lost, that they have the resources for future insight and access to “straight paths”.

These resources are also indicated by Chichikov’s last meeting with Plyushkin, symbolizing the limit, the final degree of fall on the path chosen by Chichikov. It is no coincidence that the meeting with Plyushkin is preceded by the reflections of the author and the hero behind him about youth with its purity and freshness. The author will summarize these reasonings after Chichikov’s conversation with Plyushkin as follows: “And a person could condescend to such insignificance, pettiness, and disgustingness! could have changed so much! And does this seem true? Everything seems to be true, anything can happen to a person. Today's fiery young man would recoil in horror if they showed him his own portrait in old age. Take with you on the journey, emerging from the soft years of youth into stern, embittered courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, you will not pick them up later!

Trying to show the terrible distortion of Russian life from the righteous and straight to the evil paths, Gogol begins the story about Plyushkin with the background of the hero. If earlier the readers were presented with established characters as “ready-made” Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdryov, Sobakevich, then Gogol gives the character of Plyushkin in development. There was a time when he seemed to be a “thrifty owner” and a good family man, and his neighbors came to him “to listen and learn from him about housekeeping and wise stinginess.” “But the good housewife died; Some of the keys, and with them minor worries, went to him. Plyushkin became more restless and, like all widowers, more suspicious... Stinginess began to be more noticeable in the owner...”

And so, every year, “the windows were closed” in his house and in his soul, “more and more important parts of the farm went out of sight,” “this is a demon, not a man,” said the buyers leaving his estate, “the hay and bread were rotting, luggage and stacks turned into pure manure,” and Plyushkin, year after year, more and more fell into slavery to useless and no longer needed “household little things”: “... He still walked every day along the streets of his village, looked under the bridges, under crossbeams and everything he came across: an old sole, a woman's rag, an iron nail, a clay shard - he dragged everything to him and put it in the pile that Chichikov noticed in the corner of the room. “The fisherman has already gone hunting!” the men said when they saw him going to catch his prey.”

In Plyushkin’s character, Gogol sees the underside of another vice, much more common in Rus', “where everything likes to unfold rather than shrink, and it is all the more striking that right there in the neighborhood there turns up a landowner, carousing in the full breadth of Russian prowess and nobility, burning, as they say, through life...” The lawlessness of Nozdryov's wasting of life at one pole corresponds to the lawlessness of Plyushkin's stinginess at the other.

All the more tragic is the living and trembling flame of hope for salvation that lights up in the dark depths of a soul that has turned to dust. When Chichikov draws Plyushkin’s attention to his former acquaintances, the memory of his lost youth and youth suddenly flashes in his soul: “Oh, father! How can I not have it, I have it! - he cried. “After all, the chairman himself knows me, he even came to see me in the old days, how could you not know!” We were teammates and climbed fences together! how can you not be familiar? so familiar!“... And suddenly some kind of warm ray slid across this wooden face, it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of pale reflection of a feeling, a phenomenon similar to the unexpected appearance of a drowning person on the surface of the waters, which produced a joyful cry in the crowd that surrounded the shore.” .

Communication with Plyushkin, despite the unprecedented success of the purchase " dead souls", evokes in Chichikov a feeling of horror and deep inner shudder. In the person of Plyushkin, the logical end of the path towards which all the energy of the “entrepreneur and owner” is directed is revealed. According to Gogol’s plan, the gallery of landowners illuminates from different sides those “deviations” and “extremes” that are characteristic of Chichikov’s character, which prepare the reader for the most accurate and comprehensive understanding of a new phenomenon in Russian life of that time - the emerging bourgeois. Everything in the poem is aimed at a detailed depiction of Chichikov and the “Chichikovism” as the final limit to which Russian life rushed along a “crooked” path.