A chaise drives into the gate of a hotel in the provincial town of nn. A gentleman sits there, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, neither too fat nor too thin.

In the first paragraph " Dead souls"The chaise with Chichikov enters the provincial town of NN:

“His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian guys standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel, made some comments ... "

This is clearly an unnecessary detail: from the first words it is clear that the action takes place in Russia. Why clarify that the men are Russian? Such a phrase would sound appropriate only in the mouth of a foreigner describing his impressions abroad. Literary historian Semyon Vengerov, in an article entitled “Gogol did not know real Russian life at all,” explained it this way: Gogol really learned late about Russian (and not Ukrainian) life, not to mention the life of the Russian province, so such an epithet for him was really significant. Vengerov was sure: “If Gogol had thought for even one minute, he would certainly have crossed out this absurd epithet that says absolutely nothing to the Russian reader.”

But he didn’t cross it out - and for good reason: in fact, this is a technique most characteristic of the poetics of Dead Souls, which the poet and philologist Andrei Bely called the “figure of fiction” - when something (and often a lot) is said, but nothing is actually said, definitions do not define, descriptions do not describe. Another example of this poetics is the description of the main character. He's not handsome, but he's not bad-looking, neither too thick nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young”, “a middle-aged man with a rank neither too high nor too low”, “Mr. mediocre", whose face we never see, although he looks with pleasure in the mirror.

2. The mystery of the rainbow scarf

This is how we see Chichikov for the first time:

“The gentleman took off his cap and unwound it from his neck woolen scarf in rainbow colors, which the spouse prepares for married people with her own hands, providing decent instructions on how to wrap themselves up, but for single people - I probably can’t say who makes it, God knows them ... "

“...I have never worn such scarves,” continues the narrator of “Dead Souls.” The description is constructed in a very characteristic Gogolian way: the intonation of a know-it-all - “I know perfectly well everything about such scarves” - sharply changes to the opposite - “I’m single, I didn’t wear anything like that, I don’t know anything.” Behind this familiar technique and in such a familiar abundance of details, a rainbow scarf is well hidden.

The memoirs of the writer Sergei Aksakov describe the following episode that happened on November 27, 1839:

“...[Zhukovsky] quietly unlocked and opened the door. I almost screamed in surprise. Gogol stood in front of me in the following fantastic costume: instead of boots, long woolen Russian stockings above the knees; instead of a frock coat, over a flannel camisole, a velvet spencer Spencer- short, tight-fitting jacket.; neck wrapped in a large multi-colored scarf... Gogol wrote and was deep in his work, and we obviously interfered with him.”

Chichikov’s scarf and the multi-colored scarf spotted by Aksakov are undoubtedly relatives, even if this relationship is well hidden by the narrator, who is trying to maintain an imperturbable appearance. It turns out that there is something from the author in the hero. And we will be convinced of this more than once: it is in Chichikov’s fantasies that purchased dead souls come to life; it is he who makes some accusatory speeches that can easily be mistaken for the author’s; It is he who finally rides in that troika, the movement of which provides the basis for the final lyrical digressions of the first volume.

Chichikov is a very strange character. On the one hand, he is not capable of arousing sympathy in the reader. On the other hand, he is entrusted with enormous hopes and enormous responsibility—responsibility for further development the novel in the second and third volumes, where we are promised “hitherto unstrung strings,” “the untold wealth of the Russian spirit,” and so on. and so on. The motionless and, in Gogol’s words, “vulgar” world of the first volume of “Dead Souls” does not foreshadow anything like this - in fact, we are promised a miracle, but how and why it will happen is a mystery:

“And, perhaps, in this same Chichikov, the passion that attracts him is no longer from him, and in his cold existence lies what will later drive a person to dust and to his knees before the wisdom of heaven. And it’s also a mystery why this image appeared in the poem that is now coming to light.”

In this miracle of world transformation, Chichikov is assigned important role. The kinship between him and the narrator helps the reader feel a strange connection with the unsympathetic hero, and, therefore, subsequently participate in the miracle of transformation.

3. The Mystery of the Card Game

At the governor's party, Chichikov sits down to play whist with the hosts and guest officials:

“They sat down at the green table and did not get up until dinner. All conversations stopped completely, as always happens when you finally indulge in meaningful activities».

Of course, the author is ironic when he calls the game of whist “a useful activity.” The word “sensible” in the text is generally shrouded in irony: the “sensible comments” that Chichikov is ready to give on almost any topic inevitably echo the “sensible remarks” that the coachman Selifan makes to the forelock horse. But in this case, “good business” is an expression from card jargon that means playing for money. It is precisely in this sense that it is used, for example, in the epigraph to Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades”: “So, on rainy days, / They were engaged / in business.”

Gogol does not write about a distorted perception of the matter, inherent only in these specific officials, for whom card game- the main interest, but about the language that has absorbed this distortion. The word is actively used in the language, but loses its basic meaning. Such “dead” words are a kind of “swamp lights” leading in the wrong direction:

“And how many times, already induced by the meaning descending from heaven, they [people] knew how to recoil and stray to the side, knew how to find themselves again in impenetrable backwaters in broad daylight, knew how to again throw a blind fog into each other’s eyes and, trailing after the swamps, lights, they managed to get to the abyss, and then ask each other in horror: “Where is the exit, where is the road?”

4. The mystery of the fly in the nose

Chichikov wakes up visiting Korobochka:

“The next day he woke up quite late in the morning. The sun through the window shone straight into his eyes, and the flies that had slept peacefully yesterday on the walls and ceiling all turned to him: one sat on his lip, another on his ear, the third tried to settle on his very eye, the same one that had the imprudence to sit close to the nasal nostril, he pulled in his very nose while he was asleep, which made him sneeze very hard- circumstance, which was the cause his awakening."

It is interesting that the narrative is filled with detailed descriptions of universal sleep “The day, it seems, was concluded with a portion of cold veal, a bottle sour cabbage soup and sound sleep in full swing, as they say in other places of the vast Russian state”; “Both fell asleep at the same moment, raising snores of unheard-of density, to which the master from the other room responded with a thin, nasal whistle. Soon after them everything calmed down, and the hotel turned out to be an undisturbed dream.”, and only this awakening of Chichikov is an event that Gogol talks about in detail. Chichikov wakes up from a fly flying into his nose. His feelings are described almost in the same way as the shock of officials who heard about Chichikov’s scam:

“The position of them [the officials] at the first minute was similar to that of a schoolboy, whose sleepy comrades, who had risen early, thrust a piece of paper filled with tobacco into the nose of a hussar. Having pulled all the tobacco towards you in your sleep with all the zeal of a sleeper, he wakes up, jumps up, looks like a fool, his eyes bulging in all directions, and cannot understand where he is, what he is, what happened to him ... "

Strange rumors alarmed the city, and this excitement is described as the awakening of those who had previously indulged in “dead dreams on their sides, on their backs and in all other positions, with snoring, nasal whistles and other accessories,” the entire “hitherto slumbering city " Before us is the resurrection of the dead, albeit a parody. But all this had such an effect on the city prosecutor that he completely died. His death is paradoxical, since in a sense it is a resurrection:

“...They sent for a doctor to draw blood, but they saw that the prosecutor was already one soulless body. Only then did they learn with condolences that the deceased definitely had a soul, although out of his modesty he never showed it.”

The contrast between sleep and awakening is associated with the key motifs of the novel - death and revival. The impetus for awakening can be the most insignificant little thing - a fly, tobacco, a strange rumor. The “Resurrector,” played by Chichikov, does not need to have any special virtues - it is enough for him to be in the role of a fly in his nose: to break the usual course of life.

5. How to keep up with everything: Chichikov’s secret

Chichikov leaves Korobochka:

“Although the day was very good, the ground became so polluted that the wheels of the chaise, catching it, soon became covered with it like felt, which significantly burdened the crew; Moreover, the soil was clayey and unusually tenacious. Both were the reasons that they could not get out of the country roads before noon.”

So, in the afternoon the hero has difficulty getting out onto the pillar Stolbovaya- a large road with milestones, a postal route.. Before this, after lengthy bickering, he bought 18 revision documents from Korobochka Revizsky- included in the census. showered and ate unleavened pie with eggs and pancakes. Meanwhile, he woke up at ten. How did Chichikov manage to do everything in just over two hours?

This is not the only example of Gogol's free use of time. Setting off from the city of NN to Manilovka, Chichikov gets into a chaise wearing an “overcoat on big bears,” and on the way he meets men in sheepskin coats—the weather is clearly not summer. Arriving at Manilov, he sees a house on a mountain “clad with trimmed turf”, “lilac and yellow acacia bushes”, birch trees with “small-leafed thin tops”, “a pond covered with greenery”, knee-deep wandering in the pond women - without any sheepskin coats. Waking up the next morning in Korobochka’s house, Chichikov looks out the window at “spacious vegetable gardens with cabbage, onions, potatoes, beets and other household vegetables” and at “fruit trees covered with nets to protect against magpies and sparrows” - the time of year again has changed. Returning to the city, Chi-chikov will again put on his “bear covered with brown cloth.” “Wearing bears covered with brown cloth and a warm cap with ears” Manilov will also come to the city. In general, as it is said in another Gogol text: “I don’t remember the numbers. It wasn’t a month either.”

In general, the world of Dead Souls is a world without time. The seasons do not follow each other in order, but accompany a place or character, becoming its additional characteristic. Time stops flowing in the expected way, freezing in an ugly eternity - “a state of lasting immobility,” in the words of philologist Michael Weiskopf.

6. The mystery of the guy with the balalaika

Chichikov orders Selifan to leave at dawn, Selifan scratches his head in response, and the narrator discusses what this means:

“Is it annoyance that the meeting planned for the next day with my brother in an unsightly sheepskin coat, surrounded by a sash, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, did not work out, or some kind of sweetheart has already started in a new place and I have to leave the evening standing at the gate and political holding of white hands at the hour when twilight falls on the city, a guy in a red shirt strums a balalaika in front of the yard there are people of various ranks, well-served people, weaving quiet speeches?<…>God knows, you won't guess. Scratching the back of the head means many different things to the Russian people.”

Such passages are very typical of Gogol: to tell a lot of everything and come to the conclusion that nothing is clear, and there is nothing to talk about at all. But in this next passage that explains nothing, the guy with the bala-laika attracts attention. We've already seen it somewhere:

“Approaching the porch, he noticed two faces looking out of the window almost at the same time: a woman in a cap, narrow, long, like a cucumber, and a man, round, wide, like the Moldavian pumpkins, called gourds, from which balalaikas, two-stringed, are made in Russia , light balalaikas, the beauty and fun of an agile twenty-year-old guy, flashing and dandy, winking and whistling at the white-breasted and white-necked girls who had gathered to listen to his low-stringed strumming.”

You never predict where Gogol’s comparison will lead: the comparison of Sobakevich’s face with a Moldavian pumpkin suddenly turns into a scene with the participation of our balalaika player. Such extended comparisons are one of the techniques with which Gogol further expands art world novel, introduces into the text something that did not fit even into such a capacious plot as a journey, something that Chichikov did not have time or could not see, something that may not fit into big picture life provincial town and its surroundings.

But Gogol does not stop there, but takes the dandy with the balalaika who appeared in the extended comparison - and again finds a place for him in the text, and now much closer to the plot reality. From a figure of speech, from a comparison grows real character, which earns its place in the novel and ultimately fits into the plot.

7. Corruption secret

Even before the events of “Dead Souls” began, Chichikov was part of the commission “for the construction of some kind of government-owned, very capital structure”:

“For six years [the commission] was busy around the building; but the climate, perhaps, got in the way, or the material was already like that, but the government building just couldn’t rise above the foundation. Meanwhile, in other parts of the city, each of the members found themselves with beautiful home civil architecture: apparently the soil was better there.”

This mention of “civil architecture” generally fits into Gogol’s redundant style, where definitions do not define anything, and the opposition can easily lack a second element. But initially it was: “civil architecture” was opposed to church architecture. In the early edition of Dead Souls, the commission, which included Chichikov, is designated as “the commission for the construction of the temple of God.”

This episode of Chichikov’s biography was based on the well-known Gogol story of the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The temple was founded on October 12, 1817, in the early 1820s a commission was established, and already in 1827 abuses were discovered, the commission was abolished, and two of its members were put on trial. Sometimes these numbers serve as the basis for dating the events of Chichikov’s biography, but, firstly, as we have already seen, Gogol did not really commit himself to exact chronology; secondly, in the final version, the mention of the temple is removed, the action takes place in the provincial town, and this whole story is reduced to an element of style, to “civil architecture”, which, in Gogol’s style, is no longer opposed to anything.

How to understand what Nikolai Gogol really wanted to say

Text: Natalya Lebedeva/RG
Collage: Year of Literature.RF/

Photo portrait of N. V. Gogol from the group daguerreotype of S. L. Levitsky. Author K. A. Fisher/ ru.wikipedia.org

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is rightfully considered one of the most mysterious writers Russian literature. Many secrets of his life and work have not yet been revealed by researchers. One of these mysteries is the fate of the second volume of Dead Souls. Why did Gogol burn the second volume, and did he burn it at all? But literary scholars were still able to reveal some of the secrets of Dead Souls. Why are “Russian men” so remarkable, why did playing whist become a “smart activity” and what role does the fly that flew into Chichikov’s nose play in the novel? About this and more literary historian, translator, candidate philological sciences Evgeniya Shraga told on Arzamas.

1. The secret of Russian men

In the first paragraph of Dead Souls, a chaise with Chichikov enters the provincial town of NN:

“His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian men standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel made some comments..."

This is clearly an unnecessary detail: from the first words it is clear that the action takes place in Russia. Why clarify that the men are Russian? Such a phrase would sound appropriate only in the mouth of a foreigner describing his impressions abroad. Literary historian Semyon Vengerov in an article entitled “Gogol did not know real Russian life at all” he explained it this way:

Gogol really learned late about the actual Russian (and not Ukrainian) life, not to mention the life of the Russian province,

Therefore, such an epithet was truly significant for him. Vengerov was sure: “If Gogol had thought about it for even one minute, he would certainly have crossed out this absurd epithet that says absolutely nothing to the Russian reader.”

But he didn’t cross out - and for good reason: in fact, this is a technique that is most characteristic of the poetics of “Dead Souls”, which the poet and philologist

called “a figure of fiction” - when something (and often a lot) is said, but nothing is actually said, definitions do not define, descriptions do not describe.

Another example of this poetics is the description of the main character. He “not handsome, but not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young”, “a middle-aged man with a rank neither too high nor too low”, “a gentleman of average rank”, whose face we never see, although he looks with pleasure in the mirror.

2. The mystery of the rainbow scarf

This is how we see Chichikov for the first time:

“The gentleman took off his cap and unwound from his neck a woolen scarf of rainbow colors, which the wife prepares for married people with her own hands, providing decent instructions on how to wrap themselves up, but for single people - I probably can’t say who makes it, God knows...”

“...I have never worn a headscarf like this,”- continues the narrator of “Dead Souls”. The description is constructed in a very characteristic Gogol image: the intonation of a know-it-all - “I know everything about such scarves”- changes abruptly to the opposite - “I’m single, I didn’t wear anything like that, I don’t know anything.” Behind this familiar technique and in such a familiar abundance of details, a rainbow scarf is well hidden.

“The next day he woke up quite late in the morning. The sun through the window shone straight into his eyes, and the flies that had slept peacefully yesterday on the walls and ceiling all turned to him: one sat on his lip, another on his ear, the third tried to settle on his very eye, the same one that had the imprudence to sit close to the nasal nostril, he pulled in his sleep right into his nose, which made him sneeze very hard - a circumstance that was the reason for his awakening.”

It is interesting that the narrative is filled with detailed descriptions of the universal dream, and only this awakening of Chichikov is an event that is described in detail.

Chichikov wakes up from a fly flying into his nose. His feelings are described almost in the same way as the shock of officials who heard about Chichikov’s scam:

“The position of them [the officials] at the first minute was similar to the position of a schoolboy, whose sleepy comrades, who had risen early, thrust a piece of paper filled with tobacco into the nose of a hussar. Having pulled all the tobacco towards himself in his sleep with all the zeal of a sleeper, he awakens, jumps up, looks like a fool, his eyes bulging in all directions, and cannot understand where he is, what he is, what happened to him ... "

Strange rumors alarmed the city, and this excitement is described as the awakening of those who had previously indulged in “dead dreams on their sides, on their backs and in all other positions, with snoring, nasal whistles and other accessories”, the entire “hitherto slumbering city " Before us is the resurrection of the dead, albeit a parody. But all this had such an effect on the city prosecutor that he completely died. His death is paradoxical, since in a sense it is a resurrection:

A. A. Agin. " Dead Souls" Chichikov and Korobochka. 1846/ www.nasledie-rus.ru

The contrast between sleep and awakening is associated with the key motifs of the novel - death and revival. The impetus for awakening can be the most insignificant little thing - a fly, tobacco, a strange rumor. The “Resurrector,” played by Chichikov, does not need to have any special virtues - it is enough for him to be in the role of a fly in his nose: to break the usual course of life.

5. How to keep up with everything: Chichikov’s secret

Chichikov leaves Korobochka:

“Although the day was very good, the ground became so polluted that the wheels of the chaise, catching it, soon became covered with it like felt, which significantly burdened the crew; Moreover, the soil was clayey and unusually tenacious. Both were the reasons that they could not get out of the country roads before noon.”

So, in the afternoon, the hero struggles to get out onto the pillar. Before this, after lengthy bickering, he bought 18 revision souls from Korobochka and ate unleavened pie with eggs and pancakes. Meanwhile, he woke up at ten. How did Chichikov manage to do everything in just over two hours?

This is not the only example of Gogol's free use of time. Setting off from the city of NN to Manilovka, Chichikov gets into a chaise wearing an “overcoat on big bears,” and on the way he meets men in sheepskin coats - the weather is clearly not summer. Arriving at Manilov, he sees a house on the mountain, “clad with trimmed turf”, “bushes of lilacs and yellow acacias”, birch with “small-leafed thin peaks”, “a pond covered with greenery”, women are wandering knee-deep in a pond - no longer wearing any sheepskin coats. Waking up the next morning in Korobochka’s house, Chichikov looks out of the window at “spacious vegetable gardens with cabbage, onions, potatoes, beets and other household vegetables” and “ fruit trees covered with nets to protect them from magpies and sparrows"- The time of year has changed again. Returning to the city, Chichikov will again put on his "a bear covered with brown cloth." “Wearing bears covered with brown cloth and a warm cap with ears” Manilov will also come to the city. In general, as it is said in another Gogol text: “I don’t remember the numbers. It wasn’t a month either.”

Cover of the first edition of the poem “Dead Souls”, made according to a drawing by N. V. Gogol

In general, the world of “Dead Souls” is a world without time. The seasons do not follow each other in order, but accompany a place or character, becoming its additional characteristic. Time stops flowing in the expected way, freezing in an ugly eternity - "a state of continued immobility", according to the philologist Michael Weiskopf.

6. The mystery of the guy with the balalaika

Chichikov orders Selifan to leave at dawn, Selifan scratches his head in response, and the narrator discusses what this means:

“Is it annoyance that the meeting planned for the next day with my brother in an unsightly sheepskin coat, belted with a sash, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, did not work out, or some kind of sweetheart has already started in a new place and I have to leave the evening standing at the gate and political holding of white hands at the hour when twilight falls on the city, a kid in a red shirt strums a balalaika in front of the courtyard servants and weaves quiet speeches of the common, well-served people?<…>God knows, you won't guess. Scratching the back of the head means many different things to the Russian people.”

Such passages are very typical of Gogol: to tell a lot of everything and come to the conclusion that nothing is clear, and there is nothing to talk about at all. But in this next passage that explains nothing, the guy with the balalaika attracts attention. We've already seen it somewhere:

“Approaching the porch, he noticed two faces looking out of the window almost at the same time: a woman in a cap, narrow, long, like a cucumber, and a man, round, wide, like the Moldavian pumpkins, called gourds, from which balalaikas, two-stringed, are made in Russia , light balalaikas, the beauty and fun of an agile twenty-year-old guy, flashing and dandy, winking and whistling at the white-breasted and white-necked girls who had gathered to listen to his low-stringed strumming.”

You can never predict where Gogol’s comparison will lead:

the comparison of Sobakevich’s face with a Moldavian pumpkin suddenly turns into a scene with the participation of our balalaika player.

Such detailed comparisons are one of the techniques with the help of which Gogol further expands the artistic world of the novel, introduces into the text what did not fit even in such a capacious plot as travel, what he did not have time or could not to see Chichikov, something that may not fit into the overall picture of life in the provincial town and its environs.

But Gogol does not stop there, but takes the dandy with the balalaika who appeared in the extended comparison - and again finds a place for him in the text, and now much closer to the plot reality. From a figure of speech, from a comparison, a real character grows, who wins a place for himself in the novel and ultimately fits into the plot.

7. Corruption secret

Even before the events of Dead Souls began, Chichikov was a member of the commission “to build some kind of government-owned, very capital building”:

A.A. Agin. "Dead Souls". Manilov with his wife. 1846/ www.nasledie-rus.ru

This mention of “civil architecture” generally fits into Gogol’s redundant style, where definitions do not define anything, and the opposition can easily lack a second element. But initially it was: “civil architecture” was opposed to church architecture. In the earlier edition of “Dead Souls,” the commission, which included Chichikov, is designated as “the commission for the construction of the temple of God.”

This episode of Chichikov’s biography was based on the story of the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, well known to Gogol. The temple was founded October 12, 1817 years, in the early 1820s a commission was established, and already in 1827 abuses were discovered, the commission was abolished, and two of its members were put on trial. Sometimes these numbers serve as the basis for dating the events of Chichikov’s biography, but, firstly, as we have already seen, Gogol did not really commit himself to exact chronology; secondly, in the final version, the mention of the temple is removed, the action takes place in the provincial town, and this whole story is reduced to an element of style, to “civil architecture”, which in Gogol’s way is no longer opposed to anything.

1. Who is it about? ...not handsome, but of bad appearance, neither too fat nor too thin; One cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young.
2. Who is this? ...a short man in a sheepskin coat...
3. Who is this? ...a young man of about thirty, in a loose, second-hand frock coat...
4. While the visiting gentleman was inspecting his room, his belongings were brought in... What was brought in?
5. What rank did P.I. Chichikov have? . 6. What sign was there in the provincial town on a store that sold caps and caps?
7. Which establishments had images of double-headed eagles hanging above the entrance?
8. What two kinds of men were at the governor's house party?
9. Who is it about? ...with very black thick eyebrows and a somewhat winking left eye, as if he was saying: “Let’s go, brother, to the other room, there I’ll tell you something.”
10. Where and how did Chichikov meet Soba-kevich?
11. What lay at the bottom of Chichikov’s snuff box?
12. Where did Chichikov meet Nozdrev?
13. Who is this about? ...he even had a noble impulse to educate himself, that is, to read books whose contents did not bother him: he did not care at all whether it was the adventure of a hero in love, just a primer or a prayer book...
14. Who is this about? There is a kind of people known by the name: so-so people, neither this nor that; neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan...
15. Who is this? ...he talked about how nice it would be if suddenly an underground passage was built from the house or a stone bridge was built across the pond...
16. Who is this about? Despite the fact that more than eight years of their marriage had passed, each of them still brought the other either a piece of apple, or candy, or a nut and spoke in a touchingly gentle voice, expressing perfection. touching love: “Open your mouth, darling, I’ll put this piece for you.”
17. Who speaks to whom? “And now you have finally honored us with your visit. It really was such a pleasure... May Day... the name day of the heart.”
18. Manilov: “Sometimes you read...” What did Manilov sometimes like to read?
19. What were the names of Manilov’s children?
20. At what price did I give in? Manilov dead souls to Chichikov?
21. Who speaks to whom? “You think you can hide your behavior. No, you live in truth when you want to be shown respect... Everyone respects our master, because, do you hear, he performed the state’s service, he is a Skole councilor.”
22. Whose words? In what situation were they said? “Why not flog, if it’s for the cause, that’s the will of the Lord. It needs to be flogged, because the guy is playing around, order needs to be observed. If it's for the job, then flog it; why not flog?
23. Whose portrait? “...the hostess entered, an elderly woman, in some kind of sleeping cap, put on hastily, with a flannel around her neck, one of those mothers, small landowners who cry about crop failures and losses.”
24. What was Korobochka’s name?
25. Whose men? Pyotr Savelyev, Disrespect-Trough, Wheel Ivan.
26. Who was Chichikov’s guide from Korobochka to the main road?
27. Who is this about?

He was of average height, a very well-built fellow with full rosy cheeks, teeth white as snow and jet-black sideburns.
28. Who used the following words and for what? Shoot, scold, flutter, fire, scythe, scribble, bake, bake, severga, killer whale, reward, trustee.
29. Who owned the Turkish dagger, on which “Master Savely Sibiryakov” was mistakenly carved?
30. Who is talking about whom? - Well, yes, I know you: you are a big swindler, let me tell you this out of friendship!
31. What saved Chichikov from being beaten in Nozdev’s house?
32. Who is this about? “What a nasty master! - Selifan thought to himself. “I have never seen such a gentleman before.” That is, I should spit on him for that! You better man don’t let me eat, but you must feed the horse...”
33. In whose estate? Even the well was lined with the kind of strong oak that is used only for mills and ships.
34. About whose house? The architect was a pedant and wanted symmetry, the owner wanted convenience and, apparently, as a result, boarded up all the corresponding windows on one side and screwed in their place one small one, probably needed for a dark closet.
35. What was Sobakevich’s name?
36. Who is this about? It is known that there are many such faces in the world over whose finishing nature did not spend much time... if you hit it with an ax once, your nose came out, if you hit it again, your lips came out...
37. What was the name of Sobakevich’s wife?

38. Who does Sobakevich speak like that about? There is only one honest man: ...; and even that one, to tell the truth, is a pig.
39. Who is this about? It seemed that this body had no soul at all, or it had one, but not at all where it should be, but, like immortal koschei, somewhere behind the mountains and was covered with such a thick shell that whatever was stirring at the bottom of it did not produce any shock on the surface.
40. How much did you buy it for? Chichikov is dead Korobochka's souls?
41. Whose men are these? Karetnik Mikheev, Cork Stepan, Maxim Telyatnikov, Eremey Sorokoplekhin.
42. How much did Sobakevich take for the dead soul from Chichikov?
43. Whose house is this? 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 opposite the other, both already shaky, devoid of the paint that once covered them.
44. Who is this about? 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 indefinite, very similar to a woman's hood, on her head was a cap, like that worn by village courtyard women, only one voice seemed to him a little strong for a woman.
45. It was suddenly clear that he was a man of reasonable years, not like a young talker and helipad... It seemed that he was well over forty years old; His hair was black and thick; the whole middle of his face protruded in front and went into his nose - in a word, it was a face that is called in society... What do they call such a face?
46. ​​For what amount, according to Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoye Rylo, did Chichikov buy the peasants?

47. Who equipped his speech... with many different particles, such as: “my sir, some kind of, you know, you understand, you can imagine, relatively so to speak, in some way”?..
48. What act of Chichikov at the governor’s ball against him restored the city’s ladies’ society?
49. Who and where informed the society that Chichikov was buying up dead souls?
50. Who did Gogol play in his youth in D. I. Fonvizin’s play “The Minor”?
51. What circus act did Pavlusha Chichikov prepare?
52. The father of Alexander the Great said: “A donkey loaded with gold will take any city.” What did his father tell Pavlusha Chichikov about the power of money?

ANSWERS "Dead Souls"

1. About Chichikov. Upon entering the hotel gate.
2. Coachman Selifan.
3. Footman Petrushka.
4. A white leather suitcase, a small mahogany chest, shoe trees, fried chicken.
5. Collegiate Advisor.
6. Foreigner Vasily Fedorov.
7. Drinking establishments.
8. Thin, thick, or the same as Chichikov, that is, not too thick...
9. About the prosecutor.
10. At the governor's party. Sobakevich... stepped on his foot the first time.
11. ...two violets placed there for scent.
12. At the evening with the police chief.
13. About Parsley.
14. About Manilov.
15. Manilov.
16. Manilov and Manilova,
17. Manilov Chichikov.
18. Magazine “Son of the Fatherland”.
19. The eldest of eight years is Themistoclus, the youngest of six years is Alcides.
20. ...I hand them over to you without interest and take over the bill of sale.
21. A brown-haired sworn horse harnessed on the right side.
22. Selifan speaks after throwing Chichikov into the mud.
23. Boxes.
24. Nastasya Petrovna.
25. Boxes.
26. Girl Pelageya.
27. Nozdrev.
28. Nozdryov gave these names to his dogs.
29. Nozdrev.
30. Nozdryov about Chichikov.
31. Arrival of the police captain.
32. About Nozdrev.
33. At the Sobakevich estate.
34. Sobakevich's house.
35. Mikhail Semenovich Sobakevich.
36. About Sobakevich.
37. - This is my Feodulia Ivanovna! - said Sobakevich.
38. About the prosecutor.
39. About Sobakevich.
40. For fifteen rubles.
41. Sobakevich.
42. Two and a half.
43. Plyushkin's house.
44. About Plyushkin.
45. Jug snout.
46. ​​One hundred thousand.
47. Postmaster.
48. Chichikov began to care for the governor’s daughter.
49. At the governor’s ball, Nozdryov.
50. Mrs. Prostakova,
51. Pavlusha trained a mouse.
52. You will do everything and ruin everything in the world with a penny.

1.1.2. How does the portrait presented in the fragment characterize the hero?

1.2.2. How do the natural world and the human world relate in Pushkin’s “Cloud”?

Read the fragment of the work below and complete tasks 1.1.1-1.1.2.

A rather beautiful small spring chaise, in which bachelors travel: retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, landowners with about a hundred peasant souls, in a word, all those who are called middle-class gentlemen, drove into the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of NN. In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, neither too fat nor too thin; One cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young. His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian peasants, standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel, made some comments, which, however, related more to the carriage than to those sitting in it. “Look,” one said to the other, “that’s a wheel!” What do you think, would that wheel, if it happened, get to Moscow or not?” “It will get there,” answered the other. “But I don’t think he’ll get to Kazan?” “He won’t get to Kazan,” answered the other. That was the end of the conversation. Moreover, when the chaise pulled up to the hotel, he met a young man in white rosin trousers, very narrow and short, in a tailcoat with attempts at fashion, from under which a shirtfront was visible, fastened with a Tula pin with a bronze pistol. The young man turned back, looked at the carriage, held his cap with his hand, which was almost blown off by the wind, and went his way.

When the carriage entered the yard, the gentleman was greeted by the tavern servant, or sex worker, as they are called in Russian taverns, lively and fidgety to such an extent that it was impossible to even see what kind of face he had. He ran out quickly, with a napkin in his hand, all long and in a long tartan frock coat with the back almost at the very back of his head, shook his hair and quickly led the gentleman up the entire wooden gallery to show him the peace sent to him by God. There was peace famous family, for the hotel was also of a well-known type, that is, exactly like the hotels in provincial towns, where for two rubles a day travelers get a quiet room with cockroaches peeking out like prunes from all corners, and a door to the next room, always filled with chest of drawers, where the neighbor, silent and calm person, but extremely curious, interested in knowing about all the details of the person passing by. The outer facade of the hotel corresponded to its interior: it was very long, two floors; the lower one was not plastered and remained in dark red bricks, even darker from the wild weather changes and dirty in themselves; the top one was painted with eternal yellow paint; below there were benches with clamps, ropes and steering wheels. In the corner of these shops, or, better yet, in the window, there was a whipper with a samovar made of red copper and a face as red as the samovar, so that from a distance one would think that there were two samovars standing on the window, if one samovar was not with pitch black beard.

While the visiting gentleman was looking around his room, his belongings were brought in: first of all, a suitcase made of white leather, somewhat worn out, showing that he was not on the road for the first time. The suitcase was brought in by the coachman Selifan, a short man in a sheepskin coat, and the footman Petrushka, a fellow of about thirty, in a spacious second-hand frock coat, as seen from the master's shoulder, a little stern in appearance, with very large lips and nose. Following the suitcase was a small mahogany casket with individual displays made of Karelian birch, shoe lasts and a fried chicken wrapped in blue paper. When all this was brought in, the coachman Selifan went to the stable to tinker with the horses, and the footman Petrushka began to settle down in the small front, very dark kennel, where he had already managed to drag his overcoat and with it some kind of his own smell, which was communicated to the one brought followed by a bag of various servants' toiletries. In this kennel he attached a narrow three-legged bed to the wall, covering it with a small semblance of a mattress, dead and flat as a pancake, and perhaps as oily as the pancake that he managed to demand from the innkeeper.

N.V. Gogol “Dead Souls”

Read the work below and complete tasks 1.2.1-1.2.2.

A. S. Pushkin

Explanation.

1.1.2. “In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young,” - this is how Gogol characterizes his hero already on the first pages of the poem. Chichikov's portrait is too vague to form any first impression about him. All we can say with certainty is that the person to whom it belongs is secretive, “on his own,” that he is driven by secret aspirations and motives.

1.2.2. The cloud in Pushkin's poem is an unwelcome guest for the poet, the personification of something menacing and unpleasant, terrible, perhaps some kind of misfortune. He understands that its appearance is inevitable, but he is waiting for it to pass and everything will get better again. For the hero of the poem, a natural state of peace, tranquility, and harmony is present. That is why he is glad that the storm has passed and that the sky has become azure again. Quite recently, she ruled in the sky because she was needed - the cloud brought rain to the “greedy earth.” But her time has passed: “The time has passed, the Earth has become refreshed, and the storm has flown by...” And the wind drives this already unwanted guest from the brightened skies: “And the wind, caressing the leaves of the trees, drives you from the calmed skies.”

A rather beautiful small spring chaise, in which bachelors travel: retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, landowners with about a hundred peasant souls - in a word, all those who are called middle-class gentlemen, drove into the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of NN. In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, neither too fat nor too thin; One cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young. His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian men, standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel, made some comments, which, however, related more to the carriage than to those sitting in it. “Look,” one said to the other, “that’s a wheel!” What do you think, if that wheel happened, would it get to Moscow or not?” “It will get there,” answered the other. “But I don’t think he’ll get to Kazan?” “He won’t make it to Kazan,” answered another. That was the end of the conversation. Moreover, when the chaise pulled up to the hotel, he met a young man in white rosin trousers, very narrow and short, in a tailcoat with attempts at fashion, from under which a shirtfront was visible, fastened with a Tula pin with a bronze pistol. The young man turned back, looked at the carriage, held his cap with his hand, which was almost blown off by the wind, and went his way.

When the carriage entered the yard, the gentleman was greeted by the tavern servant, or sex worker, as they are called in Russian taverns, lively and fidgety to such an extent that it was impossible to even see what kind of face he had. He ran out quickly, with a napkin in his hand, all long and in a long tartan frock coat with the back almost at the very back of his head, shook his hair and quickly led the gentleman up the entire wooden gallery to show the peace bestowed upon him by God. The peace was of a certain kind, for the hotel was also of a certain kind, that is, exactly like the hotels in provincial towns, where for two rubles a day travelers get a quiet room with cockroaches peeking out like prunes from all corners, and a door to the next a room always filled with a chest of drawers, where a neighbor settles down, a silent and calm person, but extremely curious, interested in knowing about all the details of the person passing by. The outer facade of the hotel corresponded to its interior: it was very long, two floors; the lower one was not polished and remained in dark red bricks, darkened even more by the wild weather changes and rather dirty in themselves; the top one was painted with eternal yellow paint; below there were benches with clamps, ropes and steering wheels. In the corner of these shops, or, better yet, in the window, there was a whipper with a samovar made of red copper and a face as red as the samovar, so that from a distance one would think that there were two samovars standing on the window, if one samovar was not with pitch black beard.

While the visiting gentleman was looking around his room, his belongings were brought in: first of all, a suitcase made of white leather, somewhat worn, showing that he was not on the road for the first time. The suitcase was brought in by the coachman Selifan, a short man in a sheepskin coat, and the footman Petrushka, a fellow of about thirty, in a spacious second-hand frock coat, as seen from the master's shoulder, a little stern in appearance, with very large lips and nose. Following the suitcase was a small mahogany casket with individual displays made of Karelian birch, shoe lasts and a fried chicken wrapped in blue paper. When all this was brought in, the coachman Selifan went to the stable to tinker with the horses, and the footman Petrushka began to settle down in the small front, very dark kennel, where he had already managed to drag his overcoat and with it some kind of his own smell, which was communicated to the one brought followed by a bag of various servants' toiletries. In this kennel he attached a narrow three-legged bed to the wall, covering it with a small semblance of a mattress, dead and flat as a pancake, and perhaps as oily as the pancake that he managed to demand from the innkeeper.

While the servants were managing and fiddling around, the master went to the common room. What kind of common halls there are, anyone passing by knows very well: the same walls, painted with oil paint, darkened at the top from pipe smoke and stained below with the backs of various travelers, and even more so by native merchants, for merchants trading days came here all by themselves and drank their famous couple tea; the same smoke-stained ceiling; the same smoked chandelier with many hanging pieces of glass that jumped and tinkled every time the floor boy ran across the worn oilcloths, briskly waving a tray on which sat the same abyss of tea cups, like birds on the seashore; the same paintings covering the entire wall, painted with oil paints - in a word, everything is the same as everywhere else; the only difference is that one painting depicted a nymph with such huge breasts, which the reader has probably never seen. A similar game of nature, however, happens at different historical paintings , it is unknown at what time, from where and by whom brought to us in Russia, sometimes even by our nobles, art lovers, who bought them in Italy on the advice of the couriers who carried them. The gentleman took off his cap and unwound from his neck a woolen scarf of rainbow colors, the kind that the wife prepares for married people with her own hands, providing decent instructions on how to wrap themselves up, and for single people - I probably can’t say who makes them, God knows, I’ve never worn such scarves . Having unwound his scarf, the gentleman ordered dinner to be served. While he was served various dishes common in taverns, such as: cabbage soup with puff pastry, specially saved for travelers for several weeks, brains with peas, sausages and cabbage, fried poulard, pickled cucumber and the eternal sweet puff pastry, always ready to serve ; While all this was being served to him, both heated and simply cold, he forced the servant, or sexton, to tell all sorts of nonsense about who previously ran the inn and who now, and how much income he gives, and whether their owner is a big scoundrel; to which the sexton, as usual, replied: “Oh, big, sir, swindler.” Both in enlightened Europe and in enlightened Russia there are now very many respectable people who cannot eat in a tavern without talking to the servant, and sometimes even making a funny joke at his expense. However, the visitor wasn’t all asking empty questions; he asked with extreme precision who the governor of the city was, who the chairman of the chamber was, who the prosecutor was - in a word, he did not miss a single significant official; but with even greater accuracy, if not even with sympathy, he asked about all the significant landowners: how many peasant souls do they have, how far they live from the city, what their character is and how often they come to the city; He asked carefully about the state of the region: were there any diseases in their province - epidemic fevers, any killer fevers, smallpox and the like, and everything was so thorough and with such accuracy that it showed more than just simple curiosity. The gentleman had something dignified in his manners and blew his nose extremely loudly. It is not known how he did it, but his nose sounded like a trumpet. This apparently completely innocent dignity, however, gained him a lot of respect from the tavern servant, so that every time he heard this sound, he shook his hair, straightened up more respectfully and, bending his head from on high, asked: is it necessary? what? After dinner, the gentleman drank a cup of coffee and sat down on the sofa, placing a pillow behind his back, which in Russian taverns, instead of elastic wool, is stuffed with something extremely similar to brick and cobblestone. Then he began to yawn and ordered to be taken to his room, where he lay down and fell asleep for two hours. Having rested, he wrote on a piece of paper, at the request of the tavern servant, his rank, first and last name for reporting to the appropriate place, to the police. On a piece of paper, going down the stairs, I read the following from the warehouses: “Collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, landowner, according to his needs.” When the floor guard was still sorting out the note from the warehouses, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov himself went to see the city, which he seemed to be satisfied with, for he found that the city was in no way inferior to other provincial cities: the yellow paint on the stone houses was very striking and the gray paint was modestly darkening on wooden ones. The houses had one, two and one and a half floors, with an eternal mezzanine, very beautiful, according to the provincial architects. In some places these houses seemed lost among a street as wide as a field and endless wooden fences; in some places they huddled together, and here the movement of people and liveliness was more noticeable. There were signs with pretzels and boots, almost washed away by the rain, and in some places with painted blue trousers and the signature of some Arshav tailor; where is a store with caps, caps and the inscription: “Foreigner Vasily Fedorov”; where there was a drawing of billiards with two players in tailcoats, the kind that guests in our theaters wear when they enter the stage in the last act. The players were depicted with their cues aimed, their arms turned slightly backwards and their legs slanted, having just made an entrechat in the air. Underneath it all was written: “And here is the establishment.” In some places there were tables with nuts, soap and gingerbread cookies that looked like soap on the street; where is the tavern with a fat fish painted and a fork stuck into it. Most often, the darkened double-headed state eagles were noticeable, which have now been replaced by the laconic inscription: “Drinking house.” The pavement was pretty bad everywhere. He also looked into the city garden, which consisted of thin trees, badly grown, with supports at the bottom, in the form of triangles, very beautifully painted green. oil paint. However, although these trees were no taller than reeds, it was said about them in the newspapers when describing the illumination that “our city was decorated, thanks to the care of the civil ruler, with a garden consisting of shady, wide-branched trees, giving coolness on a hot day,” and that when In this case, “it was very touching to see how the hearts of the citizens trembled in an abundance of gratitude and flowed streams of tears as a sign of gratitude to the mayor.” Having asked the guard in detail where he could go closer, if necessary, to the cathedral, to public places, to the governor, he went to look at the river flowing in the middle of the city, on the way he tore off a poster nailed to a post, so that when he came home he could read it thoroughly, looked intently at a lady of good appearance walking along the wooden sidewalk, followed by a boy in military livery, with a bundle in his hand, and, once again looking around everything with his eyes, as if in order to clearly remember the position of the place, he went home straight to his room, supported lightly on the stairs by a tavern servant. Having had some tea, he sat down in front of the table, ordered a candle to be brought to him, took a poster out of his pocket, brought it to the candle and began to read, squinting his right eye slightly. However, there wasn’t much that was remarkable in the playbill: the drama was given by Mr. Kotzebue, in which Rolla was played by Mr. Poplyovin, Cora was played by the maiden Zyablova, other characters were even less remarkable; however, he read them all, even got to the price of the stalls and found out that the poster was printed in the printing house of the provincial government, then he turned it over to the other side to find out if there was anything there, but, not finding anything, he rubbed his eyes and turned neatly and put it in his little chest, where he was in the habit of putting everything he came across. The day, it seems, was concluded with a portion of cold veal, a bottle of sour cabbage soup and a sound sleep in full swing, as they say in other parts of the vast Russian state.

The entire next day was devoted to visits; the visitor went to make visits to all the city dignitaries. He visited with respect the governor, who, as it turned out, like Chichikov, was neither fat nor thin, had Anna around his neck, and it was even rumored that he was presented to the star; however, he was a great good-natured man and sometimes even embroidered on tulle himself. Then I went to the vice-governor, then I visited the prosecutor, the chairman of the chamber, the police chief, the tax farmer, the head of state-owned factories... it’s a pity that it’s a little difficult to remember everyone powerful of the world this; but suffice it to say that the visitor showed extraordinary activity regarding visits: he even came to pay his respects to the inspector of the medical board and the city architect. And then he sat in the chaise for a long time, trying to figure out who else he could pay the visit to, but there were no other officials in the city. In conversations with these rulers, he very skillfully knew how to flatter everyone. He somehow hinted in passing to the governor that entering his province is like entering paradise, the roads are velvet everywhere, and that those governments that appoint wise dignitaries are worthy of great praise. He said something very flattering to the police chief about the city guards; and in conversations with the vice-governor and the chairman of the chamber, who were still only state councilors, he even said “your excellency” twice in error, which they liked very much. The consequence of this was that the governor extended an invitation to him to come to his house that same day, and other officials, too, for their part, some for lunch, some for a Boston party, some for a cup of tea.

The visitor seemed to avoid talking much about himself; if he spoke, then in some way commonplaces, with noticeable modesty, and his conversation in such cases took somewhat bookish turns: that he was an insignificant worm of this world and did not deserve to be cared for much, that he had experienced a lot in his life, suffered in the service for the truth, had many enemies, who had even attempted his life, and that now, wanting to calm down, he was finally looking to choose a place to live, and that, having arrived in this city, he considered it an indispensable duty to pay his respects to its first dignitaries. That's all that the city learned about this new face, who very soon did not fail to show himself at the governor's party. Preparations for this party took more than two hours, and here the visitor showed such attentiveness to the toilet, which has not even been seen everywhere. After a short afternoon nap, he ordered to be washed and rubbed both cheeks with soap for an extremely long time, propping them up from the inside with his tongue; then, taking a towel from the inn servant’s shoulder, he wiped his plump face from all sides with it, starting from behind his ears and first snorting twice or twice into the inn servant’s very face. Then he put on his shirtfront in front of the mirror, plucked out two hairs that had come out of his nose, and immediately after that he found himself in a lingonberry-colored tailcoat with a sparkle. Thus dressed, he rode in his own carriage along the endlessly wide streets, illuminated by the meager lighting from the flickering windows here and there. However, the governor's house was so lit, even if only for a ball; a carriage with lanterns, two gendarmes in front of the entrance, postilions shouting in the distance - in a word, everything is as it should be. Entering the hall, Chichikov had to close his eyes for a minute, because the shine from the candles, lamps and ladies' dresses was terrible. Everything was flooded with light. Black tailcoats flashed and rushed separately and in heaps here and there, like flies scamper on white shining refined sugar during the hot July summer, when the old housekeeper chops and divides it into sparkling fragments in front of open window; the children are all looking, gathered around, curiously following the movements of her hard hands, raising the hammer, and aerial squadrons of flies, raised by the light air, fly in boldly, like complete masters, and, taking advantage of the old woman’s blindness and the sun disturbing her eyes, sprinkle tidbits where scattered, where in thick heaps. Sated by the rich summer, which already lays out tasty dishes at every turn, they flew in not at all to eat, but just to show off, walk back and forth on the sugar heap, rub their hind or front legs one against the other, or scratch them under your wings, or, stretching out both front legs, rub them over your head, turn around and fly away again, and fly again with new annoying squadrons.

Before Chichikov had time to look around, he was already grabbed by the arm by the governor, who immediately introduced him to the governor’s wife. The visiting guest did not let himself down here either: he said some kind of compliment, quite decent for a middle-aged man with a rank neither too high nor too low. When the established pairs of dancers pressed everyone against the wall, he, with his hands behind him, looked at them for two minutes very carefully. Many of the ladies were well dressed and in fashion, others dressed in whatever God sent them to the provincial city. The men here, as everywhere else, were of two kinds: some thin, who kept hovering around the ladies; some of them were of such a type that it was difficult to distinguish them from those from St. Petersburg, they also had very deliberately and tastefully combed sideburns or simply beautiful, very smoothly shaven oval faces, they also casually sat down to the ladies, they also spoke French and they made the ladies laugh just like in St. Petersburg. Another class of men were fat or the same as Chichikov, that is, not too fat, but not thin either. These, on the contrary, looked sideways and backed away from the ladies and only looked around to see if the governor’s servant was setting up a green whist table somewhere. Their faces were full and round, some even had warts, some were pockmarked, they did not wear their hair on their heads in crests, curls, or in a “damn me” manner, as the French say - their hair They were either cut low or sleek, and their facial features were more rounded and strong. These were honorary officials in the city. Alas! fat people know how to manage their affairs in this world better than thin people. The thin ones serve more on special assignments or are just registered and wander here and there; their existence is somehow too easy, airy and completely unreliable. Fat people never occupy indirect places, but always straight ones, and if they sit somewhere, they will sit securely and firmly, so hurry up the place it will crack and bend under them, but they won’t fly off. They do not like external shine; the tailcoat on them is not as cleverly tailored as on the thin ones, but in the boxes there is the grace of God. At the age of three, the thin one does not have a single soul left that is not pawned in a pawnshop; the fat man was calm, lo and behold, a house appeared somewhere at the end of the city, bought in his wife’s name, then at the other end another house, then a village near the city, then a village with all the land. Finally, the fat man, having served God and the sovereign, having earned universal respect, leaves the service, moves over and becomes a landowner, a glorious Russian gentleman, a hospitable man, and lives and lives well. And after him, again, the thin heirs, according to Russian custom, send all their father’s goods by courier. It cannot be concealed that almost this kind of reflection occupied Chichikov at the time when he was looking at society, and the consequence of this was that he finally joined the fat ones, where he met almost all the familiar faces: a prosecutor with very black thick eyebrows and a somewhat winking left eye as if he were saying: “Let’s go, brother, to another room, there I’ll tell you something,” - a man, however, serious and silent; the postmaster, a short man, but a wit and a philosopher; Chairman of the House, a very reasonable and amiable man - who all greeted him as an old acquaintance, to which Chichikov bowed somewhat to the side, however, not without pleasantness. He immediately met the very courteous and polite landowner Manilov and the somewhat clumsy-looking Sobakevich, who stepped on his foot the first time, saying: “I beg your pardon.” They immediately handed him a whist card, which he accepted with the same polite bow. They sat down at the green table and did not get up until dinner. All conversations stopped completely, as always happens when they finally indulge in something meaningful. Although the postmaster was very talkative, he, having taken the cards in his hands, immediately expressed a thinking physiognomy on his face, covered his lower lip with his upper lip and maintained this position throughout the game. Leaving the figure, he hit the table firmly with his hand, saying, if there was a lady: “Get off, you old priest!”, If there was a king: “Get off, Tambov man!” And the chairman said: “I’ll hit him with a mustache!” And I hit her on the mustache!” Sometimes, when the cards hit the table, expressions would burst out: “Ah! was not there, for no reason, just with a tambourine! Or simply exclamations: “worms! worm-hole! picencia!” or: “Pikendras! pichurushuh! pichura!” and even simply: “pichuk!” - the names with which they baptized the suits in their society. At the end of the game they argued, as usual, quite loudly. Our visiting guest also argued, but somehow extremely skillfully, so that everyone saw that he was arguing, and yet he was arguing pleasantly. He never said: “you went,” but: “you deigned to go,” “I had the honor to cover your deuce,” and the like. In order to further agree on something with his opponents, he each time presented them all with his silver and enamel snuff-box, at the bottom of which they noticed two violets, placed there for the smell. The visitor's attention was especially occupied by the landowners Manilov and Sobakevich, who were mentioned above. He immediately inquired about them, immediately calling several of them to the side of the chairman and the postmaster. Several questions he asked showed the guest not only curiosity, but also thoroughness; for first of all he asked how many peasant souls each of them had and in what position their estates were, and then he inquired about their first and patronymic names. In a short time he completely managed to charm them. The landowner Manilov, not yet an old man at all, who had eyes as sweet as sugar and squinted them every time he laughed, was crazy about him. He shook his hand for a very long time and asked him to earnestly honor him by coming to the village, which, according to him, was only fifteen miles from the city outpost. To which Chichikov, with a very polite bow of his head and a sincere handshake, replied that he was not only very willing to do this, but would even consider it a most sacred duty. Sobakevich also said somewhat laconically: “And I ask you,” shuffling his foot, shod in a boot of such a gigantic size, for which one can hardly find a corresponding foot anywhere, especially at the present time, when heroes are beginning to appear in Rus'.

The next day Chichikov went for lunch and evening to the police chief, where from three o'clock in the afternoon they sat down to whist and played until two o'clock in the morning. There, by the way, he met the landowner Nozdryov, a man of about thirty, a broken fellow, who after three or four words began to say “you” to him. Nozdryov was also on first name terms with the police chief and the prosecutor and treated him in a friendly manner; but when we sat down to play big game, the police chief and the prosecutor examined his bribes extremely carefully and followed almost every card with which he walked. The next day Chichikov spent the evening with the chairman of the chamber, who received his guests in a dressing gown, somewhat oily, including two ladies. Then I was at an evening with the vice-governor, at a big dinner with the tax farmer, at a small dinner with the prosecutor, which, however, was worth a lot; at the after-mass snack given by the mayor, which was also worth lunch. In a word, he never had to stay at home for a single hour, and he came to the hotel only to fall asleep. The newcomer somehow knew how to find his way around everything and showed himself to be an experienced socialite. Whatever the conversation was about, he always knew how to support it: whether it was about a horse factory, he talked about a horse factory; did they talk about good dogs, and here he reported very practical comments; whether they interpreted the investigation carried out by the treasury chamber, he showed that he was not unaware of the judicial tricks; whether there was a discussion about a billiard game - and in a billiard game he did not miss; they talked about virtue, and he talked about virtue very well, even with tears in his eyes; about making hot wine, and he knew the use of hot wine; about customs overseers and officials, and he judged them as if he himself were both an official and an overseer. But it’s remarkable that he knew how to dress it all up with some kind of sedateness, he knew how to behave well. He spoke neither loudly nor quietly, but absolutely as he should. In a word, no matter where you turn, he was a very decent person. All officials were pleased with the arrival of a new person. The governor explained about him that he was a well-intentioned person; the prosecutor - that he is a sensible person; the gendarme colonel said that he learned man; the chairman of the chamber - that he is a knowledgeable and respectable person; the police chief - that he is a respectable and kind person; the police chief's wife - that he is the most kind and courteous person. Even Sobakevich himself, who rarely spoke kindly of anyone, arrived quite late from the city and had already completely undressed and lay down on the bed next to his thin wife, said to her: “I, darling, was at the governor’s party, and at the police chief’s. I had lunch and met the collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov: a pleasant person!” To which the wife replied: “Hm!” - and pushed him with her foot.

This opinion, very flattering for the guest, was formed about him in the city, and it persisted until one strange property of the guest and the enterprise, or, as they say in the provinces, a passage about which the reader will soon learn, led almost to complete bewilderment. the whole city.