dead souls, imperial envoy

Chapter 24 Dead Souls (24)
After that, they will go to a high platform to publish their own conclusions—in this way, the newly discovered truth will spread like wildfire, and will be spread everywhere by some followers, and will snare believers.Just when the two wives successfully and intelligently solved such a profound and complicated problem, the chief prosecutor with thick eyebrows and big eyes, always with a rigid expression, and blinking his left eye came in.The two wives rushed to tell him the whole incident, the news of Chichikov buying the dead serfs, and Chichikov's plot to abduct the governor's daughter, which confused the chief prosecutor.He stood there straight, blinking his left eye, and kept wiping the snuff off his beard with a handkerchief, but he really didn't understand anything.The two ladies left the Attorney General, who was not aware of it, and went their separate ways to confuse the townspeople.The project was completed in a little over half an hour.The whole city's citizens heard about the demagogy; it made the whole city panic, although no one might understand what was going on.The two wives cleverly released such a powerful fog in front of people that everyone, especially the officials, was stunned and at a loss for a period of time.At the first moment, they looked like a sleeping schoolboy who was put a roll of snuff in his nostrils by a classmate who got up first, and the schoolboy who was asleep took the snuff all at once. I sucked everything in, and suddenly woke up, jumped up, opened my eyes and looked around in a daze, feeling dizzy for a while, not knowing where I was, who I was, and what happened, and then I slowly saw clearly The walls under the slanting sun, the classmates hiding aside and laughing, and the morning scenery outside the window - the forest has woken up from the night, thousands of birds are singing and singing in it, and a shining river appears and disappears from time to time. Winding among the dense reeds, the river was full of bare-bottomed children calling each other to go swimming, and finally he felt a paper roll stuffed in his nose.This is how the residents and officials of the city were at the first moment.People are like goats, staring at one place with wide-eyed eyes.The dead serf, the governor's daughter, and Chichikov made a mess in their heads; then, after an initial confusion, they seemed to unravel the mess little by little, and asked Explain it clearly, and get very annoyed when you see that the matter is unwilling to be given a clear explanation under any circumstances.Really, what the hell is going on here?
It doesn't make sense to buy dead serfs, why would you buy dead serfs?Where can there be such a fool?How could he spend all this wronged money to buy dead serfs?What is the use of dead serfs, and what can they be used for?
Why should the governor's daughter get involved?

Since Chichikov wanted to abduct her, why did he insist on buying the dead serf?If you want to buy dead serfs, why do you have to kidnap the governor's daughter?Could it be that he was going to give her the dead serf as a gift?How could people spread such nonsense all over the city?What happened to the social atmosphere?Before you've even turned your back, you've made an anecdote, if only it meant something...

But since people have spread the word, there must be a reason, right?But what can be said about the dead serfs?

I'm afraid it doesn't make any sense.It seems that these are nothing more than: playing tricks, talking nonsense, talking nonsense, making things out of nothing!

It's really unreasonable!In a word, there was talk, news was blowing like the wind, and the whole town was talking about the dead serf and the governor's daughter, Chichikov and the dead serf, the governor's daughter and Chichikov, and the town was full of wind and rain.N City, which seemed to be in a coma all this time, has now been stirred up like a whirlwind!
There are slackers and sleepers who have been lying at home in their pajamas for years on end, blaming either the cobbler for their boots being a little cramped, or the tailor, or the coachman for being a drunk, and now they too are out of their lairs. crawled out.Some of them lived in seclusion, and as the saying goes, they only had contact with Mr. Puchen and Mr. Shangshen (these two gentlemen got their names from the two words "lying" and "lying" that are very popular in our Russia. Like the rather fashionable phrase "to meet Sobikov and Khrapowitzky", which signifies sound sleep in various positions such as lying on one's side, lying on one's back, with grunts and various other tricks); Those who stayed at home, even if they could not be seduced by five hundred rubles of fresh fish soup, two-foot-long sturgeon, and various large scones with fish filling that melted in the mouth, these people are now on the move.In a word, it turns out that N City is so big and lively, and the number of residents is also so impressive.Thursoy Pavnudjevich, whom I had never heard of, and MacDonald Karlovich also showed up; Standing in some living rooms.There were buggies with folding tops, long multi-seaters never seen before, buggies with ringing bells, and buggies with creaking axles—the city was like a boiling pot of water.Perhaps at other times, in another situation, this kind of rumor may not have attracted anyone's attention; but N City has not heard any news for a long time.It has been more than three months since what is called Komera Day in the capital has not happened here. Everyone knows that for a city, such an event is as significant as the food brought in in time.In the midst of the numerous discussions, two completely different opinions have emerged, forming two opposing parties: the men's party and the women's party.The men's party only cares about dead serfs and the stupidity of buying dead serfs.The Women's Party talked wholeheartedly about the governor's daughter.In a women's party - and we have to say a word of praise to the ladies - the orderliness and precision are unmatched.It seems that they are born to be good housewives and heads of families.With them, they quickly gained an extremely clear form for everything, and with the addition of easy-to-understand forms of expression, all problems became clear and clear; that is to say, a complete picture was drawn.It turned out that Chichikov had long been in love with the governor's daughter, and they often had a tryst before the flowers, and the governor had intended to betroth his daughter to him, because Chichikov was as rich as a Jew, but Chichikov The deserted wives (how did they know that Chichikov had a wife, no one can tell here) are at work; A letter telling the story; Chichikov learned that the girl's parents would never agree to his marriage, so he decided to kidnap her.In the living room of other people, there is a different story. Here Chichikov has no wife at all, but Chichikov is an old and cunning person. In order to marry his daughter, he decided to start with his mother and secretly communicated with her. kindness.When it was announced that she would propose to her daughter, the mother was terrified, afraid of committing the crime of incest which is not allowed by the canon, and would be condemned by her conscience, so she refused without mercy. This is why Chichikov decided to abduct and flee. The original intention of a move in chess.The rumor spread more and more widely, and finally reached the lower classes in the backcountry, where explanations and revisions were added as it spread.In Russia, the lower classes are happy to talk about gossip about the upper class, so those small families who have never met Chichikov and do not know Chichikov also began to spread these rumors, embellishing them and stuffing more stories. Supplementary explanation.The plot became more and more bizarre, and the story became more and more complete, and finally reached the ears of the governor's wife completely and comprehensively.As the first lady of the city, as the first lady of the city, as a mother, and finally, as a wife who has been widely criticized, she feels extremely wronged and extremely angry by all kinds of rumors - this anger seems natural As it should be.The poor fair-haired daughter had the greatest tête-à-tête that a sixteen-year-old girl could ever be wronged to suffer.Questioning, cross-examination, reprimand, threats, scolding, and admonishment were all poured on her, causing her to burst into tears, unable to defend herself, and did not even understand a single sentence.The porter received the strictest orders: Chichikov was not allowed to enter at any time and under no circumstances.After the ladies finished spreading the news on the governor's wife side, they began to transfer to the men's party again, intending to unify the men's speeches. They said that the dead serfs were just to divert attention. In order to divert people's attention, they finally completed it successfully abduction.There are many men who can't stand the lobbying and join the women's party, although they are vigorously whipped by their fellow party members, and they are called "mothers" and "skirt fans"--you know, these two terms are very disgraceful to men.However, no matter how armed the men are and how they fight, their party lacks the orderliness of the women's party.Their thoughts here are all dry, rough, incoherent, useless, not rigorous, and not clever; Nature: rude, stupid, not good at managing the house, not good at inducing, lack of faith, lazy, endless doubts in the heart, always timid and afraid of getting into trouble.All they could say was that it was all nonsense, that the abduction of the governor's daughter was something only hussars could do, not civil servants.Chichikov would never do such a thing, women are talking nonsense, they are like pockets, she will put whatever you put in them; the problem that should be concerned is dead serfs, but what dead serfs mean, only the devil I know, but there must be more bad luck than good luck here.Why do men feel that there is more danger than good here? We will know immediately: a new governor has been appointed in the province. Everyone knows that this is a major event that makes officials panic: investigate, reprimand, and punish. All this will follow, and a new official will bring untold suffering to his subordinates!

(End of this chapter)