Tchichikoff\'s reserve funds had, however, dwindled down to a mere trifle; his splendidly furnished house with all its foreign refinements was taken from him and given as a reward to some other official. All that was left to him, amounted to a sum of about ten thousand roubles, besides a couple of dozen fine Holland shirts, a convenient, light britchka, to which bachelors give the preference for travelling purposes, and two faithful serfs, his coachman Selifan and his valet Petruschka, (the little hunchback had died some time before), and we must also not forget to mention that his former colleagues in office, moved by compassion at his disgrace and sad prospects—for they believed him penniless—had had the generosity to leave him a few pieces of that peculiar French soap which possesses the virtue of preserving the freshness of the skin; and this was all that he could call his property.
And it was in such a position that our hero made his appearance! Such then was the excess of misfortunes that befel him! And this it was what he called in Smolensk to suffer in the service for truth and the just cause. Now the conclusion might have been drawn that, after so many sad experiences and changes of fortune and position in life, he would wisely retire with his round sum of ten thousand roubles into a small and quiet provincial town, and put on for ever a comfortable Tartar cotton morning-gown, and seat himself at the window of some modest private house, and look on a Sunday at the fights and quarrels of the mouzhiks before him in the street; or take a walk in the poultry-yard, and feed with his own hands the fowl which he would like to have cooked for his dinner, and would have continued to lead a quiet and retired though not entirely useless existence.
However, it did not happen thus. Justice must be rendered to his unconquerable fortitude of character. All that had happened to him would perhaps, if not have killed another man, at least would have served him as a caution and quieted him; but with our hero it was not so, the inward flame of his passion was as ardent as ever. He felt acute grief and vexation, swore at the whole world, angry at the injustice of Providence, disgusted at the injustice of men in general; but for all that he could not forbear making new essays. In a word, he displayed such an extraordinary amount of patience and perseverance, against which the wooden patience and perseverance of a German are nothing, because it is constitutional with them.
Tchichikoff\'s blood, on the contrary, was like an ever-playing fountain, and it was requisite for him to possess a powerful will and wisdom, to bridle all those passions which would have liked to escape and enjoy unbounded freedom. He began to muse and to reflect on the past and on the future, and the conclusions he arrived at were not at all devoid of sound judgment.
"Why should it be always I? Why should I continually be the victim of a cruel destiny? Who is the man in our empire who lingers over his duties? All, the whole nation, from the Emperor himself down to the meanest serf, all have their mind bent upon acquisition. I have ruined nobody; I have not robbed the lonely widow, nor have I made any children orphans. I have derived profit from superfluities, have only taken what every one else in my place would have taken; if I had not profited by the chance offered me, others would have done so. Why should others alone enjoy wealth and comforts, and why I alone be condemned to live and die like a worm?
"And what am I now? For what am I good now? With what countenance should I now be able to look into the face of any pater familias? How can I escape the pangs of shame, knowing that I walk uselessly on the face of the earth: and what will my children say when I am dead and gone? They will say our father was a villain: he left us no position, no fortune!"
It is already well known to our readers that Tchichikoff was particularly anxious about his heirs. A very tender subject. Many a man would perhaps venture head and neck, if it was not for the question which presses itself inexplicably upon him—"What, will my children say?" And the possible head of a future generation, like a precautious cat, looking sideways to espy if his master is in the way, seizes hurriedly everything that happens to be near him, either a piece of soap, some candles, tallow, or a canary bird if it should happen to fall under its claws; in a word, he allows nothing to escape.
Thus lamented our disconsolate hero: meanwhile his activity was not extinguished within him; it only slumbered for a while. There was always something that preoccupied his mind, and only waited for the chance of a sound plan. He armed himself once more with his peculiar virtues, and determined again to begin an active and difficult life; he again submitted himself to the well-known privations of former life, and again from an elevated and respectable position, he launched himself into sullied and low life. And in the expectation of something better turning up, he was obliged to accept the situation of a commission-agent, a profession yet badly received and acknowledged by our citizens, pushed about on all sides, shabbily paid and treated with disregard and even with contempt. However, necessity obliges us to many things, and also excuses them, and our hero therefore determined upon accepting the situation.
Among a variety of business with which he had been entrusted, was also the following: to mortgage in the Imperial Bank of the Council of Guardians, a few hundred serfs. The nobleman who had commissioned him to undertake this business was ruined, and reduced to the last extremity. His landed property was already completely encumbered, by an epidemic among his cattle, villainous and dishonest stewards, bad harvests, epidemic diseases which had carried off numbers of his most valuable serfs, and at last by the follies of the nobleman himself, who had purchased and furnished a house in St. Petersburg at an extravagant expense but in the last Parisian fashion, and who had spent upon this mad fancy his last rouble, so that he had nothing to eat. And for this reason, he was obliged to have recourse to the last extremity, and determine upon parting with his life estate.
The Imperial Bank for the mortgage of landed property and serfs, under the title of Council of Guardians, is one of the numerous paternal institutions of recent date, and of all of which his Majesty the Emperor is himself the head. The transactions of the Imperial Council of Guardians claim his peculiar attention, and consist chiefly in advancing monies to such noblemen of the Empire as have become embarrassed from various causes, but principally from such as we have already alluded to. The monies of the Crown are advanced upon real estate, namely upon land and serfs. It is principally left to the Council of Guardians to fix the period for repayment of the advanced funds, and if the nobleman thus assisted cannot redeem his mortgaged property in due time, it is again left to the discretion of the Imperial Council of Guardians to have the property of the nobleman valued by a special committee, and then it is sold to the Crown, which, after refunding itself, hands the residue to the thus ruined nobleman.
This system of paternal accommodation, which the Russian nobility enjoys at the hands of his Majesty the Emperor, fully accounts for the enormous number of Crown serfs, which number has increased since the establishment of the Imperial Council of Guardians nearly to a million souls.
At the time when Tchichikoff was intrusted with the mortgage of those few hundred serfs, the Council of Guardians had been but recently established, yet much of its operations had already transpired, and circulated among the nobility, and for that reason they were very reluctant to profit by this paternal accommodation. Tchichikoff, in his capacity of agent, had received instructions to conclude the mortgage of the serfs on the most advantageous terms; he therefore thought it proper to dispose everything favourably, (without previously well disposing a few of the Imperial employés, it would be hopeless to apply for anything like information, and it is therefore advisable to smooth their throats with a profusion of port and sherry), and thus, having as far as necessary well-disposed every one of the employés in the Council of Guardians, with whom he would have to transact business, he explained his errand to be connected with a very peculiar circumstance.
"Half of the serfs I wish to mortgage, have died since my arrival here at Moscow, and I am therefore alarmed lest there might be some misunderstanding about them later—"
"But allow me to ask you," said the secretary of the Board of Guardians, "are these two hundred serfs we are now speaking about,............