Monday, July 25, 2005

7/21/05 10:19 PM, Long Island Rail Road, Mastic-Shirley station

Heading to Amagansett to meet the family. Reading Dead Souls. Cackling uproariously as Nozdryov leads his brother-in-law and Chichikov around his estate to stall for time while his cooks get a half-assed dinner ready.

"They inspected the dogs whose haunches were so amazing, and they were very excellent dogs. Then they went to have a look at a Crimean bitch which was blind and, according to Nozdryov, would soon be dead, but which two years ago had been a very good bitch. They inspected the bitch and, to be sure, the bitch was blind."

My guffaw caused the guy across from me paying his bills (I took care of that in the morning) to look across at me one eye cocked up like Joe Flaherty. But, I mean, it's Nozdryov we're dealing with here. Here's what he says when he marches his guests across his puddle-ridden fields to show them the boundaries of his estate:

"This is the boundary. Everything you see on this side is mine and even on the other side too; all that forest which you see looking blue in the distance and everything beyond it is all mine."

So that's what boundary means. But seriously, you gotta love Nozdryov.

Am reading the Constance Garnett translation, the dog-eared Penguin I bought back in 1983, but just ordered up the new Robert Maguire version from Amazon. Lets see what the macho old queer can do with the great poet of Dikanka. I'll report back.

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