like bricks and cobbles. Here he started yawning and asked to be taken to his room, where he lay down and slept for two hours. Having rested, he wrote on a scrap of paper, at the request of the tavern servant, his rank and full name, to be conveyed to the proper quarters, the police. On the paper, mouthing each syllable as he went down the stairs, the floorboy read the following: 'Collegiate Councillor Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, landowner, on private business.' While the floorboy was still working through the syllables of the note, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov himself set out to have a look at the town, with which, it seems, he was satisfied, for he found that the town yielded in nothing to other provincial towns: striking to the eye was the yellow paint on the stone houses, modestly dark was the gray of the wooden ones. The houses were of one, two, and one and a half stories, with those eternal mezzanines so beautiful in the opinion of provincial architects. In some places the houses seemed lost amid the street, wide as a field, and the never-ending wooden fences; in others they clustered together, and here one could note more animation and human commotion. One came across signboards all but washed out by rain, with pretzels and boots, or, in one place, with blue trousers pictured on them and the signature of some Warsaw tailor; then a shop with peaked caps, flat caps, and inscribed: Vassily Fyodorov, foreigner; in another place a picture of a billiard table with two players in tailcoats of the kind worn in our theater by guests who come on stage in the last act. The players were depicted aiming their cues, their arms somewhat twisted back and their legs askew, having just performed an entrechat in the air. Under all this was written: and this is the establishment. In some places there were tables simply standing in the street, with nuts, soap, and gingerbreads resembling soap; then an eatery with a picture of a fat fish with a fork stuck into it. Most frequently one noted weathered, two-headed state eagles, which have since been replaced by the laconic inscription: public house. The pavement everywhere was of a poorish sort. He also peeked into the town garden, which consisted of skinny trees, badly rooted, propped by supports formed in triangles, very beautifully painted with green oil paint. However, though these little trees were no taller than reeds, it was said of them in the newspapers, as they described some festive decorations, that 'our town has been beautified, thanks to the solicitude of the civic ruler, by a garden consisting of shady, wide-branching trees that provide coolness on hot days,' and that 'it was very moving to see the hearts of the citizens flutter in an abundance of gratitude and pour forth streams of tears as a token of thankfulness to mister governor.' Having inquired in detail of a sentry as to the shortest way, in case of need, to the cathedral, the municipal offices, the governor's, he set out to view the river that flowed through the middle of the town, in passing tore off a playbill attached to a post, so as to read it properly when he got home, looked intently at a lady of comely appearance who was walking down the wooden sidewalk, followed by a boy in military livery with a bundle in his hand, and, once more casting his eyes around at it all, as if with the purpose of memorizing well the disposition of the place, went home straight to his room, supported somewhat on the stairs by the tavern servant. After taking tea, he sat down before the table, asked for a candle, took the playbill from his pocket, brought it near the candle, and began to read, squinting his right eye slightly. However, there was little remarkable in the playbill: Mr. Kotzebue's drama[2]was showing, with Rolla played by Mr. Poplyovin, Cora by Miss Zyablova, the rest of the cast being even less remarkable; but he read them all anyway, even got as far as the price for the stalls, and learned that the playbill had been printed on the provincial government press; then he turned it over to the other side: to see if there was anything there, but, finding nothing, he rubbed his eyes, folded it neatly, and put it into his little chest, where he was in the habit of stowing away whatever came along. The day, it seems, was concluded with a helping of cold veal, a bottle of fizzy kvass, and a sound sleep with all pumps pumping, as the saying goes in some parts of the vast Russian state.
The following day was devoted entirely to visits; the newcomer went around visiting all the town dignitaries. He came with his respects to the governor, who, as it turned out, was like Chichikov neither fat nor thin, had an Anna on his neck, and there was even talk of his having been recommended for a star;[3]in any case, he was a jolly good fellow and sometimes even did embroidery on tulle. Next he went to the vice-governor, then to the prosecutor, the head magistrate, the police chief, the tax farmer,[4] the superintendent of the government factories . . . alas, it is a bit difficult to remember all the mighty of this world: but suffice it to say that the newcomer displayed an extraordinary activity with regard to visiting: he even went to pay his respects to the inspector of the board of health and the town architect. And for a long time afterwards he sat in his britzka, thinking up someone else he might visit, but there were no more officials to be found in the town. In conversation with these potentates, he managed very artfully to flatter each of them. To the governor he hinted, somehow in passing, that one drove into his province as into paradise, that the roads everywhere were like velvet, and that governments which appointed wise dignitaries were worthy of great praise. To the police chief he said something very flattering about the town sentries; and in conversation with the vice-governor and the head magistrate, who were as yet only state councillors, he twice even made the mistake of saying 'Your Excellency,' which pleased them very much. The consequence was that the governor extended him an invitation to come that same evening to a party in his home, and the other officials, for their part, also invited him, one to dinner, another for a little game of Boston, another for a cup of tea.
The newcomer, as it seemed, avoided talking much about himself; if he did talk, it was in some sort of commonplaces, with marked modesty, and his conversation on these occasions assumed a somewhat bookish manner: that he was an insignificant worm of this world and not worthy of much concern, that he had gone through many trials in his life, had suffered for the truth in the civil service, had many enemies, who had even made attempts on his life, and that now, wishing to be at peace, he was seeking to choose finally a place to live, and that, having arrived in this town, he considered it his bounden duty to offer his respects to its foremost dignitaries. This was all they learned in the town about this new person, who very shortly did not fail to make his appearance at the governor's party. The preparations for this party took him more than two hours, and here the newcomer displayed an attention to his toilet such as has not even been seen everywhere. After a short after-dinner nap, he ordered himself a washing and spent an extremely long time rubbing his two cheeks with soap, propping them from inside with his tongue; then, taking the towel from the tavern servant's shoulder, he wiped his plump face with it on all sides, starting behind the ears, and first snorting a couple of times right into the tavern servant's face. Then he put on a shirtfront before the mirror, plucked out two hairs that protruded from his nose, and immediately afterwards found himself in a cranberry-colored tailcoat with flecks. Dressed thus, he rolled in his own carriage along the endlessly wide streets, lit by the scant glow of windows now and then flitting by. However, the governor's house was lit up fit for a ball; carriages with lanterns, two gendarmes at the entrance, postillions shouting from afar—in short, everything as it should be. Entering the great hall, Chichikov had to squint his eyes for a moment, because the brilliance of the candles, the lamps, and the ladies' gowns was terrible. Everything was flooded with light. Black tailcoats flitted and darted about separately and in clusters here and there, as flies dart about a gleaming white sugar loaf in the hot summertime of July, while the old housekeeper hacks it up and divides it into glistening fragments before the open window; the children all gather round watching, following curiously the movements of her stiff arms raising the hammer, and the airborne squadrons of flies, lifted by the light air, fly in boldly, like full masters, and, profiting from the old woman's weak sight and the sunshine which troubles her eyes, bestrew the dainty morsels, here scatteredly, there in thick clusters. Satiated by summer's bounty, which anyhow offers dainty dishes at every step, they fly in not at all in order to eat, but only in order to show themselves off, to stroll back and forth on the heap of sugar, to rub their back or front legs together, or to scratch themselves under the wings, or, stretching out both front legs, to rub them over their heads, then turn and fly away, to come back again in new, pestering squadrons. Before Chichikov had time to look around, the governor seized him under the elbow and at once introduced him to his wife. The new-come guest did not let himself down here either: he uttered some compliment most fitting for a middle-aged man of a rank neither too low nor too high. When the dancers paired off, pressing everyone to the wall, he stood with his hands behind his back watching them for about two minutes very attentively. Many of the ladies were dressed well and fashionably, others were dressed in whatever God sends to a provincial town. The men here, as everywhere else, were of two kinds: there were the slim ones, who kept mincing around the ladies; some of these were of a kind difficult to distinguish from Petersburgers, having side-whiskers brushed in as well-considered and tasteful a manner, or else simply decent, quite clean-shaven faces, sitting down as casually beside the ladies, speaking French and making the ladies laugh in the same way as in Petersburg. The other kind of men consisted of the fat ones, or those like Chichikov—that is, not all that fat, and yet not thin either. These, contrariwise, looked askance at the ladies and backed away from them, and only kept glancing around to see whether the governor's servant was setting up a green table for whist. Their faces were plump and round, some even had warts on them, one or two were pockmarked, the hair on their heads was done neither in tufts nor in curls, nor in a 'devil-may-care' fashion, as the French say—their hair was either close cropped
