order his britzka harnessed. Nastasya Petrovna straightaway sent Fetinya, at the same time ordering her to bring more hot pancakes.
'Your pancakes, dearie, are very tasty,' said Chichikov, going for the hot ones just brought in.
'Yes, my cook makes them well,' said the mistress, 'but the trouble is that the harvest was bad, and the flour turned out so uncommendable . . . But, my dear, why are you in such a rush?' she said, seeing that Chichikov had taken his peaked cap in his hand, 'the britzka hasn't been harnessed yet.'
'They'll harness it, dearie, they'll harness it. We harness fast.'
'So, now, please don't forget about the contracts.'
'I won't forget, I won't forget,' Chichikov said as he went out to the front hall.
'And do you buy lard?' the mistress said, following after him.
'Why shouldn't I? I'll buy it, only later.'
'Around Christmastide I'll have lard.'
'We'll buy it, we'll buy it, we'll buy everything, we'll buy the lard, too.'
'Maybe you'll need bird feathers. I'll have bird feathers by St. Philip's fast.'[8]
'Very good, very good,' said Chichikov.
'There, you see, my dear, your britzka still isn't ready,' the mistress said, when they came out to the porch.
'It will be, it will be. Only tell me how to get to the main road.'
'How shall I do that?' said the mistress. 'It's hard to explain, there's a lot of turns; unless I give you a young girl to take you there. I expect you've got room on the box where she could sit.'
'Sure thing.'
'Why don't I give you a girl then; she knows the way—only watch out! don't carry her off, one of mine already got carried off by some merchants.'
Chichikov promised her that he would not carry the girl off, and Korobochka, reassured, started inspecting everything that was in her yard; she fixed her eyes on the housekeeper, who was carrying a wooden stoup full of honey from the larder, on a muzhik who appeared in the gateway, and gradually settled herself back wholly into her life of management. But why occupy ourselves for so long with Korobochka? Mrs. Korobochka, Mrs. Manilov, the life of management, or of non-management—pass them by! Otherwise—marvelous is the world's makeup—the merry will turn melancholy in a trice, if you stand a long time before it, and then God knows what may enter your head. Perhaps you will even start thinking: come now, does Korobochka indeed stand so low on the endless ladder of human perfection? Is there indeed so great an abyss separating her from her sister, inaccessibly fenced off behind the walls of her aristocratic house with its fragrant cast-iron stairways, shining brass, mahogany and carpets, who yawns over an unfinished book while waiting for a witty society visit, which will give her a field on which to display her sparkling intelligence and pronounce thoughts learned by rote, thoughts which, following the law of fashion, occupy the town for a whole week, thoughts not of what is going on in her house or on her estates, confused and disorderly thanks to her ignorance of management, but of what political upheaval is brewing in France, of what direction fashionable Catholicism has taken. But pass by, pass by! why talk of that? But why, then, in the midst of unthinking, merry, carefree moments does another wondrous stream rush by of itself: the laughter has not yet had time to leave your face completely, yet you are already different among the same people and your face is already lit by a different light. . .
'Ah, here's the britzka, here's the britzka!' Chichikov cried out, seeing his britzka drive up at last. 'You dolt, what have you been pottering with so long? It must be your yesterday's vapors haven't aired out yet.'
To this Selifan made no reply.
'Good-bye, dearie! And, say, where's your girl?'
'Hey, Pelageya!' the lady landowner said to a girl of about eleven who was standing by the porch, in a dress of homespun blue linen and with bare legs which from a distance might have been taken for boots, so caked they were with fresh mud. 'Show the master the road.'
Selifan helped the girl climb up on the box, who, placing one foot on the master's step, first dirtied it with mud, and only then clambered to the top and settled herself beside him. After her, Chichikov himself placed his foot on the step and, tilting the britzka on the right side, because he was a bit of a load, finally settled himself, saying:
'Ah! that's good now! Bye-bye, dearie!'
The horses started off.
Selifan was stern all the way and at the same time very attentive to his business, which always happened with him either after he had been found at fault in something, or after he had been been drunk. The horses were surprisingly well-groomed. The collar of one of them, hitherto always torn, so that the oakum kept coming out from under the leather, had been skillfully stitched up. He kept silent all the way, only cracking his whip, and not addressing any edifying speeches to his horses, though the dapple-gray would, of course, have liked to hear something admonitory, because at such times the reins lay somehow lazily in the loquacious driver's hands, and the whip wandered over their backs only for the sake of form. But this time from the sullen lips there came only monotonously unpleasant exclamations: 'Come on, come on, mooncalf ! wake up! wake up!' and nothing more. Even the bay and Assessor were displeased, not once hearing either 'my gentles' or 'honored friends.' The dapple-gray felt most disagreeable strokes on his broad and full parts. 'Just look how he's got himself going!' he thought, twitching his ears slightly. 'Don't worry, he knows where to hit! He won't whip right on the back, he goes and chooses a tenderer spot: catches the ears, or flicks you under the belly.'
'To the right, is it?' With this dry question Selifan turned to the girl sitting next to him, and pointed with his whip to a rain-blackened road between bright green, freshened fields.
'No, no, I'll show you,' the girl replied.
'Where, then?' said Selifan, when they came nearer.
'There's where,' replied the girl, pointing with her hand.
'Eh, you!' said Selifan. 'But that is to the right: she doesn't know right from left!'
Although the day was very fine, the earth had turned so much to mud that the wheels of the britzka, picking it up, soon became covered with it as with thick felt, which made the carriage considerably heavier; besides, the soil was clayey and extraordinarily tenacious. The one and the other were the reason why they could not get off the back roads before noon. Without the girl it would have been hard to do even that, because the roads went crawling in all directions like caught crayfish dumped out of a sack, and Selifan would have rambled about through no fault of his own.
Soon the girl pointed her hand at a building blackening in the distance, saying:
'There's the high road.'
'And the building?' asked Selifan.
'A tavern,' said the girl.
'Well, now we can get along by ourselves,' said Selifan, 'so home you go.'
He stopped and helped her get down, saying through his teeth: 'Ugh, you blacklegs!'
Chichikov gave her a copper, and she trudged off homewards, pleased enough that she had gotten to ride on the box.
Chapter Four
Driving up to the tavern, Chichikov ordered a stop for two reasons. On the one hand, so that the horses could rest, and on the other hand, so that he could have a little snack and fortify himself. The author must admit that he is quite envious of the appetite and stomach of this sort of people. To him those gentlemen of the grand sort mean decidedly nothing, who live in Petersburg or Moscow, spend their time pondering what they would like to eat the next day and what dinner to devise for the day after, and who will not partake of that dinner without first sending a pill into their mouths; who swallow oysters, sea spiders, and other marvels, and then set off for Karlsbad or the Caucasus.[9] No, those gentlemen have never aroused envy in him. But gentlemen of the middling sort, those who order ham at one station, suckling pig at another, a
