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from the
neighbourhood of the table other strong ejaculations relative to the
play would arise, interposed with one or another of those nicknames
which participants in a game are apt to apply to members of the
various suits. I need hardly add that, the game over, the players fell
to quarrelling, and that in the dispute our friend joined, though so
artfully as to let every one see that, in spite of the fact that he
was wrangling, he was doing so only in the most amicable fashion
possible. Never did he say outright, "You played the wrong card at
such and such a point." No, he always employed some such phrase as,
"You permitted yourself to make a slip, and thus afforded me the
honour of covering your deuce." Indeed, the better to keep in accord
with his antagonists, he kept offering them his silver-enamelled
snuff-box (at the bottom of which lay a couple of violets, placed
there for the sake of their scent). In particular did the newcomer pay
attention to landowners Manilov and Sobakevitch; so much so that his
haste to arrive on good terms with them led to his leaving the
President and the Postmaster rather in the shade. At the same time,
certain questions which he put to those two landowners evinced not
only curiosity, but also a certain amount of sound intelligence; for
he began by asking how many peasant souls each of them possessed, and
how their affairs happened at present to be situated, and then
proceeded to enlighten himself also as their standing and their
families. Indeed, it was not long before he had succeeded in fairly
enchanting his new friends. In particular did Manilov—a man still in
his prime, and possessed of a pair of eyes which, sweet as sugar,
blinked whenever he laughed—find himself unable to make enough of his
enchanter. Clasping Chichikov long and fervently by the hand, he
besought him to do him, Manilov, the honour of visiting his country
house (which he declared to lie at a distance of not more than fifteen
versts from the boundaries of the town); and in return Chichikov
averred (with an exceedingly affable bow and a most sincere handshake)
that he was prepared not only to fulfil his friend's behest, but also
to look upon the fulfilling of it as a sacred duty. In the same way
Sobakevitch said to him laconically: "And do you pay ME a visit,"
and then proceeded to shuffle a pair of boots of such dimensions that
to find a pair to correspond with them would have been indeed
difficult—more especially at the present day, when the race of epic
heroes is beginning to die out in Russia.
    Next day Chichikov dined and spent the evening at the house of the
Chief of Police—a residence where, three hours after dinner, every
one sat down to whist, and remained so seated until two o'clock in the
morning. On this occasion Chichikov made the acquaintance of, among
others, a landowner named Nozdrev—a dissipated little fellow of
thirty who had no sooner exchanged three or four words with his new
acquaintance than he began to address him in the second person
singular. Yet although he did the same to the Chief of Police and the
Public Prosecutor, the company had no sooner seated themselves at the
card-table than both the one and the other of these functionaries
started to keep a careful eye upon Nozdrev's tricks, and to watch
practically every card which he played. The following evening
Chichikov spent with the President of the Local Council, who received
his guests—even though the latter included two ladies—in a greasy
dressing-gown. Upon that followed an evening at the Vice-Governor's, a
large dinner party at the house of the Commissioner of Taxes, a
smaller dinner-party at the house of the Public Prosecutor (a very
wealthy man), and a subsequent reception given by the Mayor. In short,
not an hour of the day did Chichikov find himself forced to spend at
home, and his return to the inn became necessary only for the purposes
of sleeping. Somehow or other he had landed on his feet, and
everywhere he figured as an