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"There is nothing for me to do at home, since the management of the estate is in my brother's hands, and my going would cause him no inconvenience. Yes, why should I not do as Chichikov has suggested?" Then he added aloud: "Would you come and stay with my brother for a couple of days? Otherwise he might refuse me his consent." "With great pleasure," said Chichikov. "Or even for three days."
Of a surety the scheme was not one which ought to have been confided to a man like Nozdrev, for he was a worthless fellow who might lie about it, and append additions to it, and spread such stories as would give rise to God knows what scandals. "This is indeed bad!" Chichikov said to himself. "I have been an absolute fool."
"What are you thinking of, Nastasia Petrovna?" inquired Chichikov. "I am thinking that I scarcely know what to do. Perhaps I had better sell you some hemp?" "What do I want with hemp? Pardon me, but just when I have made to you a different proposal altogether you begin fussing about hemp!
As for Sobakevitch, that landowner replied that he considered Chichikov an excellent fellow, as well as that the souls whom he had sold to his visitor had been in the truest sense of the word alive, but that he could not answer for anything which might occur in the future, seeing that any difficulties which might arise in the course of the actual transferment of souls would not be HIS fault, in view of the fact that God was lord of all, and that fevers and other mortal complaints were so numerous in the world, and that instances of whole villages perishing through the same could be found on record.
"But I have NOT cheated. Consequently you cannot refuse to play, but must continue the game to a finish." "You cannot force me to play," retorted Chichikov coldly as, turning to the chessboard, he swept the pieces into confusion. Nozdrev approached Chichikov with a manner so threatening that the other fell back a couple of paces. "I WILL force you to play," said Nozdrev.
The golden hair, the fine-drawn, delicate contours, the face with its bewitching oval a face which might have served as a model for the countenance of the Madonna, since it was of a type rarely to be met with in Russia, where nearly everything, from plains to human feet, is, rather, on the gigantic scale; these features, I say, were those of the identical maiden whom Chichikov had encountered on the road when he had been fleeing from Nozdrev's.
"Not at all," replied Chichikov, pressing his hand; after which he heaved a profound sigh. Indeed, he seemed in the right mood for outpourings of the heart, for he continued not without a ring of emotion in his tone: "If you but knew the service which you have rendered to an apparently insignificant individual who is devoid both of family and kindred!
Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily to an end. But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to interject: "Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry." As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the subject seemed to have annoyed him.
"I have seen you before, but have been ordered to admit any one else rather than Monsieur Chichikov." "Indeed? And why so?" "Those are my orders, and they must be obeyed," said the footman, confronting Chichikov with none of that politeness with which, on former occasions, he had hastened to divest our hero of his wrappings.
No, the cause of his agitation was lest the net should break, and the fish escape: wherefore he was urging some additional peasants who were standing on the bank to lay hold of and to pull at, an extra rope or two. "That must be the barin Colonel Koshkarev," said Selifan. "Why?" asked Chichikov.
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