Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/108

96 lost your cap. Oh, friend Tchitchikov, how sorry I was you weren't there! I know that you would never have parted from Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov. How he and you would have got on together! He is very different from the public prosecutor and all the old niggards in our town who tremble over every farthing. He's ready to play any game you like. Oh, Tchitchikov, you might just as well have come! You really were a pig not to, you cattle-breeder! Kiss me, my dear soul, I like you awfully! Just fancy, Mizhuev, here fate has brought us together! Why, what was he to me or I to him? He has come here God knows where from and I, too, am living here. … And what lots of carriages there were, old boy, and it was all en gros. I tried my luck and won two pots of pomatum, a china cup and a guitar; and then I staked once more and lost more than six roubles, damn it all. And what a flirt that Kuvshinnikov is if you only knew! We went with him to almost all the balls. There was one girl dressed up to the nines, all frills and flounces, and the deuce knows what. I thought to myself: "Dash it all!" But Kuvshinnikov, he is a devil of a fellow, sat down beside her and let off such compliments in French. … Would you believe it, he wouldn't let the peasant women alone either. That's what he calls "gathering roses while ye may." There were wonderful fish and dried sturgeon for sale; I did bring one away with me, it's a good thing I thought to buy it while I had the money left. Where are you off to now?'