Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/126

114 'Well, then, you make haste and take yourself off to her.'

'Yes, my boy, I'm going, you must excuse me but I really can't stay. I should love to, but I can't.' The brother-in-law went on a long while repeating his apologies without observing that he had for some time past been sitting in his chaise, had driven out beyond the gates and was facing nothing but the empty fields. It may be assumed that his wife heard but little of the incidents of the fair.

'What a paltry fellow!' said Nozdryov, standing before the window and looking at the carriage as it drove away. 'Look how it rolls along. The trace-horse isn't bad, I have long wanted to hook it. But there is no getting round him. He is a muff, a regular muff!'

Thereupon they went into another room. Porfiry brought candles, and Tchitchikov noticed in his host's hands a pack of cards that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

'Well, my boy,' said Nozdryov, pressing the side of the pack with his fingers and slightly bending it so that the paper round it split and flew off, 'to pass the time I'll put three hundred roubles in the bank.'

But Tchitchikov made as though he had not heard what was said, and observed as though suddenly recollecting: 'Oh, while I think of it: I have something I want to ask you.'

'What is it?'

'Promise first that you will do it.'

'But what is it?'