Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/135

Rh Nozdryov gave him a friendly greeting and asked him what sort of a night he had had.

'So-so,' answered Tchitchikov very drily.

'As for me, my boy,' said Nozdryov, 'such nasty things haunted me all night that it is loathsome to tell of them; and it seemed as though there were a regiment of soldiers encamped in my mouth after yesterday. Only fancy, I dreamed that I was being thrashed, upon my soul! And would you believe it? You will never guess by whom: Captain Potsyeluev and Kuvshinnikov.'

'Yes,' thought Tchitchikov to himself, 'it would be a good thing if you really were thrashed.'

'Upon my soul! And it hurt too! I woke up, dash it all, something really was stinging me, I suppose it was those hags of fleas. Well, you go and get dressed; I will come to you directly. I have only got to pitch into that rogue of a steward.'

Tchitchikov went back to his room, to wash and dress. When, after that, he went into the dining-room, the table was already laid for morning tea together with a bottle of rum. There were still traces about the room of the dinner and supper of the previous day and it seemed that no broom had been used. There were bread-crumbs on the floor and tobacco-ash even on the tablecloth. The master of the house himself who came in soon after had nothing on under his dressing-gown, and displayed a bare chest with something like a beard growing on it. Holding a chibouk in his hand and sipping from a cup, he would have been a very good subject for one of those painters who