Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/151

Rh for the stables, the barns, and the kitchens. The peasants' huts in the village were also wonderfully solid: there were no brick walls, carved patterns, or anything fanciful, but everything was firmly and properly built. Even the well was made of that strong oak which is usually reserved for mills and ships. In short, wherever he looked everything was solid and substantial in a strong and clumsy style. As he drove up to the steps he observed two faces peeping out of the window almost at the same moment: a woman's face in a cap as long and narrow as a cucumber, and a man's as full and round as the Moldavian pumpkins called gorlyankas out of which the Russians make balalaikas, light two-stringed balalaikas, the adornment and delight of the jaunty twenty-year-old peasant lad, the saucy dandy winking and whistling to the white-bosomed, white-throated maidens who gather round to listen to the tinkle of his thrumming. The two faces at the window vanished simultaneously. A flunkey in a grey livery with a light-blue stand-up collar came out on to the steps and led Tchitchikov into the hall, where the master of the house was already awaiting him. Seeing his visitor, he said abruptly, 'Please,' and conducted him into the inner apartments.

When Tchitchikov stole a sidelong glance at Sobakevitch, he struck him on this occasion as being extremely like a middle-sized bear. To complete the resemblance his dress coat was precisely the colour of a bear's skin, his sleeves were long, his trousers were long, he ambled from