Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/156

144 for a farthing, that he would! He and the vice-governor are a pair of them—a regular Gog and Magog.'

'He is on bad terms with them,' Tchitchikov thought to himself. 'But I'll begin talking about the police-master, I fancy they are friends.' 'Though as far as I am concerned,' he said, 'I must own the one I like best is the police-master. Such a straightforward, open character; there is a look of such simple warm-heartedness in his face.'

'A scoundrel!' said Sobakevitch with perfect coolness; 'he'll betray you and cheat you and then he'll dine with you. I know them all: they are all rascals: the whole town is the same. Scoundrels sit upon scoundrels and prosecute scoundrels. They are all Judases. There is only one decent man among them, the prosecutor, and even he is a pig, to tell the truth.'

After such eulogistic though somewhat brief biographies, Tchitchikov saw it would be useless to mention any other officials, and remembered that Sobakevitch did not like to hear any one spoken well of.

'Well, my love, shall we go in to dinner?' said Madame Sobakevitch to her husband.

'Please!' said Sobakevitch. Whereupon the two gentlemen, going up to the table which was laid with savouries, duly drank a glass of vodka each; they took a preliminary snack as is done all over the vast expanse of Russia, throughout the towns and villages, that is, tasted various