Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/19

Rh such as married men are provided with by their wives, who add to those gifts suitable exhortations about wrapping themselves up. Who does the same for bachelors I cannot say for certain, God only knows: I have never worn such a shawl myself. When he had removed the shawl the gentleman ordered dinner. While they were serving him with various dishes usual in restaurants, such as cabbage soup with little pies of puff paste purposely kept for weeks in readiness for visitors, brains with peas, sausages with cabbage, roast pullet, salt cucumbers, and the eternal sweet puffs which are always at one's service; while all these things were being set before him, some warmed up and some cold, he made the servant, or waiter, tell him all sorts of foolish things, such as who used to keep the hotel and who kept it now, and whether it was profitable and whether his master were a great rascal, to which the waiter made the usual answer: 'Oh, he is a great swindler, sir!' Both in enlightened Europe and in enlightened Russia there are nowadays many worthy persons who cannot eat in a restaurant without talking to waiters and sometimes even making amusing jokes at their expense. The questions put by the traveller were however not altogether foolish. He inquired with marked particularity who was the governor, who was the president of the court of justice, who was the public prosecutor, in short he did not omit to inquire about a single one of the more important local officials, and with even greater particularity, even with marked interest he inquired