Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/213

Rh winked at each other, and his usually sullen countenance seemed for a moment to brighten.

'Your honour has been away a long time,' said the waiter, as he held the candle to light up the stairs.

'Yes,' said Tchitchikov, as he mounted the stairs. 'And how have you been getting on?'

'Very well, thank God,' answered the waiter, bowing. 'A lieutenant, a military gentleman of some sort, arrived yesterday and has number sixteen.'

'A lieutenant?'

'I don't know who he is, from Ryazan, bay horses.'

'Very well, very well, behave well for the future too,' said Tchitchikov, and he went into his room. As he went through the outer room he puckered up his nose and said to Petrushka, 'You might at least have opened the windows!'

'I did open them,' said Petrushka, but he was lying. And his master knew he was lying, but he did not care to contest it.

He felt greatly fatigued after his expedition. Ordering the very lightest of suppers, consisting of sucking-pig, he undressed immediately after it, and getting under the bedclothes, fell into a sound sleep, fell into that sweet sleep which is the privilege of those happy mortals who know nothing of piles or fleas, or of over-developed intellectual faculties.