Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/232

220 you know; there are other people too,' Antonovitch said surlily.

Tchitchikov understood the hint Ivan Antonovitch had given him, and said; 'Other people will not be the worse for it either; I've been in the service, I understand business. …'

'Go to Ivan Grigoryevitch,' said Ivan Antonovitch in a somewhat more friendly voice. 'Let him give the order to the proper quarter, it is not in our hands.'

Tchitchikov took a note out of his pocket and put it before Ivan Antonovitch, who completely failed to notice it, and instantly put a book over it. Tchitchikov was about to point it out to him, but with a motion of his head Ivan Antonovitch gave him to understand that there was no need for him to point it out.

'Here, he'll show you to the office,' said Ivan Antonovitch, with a nod of his head, and one of the votaries standing near—he had sacrificed so zealously to Themis, that his sleeves were in holes at the elbows and the lining was sticking out, for which sacrifices he had been rewarded with the grade of collegiate registrar—performed for our friends the office that Virgil once performed for Dante, and brought them to an apartment in which there was one roomy armchair, and, in it, solitary as the sun, the president sat at a table behind a Double Eagle and two thick books. In this place the new Virgil was so overcome by awe that he did not venture to set foot within its portals, but turned round, displaying