Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/266

254 galop was at its height: the postmaster's wife, the police-captain, a lady with a pale blue feather, a lady with a white feather, the Georgian prince, Tchiphaihihdzev, an official from Petersburg, an official from Moscow, a French gentleman called Coucou, Perhunovsky, Berebendovsky, all pranced up and down and flew by. …

'Well, they are all at it!' Tchitchikov said to himself as he stepped back, and, as soon as the ladies had sat down in their places, he began scanning them again to see whether from the expression on some face or the look in some eyes he could recognise the authoress of the letter; but it was utterly impossible to recognise either from the expression of the face or the look in the eyes which was she. Everywhere there could be discerned something faintly betrayed, something elusively subtle—oh, how subtle! …

'No,' Tchitchikov said to himself, 'women really are … a subject …' Here he waved his hand hopelessly. 'It's simply no use talking! Go and try to describe all that is flitting over their faces, all the roundabout devices, the hints. … But you simply couldn't describe it. Their eyes alone are a boundless realm which a man explores—and is lost for ever! You can never get him back by hook or by crook. Just try describing, for instance, the mere light in them: melting, velvety, full of sweetness and goodness knows what besides; cruel and soft and quite languishing too, or as some say, voluptuous, or not voluptuous, but especially when