Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/296

284 'But only listen to what I have to tell you …'

'They spread rumours that he was a nice man, but he is not a nice man at all, not at all, and his nose is … a most unattractive nose.'

'Do let me, do let me only tell you … my love, Anna Grigoryevna, let me tell you! Why it's a scandal, do you understand: it's a story, skonapel eestwah,' said the visitor in a voice of entreaty, with an expression almost of despair. I may as well mention that the ladies introduced many foreign words into their conversation, and sometimes whole French sentences. But great as is the author's reverence for the inestimable benefits conferred by the French language on Russia, and great as is his respect for the praiseworthy custom in our aristocratic society of expressing themselves at all hours in that language, entirely, of course, through their love for their fatherland, yet he cannot bring himself to introduce sentences in any foreign language into this Russian poem. And so we will continue in Russian.

'What story?'

'O my precious Anna Grigoryevna! If you could only imagine the state I am in! Only fancy. Father Kirill's wife came to see me this morning, and what do you think? Our visitor who seems so meek, he is a fine one, isn't he?'

'What, do you mean to say he has been making advances to the priest's wife?'

'Ah, Anna Grigoryevna, if it were no worse than that, that would be nothing. Just listen