Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/31

Rh of the head and cordial pressure of the hand, replied that he was not only extremely eager to do so, but would positively regard it as a sacred duty. Sobakevitch too said somewhat laconically, 'And I invite you too,' with a scrape of his foot, shod in a boot of such gigantic proportions that it would be hard to find a foot to fit it, particularly nowadays when even in Russia giants are beginning to die out.

Next day Tchitchikov went to dinner and to spend the evening at the police-master's, where after dinner they sat down to whist at three o'clock and played till two o'clock in the morning. There he made the acquaintance, among others, of a landowner called Nozdryov, a man of thirty, a jolly good fellow who from the first three or four words began to address him familiarly. With the police-master and public prosecutor Nozdryov was on equally friendly and familiar terms; but when they sat down to play for high stakes, both the gentlemen kept an extremely careful watch on the tricks he took and noted almost every card he played. Next day Tchitchikov spent the evening with the president of the court, who received his visitors in his somewhat greasy dressing-gown, and in the company of two somewhat dubious ladies. Then he spent an evening at the deputy-governor's, went to a big dinner at the spirit tax contractor's, and to a little dinner at the public prosecutor's which was however as good as a big one; he went also to a lunch after mass, given by the mayor of the town, which was as good as a dinner,—in short he had not to spend a single hour at home and returned