Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/36

24 his greatcoat and belongings, for it to seem at once as though people had been living in the room for the last ten years. Tchitchikov, who was a very fastidious and in some cases an over-particular man, would pucker up his face when he sniffed the air in the morning and, shaking his head, would say: 'Goodness knows what it is, my boy, you are in a sweat or something, you should go to the bath.' To which Petrushka made no reply but tried to be very busy about something at once: either he went with a brush to his master's dress coat hanging on a peg, or simply put something in its place. What was he thinking while he was silent? Perhaps he was saying to himself: 'You are a nice one too, you are never tired of saying the same thing forty times over …' God knows, it is hard to tell what a serf is thinking when his master is giving him a lecture. So much then may be said of Petrushka to start with. Selifan, the coachman, was quite a different man. … But the author is really ashamed of occupying his readers' attention so long with persons of a low class, knowing from experience how reluctant they are to make acquaintance with the lower orders. It is characteristic of the Russian that he has a great passion for making the acquaintance of any one who is ever so little higher in rank, and a nodding acquaintance with a count or a prince is more precious to him than the closest friendship of ordinary human beings. The author, indeed, is a little anxious over his hero who is only a collegiate councillor. Court councillors perhaps will