Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/37

Rh consent to make his acquaintance, but those who have attained the rank of general may perhaps—God knows—cast upon him one of those contemptuous glances which a man proudly casts at everything which grovels at his feet, or, worse still perhaps, pass by with an indifference that will stab the author to the heart. But however mortifying either of these alternatives would be, we must in any case return now to our hero.

And so, having given his orders overnight, he woke up very early in the morning, washed, rubbing himself from head to foot with a wet sponge, an operation only performed on Sundays—and it happened to be a Sunday—he shaved so thoroughly that his cheeks were like satin for smoothness and glossiness, he put on his shot cranberry-coloured swallow-tail coat, then his overcoat lined with thick bearskin; then, supported first on one side and then on the other by the waiter, he went downstairs and got into his chaise. The chaise drove rumbling out of the gates of the hotel into the street. A passing priest took off his hat, some street urchins in dirty shirts held out their hands, saying, 'Something for a poor orphan, sir!' The coachman, noticing that one of them was very zealous to stand on the footboard, gave him a lash with the whip, and the chaise went jolting over the cobble-stones. It was not without relief that our hero saw in the distance the striped barrier post that indicated that to the cobbled road as to every form of torture there would soon be an end, and after striking his head rather violently against