Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/41

Rh screen his eyes from the sun and get a better view of the approaching carriage. The nearer it came, the more delighted he looked and the broader was his smile.

'Pavel Ivanovitch!' he cried, as Tchitchikov alighted from the chaise. 'So you have remembered us at last!'

The friends kissed each other very warmly and Manilov led his visitor indoors. Though the time spent by them in passing through the vestibule, the hall, and the dining-room will be somewhat brief, yet we must snatch the opportunity to say a few words about the master of the house. But at this point the author must confess that the task is a very difficult one. It is much easier to describe characters on a grander scale: then you simply have to throw the colour by handfuls on the canvas—black, glowing eyes, overhanging brows, a forehead lined by care, a black or fiery crimson cloak flung over the shoulder, and the portrait is complete. But all the gentlemen (of whom there are so many in the world) who look so very much alike and yet, when you inspect them more closely, have many extremely elusive peculiarities, are fearfully difficult to describe. One has to strain one's attention to the utmost to make all the delicate almost indiscernible traits stand out, and altogether one needs to look deeply with an eye sharpened by long practice in the art.

God alone could say what Manilov's character was like. There are people who are always spoken of as being 'so-so,' neither one thing nor the other,