Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/72

60 these proclaimed its whereabouts so loudly that he put his fingers into his ears. There was a gleam of light in one little window which sent a misty glimmer as far as the fence and showed our travellers the gate. Selifan fell to knocking and soon a figure clad in a smock was thrust out at the gate, and the master and his servant heard a husky female voice ask: 'Who is knocking? Why do you make such a row?'

'We are travellers, my good woman, put us up for the night,' answered Tchitchikov.

'Well, you are a sharp one,' said the old woman, 'what a time to come! This isn't an inn: this is a lady's place.'

'What can we do, my good woman? You see we have lost our way. We can't spend the night on the steppe in such weather.'

'Yes, it is dark weather, it is not good weather,' added Selifan.

'Hold your tongue, you fool,' said Tchitchikov.

'Why, who are you?' said the old woman.

'A nobleman, my good woman.'

The word nobleman seemed to make the old woman consider a little. 'Wait a minute, I will tell the mistress,' she said, and two minutes later she came back with a lantern in her hand. The gates were opened. There was a gleam of light in another window. Driving into the yard the chaise stopped before a little house which it was difficult to make out in the darkness. Only one half of it was lighted up by the light from the window; a pool in front of the house on which