Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/76

64 'Are they well-to-do people?'

'No, my good sir, not very well-to-do. One has twenty souls, another thirty; but there are none about here with as many as a hundred.'

Tchitchikov perceived that he had come quite into the wilds.

'Is it far to the town, anyway?'

'It will be some forty miles. What a pity I have nothing to give you! Won't you have a cup of tea, my good sir?'

'No thank you, ma'am, I want nothing but a bed.'

'After such a journey you must need a rest indeed. You can lie down here, my good sir, on this sofa. Hey, Fetinya, bring a feather bed, pillows, and a sheet. What weather God has sent us: such thunder—I have had a light burning before the holy image all night. Oh, my good sir, why, all your back and side is muddy as a hog's; where have you got so dirty?'

'It's a mercy that I am only muddy. I must be thankful that I did not break my ribs.'

'Holy Saints, how dreadful! But shouldn't your back be rubbed with something?'

'Thank you, thank you. Don't trouble, but only bid your maid dry my clothes and brush them.'

'Do you hear, Fetinya?' said the old lady, addressing the woman who had come out on to the steps with a light and who had now dragged in a feather bed and, beating it up on both sides, was scattering a perfect shower of feathers all over the room. 'You take the gentleman's coat