Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/80

68 sitting at the tea-table in the next room, went in to her with a good-humoured and friendly air.

'Good-morning, my good sir. How have you slept?' said the old lady, getting up from her seat. She was better dressed than she had been the night before, in a dark gown, and wore no nightcap, but she still had something wrapped round her neck.

'Very well, very well indeed,' said Tchitchikov, seating himself in an easy-chair. 'And what sort of a night had you, ma'am?'

'Very bad, sir.'

'How's that?'

'It's sleeplessness. My back keeps aching and my leg above the knee is painful too.'

'That will pass, that will pass, ma'am. You mustn't take any notice of that.'

'God grant it may; I've rubbed it with lard and bathed it with turpentine, And what do you take with your tea? There's home-made wine in that bottle.'

'That's not amiss, ma'am. We will have a drop of home-made wine too.'

The reader has, I imagine, already observed that in spite of his friendly air Tchitchikov spoke with more freedom and easiness than with Manilov and did not stand on ceremony at all. It must be said that if we in Russia have not caught up foreigners in other things, we have far outstripped them in the knowledge of how to behave. All the shades and subtleties of our manners cannot be counted, A Frenchman or a German would never