Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/82

70 as Ovid never imagined: he is a fly, less than a fly indeed, he humbles himself into the dust! 'But this isn't Ivan Petrovitch,' you say, looking at him. 'Ivan Petrovitch is taller, and this fellow is both short and thin; Ivan Petrovitch talks in a loud bass voice and never laughs, while there is no making this fellow out, he pipes like a bird and keeps laughing.' You go near, you look, it really is Ivan Petrovitch! 'Aha!' you think to yourself. … However, we will return to the characters of our story.

Tchitchikov, as we have seen already, had made up his mind not to stand on ceremony at all, and so, taking the cup of tea in his hand and pouring some home-made wine into it, he spoke as follows:

'You have a nice little village, ma'am. How many souls in it?'

'Close upon eighty, my good sir,' said his hostess. 'But the times are bad, I am sorry to say. Last year, too, we had such a bad harvest, as I never wish to see again.'

'The peasants look sturdy enough, though, and their huts are solid. Allow me to ask your surname. I was so distracted … arriving in the night …'

'Korobotchka.'

'Thank you very much, and your Christian name and father's name?'

'Nastasya Petrovna.'

'Nastasya Petrovna? A good name, Nastasya Petrovna; I have an aunt, my mother's sister, called Nastasya Petrovna.'