Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/98

86 to himself, twitching his ears a little. 'He knows right enough where to hit! He doesn't simply switch one on the back, but just picks out the spot that is tenderest; he flicks one on the ear or lashes one under the belly.'

'To the right?' was the curt question Selifan addressed to the girl sitting beside him, as he pointed with his whip towards the rain-darkened road between the fresh bright green fields.

'No, no, I'll show you,' answered the girl.

'Which way?' asked Selifan, when they were getting nearer.

'That way,' answered the girl, pointing with her hand.

'Well, you are a one,' said Selifan. 'Why, that is to the right: she doesn't know her right hand from her left!'

Though it was a very fine day, the ground was so thick with mud that the chaise wheels, flinging it up, were soon thickly coated, and that made the carriage considerably heavier. Moreover, the soil was of exceptionally sticky clay. Owing to these difficulties it was midday before they got on to the high-road. They would have hardly done that without the girl, for the by-roads ran zig-zagging to and fro like crabs when they are shaken out of a sack, and Selifan might well have gone astray through no fault of his own. Soon the girl pointed to a dingy-looking building in the distance, saying: 'Yonder is the high-road!'

'And the house?' asked Selifan.

'It's the tavern,' said the girl.