Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/145

Rh miles, so that Petrushka was staggered, and stood gaping, while all the servants laughed at him. It ended in their becoming the closest friends, however; bald-headed Uncle Pimen kept a celebrated tavern, the name of which was 'Akulka,' at the further end of the village: every hour of the day they were to be seen in this establishment, there they became bosom friends, or what is called among the peasants—pot-house inseparables.

Selifan found other allurements. Every evening was spent in singing, games, and country dances in the village. Fine, graceful girls, such as it would be hard to find elsewhere, made him for some hours gape in astonishment. It was hard to say which was the finest of them, they were all white-bosomed and white-throated, they all had eyes like turnips—languishing eyes; they had the step of a peacock and their plaits reached to their waists. When he held their white hands and slowly moved with them in the figures of the dance, or when in a row with other young fellows he advanced like a wall to meet them, and the warmly glowing evening died away, and the country all around was slowly wrapped in darkness, and far away beyond the river there sounded the faithful echo of the always melancholy chant, he did not know himself what was happening to him. Long afterwards he dreamed both sleeping and waking that white hands lay in his, and he was moving with them in the dance. … With a wave of