Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/252

242 Russian shirt and jerkin, and that as soon as they got into a German coat they gave up changing their shirts and going to the bath, and took to sleeping in their coats and that bugs, fleas and God knows what besides began to breed under their coats. Perhaps he was right in this. In their village the peasants dressed with peculiar neatness and smartness, and one might have looked far to find such handsome shirts and jerkins.

'Won't you take a little refreshment?' said Vassily Mihailovitch to Tchitchikov, indicating the decanters. 'The kvass is our own make; our house has long been famous for it.'

Tchitchikov poured out a glass from the first decanter. It was like the effervescent beverage he had sometimes drunk in Poland, fizzing like champagne, and the gas mounted with an agreeable stinging sensation from the mouth into the nose. 'Nectar,' said Tchitchikov. He drank a glass from another decanter, it was better still.

'In what direction and into what parts do you propose to make your tour?' asked Vassily Mihailovitch.

'I am going,' said Tchitchikov, rubbing his knee with his hand, while he gently swayed his whole person and leaned his head affably on one side, 'not so much on my own affairs as on other people's. General Betrishtchev, my intimate friend, and I may say benefactor, asked me to visit his relations. Relations of course are relations, but in a sense I am going for my own sake too—since apart from the advantages from the