Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/254

244 'Well, no. He is too stuck up. I'm not going to see him. You can go yourself if you like.'

'I would go; but I am of no use. He may take me in and deceive me.'

'Well, if you like, I will drive over,' said Tchitchikov.

Vassily glanced at him and thought: 'He is fond of driving about!'

'You must only give me an idea what sort of man he is,' said Tchitchikov, 'and what the business is about.'

'I am ashamed really to impose such a disagreeable commission on you, for even an interview with such a man is to me an unpleasant commission. I must tell you that he comes of a simple family of small landowners of our province, has risen in the service in Petersburg, has managed to get into aristocratic society by marrying somebody's illegitimate daughter and has begun to give himself airs. He behaves like a grand gentleman. In our province, thank God, people have some sense. Fashion is not the law for us, and Petersburg is not our holy place.'

'Of course not,' said Tchitchikov. 'But what's the point at issue?'

'Well, it is really a nonsensical business. He hasn't got land enough, so—well he has seized our waste land, that is, he reckoned on the land being of no use, and the owners … and as luck would have it the peasants have from time immemorial assembled there to celebrate the