Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/284

274 like silk, gave a tone to everything. He turned to the right—it was good! He turned to the left—that was better still! He had the figure of a kammerherr, or of an attaché on a foreign diplomatic mission, or of a gentleman who speaks French so beautifully that a Frenchman is nothing to him, and who even in a rage never demeans himself with a Russian word, but swears in French. Such refinement! Putting his head a little on one side he tried to assume the attitude in which he would address a lady of middle age, and of the most modern culture: it made a perfect picture. Painter, take a brush and paint him! In his delight he cut a little caper after the fashion of an entrechat. The chest of drawers shook and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne fell on the floor; but this did not trouble him in the least. He very naturally called the bottle a silly thing, and began wondering: 'To whom shall I pay my first visit? The best of all …'

When all at once in the passage there was a clanking of spurs and behold! a gendarme, fully armed, as though he had been a whole troop of soldiers. 'You are commanded to appear before the governor-general this instant!' Tchitchikov was aghast; before him loomed a whiskered monster with a horse's tail on his head, a bandolier over his right shoulder, a bandolier over his left shoulder, a huge sabre hanging at his side. He fancied that on the other side was hanging a gun and God knows what else