Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/287

Rh wife and children, though you haven't any; now it is your mother!'

'Your Excellency! I am a scoundrel and the meanest wretch,' said Tchitchikov. 'I was lying indeed, I had neither wife nor children; but God is my witness I have always longed to have a wife and to fulfil the duties of a man and a citizen, that I might really deserve the respect of my fellows and my superiors. … But what a calamitous concatenation of circumstances! With my heart's blood, your Excellency, I have had to earn a bare subsistence. At every step snares and temptation, enemies, and men ready to ruin and plunder me. My whole life has been like a ship on the ocean waves. I am a man, your Excellency!'

Tears suddenly gushed from his eyes. He fell at the prince's feet, just as he was, in his coat of the 'smoke and flame of Navarino,' in his velvet waistcoat and satin cravat, in his marvellously cut breeches and well-arranged hair that diffused a scent of eau-de-Cologne.

'Do not come near me! Call the soldier to take him!' said the prince to the attendant who entered.

'Your Excellency!' cried Tchitchikov, clasping the prince's boot in both arms.

A shudder of repulsion ran through every fibre of the prince.

'Get away, I tell you!' he said, trying to pull his leg out of Tchitchikov's embrace.

'Your Excellency! I will not move from the