Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/42

32 the changes of horses, only on one condition: you must lend me three thousand roubles. I must have it if I die for it.'

While Nozdryov was rattling on, Tchitchikov several times rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was not hearing all this in a dream. The charge of forging counterfeit notes, the elopement with the governor's daughter, the death of the prosecutor, of which Tchitchikov was supposed to be the cause, the arrival of the new governor-general—all this excited considerable alarm.

'Well, if it has come to this,' he thought to himself, 'it's no good lingering on here, I must make haste and get away.'

He tried to get rid of Nozdryov as quickly as he could, at once sent for Selifan and told him to be ready at daybreak, so that they could leave the town at six o'clock next morning without fail, to look over everything, see that the carriage was greased and so on, and so on. Selifan articulated, 'Yes, Pavel Ivanovitch,' but remained for some minutes standing motionless at the door. Our hero bade Petrushka pull the portmanteau, by now thickly covered with dust, from under the bed and began packing indiscriminately stockings, shirts, underlinen washed and unwashed, boot trees, a calendar. … All this was packed anyhow: he wanted to make sure of being ready so that nothing could happen to detain him in the morning. Selifan after standing for two minutes at the door went slowly