Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VII).djvu/218



governor of the town of S was one of those good-natured, careless, worldly generals, those generals endowed with an exquisitely well-washed white body, and an almost equally pure soul, those well-born, well-bred generals, kneaded, so to speak, of the most finely sifted flour, who, though they never lay themselves out to be 'shepherds of the people,' do nevertheless give proof of very tolerable administrative abilities; and doing very little work, for ever sighing for Petersburg and dangling after pretty provincial ladies, are of the most unmistakable service to their province and leave pleasant memories behind them. He had only just got out of bed, and, sitting in a silk dressing-gown and a loose night-shirt before his looking-glass, he was dabbing his face and neck with eau-de-cologne, after taking off a perfect collection of little amulets and relics as a preliminary,—when he was informed of the arrival of Sipyagin and Kallomyetsev on