book it would seem senseless, even as it certainly is in life. Are,

therefore, such functions right or wrong? One would answer that the

devil alone knows, and then spit and close the book.”

Such were the unfavourable comments which Chichikov passed upon balls

in general. With it all, however, there went a second source of

dissatisfaction. That is to say, his principal grudge was not so much

against balls as against the fact that at this particular one he had

been exposed, he had been made to disclose the circumstance that he had

been playing a strange, an ambiguous part. Of course, when he reviewed

the contretemps in the light of pure reason, he could not but see that

it mattered nothing, and that a few rude words were of no account now

that the chief point had been attained; yet man is an odd creature, and

Chichikov actually felt pained by the cold-shouldering administered to

him by persons for whom he had not an atom of respect, and whose vanity

and love of display he had only that moment been censuring. Still more,

on viewing the matter clearly, he felt vexed to think that he himself

had been so largely the cause of the catastrophe.

Yet he was not angry with HIMSELF--of that you may be sure, seeing that

all of us have a slight weakness for sparing our own faults, and

always do our best to find some fellow-creature upon whom to vent our

displeasure--whether that fellow-creature be a servant, a subordinate

official, or a wife. In the same way Chichikov sought a scapegoat upon

whose shoulders he could lay the blame for all that had annoyed him. He

found one in Nozdrev, and you may be sure that the scapegoat in question

received a good drubbing from every side, even as an experienced captain

or chief of police will give a knavish starosta or postboy a rating not

only in the terms become classical, but also in such terms as the said

captain or chief of police may invent for himself. In short, Nozdrev’s

whole lineage was passed in review; and many of its members in the

ascending line fared badly in the process.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the town there was in progress an event

which was destined to augment still further the unpleasantness of our

hero’s position. That is to say, through the outlying streets and

alleys of the town there was clattering a vehicle to which it would be

difficult precisely to assign a name, seeing that, though it was of a

species peculiar to itself, it most nearly resembled a large, rickety

water melon on wheels. Eventually this monstrosity drew up at the gates

of a house where the archpriest of one of the churches resided, and from

its doors there leapt a damsel clad in a jerkin and wearing a scarf over

her head. For a while she thumped the gates so vigorously as to set

all the dogs barking; then the gates stiffly opened, and admitted this

unwieldy phenomenon of the road. Lastly, the barinia herself alighted,

and stood revealed as Madame Korobotchka, widow of a Collegiate

Secretary! The reason of her sudden arrival was that she had felt so

uneasy about the possible outcome of Chichikov’s whim, that during the

three nights following his departure she had been unable to sleep a

wink; whereafter, in spite of the fact that her horses were not shod,

she had set off for the town, in order to learn at first hand how the

dead souls were faring, and whether (which might God forfend!) she

had not sold them at something like a third of their true value. The

consequences of her venture the reader will learn from a conversation

between two ladies. We will reserve it for the ensuing chapter.