Dead Souls

His appearance at the ball produced an extraordinary effect. All that were there turned to meet him, one with cards in his hand, another saying, at the most interesting point in the conversation: ". . . and the lower circuit court's answer to that was . . . ," but whatever the circuit court's answer was, it was brushed aside as the man hastened to greet our hero. "Pavel Ivanovich! Ah, my God, Pavel Ivanovich! My gentle Pavel Ivanovich! My most esteemed Pavel Ivanovich! Pavel Ivanovich, my dear soul! So here's where you are, Pavel Ivanovich! Here he is, our Pavel Ivanovich! Allow me to hug you, Pavel Ivanovich! Let him come here till I give him a good kiss, my dearest Pavel Ivanovich!" Chichikov felt himself simultaneously in several embraces. Before he had quite managed to scramble out of the magistrate's embrace, he found himself in the police chief's embrace; the police chief handed him on to the inspector of the board of health; the inspector of the board of health to the tax farmer, the tax farmer to the architect . . . The governor, who at that moment was standing by the ladies holding a candy-kiss motto in one hand and a lapdog in the other, dropped both dog and motto to the floor on seeing him—only the pup let out a squeal; in short, he spread joy and extraordinary merriment. There was not a face that did not express pleasure, or at least a reflection of the general pleasure. The same thing takes place on the faces of officials when a superior arrives to inspect the work entrusted to their management: once the initial fear has passed, they see that there is much that pleases him, and he himself finally deigns to make a joke—that is, to utter a few words with an agreeable smile. Twice as hard do the closely surrounding officials laugh in response to that; with all their hearts others laugh who, incidentally, had not heard very well what the man said, and finally some policeman standing way off by the door, by the very exit, who from the day he was born has never laughed in his whole life, and who a moment before was shaking his fist at the people, even he, by the immutable laws of reflection, puts some sort of smile on his face, though this smile is more like the look of someone about to sneeze after a pinch of strong snuff. Our hero responded to each and all, and felt himself somehow extraordinarily adroit: bowed right and left, somewhat to one side as usual, but with perfect ease, so that he enchanted everyone. The ladies surrounded him at once in a sparkling garland and brought with them whole clouds of varied fragrances; one breathed roses, another gave off a whiff of spring and violets, a third was perfumed throughout with mignonette; Chichikov just kept lifting his nose and sniffing. Their attire evinced no end of taste: the muslins, satins, cambrics were of such pale fashionable shades as could not even be matched with any names (taste had reached such a degree of fineness). Ribbon bows and bouquets of flowers fluttered here and there over the dresses in a most picturesque disorder, though this disorder had been much labored over by some orderly head. Light headdresses held on only at the ears and seemed to be saying: "Hey, I'm flying away, only it's a pity I can't take this beauty with me!" Waists were tight-fitting and formed in a way most firm and pleasing to the eye (it should be noted that generally the ladies of the town of N. were all a bit plump, but they laced themselves up so artfully and were of such pleasing comportment that the fatness simply could not be noticed). Everything about them had been designed and foreseen with extraordinary circumspection; neck and shoulders were revealed precisely as far as necessary, and no further; each one bared her possessions to the point to which she felt convinced in herself that they could be the ruin of a man; the rest was all secreted away with extraordinary taste: either some light little ribbon tie, or a scarf lighter than the pastry known by the name of "kiss,"[39] ethereally embraced her neck, or else there peeked out around her shoulders, from under the dress, those little serrated trimmings of light cambric known by the name of "modesties." These "modesties," in front or behind, concealed that which could no longer be the ruin of a man, and yet made one suspect that ruin itself lay precisely there. Long gloves were worn not up to the sleeves, but deliberately leaving bare the arousing parts of the arms above the elbow, which in many ladies breathed an enviable plumpness: some kid gloves even burst in their striving to move further up—in short, everything seemed to have written on it: No, this is no province, this is a capital, this is Paris itself! Only in places would some bonnet stick out such as had never been seen on earth, or even almost some sort of peacock feather, contrary to all fashion, following its own taste. But there's no avoiding it, such is the property of a provincial town: it is simply bound to trip up somewhere. Chichikov was thinking, as he stood before them: "Which of them, however, was the writer of that letter?" and he tried to stick his nose out; but right against his nose brushed a whole row of elbows, cuffs, sleeves, ends of ribbons, fragrant chemisettes, and dresses. Everything was galloping headlong: the postmaster's wife, the captain of police, a lady with a blue feather, a lady with a white feather, the Georgian prince Chipkhaikhilidzev, an official from Petersburg, an official from Moscow, the Frenchman Coucou, Perkhunovsky, Berebendovsky—everything rose up and rushed on . . .