of them made haste to occupy seats as close to the door as possible; and when one of them succeeded in effecting this before the others, there all but ensued an exceedingly unpleasant scene; and many who would have liked to do the same thing themselves, found such boldness extremely shocking.

Tchitchikoff was so occupied by his conversation with the ladies, or, rather, the ladies so occupied and surrounded him with their conversation, indulging in a vast number of the best-planned and refined allegories, which all were bound to guess, and which made the perspiration start out upon his brow, that he forgot to comply with the requirements of politeness, and address his hostess first of all. He only recalled it when he heard the voice of the governor’s wife, who had been standing before him for some moments already. This lady said to him, in a rather flattering and roguish voice, with an amiable shake of the head, “Ah, Pavel Ivanovitch, so you are here!”

It is impossible to reproduce the next words of the governor’s wife with accuracy, but something amiable was said by her in the spirit in which the ladies and cavaliers express themselves in the novels of our society writers—those gentlemen who are so fond of describing drawing-rooms, and who plume themselves on their knowledge of the highest “tone”—something in the strain of, “Have the others taken such possession of your heart that there is no longer any room in it, not even the smallest corner, for those whom you have so pitilessly forgotten?” Our hero instantly turned to the governor’s wife, and was on the point of making her a reply which would probably have proved in no wise inferior to those which are perpetrated in fashionable novels by the Zvonskys, Linskys, Lidins, Gremins, and all the other clever military men, when, chancing to raise his eyes unexpectedly, he suddenly paused, as though benumbed.

The governor’s wife was not standing alone before him: she held by the hand a young girl of sixteen—a fresh blonde, with delicate and well-formed features: a little pointed chin, a bewitchingly rounded, oval face, such as an artist would have chosen as a model for the Madonna, and such as is rarely encountered in Russia, where everything is fond of appearing in broad forms—mountains and forests and steppes, and faces and lips and feet—the very little blonde whom he had met on the highway as he was leaving Nozdreff’s, when, through the stupidity of their coachmen, or of their horses, their equipages had come so strangely into collision, so entangling the harness that uncle Mityai and uncle Minyai had had to straighten matters. Tchitchikoff now became so confused that he could not utter a single suitable word; indeed he muttered—the deuce knows what, but something which neither a Gremin, nor a Zvonsky, nor a Lidin would have said.

“You do not know my daughter yet,” said the governor’s wife; “she is a school-girl, and has only just returned home.”

But our hero replied that he had already had the unexpected pleasure of making her acquaintance. Then he tried to add something more, but failed. The governor’s wife said two or three words, and then went off with her daughter to the other end of the apartment to her other guests: while Tchitchikoff continued to stand motionless in the same place, like a man who has gone cheerfully out into the street in order to take a walk, with eyes disposed to look at everything, and who has suddenly stopped stockstill, as though he had forgotten something. More stupid than that man no one can possibly be. In an instant his agreeable expression has vanished from his face: he strives to recollect what it is that he has forgotten. Is it his handkerchief? No, his handkerchief is in his pocket. Is it his money? But no, his money is also in his pocket. He seems to have everything about him; and yet some unknown spirit whispers to him, in his ear, that he has forgotten something. And so he gazes abstractedly and gloomily at the moving throng before him—at the flying equipages; at the caps and guns of a passing regiment; at a sign-board; and withal he sees nothing distinctly. Thus also did Tchitchikoff become a stranger to all that was going on around him. At this same moment, a multitude of hints and questions, all full of refinement and amiability, were being addressed to him by the perfumed mouths of the ladies: “Is it permitted to us poor dwellers on the earth to be so bold as to ask you what you are thinking about?” “Where lie those blissful regions in which your thoughts are hovering?” “May we know the name of her who has plunged you into this sweet valley of meditation?”