“He’s the Prodigal Son!” replied Tchitchikoff. “Such people deserve no pity.”

And they both soon ceased to think of him—Platonoff, because he was accustomed to gaze on all things and people languidly and sleepily. His heart suffered at the sight of suffering, but the impression which was left on his soul was never a profound one. Besides, after the lapse of a few minutes he no more thought of Khlobuyoff, as he no longer thought of himself. Tchitchikoff did not think of Khlobuyoff, because all his thoughts were seriously pre-occupied with his purchase. Consider it as he might, turn it on whatever side he would, he perceived that the purchase was an advantageous one in any case. He might be able to mortgage it. He might contrive so as to mortgage merely the dead and fugitive serfs. He might arrange so that all the best land could be first sold piecemeal, and the estate mortgaged all the same afterwards. He might also make arrangements to cultivate the property himself, and become a proprietor after the pattern of Kostanzhoglo, availing himself of the latter’s advice, as his neighbour and benefactor. He might moreover proceed in such a manner as to sell the estate to private persons—that is of course in case he did not wish to undertake the care of it himself—thus merely retaining for himself the deceased and fugitive serfs. Then another means of profit presented itself to his mind: he might abandon this region entirely, and not pay Kostanzhoglo the money which he had borrowed from him. Strange thought! Not that Tchitchikoff entertained it, but it suddenly presented itself to his mind mocking and laughing and winking at him. A shameless hussy of a thought! An unruly creature, forsooth!

Our hero felt content—content because he was now a landed proprietor, not in fancy, but in reality: a proprietor who had land and appurtenances and peasants—peasants who were not fictions, not creatures of the imagination, but actual persons. And by degrees he began to sway about, and to rub his hands, and to wink at himself, and to blow some march through his fist, placed to his lips as though it had been a trumpet; and he even uttered a few encouraging words aloud, as well as some nicknames addressed to himself, such as “My little bull-dog,” and “My plump little chicken.” But recalling the fact that he was not alone, he suddenly ceased, and endeavoured by some means to check the ill-timed outburst of his rapture; and when Platonoff, taking some of our hero’s noise for fragments of a remark addressed to him, inquired, “What is it?” he replied, “Nothing.”

“Stop!” at last shouted Platonoff to the coachman.

Tchitchikoff glanced about him, and perceived that they had, for a long time, been driving through a magnificent grove. The trunks of the beech-trees and the aspens, gleaming like a snowy palisade, rose in light and graceful outlines against the background formed by the tender green of the newly unfolded foliage. The nightingales were trilling loudly in rivalry. The wood-tulips gleamed yellow amid the grass. Our hero could not account to himself for being in this beautiful place, when he had so recently been in the midst of naked fields. Out from among the trees peeped a church of white stone. At the end of the road, too, a gentleman made his appearance, and advanced to meet them: he wore a leather cap with a peak, and carried a long dry stick in his hand. A hound of English breed, with long, slender legs, ran on before him.

“Ah! here’s my brother,” said Platonoff. “Stop, coachman!” and then he descended from the calash: Tchitchikoff did the same. The dogs had already succeeded in licking each other over. Lively, slender-legged Azor licked Yarb on the nose, then he licked Platonoff’s hand, then leaped on Tchitchikoff and licked him on the ear.

The brothers embraced.

“Ah! pray, Platon, how have you been treating me?” said the second brother, whose name was Vasiliy.

“What do you mean?” answered Platon indifferently.

“What, indeed! Not a sound or a syllable from you for three days! Pyetukh’s groom brought your horse home. ‘He has gone off with some gentleman,’ he reported. Now, if you had only said one word as to