On perceiving that the luncheon was ready, this wonderful official proposed to his guests that they should finish their game of whist after the meal; and they all betook themselves to the adjoining room, whence an odour which tickled their nostrils agreeably had long since been issuing. Sobakevitch had peeped through the doorway a long while before, and had caught sight of the sturgeon reposing on a huge platter in the distance. When each of the guests had drunk a glass of vodka of the olive-green hue of those Siberian stones from which seals are cut in Russia, they approached the table with their forks, and began to exhibit their characters and their predilections, as the saying is; some attacking the caviar, others the salmon, and others the cheese.
Sobakevitch, paying no heed to any of these trifles, attached himself to the sturgeon, and in a little more than a quarter of an hour, while the rest were eating, drinking, and conversing, he completely made away with it, so that when the chief of police happened to remember it, and said to his guests, “And what do you think of that product of nature, gentlemen?” and turned towards it with his fork upraised, he saw that nothing was left of his product of nature except its tail. But Sobakevitch kept quiet, as though it were not his doing; and, marching up to the dish which was farthest off, he thrust his fork into a small dried fish. After that he seated himself in an arm-chair, and neither ate nor drank any more, but merely screwed up his eyes and blinked.
The chief of police was in no wise sparing of his wine, and there was no end to the toasts. The first one was drunk, as the reader may have divined, to the health of the new landowner in the Khersonese, and then to the welfare of his serfs and to their successful removal; then to the health of his future beautiful wife, which evoked a pleasant smile on the lips of our hero. They surrounded him on all sides, and began to entreat him to remain at least two weeks longer in the town. “No, Pavel Ivanovitch! You may say what you like, you shall stay a while with us! We’ll marry you off!—We will marry him, won’t we, Ivan Grigorievitch?”
“We’ll marry him! we’ll marry him!” The president of the court caught up the refrain. “You may defend yourself with hands and feet, but we’ll marry you all the same,” he said. “Now, my dear fellow, you have come here, and you won’t have any reason to complain. We are not fond of jesting.”
“What! Why should I resist with hands and feet?” said Tchitchikoff, laughing. “Marriage is not such a thing that one——However there would have to be a bride.”
“A bride will be provided. Why not? You shall have everything—everything that you wish!”
“And if——”
“Bravo! he will stay!” they all exclaimed. “Viva, hurrah! Pavel Ivanovitch! Hurrah!” And they all crowded round him to touch his glass with those which they held in their hands. Tchitchikoff clinked glasses with all. “Ah! Ah! once more!” exclaimed the more enthusiastic; and again they clinked. Then they came up to touch glasses a third time, and for the third time they clinked. All had become extremely merry in a very short space of time. The president, who was a very charming man when he got excited, embraced Tchitchikoff several times, exclaiming, in the fulness of his heart, “My soul! my mamma!” and then cracking his fingers, he even began to dance round our hero, humming the well-known song, “Ah! thou art so nice, so nice, thou Komarinsk moujik!”
After the champagne, they opened some Hungarian wine, which raised their spirits to a still higher level, and rendered them extremely lively. They had forgotten all about their whist. They asked questions, laughed and talked about everything—about politics, and even about military matters; freely expressing sentiments for which they would have whipped their children at another time. They settled a multitude of the most difficult questions. Tchitchikoff had never found himself in such a merry mood. He fancied that he was actually a landowner in the Khersonese, and he talked about various improvements—about farming; about the happiness and bliss of two souls living in mutual affinity; and he began to recite to Sobakevitch, Werther’s message to Charlotte, in verse; his friend blinking as he sat in his arm-chair, for after eating all that sturgeon he felt strongly inclined to sleep. However, Tchitchikoff finally became