第91章

Nay, the Director's room itself they would invade while still licking their lips, and since their breath was not over-aromatic, the atmosphere of the room grew not over-pleasant. Naturally, among such an official staff a man like Chichikov could not fail to attract attention and remark, since in everything--in cheerfulness of demeanour, in suavity of voice, and in complete neglect of the use of strong potions--he was the absolute antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread, for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia. Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in his life have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance's health. Nor had any one ever seen him a whit different in the street or at his own home from what he was in the office, or showing the least interest in anything whatever, or getting drunk and relapsing into jollity in his cups, or indulging in that species of wild gaiety which, when intoxicated, even a burglar affects. No, not a particle of this was there in him. Nor, for that matter, was there in him a particle of anything at all, whether good or bad: which complete negativeness of character produced rather a strange effect. In the same way, his wizened, marble-like features reminded one of nothing in particular, so primly proportioned were they. Only the numerous pockmarks and dimples with which they were pitted placed him among the number of those over whose faces, to quote the popular saying, "The Devil has walked by night to grind peas." In short, it would seem that no human agency could have approached such a man and gained his goodwill. Yet Chichikov made the effort. As a first step, he took to consulting the other's convenience in all manner of insignificant trifles--to cleaning his pens carefully, and, when they had been prepared exactly to the Chief Clerk's liking, laying them ready at his elbow; to dusting and sweeping from his table all superfluous sand and tobacco ash; to procuring a new mat for his inkstand; to looking for his hat--the meanest-looking hat that ever the world beheld--and having it ready for him at the exact moment when business came to an end; to brushing his back if it happened to become smeared with whitewash from a wall.

Yet all this passed as unnoticed as though it had never been done.

Finally, Chichikov sniffed into his superior's family and domestic life, and learnt that he possessed a grown-up daughter on whose face also there had taken place a nocturnal, diabolical grinding of peas.

HERE was a quarter whence a fresh attack might be delivered! After ascertaining what church the daughter attended on Sundays, our hero took to contriving to meet her in a neat suit and a well-starched dickey: and soon the scheme began to work. The surly Chief Clerk wavered for a while; then ended by inviting Chichikov to tea. Nor could any man in the office have told you how it came about that before long Chichikov had removed to the Chief Clerk's house, and become a person necessary--indeed indispensable--to the household, seeing that he bought the flour and the sugar, treated the daughter as his betrothed, called the Chief Clerk "Papenka," and occasionally kissed "Papenka's" hand. In fact, every one at the office supposed that, at the end of February (i.e. before the beginning of Lent) there would take place a wedding. Nay, the surly father even began to agitate with the authorities on Chichikov's behalf, and so enabled our hero, on a vacancy occurring, to attain the stool of a Chief Clerk.

Apparently this marked the consummation of Chichikov's relations with his host, for he hastened stealthily to pack his trunk and, the next day, figured in a fresh lodging. Also, he ceased to call the Chief Clerk "Papenka," or to kiss his hand; and the matter of the wedding came to as abrupt a termination as though it had never been mooted.