"How much is it?" demanded the brother-in-law.
"A rouble only, may it please your glory," said the hostess.
"Stuff! nonsense!" shouted Nosdrieff, "give her only half-a-rouble; that will be quite sufficient for the trash."
"It's rather little, your honour," said the old woman; however, she took the money with a curtsey, and hurried to open the door as fast as her bodily constitution would permit her. She had sustained no loss in taking what was given to her, because she took care to demand four times the value of her had spirits.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
The travellers took their seats in their respective carriages. Tchichikoff's britchka drove in a line with that in which Nosdrieff was seated with his brother-in-law, and thus they had every facility for continuing their conversation during their journey to Nosdrieff's estate. These two carriages were followed at a slight distance behind by Nosdrieff's dilapidated conveyance. In it were seated his servant Porphir, and his new acquisition the young bull-dog.
As the conversation of the three travellers could be but of little interest to the reader, we will omit it altogether, and say a word instead about Nosdrieff, whose fate it will perhaps be to play an important part in this narrative.
Nosdrieff's face we premise to be already a little familiar to our reader. Men like him could easily be met with by everybody, who will take the trouble and travel in Russia. They are what are called men who have cut their eye teeth. Their reputation begins from their boyhood, when they were much admired by their school-fellows, but for all that never escaped a sound thrashing occasionally. In their face, there is always something open, straightforward, if not impudent, to be seen. They soon succeed in ingratiating themselves, and ere you have had time to recover from your surprise they call you already "my dear fellow." They seem to establish their friendly relations for an eternity; but it will always happen that those who have been imprudent enough to form an intimacy with them, will, on the very evening of the day, at some friendly supper or rout, fall out with them. They are always very great talkers, hard drinkers, and what is termed, jolly good fellows, and with all that, men of prepossessing appearance.
Nosdrieff, at thirty-five years of age, was in all these talents as accomplished as he was when only eighteen or twenty; exceedingly fond of dissipation. His marriage did not in the least interfere with his pleasures, nor change him, so much the less, since his wife, shortly after their marriage; quitted this world for a better one, leaving behind her two little children, which were of no earthly use or consolation to him. His infants, however, were properly taken care of by a housekeeper. He never could stay at home for more than twenty-four hours at a time. His sense of divination was so acute that he could smell at a distance of twenty or thirty miles where a fair was to be held, or a ball or rout to be given. In no time he was sure to be there, lead on a dispute, create a disturbance at the green table, because he, like other men of his description, had a passion for gambling. He was fond of card-playing, as we have seen already in the first chapter; and he did not play without a little cheating, because he knew so many different tricks and finesses, and for that very reason the game often ended in another sort of play; he either got a sound thrashing, or his full and glossy whiskers pulled about so much so, that very often he had to return home with only one of his hairy ornaments, and that even of a spare appearance.